SEVEN LETTERS | Week 1 | Sermon

as a culture. I believe that God has brought this series to us in a really opportune time. And so, if you have a Bible, which I hope you brought one, open them up to Revelation chapter two

and what I wanna do is read through the first seven verses which is the first letter that we're going to see and then we'll walk back through some of it and see what God says in there. So Revelation chapter two, again, it's the last book in the Bible. If you don't have a Bible, the scriptures will be on the big iPad Bibles next to me. So

Revelation chapter two verse one, here's what it says. It says, write this letter to the angel of the church in Ephesus. This is the message from the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven gold lampstands.

He says, I know all the things that you do. I've seen your hard work and your patient endurance. I know you don't tolerate evil people. Excuse me. You have examined the claims of those who say that they are apostles but are not. You have discovered that they are liars.

Verse three says, you have patiently suffered for me without quitting. But I have this complaint against you. You don't love me or each other as you did it first.

Look how far you have fallen. Turn back to me and do the works you did it first. If you don't repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches. He says, but this is in your favor. You hate the evil deeds of the Nicolatians just as I do.

Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone who victorious, I will give fruits among the tree of life in the paradise of God. Would you pray with me, Father? God, ask, Lord, in these next few moments, we know you're with us here in this place. Holy Spirit, we give you permission now to speak to us. Jesus, would we walk out of this room different because we've been in your presence? Would we leave this place different than we came here? Because being in your presence, it should change us, transform us, convict us. Holy Spirit, we give you permission now to speak to your people. In Jesus name, all God's people said,

Amen. I was thinking about it this week. I

got married really young, right? And there's just you just don't know what you don't know. I was 21 years old when I got married. My wife was 19 and at the day of our wedding, we had known each other total from the first time we met, to the day we were standing at an altar getting married about eleven

to twelve months, right? Like we barely knew each other and then we were married for about thirty days and then my daughter was born. And for some of you, you're like, Yes, we made some mistakes, alright? We're trying my daughter who's 14 now that you can make a baby in about two weeks but she's becoming less and less convinced as she gets older. But we

get married super young and I just didn't know a lot about like relationships,

right? And so what would happen was I would do something dumb which was often like I'm supposed to like clean the backyard but I was like, I'm gonna go golf with my friends instead. And so I would come home and my wife's not speaking to me and so I would reach into the limited bag of tools to fix a relationship that I had that as I look back on most of these tools I had learned from just how I had learned to interact with my mom, which again isn't the greatest tool set to go to but it's what I had. And my mom was pretty simple, right? My mom was one of those ladies if she was upset, all you had to do is like do something for her. If you like cleaned her car, did the dishes, vacuumed the living room, my mom's like, Okay, he's not a knucklehead. I can like this guy again. And you're back in her good graces, right? Come to find out that's a love language called acts of service. And so I know when my wife is mad at me, all I have to do is do the dishes, clean her car, vacuum the living room, and I'm good. So I would do those things and she's still looking at me like I'm an idiot. And I'm like, how are you more mad at me now after I did these things than before?

And through some years in counseling, I had to learn that my wife has what I would say is the most difficult love language in the world to fulfill. It's called quality time. All right? And all it means is that she wants all the time and there's some disqualifiers

to the time thing, right? Like if I go out with you and her and there's like another couple there, that doesn't count as quality time. I would fool myself into thinking watching a movie together,

that was quality time but it wasn't because the TV negates the quality time. And so quality time with my wife is literally like us just sitting there talking about like our feelings and our days and what we're stressed about. And so truthfully today,

every Friday morning, my wife and I go to breakfast at the same place. We have the same server and 95% of the time I ordered the same thing. And our server probably thinks we are just like weirdly obsessed with getting breakfast, but little does she know this is just my way of actually being able to play golf, right? And

I've had to learn over the years that what I had been told growing up, what I had learned with my mom was that if you just do something for her, she will receive that as love. Where for my wife, she's excited that I do stuff and help out around the house but it doesn't fill her love tank.

