Strong Yet Week

You know, sometimes I think we have the tendency to think that children's ministry is, you know, just not that important, but it is. I appreciate the Kids for Christ Choir and we want to look into the Word of God this morning, of course, and so let's just ask God to guide our thinking and to bring the word of God to bear on us in a living way that helps us to change. Father, we now come to our worship again where we devote ourselves to hearing you.

Father, we pray that, Lord God, we just earnestly pray that you would give us ears, that we would hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Lord God we need to hear from you now Father we pray that you would take the living word of God and use it in the life of this congregation for your glory the honor of the name of Jesus and for our good Amen if any of you would leave us here and move away maybe to another area I'm convinced that you would probably start looking for a good church and of course that might be a challenge finding a good church is always a challenge and as you check out some I wonder what criteria you would use well you'd respond to me why pastor we would look for a church that teaches the word of God a church that believes that doctrine is important, a church that is doctrinally sound. Why?

We'd look for a church that would not stand for false teaching and weak doctrine. You know how weak the church is today. And it would be a church that pursued and encouraged the purity and the godliness that grows out of sound doctrine. A church that isn afraid to practice discipline when anyone transgresses such standards of purity and doctrine Well welcome to Ephesus a strong church in a lot of trouble Welcome to a lot of churches today who have recovered both doctrine and discipline, but are in grave danger.

They're in grave danger because they have a fatal weakness, an attitude that can bring to them the judgment of Jesus, the Lord of the church. You follow along now as I read again Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 7. To the angel of the church in Ephesus write, the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.

I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my namesake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

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. Yet this you have. You hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 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 of God. Now, chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation are probably the most familiar to us of the entire book. And here you might be tempted, as you hear each of these messages to these particular congregations, here you might be tempted then to say, okay, which is the template that best fits us?

And I think that would be the wrong approach to take. Instead, we ought to see this as describing the variety of strengths and struggles that every congregation experiences. Now again it addressed to the seven churches in Asia And we talked about this earlier We in a book that very that high in symbolism And the number seven we going to see it continues through this entire book Seven is an important number.

Seven is the number of thoroughness. Seven is the number of completeness and fullness. And so, as we mentioned before, as we were in chapter one, I think when he talks to these seven churches, he's talking to seven historic, particular congregations in Asia Minor. But these seven churches, because he uses the number seven, also represent all churches of all times.

Okay? Also note that there is the same refrain in each of these oracles. In every one of these oracles you see the same refrain. In chapter 2, verse 7, verse 11, verse 17, and verse 29. And then in chapter 3, in verse 6, in verse 11, and verse 22. You see the same refrain.

It is this. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to all the churches. So all the churches have to listen to each of the messages. So the message to Ephesus isn't just meant for Ephesus. It's meant for all the churches. Alright?

And so the problems of these seven original recipients are symptomatic, are problems that are symptomatic of those confronting churches in all times and all places. And so I want to encourage you at this point, don't listen to this and say, okay, which one is us? What we need to do is listen to them all and say, what does this one and then this one and then this one, What does each one tell us where we need to change as a congregation?

So, now, some, one might fit us closer than all the rest. I have my opinion as to which one fits us closer. But on the other hand, let's not do that. Let's not try to make it fit. Let's listen to every message to every church and say, this is addressed to us. Where do we need to change as a result of hearing this?

Now each of these messages is addressed to an angel. What is that all about? Well some have said that this is a reference to a heavenly being called an angel Others that it represents some human in the church Now the word angel the Greek word is angeloi which we get the word angel of course originally meant messenger. That's what the word angel means.

It means messenger. It became a word that was applied to these heavenly creatures that were God's messengers, but it wasn't restricted to them. Someone could be called an ongeloi, meaning, or an ongelos, meaning he is a messenger. And so some have said, well, it's probably a human messenger of some kind. But the problem with that is, is that the word is used throughout the entire book about these supernatural heavenly creatures.

So I think it's a supernatural heavenly creature that he's addressing here. These angels are our heavenly counterparts, if you will, to the saints of the churches. There are heavenly counterparts. Why do I say that? Well, when you look, for example, at this refrain, look at chapter 19, verse 10. Chapter 19, verse 10.

This is John saying, then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, you must not do that. I am what? I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. And again, in chapter 22, verse 9, you see the same thing, where John's tempted to worship. He He says, don't do that. I am a fellow servant with you.

