Well, I too am very thankful for the long friendship with Pastor Lush. From the beginning of your existence, you were in the prayer letters that I received and I and others have prayed for you. It hardly seems like it's possible that it's 25 years. It's very encouraging to be with you today. Very encouraging to be with you today. It's encouraging to see the slides. It was encouraging to hear the report. It's been encouraging to hear some of the things that weren't in the report that I've heard in the Lush's home since I've been here, I just repeat, looking back, seeing you now, it's very encouraging to be here. There were two texts that were going around in my mind this morning as I was praying for God's blessing upon you on this special day. One of them was Psalm 126.3, where the psalmist simply says, the Lord has done great things for us, whereof we are glad. And I pray that you would be glad. I pray that you would look back and see what the Lord has done. And it would just fill your hearts with joy and delight. The other text, of course, was Matthew 16, 18, where Jesus said, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And though there have certainly been discouragements and some of those discouragements may be traced back to the work of Satan opposing the church. Nonetheless, Christ has been faithful. And though there was a time when your numbers were small, and perhaps people's faith was small, and vision might have been small, and resources were small, Jesus Christ, who has been raised from the dead, was and is sufficient for this church. His faithfulness, His power, His grace have brought you to this place. And it is the same Lord Jesus that will carry you on in the decades to come. I would like to speak to you this morning on the subject of the centrality of love in Christ Church, the centrality of love in Christ Church. And I have two hopes and goals in addressing you concerning this subject. One is that you and I and we who are in the Church of Christ, that we would have a refreshed sense of privilege to be loved by God in the way that we have been loved. But the second is to restate, no doubt to reaffirm to you, a goal, an aspiration that should be at the front of the minds of each member of this assembly. An aspiration to more fully comprehend the love of God in Christ. And an apprehension to, I'm sorry, an aspiration to more fully convey the fruit of that love in your love for one another. So I'd like to address the centrality of love in Christ's church. Now, what I'd like to do is maybe a bit ambitious. What I'd like to do is to survey some of the large blocks of material in the Bible regarding the church in Ephesus. And these are the headings that I'd like to develop. Number one, that God's love is the foundation of church life. And I'd like to see that by an overview of Ephesians chapters 1, 2, and 3, that God's love is the foundation of church life. Secondly, that Christian love is the essence of church life. That Christian love, that is the love that we have for one another, Christian love is the essence of church life. And that I'd like us to see by an overview of Ephesians chapters 4 and 5. And then finally, I'd like us to see that the decline of love is the ruin of church life, and that is seen in an overview of Jesus' message to the church in Ephesus in Revelation chapter 2. So, let us begin by that first heading, that God's love is the foundation, or we could say the source, of church life. Now, turn please to the book of Ephesians. I'd like us to just dip into these verses. It is wonderful that you're having a careful exposition of the book of Ephesians. Pastor Lush does not need to worry in regard to what he said at the introduction. We do read the same book. We are led by the same spirit. I'm sure that we are thinking the same thoughts about the book of Ephesians. But I'd like us to see from these first three chapters that God's love is set forth as the foundation for church life. Four points I'd like us to see from these chapters. Number one is that God's love in eternity past is the basis of salvation. Now, that's as simple and plain and well known to most of you as the fact that you have two ears. But bear with me just a moment. That God's love in eternity past is the basis for our salvation. Look at these verses in chapter one, chapter one, verse three. Blessed be the God and Father. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him. in love having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. You'll notice that little phrase at the end of verse 4, in love. There are different opinions about how that passage is to be translated. There are primarily three ideas that these different translations would suggest. They all lead to the same point for this sermon. It could be that Paul is saying that God chose us in love. It could be that he's saying that his love was the base of election, that God chose us in the context of his love. It could be that that's what Paul means. It could be that Paul is saying that he chose us that we might live in his love, that we might be holy and without blame before him and live in his love. Or it might be, as some of the newer translations would have us think, that the punctuation should be different, that there should be a period after him and that in love begins a new statement, in love having predestined us to the adoption of sons. I think it's the latter. But it could be either one of those three. The point is that That which lies behind election, that which lies behind predestination, that orbit into which God's eternal purpose is to take us, is the love of God. The love of God is the womb from which every conception of our salvation arises. We must not allow ourselves to think of God just being the God of abstract decrees, the changeless, eternal, passionless God. We're supposed to think of God loving human beings. And because of God loving human beings, he conceived and then executed this great complex scheme of redeeming individuals from sin and from death. But the first point is simply that God's love in eternity past is the basis of salvation in the general sense. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son here in his love. Not that we loved God, but that God loved us and gave his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. The love of God is what lies behind the whole scheme of salvation. God's love in the present. We were talking about God's love in the past. But secondly, God's love in the present is the basis of each individual conversion. God's love in the present is the cause. It's the moving force of each individual conversion. Look at how Paul lays this out in chapter two, the passage that was read earlier. In chapter two, verses one through three, Paul describes the Ephesians before they became Christians. And you know from the book of Acts, when you read about the church in Ephesus, there were Jews, there were Gentiles, there were magicians, there were all sorts of people that were converted in the city of Ephesus and brought into this church. And this description that he makes applies to them all. It applies to those who were very wicked pagans and who were Magicians, it applies to those who were raised in God-fearing Jewish families. It applies to them all. But look at what it says. He says, you, he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins, dead like a corpse, dead, unable to change. unable to get free from the various bondages that he's going to describe in this passage. You were dead in your trespasses and sins. And once you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were nature children of wrath, just as the others." He said we all were in that position. Each one of us walked according to the course of the world. Each one of us walked according to the dictates and influences of Satan. Each one of us in the past walked under the influence of that spirit that now does work in the sons of disobedience. He says each one of us were walking in the lusts of our flesh and fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Again, please remember the diversity of types of people that were in the city of Ephesus and that are being described by this passage. Those nice little boys and girls who were raised in God-fearing Jewish families are being described by this passage. Those very ugly pagans who had to burn their magical books are being described by this passage. It's a description of each one of you who is savingly joined to Jesus Christ now. We're supposed to occasionally remember what we were like. We're supposed to remember what we're like lest we'd be proud. We're supposed to remember what we're like so that we can know the dynamic of what Jesus said. Having been forgiven much, we love much. It's important for us to remember what we were. But the point that I want to come to is what he says next. Here are these people, all sorts, children of wrath. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love, And there's the phrase because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Why did God go to one of those pagan magicians in Ephesus, dead in his trespasses and sins, a child of wrath, following Satan's course? Why did God go to him and convert him? Because of the great love that he had for that individual, he converted him. He took him in his dead inability and made him alive in the Lord Jesus Christ. Reflect upon your conversions. Some of you, no doubt, were nice children who were raised in nice settings. You never became a drug addict. You never joined a motorcycle gang. You never worried about sexually transmitted diseases. And yet you were like this passage describes in the first three verses. Why did God bother with you? Why did he come and make you alive? Because he loved you as an individual. Some of you have come from backgrounds that are not so nicely described. Some of you have tasted much and drunk deeply of the evil of our age and of our world. And you know a great deal about the horrendous effects of sin and its sorrow and its ruin. And perhaps you're more grateful for conversion because you had tasted so much of the horror and the ugliness and the bondage of the world. But whether you were saved out of the nice Christian home or whether you were saved out of the depths of the world's depravity, in each case when you were converted, that conversion was an expression of the individual love of God for you. Because of the great love with which He loved us, He took us when we were dead individuals and made us alive. He joined us to the life of Christ and converted our souls and caused us to be born again. God's love in the past is the basis of salvation in general. God's love in the present is the cause of each individual conversion. And now number three, that God's love in the past and in the present, God's love from eternity past, as well as God's love expressed in the individual conversions, God's love in the past and in the present produce one new church. And that's the theme of chapter two, verse 11, through chapter three and verse 13. In the book of Ephesians, both these expressions of God's love. His love in eternity past and his love in the present, each expression of God's love converge upon this one theme. The love of God which lies behind his eternal purpose and the love of God which causes each individual conversion terminates upon the goal of forming one great body of people, one great body of people who are reconciled to God and who are reconciled to each other. It would just take too long to go through all the details of the passage, so I'm going to have to ask you to be like the Bereans and go home later and check this out and make sure that I'm not leading you astray. But that is exactly what the Apostle Paul is saying here. In the light of chapter 1, how the love of God lies behind all of his eternal purposes. In the light of what we've just looked at in chapter 2, how it is the love of God that lies behind each individual