Remembering Our First Love - Revelation 2:1-7

[00:00:05] Thank you for listening to the Calvary Monterey Podcast. To learn more about our church, please visit Calvary.com. In traditional resources from our lead pastor, Nate Holdridge, please visit NateHoldridge.com. Teaching today is our lead pastor, Nate Holdridge. All right, good morning, church!

[00:00:26] Great to see you guys today. If you don't know who I am and you're new to the church, who's last three Sundays, my name is Nate Holdridge. I'm a lead pastor here. And we've been out on as a family, on a little summer break,

[00:00:39] and now I'm ready to get back to it. And I have to admit, as I kind of, you know, we rolled back in the town on Friday for those of you who don't know where we... I'm a very boring person. I do the same thing every year.

[00:00:54] This is our 17th year, I think, going up to Lake Tahoe as a family. And it was a real special time for us, three Sundays out, 18 days up there at the lake, which I say with fear and trepidation,

[00:01:07] because it's just such a privilege to be able to do that. And I thank you for it. But it was a great year for us. My oldest daughter, Lord willing, will be graduating from college this next year, and she was able to be there with us.

[00:01:19] And yeah, you couldn't clap for her. She would greatly appreciate that. And my second daughter, Violet, is going to be heading off to college this fall. And my youngest daughter, June, is entering into our junior year.

[00:01:32] And so she's just grieving what it's going to be like to be with her born parents all year. And I was already scheming. All the things should be doing to get out of the house as much as possible.

[00:01:42] But so it just was special for us as a family to be able to have that time of connection together. And for me, as a pastor to be able to step away from the weekend, week out, grind of pastoral work and ministry to get refreshed,

[00:01:59] but also to just hear from the Lord. And so I'm very thankful for our time that we've been having in the Psalms. I taught Psalm 22 before I left. We're sequentially going through the Psalms together as a church. I've been really thankful that we're doing this as a church.

[00:02:15] I, one of the books that I read while I was away was a reread of a book by Eugene Peterson who was author of the message. And he wrote a book on pastoral ministry called Working The Angles.

[00:02:28] And one of his main points is that prayer is central to pastoral work. And one of the arguments that he makes is that the Psalms used to be very central, theologically to Israel and then to the church, but through and he kind of details this in his writing.

[00:02:48] The advent of lots of liberal theology, the Psalms were pushed to the extremities of the faith. And we kind of think of them more lightly now, like they're just for those devotional people. Those emotional people.

[00:03:03] But they're actually designed to bring us back to the core of what the gospel does for us as a people. Jesus came and lived and died and rose from the grave so that if we believe that he did that by curiously for us,

[00:03:16] we could be re-unified with the God whom we were broken off from because of our sin. And the Psalms show us a relationship with that God. So for me, I think it's been great for us as a church to visit the Psalms each summer.

[00:03:31] So we're just going sequentially through the Psalms, you know, six, seven, ten Psalms at a time. So in like 2046 or so, we'll finish the Psalms together. But 25 through, you know, Pastor Matt chapter 25, which I loved is teaching on friendship with God. And I loved hearing about that.

[00:03:55] I was just encouraged, you know, coming back into the pulpit. Nate, I want to be a friend to you. I want you to cultivate your friendship with me and on top of that, I always love,

[00:04:06] I never know where does Matt get all his quotations, all his illustrations, all his stories, his one liners like so good. And then Pastor Riley, you know, cracking open his life a little bit from Psalm 24,

[00:04:20] he talked about how he went to a concert up in Santa Cruz, I think. And old, I think it's got to be like a punk rock band that he got to see these old guys. He got the backstage pass.

[00:04:33] I just love imagining our worship leader getting out all of his anxiety and stress, pastorally by stage diving at like some random concert up in Santa Cruz. I love that. And, you know, him just sharing about revival that God is a God who wants to revive

[00:04:51] his people and I love that beautiful hope that Riley and the word have for a reviving of God's people. And then Pastor Mike teaching Psalm 23, which he made such a big deal about not wanting to do so. I'm 20, three and all that kind of stuff.

[00:05:08] But he did such a beautiful job. I listened to the teaching and so I still haven't seen that very inappropriate poster that he found on Amazon. You know, that he showed you guys. But I mean, I just love that it was like hearing that word.

