Please turn in your Bibles to Revelation chapter two. Revelation chapter two. The song we just sung, interestingly enough, especially in those verses that we sang, draws a lot from Paul's epistle to the Ephesians. And it uses a lot of the images that the Apostle Paul used to teach the Ephesians about what the church is and how it is a body of people reconciled not only to each other but to God through Christ through his dying love for them. So it's very appropriate that we're just saying that. We're going to be talking a good deal about the church at Ephesus this morning from Revelation chapter two. If the Lord Jesus dictated a letter to our church, what do you think he would say? And more importantly maybe, no matter what he said, how would you respond to what he said? Would you take credit for the things he praises while denying your own involvement in the things he rebukes? Oh, he must be talking about someone else in this church. I wonder. Or, if Christ wrote a letter to our church, would you humbly listen and respond, acknowledging your role in this church, that you're part of the body, and we're all in this together? That, in fact, is the very question before us today, because Christ wrote a letter, which is for every local church, even though he addressed it originally to the Church of Ephesus, but he makes it very clear in our passage this morning that this is the Spirit speaking to every local church. It says in verse six, or rather in verse seven, that whoever has an ear, he needs to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches in this letter. So let's read this letter. I call this Jesus' Epistle to the Ephesians. Jesus' Epistle to the Ephesians. But before we read it, let me remind you of one more thing. This is part of a whole book called the Book of the Revelation. And all the other churches of this group of seven churches listed, all the other churches got their own letter. We're not gonna deal with all that today. and every church got to listen in on what Jesus had to say to the other churches. It's quite sobering that Jesus had no problem with telling Ephesus what he thought of them and letting all the other churches know it. Let's read, starting in verse one of chapter two. This is the Apostle John writing down the words that Jesus gave him. To the angel of the church in Ephesus write, the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven golden lampstands says this, I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance and that you cannot tolerate evil men and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles and they are not and you found them to be false. and you have perseverance, and have endured for my namesake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore, remember from where you have fallen, and repent, and do the deeds you did at first, or else I am coming to you, and will remove your lampstand out of its place, unless you repent. Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. Before directly saying what this has to do with our local church, Let's walk through this letter in its original context. We'll go all the way through it, trying to figure out simply what it meant back when it was written. And then we'll come back through and see what it means here and now for our church. You should have an insert in your bulletin to that effect so that you can follow me more easily with my flow of thought here. But before we, the first thing that we should do, I should say, as we try to work our way through this passage, is to remember that it is simply the continuation of chapter one. Not only is it in the same book as chapter one, but there's no break between the chapters. Jesus, the risen Lord, has appeared to the Apostle John in a vision. The Apostle John is on the island of Patmos, exiled for his faith, for his leadership role in the church. He's exiled by the Roman government, apparently, and he is in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, on Sunday, and he suddenly has this vision. First he hears the voice, then he sees the vision. He has this vision of Christ, as he is in his heavenly glory today, in his heavenly role. It's highly figurative in that there are all sorts of things pointed out about how Jesus has hair as white as wool, as snow, and he has a sword coming out of his mouth, and all sorts of things that are pointed out about his appearance in the vision. And this is imagery that's drawn from the book of Daniel, largely. that describes now the Lord Jesus. It's imagery taken, for one thing, from how Daniel saw the Most High God, the Ancient of Days, seated on his throne, Daniel chapter seven. But it's also imagery that was used for the Son of Man in the book of Daniel, the one who was appointed to rule the kingdom of heaven. And so, chapter two is just the continuation of what Jesus was saying in this vision to the Apostle John. And he's speaking in all his authority as the Son of God and the Son of Man. In fact, remember when John first saw him in this vision, he fell down at his feet like a dead man, and Jesus had to lift him up and tell him not to be afraid. Jesus is awesome in his appearance here, and it should sober us. And it's no accident that he is described in all his glory before he