Same words. I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers. So angels, although there's these powerful supernatural beings, are fellow servants with us. So there's a connection between us. There's this corporate connection between us, if you will. They maybe represent us in heaven, and maybe even God has assigned a guardian angel to each congregation.

Wouldn't that be interesting? Boy, I wonder who the guardian angel is for LaRue Baptist Church. I wonder what he looks like. Probably a pretty powerful guy. But part of it may mean that we have heavenly help and protection in our struggle not to be conformed to our environment. Remember, these seven stars which represent the seven angels are in the hand of Jesus.

Whatever the case may be, whatever the case may be, this is not an emphasis in this message or the rest of the books. So let's not speculate. about this, okay? I hate getting into the pulpit and saying, I don't know. But I yet can quite figure out why this is addressed to the angel of the church and what that angel in particular does. But I do know this, we have a tendency to get zeroed in on and argue the most about the things we know the least, okay?

I had a professor, and I would, if dear Dr. Smith who went to be with the Lord, if he was alive today, I would be tempted to go to him and say, Dr. Smith, you owe me tons of bucks because I paid 45 bucks an hour for your class and we wasted it for an almost entire semester on angels. It was a class that was just ridiculous about how much time we spent on angels.

I wish I had that money back because the Bible does not emphasize angels. It says they're powerful. It says they're true. We need to deal with them. We come across them. We're going to come across a lot of them in this book.

But the angel of this particular church, I'm not sure. They're our counterparts in heaven. There's something to do with each church. What? I'm not sure. Let's just take it as it is.

It's addressed to the angel. We get the message. So let's center on the message, not the angel, shall we? Needless to say, each church is addressed by Jesus, and therefore each church has the same need. Every congregation must hear the voice of Jesus and obey it. That's the important thing to see.

No matter what each congregation struggles with, every congregation mentioned in these two chapters then need to hear the voice of Jesus. Every congregation that hears the word of God preached must hear the voice of Jesus and obey it, because he is the Lord of the church. Now, what does that voice say to this congregation this morning? What does that voice say to this congregation today?

It says this, recognize and repent of an attitude that will prove fatal to your congregation. Recognize and repent of that attitude that will prove fatal to your congregation Well let explore that If we going to do that the first thing that has to happen is we need to see the Lord of the congregation We see him in verse 1 We find that these are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand who walks among the seven golden lampstands Now in every one of these messages Jesus presents himself in a particular way A particular attribute is emphasized as we look at each congregation. A particular attribute that is revealed in chapter one is emphasized in each of these churches.

And most of those attributes come from the vision of the Son of Man that we saw in chapter one. So I'm going to ask you, turn back to chapter one, and let's start reading in verse 12. Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands. And in the midst of the lampstands, one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest.

The hairs of his head were white like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze refined in a furnace. And his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars. From his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword.

And his face was like the sun shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, Fear not, I am the first and the last and the living one. I died, and behold, I am alive forevermore. And I have the keys of death and Hades. Write, therefore, the things that you have seen, those that are, and those that are to take place after this.

As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. Now notice, when we come to chapter 2, the letter to Ephesus, what is emphasized? The fact that he holds the seven stars in his right hand and that he is standing among the seven lampstands.

When you come to the church in Smyrna, verse 8, the words of the first and the last who died and came to life. This emphasizes what we saw in chapter 1, verses 17 and 18. Come to the church in Pergamum, the words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword, that part of the vision of the Son of Man in chapter 1, verse 16. And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write the words of the Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze comes from verses 14 and 15 of chapter 1 As for Sardis, the words of him, verse 1 of chapter 3, the words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, chapter 1, verses 14 and verse 16.

Philadelphia, the words of the Holy One, the True One, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens. Again, the keys that are mentioned in chapter 1, verse 18. And then the last church, the church in Laodicea, the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation. That is from chapter 1, verse 5, where Jesus identifies himself that way.

So Jesus reveals to each church something of his attributes. To this church, to the church at Ephesus, he reveals the fact that he holds the seven stars and he's the one among the seven golden lampstands. To the church in Smyrna, he emphasizes the fact that he's the first and the last and the one who's been resurrected and so forth. But he reveals to each church something of his attributes, something about him that we need to know in order to respond appropriately to him, something that is suitable for each situation, which tells us that Jesus is the answer for all our problems in the church.

