Thank you. Maybe seated. Take your Bibles, if you would, and turn. To the revelation of Jesus Christ, all the way at the end of your Bibles. We're super glad that you're here with us.
We are studying the seven letters to the churches. We had some introductory messages in Revelation 1, and we're going to get into Revelation 2. And look at the first letter. If you're a guest, my name is Brian. I'm the lead pastor here.
I hope you are enjoying your Fourth of July weekend and had some good time with your families. We headed up to the mountains with some friends and had a great time up in God's Creation, a beautiful, beautiful weekend. Uh this letter in many ways summarizes why I went into pastoral ministry. It summarizes My mission and my purpose in moving to Utah 20 years ago to see this church planted. It summarizes in many ways my philosophy of ministry from when I was doing undergraduate Bible college work, I had to write a philosophy of ministry statement, and it hasn't changed since I was 22 years old.
It's the same. And it was in response to cultural trends and winds that have different architecture now but have the same principles undergirding them. And it was that I looked around and I saw an evangelical church That sort of had a leaning one direction at times. toward a liberalism. In a sense where they seemed free to discard doctrine, and some churches didn't have much of a category for doctrine at all.
In fact, even the mention of doctrine felt sort of stale, kind of curmudgeon-ly, sort of a get-off-my lawn kind of person if you talk too much about doctrine. And then people swung the other direction. Right? And they were all about Doctrine, and they were all kind of the old adage of the frozen chosen, they were dead as a doornail. They bored people with the Bible, and they had a lot to say, but you couldn't stay awake through it all.
And they didn't seem to have much, by the way, of felt passion. And I just wondered: why is it that some churches seem to be so excitable and exciting and wonderful, but you outgrew them in six months? And other churches seem to have just meat on the platter, but they had no idea how to maintain any vibrancy with the Lord. And I wondered, couldn't you bring both together? Wasn't it possible to have a local church where both were celebrated in like measure without distilling one or the other, without caveats, without yeah, butts?
Couldn't you just have 100% of passion? With 100% of substance, couldn't you have 100% the disposition of Jesus and 100% the doctrine of Jesus? Couldn't you take 100% of loving grace and merge it with 100% of truth? Was it possible? And so for me, it sort of put as a young man a little bit of a bee in my bonnet to say, let's try to see if we could do that as a church.
Now, we haven't done it perfectly here. But I will tell you that regularly that is the thing that I draw back to again and again. Are we doing this side of the equation well? And are we doing this side of the equation well? Do we find ourselves drifting along?
Do we get over on the rumble strips of love or over here on the rumble strips of truth? And we have to kind of come back and keep ourselves in the center.
Now, there's a truth there, by the way, as a side note, that's just a principle for broader issues in your life. When people come and talk to me in my office, oftentimes one of the things I'll tell them is, I'm not sure exactly what you should do, but I can tell you what you shouldn't do. And often, you just need to know when you're going to go too far one direction or too far another direction. In this text, we get a picture of a church that's kind of gone too far one direction. And it's to that end that I titled this Ancient Fundamentalism.
Truthful. And dead. Truthful and dead. I grew up on the sunny side of fundamentalism, and I say the sunny side because I had some great people in my life up in the Northeast, and they loved the Lord, and they were passionate for the Lord. But oftentimes, the larger ethos and pathos, the passion, and the way that the church held itself, it had a kind of occasional judgmentalism and crustiness to it.
And so I come well acquainted. with modern fundamentalism. And when I read this little letter that is written by, etched by Jesus to the church at Ephesus, I kind of get a little bit of the sense that maybe they were a people who had a tendency to drift one direction. And he's trying to remind them of some things. He's trying to remind people maybe who did a great job fighting for doctrine.
who maybe value truth. In ways that were utterly appropriate and beautiful and wonderful, and who had walked in that feeling like they were in cultural warfare with the world of their day. And it's as though he's reminding them that if they lived only in that narrative, they'd only have half the story. And they need to get the other portion of the story.
So it's to that end that we're going to look at this text.
Now, by way of reminder to you. We've got these seven churches. You'll be hearing about them through the course of the summer.
Next week, you're going to hear from Len, and Len is going to share with you about the church in Smyrna. I'll be in Poland teaching some missionaries. Excited about that. And excited that Len is going to be ministering to you here on the church of Smyrna, and he's going to do a great job on that. On this map, you'll notice the locations of the seven churches, and I mentioned to you that it's likely that the revelation of Jesus Christ as a literary unit went around trafficking in a clockwise motion from Ephesus, up Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, and that's the order that we see the churches in.