starts talking directly to each church that he's going to address. He tells John, write a book, which we know is the book of the Revelation, and send it to the seven churches of Asia, a Roman province in what's modern-day Turkey. And right after he says all this, Jesus in the vision now starts to give a short address, a short letter within the larger letter, larger book, a short letter to each of these seven churches. Ephesus is first. Makes sense because Ephesus was probably first on the route that would be taken to deliver these letters. It was also maybe in some senses the most important city. It was where the gospel had first gone out into this province of Asia, largely. You remember Ephesus is the church where the Apostle Paul worked hard for three years, where his protege Timothy did ministry, and where the Apostle John ended up. We know from church history. So here we have, starting in verse one, the introduction. The introduction. And this introduction shows us Jesus' personal care for his churches. he repeats some imagery from the vision that was just stated in chapter one. He calls himself the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, and the one who walks among the seven golden lampstands. Now, just in the very last verse of chapter one, Jesus had explained what these things meant. He said the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. And the seven golden lampstands are the seven churches. Each lampstand represented a local church. So here he speaks, he addresses this first letter to the angel of the church in Ephesus. Now there's a lot of disagreement about what is meant by the angel of the Church of Ephesus or the angel of the Church of Smyrna or whatever. And I'm not gonna solve it for you this morning. That's not my big point. I could say on the one hand it's possible that in some sense there's some idea of a guardian angel or a heavenly counterpart to each church. And people argue for that because that's how the term angel is normally used in the Book of Revelation. But it might be more likely that Paul is talking, not Paul, that Jesus is referring to human messengers. That's what the word angel literally means, a messenger. It seems likely that he's talking about human messengers, maybe the one responsible to read the letter to their church, very possibly a pastoral leader. But like I said, I'm not gonna solve that for you this morning. That's a difficult question in the book of the Revelation. But I can be very, very clear on what the seven lampstands are. Jesus says they're the seven churches. And the church in Ephesus is represented by one of these lampstands. Now it's said Jesus is the one who holds these messengers or these angels in his right hand. That's the hand of strength and of favor in especially Jewish thinking of the time. And I think it just indicates Jesus' control and protection of the church leadership. He is in full control of them and of their circumstances, and he's upholding them, he's protecting them. Reminds me of the Gospel of John, where Jesus says that no one can snatch anyone out of the Father's hand, and believers are not only in my hand, but they're in the Father's hand. Jesus also walks among the seven golden lampstands. Now why lampstands? Why is the picture here of lampstands? Well, notice the symbolism that's being used here to picture the churches. Remember in the tabernacle in the Old Testament, and then repeated imagery in the temple, there was a seven-branched candlestick. There were seven lamps on top of this golden candlestick, that symbolized the light of God's presence. It was in the holy place, by the altar of incense. You remember also, in fact I preached a message on this earlier this year, in Zechariah chapter 4. The prophet Zechariah had a vision of something very much like this, seven lamps on a candlestick that were supplied with oil from two olive trees. And long and short of it is, it was a vision describing the work of the Holy Spirit working through Israel to build the temple, to rebuild the temple. And the temple was very much connected with the light of God's presence manifested in the world. And all that ties in nicely with the heavenly scene that comes up in the book of the Revelation, chapter four, not too long after this text we read this morning. In Revelation four, verse five, we're in the throne room of heaven, and there's a scene described very much like scenes in the book of Daniel, for instance. But it says in verse five that out from the throne come flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder, and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God. Now, Revelation is not teaching, when it talks about the seven spirits of God, and it does so more than once, it's not teaching that there are, let's see, nine people in what we thought of as the Trinity. It's not saying that there are seven persons who are the Holy Spirit, but it's using the number seven as a symbol of completion and perfection, the perfection of the presence of God's spirit. Now, all that is very interesting, but what in the world does it mean? Well, let's put it all together. The light of the lamps, it seems, has to do with the light of the Holy Spirit in the book of the Revelation. But the lampstands