the rest of us. We're looking this morning at Revelation chapter 2 verses 1 through 7. Let me pray for us. Father, I pray that you would come, open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf. I pray that you would give us tender hearts. Much of what you have to say today, you might be considered hard teaching. And I pray that it would not so much be hard as much as it would be an encouragement to live out to the gospel. I pray for myself. I pray that you'd be in my head and in my thinking, in my heart and in my understanding and in my mouth and in my speaking. Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. You know, this morning is the kind of, it's kind of sermon. I would call Father Mapel, sermon. If you've read Moby Dick, which I'm sure all of you have, I can tell what it looks on your faces. It's kind of text with that I think I've got to stand up and preach it. Before I stand up and preach it, I go back and read the sermon by Herman Moby Dick. And I'll tell you what that means at the end today. You know, in June we moved. One of the good things about being a pastor is that a lot of times people are very willing to help you. And you know, people come out and drove and they get you moved in about four hours. The difficulty sometimes, this isn't a complaint by any stretch of the imagination, is that people can sometimes get a little overzealous. So for example, I still can't find some of my clothes. That's fine because I'm not that snazzy address or anyway. And three weeks ago or so, I was in my wood shop and I was trying to get things put away. Things still aren't put away as much as they ought to be. And I pulled out a bucket of old towels and I started rooting through it, see if there's anything I wanted to keep. And I found this book at the bottom of the bucket. This book is my journal from 1993. I thought, hmm, that's interesting. I wonder what I was like in 1993. And you know, one of the first things I turned to was we just found out there were pregnant or actually been a few weeks or a few months into it. And one of the things I wrote was you know, I know Judy doesn't really think I'm that into the into this baby thing because I hate going to showers. But I'm really excited. Much of what I had to say though, had to do with the gospel. Much of what I had to say was what did it mean? And grappling with what it meant to help other people come to know Jesus. One of the things that sort of broke me is this passage I'll read to you.
It says that what the denomination I was in calls church planting seems to be more like church pie ridding as we steal members from other denomination or lure people away from the world with big programs and entertainment. That doesn't seem like a biblical model. As I read my vision for ministries becoming clear, thanks be to the spirit of God. Remember I was just getting ready to go into the center. If I become a preacher of the gospel, it must be to those who haven't heard or had a real chance of following Christ. Every page is something like that. You know, I read that and just started weeping because the first thing that came to my mind was this, Tommy, when did you become the crotchety old church guy? When did you become the guy who doesn't think about that at all? What you think about is the next meeting with the person who has a problem with you. What you do is you spend all of your time trying to grapple with what the issues are and you really spend almost no time thinking about people who don't know Jesus. But what makes my life easier is that I make people in church happy. That's what I thought. I was extremely convicted. And so I have these thoughts and I'm just grappling with this and then a week or two later, I go in my office and you know, it's sort of like, well, what are we going to study this week to preach? And it's the letter to the Ephesian church. And I guess the good thing is this morning, I imagine some of my pathos is going to become some of your pathos. And the interesting thing is this weekend we had a great session retreat and one of the things I talked to the elders about, as I said, you know, I've got to preach this passage tomorrow about the letter to the Ephesian church and I'm trying to find some way to soften it. Trying to find some way to take the rough edges off of it. And so whatever you think this morning, know that there's been a lot of prayer and a lot of effort going into making it a little bit softer. But the problem is it's hard making something soft that Jesus has made hard. It's hard making something soft that Jesus has made hard. And you'll notice the title first press Ephesus. Part of that is just sort of a plan, the Ephesian church was most definitely a Presbyterian church. That's true. If you're looking at chapter 19 and 20, they appointed elders and they were run by elders and an elder run church is by definition Presbyterian. And it was the first church in Ephesus. So it was a Presbyterian church that was the first church and it so therefore was first press Ephesus. Now the interesting thing is it's a play on words on one hand. On the other hand, it's a lot like first press Kent. It's a lot like first press everywhere. So all that said, why don't we sort of jump in and there's no other thing to do with jump in, I guess. And if you remember before we get into anything, what the purpose of this book of revelation was about. You know, if you watch television preachers, you might think the