[00:05:21] I listened all three of these messages yesterday. Hearing that word for me was like a Nate as you go back into a pastoral work in your regular life. I'm with you. I walk with my people through the valley of the shadow of death.

[00:05:34] No matter what you face, no matter what you're going through. I'm with you. I'm standing with you in that as your good shepherd. And so I just loved the word that we've been able to look at.

[00:05:46] Before I left, I prepared for Psalm 26, which I'm going to share with you next week because today I want to share with you some things from Revelation chapter 2 that the Lord minister to my heart.

[00:05:59] Well, I was away. So if you turn there in your Bible's Revelation chapter 2, we're going to look at verse 1 through chapter 7 together. I made a joke before I left to at least one of the services that I wasn't going to think about you guys,

[00:06:13] well, I was gone. And for the most part, that was accurate. I was just there at the lake, just kind of hanging out, paddle boarding, just chilling. But the truth of the matter is that I do spend a lot of time praying about thinking about our church.

[00:06:28] Our church family, what God is doing, where he wants things to go. So I'm going to give it a go. I need to make my own life and in my own heart. And as I said, I like to read a lot of books while I'm away.

[00:06:40] And one of the books that I read was there's a real simple title. I'd read a few reviews from trusted people, a more contemporary book, a newer book called Pastor Jesus is enough as a title of the book.

[00:06:54] So I just thought, okay, I think that one's aiming at me. And so I picked up this book and brought it with me to the lake. And I started reading it, and I realized that what the author was doing was using Revelation 2 and 3,

[00:07:10] which are Jesus' letters to seven churches in Asia, minor back in the days of the Apostle John who wrote the book of Revelation. He used those letters as encouragement to modern pastors.

[00:07:27] Part of the reason that he does that is because each one of these seven letters that Jesus writes begins with to the angel of and then the name of the church, the church in Ephesus or the church in Smyrna or the church in Pergamos

[00:07:40] or the church of Fiatira or the church of Sardis or the church of Philadelphia or the church of Leia to see I've been practicing that all week. So I got that, the angel that Greek word means messenger and so there's conversation about who is Jesus writing to.

[00:07:59] He writing to and and Gellic being or is he writing to the messenger, the pastor, the pastor, the pastoral group of these individual churches and the premise of the author of this book that I read was that Jesus

[00:08:12] is writing to the pastors of these churches and encouraging them, sometimes correcting them, sometimes even rebuking them in some specific ways to help them in their life and ministry.

[00:08:25] I personally believe that all seven of the churches in Revelation 2 and 3 have been in existence at every age of church history. You'll you'll find all of these churches in existence but the first church, the church in Ephesus,

[00:08:41] has so loudly resonated with my heart over the years and when I cracked open this book and just began reading, it was like God was beginning to teach me and share with me the lesson that he wanted to share with me.

[00:08:55] Well, I was a way, the first book that I read while I was gone was by AW Toeser, many of you are probably familiar with it, the pursuit of God.

[00:09:03] I've been reading that each year when I go away because my friend Josh White from door of hope church in Portland, he mentioned that he reads that book every single year and I thought that's just a great one to read every single year

[00:09:17] to be re-confronted with the question. How Nate is your pursuit of God? After I read that book, I picked up this other book, Pastor Jesus is enough and launched into his teaching on Revelation 2, verse 1 through 7 and it just so encouraged my heart. So let's read the text together.

[00:09:38] This letter from Jesus through John 2, the ancient church of Ephesus and therefore to us as well today. Revelation 2, verse 1, it says to the angel of the church in Ephesus right.

[00:09:53] The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. I know your works, verse 2, your toil and your patient endurance and how you cannot bear with those who are evil.

[00:10:11] But if tested those who call themselves apostles and are not and found them to be false, I know verse 3, you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake and you have not grown weary.

[00:10:29] But I have verse 4 this against you that you have abandoned the love that you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first.

[00:10:48] If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. Verse 6, yet this you have, you hate the works of the Nicolayatins which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear with the spirit says to the churches.

[00:11:09] To the one who conquers, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. It's probably obvious to you why this little letter would resonate so deeply with my heart.

[00:11:26] It's because of the main exhortation found at the center of it and all seven of these letters Jesus starts out writing to the angel of the particular city or church that he's writing to. In most of the letters he gives a word of commendation.