are the local churches. The churches shed God's light to the world because they are made up of people indwelt by God's Spirit. Does that make sense? The lampstands are the churches that burn with the light of the Holy Spirit where they are placed. The local church is the temple of God, the Apostle Paul tells us. And it's from the temple of God that the light of God's presence illumines the surrounding darkness. And Christ walks among these lampstands. He's not distant. He's not far removed from his churches and their work in the world. This talks about his intimate acquaintance with his churches and his protection of his churches, how he tends his churches. It reminds me of what Matthew 18, 20 records Jesus saying when he's talking about the local church. In that passage, the local church discipline. He says, for where two or three have gathered together in my name, I am there in their midst. So this one is described as having such loving control and intimate acquaintance with his churches and the leaders of his churches. This one, it says, says this. Those words actually in the original Greek are at the beginning. It starts out, thus says the one who holds the stars in his right hand, who walks among the lampstands. That reminds us of a very familiar phrase from the Old Testament. Thus says the Lord. It's just hinting again at Jesus' identification, his oneness with the Lord of the Old Testament, the Lord God. This one has all authority to tell us what to do. And he knows everything about us, and he's here with us, so we better listen to what he has to say. The next part is a little easier. That was the hard part, I would say, of this letter, to try to get a grip on mentally. But let's move on to verses two through three. Jesus goes on after the introduction to say some things. First of all, this letter, this epistle to the church says that Jesus knows their perseverance and good works. He knows. He says, I know your deeds or your works. What deeds? Well, he goes on to list them. Number one, they consistently worked hard as Christians. These Ephesian believers had toil and perseverance, they had both in their Christian lives. They didn't just work a little, they worked hard at their Christianity. And they persevered at it, they kept at it. They didn't give up, is the idea. And number two, they never put up with evil people and spiritual imposters. They refused to tolerate people who were evil and who were coming in to destroy the church spiritually through false teaching. It says that they even put to the test those who called themselves apostles and were not, and they found them to be false. Apparently, some people were trying to make inroads into this very important church and take away followers for themselves. cultish-type leaders coming in and saying, you know what? You had the Apostle Paul back in the day when your church was founded, and you had the Apostle John for a while before he got exiled for his faith. Now, we're apostles, too. Listen to us the same way you listen to them. We're personal representatives of the risen Jesus, too. But the believers at Emphasis didn't buy that. They said, okay, let's put you to the test. What are the tests of an apostle? What a true apostle is, oh, guess what? You don't match up. You don't pass the test, so we're not listening to you. And you're not gonna be part of this church. And Jesus is commending that. He says, you didn't even put up with them at all for a moment. And that's good, because they were evil people. And they were up to evil. Number three, when we're thinking what kind of works and deeds is he commending them for, they consistently put up with trouble for Christ's sake. He says again in verse three, you have perseverance. There's that word again. He's emphasizing perseverance. It's the same word as in verse two. And you have endured for my name's sake. That word for endured is the same word for saying you have not tolerated these evil people. Same word for toleration or enduring, putting up with something is the idea. You never were willing to put up with false teachers, false doctrine, but you gladly put up with everything you needed to for the sake of Christ. That's the right kind of tolerance. Weathering anything you needed to for the sake of Christ. At this point, I mean, if I were one of the Ephesian believers, I would be thrilled. Wow, Jesus thinks that highly of us? Here I thought I was just plodding along, but he notices. I would be thrilled, to be honest. And so would you, I hope. But, we come to verses four and five. Still, in spite of all that Jesus had to genuinely commend them for, he blames them for something. He holds something against them. And that, I'm sure, stopped the original readers in their tracks. It should stop us in our tracks. Whoa. Jesus, our Lord, holds something against us? He has something against us? Yeah. Jesus blames them for deserting their earlier kind of love. He says, Verses four through five, I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore, remember from where you have fallen. In other words, remember how you used to love me and love others. He doesn't say love for God or love for people like we just read in 1 John earlier in the service. It's both, they all go together. Christian