Lord God, we love you. We love you because you first loved us. And we don't love you nearly as much as we ought. But I pray that as we come to your word now, you would both increase our understanding of your love for us and multiply our love for you. We pray this in the matchless name of Jesus, our Lord. Amen. Please be seated. If you have your copy of God's Word, turn with me please to Revelation chapter 2. Revelation two if you don't have a copy of God's Word, there's one in the row in front of you or perhaps next to you and you can turn to page 1028 and find our text and just by way of context as a congregation We spent the last couple of months studying the book of Jude and the message of Jude was church you must contend earnestly for the faith that was once delivered to the Saints and Now Jude's not saying that the survival of the church is resting upon us. That is God's duty. But the duty that He has entrusted to us, the stewardship that He's given to us, is that we remain faithful to God through His Word. And we need to understand God will only tolerate for so long a church that is unfaithful. And eventually He will remove the lampstand from it. That's why we're looking at Revelation. Revelation, in the opening few chapters, we see seven letters, seven letters to the churches of Asia Minor, which comprises much of what's known as modern day Turkey. And these letters include both, in most cases, commendations and warnings, things that the church is doing well, and then things that are endangering the church, areas where the church is growing unfaithful. These are certainly letters written to churches 2,000 years ago, but they are just as much for us as well. And so we're gonna look at the first of these letters today, the letter to the church at Ephesus. It's found in the beginning of Revelation chapter two, starting in verse one. Listen now to God's word. 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 you found them to be false. I know you're enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you've not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love that you had at first. Remember therefore from where you've fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I'll come to you and 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, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I'll grant to eat the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. As we get started with these seven letters, I want to give you some background. These are seven letters, they're written by the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is both commending and warning these seven churches of his day, and by virtue of the Holy Spirit, to us as well, how we are to contend for the faith. Now there's a logic to the letters, the way that they were written. When John was writing these, they were given to him by the Lord Jesus. John is writing on the Isle of Patmos. He's there in exile. Now according to some of the early church fathers, they believed John was pastor at Ephesus until his exile. And Patmos is only about 50 miles from Exodus, from Patmos, excuse me. Ephesus was 50 miles or so from Patmos. It was a major trade city. And the letters, if you were to read through all seven letters right now, they'd go in geographic order, almost in the shape of a horseshoe. So the first one goes to Ephesus. And actually we'll see, all seven letters were to be read to all seven churches. But then Smyrna, then to the other churches, all the way until it came around to Laodicea. Now in a sense, it's really amazing there was a church at Ephesus at all. Ephesus was a massive city at the time, more than 200,000 people by percentage of population growth. That would put it in a city being in the millions today. The primary religion was the worship of the false goddess Artemis. The temple of Artemis there in Ephesus was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was a city known for wealth and for power and indulgence and superstition and great idolatry. It was a city that wasn't patient with the gospel. It wasn't patient with Christians. And so to be a Christian at Ephesus was to really set yourself at odds with the culture and invite persecution. So it really is remarkable that there's a church in Ephesus and that there was a thriving church in Ephesus. Now, even though, as I said, this letter was written specifically to the Ephesians, the intent was that the letters be distributed, and you see that in verse seven. It says, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. So we know it's the intent of God, not specifically, narrowly, to say, Ephesus, this only applies to you. It doesn't apply to anybody else. It applied to all seven churches, and it applies just as much to us today. Now, there's so much here in this passage, I want to get straight into it. There's several things I want you to see, and there's always an outline in your bulletin, and you can look there, you can just follow along, but the first thing is the watchfulness of Jesus, mainly in verse 1, the watchfulness of Jesus. Second, the works of the Ephesians, we see those in verses 2 and 3. Third, the warning in verse four. And then the wonderful promise in five