conversion. Now he's saying in chapter 2, verse 11, that that love, in both of those expressions, has this goal. It's to take individuals that he loves, individuals that he loves and therefore has united them to Christ, and unite them together in the church of Jesus Christ. The goal of God's love is not simply to convert individuals. It is to convert individuals and join them together. Verse 11 of chapter 2. Therefore, remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands, that at that time you are without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who are once far off have been brought nigh by the blood of Christ. And then he becomes more specific, for he himself is our peace. That is, Christ is our peace, who has made both one, both. The Jews in Christ and the Gentiles in Christ, He has made them both one. And then he goes on to more details about how he and his death has broken down the law which stood between us and how we are all together now to be united in this one temple, this one church where God himself dwells. All of that is the product of God's love in eternity past and God's love to individuals in the present in saving them and uniting them to Christ. It's a rather complicated theme to develop, but in chapter three, he opens this up fuller. In chapter 3, he talks about how he, Paul, has been commissioned to preach this great mystery that was hidden from all the ages until Paul was commissioned to declare it. And that great mystery is that the Gentiles and the Jews together in Christ are to form this one great body. That was a great mystery. People didn't understand that on the basis of the old covenant revelation. But now he's come to proclaim this mystery. And he says in chapter 3, verses 10 and 11, that this mystery, which he's now revealing, that the Jews and the Gentiles would be together in Christ in one church, this mystery of the church, He says, is in fact the outworking of the eternal counsel, the eternal purpose of God. And we saw in chapter one that it is his love of God which lies behind his eternal purpose. What is the eternal purpose? The eternal purpose in part is to create this church. The point being that the goal, the focal point of the love of God in eternity past and in the conversion of each individual is to create this church. It is the love of God. It is the design of the love of God to create the church. It's imperative that we see this. It is not just an abstract decree of God's. It is not just his law, his will, that he wants a church. The church is the product of love. It's the product of eternal love. And it's the product of individual expressions of love. Why did he love you? Why did he convert you? Not just to take you to heaven. and not just to forgive your sins, and not just to take you into a posture throughout eternity where he's going to display his kindness to you. The purpose of his love was to gather together the church. Now, I want you to move to the fourth point. I've tried to say that his love in the past is the basis of salvation in general. His love in the present is the basis of each individual conversion. The goal of his love in the past and the present is to create the church. And now in the fourth place, in the fourth place, I'd like you to see from this prayer in Ephesians chapter two, chapter three, that God's love in the past and in the present must be known and sensed in the church. God's love in the past and in the present must be sensed in the church. It's interesting how Paul unfolds this letter, this great doctrinal statement in chapter one about the eternal purposes of God flowing out of love. Then this statement in chapter two about God saving individuals because he loves them. And then this elaborate development of how this love focuses upon the creation of the church. And the next thing he steps away from these grand theological statements and writes a prayer. And what is the burden of the prayer? Well, the burden of the prayer seems to be that we would increase in this awareness of the love of God. Look at the prayer, please. Verse 14, for this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For what reason? It would seem that the reason is larger than the point that he makes in verse 14. It would seem that the reason is the whole flow of the context. In the light of the eternal love of God lying behind salvation. In the light of the love of God being expressed to individuals in their conversion. In the light of the church being the product of the confluence of these loves. In the light of that, he's going to pray for us to appreciate love. Depending on how you understand this prayer, there are various petitions. I suppose many would say there are four petitions in this prayer. But the heart of the prayer is that we comprehend love. I believe you're studying this prayer now, so let me just read parts of it. Verse 16, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, To be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And now, this series of phrases. That you being rooted and grounded in love. And it's not asking them to be rooted and grounded in love. It's like this is an assumption. You being Christians. You being saved. You being rooted and grounded in love. This is the prayer. That having that base. that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height, to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. For this reason, I bow my knees to the Father, because God's eternal love lies behind the whole scheme of redemption, because God's love to you as individuals has effected your separate conversions because God's love has been focused upon establishing the church, the church where he would dwell. Because this is true, the burden of Paul's prayer is that they would comprehend this love. Because this is to be at the heart and dynamic of the life of the church. A sense, an awareness of the love of God in Christ for them as individuals in their conversions. And the love of God for them as a body of