love applies to love for God and love for people. But he says, you've fallen away from the kind of love you used to have as Christian believers. Remember from where you have fallen and repent, turn around, and do the deeds you did at first. Christ's assessment of them is that they had right facts and right deeds without right affections. Sometimes we say that that love is simply actions. And there's a good point that's usually behind that, but we need to be careful there. Love is not so much about how we feel moment to moment in our surface emotions, that's true. And love does display itself in deeds, yes. But you can have right deeds and right beliefs without right love, without right affection. You can be Working like a machine in all the other ways and just be a machine and not be doing it out of heartfelt love. And that's a big danger. These people apparently could endure any controversy and weather any storm of false teaching. They could fight heresy like battle-hardened soldiers. That's the sort of term Christ is using for them. They could work hard going about church business. They were the energizer bunnies of church ministry. But the love, their affections had cooled. Now notice he doesn't say you've lost all love at all. But he says the love you had at the first, that's what he means by the first love in the Greek there, that love that you first experienced earlier in your Christian life, that's not there anymore like it was. That was Christ's assessment. His command to them is a change of focus, attitude, and deeds. Change of focus, turn your mental focus so you remember your earlier love for Christ. Grab ahold of your mind and focus it on what it used to be like. Not just to think about the good old days, but to think about what it should be like today again. Then change your attitude. Repent. Let that changed mental focus turn your attitude around. And deeds. Do the earlier deeds of love, driven by a repentant attitude of love. This is important. Remember John 13, verses 34 through 35, Jesus said, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. What kind of deeds come from love rather than from just being orthodox, just having the right beliefs and doing the right things? Let me just suggest two things before we move on. It's awfully hard to not have proper Christian love and then be the kind of gospel light you need to be. Being gospel light to the world by your words and by your deeds that adorn the gospel, in other words, being a lamp stand like you need to be as a church, that doesn't happen very well without love. Remember Jesus said in Matthew 5, you are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven." Well, you know, the church at Ephesus had a brightly burning love when it began. Jesus said so. Everyone around them learned about their Lord. In Acts 19, In verse 10, it says that while Paul, the apostle, was there planting the church, preaching the gospel, lecturing in a lecture hall, for two years, it says that all who lived in Asia, in the province of that city, heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. Now, it's not that the apostle Paul went to every place in that region, but the word spread nonetheless. When you love Christ, you're going to talk about him. It's that simple. and you're not going to be embarrassed about him. You're going to find opportunities to glorify your Savior in the way you talk to people and in what you talk to people about. You're not just going to reserve that kind of talk for church on Sunday. Let me suggest something else from the history of the church at Ephesus. Not only did their early love shed gospel light, it burned with unquenchable devotion. In other words, no price was too high for them to pay for the treasures of Christ. In their personal lives, if Jesus said something had to go, they got rid of it, no matter how much it cost them. Here's an example. Acts 19, 18. In Ephesus, many also of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices. It's just been talking about how some in the city practiced magic and the occult arts. And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone. And they counted up the price of them and found it 50,000 pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing. These people understood what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 13, verse 44, when he said, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again. And from joy over it, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls. And upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. It wasn't a question of how much it cost for those believers at that early period in their church's history. They followed Christ no matter what. Now let's move on to Christ's warning. the imminent removal of their church. He said, if you do not repent, I'm coming. Notice that's present. The idea is, I'm already on my way. I'm coming to visit you in judgment. He says, I am on my way, unless you repent, and I will remove your lampstand out of its place. I will take you out of the way. If the flame of your love is going out, I won't let your lamp stand clutter my world. This is serious stuff. He threatens, let's not spiritualize this away too much and say, oh, well, he meant they wouldn't