My wife just wants me to do things with her. And the funny part is, is the number one fight my wife and I often have is she just feels like I don't spend enough time with her. Like how much of a jerk am I that our biggest fight is that she feels like I don't have enough, I don't spend enough time with her. And this is just kind of a side point, but I often get really jealous that I have friends whose wife, their love language is gifts. And I'm like, get out of here. You just buy her a bracelet and then you go play golf and she's pumped, like she's good with that. I'm like, that's gotta be the greatest thing ever and so, if you're single in here, I'm not saying it should be like the top top thing of your list but if there's a way that you could find one with gifts and and not acts of service or time spent, I'm just saying, I would consider it. You know what I mean? Like, I love my wife but if I could buy her a bracelet and go play golf, I would.

That one's free, alright? Hey, here's the reason that I start there. What we just read is the first letter to the most important church in Asia Minor, the church in Ephesus. And Jesus says they're doing a lot of things really well. They're a really good church in a lot of regards,

but they've fallen into a trap that's really easy for the church, you and I, the people of God to fall into. He says, fall into the trap of thinking that all I wanted from you is to do things for me, to do the dishes and to clean the car and to run the church and to play the music and to do the stuff and all of the stuff is good, but those things in and of themselves, they're really bad gods.

And when you do those things void of the heart that you're supposed to do them with, it becomes potentially even a dangerous thing where the church no longer is the hope of the world and the church becomes something that's really actually hurtful.

Here's what we're gonna see that I think Jesus is gonna show us in the first letter to the first church in Ephesus. The big idea if you will, is that Jesus friends, He's much more considered. He's much more concerned about what we do with Him than for Him.

God has an assignment for you and I to do. He has something for you to do while you're here on this earth and it is important. It is a good thing to do things for God, but we cannot forget that the totality of our Christian experience,

it is summed up in knowing God and being known by Him. Do not fall into the trap of believing that God just wants you to do things for Him. If you look at the life of Jesus, besides going to the cross,

besides paying the death for our sins, other than that, he did everything else with somebody. He was always with community. He modeled that God is a relational God that wants to be with us. Okay?

But we just read in Revelation two, obviously follows Revelation chapter one. If you go read Revelation one, what you'll see is that John, the Apostle John

has been banished because he's been preaching the message of Jesus and his resurrection. He's been banished to this island called Patmos and while he's there, he falls asleep or falls into some kind of trance and he has a vision and he sees Jesus in just this really glorious picture. He says that Jesus walks amongst these seven lampstands, these seven candles which represent the seven churches of the time. And it says Jesus is wearing this long robe and His face looks like the sun and His hair is white and His eyes are white and out of His mouth comes a sword.

He says He walks amongst the seven candles and he upholds in his right hand these seven stars which represent the seven pastors of these seven churches. And what John is getting is this beautifully prophetic picture of Jesus's relationship with his church. It's this picture of a protective

father walking amongst his church going, this is my church. And the reason that these seven letters are so important is because they were written around AD ninety to ninety five. Okay. The church has existed for about sixty years at this point.

But at this point in history, the church was at a really precarious crossroads. They were growing numerically, but they were being attacked in ways that they had never been attacked before both externally and internally and there was major questions being asked of what will the church of God look like moving

into the future. And Jesus says, I have a message for my church. And he tells John, write these seven letters to seven churches. And yes, they were seven letters to seven specific churches that existed thousands of years ago, but they were also prophetically written to the church today corporately,

but also to you and I who are what the New Testament says, temple of the Holy Spirit. We are the church today, both of us individually. It's a message for all of us. And here's how the very first one begins that we just read in

Ephesians. But before I get there, let me show you the pattern that you're gonna see in every week of these letters. Okay? There's the simple pattern that all of these letters will follow. We're gonna go over all seven of them over the next six weeks. They start with a greeting for the church. He addresses, here's the church we're talking about. The second thing we'll see in all of them is there's a specific title of Jesus that we see that is unique to each of these churches.