purpose of revelation is one thing. If you listen to it to one tradition, you might think it's one thing. You listen to someone else. At the end of the day, if you remember my goal is to help us understand the book of revelation. Not from a particular point of view with regard to whether it's about the future or the past or something, but basically the purpose of the book is simply that the whole purpose at the end of the day is for John to communicate to us that Jesus has won. That in this victory over sin and death and the renewal of all and redemption of all creation, that Jesus has done it. At the cross, it was completely finished. There's no more work for him to accomplish. On the other hand, what the book of revelation teaches us is that Jesus is winning right now, that we look around us and what we often see is it looks like everything is horrible, right? We look at politics, seem horrible, the Middle East seems to be going crazy, all these things, but somehow in the midst of everything that looks hard, Jesus is actually winning. And if that's not enough, in the future, we can have good hope that he will win, that he will come back and clean up everything and wipe every tear from every eye and heal every wound and eventually all of us that trust him will dwell in his presence forever. So he has won. He is winning and he will win. And also, if you remember, basically how the letter is structured, it's the hybrid. In other words, it's not just a letter. It's an apocalypse, which is an unveiling of something. It's a prophecy which is trying to move us morally, somewhere the other. It's trying to get us to repent or to have faith or something at different portions in the book. But the overarching thing that the book of Revelation is, is it's a letter. The whole thing is a letter. It opens in verse 4 of chapter 1 with to the seven churches that are in Asia and it ends with grace b to you all. So the whole thing and one sense or another is meant to be a letter. And what a letter does is apply the personal work of Jesus to our lives. So with that said, within this bigger letter, there are actually seven letters. At least that's how the book begins with seven letters. And we give you a little bit of general info about the seven letters. You know, again, depending on your perspective, you think the letters to the seven churches mean this or they mean that or they're just allegories for something else. And a plain reading of the text and a plain reading of history says, among other things, that these were real historical congregations. They existed. So that's one thing. The second thing that we need to keep in mind is that while they're real historical congregations, that they also represented all congregations. We're going to see as we work through these letters that while a letter may open by saying to the church at Ephesus, it ends by saying, here what the spirit has to say to the church is plural. In other words, that every church appears in the book of Revelation, was supposed to be reading every other church's mail. And if there's something that was written to Ephesus that you needed to take heed of, you should take heed of it. And remember the seven of the churches and seven is a complete number. Most people think that the reason for the fact that there's seven churches, it represents the church universal. It's a complete number. It's the complete church. And really, Lalo scholars have pointed out that any church, any problems that tend to come up in any given church, if you can't find them in the book of Revelation, especially in these seven letters, you probably, you're not looking hard enough. In other words, most things that people deal with in church are found in these seven letters. So what else do we have? There's a particular structure. The seven letters, each of them, on one hand, they're a combination of Jewish prophetic oracle. On the other hand, they sound like a Roman edict. In other words, a Jewish prophetic oracle is something that would start or end with, thus say at the Lord, that God himself is speaking. And in each of these letters, they conclude with, hear what the spirit says to the seven churches he who has in here. So on one hand, the part oracle, on the other hand, they sound almost exactly like a Roman edict. And by that, apparently in the Roman Empire, there would be different governors of different regions. And if a governor wanted to make a point to a region, he would send a letter, maybe to a particular town, and it would begin with, I know the deeds you have done. And he would praise them, if there was anything praiseworthy, and he would admonish them if there was anything that was worthy of an admonishment. And then he would say, if you don't get squared away, this is going to happen. Or if you do get squared away, a reward will happen. In other words, there is praise, there is admonishment, and then there is either a threat of judgment or a promise of reward. And that's how each all these letters have that form. And part of that, you know, people speculate, I think it's just a, if you're familiar, John is probably the spirit through John, it's just contextualizing these letters. In other words, all the people of these churches would have understand what an edict is. They would have come from Curio Caesar or Curios, whatever they got war for governor, is the Lord Caesar. Well, this is an edict, but it comes from the Lord Christ. And so it starts with, I know