be the church they once were. No, Jesus is saying, your lampstand, this church that ought to be shining the light of the gospel abroad, ought to be shining with the Spirit's light in the world, I placed it there for a reason. If it's not fulfilling its purpose, I'm going to destroy it. I'm going to take it away. It won't be there anymore. I'm going to come and take your church out if you don't repent. This wasn't a church that, like some other churches later on, was permitting immorality in their midst, was permitting idolatry. No, they were all about holiness and right doctrine and working hard for the Lord and all that. Jesus is not saying this to the sort of churches that we'd often say, yeah, I'm sure Jesus just wants to destroy that church. This is the church that had it all right except one thing. The love was gone. The love that used to be there. Nevertheless, verse six, Jesus commends their godly hatred of false religion. The Nicolaitans, he mentions here, are apparently a religious group, followers of some sort of false teaching. Best guess, they're probably followers of these false apostles that got a mention earlier. Though we can't say that for sure. Later in chapter two, in one of the other letters, they seem to be tied to compromises with pagan immorality and idolatry. Jesus is saying, he's saying, I'm not discounting the good that you are doing and that you do have some right affections here. In your affections, you hate some of what I hate. You can't stand these people who are masquerading as Christians when they are evildoers. He says, they do have some right affections left. They hate what he hates. That's good. It's even praiseworthy. It's just not enough. Left to itself, hatred for all the right things misses the point. We'll come back to that in a bit. Hatred for all the right things, if it's just on its own, misses the point of Christianity. The conclusion of the letter, verse seven. There's a promise of heavenly life to all overcomers. He says in verse seven, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He's emphasizing, as he does in each letter, that this message is inspired by the Spirit and it's for all the churches. Don't think, eh, that church is Ephesus. Glad we're not them. No, this is for you just as much as it's for them. They're just the example put on display for all the churches. But what's this about? To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. Well, this is a common thing that Jesus does after each of these seven letters. He takes imagery that's found somewhere else in the book of the Revelation that describes the richness, the fullness of eternal life that he offers to those who are true believers and who persevere by faith in this life. He gives them the light at the end of the tunnel, you might say, in each of the letters. And here, he picks out the tree of life and the paradise of God as the things to focus their attention on in this letter. But in fact, this is just part of the whole package. When you get to Revelation chapter 21, when the new Jerusalem is described coming down out of heaven onto the new earth, and God is dwelling among men, no more sin, no more pain, no more sorrow, no more death, all of that, it says there in Revelation 21 7, he who overcomes will inherit these things, all these things. And I will be his God and he will be my son. But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Notice, the cowardly and every other kind of sinner who loves his sin and isn't an overcomer by faith, all those people receive the inheritance of the lake of fire eternally. But all true believers in Jesus are overcomers. No, they don't all persevere to the same degree. They don't all have the same level of zeal for Christ. We know that from the scriptures. It's like the parable of the soils that Pastor Dwight recently preached on. The good ground yielded various amounts, had various yields, some 30-fold, some 60-fold, some 100-fold. But the fact is, at some basic level, Every true believer in Jesus is an overcomer. One example of this widespread doctrine that we find throughout scripture is what we read this morning in 1 John 5. Verses four and five, it says, whatever is born of God, whoever has experienced that new birth, has been born again by God's spirit. Whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? So true Christian faith by definition overcomes unbelief and disobedience as it continues to hold to Christ. And of course the flip side of that coin is God is the one empowering that faith so it doesn't die in us. He preserves his own. So now we have the whole package deal. We'll come back as we apply all this and see some things we didn't really address yet. But we have the big point, the main point. The message for the church here and now that we can draw out of all this, it's in your notes, it's that our loving Lord wants more than right doctrine and practice within the local church. He demands that these things flow from proper love. He wants more than right beliefs and good things you do. He wants love to be the engine that drives it all. That's what he wants. And he demands it. He doesn't say, you know, I just, I really wish, I really wish you'd change. I really wish you'd show more love to me and to