Return to Your First Love

Automatically transcribed — lightly cleaned for readability. Wording is the preacher’s own.

Heavenly Father, Lord, we ask that this morning your word would be proclaimed, that we would be receptive through the power of your Holy Spirit to the word that you have for us, that Pastor Cameron would be able to faithfully communicate the message that you have given him, Lord, that you would give him wisdom and discernment, Lord, that you would be his divine editor, and Lord, that the Holy Spirit would be active in all of this. Lord, we ask that this might glorify you and invite us to know you and love you more. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Today, we're starting a series in the seven letters to the seven churches of Revelation.

John, the apostle, wrote the book of Revelation, or it wasn't really a book of Revelation, it was a revelation.

While on the island of Patmos. And it started, not just as like this way in which John could communicate to people what his perspective was about what was going to happen in the end times or how to decode things that were happening at the end of, like in the apocalypse. But it started with what he received from the Lord as a vision. And so it's important for us to walk into Revelation even at all. And we're not going to walk very far into it. We're going to get into like three chapters of it. Because the point is to study the seven letters to the seven churches. But you might be asking yourself, well, like, what are the seven letters to the seven churches? And why are all these golden lampstands up on the stage here? We had a lot of fun shopping for these. We may auction them off at the end so we can recover our money so, But I want to draw your attention to Revelation, not chapter 2 first. We're actually going to be in Revelation chapter 1. Because the background for what happens and why these seven letters to seven

Specific churches exists starts in chapter 1. Now, John, the apostle, the apostle John used to be a disciple of Jesus, but was now had been sent, to spread the good news of the gospel, was exiled on the island of Patmos, which you saw here, there down in the Aegean, the Aegean Sea. And while he was there, he had a vision, and we're going to read that here this morning with not a whole lot of explanation but just kind of to frame the conversation that we'll be walking into the next few weeks. So this is Revelation chapter one, verses nine through 20.

I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom, and the patient endurance that are in Jesus was on an island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. So he had been exiled there because of his advocacy for the word of God and his testimony of Jesus. I was in the spirit on the Lord's day. This is John's way of saying, in a manner of speaking, hey, I was having some personal time with the Lord. The Holy Spirit was present with me. I was one with the Holy Spirit in this moment. Maybe he's describing like his morning quiet time with the Lord.

I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and Theotira and Sardis and Philadelphia and to Laodicea. So he was tasked with writing what he saw in one book and sending it to the seven churches so even what we see here individual letters written to ephesus or pergamum or laodicea, were meant to be, read and sent to all of the other churches as well.

Then I turned, John said in verse 12, to see the voice that was speaking to me. And on turning, I saw seven golden lampstands.

And in the midst of the lampstands, one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace. And his voice was like the roar of many waters.

In his right hand he held seven stars. From his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword. And his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead, but he laid his right hand on me saying, Fear not, I am the first and the last.

And the living one. I died, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades. Write, therefore, the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this. As for the mystery of the seven stars that you see in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.". So John has a vision, hears a voice, turns around to see who the voice is, and it turns out it's none other than, maybe he doesn't know this right at the beginning, but I'm sure he knows this right from the beginning, is that it is the Son of Man, Jesus Christ himself, in all of his glory, and with seven stars, it seems, in his right hand, and standing among seven lampstands. And jesus leaves, no real it's not a mystery to john what the seven stars are or the seven lampstands because jesus just tells him hey the seven stars in my hand are the seven angels of the seven churches

Or the seven messengers of the seven churches, the seven lampstands are the churches themselves. Gives no explanation past that, only that this is what it is, okay? What I want you to do is to write down what you have seen and write it in a book and send it to the seven churches. And so that is what John does. That is what happens and what John writes the rest of the book of Revelation. He writes what he has seen in the vision that Jesus has given to him. Part of that vision is what he is to write to these seven very specific churches around Asia Minor or what is like modern day Turkey area for us.

