Our First Love (Revelation 2:1-7)

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. As we continue to work through our series on Ephesians, We're about to get into a new part, and before we got into verse 17 to the end of verse chapter 4, I thought it was important that we take a break and look for a second at Revelation chapter 2.

Revelation chapter 2, we're going to read this one through 7. Revelation chapter 2 verses 1 through 7. I should ask before I continue to go, can those in the back hear me this morning? Okay. Revelation chapter 2. This morning we'll look at verses 1 through 7. Pay attention now. This is God's Word. It's perfect. It's holy. Don't zone out. Fight it. Pay attention.

To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, These things say to he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands, I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil.

And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars. And you have preserved and have patience, and have labored for my name's sake, and have not become weary. Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, and repent, and do the first work, or else I will come to you quickly, and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

But this you 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 give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. Brothers and sisters, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. This is the greatest book that has ever been written, with the most sure words that have ever been written, and every one of them should be as sweet as honey upon our lips.

I want a divorce. I want a divorce. One of the hardest things that has ever been spoken in any relationship is a word that is detestable to our lips because it means the crumbling of a relationship. I want a divorce. Something that started so beautifully coming to a point or say, I want a divorce. What causes that in a marriage? What causes that in a marriage? Well, I'd like to propose to you this morning that the majority of it, yes, sometimes there is sin involved, but even when those sins are involved, often it's because one person or both parties in the marriage have forgotten to love their spouse. and have turned away from their first love and gone somewhere else.

So how do we keep that flame going? Later in the book of Ephesians we're going to see that it is Jesus Christ who is our husband and we His bride, the church. How do we keep the flame of love alive for Jesus Christ? Well, this morning we see that there is a path that they have walked in and some things that have happened. And it's set to the church in Ephesus, but we should take heed as our own church, lest we have these words written by Christ against us.

So the first thing we need to see is that right loving doesn't mean right theology. Right loving doesn't necessarily mean right theology. Look with me at verse 2 for one second. Verse 2. I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And then drop down to verse 6. But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

They have a right practice, and in verse 2 it also says they have a right theology. What have they done? What have they done with their right theology? And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and found them liars. They have right theology. They've tested the false apostles.

But let me propose to you that just because you know the truth, doesn't mean that you love the person who gave you the truth. Let me put it in a story way. There was a man that I was interacting once who had become convinced, distinctives of the Reformed tradition. He picked up his Bible and he was reading it and he was loving it and he started interacting with our books and with our theology and he started realizing, wow, this is biblical meat. This is something I could grab on to. And it became absolutely clear.

He loved God's Word. He fell in love with the theology, but one thing he lacked. He had no love of Christ. He had no love for God's people. See, he had a love for the truth. But in his love for the truth, all he could do was talk down to other people. All he could do is talk down, look down his nose at other people's theology. Did he have right theology? Yes. Yes, he was quoting chapter and verse for all of his beliefs.

But it had become clear that it was just that, a system of doctrine and not a vibrant love for Christ. Do you love? Do you have right theology? with a right love. Our aim of theology is not, let me say this really clearly and bluntly, our aim of theology is not just to be right, but that it might lead us to love our Savior who is in heaven.

If your theology does not produce doxology, if your right theology does not lead you to praising Jesus Christ, something has short-circuited. Something is wrong. You're going in what looks like the right direction, but your goal is a little bit off target. And when our goal is eternity, you're going to miss by miles.

So let me ask you, Have you dotted all your I's? Have you crossed all your theological T's? Have you tested those who say they stand upon the apostles' words, found some to be liars, and yet in your heart even now do you feel no love for Christ? Now, do you have right theology? Do you think rightly? Are you orthodox?

And yet your heart, you find, if you are honest with yourself, cold to the things and to the people of Christ. Brothers and sisters, let me encourage you this morning, if your heart is cold to Jesus Christ, cry out to Him that He might rekindle that flame in you. Go to Him in prayer and repent. Say to Him, I have sinned, I have right theology, but I have no love for You, God. Pour out Your Holy Spirit in me that I might actually love Jesus Christ.

But it wasn't just that they were thinking rightly, but they were also doing rightly. They were walking the Christian walk. Look with me again at verse 2. I know your works, your labor, your patience, that you cannot bear those who are evil. And then verse 6. But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. They were doing the good things. Jesus is saying, I know your works. I know your patience. I know your endurance. I know these things. I see the things you're doing.

But brothers and sisters, we can have right Christian doing and wrong Christian loving. I need to warn you about what's going on in our society now, and it goes way back. It's this social gospel idea. That if we just do the Christian things, if we just do the Christian works, if we give the poor what they need, and we give the thirsty a drink of water, and we close those who do not have clothes, that we are showing our love for Christ.