his people who become the special focus of his affections. Look again at the language of the prayer itself in verse 18. That you would be able to comprehend with all the saints. This is not a private thing that he wants. He wants all the saints to come to this position. The whole church It should be regarded as a prayer for the church. It's not primarily a prayer for the individual, for a few individuals. It's a prayer for the individuals as a corporate body, that the whole church would come to this position. He prays that this immense scope of the love of God, the width, the length, the depth and height, that they would know it. But notice how he says it, that they would know something that passes knowledge. How do you do that? How do you know something that is beyond the scope of knowledge? And I think there are many ways that that question has to be answered, but surely part of the answer is that he is referring to something in the realm of experience. He's referring to something that is beyond the realm of intellectual comprehension. He's asking that God would help him to know something that can't be known. He's asking, I think the point is he's asking God to help him to not only intellectually understand the verses, But in the depth of their being, at the level of experience, to sense, to know in that way what is impossible to comprehend intellectually. We can go to all the verses in the Bible that describe the love of God. We can study them. We can know them. We can memorize them. We can repeat them. We can categorize them. We can line up all the details under good headings. We can intellectually comprehend the words themselves. But he's asking God to give something that is beyond knowledge. He's asking God to give something that is beyond intellectual categories. He's asking God to give them something where they comprehend at the level of experience as well as at the level of the intellect. I think the point that Paul is trying to make in this prayer is he wants God's people in all the churches, the Ephesian church, in all the churches, to be able to say what John says in 1 John chapter 4 and verse 16. These are sort of revolutionary verses to some people. In 1 John chapter 4 and verse 16, John says, we have known and believed the love that God has for us. There are some of the Lord's people who don't seem to be able to do this. They don't seem to be able to grasp the fullness of the love that God has for them, the absolute acceptance that he makes of them in the beloved, the sympathies that he has for their weaknesses, the father-like tenderness that he has for all of their cares. John was able to say that. We have known and believed the love that God has for us. Paul wants the people at Ephesus to have a sense, to know and to believe and to have some sense of how large and how great the love of God in Christ is for his people. You see the movement that he's making. Theological statement, God's eternal decrees are based upon love. Theological statement, your individual conversions are the expression of love. Theological statement, that God's love focuses upon establishing the church. But now he's going beyond theological statements. He's praying. He's not making didactic teaching statements. He's praying. And he's asking for God to do something that statements alone can't do. He's asking for the Lord to answer this prayer that the people in the church in Ephesus would have this overwhelming awareness of the love of God for them in Christ Jesus. That's the first heading that I'd like to develop in the longest heading. That is that God's love is the foundation of church life. God's love. God's love in eternity past. God's love in the present. God's love creating the church and God's love being sensed and felt in the church. Now, in the second place, I'd like us to consider that Christian love is the essence of church life. From many remarks that have been made since I've been here, since some of the written remarks that were made in the PowerPoint presentation this morning, I think that you know this already. You know that the essence of church life is Christian love. But I want you to think about this for a moment. What is the essence of church life? If you were just to define that to somebody who walked in and said, what is the essence of life in this church? I would you say, well, it is it is agreement with our doctrinal statement. It is a determination to be present at all the meetings. It is a determination to properly prioritize our finances so that we can support the kingdom of God here and abroad. It would not be wrong to list those things as parts of what it is to be members of this church, but the essence of church life does not reside in those things. The essence of church life is Christian love. Now, in these chapters, chapters four and five, you see this. You see the apostle Paul coming at this from a number of directions. And again, I just want to be suggestive. Number one, that Christian love is the basis for unity in the church. Look at chapter four, verses one and two. I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called. And that's a pregnant verse. What were they called to? In other parts of the Bible, we'll read about being called to the fellowship of Jesus Christ and so forth, but in this part, we're called to life in the church. And he wants them to walk worthily of the calling with which they are called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love. Now, through verse six, the theme is unity, but the focus is upon loving one another. If there is to be unity, it's going to be created and sustained with a certain disposition. Unity is not going to be created and sustained with a doctrinal statement. I have been with people who all shared the same doctrinal statement and there was a noticeable absence of unity. A common doctrinal statement doesn't produce unity. It's love that produces unity. And Paul is very explicit in another passage which we will not look at for