The third thing that he will show is a praise of the church. The things that the church is doing really well. And then he'll move into a criticism of the church. Here's where I have something that you need to correct. There's two churches that he doesn't critique at all. We've put those together in one week. That's how we're doing seven churches in six weeks. And then he gives a warning. What happens if you don't listen and change my critique? And then he gives a promise. This is the general outline and flow of every one of these letters.

What we just read again, Revelation chapter two verse one starts, it says, Write this letter to the angel of the church in Ephesus. The angel of the church is just the pastor. So if you see Bill next week, just call him the angel of Rock Point, okay? The angel of the church in Ephesus.

Is the message from the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand. The one who walks among the seven golden lampstands. Tells us a couple things important. The first letter is written to the church in Ephesus and he shows a picture of Jesus again.

He talks about Jesus who walks among these seven lampstands. Okay. I don't have seven lampstands. I have one candle that I think has a stand that will today symbolically represent for us the lampstand. The candle, represents

the presence of God, the power of God and Jesus is there and he writes his first letter to the church in Ephesus. Now it's really interesting to see that John would be told through Jesus to start with Ephesus.

It's one of the most important churches in the middle of one of the most important cities in all of Asia Minor. Okay, in the entire Roman province, Ephesus is the fourth largest city in the entire region. It's a city with some 300,000 people in population. It is a city at its core that is incredibly pagan.

They have one of the seven wonders of the world in the city of Ephesus. I have a picture of this I wanna show you. This is actually the temple where they would worship the goddess Diana.

One of the seven wonders of the world. They still don't even understand how they built it. It took such ingenuity and passion for them to build a temple to worship the goddess that they believe controlled fertility.

There's actually a statue that they had of her that I can't even show in church because it was sexually explicit. This was a culture that was incredibly pagan. And in the middle of it, there's this thriving church

that was pastored by some of the most important figures in the New Testament. Timothy was there. Paul was there for longer than he spent anywhere else in any of the other churches he planted. John himself was the pastor of this church for a while. So the question is is why would Jesus start with the church in Ephesus?

Because he knew that once he gets to Ephesus, it will get to the rest of the world. And it's almost like this message, this is the most important one.

This is the cornerstone upon which the other six will follow. And it's also important to note that Jesus writes seven letters. Seven biblically is the number for completion. It's like this is my complete story for my church. This is my heart for the church.

And here's what I love for you and I sitting here today in Arizona in 2023. As I think if we were to look at where we sit culturally, where our world is today, it is very similar. It's a very similar climate. The church is being faced with some really similar questions

of what are we gonna be for? Who is the church going to be? What are we going to stand for amongst a culture that seems to be getting further and further and further and further away from God? I'm telling you friends, Jesus has a message.

Here's his message that he starts with to the church in Ephesus in verse two. He says, I know all the things that you do.

I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance. I know you don't tolerate evil people. You have examined the claims of those who say that they are apostles but are not. You have discovered that they are liars and you have patiently suffered for me without quitting.

Jesus starts and he lists six things that the church does really well. And I love that Jesus starts with encouragement.

He starts with these are the things you guys are doing phenomenal at. Okay? Here's the six and six things I wanna show you quickly that he highlights that the church of Ephesus does. He says, I see your deeds. I see your actions. I see what your life is producing. He says, I also see your hard work.

And I wanna take a moment today. Again, we're gonna lean in and I'm gonna throw punch you in a second. But to get there, I wanna first tell you, man, I love getting to be a pastor of this church.

I love getting to see the fruit of all the ministry that happens in this place. And I love getting to be a part of a church that is what I would say is the exact same thing. This is an incredibly hard working

group of people that are trying to do their best to build the kingdom of God. And I don't know if you ever come on Saturdays when we do cars and coffee, but I was on our campus yesterday. This entire parking lot was filled with all these crazy cars. There's Ferraris and big military vehicles

and it was amazing to walk around and see that our outreach team has such a heart to create an environment that is just more work for them, but what it does is it creates an opportunity for people to walk on our church campus that might not ever walk through these doors, but their first step onto the campus might just be coming and getting coffee and looking at some cars and we're doing everything we can to lower the on ramp so that people can walk in the doors of the church and it's as easy as possible. But the truth is,

as I walked around there yesterday morning, I was like, holy cow. How are they gonna tear this whole thing down because we gotta do church here tonight? And you know how they do it? An incredibly hard working team of volunteers like you.