There is something about him that addresses the problems that we face. What do we need to see then? Let's return now. Let's get to our text then in verses 1 through 7. We need to see Jesus who, as the priest, repairs or removes the lampstands according to their functionality. We need to see Jesus as the priest who repairs or removes the lampstands according to their functionality.

This congregation must look up, and as we do, we need to see Jesus standing before our lampstand. That's the vision that God has for us. We need to look up, and we need to see Jesus standing in front of the Rue Baptist Church's lampstand. And he stands there. He must determine whether it's functioning properly, and he must take the appropriate action. Does it require repair, or does it require removal?

Is it sputtering along, the flame sputtering a bit? Does it need some help? Or is it too far gone and needs to be removed altogether? That the picture that we have Now we have to understand that every congregation every congregation in the world today is a lampstand Every congregation as we seen already is a light bearer Every congregation is a light bearer to the extraordinary grace of God in Jesus Christ.

We exist as light bearers, not individually, I'm not saying individually, when I say we right now. I'm saying we as a congregation exist as the one who bears the light of God's grace in Christ in this world. Every congregation has that function. So here's the priest standing before standing before the lampstand, weighing, making the judgment. Is this still a light-bearing congregation?

That's the picture we need to see. We're light bearers. Now you have to remember God had called Israel to be lightbearers to the nations. And they failed. Israel did not fulfill the function of being a lightbearer to the nations. And thus, what happened?

They're removed. What happens next? Turn back, you heard it this morning. Turn back very quickly to Isaiah 49. This is what was read this morning. This is a fascinating passage.

Watch what happens. is with the Lord and my recompense with my God. And now the Lord says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and that Israel might be gathered to him for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has become my strength. He says, is it too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob to bring back the preserved of Israel?

I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. earth. What's fascinating about this, do you notice? It starts out with Israel and all of a sudden we're talking about a person. He moves from talking about Israel as a nation, which is what's happening in verses 1 through 4, but now beginning in verse 5, it subtly changes.

Why? Because here is this mysterious servant of the Lord who is now going to fulfill everything where Israel failed. Israel was to be a light. Now this mysterious servant of the Lord is going to come and he will be the light, not just to Israel, but to the nations and bring salvation to the end of the earth. Isn't that, that's really interesting to see.

Okay? Starting with Israel, now moving to this other, to an individual, not a nation now, but an individual who actually calls the nation of Israel and the Gentiles. Now, notice in our New Testament reading this morning from Acts chapter 13. I hope you saw this. In Acts chapter 13, the Apostle Paul, when he's preaching in that synagogue, and the Jews rise up to get this riot going and cast him out.

What does he say? He says, we are now going to go to the Gentiles. Why? Because Isaiah 49 says, we will be a light to the Gentiles. Say, wait a minute, he's talking about Jesus. And Paul, you're applying it to you.

That's right. You see, Jesus came as a fulfillment of everything that Israel failed in. Jesus fulfilled it, and all of us who are incorporated into him also become lightbearers. And so every congregation is a light bearer. Every congregation is a lampstand. Our function, our function is to bear the light before this dark world of the grace of God in Christ.

And so Jesus now stands before the lampstand, our lampstand, to determine if we're fulfilling the function to which he called us. and as he stands among the lampstands note in verse 2 right now he stands in front of ours he knows he knows this congregation intimately you know we have an idea and it's been too long propounded amongst us it's true but overemphasized that jesus is the lord of the church meaning the worldwide church. Very true. That is clear.

But Jesus is the Lord of this congregation And he intimately knows this congregation He is endlessly interested in this congregation He knows it. It's not like a ruler who has all these churches all over. That's my church. That one over there, let's say you do that. No, no. He's that. and he also knows every one of us, every congregation intimately.

And so he stands and he weighs us in the balance and he judges. That's the picture. You ever thought about our church that way? You ever thought about this congregation that way? That's the picture. He's standing in front of our lampstand, knowing, weighing, judging.

What am I going to do with it? What do we do in light of that? Well, we need to hear the Lord's analysis. So I'll find that in verses 2 through 4 and verse 6. Okay? Jesus first commends the congregation that will not tolerate evil in doctrine or in practice.

I know your works. your toil and your patient endurance and how you cannot bear with those who are evil but have attested those who call themselves apostles and are not and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake and you've not grown weary. Verse 6, yet this you have. You hate the works of Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

He commends the congregation that refuses to tolerate evil either in doctrine or in practice. He commends them for that. Jesus commends those who pursue doctrinal purity. There are those who claim to be apostles. Now, these are not apostles like the original 12 and somebody showed up and said, hey, I'm one of the apostles. No, the word apostles, usually the word apostle was a common word that meant sent one.