there's praise, and then there's admonishment, and then there is promise of reward or promise of judgment. We'll see when we get there. So what are the different categories of letters, of the seven letters? Basically, the church is number one, and church is number seven. The church that opens the letter and the church that closes the letter are in what I'm going to call the danger zone. In other words, Jesus literally threatens these churches with taking them out of existence. Right? You remember when I was a kid, stepfather, you know, as you say, you know, and I brought you into this word, I can take you out, and that's sort of what Jesus is saying to churches one and seven, that the problems in churches number one and seven are so bad that Jesus says, if you do not repent, if you do not get squared away, I'm going to remove you. That's how bad it is. I'm going to call that the danger zone. You might think that's an understatement once we get there, but that's what I'm calling it for now. Churches two through six are faithful, relatively speaking. In other words, they're faithful, or churches two and six. They're faithful and basically the letters are saying keep on trucking, keep being faithful, keep enduring persecution, keep trusting Jesus in the midst of all this. So there's mostly encouragement in letters two and six. And in the middle churches three, four, and five, I'm just going to call them a mixed bag. They do some things well, they do some things not so well. But they're not so bad that Jesus is threatening to take them out, but they are bad enough for him to notice and say, you need to probably work on this, or that. And if you're a scholar, you'll notice that one and seven would start here, if you will. And then two and six are parallel to each other, and then three, four and five would make a point of a triangle. Just for trivia sake, that's what they call that a chiastic structure in biblical literature, it's poetic, sort of. And that was free. All right, what's a common thread in all of the letters? You see, remember, if we're looking at at these letters through the lens of the gospel, through the lens of the personal work of Jesus, are we going to find a common thread in these letters? Or is it just a monishment to one, a monishment to another, a monishment to this church or that church? And there is a common thread in all of them, and we're going to show you that throughout the thing. But the common thread is this, is that all the letters deal generally with the issue of witnessing for Christ in the midst of a pagan culture. That's a common thread, which makes complete sense. If Jesus is going to talk to the church, what is the end of the church, or the teleost, the final place where the church should be going? It's to witness to the pagan culture. In fact, if you look at the EPC or the Evangelical Church's Presbyterian Church's Book of Order, when it describes the church, it's the primary purpose of the church, is the evangelization of the lost, not good deeds, not caring for the poor, not any of that stuff, that all that stuff is important, but that's not the primary duty. And so if that's the primary duty, each of these churches is failing at it somehow, or each of these churches needs a little work on it. And so that's basically the common thread that you see. So the question is, what about this church? What about the church of Ephesus? And to understand the church of Ephesus, you got to understand also the city of Ephesus. And it's pretty fascinating. Basically the city of Ephesus, among other things, would have been the first on the mail route for the Apostle John. Remember he was on the island of Patmos, and if he sent a letter east, the place it would have landed first would be in the city of Ephesus. And part of that would be because it was a port city, it was also the fourth largest city in the Roman Empire, not just Asia Minor, but in the whole Roman Empire. The largest city in the Roman Empire, of course, would have been Rome. The second largest city would have been Alexandria. Third would have been Antioch of Syria and fourth would have been the city of Ephesus. That makes it pretty important. There's more things that make it important though. For one, it was a huge financial center apparently. That people would come there to trade currency and trade jewels and things like that. And what it would do because of that is it would draw people from all around the known world. And because it was a seaport, a very bustling seaport, that people would come, so it was a very diverse place, culturally speaking, but it was always also a very wealthy place. What else do we know about it? It was one of the premier religious centers of the ancient Near East. In fact, Ephesus was home to one of the seventh wonders of the world. My wife counseled me, I think wisely not to show you a picture, and temple to the goddess Artemis, or the Romans would call her Diana, was over a hundred thousand square feet. Big that it. It's huge. It was a huge statue of the goddess Diana, and I don't know any nice way to say it, but it was completely covered with breasts. And there were temple prostitutes there who were working twenty-four seven, and it was a big religious center. And it made a lot of money. We'll find out a little bit later that the Apostle Paul was driven from that city because his preaching of the gospel was affecting the finances of those who had sell stuff for the temple.