[00:11:42] Here's something beautiful about you and he does that here for the church in Ephesus and will explore that in a moment. And for most of the churches, he has a word of correction as well.

[00:11:54] There are a couple of churches that receive no correction but most of the churches. There is something for Jesus to address something for Jesus to correct.

[00:12:04] And then each letter closes with a promise of what will come to the life for the church that faithfully endures and overcons and corrects perhaps the deficiencies that Jesus found within the church.

[00:12:18] And the issue in the church in Ephesus is very simple it's found there in verse four they had left their first love and we're going to talk about that today.

[00:12:28] But this was the big thing that the Lord ministered to my heart well I was away it was just simply Jesus saying to Nate saying to me saying to your pastor what I want you to be Nate more than anything is a lover of Christ.

[00:12:45] I want you to focus on your relationship with me.

[00:12:48] I want you to deepen in your walk with me and I don't want you to replace your relationship with me with the work of the ministry that you have done this is a message that's easier to receive when you're 22 years old and up on this church stage and platform getting ordained into the work of the ministry because I've done nothing at that point.

[00:13:14] It's about Jesus it's about my walk with him but now at 46 years old 17 years is the senior pastor of this church there's like a little bit that I've done. And the Lord was saying to my heart, Nate don't neglect your first love.

[00:13:32] Let this be a church let this be a life that is a life of prayer and as a life centered upon the word that's the life that I want you to live.

[00:13:44] So there are three things that I want to point out to you today that to me were lessons for my soul that I think would be beneficial to you as well from this letter that Jesus wrote to this church.

[00:13:55] But let me talk for a second about the situation that the original church in Ephesus was in because I think it will be helpful to you as you consider what they were going through. Ancient Ephesus was an incredible city for its time.

[00:14:10] First of all it was commercially powerful economically powerful. They were three main highways that went through Ephesus and it was a coastal town so that meant that trade was happening in Ephesus left and right.

[00:14:27] So they were economically powerful people were bringing goods from the west and from the east and they were passing through Ephesus and so there was great wealth in that city. They were also politically powerful.

[00:14:42] They were on a different region from Rome but Rome gave them freedom to be called a free city. They had their own senate, they decided their own laws, the govern themselves, the governor who had been sent from Rome lived in Ephesus.

[00:15:00] They were the de facto capital of that region so wealthy, economically powerful, politically powerful. And they were also very religious.

[00:15:11] In Ephesus was one of the ancient wonders of the world, the temple to the goddess Diana or Artemis along with over a thousand priests and priestesses who facilitated the worship of this false God.

[00:15:25] You might be remembering from the book of Acts, Acts chapter 19 when Paul went to the city of Ephesus and began preaching the gospel.

[00:15:35] He disrupted the worship of Diana to the point that the makers of the idol to Diana, their guild got together and started a riot to try to kill Paul or at least half him arrested because of what he was doing to the worship of Diana in that city.

[00:15:55] Religious, spiritual, economically, politically, powerful. That was the situation of Ephesus and that was the kind of town that this Ephesian church was living in.

[00:16:09] Part of the reason that I mentioned that is because sometimes in the modern church there's a lie that we believe that it would have been so much easier to be a Christian in biblical times.

[00:16:22] The church in Ephesus is a lot like our environment, a lot like our city, a lot like our town, a lot like our community. And as the church in Ephesus did well, we can do well also.

[00:16:36] Now the church in Ephesus had an incredible start. They really were an amazing church. A lot of the New Testament centers upon this church, Acts chapter 18 and 19 talk about the beginnings, the origins of the church in Ephesus.

[00:16:51] Their origin stories that Paul went to Ephesus and when he got there there was a small group like a dozen or so disciples. They said they were followers of God or believers in the gospel.

[00:17:05] But as Paul spent time with them and interacted with them, he felt like something was missing. And so he asked them if they'd received the Holy Spirit when they believed.

[00:17:15] You're been hanging out with someone that they're like, now they're name in the name and all that but it's like somes missing. That's how Paul fell. He's like something is missing here. Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believe he asked?

[00:17:26] And they said we haven't even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. And so he began acquiring further and he discovered that a man named Apollos had been there missionary. And the only thing Apollos knew about was all the way up to the baptism of John the Baptist.

[00:17:43] He didn't know about the life of Jesus, the death of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus. So Paul preached the full gospel to them. They believed were water baptized and were filled with the Holy Spirit.