And every one of our services, man, it takes a small army to pull this stuff off. So before I punch you in the throat, I just wanna tell you, man, you guys are doing an amazing job and I want to applaud you because this is an incredibly hard working church.

He says, I see your deeds. He says, you guys have discernment. You've learned to listen to the right voices and tune out the wrong ones. You're discerning well. And he says, you're known for your convictions. In a culture that tells you anything goes, you know the morality of God

and you stand for your convictions, which is a good thing. It can't be the ultimate thing, but it's still a good thing that Jesus says you're doing well. He says you're an incredibly bold people.

You stand in the middle of a culture and you proclaim the truth of Jesus even though people are hostile to it and you've persevered.

Here's the six things that Jesus says the church in Ephesus does really well. Six things that he says, you guys are crushing it at. You're doing these things so well. You're a thriving church. It's growing. You're strong in theology. Your doctrine is true. You're holding to orthodoxy in a lot of ways. You work hard. You do the stuff,

but you're missing something. But there's something in the middle of that that you're missing. Here's where Jesus kinda turns the corner and kind of gives these guys the original throat punch. He says in verse four,

But I have this complaint against you. You don't love me. You don't love each other as you did at first. Look how far you've fallen. He says, just turn back to me and do the works that you did at first.

I remember when I first read this, I was like, oh, what Jesus is doing is he's doing the like compliment sandwich thing, right? Which is like a leadership principle. If you ever need to have a hard conversation with somebody, I'm about to put you on to some game. Okay, dude, it's a compliment sandwich. You know you gotta tell somebody, Hey, you're kind of a jerk. But don't just walk in and say, Hey, you're a jerk. First tell them, Dude, your hair looks amazing. Crush me with the hair game. You're kind of a jerk, but I do like your outfit today. Right? Like, so you put the hard conversation in the middle of two compliments to soften the blow a little bit. And I thought that's what Jesus was doing. I was like, oh Jesus is setting them up to get to the real thing. And all of those things that he said they're doing well, they should just kind of throw out because they've forgotten love.

And it's not the case. Jesus isn't patronizing the church. He's really saying these things are good. These are good things. Don't get rid of your convictions. But learn how to have convictions without forgetting the most ultimate supreme thing. Your love for me. Your love for each other.

And here's what's terrifying to think. The church in Ephesus was probably 20 to 40,000 people growing. People on the outside would look at and go, man, look at the success of that church. Yet they have forgotten the first and the second commandment. Love God. Love people.

It tells me that you and I can do a lot of the church stuff. We can be doctrinally sound. We can let the world know our convictions. But when we begin to do it without love, Jesus begins to move away from those churches. He begins to say this is moving down a slippery slope

because the entire thing is supposed to be rooted in. He says it two times in those two verses. You've forgotten not just your love, but your first love. What is he talking about? What is first love? Man, do you remember when you were in love for the first time?

Do you remember what that early love felt like?

I met my wife, the same one that I wish her love language was gifts but it's time spent. I met her in a church service just like this. They had a moment after worship before the message where they'd go, Hey, stand up and say hi to the people around you. And I turned around and we made eye contact and I was too terrified to speak to her but I knew her mom because I served at the church a lot and her mom was the church secretary. So we said hi real fast and then that night,

my wife asked my mother-in-law, Hey, who was that guy? And so she told her who I was and she did like the OG sliding into the DMs and she sent me a Myspace friend request. Come on somebody. Myspace,

right? Like top eight profile songs. Those were the good days. Instagram has nothing on Myspace, right? And so we start talking back and forth and I had to try to figure out how to tell her like, I promise I'm not a stalker, but I'm actually going to your brother's football game this weekend because he was in my high school group. I was his leader in the high school ministry.

And so I told her, said, we're gonna go to this football game and then we could go to dinner afterwards. And I remember when I went on my first date with my wife and called my mom when I got home and I said, Mom, she's the one.

