Remember your first Love

Remember your first Love

In John’s letter Jesus writes to the Church in Ephesus. He says there is a problem and if you don’t fix it, I’m going the pull the plug on your lamp… 

^4f But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. ⁵ Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. ⁶ Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. ⁷ He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise (Revelation 2:4-7).

 

The church could have had some legitimate excuses for why things were the way they had become.  It was a hard city, people come and go, gets hard to love your city when so many changes occur, the people aren’t the same, they don’t dress the same, the music has changed, everything has changed. I just don’t love my city anymore, so I will just keep doing the same things the same way. I’ll make sure people know how to do them my way.

1. Remember  to LOVE
   We can become like the Ephesians if we start making it all about truth and no grace. Jesus came in truth and grace that is the compilation of love. Some it’s all about the truth. You use scripture like bullets to support yourself. They were great verses you used, but the people never felt loved when you shared them. Some are all about grace, coexist bumper sticker… breathe fire and light-em up rather than speaking truth in such a way that it invites them to turn from sin and join with God and his people, through the change of life by the holy spirit. So the question isn’t will you fall in love, but will you stay in love. We will see in the next verses in Ephesians that Jesus will be committed to you, will you be committed to him.
2. Get back ON MISSION
   We love ourselves and forget to love our city. Maybe you aren’t loving your city in the ways you should. You love the place, but maybe you talk about how church use to, how small it was, people were nicer, it was slower… sometimes our reminiscing of the past becomes a barrier to our loving in the present. It can cause us to move, leave, give up on churches making changes to better love their community. We can become so concerned about holding on to what we love for ourselves we forget to love others in the now. We forget love. Maybe you are being truthful, and honest about how you feel, but it can’t come without grace accompanying it. I might make some sort of special list. I’m sure that God gets put off with me, tired of me doing the same stupid stuff, but do you know what He does, He continues to love me.

 

3. Don’t forget COMPASSION
   way we can become like the Ephesians is give up caring rather giving compassion. We’re like well, I’m done with them. They should have learned the first time. You may not be there yet but one sign that you could become like this is you don’t have anyone in your life who you are pouring into. When we don’t have someone, we are discipling if we aren’t in a life group where we are struggling with sins together and working through the dirt and muck of life together, it makes it easier for us to condescending, to hold other in contempt. It also makes it easier for people to leave church for the wrong reasons. There right reasons, false teachers, legalism, self-righteousness, sin… let’s say things aren’t like they use to be in church… let’s say it’s preferential and not sin. You what will hold you there loving on those you’re discipling and mentoring. Why because if you leave what will it tell those you’re loving on. What will it tell them about the faithfulness we talked about last week or during advent from the book of Hosea or Hebrews telling us Jesus was faithful he is greater than, and in Exodus a Faithful God chose a people for no reason but out of His Truth and Grace = love. And compassion says, Apart from the grace of God, I’m at least as bad as you. And if there is hope for me then there is hope for you. That’s compassion. Seeing someone struggling in their walk grieves you more than it annoys you. Hard when it’s your family, friends, coworkers and neighbors…

 

4. Always REPENT

We expect others to repent but we don’t do it ourselves. We see other’s sins more than our own. We point out where everyone else is wrong. Paul said we’re saints… that doesn’t mean we don’t need to repent, it means people who repent of their sins know they are Saints.  Look at the class of saints who were in Ephesus: Paul, Timothy, John, Priscilla, Aquilla…

Here is what Saints never forget their first love, Jesus. Jesus who is the senior pastor.

Do you have Jesus as a living Lord, is he the love of your life, the lover of your life, the one who has adopted you? Or, is He an idea, concept, systematic theology position, a historical example, your Jeanie? Sometimes the people who know the most about Jesus know Jesus the least. They can tell you facts and figures, they know their way around the maps and can come down to quoting from a book then from a friend they’ve made.

 

5. Don’t stop KEEP GOING

Another we fail is we get to a place in our where we don’t keep going, We don’t keep up with our worship, scripture, study, prayer, missions, repentance, compassion. We stop loving. Our light goes out. That’s exactly what Jesus writes to the church in Ephesus “I’ll remove your lamp stand”. The same lampstand in Exodus and Hebrews that represented Christ’s presence. He says if you you don’t keep going in your love for me. I’ll close your doors I’ll even shut down your city. And that’s exactly what happened in Ephesus.  By AD 200 The church was dead and later with the bay filled up with silt eventually killing trade, the city died.

 

The Church in Ephesus died sometime in the second century. But I want us to this hope going forward. When we keep going there are Blessings! who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, We will start looking at them next week. Christianity is not something we do, It’s something God does in us through Christ from which we have a promise of blessings that impact us, the church and our city