Over the next seven weeks, we're going to look at one letter to one church in one week, right? So every week will be a different letter to a different church, but we're going to see a very common pattern throughout these letters. There are four things in particular that are in every single letter in some way, shape, or form. They're phrased maybe just with small differences, but they all essentially say the same thing. They're sentences like this. These are the words of him.

Or I know, or to him who overcomes, or he who has ears to hear. And the speaker of all of these words is Jesus himself. That Jesus himself speaks these words,

And the repetition of them should be, should equal emphasis for us. Like if the same things are being said each time, in scripture, repetition almost always equals emphasis. Meaning when something is said over and over and over and over again, It's meant to be emphasized, okay? And so we'll see, for instance, today, to the angel of the church in Ephesus write, the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. So these are the words of him who has the seven angels in his right hand and stands among the lampstands. And then Jesus says in verse two, I know your works, your toil, your patient endurance.

Later, later in verse, in verse seven, it, talks about those who overcome and then he who has ears to hear, meaning like, Hey, those who are willing to, to believe and accept this, you need to hear this message. And so if we were to use, take these things that Jesus says in all of these letters and maybe put some contemporary, maybe like give some application to them, we could say things like this. These are the words of him. We would say things like, number one, Jesus has the ultimate authority to speak into the life of the church. And what Jesus says matters the most.

So Jesus always, when he's speaking to a church here in Revelation, he's always prefacing it with some characteristic of his nature or his character. He establishes his authority. To the angel of the church in Ephesus, right? These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and who walks among the seven golden lampstands. This is Jesus settling his authority as one who has it in order to speak to the churches. And what Jesus says matters always the most. Number two, when Jesus says, for instance, to the church in Ephesus, Hey, I know your works. I know your toil. I know your patient endurance. I know that you cannot bear with those who are evil. I know that you have tested those who have called themselves apostles and found them to be false. Jesus says, I know this about you. I know this about you. I know this about you. I know this about you. I know this about you. In every letter, Jesus is displaying that he is not unaware of the life of the church. He is not disconnected from what's going on. He is not unaware of the things

That are commendable in the church. He is not unaware of the things that are not commendable in the church. That Jesus sees all, that he knows all, and that he is here to speak on behalf of what he knows of the church.

When Jesus says, to he who overcomes, to they that overcomes, he's speaking of, this is John's, the Apostle John, this is kind of the way in which he consistently speaks about those who remain faithful, even in the midst of suffering, persecution, or difficult circumstances. We see this in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John. He uses this same language of to those who overcome, to those who overcome, to those who overcome. And then here in Revelation, he uses the same kind of language, to those who overcome, to those who overcome. It's really specific to John's writing in the New Testament. We don't really see this really much else in the New Testament. But for John, what this meant was, it's the one who has remained faithful, in the midst of persecution, difficult circumstances, or suffering, the one who remains faithful, they will receive a reward from heaven. The end of our letter to the church of Ephesus, Jesus says, hey, to those who overcome, it will give you the right to eat from the tree of paradise. There is a reward Word that comes with faithfulness in the end.

And John's language for that is to those who overcome. Fourth and finally, he who has ears to hear, let him hear, is a way in which not just John, but even Jesus himself spoke in the Gospels, particularly Matthew chapter 14, where Jesus said, hey, those who have ears to hear, let him hear. What did he mean? It wasn't just, hey, those of you who can listen to the sound of my voice and can tell that I'm talking. It was a way in which Jesus spoke about, and the New Testament scriptures speak about those who hear the word of the Lord, and then go through like an internal determination process of whether you will accept and act on what God has said to you or whether you will refuse and deny the word of God. Hey, those who have ears to hear, let them hear.

Will you accept and act on or will you refuse and deny in this moment? And so we see these patterns throughout and throughout the seven letters. I think it's important for us to recognize them because they're a huge part of what John sees from the Lord and then goes on to communicate to the churches. So let's read the entirety of the letter to the church in Ephesus. Ephesus, a really important city in the New Testament, a city where Paul spent a considerable amount of time. This was a city where he planted Timothy, his protege. We have a whole letter to the church in Ephesus called Ephesians, which we've studied here before.

Let's see what the letter to the church in Ephesus has to say. To the angel of the church in Ephesus write, the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary.