And it was used loosely about some people in the New Testament. It was used in that looser way, not in the official way, but in a looser way. For example, James, the leader of the church in Jerusalem, He called an apostle not an apostle capital A an apostle small a Okay Or Silas Paul missionary companion is called an apostle And then there Andronicus and Junia mentioned in Romans 16, who are also called that.

So, it's these people who are like messengers of the Gospel, who have a certain standing. We might call them astute teachers of the Gospel. Okay? They've gained a reputation as teachers of the Gospel. Alright? And so he's saying, There have been some reputable, highly regarded teachers of the gospel that you tested and found that they were liars, that they were heretics, that they were doctrinally unsound.

They're not astute teachers of the gospel at all, and you knew it. You had the ability to take the word of God, and you knew the word of God well enough to be able to say, no, you're wrong. You're wrong. You're a heretic. You're a liar. You're not a teacher of the gospel.

You're a wolf in sheep's clothing. They had that ability. And he commends them for that. And Jesus commends those who pursue not only doctrinal purity, but purity in practice. These kinds of congregations hate the works of the Nicolaitans. Now, in all my years, and again, I haven't dived into the book of Revelation like I am now, but all the years where I've come across and glanced on the book of Revelation, I keep reading, nobody knows who the Nicolaitans are.

There's a clue given, though, in verses 14 and 15, if we want to look there, of chapter 2. But I have a few things against you, as he speaks to Pergamum here, but I have a few things against you. You have some there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel so that they might eat food, sacrifice to idols, and practice sexual immorality.

So also you have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Now there's this party in the church that are like Balak and Balaam. They're encouraging, we can look in the book of Numbers and we will. Balak, who came along, this king of Moab, who came along and drew away. Since Balaam could not prophesy against them and hinder the Israelites, he taught Balak, all right, what you need to do is to entice them with your idolatry and sexual immorality.

And you remember, they were drawn away at that point. And so there is this party within the church that either seems to encourage or at the very least excuse or rationalize sexual immorality, as if it's no big deal. And the Nicolaitans are their allies, and so the Nicolaitans are these probably who encourage or at the very least excuse sexual immorality.

And he's saying to them, I'm going to commend you. You hate what I hate. You will not tolerate in your midst sexual immorality, no matter what your culture says, no matter how acceptable it is to your culture. It is unacceptable to you, and you're to be commended for that. And notice, they work hard at promoting practical and doctrinal unity. He says, know your works, your toil.

That's the word that means working yourself to exhaustion. These are people who are doctrinal purity and practical purity are so important. and they're going to work themselves to exhaustion in this area. They're going to work patiently at this. It takes great endurance to guard against impurity. Now, you may be wondering, many of you don't realize the endurance and the toil that it takes in terms of teaching and discipline.

You know, as a pastor, you know, you kind of get used to the jokes. I wish I had a job where I could work one day a week. You know, you get used to that after a while. Because people don't know, at least I think if you're a shepherd who really cares what the people are taught, a lot of folks don't know the hard work. And maybe I just am bad at it. I don't know.

And this may surprise you. Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here. This may surprise you. But I was reading and studying yesterday morning until noon, and at noon I kind of started writing this sermon, and I got done around 7. Okay? To me, writing a sermon, please excuse this analogy, ladies.

I know I don't exactly know how you go through it. To me, writing a sermon is like giving birth to a baby. I mean, it is excruciating labor for me. Now, maybe that surprises you. Maybe you say, I can't believe it took you that long to write this thing. But be that as it may, be that as it may it's work it's work and the same thing is true with discipline you know sometimes when we come Before the congregation, with some discipline issues and present to you folks that we're concerned about and now we have to bring the congregation, realize the endurance and the patience and the toil that takes, the meetings and the face-to-face with folks who don't want to listen to you.

And you plead with them and you show them Scripture and you beg them to repent and they won't and you go back to them. And finally they say to you, leave me alone, I don't want to hear anymore. and your heart's breaking, and the endurance that takes, you know, that gets wearying after a while. It does. And so he commends them. He says, look, you're toiling at doctrinal purity and practical purity.

You're enduring. You're working patiently at it. You patiently put together your doctrine. You patiently go after folks who are dishonoring the name of Jesus in the hopes that they'll repent. And notice, he says, you do it for my name's sake. They do it for the name of Jesus.