Along with that, it was a huge political center. Remember the emperor, the mission who persecuted Christian, starting in about AD 92? He decided to make Ephesus, I believe it was called a award city, or award in city. In other words, he put his temple, the temple to the mission. If you're going to worship the emperor, he put his temple in Ephesus. That's how important Ephesus was to him, to the Roman Empire. So if people wanted to worship the emperor, they wanted to make a trip to see his stuff. His thing was I don't know if I remember as about a third as big as the temple Diana, but it's pretty big. So it was a financial center, it was a religious center, it was a political center, and then in the middle of all this mayhem started one of the most influential churches in the history of Christianity. It was like unto Manhattan or Chicago or something like that, which leads us to the church. What was the church like in Ephesus? Well, it had some pretty interesting characters, some pretty important characters. If you remember the apostle Paul during missionary journey, stopped in there with also Priscilla and Aquila. So he basically got the church started, left it with Priscilla and Aquila for a while, and they were the ones who organized it, arranged it, and shepherded people. And eventually Paul came back. He spent two and a half years in Ephesus, the longest he spent anywhere, and he was driven from Ephesus because of the silversmiths and things. And when he left, he turned the church over to this young guy named Timothy. And Timothy pastored the church for quite a while until right around the turn of the first century, Timothy is written in a church tradition that he was murdered by the Romans. And when Timothy was murdered by the Romans, they brought in an old guy, and I mean that, the apostle John came in. It's pretty typical when a young pastor retires or is murdered by the Romans that you bring in an aneurysm for a while. John came in, and so the apostle John came to be basically the bishop or the pastor at this church in Ephesus. And just another just for trivia's sake, but I found it very interesting. They have one more important member of this church. One more member, remember when Jesus was on the cross, what he said to John, he said, take care of my mother, that Mary, Jesus' mother, was a member of the church in Ephesus, if John was there. And church tradition says that she was. So imagine going to church with Mary, like imagine Christmas Eve service with Mary. She's watching the kids up there and everything, and she looks over and she says, nothing like that. Trust me, no cute kids singing, certainly no candles, none of that stuff. But anyhow, it's just interesting, that was an important church between the apostle Paul Priscilla and Aquil between Timothy, John and Mary. It had some important people there, but even more than that, if you've ever read the New Testament, at least these books are associated with the city of Ephesus. And I'm sure if I miss some, you'll let me know, the book of Ephesians, 1st and 2nd Timothy, 1st, 2nd and 3rd John, and the gospel of John. Right, the book of Ephesians, we know because it says it right on the letter. 1st and 2nd Timothy were written to Timothy while he was pastoring in Ephesus. 1st, 2nd and 3rd John were written probably to churches in Asia Minor, which would include Ephesus, but also probably from Ephesus. And then of course, the gospel of John, most people believe it was written from Ephesus by John. And so because of that, it became the center of Christianity. In other words, Christianity, it started in Jerusalem and then eventually moved to Antioch and then to Ephesus and then ultimately to Rome. And if you're in Evangelical, I think the Colorado Springs would be the next center, but that was a joke as well. So that's the church. It was an incredibly important church. And so that makes sense that the first letter that would go would be, would go to this particular church. It was a most important church in the time that it existed, but also just historically, geographically, personnel-wise and everything else. So the three points we're going to look at this morning, three things. And what are those three things? The first is what I'm going to call a compliment. Jesus compliments them or maybe a more better word would be commends them. I commend you for this. The second word I'm going to say is you're going to see a complaint. I remember where I said I was going to try and soften things up. That's actually the soft version. You'll see. And then number three would be a challenge to change. So what do we have? We have a compliment a complaint and a challenge to change. And let's look first at the compliment. Versus two, one through three and five. The question here is what are they doing right? It's the church at Ephesus doing anything right. Is there anything commendable which they're doing? And the answer is yes. And so let's look at that real quickly. Before we do that, I need to point out to you to what happens in verse one. Notice when you read this, I'll read it from my Bible, it says to the angel in the church of Ephesus, right, the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand who walks among the seven golden lamp stands. The key here is the word lamp stands. And what am I getting at here? When you remember last week we looked at the introduction, that we looked at John's vision that he had of Jesus and it opened up by saying I turned around and I saw him who walked in the midst of the golden lamp stands and I saw one who had on a long robe and a golden sash and a sword came out of his mouth. Each one of the seven letters begins with some part of the vision we saw last week. In other words today's letter begins with the vision of Jesus in the middle of the lamp stands. And each each letter begins with part of that vision and that the part of that vision is actually the key to understanding the letter. So in other words when you read this and it says the words of him who stands with the seven stars in his right hand who walks among the seven golden lamp stands, what that tells you is that something that's going on with the church at Ephesus has to do with the lamp stand. Or if it's later on where it talks about the sword coming out of whatever the problem is it was addressed in the introduction and each church gets part of it and so the problem in Ephesus is going to have something to do with the lamp stand and if you remember what the purpose of the lamp stand was the original lamp stand was made to be in the temple and it wasn't