each other. He says, if you don't start doing that again the way you ought to, I'm going to take away your church. because I'm Lord of the churches and I care about my churches. And they're there for my purposes, not for yours. Let's go through the text one more time, more quickly this time, so we can understand several things about this demand of Christ. You know, I think verse one gives us the context for Jesus' demand of love. Jesus cares for us as his churches. He's here right now. He is one with our Father, God only wise, the one who's numbered the very hairs of our heads. He is one with the Spirit of the Lord that's sent out into all the earth, the Spirit that's at work inside of us and through us. And Jesus is the Son of God, and therefore he's all-knowing and he's everywhere present. We know this. That means he's here. He's walking among us. He's the one who knows us as his brethren. He's not just the son of God, he's the son of man, as he's portrayed in Daniel and in Revelation. He has our nature. So he doesn't just intellectually understand, he feels what we feel. He's been there. He has our human nature for eternity. He knows us, he understands us, he holds us in his loving power. He cares for us because we're his. So don't despise, don't despise, excuse me, don't despise him. Don't despise your prophet, priest, and king when he demands your undivided, sincere love. He deserves it. Number two. Verses two through three. is clarification number one for us about this demand. Jesus is not ignoring. He does not ignore what a church does and believes. Only some things, not everything, only some things are appropriate to sustain and express Christian love. That applies to doctrine. It applies to worship. It applies to your lifestyle. It applies to church ministry and how we do them. But, those same things are insufficient, they're even inappropriate, if they're operating apart from proper love. It's very simple. It's not that Jesus doesn't care what you believe. As long as you have some vague love without any knowledge to it, no. He cares what you believe, and he cares what you do. That'll show up very much in the letters to the rest of the churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3. He's not ignoring that. But, here's the central part again of the letter, the caution in verses 4 through 5. The caution is that Jesus will not allow a church to function without proper love. If Ephesus is any indication to us of Jesus' attitude, it means Jesus Jesus is very willing to remove our local church if he has to. He doesn't delight him, but he will do it if he needs to. And the only difference is, perhaps, we don't have a letter from Jesus saying, okay, you're about at that point. But we need to take Jesus seriously and not just think, well, we're his church. Like the Old Testament Jews thought, well, we have his temple. He's not gonna He's not gonna take us out of here. Well, he might. Remember what Jesus told them to do in response to his caution. He told them to remember. It's Memorial Day tomorrow. We'll be remembering some very different things. But what he's telling us to remember here is what it used to be like when we had, when we were serious in our love for him. Was there a time when your love for Christ lacked all worldly moderation? In other words, was there a time when you loved Jesus in such a way, and it showed in such a way, that people in the world looking on would say, wow, that person's a fanatic. That person just doesn't get it. They're so out of proportion, they're so crazy about this Christianity thing. That's what Jesus wants, not because people will think you're crazy, but because you're actually really loving Him wholeheartedly then, not just, well, I have some reserved sort of love for Christ. Was there a time when your love for Christ wasn't jaded by, I don't know, by bitterness or by cynicism or by unbelief in what God could do with your church or by any number of other things. Was there a time when your love burned brightly for Christ? Maybe it's burning brightly now, I'm not discounting that. But as a church, we need to ask these sorts of questions of ourselves. Remember and repent. A man named James Hamilton put it this way. Turn away from the way of thinking that makes you presume on Jesus. Turn away from the things that make you lose sight of his worth. Turn away from the things that dull your appetite for the Bible. Turn away from the things that steal the time you have for prayer. Turn away from the pride and self-reliance that keeps you from the Bible and prayer and your need for Jesus. Repent. It's not that complicated. It's just that when we have other priorities, we don't want to see how our priorities can be fixed. We like our priorities the way they are. And after repenting, do. Or in your repenting, do. You know what wholehearted love for Jesus would do. Do it. Don't let anything get in your way. By the way, even the deeds you fall short of performing can show you where your heart is. Let me give you this illustration. Not too long ago, a few months back, I guess, I was on a trip back home from Wisconsin, where my parents live. I had taken someone back in their vehicle, and then I was coming back by train. They'll remain nameless, but