the sake of time, Colossians chapter 4 verses 14 and 15. He says in that passage that above all things we are to put on love because he says love is the bond of perfection. Love is that strap which holds together, binds together very diverse people. It's not in any way to depreciate the importance of doctrine. Surely nobody has ever emphasized the importance of doctrine more than the Apostle Paul. The doctrine by itself was not sufficient. The doctrine had to produce love, and it would be love, it would be the disposition that provided the bond of unity between them. Secondly, not only is Christian love the basis of church unity, but secondly, Christian love is the atmosphere of individual ministry and church growth. Now, again, it's so complicated, it's so large, rather, chapter 4, verses 7 through 16. I'd like you to read that carefully and appreciate this. The church is called, as lots of people gather together, different gifts in the church, we're supposed to function as a body, we're supposed to minister to each other. But that ministry is to be in the atmosphere of a conscious love for one another. Look at some of the language. In verse 11, he gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. That's a general statement of what we're all supposed to be doing. We all have different parts in the body, but the general goal of all of us is to minister to one another and to edify the body of Christ. And you'll see some words about that define what the goal is that we're all supposed to be working toward. But look at verse 15. Speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head Christ from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies. according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. Now, I will come and listen to Pastor Lush's exposition of this passage, because this is surely one of the most difficult and complex passages in the book of Ephesians. So we'll stay at the superficial level. But what lies on the surface of these verses that I've just read? It lies on the surface that every one of us is to take our place in ministering to one another. And as we do it, it's to be, according to verse 15, in the context of love. Speaking the truth in love. The word speaking the truth is probably broader than oral communication. Speaking the truth, displaying the truth, living the truth in love. It's almost a cruel thing to display truth if it isn't in the context of love. It can be an arrogant, hurtful thing to display truth if it isn't in the context of love. So we're supposed to convey truth to one another in the context of love. And then this verse 15 and 16 is a very complicated passage. The whole body is to do something. Each part is to make a supply. And Christ is to make all of that effective. So here is each one of us bringing our part. Christ making it all effective. But the effect is that we're edifying ourselves in love. Everything in the ministry of the church and everything in the ministries that we have to one another is to be consciously done in the context of love. It's a wonderful thing to have a clear sense of duty. It's a wonderful thing to have a clear sense of what our place is in the church. Wonderful things. And sometimes at the lowest levels of our existence, duty may be the only thing that motivates us sufficiently. but it will never motivate us for very long. That which is really successful in sustaining ministry to one another is a conscious sense of loving each other, a conscious sense of being forgiven, of wanting to be forgiving, a conscious sense of how much God loves that person. And if God loves that person so much that he gave his son to die for him, and if God loves that person so much that Jesus ever lives each day to make intercessions, to make sure that individual is saved, if we think of people like that, it will be a lot easier to love them And if we do love them, then our ministries toward one another will be effective. Christian love is the basis for church unity. Christian love is the atmosphere of individual ministries and of church growth. And Christian love is the basis for personal relationships in the church. I'm not going to develop this. That would be in chapter 4, verse 17 through chapter 5, verse 21. You come to sort of a high point passage in chapter 5, verse 1. Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us and so forth. That whole section before and after those verses is talking about interpersonal relationships in the church. It's a mistake to go to this passage and see it as a statement of Christian ethics in general. Obviously, you can derive Christian ethics from this passage, but it's primarily not about Christian ethics in general. It's primarily about how church members are supposed to relate to each other. It's primarily about how we're to minister to each other, speak to each other, forgive each other, help each other, and so forth. And the apex passage is the one that I just read. We're supposed to do it like God gives himself to us. We're supposed to do it like Jesus gives himself to us. Everything we do toward one another is to be in the context of love. The third point that I'd like us to consider before our time is gone is that the failure of love is the ruin of church life. We have considered that God's love is the foundation of church life, and that Christian love is the essence of church life, and now the decline of love is the ruin of church life. And I would like you to look at what Jesus said to the Ephesian church as recorded in Revelation chapter 2. Revelation chapter 2. You remember in Revelation chapter 1, John sees this vision of Christ, the resurrected Christ, walking among the lampstands. And the lampstands, he says, are the seven churches. And it's a vision of Jesus being with his churches, Jesus knowing his churches, Jesus loving his churches. And now you have these communications of Jesus to the seven churches. The first church is the church in Ephesus. It's interesting, really interesting, I think, to trace out what the Bible does tell us about the church in Ephesus. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the Ephesian church was the most privileged of all the churches that we read of in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul himself brought the gospel there. And then after Paul was there, the church enjoyed the ministry of Priscilla and Aquila and Apollos. And then Paul came again. And after a number of Sabbaths, then he took up a ministry in the school of Tyrannus for over two years. Very serious ministry, that was the second time that the Apostle Paul was there. So there's Paul, then there's Apollos and the others, then Paul comes back for this long ministry, then Paul leaves and later Paul sends Timothy to the church in Ephesus. And then some years after Timothy is gone, the Apostle John moves to the city of Ephesus and no doubt was a large part of the ministry of the church in Ephesus. And now some years after that, you have this statement by Jesus in Revelation chapter 2. When we read the commendation that Jesus makes of the church in Ephesus, it makes that background very significant. What would it be like to have the apostle Paul plant the church? What would it be like to have him send his special delegate, Timothy, to help the church later on? What would it be like to have the apostle John just come and live minister in the church and very likely the epistles of 1st John that he wrote were written in reference to the Ephesian church and other churches around that area. Great privilege. Notice what it says now. Chapter 2, the angel of the church of Ephesus write, these things says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand who walks in the midst of the seven golden candle stands. I know your works, your labor, your patience, that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they're apostles and are not and have found them liars. And you persevered and have patience and have labored for my name's sake and not become weary. Those are very high commendations. They're soberingly high commendations. You would think that if those things are true of a church, that church is a exemplary church. They cannot bear with those who are evil. Somebody commits some kind of obvious immorality, some evil, they're out of the church. That church couldn't bear with evil people in them. They test those. Apparently, there are people who are coming saying, I have apostolic gifts. Well, they're commended because they test those characters who come like that. And they expose those who are frauds and they put them out. They're praised for their doctrinal purity and their doctrinal integrity. They're praised for their perseverance. 25 years, 50 years. They're praised for their perseverance. They're praised for their labor and for their zeal. And then he says this in verse 4, Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember, therefore, for whence you are fallen. Repent and do the first works. or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent." Now think of what he said. I have something against you. You've left your first love. I understand that to be first in terms of chronology, not first in terms of priorities, not saying you've left your love for Jesus. If they'd left their love for Jesus, they'd be apostate. I understand that to be that they've left their first love in terms of chronology. The love that characterized them at the beginning has faded away. The ardor which characterized them at the beginning no longer exists. What they were at the beginning in terms of love is now different in terms of love. And notice how serious this is to the Lord Jesus. He says, unless this love issue is corrected, I will take your lampstand away from you. I think most would understand that he's saying, I will de-church you. You remember in the previous, in the vision, he's walking on the lampstands. The lampstands are the churches. So he's saying to the Ephesian church, that which constitutes a church, a church, I'm going to take that away from you. That's a threat that the Lord Jesus makes to them. If you will not shape up in this area of love, If you'll not go back and approximate something of the original ardor of your love for God and your love for Christ and your love for the saints and your love for the lost, if you'll not go back to something close to that original love, I will disenfranchise you. You will not be a church any longer. Now, that's a sobering statement in light of the commendation. If they had left doctrinal truth Or if they had held on to doctrinal truth, but they allowed all kinds of evil people to constitute their membership. That would be much easier to understand then. It'd be much easier to understand if Jesus said, you've let all these wicked people remain in the church as long as you so foul the air of my worship and of the temple of God. I'll remove your church from you. Or if they had apostatized in terms of doctrine, they didn't believe in the deed of Jesus any longer. If they wouldn't accept that Jesus was the son of God any longer, you might understand him saying, if you don't get this right, I'm going to disenfranchise you as a church. It is the issue of love, though. It is the issue of affection. That is what is the cause for such a sobering threat by the Lord Jesus Christ. The failure to love is the ruin of the life of the church. Now, I would like to make some very brief and obvious applications of all this and we'll be done. And I say these are both brief and obvious. Probably most of you could stand up here and preach the sermon from this point. They're so obvious that may there plainness and obviousness not allow us to lose the importance of this principle. Number one, of course, the Church of Jesus Christ should be known for its observable love. You should not be known for persevering 25 years. I'm glad that that's true, but that should not be the defining hallmark characteristic of you as a congregation. Your