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first.

If not I will come to you and I will remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent, yet this you have you hate the works of the nicolaitans which I also hate.

He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

Jesus starts in a fashion that we just recognized, right? Hey here is who here's who I am and here is what I know, about you church of Ephesus and he starts with what he finds to be commendable, about the church and he says things like this, it's commendable that you that you toil and have patient endurance it's commendable that you cannot bear with or you have no tolerance for those who are evil, and that you have actually tested those who call themselves apostles, but are actually not, to determine whether they are teaching something false or whether they have the authority of the Lord behind them. What is also commendable about you, Ephesians, is that you are bearing up for my name's sake, meaning that you are standing up and standing strong in the midst of the persecution that you are experiencing in that pagan city that you live in. And you're doing it for my name. You're doing it in my name. And in the midst of all of that, you are not growing weary.

And so Jesus lists a whole bunch of things that are commendable about the work of the Ephesians. Now, if we were to say, well, okay, how would we even begin to define that even in our own context? Or what would that mean? Like, it's hard to maybe grasp onto the meaning of what Jesus is saying to the church in Ephesus. How do we explain what is commendable in our own words? Well, the Ephesians, they had worked hard and persevered in the spiritual battleground of the city of Ephesus. Ephesus was a really, really important city in the New Testament, but it was a horribly pagan city.

It was full of cults. It was full of idol worship. The temple of Artemis or Diana was there it was full of sexual immorality and it was the pagan influences of the city were destroying the fabric of the family and the family the strength of the family, and what Jesus is saying here is like hey look, you are working hard and I see your hard work to persevere in a place that is so antithetical to faithfulness to me. I see and recognize that it is difficult to live in a city or in a world where it seems like every single thing is like antithetical to the gospel. I recognize your hard work and your perseverance that it takes.

He goes on to say, when he says that they cannot bear with those who are evil, it's clear that the Ephesians are sticking up for, or at least standing strong on the solid ground of what they believe to be the faithful revelation of Jesus Christ in the word of God. This is what we believe. I am standing strong despite the societal pressures, despite the pressure of the city and the people and the culture that I am in. I believe this about the word of God. We believe this about the revelation of Jesus Christ. We will not be moved from this place and we will not allow the word of God or the revelation of Jesus to be distorted in its image or in its teaching by false teachers who say they are speaking for Jesus but who are not in alignment with his spirit.

They're not folding underneath the ridicule of following Jesus. While the whole city may be looking at them and being, like, why are you following this man who apparently died and now, is asking you to give up part of your life, surrender part of your own will, give up lordship and rule of your life? Like, wouldn't God want you to kind of like live happy and do the things that internally you thought were right and felt were right? Like, I don't understand why you are continuing down this path of following this kind of obscure Jewish man while your lives are just like completely going away. You're giving away all that you have. You're caring for these like lower people in society. You're giving up the freedom of your own sexuality. And they are just standing there and bearing up underneath.

The penalty of their faithfulness is the persecution that they're experiencing. But they are not, Jesus says, they're not growing weary. They're not growing weary.

Meaning that they are, they're not getting emotionally or physically or spiritually tired of the fight. They're not losing their sense of faithfulness to Jesus. They're remaining strong. They're persevering and continuing.

They're maintaining. And so Jesus says, hey, listen, these are commendable things. I see what you're doing. I know. This is not just like I'm aware of, but like, I know I, I, I can relate with, I am, I am unified with you in this, in your faithfulness, in the midst of this place that you're living. But then he says in verse four, Revelation chapter two, verse four, but this I have against you.

It's like, can you imagine like being just sitting in the church in Ephesus and like, geniuses is there just like and you guys are doing this good and this good and this good and this good and we're all high-fiving everyone like yeah we're doing it we're remaining faithful and then but this I have against you, and like can just feel your stomach drop.

This I like because that's that's strong language, right? It's not like just passive disapproval.

I don't really like that you're doing this thing. It's different. It's much stronger in language. Jesus says, I have this against you.