you know who they are. And I missed my connection in Chicago. And it wasn't my fault, it was theirs. because their first train picking me up was late. So, we got into the station just as the other train was pulling out to come here. So, I was stuck in Chicago. There was no way for me to get home that night. So, they put me up in a hotel. And I called my wife up, she remembers this, and assured her that, I didn't say all this, but because I love her, I really wish things had turned out differently. I wish I wasn't stuck in Chicago on my own. Now, how would you be in that situation? If you're stuck somewhere, are you actually sad to be separated from the ones you say you love? Or are you actually happy for the excuse to do your own thing? If I had no affection for my wife, if I didn't want to see the people at home, I might say, yes, I get to be on my own for another night. but that would show that I didn't really love. I was glad for the excuse not to be able to show my love. You know, that sort of thing happens with a lot of things in the Christian life. Let's say you can't make it to church. Sometimes you are providentially hindered, or you have a perpetual illness, or something, maybe that even keeps you out for long periods of time, One kind of person will respond to that this way. My heart aches to be with my brothers and sisters in church, and I just can't be. Well, you may not be able to do the good deed, but your heart is there. It shows in how you feel about it. Other people may respond this way. Maybe they got out of the habit of coming to church at some point because something really happened. But you know, they never get back in the habit. Why? Because, you know what? This was actually a convenient excuse. It was really inconvenient for me to be at church that much anyway. So, you know, I don't really feel that bad about it. Now I can watch what I wanted to watch anyway on Sunday night television. Now I can go and do other things with family or friends or whatever. Well, how you feel about it, again, shows your heart. When you have a wholehearted love for somebody, you don't let things easily get in the way. And in the Christian life, that could apply to church attendance, coming to the Lord's Supper, coming to prayer meeting. It could apply individually to meeting the practical needs of your brothers and sisters. Oh, I wish I could help them with that. Sending prayers over Facebook, but actually I'm glad I don't have to get my life messed up with their life. It can happen with speaking the gospel. I quickly find a reason that I just can't share the gospel with that person. It's just impossible for me because I don't want to. Or personal communion with God through the Bible, through prayer. In our heart of hearts, we're glad that we have excuses because we're not filled with love for him. What's the or else here? Remember, the or else is, if you don't repent, if you don't do these things, Jesus will come to destroy our church. At least that's a very real possibility. The temple of God is holy. God says in 1 Corinthians 3, and he's referring to the local church. He says, you, the church at Corinth, are a temple of God. The Spirit of God dwells in you. If any man destroys or defiles or brings ruin to the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are. Heretical doctrines destroy the church, yes. Evil lifestyles destroy the church. The Ephesians have two for two so far. But the abandonment of Christian love destroys the church just as much. Why the severe warning? Well, remember what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13. Even if I had the tongues of men and of angels and I don't have love, I'm just like a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. I'm just making noise. If I have the gift of prophecy, I know all mysteries, all knowledge. If I have all faiths so I could remove mountains and I don't have love, I'm nothing. It doesn't matter. If I give all my possessions to feed the poor, if I surrender my body to be burned and I don't have love, it profits me nothing. The whole point of Christianity is lost if we don't operate in love. It's the greatest commandment. You know this. Jesus said the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength. And the second commandment is to, flowing out of that love, love your neighbor as yourself. This, Jesus isn't being harsh here. He's being realistic. Why are you a church, he's saying to the Church of Ephesus, if you've left your first love? What's the point anymore? What's the point? Moving along to verse six again. Clarification number two, Jesus commends our right affections, although they are insufficient. Jesus is talking to believers here. Believers have right affections. Faith produces that. Jesus praises that. He's not unjust in his assessment. He doesn't conveniently forget all the good they've done and all the right affections they, in fact, have. But Jesus loves us too much to let our right affections fall short of the goal. Remember what we already said. Left to itself, hatred for all the right things misses the point. So are we, in our minds, when we think about our church, are we a church against this and this and this and that, and that's our reason for being? We ought to be