I met the girls that I know that I'm gonna marry. It would take her about six months to get to the same conclusion but man, I knew day one, right? And I've looked back like, why did it take her six months? And I think part of it was probably because I picked her up in a car that I called Club Rio. It was a Kia Rio that was white and the whole right side was dented in. You literally had to crawl across the driver's side to get to the passenger side because I was driving and a guy backed into me and dented in the right side of my car and his insurance company called me and said, We'll either fix your car or send you a check for $3. And I was like, $3 all day. Let's go baby. Let's send this thing. Right? So I'm driving around Club Rio, get her in it. The whole back is filled with nothing but monsters cans and just a train wreck, right? But man was I in love. And I remember there was a day that she called me and she was like, Hey, I was living almost an hour away from her with traffic. It would take me two hours sometimes and she called me and she said, Hey, I'm gonna have twenty minutes after work where we could hang out for a little bit before I have to go to this thing. And I would drive for two hours in traffic to sit in a parking lot with her for twenty minutes to then turn around and drive two hours back in traffic. Why? Because that's the stuff you do when you're dumb or in love, right? That's

what love is. Love compels you to do something. I'll do anything to spend twenty minutes with you. And I'm telling you right now, if my wife called me and said, Look babe, I wanna see you tonight but you just gotta drive two hours in traffic both ways. I'd be like, girl, I'll see you tomorrow. Right? Like we live together. Alright?

And here's why I tell you that. Here's the danger. Here's I am more in love with my wife almost fifteen years being married to her today than I've ever been before. But the truth is, if I'm honest, the closeness to her, the access that I have to her, it sometimes breeds complacency if I'm not careful.

I just become accustomed to her always being there. She's always gonna be there. Even if I don't be that intentional with her, I don't have to curate this love any longer because she's she's always there. What Jesus is saying is that you've treated me the same way.

It's not just our closest relationships in our marriages that can grow stale and complacent with closeness if we're not careful. It's also our relationship with God. Do you remember what it was like when you were a new Christian?

Do you remember the passion you used to have? Man, I was that guy that went to the not of this world store, which thank God they don't exist anymore. Like they were horrendous stickers, but I had them everywhere. Right? Like I was the guy in worship you prayed you didn't stand next to because I just was obnoxious and crying and just praising God. I was inviting everybody to church. I didn't have to read my Bible. I got to read my Bible.

But now fifteen years and I'm like a professional Christian, I can tell myself, I don't really need to read my Bible today and do the devotional. I'm studying for a message later. Basically, everything I do is for Jesus. And all of a sudden you slip into a subtle thing

where all of a sudden it's not about being with Jesus anymore and it's just doing things for him. And I know it's not just me that's tempted to do it, but you are as well. You can treat Jesus like an accessory to your life, like a genie that you will reach to when things are convenient.

And I think the truth is that sometimes we just have an honest assessment. We just look at it and we go, man, why does it feel like I don't feel what I used to feel? Why don't I feel the same things I used to feel in worship? Why don't I hear God's voice like I used to when I sit down and read the Bible?

And what I'm not trying to tell you is that we have to stay in that infatuation early love stage forever. Love has to grow up and love has to mature. But what Jesus is saying is that sometimes you over complicate this whole thing.

Friends, it's not like this is the beginning and then you become somebody that you work for God. Like being known by God and learning to know Him deeper, that is the totality of our Christian experience.

And then out of the overflow of that, yeah, heck yeah. Go be a pharmacist and be a teacher and raise your family and build a business and be a great lawyer, but don't let those things you do replace the relationship you have with Jesus.

He says, this is what I have against you. You settle for just doing church instead of being with me. But here's the beauty. Jesus says, though you and I will be unfaithful, though you and I will have a propensity to run away from him, he never runs away from us. And he in the challenge gives us the path back.

But what do we do when we find ourselves in seasons where it feels like we've truthfully kind of walked away from our first love and we don't feel those feelings anymore? He gives us three simple things to do to come back to our first love, to keep the flame going of our first love. The first thing he tells us to do is simply remember.