the light itself but it only bore the light and that light stood for the presence of God. And then last week we saw that the churches or seven lamp stands. Now the seven churches are the seven lamp stands that the churches now are to be the ones who bear the light of God and so the church's Ephesus part of their problem must be with however they're bearing the light or not bearing the light. And that leads us to the first part versus two through three. Let me read that to you. First two says Jesus as 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 name's sake and you have not grown weary. Verse six he says yet you have this you have this you hate the works of the Nicolations which I also hate. So what is he praising them for or for what is he praising them? Well first thing he says I know your works and your toil and so the first thing he praises them for is these these are John Stott summary by the way he's he basically praises them for their energetic service their works and their toil that has to do with work that is just taken on and brought to completion and he says I know your works and your service in other words you guys are an incredibly diligent hard-working church you have more programs than you could shake a stick at and every one of the programs you do perfectly or you take it to a logical end or you man it by volunteers so you don't have to pay for staff whatever it is whatever you the way you think that programs ought to be done or the way that you think ministry ought to be done you are doing it and you're diligent in your service okay what else does he say he says you're also patient and you're suffering do you catch that he says you're patient endurance and how you cannot bear with those are evil and he says in verse 3 I know you're enduring patiently and bearing up for my names sake in other words he basically is saying I know it's hard for you it would be easy because remember if we talked about what was going on at the time that the emperor was sort of giving them pressure and the secular society was giving them pressure and the Jewish leadership was giving them pressure all to cave and apparently they were bearing up under it and they weren't caving they were still remaining a church they stood firm on the word of God and they bore up under it and Jesus praises them for that he says I know your works all the things you're doing great the fact that you endure suffering patiently great what else they're orthodox in faith they're orthodox I mean he says at the end of verse 2 he says you've tested those who call themselves apostles and are not and found them to be false and he says you hate the work of theniculations we'll talk about that in a few sermons from now which I also hate that this church not only is diligent in their service not only do they do they do the kinds of things that church people are supposed to do not only do they remain solid in the midst of a changing culture but they're also orthodox that's pretty big that they believe the right things that they're not going to to cave in they're not going to give any way when it comes to the gospel so much so that apparently some people had come into the church that were false teachers and they listened to them and could discern whether they were true or false what they had to say according to the to the Bible and they got rid of them they kicked them out and Jesus said that's big that's good you guys are orthodox in your faith and he says you hate the works of theniculations notice he didn't say I hate theniculations he said you hate their works he says I hate them too good for you now you read and that you know what that reminds me of that reminds me of our church you know our church has more volunteers than any church I've ever been at I know people always say we need more volunteers our church has more volunteer hours than any church I've ever seen and we have programs whoo we have programs a lot of them have gone away since I've gotten here I know some of you are upset with that but we'll talk about that in a minute
but if you want something done start a program and if you want the program to go get a bunch of volunteers and get people busy because a busier you are the more Jesus is happy that's what it feels but not only that we're patient and suffering a lot of us have suffered in this church and a lot of us have been a tremendous witness to the rest of the congregation and even the world because of the patient suffering that we have endured whether it be with illness with our health with things that have happened in our lives that's a good thing being diligent and volunteering and so that's a good thing too so is patient and suffering and I hope we're orthodox in our faith I think we are at least according to the Westminster larger and shorter catechisms in the standards of this church as long as you can stand up and say I believe that you're good to go right so what could be wrong I mean in some sense if you had a church that was energetic in service patient and suffering in orthodox in faith at some level that's every pastor's dream because how could there be any problems in a church like that apparently in the church in Ephesus there's one huge problem if you stop this letter right here and it was just pray if Jesus just stopped the praise right there we would have all probably read it and said that's beautiful that's just how we are wouldn't you think that
however something there's something right after this and you know I always think it's an important word it's a word but it's a word but remember I always tell you the word but is one of the most important words in the Bible and it's always because usually it's in the context of you or sinners but God has given Jesus for our sins this is the exact opposite things are going pretty well your church looks pretty healthy but and that's where Jesus makes a complaint that's the nicest way I could say what Jesus is doing here it's not inaccurate it's just the nicest way because what does Jesus actually say here he says I have this against you if you'd never if the book of Revelation didn't exist and you just went off the information you have if you're a Christian and I came to you and said could you imagine Jesus ever saying anything like this we expect him to say words of grace we expect him to touch the leper we expect him to say come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest he says that but what you almost never hear people focusing on is this by the way that's more than a complaint what does it mean for Jesus to say to any church first press