through seven. So let's get into it. The first thing I want you to see is the watchfulness of Jesus. The Lord Jesus has given this message to John to write and send via a courier. And what we see right off the bat is Jesus keeps intimate knowledge of his church. Jesus keeps intimate knowledge of his church. He's watchful. He's not a distant and remote God who saves people and then turns us loose to take care of ourselves. Jesus then and still today keeps his promise given in the Great Commission. Surely I will be with you always to the very end of the age. And so Jesus keeps his caring eye, his watchful eye upon the church. And so look at verse one. The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. The seven golden lampstands are these seven churches where the light of the glory of Christ has been shining brilliantly to the Gentile nations. And as Jesus watches, he's intimately acquainted with their strengths and their weaknesses. He cares for them and so He wants to encourage them, commending them at times, but also warning them when timely. And we need to realize this just as well, beloved, Jesus cares intimately about His church today. In this church, He's not only watchful of what's said from the pulpit and the corporate witness of the church, but He's watchful even of our hearts and minds and lives. He watches carefully because He loves the church and protects the church and pursues the peace and purity of the church, and so He's walking, in a sense, among the golden lampstands still today. Now, this may be hard for some of us to understand, the watchfulness of Christ, because here's how we might think of him. He's like a policeman just waiting for us to do something wrong so he can pull us over. Now, are any of you guilty of this? I pass a policeman, and even if I'm buckled up and going the right speed, I assume I've done something wrong. Jesus is not like that. Jesus is not a policeman just waiting for us to slip up so he can charge us with something that we've done. That's not our Lord. Of course, he does scrutinize and examine the church, but not to find fault like a policeman, because in that case, we would all be condemned. but he comes to us with gospel grace, grace that pursues his people and gives us a new heart so that we come to him by faith, trusting not in our performance before him but in his merits alone. And the grace that saves us is the grace that will sustain us to the end. Our salvation at no point will ever depend on our performance. Are we clear on that? I was listening to two older saints talk this weekend, and they were speaking of another well-known godly minister from Scotland. He had gone to be with the Lord recently, and just before he died, he was speaking to one of them, and he said, you know, everything I've done, everything that I've accomplished is irrelevant. All that matters is what Jesus has done. And so as Jesus is surveying us, his people, and looking at the church, he's not doing so as a policeman. He's doing so as a gardener that cultivates the garden that it may bear fruit for his enjoyment. He loves to walk through the garden, beholding its colors and its growth and its fruit. But occasionally, because he cares for the garden, he's also gonna notice problems. And so some of you have a sense of this. You can walk through your garden and you can see parasites that are starting to eat the leaves, or you can find mold growing, or lack of water, or overwatering. And as a good gardener, Jesus is going to deal with these things. Not in terms of citations and jail time, But his desire is to prune and cultivate the garden that it may bear more fruit. Please don't forget that in the study of these seven churches, Jesus is gonna say some hard things. But he says them from a place of desiring to grow us. His wounds are for our healing. And the Ephesians need to remember that because his words are gonna wound them because he sees in them this concern and his heart aches for them. This must be treated before it destroys the church. Now before we get to that, he's gonna commend them. And that's the second thing I want you to see. Our watchful Lord addresses the works of the Ephesians. He says there, I know your works. I know them, I know them intimately. These are words of care and compassion. I've seen what you've done, what you've given up to follow me. I've seen what it cost you, and I've taken great joy in what you've done for me. And he's going to commend several things here. I think the first is their distinguished heritage. He says, I know your toil. I know the past. Ephesians was almost certainly among these seven churches the first to get the gospel, and all seven and many others, many other churches probably heard the gospel from missionaries who first heard it at Ephesus. This was a vitally important church with a distinguished history, a distinguished heritage, They had had the privilege of being led by many godly saints through the years. The eloquent preacher Apollos had preached there. The Apostle Paul served there three times, once for as long as three years, the longest that he spent in any one place that we know of. Timothy and Tychicus, two of Paul's disciples, labored there. And I mentioned