Alright, we're gonna look in Revelation, chapter two. I'm gonna read a couple verses to you, or seven verses to be exact, and talk briefly about that. People love when you open Revelation. You're like, we're gonna be in Revelation. And then you say like chapter two or three and they're like, oh, that's the easy part.

There's no like weird stuff going on in there. No beasts, dragons, weird stuff, pits from fire, all that. None of that that I have to worry about. No plagues, no locusts. Everybody's fine with that.

They breathe a sigh of relief. And I always kind of laugh when pastors are like, we're going to preach in Revelation. Like, ooh, edgy. Chapter two or three is like, oh, never mind. That's just letters to churches, man.

You're not extreme at all. You're scared, aren't you? I did a whole series on Revelation a while back on Sunday nights. We had that for a while. And so I'm not scared to dig into those things.

However, today, as it fits in with our sermon companion guide, our sermon series that we've been in, we looking at how it all connects us to Jesus. All of scripture is connected to Christ and is pointing out Christ. The book of Revelation is no different. And in the first couple chapters or three chapters of Revelation, we've got a guy named John. He is an apostle.

He's an older guy and he had been walking with Jesus. He was featured prominently in the gospels. And then he's one of the, or the longest or oldest living apostle. The rest of his brethren had died or been killed for their faith in Christ and for their testimony about Christ. But John, they had a harder time killing him.

For some reason. They tried a couple times, it didn't quite take. And so they exiled him to the island of Patmos. And while he's on that island, he has a vision of Jesus Christ. He's actually transported to heaven, to the throne room of God.

And he sees some things and he hears some things and, and he's told to share some of them. And so he's told this from Christ himself. He's told to give these messages to the churches. There's seven churches in what we would call modern day Turkey or Asia Minor, and each one has a different message. And this is to the church in Ephesus.

So let me read these verses to you with that little bit of background to the angel in the church of Ephesus. Write the following. This is the solemn pronouncement of the one who has a Firm grasp on the seven stars in his right hand. The one who walks among the seven golden lampstands. I know your works as well as your labor and steadfast endurance, and that you cannot tolerate evil.

You have even put to the test those who refer to themselves as apostles but are not and have discovered that they are false. I am also aware that you have persisted steadfastly, endured much for the sake of my name, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you. You have departed from your first love. Therefore, remember from what high state you have fallen and repent.

Do the deeds you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. That is, if you do not repent. But you have this going for you. You hate what the Nicolaitans practice, practices that I also hate.

The one who has an ear had better hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will permit him to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God. I don't have time to dig fully and completely into everything here, so we're going to touch on a few things. The first thing that really kind of sticks out at me for our. Our time here today is Jesus says, write this to the angel of the Church of Nephasis.

And we're thinking, okay, does that mean, like, every church has a guardian angel? Or is he calling maybe. There's one theory that said that since John was in exile on this island, that delegates from these churches had been sent to him to inquire of him and to bring a blessing to him in some type of provisions for him. And that it was during this time that maybe they. Because the word angel is like a messenger.

Literally, it's a divine messenger or messenger from God. And so were those men that had been sent in, potentially in a delegation. Was Jesus perhaps calling them the angels, the delegates that were the messengers, and so their job is to bring the message back to the people? Or is it simply that he was calling the pastor of those churches his messenger? And in which case, me as a pastor?

This kind of hits me hard if that's the case, because he's saying, I got a message for you, pastor. You're going to share it with the church as well. But I've got a message for you first. And he goes through all this stuff. He gives them some critiques for sure, but some positives.

He gives them some good things. Like he says, you guys are working hard. You know, Kirby, you talked about being a workaholic you know, having your dad as a workaholic. And I was like, oh, man, I hope he doesn't preach against being a workaholic. I did a lot, you know, this yesterday.