Yes, you might, but let me ask you, is it truly because you love Christ? Or is it just because you're going through the motions? Where is your undergirding motivation? What is the foundation of your mercy that you show? There are many today in the church who I would propose to you that indeed they do love showing mercy, but I fear that their love for showing mercy is a love for people that's devoid of a love for Christ. That's difficult to think about, right? Tell me, tell me that's not difficult. What am I supposed to do? How often have you heard from the scriptures, from this, well I don't have a pulpit this morning, but from pastors in this church, we need to live out our faith.

But brothers and sisters, our works, It must be fruits from our love for Christ. Brothers and sisters, the Pharisees could do good works. Brothers and sisters, the Sadducees could do good works and have no love for Jesus. Brothers and sisters, there are atheists who give millions of dollars to poor people. There are atheists who give millions of dollars to feed the hungry. There are those who absolutely hate Jesus Christ, that if you look at them by basic moral standards, you would look at them and say, well, they're pretty good people. What is your motivation? Is it a love for Jesus Christ? Is it a love for Jesus Christ? Or is it good works for good works sake? We love Jesus Christ.

Even now, we might be just so used to doing these good works, they have become routine. I'm not telling you, Scripture is not telling you here to stop doing those good works. It's telling you to go back to the root of those good works. Go back to your first love that propelled you towards those good works.

For some of you now, you do those good works and you have that right theology because it's tradition, because you feel the pressure of the church upon you to do those. Brothers and sisters, we've gone through this whole section of how we serve one another in the church.

But if you serve each other in the church but have no love for Christ, Even your good works, Isaiah says, are as filthy rags. Do you love Christ? Do you love Christ? Or have you sat through... never seeing the face of Jesus Christ shine upon you? Have you sat through scores of worship services singing His praises with a heart of stone?

What do we do? What do we do? First, we must remember our first love.

If we are to keep the flames of our love for Christ alive, we must remember our first love. I'm going to say this now. If there is ever a time where you hear me preach up here, sermon after sermon after sermon, and the name of Jesus Christ and the love of Jesus Christ is not lifted out to you, by all means, come up here and tell me, refine or repent. Seriously, we must remember our first love. How do you remember your first love?

Well, you do it right now. You do it right now. When we come together and we worship and we hear of all that God has done in redemptive history. When we come and we hear from His Word. How else do you remember your love for Christ? Brothers and sisters, are you going to Him in prayer?

Are you confessing your sins daily? The Westminster Confession, or the Westminster Shorter Catechism, so helpfully says, can anyone keep the commandments of God? No, no mere man, since the fall, is able perfectly to keep the commands, but that sin daily, in thought, word, and deed. And then the confession says, we must be those who repent of specific sins, specifically.

Brothers and sisters, those I've seen who love Christ most are those I've seen who know their sin most and know what the blood of Jesus Christ has done for them. Do we remember Jesus Christ? Do we remember that God displayed His love for us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us? Or have we just become traditionalists? Have we just come to church, thought the right things, said the right things, done the right things, without any heart for Jesus Christ? Are you going to Him in His Word? Are you searching out the love of Jesus Christ?

It's Jesus Himself who said that all the Scriptures were written to bear testimony about Jesus, even when you're going through places like Numbers and Leviticus. Oh man, I gotta tell you, I was just reading through the book of Leviticus this week, and I'm getting through the leprosy laws, and I was sitting there going, oh, how does this teach me anything about Jesus?

And then, when we were going through in coffee and devotions, we got to that point in the book of Mark, where the leper comes to Jesus. And Jesus, the Holy One, looks at the leper, and He touches him, and He heals him. Jesus Christ touches our hearts. Jesus Christ is our leprous souls. Jesus Christ looks at you and He says, be healed. They testified about Him.

Have you forgotten your first love? Have you gone to Jesus Christ? Have you remembered the love that He has shown to your children who are walking in the faith now? Have you forgotten your first love, the one who cared for your parents and for your grandparents and for your great-grandparents before you? We must remember our love if we are to continue to keep that flame alive.

Now, if you've been married, if you've been married, brothers and sisters, for those of you who are married, if you've been married for more than, I don't know, a year, You know what this is like to catch yourself at time taking your spouse for granted.

Oh, it's a really fun thing. One of the most fun things about being a minister is I get to go to weddings. And even when we are photographing weddings, it was so fun. Everybody gets all gussed up and dolled up. The guys are looking sharp. The girls are looking pretty. Everything is ready. And right up there on the altar, you have the bride and the groom. And they are so in love.