He says, remember what it used to be like. Start with just remembering. Remember the beginning. Remember how it used to be. If you find yourself here today and your marriage is in a tough place, I would encourage you, remember why you got married. Remember the beginning of how good it used to be and I know it's hard now,

but remember what it used to be like. Feel those feelings again because those feelings, they're not the thing that we should have lead us long term, but those feelings are powerful.

Those feelings will get us to move and do something. Right? Because we have to at some point allow God to win the affections of our heart. We have to allow God to change what we want to do because the truth is that you and I will only do long term what we feel like doing.

You can only white knuckle your way through Christianity, through overcoming sins, through battling with issues for so long on your own. If you do not allow the affections of your heart to change, you will not do it long term. He says, just remember what it used to be like.

Do you remember the prayer that King David prays? Right on the other side of making some of the gravest mistakes of his life. He commits infidelity. He literally has a guy killed. He has a prophet show up to him and say, you are supposed to be the leader of God's people,

yet you've chosen all of this. David sits down and has to just wonder, God, how did I get here? How have I gotten so far away from who I used to be? How have I gotten so far from you? What is his prayer? It's recorded in Psalm chapter 51. Look at what he says.

He says, God, restore to me the joy of your salvation. Rejoice. Restore to me the joy of my salvation. Make me willing to obey you. He says, God, bring me back. Let me remember the feelings that I used to have in the beginning. Why? Because feelings aren't ultimate, but feelings are important.

There was an incredible advertisement that the Kellogg's brand ran in the nineties. They said that there's three different companies that have said it was one of the most successful advertising campaigns that was ever run. And look at the simplicity of their message. They ran a campaign all over TV, all over magazines and their branding was simple. They said, Taste them again

for the first time.

Remember what it was like. I've never had the spiritual experience of like pouring a bowl of cornflakes and putting some milk on it and being like, Yo, boy, I gotta go get me a box of Kellogg's, right? Like, but apparently there's people that have and Kellogg's knows the power in just going back to what it felt like in the beginning.

But the feeling should lead you to something. The danger of our culture is we try to just have our feelings be the ultimate thing and we just follow our feelings. And no, the feelings are a good starting point but they're a terrible ending place. Do not be led by your feelings but eventually learn to lead your feelings. He says, remember but let the remembering lead you to the next step. He says, to come back to me. The church word that we use for come back to God is repentance. He says, remember what it used to be like and then do the most important step of the whole thing.

Make a u-turn. Turn away from the things that you're running to and come back to God. Remember the story of the prodigal son? One of my favorite stories in all of the bible. The son took his father's inheritance and he lived lavishly while he had money. And everybody was telling him, this life

isn't going to give you what you're wanting. That the hope and the meaning and the satisfaction, it's not in the stuff. And he says, man, I think it is. I'm gonna try and I'm gonna party. And he has a great time while he has money. But the Bible says that when his money runs out, his friends leave and he's left alone.

And eventually he leads to a point where he's eating out of a pig trough. Well, what is his process in coming back to his father's house? It starts with him remembering how good he had it at his dad's house. He says, man, servants,

they have it better than I have it now. There's not servants at my dad's house that are eating out of the pig trough. And he allowed that moment of feeling going, This is who my dad is. My dad loves me. He treats me good to lead him to start coming home. Friends, part of the reason

that you and I haven't felt anything for months, sometimes years when it comes to going through the religious motions that we go through is because the truth is is oftentimes there's unrepentant

sin in our life. There's something that God has told us to stop doing or to start doing that we are just not listening to. And the problem is the reason that God hates sin so much is because sin always leads to death. The greatest thing that sin will kill, the greatest thing that sin will destroy is your intimate connection with God.

All of a sudden, what you used to feel, it seems like it's just cut off and you don't feel it anymore. And I'm here to tell you today that the path back is much more simple than you think. Remember what it used to be like. Remember how good God is and then be willing and bold to turn around and come back to him. Here's the promise that James tells us is what happens when we repent, when we change what we're doing, when we get out of the sin that we've stepped into. He says, if we will humble ourselves before God, if we will resist the devil, the devil will flee from you. So that's good news that the devil will lead us, but here's what's even better. When you come close to God, God will come close to you. If you wash your hands and purify your hearts, your loyalty is divided between God and the world.