I was like, all day. You know, I was just working, doing stuff, getting stuff done. I'm like, yeah, and I resonate with that. I'm like, okay, but we can be, as Christians, we can be saying, okay, I've got things that I've got to do for Christ, and we can be working hard and doing these works and putting our labor in for Christ, and we can think, okay, I can hang my hat on that. I've been doing great.

And then he says, also, you have patience. I'm like, oh, man. No, I don't necessarily. You know, I get impatient with a lot of things and people, and not just when I'm driving, but in everyday situations, too. But then he also says.

He says you don't tolerate people in your midst who are evil. Like, hey, I can get behind that. You know, like, who's the arbiter of who's evil or not, though. He says, you've tested them. So in other words, you don't just say, well, I don't like that person.

I'm going to call them evil. I had somebody that tried that with me and then cussed me out in demon language. And it's like, okay, you don't get to say that, though. You know, I'm not kidding. It was kind of funny in a weird way.

Then she said, well, I was speaking in tongues. I'm like, no, that was demonic. You know, don't even try that. And I'm not going to put up with that. People that come in the midst of the church and say, hey, this is what I'm going to do is I'm going to take my position of power and influence and I'm going to exert that over you.

And he said, no, you guys have taken those people and looked at them and evaluated if these people were true or not. And if they're liars, if they're not truly from God, then you don't tolerate that. You know, some churches will tolerate or even build themselves on the words and ministry of liars. People that will come in to build themselves up, to build up their own wealth. You know, you've heard of the old health and wealth prosperity gospel that's thoroughly unbiblical.

And they'll go in and they'll just say, yeah, you know, it doesn't matter how much you're struggling, you know, you got to give God this money, and he's going to bless you in return. It doesn't work like that. And so we don't tolerate that in this church, and they didn't tolerate that there. He says, you've tested those that put themselves in places of authority to weed out the liars. God doesn't like when people lie.

I don't either. I hate it. It's one of my core things. I'll tell people. I'm like, listen, you can confess anything you want that's going on.

You can tell me about anything. And I probably won't even have much judgment for that. But just don't lie to me. If you lie to me, I'll know it. I might not know what the truth is.

I'll just know that you're lying, and I really don't like that. And so I don't have much time for that. Jesus told them that they were good at that, that he said, you despise these liars in your midst, as do I. He says, you've persevered. That means, you know, you pushed through, you stayed strong through it all for the sake of Jesus.

These are commendations. But then he gives them the critique, the criticism, the, what are you? Where have you gotten it wrong? And he says, they've lost their first love. Now, if this was written to the whole congregation in Ephesus, it's kind of like you can hide behind that and say, yeah, man, you guys are kind of.

You've gone soft. You know, you really don't have any passion for Christ anymore. But if he's saying, this is to the angel of the church, the messenger of the church, the pastor of the church, that one hits me hard. Like, pastor, when you got into ministry, what was your motivation? What was your purpose?

You want to serve Christ. You wanted to spread the gospel to the lost. Kirby, when you said. When you answered the call to go and do overseas missions, you're like, okay, I'm going to. You know, this is going to change everything about how we live.

And you're willing to maybe put your house up for sale if you owned one? I don't know. I live in a church parsonage, so that's easy. I don't own anything. But, like, you sell your house, you put your.

You know, you're like, what. What do we need to keep? Do we store stuff? Do we put it in somebody's garage or rent a storage unit, whatever. All the stuff you got to prepare, but you're passionate about it, and you're like, we're going to go over here and we're going to start reaching people.

And you get there and you're like, there's like, nobody that even knows Jesus. So if I can just find 10 people. And you're excited for those 10 people because that's a huge win or whatever it is. And you're like, you have the passion for that when you start out in that ministry. It makes me think of married people.

And I know, like, when you're first dating somebody, you're falling in love and everything is so sweet and perfect, and they can't do any wrong, and you don't even have your first fight yet, and all these things going on, and you start having this passion, and then you move towards. You've been dating, you get engaged, you're gonna get married, and you're so excited for that. And you have so much passion, so much excitement, so much joy. And then you've been married for. I'm just going to throw a number out 20 years, you know?