And you'll notice Patmos is just off the coast there, and that is where this revelation is happening. And in chapter one, we saw kind of the introductory material. You saw John in his vision of Jesus. You see John hearing from the risen Christ. In this vision.
And I mentioned to you and showed you a couple of weeks ago a chart that looked like this. in parentheses on this chart. Are each of the verses in the introduction that have parallel thoughts and parallel verbiage? to the introductions to each churches in the letter. And so he had an introduction for the introductions, if you will, as this whole thing emerged.
Now, Jesus has been talking and introducing himself, describing himself, and now he's just going to transition into this first letter. And I'm going to invite you to look with me in chapter 2. Verse 1. And we read, and we'll read all the way down through verse 7. We'll come back and make some comments, and we're going to think about four ways that.
Jesus relates. to his church, but particularly to this church. And I want to extend it then into us today and find that I I don't think we're too far away sometimes from the church at Ephesus and we need to be reminded of it. 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, bearing up for my name's sake, and you've not grown weary.
But I have this against you. that you've abandoned the love you had at first. Remember, therefore, from where you fall, and 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 work 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. Four ways Jesus relates to his church. We're going to get the first one in verse 1. Jump back there with me. To the angel.
Of the church in Ephesus, right? Ephesus, as we've been studying Ephesians in here, taking a break in this series for the summer, we'll re-engage Ephesians in the fall. I've mentioned to you, if you've been attending here for very long, that Ephesus is about eight miles off of the coast now, but at the time, early, early, going back in the ancient world, even in the Old Testament, it was actually pushed up along the coast, was closer to the coast with a bay at the time of the New Testament, now pushed back about eight miles off of the coast. But at this time, it was a thriving metropolis, multicultural, multi-sort of poly-religious. There are all different kinds of religions.
There's some imperial cult worship that was happening. There's the epicenter of the worship of Artemis or Diana, sort of the central temple of that. And by the way, we have to be honest that as we, as Lifeline community, live in this state, we're well acquainted with what it's like to be. A church in a dominant religious culture that's over against, contrary to, in so many ways, the things that God wants us to sort of hunker down and stay true to. Because of that, it's very easy for us to be a church like Ephesus.
It's very easy for us to lean that way. And in some ways, initially, not that inappropriate because we should begin to value certainly doctrine in a variety of ways. But you have this church in Ephesus, and he writes to the angel, and I mentioned to you, these are not the, I don't see this as the pastors, I see it as the angelic representatives of these local churches. You read all in scripture, angels are watching the local church. You have weird texts like 1 Corinthians 11 about head coverings and says, yeah, she should do it because of the angels.
And you're like, what do the angels matter in this regard? But you read that angels are longing to look into. To salvation. They're looking at the church. They're gazing.
They're protecting the church. They're guarding it. They're directing in various ways. And they're acting as heavenly liaisons. And he writes here to the angel of the church in Ephesus: the words of him, and here's the description that Jesus gives of himself.
who holds the seven stars. In his right hand, well, that's the seven angels representing the churches. He said that back at the end of chapter 1 and verse 20, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. I want you to get two ideas here. He holds He holds.
The representative heavenly leadership in that sense of the church. It's a picture of this kind of security that Christ gives to his church. But I want you to think for a moment about the word holds. It's not, there's multiple Greek words that could be used here, and the one that's used in particular is used throughout the Gospels in particular of. Arresting or seizing.
It's not a sense of holding something in your hand open-handed. It is the sense of a firm Grasp Laying hold of somebody, tightening the grip. upon it. And the idea is that Jesus lays hold. of his church.
He lays hold of those stewarding his church. Jesus cares about the mission of his church. We aren't flying out here on our own. He hasn't given us a call and a mission, put us down in West Jordan, Utah, set us in this state, and sort of leaving us to our own devices, but rather he holds, seizes, arrests, as it were, brings to himself. The church.
So there's very much a sense that Christ is pervading in the influence, prominent in the treasuring. One who walks among the lampstands. Second idea, what's he doing? He walks, you get this picture, almost this kind of creepy picture of him just sort of walking among the lampstands. And as he walks among the lampstands, what is he doing?
What's the picture? It's that he's observing. He's watching, he's caring for, and he is assessing the churches that he seizes to himself. He treasures What we are about. When you come and gather as the church on a Sunday morning and you go out as the church throughout the week.
You're not flying solo. You're not flying solo. You're not simply an individual in your community.
Some of you got those real estate signs that we got, Lifeline community. You're putting your stake in the ground out there. I know some of you have had people approach you as a result of even having those. I've heard some stories. You're staking your claim that you're part of a community, and you're part of a community that networks you to others, and we'll come back to that.