He says, here's the good news. When you press into God, God draws nearer to you. This is the good news of the gospel. The best part of the story of the prodigal son is that it wasn't a story about the son's ability to come back to the his father with his hat in hand and to tell him how much he had made a mistake.

The father was looking for him. The father was waiting for him. And the bible says that while he was still a long ways off, while he was still far from his father's house, the father saw him in his attempt to come home. And the father let all of his dignity down and he runs after the son and he lavishes him and he brings him back into the family and says, welcome home.

This is the beauty of who our God is, friends. If you draw near to Him, the promise is that He will draw near to you. God's not waiting for you to figure out the jigsaw puzzle that is God. If you seek Him, you will find Him. If you knock, He will answer. He is waiting for his children to come home to him. To reignite

the passion in the flame that is always supposed to be the thing that drives us. He says, if you remember and you repent, it will lead you to do what you already know to do. Here's the third step. How do we rekindle our first love? We remember, we repent, and then we repeat.

The three R's. You gotta love alliteration. Right? He says, repeat. Repeat what? He says, turn back to God and do what you used to do. You already know what you need to do to have a thriving relationship with God. It's all the things that used to be natural to you when your love was new, when your love was first.

Spend time in his word. Come to church. Get here early. Show up with a heart that says, God, I'm gonna worship you even when my circumstances say that I shouldn't. I'm gonna choose to trust you when life seems crazy. I'm gonna show up to LifeGroup this week even though I don't want to.

I'm gonna do these things that I used to do because I know this is the process that I go through to keep my first love intact. Here's why this is so important for the church in Ephesus. Why this is so important for you and I. Here's what happens on the other side if we don't heed this warning.

Jesus told them, if you don't do these things and if you choose to instead live a life of just unrepented sin, it's not like God is in heaven and just strikes you with lightning.

It's not like God says you're just gonna live this horrible, treacherous life. The truth is, is you can live a really successful life on your own.

You can get a lot of things where people on the outside would look and go, man, they've got it all together. We can build a really big church and a really quote unquote good church without the power and the presence of God. He says, if you don't do this, if we aren't willing to be a people who repents,

look at the next verse. He says, if you and I don't repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches. What is Jesus saying? He's saying it's pretty simple. If you aren't willing to be the vessel that I can pour my spirit into, I will just come and remove my spirit from you.

It is the most terrifying verse in the Bible to me. To think that not just collectively, not just as the corporate church, but as individuals, as the vessels of the Holy Spirit today, that you and I can live a life that looks successful on the outside.

But the truth is is the spirit and the power of God left us months and years ago. And we're doing all of this on our own, through our own power, through our own abilities, through our own knowledge and know how.

You know how we become not the hope of the world that the church is supposed to be? And just a bunch of people who unintentionally cause a bunch of dead bodies behind us where the world looks at us and thinks that we're crazy?

We continue to live a life of unrepentant sin, thinking that the goal is to have convictions, to have good theology, to have our doctrine sound when the truth is is that what God really wants from us is a thriving relationship with us that is rooted in love.

But the hard part is is I can't tell you how you're doing. Only you can. You can't tell how I'm doing. We're all really good at faking this stuff. And we live in a world that almost encourages it. You can get promotions when all the stuff on the outside is going well, but the truth is the inside you're falling apart.

So the question is at some point, how are we doing? How is our flame going? Are we living from the passions of God? Are we living fueled by the Holy Spirit? Are we just doing our own thing and settling for religious activity thinking that that is ultimately what will replace a thriving relationship with God.

Friends, it's a terrifying picture if you think about it. And it takes a moment for us to just be honest and go, how are we doing? Here's how John wraps up this story.