perseverance should not be the hallmark of the congregation. Doctrinal integrity should be assumed in this congregation. You have been taught well. You are squarely standing in the historic stream of biblical orthodoxy. Biblical integrity should be assumed in this setting. People should learn about this church. And oh, yes, they're doctrinally correct. Yes, they are. But what they should really notice is that this church loves. It's interesting, and it's one of these obvious things, but it's interesting to notice this, how Paul thought that love is an observable feature. He writes, Ephesians 1.15, therefore, also after I heard of your faith and your love for all the saints. Colossians 1.3, we give thanks to God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying for you since we heard of your faith and of your love for all the saints. To the Thessalonians, he says, but concerning brotherly love, you have no need that I write to you. So you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. And indeed, listen to this. And indeed, you do so toward all the brethren who are in Macedonia. Well, how did he know that he heard it? Somebody reported it. There was something that was observable about the love of the church in Ephesus at that time and the love of the church in Colossae and the love of the church in the city of Thessalonica. People that attended their people that rubbed shoulders with those people, they understood those people loved one another. And in reference to two of those churches, they didn't only love one another. They loved all the saints that were around them. The point is that was observable. That's what the churches should be known for. You are and we are Reformed Baptist congregations, and there are some distinctives that we hold dear and we're not ashamed to take that title, but we don't want to be known primarily as Reformed Baptists. We want to be known primarily as people who love God and love his son. And because of our love for him, we're devoted to him and everything that he says. And because he has constituted us in love and because he calls us to love one another, we do love one another. That's what we should be known for. There is a lot of talk and a lot of thinking, a lot of writing about the subject of relevance, how the church is to be relevant in this odd society in which we live. And if there's some people that seem to be wringing their hands, that if we don't learn to be more relevant, the church is just going to disappear from the earth. Well, it is important to study the culture. It is important for us to learn proper ways to be relevant. But the human condition is the same in every culture, and the human condition is the same century after century after century. And human beings cry out to be loved. It doesn't matter if they're postmodern or modern or medieval. Human beings cried out to be loved. Seeing love doesn't save them. The truth of the gospel under the influence of the Spirit is what saves them. But God has ordained to use love as an apologetic. God has ordained to use love as one of the primary means that Christian people and the Christian church make an effective connection between ourselves and the world. You know these verses I trust, but let me refer to them anyway. John chapter 13, verse 34, a new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you. And then he says this, by this all will know that you are my disciples. Jesus is not saying if they observe your love that they will be saved. But he is saying if they observe the way you love each other, they will know that you have become my disciples. If the world observes natively selfish people like all of us, if the world observes that natively selfish, self-absorbed, materialistic people like all of us, if the world observes that such people have been changed, changed, not just that they left the motorcycle gangs, not just that they say prayers at their meals, not just that they homeschool their children. but that they've been changed at the level of their affections, to where they love each other in ways that are knowable and observable. Jesus says, when they see that, they'll know something about your integrity. They'll know you're not just religious nuts. They'll know you're just not crazy people. They'll know you are my disciples. Now, listen to this passage in John chapter 17 and verse 21, where Jesus is praying for the disciples to be united in love. And he makes this statement in John chapter 17 and 21 verse 21, that the world may believe that you sent me. Now we're getting closer to the gospel. The first was he wants them to love each other, because when the world sees it, that they'll know that they're really his disciples. This is going beyond that. Jesus is praying for their unity, for their love for one another, so that the world may believe that you, the father, has sent me. How could that happen? Well, it could not happen unless our love is observed in the context of some kind of teaching. But what does it look like if you tell somebody in the world that the gospel is the power of God into salvation? The gospel is able to come to you in your sex-saturated life or your drug-ruined life or your materialistic obsessions. The gospel is able to come to you and free you. The gospel is able to come to you and liberate you. The gospel is able to give you the new birth. The gospel is able to change you. The gospel is able to make you no longer be a lover of self and pleasure and change you so that you'll be a lover of God. And you tell them all this. And then they come to church and they see that the people in the church are just dressed better, but they're basically like everyone else in the world. They're struggling to make their money. They're struggling for this. They're self-absorbed. Sounds like all a big sham. But if you tell them, about the power of the gospel in changing individuals. And you tell them that Jesus Christ is your Savior and He is the Son of God, who Himself is able to