That you have abandoned the love that you had at first. Some translations will say, which I prefer, and I think is a little bit stronger, you have abandoned your first love.

There was a love that you had at first. And although there's all these commendable things about your life and your walk with, and your pursuit of faithfulness in the midst of persecution, you have abandoned your first love.

See, Jesus saw and commended the spiritual fervor that they had in defense of the truth of the gospel. He recognized, I see the spiritual fervor of your faithfulness to defend the truth of the gospel. Theologically, Ephesians, you guys are airtight and you are sticking with it. You're not giving up and you're not growing weary. Jesus saw their perseverance and their refusal to give in and to give up as they were persecuted for their faith in him. They were doing the right things.

But it seems as though they were doing the right things from the wrong place.

They were doing all the faithful things. They were doing all of the protect truth things. They were doing all of the remaining faithful and not growing weary things.

But I don't know if something changed in their hearts or in their like posture, in pursuit of doing all of the right things. Maybe it was anger or comparison that was developing in them. Maybe it was a desire for like, no, we are going to remain faithful because someday we're going to be conquerors and like overrule these Ephesians, these pagan Ephesians. We don't really know what drove the Ephesians to work so hard and so tirelessly to defend the faith of the city or to defend the faith that they had in the midst of their city. But we know that they did.

But what we do know is what they weren't motivated by. We don't know what they were motivated by in this moment, whether maybe it was anger or comparison or bitterness or just raw emotion. I don't know. But what we do know is that they weren't doing it from the place of a love for God.

There was some other reason that was motivating them in that moment or motivating them in that season because the only thing that Jesus had against them is that they had forgotten the love that they had at first. They had forgotten the love that had drawn them into relationship with God, even to begin with.

Did you know, I'm sure you do, and if you didn't, I'm gonna tell you now, did you know that you can do a lot of great things, faithful things for God?

Even things like you can defend Christian doctrine. You can stand strong and faithful in the midst of being persecuted for your faith you can endure and persevere and god can still see, that your heart does it out of duty or anger, and not out of love and worship and adoration for him.

The question maybe for all of us as it was for the church in ephesus why exactly are we doing the things that we're doing for god,

Why are we doing it? Jesus continues. And once he asks that question, or once he tells them, but this I have against you, that you have abandoned the love that you had at first. Verse five, remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the works that you did at first. Jesus called to the Ephesians in the midst of the absence of their first love,

Is to repent. It's not to, hey, just you stir yourself back up again, right? Like, come on guys, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Don't you remember me? Don't you remember the one who's by his grace, you were saved through faith and not of your works so that no one can boast. It is a gift of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Come on, guys, don't you remember? No, Jesus' response in the midst of the abandonment of their love, he was like, this is something that you need to repent from.

This is not something to be taking lightly. This is not a small tweak to your focus. This is something that you need to turn from immediately and walk in repentance.

Well, repent of what? Well, if we take the context of what is commendable and then just the context of just the one thing that Jesus had against them, and we ask the question, well, repent of what? Well, how about repenting of doing anything that you do in any other thing other than love for God?

Recognizing that, hey, like I don't stand, I don't stand faithful under persecution. I don't stand and defend the truth of the gospel. I don't persevere and endure during difficult circumstances. I do not overcome in faithfulness for any other reason other than my love ultimately for God.

I don't go to work on Monday morning and work hard all day for anything other or out of any other place than my love for God. Lord, I wanna just love you in what I'm doing today.

I don't parent my kids out of any sense of obligation or duty or responsibility. I parent them out of, this is my love for you, God, out of my love for you. I don't serve or volunteer in conduit kids or in the food truck or at the coffee bar on safety team or in the parking lot or driving the bus or anywhere. I don't serve out of the sense of like, well, I got to do it because no one else is going to do it. Lord, I serve out of my love for you. I love you, Lord. You're my first love.

I don't suffer, out of anything other than my love for you, God. I don't celebrate out of anything other than my love for you, God. Our whole lives, out of love, done out of love, lived out of love, breathed out of love for God.