Ephesus or first first first EPC I have this against you that should open your eyes when Jesus says that we want to hear all the time when he says you know I have I'm for you come unto me but what we need to hear this morning is what Jesus says when he says I have this against you and what does he have against the church in Ephesus and any other church that has their same problem it's this he says that you have abandoned the love that you had at first that's the English standard version I think that's actually the best translation another version the message says you've walked away from your first love the one most people are familiar with if you're familiar churches that you've left your first love so there's this huge distinction drawn between I know all the works that you do I know all the things that you've suffered I even know how much you care about the Bible and Bible study and doctrine but I have something against you that is so bad it threatens the very existence of your church
and what is that thing way tells us that you have left your first love and the question of course is what does he mean by first love a lot of different commentators talk about it some people think what he's talking about is the churches love for each other that maybe there's conflict in the church and at the beginning they started the church which happens you know you start a new church and everything's hunky door and everyone's on the same page and everyone loves one another and they're moving forward and then after you know 10 15 20 30 years everyone's sort of not an agreement anymore that would never happen here but an Ephesus it might have but probably not a lot of other commentators say well really all it talks to you something is love for Jesus you used to love me now you don't you used to be zealous for the gospel now you're the crotchety church guy or crotchety church woman you don't love Jesus anymore that's that's probably not what he's talking about either by the way now what he's talking about is directly related to your love for Jesus because if you don't have love for Jesus you won't have the neck that what he's really talking about and if you do have love for Jesus you will have what he's talking about so the question when I pop the next slide for you is going to be do I really love Jesus and how does it work itself out in my life that's a hard saying I know really what he's talking about is their love for the lost remember how the book opened remember the problem with the Ephesian church there's some kind of issue with their lamp stand if you don't get the lamp stand squared away I'm going to take away the lamp stand the thing that is made to bear light if he doesn't say when he tells him what to do what how to how to repent of it he doesn't say start loving Jesus again change your emotion he tells him to do some do the same things they used to do in the beginning so it's just interesting to me when you think about love for the lost being the primary thing that Jesus is upset with here and then you think about all the things that happen in church it really is amazing if you think about it but the primary thing that Jesus is willing to take this church out if they don't get squared away is the thing in my experience most churches really at the end of the day don't spend any time thinking about not really I mean I I've had people complain since I've been here about any number of things but almost no one has ever complained about why aren't we seeing more people come to know Jesus it's always about the music or it's about the budget or it's about something else you know what Jesus complaint is about
why aren't you living out the gospel living out the gospel always entails taking the gospel to other people I mean I've heard I didn't go to any meetings I never I've missed as many as I can but you know often times on the course of the year people say what are the elders going to do to grow this congregation now the irony of that is is when you do things to grow congregation that causes change and then people actually lead because they don't like the change but in spite of that I told our session yesterday we were talking about growing the congregation and I told them I said if at the end of two years from now for example we had 200 more people sitting in our pews and all of them had just come from other churches we will have failed most churches when they think of what it means to bear witness in the world think of it in terms of how can we make our church attractive for other Christians to come to our church and and give us their time to suppose of someplace else what Jesus is talking about here is our witness in the world that there are tens of thousands of people within two or three miles of this church that do not know Jesus and what are you first EPC doing about it and by the way I'm not saying this is scold you I'm saying so you can ask yourself the same question that I ask myself when did I stop caring when did I start being crotchety old church guy when did I just all I was concerned about was whether or not we were going to come in under budget because you know what when at the end of the age when I stand before Jesus I very well doubted you that he's going to say Tommy in the year 2012 what was your budget and were you within two three four or five thousand dollars of that I'll say well we came in under but we didn't spend as much I don't think that's what he wants to hear ask yourself these questions when was the last time you prayed for your friends your neighbors or your family these are ways to diagnose whether you're on board with Jesus admission or not I'm going to guess it's not very much because we get the prayer sheets every week and only rarely does anyone write on there please pray for my friend husband mother someone to come to know Jesus there are a couple people that write it every single week and you know what you if you're doing you could probably stop because I pray for you anyway that's what you want you want people praying and so are you do you even pray for people to come to know Jesus once the last time you did that you know Spurgeon one time people asked him how come your church has grown so much his church went from a very small church to about ten thousand he said my people pray for conversions do you pray for conversions in our church for your friends neighbors let me ask you this when is the last time you invited someone to church I can only answer it for myself but when is the last time people say what are we going to do to grow the congregation well the only way a congregation