But being networked to others, I want you to remember that you're a network to others, and you have been arrested and seized by Christ, and he collectively treasures this church. It doesn't mean, not because of something unique with us. He doesn't look at Lifeline and think, well, you guys are just doing it amazing, so therefore I'll treasure you. He treasures us because he brought us to himself in his grace. And because of his good grace, he treasures us and he treasures each local church as expressions of faithful, loving representatives of himself over amongst the world.
He absolutely treasures us, and we need to make sure that we keep that in view. And it's because of that. That's how we position ourselves individually, but how we position ourselves as a church matters intensely. Because we're not alone. We're representing him.
and we have to make sure that we represent him. properly.
So I want to spend my a lot of our time on these middle two points. Another way that he relates To his church, here is you see him commend, he commends. He's going to commend the various churches in different ways. And let's think for a minute how he commends, and we'll kind of look at a few different aspects of it in different ways. As we live out among the world, we read, I know.
your works. Your toil. And your patient endurance.
Now, if you count these, there are ten commendations that he gives. Your works. Your toil, your patient endurance.
Some scholars think that toil and patient endurance are ways of explaining what the works are. And how you cannot bear with those who are evil. You despise moral evil. But have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you're enduring patiently.
Bearing up for my name's sake, and you've not grown weary, skip down to verse six, yet this you have, you hate the work of the Nicolaitans, which I also Hate. Give you three acts that merit commendation that they have. The first is They're holding the right lines. They're holding the right lines. You get to see this in the latter part of verse 2.
The latter part of verse 2, you've tested those. who call themselves apostles and are not, found them to be false. Prior to that, he says that you cannot bear with those who are evil. You don't tolerate moral evil in your midst. When Paul wrote to the Ephesians, He wrote, take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness.
But instead Expose them.
Now notice, it's one thing to not take part. You could be quiet. You could be silent. You could stand in sort of a position of neutrality. You could look at the world and you could say, not my circus and not my monkeys.
So, therefore, I will not enter in to engage about it. You could do that in our own midst. You could do that. And you could say, well, who am I?
Well You're not to be a busybody. Bible points that out. Neither are you to close your eyes or your ears to moral evil as though you are not responsible to interact with, react to, respond to, engage, rebuke, correct, and train away from moral evil. We're all called to that one degree or another, so that's why he says, but instead expose them. Expose them.
Why? Because the entire body is blessed. The entire body is blessed when I have and you have an eye out. For a church that maintains its testimony and witness. He says to the church of Ephesus: Jesus says, I appreciate something about you.
You don't put up. with moral evil. You don't look the other way. You don't see it and say it's not my problem. You take it seriously.
and you react appropriately to it. Not all churches did this. In fact, it's part of the heart that sort of sits as the acts to grind a little bit with Paul and the Corinthians. In chapter 5, verse 9, in a famous text about church discipline, just look though at what's happening in this church. Paul says, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people.
The context of the sexually immoral people earlier in chapter five that he's talking about is a guy in Corinth who's sleeping with his stepmom. I'm just like Jerry Springer in the early church. He's sleeping with his stepmom, and Paul says, Wait a minute, we're going to call a timeout. This is unbelievable. What are you doing?
And you're looking the other way. I told, don't associate with sexually immoral people. Not at all meaning the sexually immoral people of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. You ready?
Now's the time I get to offend people. I love it. Every service. Here we go. If you are more prone.
To decrypt. The sexual immorality in the agenda of the world. Like some of the LGBTQ agenda that is Over against and moved away from God's desire and design. But if that's where you are vocal, more so than you are. People within the church who are sleeping with their boyfriend or their girlfriend.
You've actually flipped the economy. He's going to finish and talk about how judgment begins with the house of God. We don't get to look and give a soft sell for one piece of immorality while we garner the pulpit in regard to the world. He says, look, if you had to disassociate from every lost person who was committing sexual immorality, well, then what? My goodness sakes.
Wouldn't even be able to move in the world. I'm not telling you not to do that. Keep reading. But now I'm writing to you. Not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother, if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler, not even to eat with such a one.
Now, in 1 Corinthians, there's sort of this common sense of sin as a lifestyle component. Please understand he's not saying that Sally sleeps with her boyfriend and therefore we have nothing to do with Sally anymore. The idea is: if Sally continues, continues, continues and says, I'm a Christian, I just love Jesus, isn't it wonderful? I surrender all. And then she's sleeping with her boyfriend.
We're not supposed to ignore that. What we're not supposed to say well to each his own. We're not supposed to turn it into Turn away. from that. As though somehow we're not responsible to address things that take place within the context of the local church.