[00:17:55] And the new church was off to the races there in that town and city. Pretty quickly because of the spread of the gospel in Ephesus, they began to experience opposition which I alluded to earlier. And so because of that opposition, Paul made a decision.

[00:18:12] And I think this decision was a massive strategic emphasis that he incorporated into the church from that point forward. What he did is he rented a school that was not in use in the afternoons.

[00:18:26] He rented it in those afternoons and every day Paul went there and he taught the Bible. He taught the word of God to whoever was willing to come and listen. And Blue Quarquards, an Acts chapter 19, that because he did that in two years time, all of that region,

[00:18:44] which was Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, all of that region heard the word of God. Now for Paul to go to a place for two years, it's a long time. It's the longest place that he chose to go to.

[00:18:58] There were some imprisonments that were probably longer than that but it's not like he was choosing. I really love being here in this jail cell. But Ephesus, two years, he chose to stay there that long.

[00:19:09] And I think that what Paul discovered there was a method of ministry that was more effective than anything he'd done up to that point.

[00:19:17] He said in Ephesus chapter 4, he said, God is given to the church, apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers to equip the saints, the church for the work of the ministry. And I think he discovered that there in Ephesus.

[00:19:35] I am here, I'm doing my role, sharing the word, breaking it down, teaching it and instructing people in at Paul would have said, they're receiving it and those who are really receiving it are then taking it out to the highways and byways as Jesus said

[00:19:51] and they're sharing this gospel message with this entire region. In other words, this was a Bible church, this was a fruitful church, this was a church that was making an impact because of what they had learned from Paul and continued to learn from their spiritual leadership after Paul.

[00:20:13] We know that Timothy passed through their church for a while. It's probable that the Apostle John passed through their church for a while and there are a few other church fathers that likely passed through the church in Ephesus.

[00:20:24] They had an incredible spiritual heritage and Jesus eludes to that in verse 2.

[00:20:30] He says, I know your works, I know your toil, I know your patient endurance and how you cannot bear with those who are evil but you've tested those who call themselves Apostles and are not in found them to be false.

[00:20:44] I know you're enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake and you have not grown weary. Here's the first thing that I want to show you that I think speaks to my heart and I hope speaks to yours that Jesus is saying to this church.

[00:21:00] I'm sorry, this is not a very intellectual sounding point that I've crafted here but it's this number one. I think Jesus is saying keep trucking. Keep trucking there it is, I like that. Keep trucking.

[00:21:14] What do I mean? You know, we were driving home from Lake Tahoe on Friday and you should see my Honda pilot. My 2012 Honda pilot when we are driving home from this because it's like, you know, we're up there for two and a half weeks.

[00:21:29] I'm bringing a lot of stuff with us. I've got like a little tailgate thing that sticks out that we put these like crates on and then I have stuff on the roof also like strap down and then we've got stuff in the trunk, you know, of the car and the back of our car always looks like a low rider but it's how I'm done packing it.

[00:21:49] I can stand on the tire and wrap stuff up when I'm just starting to pack but by the time I'm done, I can't even fit my toes in there anymore. There's no room. It's probably not good if you're a mechanic, you know, pray for me.

[00:22:01] I'd love to know you. But when we're driving, you know, I could just feel it's like my whole front end is like, are my front tires even in contact with the road? You know, I'm just driving very gingerly.

[00:22:16] And so we're like on the five and I'm watching these semi trucks and I'm going about the same speed. So I'm kind of in like semi truck zone, you know, we're going.

[00:22:25] And you just see these guys that they're just steadily, they're not darting around. They're not making all these crazy moves. They're just steadily making progress.

[00:22:37] And this church in Ephesus, Jesus looks at them and he's seeing these beautiful things in this church. He's beautiful things in this pastoral group. He says of them, you know, I know your works and your toil and your patient endurance.

[00:22:54] He's like acknowledging, I see that this is hard work. You know, and those of you who have rolled up your sleeves into ministry, life and are throwing yourselves into the body of the world.

[00:23:06] And it's not easy to get yourself into the body of Christ in that way. You know that it's not easy work. Now, I was looking outside earlier today and watching some of our children's ministry team doing their thing.

[00:23:18] I was watching one man in particular who I know works with our fifth and sixth grade students. Now, we're going with fifth and sixth grade students, 30 years ago was a totally different game than it is today.