They don't care what the community thinks about them. They don't care if the community says, you're nothing but a cult. Which is what we've been called. Alright? You're nothing but a cult. You're just these judgmental, hard people.

They don't care what the community says. These are the kind of people that care only that they do not dishonor the name of Jesus. and in that pursuit of doctrine and personal purity it says they have not grown weary they're not about to give up to them there's too much at stake we're not going to give up we're going to keep at it wow you say this is a great congregation well it is and Jesus loves this congregation because he says commendable things to them and about them now some of you might be saying no wait a minute pastor tim you've told us that love means you're willing to say the difficult things that's true that is true but are you really loving if the only things you say are the difficult things are you really loving if the only things that come out of your mouth are what's wrong with somebody you know how i take a measure of a man as to whether he loves his wife or not and I measure men. I do.

You know I take a measure of a man I listen to what he says about his wife I listen carefully Does he praise his wife Does he honor his wife publicly with other people Does he talk good about her? What would you think about a man who just constantly said, you know, my wife, she's this, she's that, she's always got to do that. You know how wives are. And I think, I don't think that guy loves his wife.

Why? Because the only thing he can find is what's wrong with her. I've met a lot of people who say they love Jesus' church and they're the same way. They're the same way. You know? Do you know, I know someone loves a church like Jesus does when he sees that Christ is working in a church and doesn't just see the problems.

When someone says, you know, this church is so weak. No one in the church is serious about God. No one really wants to serve God. Hardly anyone comes to the spring work day. Who shows up for flock? You know what?

If that's all I hear, I say, you know what? You can see all the problems, but you certainly don't love the church. You want to bang it around and get it where it should be, but not because you love it. And Jesus isn't that way. Jesus isn't that way. Before he ever says, but you know, I have this one thing against you, he tells them what's good about him.

But you know, he does love them enough. He does love them enough to say the difficult thing, and that comes in verse 4. That comes in verse 4. He says there this, but I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. He says that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Now, what's he talking about?

You know, before I started studying this passage, I figured, I know what this is about. And I was shocked to find out I didn't. I was always taught that this is saying, you don't love me. but do you see that here? It doesn't say that. He doesn't come right out and say what it is, what love they've abandoned. What is it they've abandoned?

I think it's this. They had abandoned their former zealous love for Jesus which was expressed by witnessing to him in the world. their first love was a missionary love. Not a missionary love I don want to get us thinking about missionaries overseas Let use this word It popular today It like their first love was a missional love Their first love was that they had a zeal for seeing people come to Christ.

That was their first love. That was their love for Jesus. A love, though, expressed by witnessing for him. now why do I say that why do I think that's their first love because what is he saying here he's saying I'm the one who walks among the lampstands what has the emphasis here every one of these churches is a lampstand but this is the one where he talks about your lampstand he's saying that's what's really wrong here you're not being a lamp you're not being a light okay that's got to be their first love that's why Jesus reveals himself to such a congregation as this one determining whether he should remove their lampstand if the lamp was no longer bearing light no longer performing the function for which it was created needs to be removed you've abandoned your first love you've abandoned your love for me by telling other people about me in their love for purity in their love for purity this congregation had gotten so introverted that they no longer loved those outside the congregation they got so intense on doctrinal purity and practical purity and loving purity that they didn't love lost, unwashed filthy sinners we can become so intent on guarding the gospel that we do not spread the gospel we can be so concerned about holiness that we refuse to have contact with sinners we can get so precise in our theology that we forget people now, let me say this I don't believe what he's talking about here is just personal witnessing.

Okay? Some of you are sitting there thinking, oh man, he's really going to lower the boom on us. We all need to go out and tell people about Jesus. Absolutely. That's exactly what you need to do. But I don think that just a little part of what he talking about here Because he addresses this as a congregational sin This is a corporate issue This isn an individual issue This is a corporate issue.

The whole church. Okay? We must be willing as a body to reach out. That's what he's talking about. Now, let me say this. Okay, I thought about this wording and I thought about it.

So I'm going to try to explain this to you. We need to quit thinking about outreaches. Wait a minute. You're just telling us that if we abandon that, we're in trouble. Okay, hear me out. We need to stop thinking that outreach is part of us.

We are outreach. The church is God's outreach. It's not, let's do it. We are it. You follow? Does that make sense?