And it's like, you love this person so much. No reason for that number. You love this person so much. But so many times you're like, you know, you're like, hey, how'd your day go? It was fine.

Okay, cool. I don't want to hear anymore, you know, like, because I have things that I want to do. You know, you just start moving into that again, just throwing a scenario out there. I wouldn't know what that's like.

And so you start losing a bit of that passion that you had at one time. And you think, like, if you were looking 20 years back and you were looking at where you might be at that point, you'd be like, we'll never be at that place in our walk. We'll never be at that place in our relationship where we're like, I don't know, there's these other things that are more important than being with you. I would never get to that place. And here Jesus is saying, there was a time in your life as a Christian where I was the most important thing to you.

You had such a love, such a passion, such a desire to grow closer to me. And yet now, now that has flickered and faded away so much. You've lost the love that you had at first. This must have been a bit personal for John as he's hearing this, because he had once been the pastor of that congregation and he preached love, love, love one another, love God, love each other. He preached that so much, he drilled it into them till they were Sick of it.

And yet here they are, having lost their first love. It's got to be hard for John to hear. And so there's an antidote. There's something that Jesus tells him how they can get that back. He says it here in these scriptures, in these words.

He says, first of all, remember, call to remembrance. Where you have come from those fiery times of passion that you had. The times where you're, like, digging into the word of God because you wanted to know more. Not like, I'll confess, I'm the pastor. I'm the guy that, like, I'm supposed to love every moment of Bible study, right?

There are times where I'll look at it, I'll be like, I've read all this. I know it. It's like there's a rerun that I've seen, like, 15 times. And we had turned a TV on the other day. We were in a hotel, and we turned a TV on.

And there's this episode of the Andy Griffith show where she makes pickles. The kerosene, cucumbers. Anybody know this episode? She makes these pickles, Aunt Bee does, that are so nasty. And it's just this hilarious thing, you know, where Andy and Barney have to keep eating them to make her think that they love them when they're just totally nasty.

And it's one of my wife's favorite episodes of that show. So therefore, I've seen it a few times. And I know what's kind of coming up in this episode, and I don't hate it, but it's not like I'm even a fan of it. It's just been on that much in the house that I know the episode that well.

I remember it so well. But yet it's a rerun. And it's like, I don't even need to watch it again because I know what happens. And even I can look at the word of God and be like, okay, I know what happens in that chapter. I know what happens on that page.

And I can just kind of lose that desire for reading it and for digging into it more. What does Jesus say? Remember the passion that you had. Remember the fire that you had, that early love that you had, and rekindle the fire and desire and passion that you have. Then he says, repent.

Confess how much has been lost. Repent of where you were with Christ to where you are now and how much you've strayed from him, and repent of that and say, lord, I want to come back into close fellowship with you. And then he says, you need to turn back to your earlier works. Now, he had commended them for their works. You've stayed busy.

You've done all the things that look right. You maintained church the way people think it should be. And yet there were things that you were doing earlier on when you're like, well, I'm saved. Now I want to start sharing it with my relatives, with my friends, with my co workers. I need to share the gospel with them because it's such an important part of me.

And so I want it to become something that's important for others. And then somewhere along the line, you just kind of back off the throttle on that one and you say, I don't know if that's that important. One of the things that I've become more and more aware of in my own personal walk lately is that I think the time is coming maybe in our lifetime. I don't know. I know the time is coming someday, and I think it's closer than ever before.

Well, that's everything in the future. But anyway, it feels like it's close at hand, that the return of Jesus Christ, where he says, I am coming back for you and I will be back. It feels like that time is coming sooner rather than later, obviously, but it feels like it's at hand.

And so because of that, there needs to be this burning passion within us to share the gospel with others. What happens if we don't? Jesus has some harsh words. He says, I'll take your lampstand away. The lampstand was a representative of the light of Christ as that church, that church being the light of Christ in their community.