And the words of Jonathan Watt, one of my professors, rings in my ear when he would counsel people who had been married for one year, and he would ask them, what's the most surprising thing that you've learned? And he would hear people say things like, I never knew I could be so mean to someone in my entire life. We go through the honeymoon stage. Some of you have gone through your honeymoon stage with Christ and you've just taken Him for granted.

No longer a thriving relationship. You do not communicate with Christ anymore. You do not share your soul with Christ anymore. You do not make yourself vulnerable to Jesus Christ anymore. When you hear Jesus Christ talk, when you hear Jesus Christ preach, your spouse has become so familiar to you that your heart is like a hard rock. Brothers and sisters, that's not what Christ wants for you. That's not the desire, that's not the point of the Christian life.

But until your dying breath, He wants you to have a burning flame, an unquenchable ember of fire for Jesus Christ that can never be put out. For some of you, that fire is smoldering. Will you stoke that fire today? Will you commit yourself to the ordinary means of grace?

As we come to his Lord's table, as we look upon the elements, Jesus the God-man died. He gave up heaven, humbled himself to the likeness of a man. Think about that for a second. the God who created the clouds above our heads, the God who sustains every breath of life that you breathe. It is He who came down to earth to love you, to care for you, to make you His spouse, to love you.

Will your heart become cold to Him? He laid down His life for you. Have you taken that lightly? Or will you this day, even now, some of us in this room, repent? Repent of our cold-heartedness and turn to Jesus Christ? Will you have a better 25, 50 years of Christian life going on from this? Will this be the best decade of your Christian love for Jesus now? Christ is again telling you, come to me.

Don't let your love grow cold. Come to me. Come to me. But as a church, as a church we do this together. All of this is you language. One, Jesus looking at the church in Ephesus and he's telling the church in Ephesus as one Christian body. He's saying, do not forget your first love. Repent. But if you don't, if you don't, something's going to happen. Look with me at verse 5.

Remember, therefore, from where you have 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. Brothers and sisters, if the church is not honoring Christ in our body, in the church in Ephesus, in the RPCNA, in the American church at large, do not be fooled. He will remove His lampstand from our midst. If we forget Jesus Christ, if we move our focus off of our Savior, We should not be surprised here. He is warning us. He will take our lampstand.

I fear that this has started to happen in many of the churches in America. I fear that this is one of the things we see as we cry out to God for revival, as we cry out to God for the pouring out of His Holy Spirit. I fear that God has said, no. No, you had a rich Christian past and you squandered it. Will we repent? Will we, in our midst, Sharon Reformed Presbyterian Church, will we be used by God that on the last day He would say, well done, faithful servant, Sharon R.P. Church, you turned to Jesus Christ. Again and again there was temptation and you turned back to Christ. will we have such a testimony?

That when our children leave this congregation, that they will have one thing to say, my parents' church might have been traditional. My parents' church might have had weird traditions. My parents' church, though, always talked about one thing. It was like every single week, we just heard about Jesus. Will that be the heritage of this congregation? It's been for 174 years.

Will it be for 350? It can be. It should be. It ought to be. That is what God is calling us to today. But lastly, lastly there is a promise. There is a beautiful promise. Look with me at verse 7. He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. Hear the promise? Let me read it again slowly. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

Will we be overcomers? Will we overcome this world? Will we overcome the desires of Satan, the power of the prince of the principality of the air? Will we overcome the culture and everything that is trying to extinguish your love for Jesus Christ? Satan himself every day stands with a cool bucket of water trying to douse your love for Jesus Christ to make it go out.

Will we overcome? not by our own strength, but by running to Jesus Christ. If we do, if we do this supernatural work, which only God can do, but if we are heeding what God says, and if we are repenting as God says, oh, there is paradise to be had for us. That we here will remember Jesus Christ. We are about to partake of the Lord's table, but one day, one day, brothers and sisters, you will be in paradise where there are pleasures evermore, where we will go to God's table, to His very own table and sit before Jesus Christ at that great wedding supper of the Lamb. and we will eat of that tree, and we will commune with Jesus Christ perfectly.

Brothers and sisters, do not let your flame for Jesus Christ be extinguished. Will you repent of your cold-heartedness? Will you love Jesus Christ? Will you seek for Him? Will you run to Him? Do not forget your first love. but always, always burn for Jesus Christ.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Oh, Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you, Lord, for your word. We thank you for teaching us. Lord, we pray, God, that we would not just let these things fall upon deaf ears, but God, give us ears to hear, that we would love you with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength.

In Jesus' name, amen. Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.