So we need to not think so much of, okay, we need to do outreach. We need to think we are outreach. That's why we exist. We are the outreach. You know, as I get older, it's interesting. It's interesting to be in a congregation where the congregation can actually watch you become an old man.

You know? But can I say this? I think a lot about my life and my regrets. And I have a great regret. To my great regret and sorrow, I believe that I, along with many of my generation, have contributed to this fatal sin. I used to believe and say, the church is not about outreach.

The church is about worship. And what we need to do is, we come together and we worship, and then we scatter and personally evangelize and bring people into worship. I think I was wrong. Now, I'm not wrong. I'm not saying, so let's not have worship anymore. Let's just have evangelistic services every Sunday.

That's not what I'm saying. we gather on the Lord's day to give ourselves in worship to God but we exist here we exist to reach the lost. Why do we have evangelism? Why do we have evangelism? Because there are not worshipers. That's why. The evangelistic task is to go out and win people to Christ so that they become worshipers of the true God.

And so, yes, we gather for worship on Sunday, and that's what we're about. But what happened is, so reaching the lost became a personal responsibility, not a corporate responsibility. It became a responsibility of you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you, but not us. You see what I'm saying? Do we need to all go out? Yes.

But we need to do it as a body. That's what I think he's saying here. You've lost the zeal. Your body has lost the zeal. And again, I say to my regret and my shame, I contributed to that. Now, does this eliminate personal witnessing?

Absolutely. not. But we have to start thinking about more than that. Well, then what must happen in light of such an analysis? Look at verse 5. What does he say? Repent.

Repent of this fatal attitude. Now, why do I call it a fatal attitude? Because this sin is so serious that it's fatal to the life of the congregation. This is so serious. It's fatal. Why do I say it's fatal?

Because of the last part of verse 5. If you don't repent, what's going to happen? Your lampstand is going to be removed. That's fatal. Do you realize, and you know, a lot of us haven't realized this. What's the worst church of them all? what's the worst church of them all it's the last one laodicea they're so lukewarm jesus says i just want to puke you out of my mouth if we want to get really literal that's what he's saying you're so lukewarm i just want to vomit you you know that the two worst churches are the bookends of these seven we've often looked at ephesus saying wow great strong church that that this particular part great strong church, but you know they need to love Jesus This and Laodicea are the ones where Jesus says you pretty close to losing it all Okay This is serious business with God This is serious business with the Lord of the church.

Just like Israel didn't fulfill its light-bearing function and was removed, Jesus can do that to us. Now, it does not mean that, like Israel, Jesus is going to say, the church universal is not doing its job, I'm going to remove it. That's not going to happen. because we live under a different covenant. God's going to make sure that there's always this light bearer called his church, but there may not be this congregation or that congregation part of that any longer.

That individual congregation he may remove, and that one there he may remove, and ours he may remove. I can think of a church right now in Ohio that no longer exists as it kept shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. And we all can think of churches where there are 10 people, 15 people, 5 people still just trying to hang on. How'd they ever get to that spot?

How'd they ever get there? To where they're right on the edge in another couple months, they're going to vote to dissolve and close the doors. How'd they get there? How can we get there? If we are not serious as a body of reaching the lost. Is there anything more tragic?

Seriously, is there anything more tragic than a lampstand gone? So, what? What do we do? What does he say? Repent. Agree with God.

Change your thinking. Change your attitude. Say, God, you're right. We need to get serious about this. We must remember that love, and we must rekindle that love, and we must show the fruits of repentance. How do we do that?

As I was thinking through this, I'm convinced that it's never good enough to preach the Word of God without saying, what does God tell us what we have to do about it then? What would the fruits of that repentance look like? what can we start doing? Here's the first. Christ must be preached in this place every Sunday And I don mean evangelistic sermons You all know this is not an evangelistic sermon is it But I hope Christ is being preached.

And I hope grace is central. Because as Christ is preached, and every week we see the grace of God, and we rehearse the grace of God every week. This is part of what I think is very important about our worship. is that, which is why I think I really like our corporate confession of sin because every time we do that, we are rehearsing the grace of God.

We rehearse the grace of God every Lord's Day. We rehearse the grace of God so that we love Jesus. So that we love Jesus as every week we are confronted with the fact that, God, we have failed, and yet there is free forgiveness in Jesus whenever we just say, God, I repent. You're forgiven. I delight to show you mercy, says God in the book of Micah. As we do that, we hearse it every week.