earlier that many historians believe John, the author of the Gospel of John and the Epistle of John and Revelation, once pastored there before being exiled to Patmos. And so they've got this distinguished history. He says, I know your works. You've got a distinguished history. And second, he says, you've been a first line of defense against false teachers. He says, you're intolerant of evil. The Ephesian church would not allow false teaching and moral corruption to come in. It says they oppose the Nicolaitans. The Nicolaitans, we'll see them later in Revelation 2. What we know about them is they promoted idolatry and sexual immorality. And the Ephesians were intolerant of their errors. Now, I think most of you know this, but tolerance, the way our world defines it, is not a Christian virtue. Tolerance in terms of patience certainly is. Jesus commends the church for bearing patiently in verse three, but Christians can't be tolerant of all things because God is not tolerant of all things. And there's a spirit of the age that says we can be more tolerant than God. That's the height of arrogance, to dismiss as being okay things that God finds repulsive. And so God is commending them for how they're a first line of defense against false teachers. We cannot give unqualified, unconditional affirmation to every belief and behavior. The reason we can't do that is because God doesn't do that. What a word to us in our culture today. Tolerance of sin and false teaching is not a virtue, it is sin itself. And the church needs to realize that, and that's one thing that the Ephesians got. They're a first line of defense. You know, to be clear, we will never win the world. We will never show the world the glory of Christ by compromising with the world. Carol Ingram sent me a quote by Charles Spurgeon this week. He says, ah, you will never win any soul to the right by a compromise with the wrong. And so the Ephesians are the first line of defense against false teaching. And then third, Jesus commends their diligent endurance. This church is one that has suffered for its convictions. You can imagine that in an indulgent, wealthy, superstitious, idolatrous culture, anyone who's gonna stand firm for their convictions is going to suffer. And so look at verse three. I know you're enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake. I think it's talking about them persevering in the face of persecution. They knew their stances would be unpopular, and yet they persevere with great courage. Now as they're reading this, they're probably beaming with delight. Can't wait for the other six churches to read what Jesus said about me. You see that? He commended me. Well, then they go to verse four. Look at the next word at the beginning of verse four, but. The conjunction but can be one of the best words in the whole Bible, right? So if you're reading Ephesians 2 where Paul says that you were dead in your sins and trespasses and all those things, and then he says in verse four, but God, who is rich in mercy, made you alive together with Christ. Now that is glorious stuff right there. Well, this is different. But I have this against you. that you've abandoned the love you had at first. Our Lord shows his concern here that as he, as it were, walks through the candlesticks or the garden and surveys his church, he says, you know, I see all these vibrant colors. I see all the fruit that it's been born to you in the past. But there's a problem, it's a blight, a disease, and it needs to be dealt with immediately, because otherwise it's gonna destroy you. That's the third thing I want you to see is the warning. So we've seen the watchfulness, we've seen the works of the Ephesians. I want you to see this warning. What's the warning? You've left your first love. Yeah, you have a distinguished heritage. You're the first line of defense against false teachers. You're diligently enduring persecution, but not all is well. You've abandoned your first love. Once upon a time, their souls had been captivated by the beauty and love and grace of Christ. They had come to Him at Calvary confessing their sins, acknowledging that if not for His grace, they are hell-bound sinners. They laid their sins down at the foot of the cross and they rested their hopes fully upon the finished work of Jesus. They had a once vibrant faith that rejoiced to serve the Lord Jesus. And not only that, simply to be with Him. You think of two newlyweds who beam with joy as they look upon their new bride, their new groom. First love makes Jesus Christ our best thought and highest joy. When we love Jesus Christ above all else, it transforms the most difficult of duties into the greatest of earthly delights. Samuel Rutherford, one of the just most wonderful of the Puritans, one who will dispel any notion that the Puritans were cold and stodgy and aloof. He is so full of warm love for Christ. He describes our first love this way. He says, if you saw him who is standing on the shore, holding out his hands to welcome you onto land, you would not only wade through a sea of wrongs, but through hell itself to be with him. I think the language of first love. the love you had at first is really intentionally making us think of how this