against a number of things. But is that what first comes to your mind when you think of why I go to that church? I'm at that church because they're against all the crazy music at the other churches. And I attend this church because they're against all the immorality in the world, and they're against this movement and that movement and the culture. And I'm in that church because they're against the last church I was in, and I'm against them too, and the list could go on. All that stuff may be right in its proper context, but We shouldn't be the church of being against all these things. We are the church of Jesus Christ. That's why we're here. And we should be a church defined by love for Christ, not just by hatred of everything that's on our list. Number five, comfort. Verse seven. Jesus provides overcomers with the eternal life which Adam failed to merit. Now wait a minute, what does this have to do with what we've been talking about? Good question. Jesus wraps up here by talking about the tree of life and the paradise of God. The tree of life shows up in Genesis chapter two when God planted the Garden of Eden at the beginning of the world where he placed the first man and the first woman, Adam and Eve. And in that unsoiled beauty, and delight, there was this tree of life. Apparently, Adam and Eve didn't get a chance to eat from that. They ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and thus they were banned from the tree of life. They disobeyed God, and when they did so, in Genesis 3, God said that he was going to prevent them from taking from the tree of life and living forever in their cursed state. So he banished them from the Garden of Eden. and it says he stationed cherubim, angelic beings, and a flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life. The tree of life had to do with the eternal life that Adam could have merited if he had obeyed God perfectly. He failed miserably, he lost access to the tree of life. And paradise? Well, paradise is a word that was used often in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, that Jesus and his apostles often used. It was a word often used to translate words about the Garden of Eden. So again, paradise came to mean more than the Garden of Eden. It came to talk about God's heavenly presence, but it always had that connotation in a Jewish mind of Eden, the place where Adam and Eve could freely walk and talk with God. They had life with him. In 2 Corinthians 12, the Apostle Paul talks about paradise as being the third heaven, where God is now. In Revelation 22, we see that the tree of life will be in the new Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven from God to the earth, the new earth and the eternal state. So, Jesus is promising, in this very picturesque way, eternal life in God's presence, regaining all that Adam lost for us. That's what he's picturing. And why is he saying this now? Why is he pointing this out now in this letter? Well, he knows us, he cares. He knows it isn't easy to burn with love for God. He knows there are lots of obstacles that you could use as excuses. They're not just imagined obstacles. It's hard. The kind of love we're talking about denies very felt needs of ours. It calls us to deny ourself. That love calls us to accept great cost. It's very costly. So Jesus reminds us of the rewards he has earned for us. Love for God and then the love for people that comes out of that is the hardest thing in the world, I would say. But it leads to eternal glory. The way is narrow, but it leads to life. We can't earn eternal life, we're sinners. But Jesus earned it for us. And now he invites us to share in his glory. But the road there is love. He calls us to experience his love despite all obstacles. And he wants to comfort and encourage us. Don't give up. You can obey me in this demand to go back to your first love. It's possible and it's worth it. In conclusion, Jesus' letter to the Ephesian church is a letter to our church as well. We don't have to wonder what he would say to us. I asked you at the beginning, what would he say to us if he wrote to us? Well, he wrote to us. This is what he said. The question is, will we humbly respond as those responsible for this church? Will we remember what it is like to love God supremely and others unselfishly? Will we remember what that was like when our love burned brightly? Will we repent of our half-hearted love? Will we do the deeds of love with renewed focus? Or are we gonna be proud? Are we gonna proudly ignore the significance of these words for ourselves? Will we be content with just knowing the right things and doing good things, but keeping a cool distance from Christian love? One thing is certain, we'll either respond with renewed love or increased externalism, just having everything right on the outside, and we'll be basically like the Pharisees that are condemned in the New Testament. But we have to respond one of those two ways. The Lord has spoken, the Spirit is speaking, so will we respond with love? His promises are worth the effort. Remember Romans 8.28 says that we know that God causes all things to work together for good to who? To those who love God. who are called according to his purpose. 1 Corinthians 2.9 tells us, Let's pray.