And Jesus, what I think Jesus is like very graceful in this because yes, he says, you must repent, but then he tells them what they must do. He says, many translations say it different ways, but he says, return to the things you did at first.

This is so instructive for those whose love has been compromised in the midst of duty, in the midst of responsibility, in the midst of pressure. In the midst of circumstances that have just pressed down upon our lives? How do I get back to this place? How do I get back to this place of seeing and knowing and understanding, Lord, everything I do, I do it out of love for you. There's nothing that I do that I don't do out of love. Jesus calls the Ephesians, I think, primarily to remember. Remember the moments that they first understood God's grace. Return to the things that you did at first.

Remember the things that they did at the beginning when they were first responding to the grace of God in their lives.

Remember when your love for me was young. Does anyone remember their first love? I remember my first love. I married her, right? She's still mine. I remember my first love. And it was almost so long ago that it's hard to kind of like even remember the stupid things that I did in the name of like just absolute infatuation with Sherry.

Just like, man, I am pulling out all the stops of like poor decision-making in the name of love. I don't care.

Right. Anyone remember that first love? Yeah, some of you. What was the first love like,

Like the first love was like this complete mental emotional physical preoccupation with this person right,

Always thinking of them you can never spend enough time with them how many how many people in like kind of your first love moments spent, all night on the phone or all night sitting and talking and you next time you look you look down at your phone and you realize it was three or four in the morning and you're like where did time go,

Anyone yeah all three of you have had real first love okay I'm sorry y'all let's get some passion back into this place okay,

I remember as a 14-year-old boy sneaking out of my bedroom. Sherry's parents were much more gracious than my wife. She could talk anytime. I had rules. But it was for love, man. And I was ready to break the rules and sneak out of my bedroom and dial the phone really quietly and call her and talk to her. Who's like, this is great, I love her.

I mean, with your first love, you're like willing to do anything to maintain that relationship, right? How many of you, when you like first fell in love with someone like the other friendships, some other friendships and relationships in your life were like, nah,

Not important anymore. Like you're willing to do anything I don't care what it takes like what do I need to do to maintain this what do I need to do to build this what do I need to do to press into this what do I need to do to make this my everything this is my everything now my first love my true love.

You're you're more eager I you know there's there's nothing that motivates a teenage boy to take a shower more than his first love,

Right? You are more eager to fix the undesirable parts of yourself than you are normally, right?

You are more eager to be like, oh, there's this thing in me and I can't be like that and still like love. Love is like this motivating factor to make me want to turn from things in my life that I know the lover of my soul and my heart will be like, we got to fix this. We got to change this. We got to move this around.

You begin to care about the things. How many people have cared about something they didn't care about because the person that they love cared about it? Oh yeah, oh yeah, right? We care about the things. And then what happens when you care about that long enough and love that person long enough, the thing that they love, you actually what? Man, I kind of love this thing too. Or you like it, right?

I kind of love this thing too. Why? Because your heart is just so connected to that person. If they love that thing, then I love that thing. If God loves that thing, man, I'm going to love that thing.

And man, in the light of God's love for me, I recognize the parts of me that need fixing and changing and repenting of. And man, I'm going to do anything. I just want to do everything to pour into the center of this. I want to do everything to make this love strong relationship. By the wayside, hobbies by the wayside. It doesn't matter what I did before. This is my focus. If I gotta, I'm gonna stay up late into the wee hours of the morning because the intimacy that I feel in the presence of the Father is sustaining my body, even the lack of sleep. It doesn't matter what I do. I just wanna be with my first love.

See, there is an extravagance to our first love with another human being that we kind of all understand.

It's like a man, it is a just abundant, extravagant, overflowing. And if you see a really young couple and you can recognize that they've got that new love, there's a part of it, you know it, don't lie, it's for in church.

There's a part of it you're like and it's so annoying. It's so annoying. Why is it so annoying? I think this is an interesting question. Why is new love so annoying?

Because that love, it just lacks the seriousness of reality. Right? It's not serious love.