change us. And then they come and they see it. And they say, it must be true. Jesus must be the Son of God. Jesus must be the one sent by the Father to redeem His people from their sins. That's Jesus' prayer. That's not my... Interpretation is not something that a man has just thrown in to make a sermon, have a little kick to it. That's Jesus prayer. He wants his people to have such an observable love that people will see it and they will know that the father has sent the son. The same idea is expressed in verse 23, and you can look at those passages, John 15, 35 and John 17, 21 and John 17, 23. The first application I'm trying to make is that the Church of Jesus Christ should be known for its observable love. And if that's going to happen, somehow the world has to see us in settings other than this. Somehow the world has to see us bearing each other's burdens. Somehow the world has to see us giving of our substance for one another. Some non-Christian neighbor has to know about you being ill and not being able to make your mortgage payments and the brothers come and do it for you. Are you being ill and not being able to mow your grass? The brothers come and do it for you. And in the course of conversations, you're talking about how the people of God love each other and how I have been the recipient of this special love. And you tell them and you tell them and you tell them that's how they're going to see our love for each other. You're all nice to each other, but people don't mistake that for love. People come in here and see you smile at each other and shake hands. They don't mistake that. That's just courtesy. How are they going to see our love? Somehow we have to make the love of Christ in the church observable to people. Secondly, we must be alert to the danger of growing cold in love. And that's the Revelation 2 passage. How did it happen to them? How did it happen to them? Given all their privileges, all their fine instruction, all their fine foundations from two apostles and an apostolic representative, how did it happen to them? I don't pretend to know the answer to that question, that it did happen. You are very privileged too. You have been raised up in the context of truth. You have been raised up, as I said earlier, in the context of standing squarely in the mainstream of historic Orthodox Christianity. You have had a faithful pastor from the beginning of this church's existence. So did they. So did they. And somehow in ways that perhaps to them were imperceptible. Somehow they came to a place where Jesus was threatening to disenfranchise them if they didn't shape up in the area of love. Maybe they thought their zeal and they were full of zeal. They were dealing with the evil people among them. They were dealing with the heretics among them. They were laboring. They were persevering. Maybe they thought somehow that their zeal was mistaken for love. Be careful about that. Be careful about that, that your zeal for truth and your zeal for purity and your zeal for ecclesiastical propriety. Be careful that zeal for those things are mistaken for love. So the second point is that even you who have such a good history and such a good foundation Even you, like the Ephesian church, have so much for which to praise God. Be aware. Be aware that such a church faces the possibility of failing in love. And finally, let me simply say again the most obvious thing. You ask yourself, what do you need most in this church? The simplest answer to that would be, say, what you need most is more of the influence of Christ. More of the influence of Christ. But under that heading, what you need most is love. Because you have zeal and you have doctrinal purity, what you need most is to abound in love. And so as you are glad for what the Lord has done during these 25 years, And you should have a sense of holy optimism about what the Lord will do in the decades to come. As you enjoy that, put this at the front of your mind. Like the Thessalonian church, we have love, but we must abound more and more in love, lest we lose everything that the Lord Jesus Christ himself has died to accomplish in this place. May it be so that over the decades to come, people rub shoulders with this church and they say how they love each other. And then they learn they love each other because God has been so gracious to them. God has forgiven them. Because they're forgiven, they want to see other people forgiven. May it be so that they'll come and rub shoulders with you and see a tenderness the absence of hypocrisy, the absence of religious elitism, the absence of all that which turns sinful people away from religious people, that they see the absence of all that and see the bright face of the love of Christ in this place, and that multitudes would say they really are the disciples of Jesus, that multitudes would say the Father really did send their Savior, and that multitudes would be drawn to Christ in this place. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you that in love you have predestined us to the adoption of sons. We thank you that in your mercy and because of the great love with which you've loved us that you've caused most in this room to be made alive in your Son. We thank you for the privilege of being members of the Church which you have created as a sphere for the exercise of love. And we echo the Apostle Paul's prayer. that you would help your people in this place, that you would help them, that Christ would dwell in their hearts by faith, that they, being rooted and grounded in love, would be able to comprehend with all the saints the immense measures of your love in Christ, and that you would help them to know the love that passes knowledge, that the awareness of your love would so mold them and shape them, that they would be obviously distinct from other religious people and certainly distinct from the world, and that you would get great glory to yourself because of their obvious love. We pray together in Jesus' name. Amen.