happens in marriage. Jeremiah had used that language in Jeremiah two, verse two. He says, I remember the devotion of your youth. He's speaking to Israel and he's actually gonna talk about how they have strayed away, how they've ceased to follow. But he says, I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness in a land not sown. It's the picture of a bride who is so overjoyed at the sight of her bridegroom that she will go anywhere as long as he's there. That's the image of the first love. And that was all once true of the Ephesians. In fact, that was once true of all believers. But Jesus says to them here, you've abandoned your first love. Sometimes people, I hear people reference this and they say, you've lost your first love. Lost sounds passive. This is actually active, you've abandoned it. You have left the love you had at first, that overjoyed infatuation with Jesus Christ that once was there when you first came to saving faith and should still be there, and it should be there in greater supply because you've understood more of the greatness of His love, but you've abandoned it. You've left it behind. They've still persisted in their Christian duties, but their love for Christ has grown dim. It's a barely flickering flame. It's grown cold. They've continued with a subculture of Christian orthodoxy and diligence, because this is just what we do as Christians. And we have conservative values and things like that. But they are no longer captivated by the love of Jesus Christ. Their hearts are no longer warmed by the glimpse of their Savior hanging upon the cross, bleeding for them. You know, for some of us, many Christians, our Christian life can be like a cargo ship. Cargo ships get moving, they're sometimes 100, 200,000 tons, massive amount of weight. They get going, they get up to speed, and even if the motors shut off, they're going to keep drifting for miles because it's just so much momentum. And sometimes our relationship with Christ is like that. We thrive on past momentum, the momentum perhaps from an emotional conversion, or a conference that you went to, or something in your past. But you know, if the motor has been shut off, eventually it's gonna stop drifting, and that's what Jesus is saying to them. You've lost your first love. The joy that was once yours in Christ has gone. Yes, you continue with the momentum going about the duties of Christianity. but you've left your first love. You know, the Lord has commended what they've done, but He says you want to know the problem. As good as all that stuff is, it's just something you do rather than who you love. Husbands, how would you respond if your wife said to you, I really feel like you don't love me anymore? Husband might respond, what are you talking about? Don't you see the ring on your finger? Don't you like the house that I bought you? Don't you like the life that I've given you? And she might respond, yes, I very much like it all, but you know what I really want? I'd give it all up just to have your heart, just to know that you loved me. And hopefully the husband's heart would melt for his dear wife whom Christ has loved him, called him to love like Christ loved the church. Yet so often we are careless about our own hearts towards Jesus. And our love can grow cold. And so the Lord's saying to the Ephesians and perhaps to us, I see your deeds and all that you've done and don't get me wrong, it is good stuff. But you know what I want? I want your heart. I want you to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. I know that you know this, but our culture tells us that love is an emotional experience. Love is not mere emotion. In fact, love is not primarily emotion. Love is maximum commitment. We're to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. The emotions will follow when we commit ourselves to loving God. And the way we cultivate love for God is by walking with Him and abiding with Him. And if we are careless about our walk with Him, our love will wane, it will grow cold. Let me quote John Owen, another of the great Puritans. He said, the reason many Christians leave their first love is they do not realize that abiding in Christ, walking with Christ, They think of it as a plant that needs neither watering, fertilizing, nor pruning, but that which will alone thrive in itself. He's saying people think they can just become Christians, and then their relationship with God will thrive on its own, and it's not that way. If we're not careful, our walks can grow very cold, can't they? Some of you love to garden. I don't love to garden. I don't even like to garden. But every four or five years, for about a week, I decide I might like to garden. I've done this a few times in my 20-plus years as an adult. I'll go buy a rose bush or some vegetables. I'll clear the soil. I'll study what they need. I'll go buy fertilizer, all that stuff, and I will garden. I'll do everything right. About a week goes by, and it takes a little more work. and I get busy, or I lose interest, and I forget about it, and then I walk out there two weeks, or a month, or two months later, and it's covered up in weeds, and the fruit's gone. Our spiritual life, is our spiritual life that way? Are we that way spiritually as a church? That we show up on Sunday, but it really has no bearing on the rest of our lives, how we live? Our Lord Jesus told a parable about this in Matthew 13, the parable of the sower. This is a parable about a farmer who's throwing out seed, and he's sort of throwing it out indiscriminately, and it's landing on different surfaces. Well, some of the seed fell among thorns and weeds, and it sprouted up. But as it grew, the weeds choked it out. And Jesus explained it this way, Matthew 13, 22. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it proves unfruitful." How does this happen? How do we lose our first love? How do we leave our first love? thought of several things. One, it's a matter of desire. Sometimes we are so enamored with the world that we leave nothing left in our schedule, in our energy, in our hearts to seek Jesus with. It's a matter of desire. It's a matter of depriving ourself of the means of grace. Do you realize that when you skip church, when other things come up, other priorities take place, you are depriving yourself? It's like skipping a meal. And when you repeatedly do that, you become malnourished. And what happens is when you don't attend to the means of grace, word, sacraments, prayer, when you don't attend to them regularly, you grow weak. Your love for Christ begins to really grow dim. So it's an issue of desire. It's an issue of deprivation. It's an issue of distraction. You know, busyness and obligations. You have them. I do. We are probably the busiest people in the history of the world. And we're so quick to give our hearts and our time and our affections to other things. We're distracted. Another way it happens is through deviancy. You know, you can't continue in unrepentant sin and still seek to love Jesus Christ with your whole heart. You realize that, right? In a culture, even a church culture, where statistics say more than half of men struggle with pornography. Undoubtedly, that's a struggle for some. In this room, you cannot love Jesus Christ with your whole heart and simultaneously deviate from his word. You cannot simultaneously pour your hearts into things. Just as pornography will destroy a marriage, it will destroy your relationship with Christ. Your love will grow cold. You know, as bigger sins begin to creep in, then you quit worrying about the little things, and you begin to accept what we sometimes call acceptable sins, like gossip, pride, and so on. What does Jesus see when he walks through the garden of your life? Would he find himself as your first love? Perhaps you once had zeal for Christ and you loved to serve Him. You loved to be with His people, you loved to be in the Word, you loved prayer. Do you still? Do you still? Once you maybe were serious about setting your minds on things above and not things that are below, is that still your ambition? Once you may have loved spending time in the Word and particularly private prayer. Have you ceased private prayer? That's the surest way to snuff out the flame of love for God is to abandon private prayer. Do you love to speak of Christ to others? I think the Ephesians are fascinating, and here It shows us, in a sense, a mirror of our own hearts. We're Presbyterians, we love our doctrine, don't we? We love getting our theology right, and we should. But the Ephesians, they're able to do that. They're rebuking false teachers and so on, but their own hearts have grown cold. One of the brothers in this church shared a quote with me this week, and I've thought about it a lot. Love without truth is liberalism. Truth without love is legalism. You know, if we speak the truth but we do not love Jesus Christ and it doesn't lead us to greater adoration and worship of Him, that's a sign that we've lost our first love, that we've left it. The goal of all that we do should be greater love for Jesus Christ. So, what do we do if we're hearing this warning and you're thinking, this is me? Now, to some extent, this is you and this is me, all of us. None of us love Christ as much as we want to. I want you to remember, Christ is not like a policeman who takes everyone to jail who falls short. If we did that, many would be convinced to just give up. If you're believers, you're here by grace. He doesn't then expel us because of our lack of works. Works are the fruit of what he's done in our hearts. Friends, let me just pass this warning along to you. I know you're in church today. You may be members of a church. But if you are not a fruit-bearing Christian, then that's a good sign you are not a believer at all. where the Holy Spirit goes. This is what our Sunday school class in this room's been teaching, where the Holy Spirit goes. He bears fruit. And Jesus is the good gardener. He ensures that we bear fruit. And any branch that does not bear fruit, what does Jesus say in John 15? It's cut off and burned. He's the gardener that desires we bear fruit. And so he tells us here, under this topic of warning, three things in verse five that we're to do. If you have realized I do not love Jesus as much as I once did, or I do not love Jesus as much as I want to, or maybe you've realized I don't love Jesus at all, what do we do? There's three things he says in verse five to do. Remember, repent, and repeat. Remember, repent, repeat. By saying remember, he's saying remember what it was that drew you to Christ in the first place. It was the wondrous cross that we sang about. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. Sometimes you may be talking to a friend who says, I just don't know if I love my husband or my wife anymore. And one of the things you might ask them is, what was it about them that drew you to them in the first place? What did you love in the first place? You married them for some reason. What was it? The Lord is saying here, remember, return to those things that initially your heart desired about me before the distractions and deceitfulness of the world came in. With Christ, we're to remember his love and how he gave himself for us, how he gave himself, shedding his blood upon the cross. Remember how he broke the chains of sin and death. Remember how patient and kind He has been to you. Even this very morning, He's treated you far better than your sins deserve. Remember how He has blessed you with His Word. Remember the joy and excitement you may have had as an early Christian in those days where you longed to get up early and spend time with Him in prayer and in His Word. Remember that first love because He has not changed. I was convicted recently, Sinclair Ferguson, I heard him say that most Christians cannot think more than five or ten minutes straight about Jesus. They simply can't do it, we're too distracted. Do you often just sit back and think long and hard and remember who Jesus is and what he's done for you? If that's not part of your spiritual disciplines, it needs to be. Simply to sit back and remember. How often, how long do we do that? Long enough till you return to your first love. So remember, then Jesus says, repent. Come before the Lord Jesus and say, I don't love you as much as I once did, or at least as much as I thought I did. But repentance is not just a change of mind, it's a change of action. And so reorder your life, make decisions today to reorder your life so that Jesus Christ would be the preeminent love of your life. That everything else you do would emanate from your relationship with Christ. What do you need to repent of that's hindering you? It may be something you are doing that you should not be doing, or it may be something that you should be doing but it's taken too high of a priority in your life so that all you think about is that thing. Reorder your life so that everything else flows from who Jesus Christ is and what he has done on the cross. Whatever it is, now's the time to begin setting it right through repentance. I heard the story recently of a missionary, I'm sure this was some of you, a missionary who was preaching in a foreign country. He was visiting, he wasn't a long-term missionary in that country. He was preaching a series of evening messages. And as he's preaching, man gets up and runs out. Pastors understand what that can mean at times. Well, the next day, the man shows up. And so the pastor thought that was strange. Well, the pastor's preaching, and the man gets up and runs out. Well, surely I'll never see him again. Third day, the man comes back again, and the pastor stops him. Why do you keep leaving while I'm preaching? And the man says, you need to, you hit on something, you talked about something that I'm guilty of, and I needed to leave right now and make it right. I needed to repent. I don't think you all need to run out of the room and go make it right at this moment, but you can understand the heart behind it. When we see sin in our lives and we do not confess it and repent of it, we grow comfortable with it. We're, in a sense, inoculated to it. Repent, dear ones. And then what? Repeat. Jesus says, do the works you did at first. Jesus is looking at the godly heritage of the Ephesians and all they have done, And he's saying, you know, that shouldn't just be something you see in the rear view mirror. What are the works that he says do the works you did at first? Is it their great accomplishments? I don't think so. I think it was actually the daily seeking of the Lord Jesus. Reorder your life, do what you once did when Jesus Christ really was the highest priority of your life. and live that way again. If you're not spending time in His Word, start setting aside time. Well, I wake up and I go straight to work. Wake up earlier. Well, I'm going to speak to young men. I don't have any time. Let me ask you how much time you spend playing video games. We're in a video game culture. I don't have any time to spend in the Word. Well, how many hours did you spend playing Call of Duty yesterday? Return to the works you once did. Set aside time to really read his word. Prioritize prayer, worship with the saints, fellowship. Make your life ordered the way a Christian life ought to be ordered. Repeat. You can go through all the motions of a dutiful Christian subculture, all of that without loving Christ. Private, interior life. is what's most important. We spent time this weekend honoring Douglas Kelley. Dr. Kelley's discipled me for two decades, tremendous influence, one of the great intellects in the world, in my opinion. One