There is a way, that life beats out of us extravagance, I can't help but think and hear Jesus' words kind of in this way,

See what happens I think with us what happens I think with the church in Ephesus is that our the seriousness of our life, the reality at which we live our lives, our serious sensibilities will not often allow our love to flow as extravagantly as the Lord deserves.

Man, I would stay up all night with the Lord. Man, I would fix all these things about my life if it were for the Lord. Man, I would change or walk away from that habit or from that relationship. Man, I would begin to love the things that the Lord loves, right? But I mean, that kind of new love, extravagant love, it doesn't really seriously wrestle with the realities of life.

And I think what Jesus says to Ephesus here, He's like, listen, man, you got it all wrong. Like it's not the new love that's wrong.

It's the way in which reality has beat out of you, the extravagance of adoration of me.

If your love for God has lost its annoyingly new extravagance, Jesus has one word for you repent.

Repent and return to the things that you did at first. Wrote a little prayer,

That we can pray together this week. If you feel you find yourself in this place where like, yeah, my love has definitely lost its extravagance.

Man I'm just I am like running on duty and responsibility and work certainly not new love type of extravagant love,

Father I confess that my love for you has lost its extravagance by your grace forgive me,

My love for you has been overtaken by cares of this world fear and insecurity pursuits of my flesh, and sometimes by doing good things for you.

Help me to return to the love I first had. Stoke the fire of my desire for you and you alone. I want to love you like I once did.

Maybe this is a prayer we all pray together this week. Now, I'm certain that you can all hear the individual application of this to your own life, But remember, these letters are written to the whole of the church. They're not written to individual people. They're written to the church in Ephesus. And then, hey, pass this letter also around to the other six churches. Sometimes the whole of the church needs to be reminded of what it did at first, what it was called to at first, how it was built at first, the love that it had at first. Right?

You look at the church in Acts. You look at when before even Ephesus was born, and you see kind of like the real life example of, hey, what happened at first in the church? There was proclamation that Jesus Christ was the Messiah and Lord. There were people standing up in boldness in the midst of persecution and danger and violence forced against them. And they stood up in proclamation to say, Jesus Christ is Lord, repent and turn from your sins, receive forgiveness and refreshing from him for all eternity. They proclaimed who Jesus was.

They called people towards repentance and massive amounts of people turned from their sin and decided to follow Jesus by faith. Those people were then discipled by those who were already raised up in the Lord. There was a direction for those who had heard the message through proclamation, repented of their sin, and now we're being discipled. And then those people were sent out on mission to say, go and you yourselves make more disciples. Carry both in your work, but also in the incarnation of your life, the spirit of Jesus to the world.

And the question there is like, well, what happens if we don't? What happens if we don't return to our first love? What happens if we forsake the thing that we loved and the things that we did at first. What Jesus says in the letter to Ephesians is what? I will remove, what? Your lampstand.

I will remove it. Now, removing the lampstand is to say that Jesus removes his presence, the light of himself, his quote-unquote endorsement and the spiritual power and witness that the church has becomes diminished and only can work under now its own power, its own sense of togetherness or sociological influence. Jesus says that he is the source of light or the word says that Jesus is the source of light in John chapter one, verse four. He is the bulb. He is the thing that brings lights, right? The stand just holds up the light for all others to see. But what Jesus says is like, I'm going to remove the whole thing. Light gone from the lampstand.

But even by his grace, Jesus says that, hey, look, this removal doesn't have to be permanent. People, churches,

It may be removed. My presence may be removed. My endorsement may be removed. My power may be removed. But listen, repent, repent, and it will come back.

Remember therefore from which, from where you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. Repent, turn, turn from your sin.

This is a warning to the church, that we must remain focused on keeping the main thing, the main thing. Our adoration and love for the Lord drives everything we do.

Everything that we have, every task that we undertake, every program, every ministry, every cup of coffee, every parking spot, every seat,

All from the love of the Lord. It is the job and task of the elders to guide and protect us in this,

To help us to maintain the direction of our first love, that it does not get distracted by lesser things that may be very, very good, but aren't him.