He says, I'm going to turn out the lights. I'll pull the plug on your congregation. Now, granted, there's all kinds of reasons for a church to close. I pastored one before. Like, before I came here.

It didn't close while I was there, but after I left, it did. And I don't know if that's a mark on me or not. You know, it's like, wait a second. We had some good stuff going, but the people that were in leadership were like, we don't think we can keep this up. Maybe I set the bar really high.

And you're like, we can't follow that up. I'm just kidding. It wasn't that they sold it. The District did in Tennessee. They sold it.

And it's housing units. Now it's condos and apartments. It's like, I can't even go back and visit that church. I don't think it was Any lack of love or fervency. In fact, we worked pretty hard there.

We did a lot of events, we visited a lot of people, we set up a lot of opportunities for conversation, much like missionaries do in other countries. We treated that church that way, too, because that was the only way we could see the life breathed back into it.

But this church, they did all the right things in Ephesus, and yet their love for Christ had waned so much that Jesus is saying, if it gets so bad, I'll eventually pull the plug on it. I'll turn the lights out on this church if that's what it takes. Folks, I don't want to be there. I don't want to get caught up doing the works of religion, the religious acts and deeds, and looking just right, and yet not having any passion for Christ in how I live and operate or how we live and operate as a church. And then he says, there's some good news, though.

Like, Jesus doesn't end with just some bad news. He says, there's some good news. You hate these people called the Nicolaitans. And you might be like, yeah, I don't even know who they are. Me either, except I had to look it up.

And I've studied it before. And they were people that thought, well, you can be a Christian, but you can kind of flirt with idols, you know, with idolatry, like worshiping some other gods. But not really, because if you just say, like, I didn't mean it, you know, I don't know what this was. It's just. I didn't mean it.

Yeah, I didn't really. I guess that's a sign of. I don't worship idols. I don't know. I just did that.

I didn't mean it. Like, I was just kind of there because my friends were there. I was just hanging out with the worldly stuff because it was popular to do, but I didn't really buy into it. I'm really a Christian in my heart. The Nicolaitans were people that said, you can visit the temples of the gods.

You can commit sexual immorality there with anyone you want and for any reason, and it's fine. You can swim in the ways of the world. As long as you show up to church on Sundays, everything will be fine. You claim that Jesus loves me no matter what. I can do anything I want because Jesus loves me.

That's what they would say. These were who the Nicolaitans were. They would say, I'm saved by grace. So the grace of Jesus covers over anything. I might do, which allows me, therefore, to go and do whatever I want whenever I want.

And he says, you guys have rightly recognized that that's not how God wants his church to operate. He wants them to have this single, devoted love and passion for him. And if Christ isn't the thing that drives us or the thing that motivates us, if our love for Christ isn't at the core of everything we do, then we will find ourselves having the lights turned off on us. But Jesus told his church that if they listen to him and they overcome in these ways, they'll share in paradise with him. So, wrapping up, where does that leave you?

Where does that leave all of us? You know? Sure, keep showing up to church. Like, Kirby, you were actually saying how, like, church attendance might be two times a month. One or two times a month is considered fairly standard.

But I've witnessed that with a lot of people. They're like, I show up a couple times a month, or, you know, about three times. You know, three out of eight weeks, you know, that's pretty regular. This is my home church. And it's like, man, you're missing out on so much, though.

Like, yeah, I understand. There's things that happen every now and then. You got to be gone, something going on. But, man, I'm telling you, like, you miss out if you don't set a regular routine. But it doesn't have to become a religious practice in the sense of, if I miss a week, then I've messed up.

You need to have that routine of being with the people of God and being in the house of God, though. And so, sure, we can support missionaries. We can stay in church every week. We can. Maybe you even go on a mission trip yourselves.

Talk the talk, do the works. But if you do it without having a fiery love for Christ, that is what's driving you, a thankfulness for who Christ is in your life. You're missing out on everything that God has for you, Sam.