He says, if we don't do this, you'll remove our lampstand and then he says, but this is in your favor. Verse six, you hate the evil deeds of the Nicolatians just as I do. He says, anyone with ears to hear must listen to the spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone who is victorious,

I will give fruit from the tree of life in the paradise of God. I love that last verse. He says that all of us have a race to run. All of us have a flame to keep lit. All of us have a thing to do, an assignment that's been given to us.

And some of us will be victorious at the end of this thing. And we will get to eat from the tree that was in the Garden Of Eden that we were banned from after sin entered into the picture. So the question that has to be asked is, what does victory look like?

What is the victory that Jesus is telling John that you and I should look for? There was a race that I was reading about this week that I'm telling you it was the perfect picture of what I believe you and I are called to do. The Bible talks a lot about you and I having a race to run.

It talks about each of us having an assignment that we all have a lane to run-in. We have to learn to beat our body into submission because it's running a race. We have a place to get to. But the question is, how do we run this race? What is it? Well, this specific race that used to take place in the early Olympic years was called the Lampre d'Orion. Okay, I wanna show you a picture to prove that I'm not making this up. We had to bore out the guy's little itty bitty part so that it was church appropriate.

But here's what the race was. Here's what the Lamperedorian was. It was a basic relay race, but it had one element that other relay races didn't have. What the first runner would do is he would take a torch and he would light it. And it was his responsibility

to run his race, to stay in his lane, to get to the next person that he was gonna pass the baton to. But the baton wasn't just a physical baton. The baton was a flame. And if he ran too fast, the flame would go out. So what he had to temper against was how fast can I run while keeping my flame intact?

And then he would get to the next person and he would have to take his flame, pass it to him, and then it was his assignment to then run the flame to the next person. And I'm telling you friends, it is a perfect picture of what our life is on this side of heaven.

What you and I have been asked to do in the few decades that we've been given is we've been asked to steward the presence and the power of God, the flame that God gives all of us. The Holy Spirit is alive and active in you if you've given your life to Jesus. What you've been asked to do is to run your race,

to remember that God has an assignment for you, but don't be so go going so fast that you forget that the ultimate assignment

is to keep this flame going because there will come a point in your life where you will have to hopefully as you get towards the end of your life that you will still have enough of this flame that you can pass it on to the person that's next. All you and I are doing right now, all God has asked us to do is to steward

the power in the presence of God for our season, to run our race, and then get ready to hand it to the next person. But sometimes we will just run so quickly. We will get so far ahead of God. We won't even realize that we've finished the race. And we'll stand before God

at the end of our life and our hope is to hear, Well done, my good and faithful servant. The race wasn't about how fast you could do it, but how fast you could do it with keeping your flame intact.

My fear is that there's a lot of people who will get to the end of their life. And what Jesus says is what happened in Matthew chapter seven is that many of you will come to the end of your life. You will stand before me and I'll say, get away from me. I never knew you.

And you'll go, yeah, but I did all these church things. I cast out demons. I gave money to the building campaign. I did all this stuff. Jesus says, yeah, but I never know you. Friends, sometimes we over complicate this whole Christian thing. The totality of our Christian experience

is knowing God and being known by him. And then as we do that in a relationship, man, let's run with all that we have towards building his kingdom. But don't get so busy building it that your flame goes out in the process and you don't even realize it. I promise you,

God is much more concerned about what we do with Him than what we do for Him. Amen? Father, I thank you. God so much for every person that made it into church today. God, know that even sometimes getting in the door of this place can be difficult.

And so God, I honor their commitment to be here and to show up even when there's football games starting to be played outside.

God, I just ask that you would speak specifically to every single person's heart in here. God, I know that you're talking about some specific things to specific people. And I pray Holy Spirit that you would allow the seed that have been scattered today to fall on good soil. And that we would have the boldness and the courage to actually bring things into the light. To repent, come back to you and live in your warm embrace. And that we would be a people who are known for being with God. And secondarily,

yeah, we do some stuff for you, but it is all rooted out of our relationship with you. It is in Jesus name all God's people said. Amen and amen. Hey, thank you for letting me yell at you for a couple minutes.