Now, in just a, for the sake of being thorough, we see an interesting phrase from Jesus here where he says, yet this you have, it's like another commendable thing. You hate the work of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. Like Jesus, like no chill on Jesus about the Nicolaitans. Right?

Can you imagine being a descendant of the Nicolaitans, being like, bruh, like what now? Who were the Nicolaitans and what was the Jesus issue with them? Well, you might be surprised that there's really not a whole lot of information about who the Nicolaitans were. We see them here. We see them also in the letter to Pergamum, I think it is. But historically, what we believe is one of the earliest church fathers, a guy named Irenaeus, said this about the Nicolaitans. He was like in the mid-second century. So like 150, 160, 170, right around that era. He said the Nicolaitans are followers of that Nicholas, who was one of the seven first ordained to the diaconate or a deacon by the apostles. They lead lives of unrestrained indulgence. The character of these men is very plainly pointed out in the Apocalypse of John when they are represented as teaching that it is a matter of indifference to practice adultery and to eat things sacrificed to idols. So the Nicolaitans were descendants of or followers of Nicholas, who was one of the first deacons developed in the New Testament church, according to Irenaeus,

And that they were, they were taking sexual license and idol worship in basically being like, Hey, we have the grace of God. We can continue to live in whatever way we want to.

So they were indulging in sexual immorality and in idol worship. See, we can live this way, whatever way we want. The Ephesians understood the foolishness of this type of attitude and hated the practice of dividing one's heart. See, they had an inner disposition of understanding that you cannot divide the love of your heart towards the things of the world and the things of the flesh and the things of the Lord. Amen.

The end of the letter here, Jesus says, he who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Jesus is saying, hey, I need you to accept and act on this word in this moment. To the one who conquers, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. The word conquers here is an interesting word. Like I said, it is only, John uses it almost exclusively in his letters, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, and here in Revelation. It's not a commonly used phrase, but it refers to the faithful. We're not talking about conquering by violence or by force or conquering in the military type of sense. It's conquering in the sense of remaining faithful to the Lord.

In the Greek, it is a present active participle, meaning it is not a one-time achievement where I have conquered and therefore I've always been a conqueror. But it is in an ongoing characteristic action where a person has a settled life towards faithfulness. The one who conquers is a continual action of overcoming through faithfulness to the Lord. It is a pattern of my life. 1 John chapter five, verses four through five, John uses the exact same language and he says this, for everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith.

We overcome when we display faith in the midst of the world. Who is it that overcomes the world? Except the one who believes that Jesus is the son of God.

So it is the faithful disposition of those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

So what was that for the Ephesians? To conquer means to be continued doctrinal faithfulness that lacks compromise, as well as recovering their fervent and extravagant love for God. I'm going to leave you back with this question one more time. Why do you do the things that you do?

Do we do the things that we do out of a sense of duty and love and responsibility do we do the things that we do out of a sense of like obligation or bitterness or boredom, what do we what out of what place do we do the things that we do jesus is saying listen, you can do all kinds of good things you can even do great things you can do phenomenal things and you can do faithful things, but you can only do them really in one way. And that is out of love for me. And any other place that you do it is a place where you need to repent.

Let us return to our first love, a reckless and extravagant love for God. An annoyingly new love for God. Let's have the world be like, man, those Christians over at Conduit, they got that new love.

That love that existed at first. They're up all night praying and worshiping and reading the script. Like, I mean, they're on a mission all the time. They're just like extravagantly displaying the love of God. It's annoying. I can't wait to be annoying in love with the Lord, right? Let's extravagantly pour out that love. Join me in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you.

Lord, we thank you that we can love you because you have first loved us.

Lord we desire to live and to love in such an extravagant way that the world around us is like wow what is going on with those guys.

Father if we have lost our love or would you bring it back in extravagance would you help us to do the things that we did at first father, when we first came to know you lord when we first experienced your grace when we first knew and like felt your love upon us lord something changed in us something moved in us, our lives were a little bit different lord would you remind us once again of that first time and father would you would you help us to do the things that we did at first,

Lord, we desire to love you with such extravagance that the world around us, just does not even know what to do. In Jesus' name, amen.