We begin to see Jesus and we love him more and more and more. And as Christ is preached and we rehearse every Lord's Day the grace of God in Christ, we love him and we will want others to see him. we must start thinking that we as a body exist to reach the lost. Although every one of us must give a verbal witness. Let me say this. Some of you are sitting out there saying, I'm no good at witnessing.

Well, let's all agree on something. Some people are better at it than others. Okay? All right? I envy some of you and your abilities in this area. You can be pumping gas and find an opportunity to witness.

That blows me away. I'm not that, I'm not, and some of us are better in certain situations than in others, okay? All of us have to give a verbal witness, all right? So don't misunderstand me to say, oh, good. None of us, we don't have to worry about it. Yeah, we still have to do it.

And don't go around thinking, I'll live my life and they'll come to Christ that way. No, no, no. There's got to be a verbal component. Your life is merely the platform. But having said that, let's all agree on this, that we can use all of our gifts together to reach the lost Think about that Think about that Alright I think at least you seem to confirm it that I'm gifted in teaching.

I'd love to use that to reach the lost. You know what I love? I love sitting down with young people when they're coming to me and they're saying things like this. I don't know about this God thing. How do I know there's a God? I love that stuff.

That's like red meat for me. I love that. So let's think about that. You know, all of us using our gifts, you know. I'm just thinking out loud. This isn't even in my notes, so I know I'm going out on a limb.

Like, okay, like, could we get something going where some of you use your gifts to provide food and someone uses your gifts to provide a nice place and we could have a place where we could sit down with people and just deal with those kinds of issues, you know. Or things that we're seeing already, like our tutoring. All right? Some of you can use your gifts of the ability to help people one-on-one.

What a great way to, as a church, using different gifts, different places, all of us using our gifts together to reach the lost. Doesn't that sound good to you? That sounds great to me. That sounds great. We all put it together, and all of us working together come up with, here's how we reach the lost. The community garden is a good idea.

Tutoring. What's happening in tutoring? Well, we're building relationships and having opportunities. Okay? Here's Becca. And I know this because Becca's my wife and I'm married to this tutor.

So she's tutoring this little guy named Dylan, right? And Dylan's just giving her grief. Just really giving her grief. So she gets the Bible and starts reading to him proverbs, you know, about what happens when people argue all the time and stuff. Okay? What other tutoring program is going to use the Bible to get a kid in the line?

And that's implanting things in his mind. One day she said, Dylan, we're going to pray right now. And she said, Lord, help Dylan now to quit arguing and to sit down and sit still and to learn these things. Amen. And he said, God's not going to answer that prayer. You know, just different things like that.

All right? What a great opportunity, okay? When people say to you, well, this is really nice. What were you doing? What can we respond? I blew it the other day.

I blew it big time. I was thinking about it about four minutes later. I blew it with that guy. A grandpa was saying, this is really great for you guys doing this and I said, well, really glad to do it. Dumb answer. You know what I should have said?

I should have said, well, you know what? Jesus tells us to love our neighbors. And this is one way we can show you that Jesus loves you. I'm going to remember that next time. All right? See, those are ways that we can do that.

Invite. Here's one. This is one that my generation was taught when we were little. And then, like I said, we started saying, okay, church isn't about unbelievers, it's about believers. And this is where we got off track. I was taught as a little kid, invite your friends to church.

Do it. Invite your friends to church. Invite your friends to flock. Why? Because here's what happens. they come into this body and they see if we're doing what we're supposed to be doing they're seeing that we love one another they're seeing that we have fun together they're seeing a life that they don't see out there and as they're part of this congregation they say I like that I want to be a part of that right I'm going to give you something radical I'm taking the chance I hope you don't stone me on this.

Pastor out in Seattle, name is Mark Driscoll. Very controversial guy. I don't agree, everything Mark Driscoll does. But in one of his books he writes, you know, about how they're reaching the lost. And they're reaching the lost by having unbelievers in their small group. So, there's this one gal and her boyfriend.

She's a stripper. And she's living with her boyfriend. Somehow they get connected to the church. And they come to them, the leadership, and says, we'd like to host, like our flock, we'd like to host one of your flocks at our house. What would you say to that? You know what they said?

Great! You can host one of our small group Bible studies. We'll be there. You know what happened? She said, those folks were faithful to me. Every week when the small group came to our apartment, the women of that group were always faithful and talking to me about my sin and about the Savior And the men talked to my boyfriend about his sin and the Savior And they hosted that small group in their apartment and they both got converted and married And she's not doing that anymore.