of his sons stood up and spoke. Dr. Kelley's been a pastor and theologian all of his life. Pastors' kids have complicated lives, don't they? They see dad in public, they see dad in private. One of his sons, his youngest, spoke and said, you know, all of dad's intellectual prowess, all that he knew, how many languages he knew, how many books he had memorized, that meant nothing to us growing up. What mattered to us was his interior life, who he was behind closed doors, how he loved Jesus in front of us. That's what made the indelible impact on our hearts. Some of you know you've drifted away and you know that spending time seeking Christ is what you need, but it's not what you want to do right now. Do you know what you need to do in the moments you don't want to do it? You need to do it. If you wanna grow an appetite for God's word, spend time in God's word and the appetite will grow. If you wanna grow an appetite for prayer, spend time in prayer and the appetite will grow. Read your Bibles, pray, fellowship with godly, mature, first love believers, and it will help you return to your first love. Now, it's clear from what the Lord Jesus is saying that if they do not change, then Ephesus is soon gonna drift to a stop. We'll come back to this at points during our study, but Ephesus did come to a stop as a church. They endured for some time, but there are very few Christians in that city now. The lampstand's gone. That's what Jesus warned about. I'll come to you, verse five, I'll come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. Not talking about individual members' salvation. It's about the glory of Christ departing from the church so that the church is no longer effective. The ministry of the word and sacraments grow cold. You've seen that happen in churches that were once passionate for the Lord Jesus and preached the scriptures and then over time, the glory departs. That's exactly what Christ is talking about here, the lampstand being taken away. And the church becomes lukewarm and it no longer glorifies God or does any good for its world. It's intentional that Ephesus is the first letter. I want you to look at the last letter. Laodicea would have been the last to receive it. I want you to see the warning given to them, verses 15 and 16. Jesus says, I know your works. You're neither hot nor cold. Would that you were either hot, cold or hot, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. You can't make that sound politically correct. It is Jesus saying, I will be done with this church if you do not repent. If you are content with a lukewarm Christianity, eventually, eventually the lampstand will be taken away. These are weighty words. If you do not remember, repent, and repeat, the lampstand will go. You'll become Laodicea. If a church does not heed the warnings of Ephesus, it becomes Laodicea. Well, the warning isn't where Jesus ends things. He's so kind. Despite all the hard words he's had to say, he is so kind. Look with me at verse seven. He who has an ear, 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. My dear flock, Jesus is saying persevere in the faith, persevere in the truth, hold fast to the one who is holding you. And these things, these distractions, these concerns that are occupying your heart, they are all short-lived because one day this world, this earth as we know it will pass away. And for you who remain faithful to the end, do you know what awaits you? Do you know what remains? Jesus says paradise with God. is what awaits. The tree of life there, this mention of the tree of life takes us all the way back to the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve had unhindered fellowship with God, but then they sinned, and God drove them out of paradise, and there he placed an angel with a flaming sword to guard the tree of life. Now that sounds perhaps harsh, but it was an act of kindness, because if they had eaten of the tree of life in their fallen state, man would have been immutably fixed. in its sin, just like the angels who fell. But Jesus promises here that as we endure in the faith till the end, we'll enjoy for eternity a type of face-to-face fellowship with God Himself, that the only thing we can compare it to is what Adam and Eve had in the garden, and even that was just a glimpse of how great eternity with Christ will be. This is why I continue to say Christ is the gardener and what He's doing among us as He walks and surveys for Scots is He's preparing us to be the fruit of His vineyard, the greater Eden, the new heavens and the new earth. And Christ loves this church and this church so much that He warns them because He doesn't want them to turn away and grow lukewarm like the Laodiceans. What if the Lord Jesus had written a letter to 1st Scots? What would He say to us? What would He commend? Yeah, I think in many ways, we're like the church of Ephesus. We have a godly heritage, men and women who establish this church. leaving churches of their own childhood because they desired for there to be a gospel witness and so they came and established this church that would proclaim the gospel. We have a distinguished heritage in a sense. We're serious about doctrine and we care about defending the