[00:23:30] I'm just going with these young kids. Is there asking these questions and trying to figure things out and being exposed to all kinds of stuff?

[00:23:37] Is there going through all that man it takes work making a disciple in our modern age, someone believing in Jesus for the very first time teaching them the ways of God.

[00:23:49] It takes labor, it takes work. Seeing people come out of lifelong addiction or pastor Mike was sharing from Psalm 23. Seeing people come straight out of prison into our church fellowship, it takes work. And Jesus saw that work from this church in Ephesus and he praised it.

[00:24:08] And I love the fact that it's work. You know, there's a passage in 2 Samuel chapter 24 where there's a specific backstory to it. But basically King David needs to offer a sacrifice to God on a threshing floor that belonged to a man named Arana.

[00:24:28] And that threshing floor would eventually become the Temple Mount where Solomon David's son would build the temple for God. And David went to this threshing floor, he told Arana that he needed to acquire it and Arana was very humble. He said,

[00:24:46] It's yours. You know, you're the king of Israel. It's yours. If you want it, it's yours. And David said this beautiful thing he said, No, I will buy it for full price because I will not offer to the Lord that which costs me nothing.

[00:25:07] I've always loved that line. It's like David understood everything I've received from God is free. But what I want to do for God in response, it's going to cost. And I am willing to pay that price.

[00:25:27] And Jesus looks at this church and he says, I know your works. I know your toilet, I know your patient endurance.

[00:25:33] He says, I know that your solid as well. You know, you can't bear with those who are evil. You've tested false apostles and found them to be false.

[00:25:44] These people, they knew the Bible. They knew the word. No, like I said, Timothy was one of the pastors of the church in Ephesus and first in second Timothy are those letters that are littered with exhortations towards Scripture.

[00:25:59] You know, Timothy, Paul would say, I want you to rightly divide the word of truth. Timothy, Paul would say, preach the word in season and out of season because the days are coming where people will heap up to the world.

[00:26:13] Keep up teachers that will tickle their ears, but not so with you. Timothy, Paul would say until I come to vote yourself to the reading of Scripture, the exhortation from Scripture and the doctrine that you get from Scripture.

[00:26:32] Over and over again, Paul poured into the eventual pastor of this church in Ephesus to say, be a Bible person, be a Bible church, be solid and remain steadfast. Jesus said, I know you're enduring patiently and you've not grown weary.

[00:26:51] So keep trucking Jesus says, keep trucking, keep going, keep doing what you're doing. I read the other day, you know, you guys know is the Olympics going on right now, right? The summer Olympics and I read the other day about tracking field, I didn't know this, but apparently any race that is longer than one lap, so longer than 400 meters, there's no starting block to those races.

[00:27:20] There's kind of stand behind the line, everybody just kind of gets there like ready to go. If it's 400 meters or less, there's a starting block because every millisecond counts you need to come out of those starting blocks with full force if you're going to have a chance to win the race.

[00:27:37] The longer races, it's just like, hey, you're going to be doing this for a while. So don't start too fast, just kind of, you know, get going and then I love like the soup. You ever seen the speed walking because watching that one, that's the best. I love watching the speed walking and say how do they do that.

[00:27:57] I think for a lot of Christians, the thought is not that it's a marathon that requires endurance, but that it's a sprint that will be over quickly.

[00:28:14] But the reality of the Christian life is that, man, if we want to be who Jesus wants us to be, we've gone to endure for many, many years. Don't grow weary, keep trucking.

[00:28:26] Before I left, I took my whole calendar. I used Google Calendar so I took the whole thing and I deleted everything.

[00:28:33] And I thought when I get back, I'm going to go through this thing where I'm just going to consciously add each thing to my calendar that I intend to be doing and about.

[00:28:44] I was doing that yesterday and I'm going to confess to you guys something for a second. I got low key depressed for a little bit because as I was putting everything in, it looked exactly like the calendar that I had before.

[00:28:57] It's just like all the same things wake up in the morning. Have a devotional time, a prayer time, get ready for the day, study the Bible at about noon or 1230 come into the offices, half meetings.

[00:29:09] All day to the end of the day go home, work out, then do churchy stuff, or family stuff and it was just like I don't even know why deleted this calendar.