Would we do that? You see, they see the life. They see the life. It's interesting. All right, last thing, verse 7. What's the last thing we need to do?

We need to believe the promise of God. Jesus makes a promise here that's good. Because listen, no one's going to repent without hope. Do you understand that? The law never brings repentance. The law brings conviction.

But no one will repent without hope. Every one of you here today has come to know Christ. Did not repent and believe in Jesus unless you had hope. You believe that Jesus would save you. You believe that Jesus would give you an abundant life. You believe those things or you never would have repented.

And that's what Jesus does. He says, look, if you repent, you get to eat to the tree of life. And he begins by making this statement about the Spirit. It's obvious when Jesus speaks that the Spirit speaks. The words of Jesus and the words of the Spirit are the same. Let's remember this.

When Jesus speaks, he says it through the Spirit. The Spirit never speaks independently of Christ. Okay? So what Christ says, the Spirit's going to say. He says, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Now, that's a form that we remember from the Gospels, and we won't take the time now, but if you turn to Matthew 13, where Jesus tells the parables of the kingdom, he says to his disciples, he who has an ear, let him hear.

That is to say, when he says that, he means, I'm going to speak truth now in a parabolic form, and what's going to happen when I do that is it will bring believers, the real sheep of Christ, to wake them up, and to the unbelievers, it's going to judicially blind them. They're not going to respond. And so here, in this highly symbolic book, he who has ears, let him hear what the Spirit says.

Those who are Christ's are going to listen. Those who are Christ's are going to listen. But it does say this. Here's what I know. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. You know what?

One step toward corporate repentance is what Personal repentance After addressing the church he says he who has an ear listen change is going to come in our congregation when each of us gets serious. The ones who have ears must grasp the promise. If you respond, you'll have the very presence of God to eat the tree of life which is in the paradise of God.

That's described in chapter 22. Just turn there real quick. 22, verses 2 through 4. Verse 1, Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, brightest crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, through the middle of the street of the city, also on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month.

The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. no longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him, they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There's a greater, there's this experience of the life-giving presence of God. That's what he's saying here.

How do they gain that paradise? By repenting, hearing Jesus in his spirit. And if repentance results, You will experience the presence of Jesus among you now because your lampstand will not be removed. You will experience the presence of Jesus now and already not yet. You will really, in the age to come, experience the presence of God like you have never experienced it before.

But notice, this is open to the conquerors. And every one of these messages says, to the one who conquers. We must conquer if we're going to experience that. Conquer what? It's not overcoming persecution in this message. It's not overcoming tribulation.

It's overcoming our own sin. How do we conquer? Look, you know how we conquer? The first step is repentance. you conquer by humbly saying to God I failed not saying God I'll do better you begin the conquering by repenting isn that amazing that the way God works strength comes through humility It doesn come by saying all right I do better It comes by saying, God, I failed.

Help me. And then it comes by trusting the one who has all the power, who has the seven stars in his hands, trusting him to give you the power. And in the next two chapters, Three chapters down the line, what are we going to see? We're going to see the one who conquered by dying. I saw on the throne a lamb that looked as if it was slain. We conquer by coming to the slain lamb.

And then we conquer by producing the fruit of repentance as we become the lightbearer for which we're created. guarding the gospel and failing to proclaim it, zeal for purity at the expense of zeal for the lost, does it sound all too familiar to you? Will we heed the warning? Will we repent? Will we grasp the promise? What a tragic thing to have our lampstand removed. but listen change begins with you and with me and we have hope Jesus holds out hope if we do that we'll remain the light bearers that we're intended to be and as we call on our God to help us to be that.

Father, every one of these is addressed to us, yet here we are in this first message, the message to the church at Ephesus. God, help us to change. Help us to take this seriously. Let's not be flippant about it, Father. Instead, work in us a conviction with hope that will produce repentance and a rekindling. Father, I confess that as one of the shepherds here, I see you at work here.

And yet we all can say we... we need to rekindle that first love. God, help us to do that. We are thankful for your mercy to us. Now help us, we pray. Help us. Give us time this week to think about this. and Lord we look to you to do great things because Father you do great things through weak people and weak congregations so we expect Father for you to work as we come to you humbly asking.

We lay this before you now in the name of Jesus, our Savior, and our Lord.