faith. And I really believe we're willing to diligently persevere in the face of persecution that may come. But none of these matter if we lose, if we leave our first love. We don't have to wonder what Jesus would write to the church. He wrote these seven letters just as much to us as to these other churches. In those words, he who has an ear to hear, let him hear. What he's saying is if you are truly mine, you're not gonna brush these off. You're not gonna ignore these warnings. but you're gonna hear them, the warnings to remember, repent, and repeat the works you did at first. How do we apply this text to applications? We need to realize and remember that a church doesn't have to become apostate and wicked to displease God. Do you realize that? All we have to do is let other things be of greater importance than Jesus Christ. Christian values, conservative politics. Do you realize in many churches those are the more important factor than simple love for Jesus Christ? Those things will flow from love for Jesus Christ, but they're no substitute for love for Jesus Christ. None of it is a substitute for the gospel. Over a half century ago, Presbyterian minister in Philadelphia, Donald Gray Barnhouse, imagined what it might look like if Satan took over a city. Now, some of you have been to Philadelphia and you've said, I know exactly what it looks like if Satan takes over a city. But he says, what would it look like, really, if Satan took over a city? He said, all the bars would be closed, pornography banished, Pristine streets would be filled with tidy, tidy pedestrians who smile at each other. There would be no swearing. The children would say, yes sir, and no ma'am, and the churches would be full every Sunday. But Christ would not be preached. Do you love Jesus Christ? Not. Are you a conservative in your politics? Do you care about Christian values? Do you attend church? No, no. What matters? The evidence of the Spirit's work in you is that you love Jesus Christ. There is no substitute for that. Second, we see here the importance of training up future generations. We need to, as a church, intentionally, and this happens at the individual level, it's not really a curriculum issue. It's not really a program issue. We must teach our children, first and foremost, what it is to love God. As a congregation, that is our investment. That's the commitment we take when we baptize children into this church. And we are to do that, to teach children what it is to love God by both our words and by our lives. There was a study a few years ago by a man named Dr. Paul Heibert. And he tells of research that he had done on past generations of Mennonite people. Mennonites are a conservative Christian denomination, many sections of which have strayed. But he says, in his study, he saw that what would repeatedly happen, and this has happened with so many different, Factions of Christianity says one generation of Mennonites believed the gospel and for them it influenced their social economic and political lives. The second generation assumed the gospel, but they were more concerned with the social, economic, and political implications. In other words, they just, that's the culture they knew. They never really thought about who God was or what he had done for them. They went through the motions, but their hearts were not filled with affection for them. They just assumed it. And by the third generation, they still held to the same social, economic, and political implications, but denied the gospel. It is not enough simply to teach our children Christian values. It's not enough to try to propagate Christian politics. The better way forward is for you, even if you're a great-grandparent and have no children in this church, grandchildren, great-grandchildren in this church, the better way forward is that the people of this church teach the children of this church what it is to love Jesus Christ. That's one of those things that are better caught than taught. It's a duty for all church members. When we have children here in worship, when they're in fellowship meals, when they're at prayer meeting, wherever it is, let us teach them not merely the values of a Christian subculture. but to love Jesus from the heart. And by design, one of the ways that God tends to train children up into the next generation of believers is through the covenant community, modeling what it is to love Jesus Christ. And so, you know those sounds you hear during worship sometimes? Those are actually a call of your responsibility, church members, to train up the next generation in the nurture and admonition of Jesus Christ. Let's pray together. Our Lord and our God, we thank you for the word and confess there is not one person in this room that wasn't rebuked by this passage. Including myself, the chief of sinners. Thank you that your wounds heal us. Your rebukes bring about new life. And I pray, oh God, that we would not be careless like the Laodiceans. but that we would remember, repent, and repeat, just as Christ has called us to do. We pray this in his name. Amen. Take your hymnals, if you would, and our closing hymn is really a prayer, number 642, Be Thou My Vision. The Lord of my heart, love me always.