[00:29:17] It's like getting a little bit depressed. I'm boring. I am a boring person and don't worry, I don't need counsel or help about this. I got over it real quick because the Holy Spirit just quickly showed me like, I have an ask you to be an exciting person.

[00:29:34] I've asked you to be a solid person. I've asked you to just be steadfast. I've not asked you to be a firework. I've not asked you to be an entertainer. I've asked you to be a farmer.

[00:29:46] So just keep plowing and sewing and reeping and plowing and sewing and reeping because there's work to do. And I think God is inviting us into that work. He would say keep trucking.

[00:29:59] But the second thing I want you to see is that I think he would also say that we should cultivate our love for God. He says there in verse 4 he says, but I have this against you.

[00:30:10] Some of us don't like that from Jesus. It makes us feel uncomfortable. That he's pointing out a flaw, something that he doesn't like. I have this against you. You need to know this is the holiest love there is.

[00:30:27] It's not a carnal person saying I have this against you. This is not some flawed person saying I have this against you. This is a perfect and holy love. Jesus says I have this against you. There's an issue. There's something that needs to be corrected.

[00:30:43] You know any of you who are parents you understand that when you're raising up little ones, there's you can either do it so many junctures what will make the current child happy or the future child happy. And a lot of times they're at odds with each other.

[00:31:01] And Jesus looks at this church and he says look there's something that left untended is going to kill you. And so I need to touch it. I need to address it and it's this. You have abandoned the love that you had at the first.

[00:31:18] What does Jesus eluding to when he says that? And if you thought about that technically you might come to the conclusion well Jesus. I mean in a sense before we knew Christ before our lives in Christ what was our first love our first love was ourselves.

[00:31:34] Our own sin that's not what Jesus is alluding to obviously. What Jesus is alluding to is the beginning love that they started out with for him. I would like to call this a marital love.

[00:31:49] It's not that Jesus is looking at that church and saying all those original feelings. All the original excitement that you had when you first heard of me I want you to replicate that. It's that Jesus is saying I want you to deepen in that very same love.

[00:32:09] In other words, Jesus is insane. I want you to have the same bitter pattern that you did at the beginning. He's saying I want you to deepen in the marital relationship that you have with me.

[00:32:23] I want you to be a person who doesn't neglect your relationship with me but that pushes further and further into it. And as I said this for me was just such a great encouragement to my heart as I thought about this well I was away.

[00:32:42] There's something about being in the day and day out of pastoral work where you can kind of just go through the motions. You're doing what you need to do. You're putting out fires. You're helping people.

[00:32:51] You're finishing the task at hand and all of that but then a step away from those responsibilities for a second. And to hear the Lord saying you got into this. Not because of your love for Monterey, not because of your love for the church there in Monterey.

[00:33:10] You got into this because I rescued you. And you began responding to my rescue and my marvelous love in your life in a specific way. But don't let that specific way overtake the original reason that you started doing those things in the first place.

[00:33:31] Don't get me wrong. It's not like I was up there at the lake going like, oh man, I haven't read my Bible for a couple years. I need to start doing that. No, like I've got a personal relationship with Jesus.

[00:33:44] But it was just him tuning that part of my heart saying don't abandon the love that you had for me at the first. Remember he says from where you fall and repent and do the works you did at first.

[00:34:02] I love that statement from Jesus. And the Greek, your first love is the word produce air gun or the words produce air gun and the word first works is.

[00:34:14] Excuse me, love is produce a gopée and first works is produce air gun. It's like Jesus is saying if you want the first love to be kick started,

[00:34:24] you got to go back to do the first works and what were those first works? Well, I know for myself when I was 18 years old and I had my epiphany moment.

[00:34:37] Realize that the path that I was on was not the path that I wanted to be on any longer.

[00:34:43] And that there was a God who had made me, a God who loved me, a God who was calling me, a God who had chosen me, a God who wanted to rescue me.

[00:34:51] When I began walking with and surrendering to that God, it's like immediately for me it was just a okay.

[00:34:59] This is the direction we're going. I want to be in his word. I want to be in prayer and forgive me if it sounds like a boring repeated broken record.

[00:35:10] But that's what the Lord was inviting me into as well. Lord, I want that life. I want that life of being in the word and being in prayer spending time with you. But God wants this.

[00:35:27] Right now I'm reading also the book of Jeremiah and the early chapters of Jeremiah. God expresses his broken heart for the people of Israel. They had wandered from him for so many years and he says things to them.