grows is that people come in the only way they come is usually if they're invited let me ask you another way when's the last time you invited someone to anything but these are questions the only way I knew these questions because I have the other questions I'd ask myself I spend the good bit of my waking hours either somewhere between two blocks away from here and here back and forth it's like a virtual private network that Tommy Allen lives in I come here I make it into the office without contacting any unbelieving people I work on my sermon because if I have a good sermon people will be happy with me and then I go back here through the virtual private network to get to my house sleep wake up lather rinse repeat I've never fixed my garage door open or so I can't avoid my neighbors that way but I do trust me the question is when do you invite it to anything or are you so busy with church programs that you don't have time you see if if reaching people for Jesus is important that almost necessarily means a lot of the programs in the church need to just go they need to be gone everything that we add in the church means that's time that someone is not able to spend with their unbelieving friend or neighbor so the next time you propose a program think about that I'm not saying there's they're all bad or you should never do that but think about it finally once the last time you sacrifice time energy or resources so that someone you could come to know Jesus what's our giving like to missions what's our giving like to benevolence this is the kind of thing which by the way one of the reasons that I'm constantly talking about the fact that we need to get rid of the mortgage that this church has because all the money that goes to the mortgage and interests and everything else should be going to the kingdom of God it should be going to missions it should be going to feeding the porch be going to all these different things ones the last time those are those are hard questions aren't they well Jesus doesn't leave us there he he gives us not necessarily a way out but he gives us something to do about it he gives us a challenge to change and what is that challenge what does he expect from us basically three things the first thing he says in verse five he says remember therefore from where you have fallen you know it's interesting to me one one of the things I love about our church is the diversity of age and one of the things I love doing is when someone who is older than me by a few decades regales me with tales of their youth when I go to memorial service I love the part where they show you know they show the the guy who's passed away and he's standing beside a bomber in world war two right that you all you know is the crumpled old man and yet you look and say that guy at one point or another was a hero and this church 25 or 30 years ago came out of a denomination that frankly's lampstand had probably gone out and I love hearing the story of everything it took to leave and all of the change and all of the risk where did those people go some of them are here but a lot of them aren't here anymore
they're sitting around you but what happened johnson's remember remember from where you fall remember back in those days when the gospel meant everything to you what does he say next he says repent and do the work she did at first what it means to repent is basically to stop doing what you are doing and to turn 180 degrees degrees and go in the right direction so in other words if your if your life is defined by only talking to Christians and only making sure that your Christian world is safe and secure and and solid like you want it to be you need to stop doing that maybe and turn your eyes outward in other words you need to be outwardly faced I'm running out of time otherwise I'd talk a lot more the last part of verse 5 says if not I will come and remove you and remove your what lampstand from its place unless you repent now when Jesus says something like that you can either consider it a threat or you consider it a promise but either way it's an important thing to heed he says here's the here's what you're doing well here's what you're not doing well and here's what I expect from you in return to wait I expect as far as repentance and says if you don't do this I'll remove your lampstand and if you don't think that he's willing to remove a lampstand look at some of the denominations and churches that exist in our country right now they're just shells of what they used to be because they define themselves by politics or by something other than the gospel of Jesus finally verse 7 he says he who has an ear to 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 the main thing I wanted to point out to you there is that this letter is also for all churches that have ears to hear that it's not just for Ephesus and then he says to the one who conquers what will I do I will grant to eat of the tree of life and I have to leave you with this how does one conquer in the gospel the way that you conquer the way you have access to the tree of life in the the christian gospel at least as you trust the fact that someone else has conquered on your behalf remember when John fell at the feet of Jesus dead or as if he were dead and Jesus has stopped being afraid why because I'm the first in the last I am alive I was dead and behold I'm alive forever more that is the life death and resurrection of Jesus in which we conquer and to the extent that you've trusted that you will be a conqueror and because of that you're granted access to the tree of life and I wish I had another hour because the tree of life basically starts in Genesis but it ends at the end of Revelation then the book of Revelation because a sin Adam and Eve were cast from the garden and said you cannot have access to the tree of life and in the book of Revelation at the very end of the Bible not only are we given access to the tree of life but every tribe tongue and nations it says the trees of the leaves of that tree come down for the healing of the nations that we dwell in the presence of God think about that let us pray father I pray that as we consider this hard teaching it is a hard teaching it's hard for me to teach it's hard I imagine to hear and I pray that you grant us repentance I pray that your grant us joyful hearts as we seek to see your mission accomplished in the world and that is reaching people who do not know Jesus and I pray for if there are people here today who don't know Jesus that they would come to faith in Christ's name we pray these things amen and amen