[00:35:43] I remember the days of your youth when your devotion to me was like a bride to her new husband. I remember those days. I remember when you were a legion to me. I remember when you were on fire for me. I remember those days.

[00:36:04] God is wistfully recalling the beautiful past that he'd had with his people. But then he says things like, but now my people are like a people who having access to the fountain of living water have neglected it to cut out of the rock systems for themselves.

[00:36:28] Leaky systems that can hold no real water if they did it would be stagnant, but they can't because they're broken rather than turning to me. The source of true and living water.

[00:36:42] I just love this from Jesus inviting his people, inviting his church to cultivate their love for him. To repent of drift and to practice their walk with God a fresh.

[00:36:59] The last thing I want you to see though is we wrap up today is that not only should we keep trucking and cultivate our love for God, but number three, I think we need to stay focused on the kingdom. In verse 6 and 7, Jesus wraps up this letter.

[00:37:18] First of all, by saying, in commending them, he says, you hate the works of the Nicolayatins, which I also hate. The fact of the matter is that the Nicolayatins, I think more than likely who they were what they taught has been lost to history.

[00:37:41] I know that there are pastors who will say definitively what the works of the Nicolayatins are, but when you get into the literature and all that it just seems like. It's hard for us to really know exactly who they are, what they taught, what they were about.

[00:37:53] But there was some kind of error with these guys. There are all kinds of theories. Maybe one of the early decends, a guy named Nicholas started his own branch and all of that and it became apostate. And so Jesus hated the doctrine, the works of the Nicolayatins.

[00:38:09] Some people think it's just the word Nicolayatins, which maybe points to the separation of Leia T and the priesthood or something like that. And when that was launched and that division began to creep into the visible church, Jesus hated it, something like that.

[00:38:24] But we really don't know definitively what the works of the Nicolayatins, the teaching of the Nicolayatins were or was. Well, we do know is that when Jesus wrote to the church and program them later in Revelation chapter two, they had allowed this doctrine to creep into the church.

[00:38:41] And Jesus rebuked them for it. You shouldn't be allowing this teaching into my fellowship into my church. So Jesus commenced the church in Ephesus, is all I'm saying for some kind of false doctrine. They were standing up against it.

[00:38:56] It's not that Jesus hated the Nicolayatins. He hated the works of the Nicolayatins. He's saying what they're doing, what they're saying is poison us and he commenced the church in Ephesus for standing with him against these doctrines.

[00:39:13] But beautifully he says at the end of verse 7, to the one who conquers I will grant to eat the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. What I could say to you today is I could say this is a future oriented promise from Jesus.

[00:39:33] There's a tree of life, there's a paradise of God. In door like this church in Ephesus was meant to endure and you will partake of that glorious future. But I think that this is not only a future oriented thing, but it is very past or backward looking.

[00:39:52] Because the tree of life first appears in the Garden of Eden, which is the original paradise of God. So what he seems to be saying is, walk with me, enjoy me, partake of me, resist these false doctrines and false teachings, cultivate your love for me.

[00:40:14] And the day will come where my original past intention paradise, tree of life, enjoying me, broken by sin and death, will be re-instituted and my original intention. Back in the Garden of unbroken fellowship between God and man will be partaken of again by those who love me.

[00:40:39] This is why this letter to the Ephesian church makes so much sense. It's like Jesus is saying, back in the day in the garden the goal was fellowship with God. So right now fellowship with God. That's what he seems to be getting at.

[00:41:05] And so that's my way of saying it, we must be a people who stay focused on the kingdom. So my prayers that we would more and more be a people who live this out.

[00:41:18] Maybe this morning for you, there's just a bit of introspection. How is my love for the Lord? Have I abandoned the love that I have at the first?

[00:41:33] It's his word of grace and mercy that is trying to real you back in to that closeness and fellowship that you had with him in the past. He loves you, he cares about you, he wants to have that relationship with you.

[00:41:55] He made all things for it to exist. He will remake all things so that it will exist. And because of the precious blood of Jesus, it can exist today. Thank you for listening. If you would like more teachings and information about Calvary Monore, please visit Calvary.com.

[00:42:18] You can also find books teaching through the Bible and articles from our lead pastor at natepoverage.com. Thanks again for tuning in, we'll see you next week.