Why? Because Christ cherishes his bride. Yes. He's seized it to himself. He's jealous.
for our holiness. It goes on, verse 12: For what have I to do with judging outsiders?
Well Sometimes we have a little too much to do with that. Is it not those inside the church with whom you're to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you. By the way, I'll give you one little side note here because I know sometimes probably some of the things I might say about public issues can be frustrating to some of you here.
And I want to share something about that. actually is a text I come back to for guiding my preaching. And the reason why is that I'm very keen to the fact that I could get up any given Sunday and say a bunch of things that everybody in this room about our culture is going to go, Amen, preach it, brother, hallelujah, that's right. And I'm not interested in preaching in the choir. I'm not.
There's enough things that the evangelical church has coddled Sinful morsels we've held under the tongue. that have been to our embarrassment in regard to the world. And we can no longer hold on to them. We can't. We can no longer do that.
And we have to let judgment begin first with ourselves. And so what that means is that we have to do the hard work. The hard work. And it is hard work. of holding the right Lines consistently.
One of them is: don't tolerate moral evil. Another, he points out, is Pastor. doctrine and teaching and if it's false Sound the alarm. If it's false, Don't click next YouTube video.
Sound the alarm. Stop. Curate. Discard Swipe left instead of right. Get it out of your life because it'll be poison to you.
And the longer you continue, listen, YouTube teaching, I send stuff out on YouTube, but I'm telling you, you can find anything you want. You can scratch every itch you've ever had in your whole life if you want to on YouTube. Beware of teaching that scratches everything. Beware of every time. God, there's a quote by Anne Lamont that I love, and I'll paraphrase it, but she says something to the effect of.
That you know somebody's a fundamentalist when all of a sudden God ends up hating the same people you do. Right. Like, be careful that everybody that drives you nuts, you don't find Adabois alongside you and curate all the teaching alongside you that hate everybody you hate. We have to let judgment begin with us in regard to moral evil and false teaching. And we have to be honest about it, expose it, draw it out, and be crystal clear about it.
Not only do we have to hold to the right lines, but we've got to hold on, be people who are holding on the right. Yeah. The right way. What does that mean? Look at your text for a moment.
Look at verse 2, the beginning of it. I know your works, your toil. And you're Patient endurance. Your patient endurance. I'm interested in that term.
You know, 20%. of the uses. of hoopamone. Patient endurance there. 20% of the uses show up in Revelation.
This is a term That is close to John because, as we have talked about in the previous two messages, it. Is without question one of the two central takeaways from the entire book of Revelation. I told you, one of them is that they would find comfort in the victory of God for their daily life. And the second is that that comfort would then take one step further and allow them to act in the world in such a way that they have grit, perseverance, endurance. For the road that's in front of them, knowing that the God who secures victory walks with them still and is holding them and seizing them and bringing them to himself.
And so this is why he emphasizes this. Look down in verse three. I know you're enduring patiently. Same word. He revisits it again.
Bearing up for my name's sake, and you've not grown. Weary. Amidst the challenges, amidst the warring perspectives. I want you to hold the right lines, but I want you to hold it the right way. I don't want you to let go of it.
I want you to hold on to the truth, Jesus is saying, as tightly as I am holding on to you. And I want you to endure. I want you to not just survive, not same old, same old, not barely make it. I want you to thrive in your lives, individually and corporately as you navigate life in this fallen system. Don't Sit around, friend.
and spend all of your time In the low-hanging fruit assessment of all that's wrong with the world, we all can see it. I actually think we all almost implicitly know it. Think about solutions. Think about forward movement. It's always easiest to sit around in a sinking boat and go, man, it really stinks that we're sinking.
Mm-hmm. Instead of going, does anybody have an idea how we might not? How we might keep afloat. Can we groupthink that for a little while? And so what we want to do is be a people.
Who can endure and can hold on to it the right things, and we can hold on to them the right way.
Now, verse 6 is interesting. Because usually we think of love and hate as antithetical to each other. But I'm not sure they are all that much. And here's what I mean, particularly as it relates to the issue of truth. Yet, this, he said, you have, you hate the work of the Nicolaitans.
Who are the Nicolaitans? And here's the answer: nobody knows. And anybody who gets up and goes, I know what the Nicolaitans were, they were, and they start waxing eloquent on it, they don't have a clue. Early church couldn't decide on it. Irenaeus said, I think the Nicolaitans are followers of Nicholas, who was a deacon in Acts 6, 5, and Clement of Alexandria said, nope, that's not true.
They didn't even know. They couldn't agree on it in the early church.
Okay?
So we don't know. And I read other people and they read through the letter to Pergamum that we'll look at. And they see the Nicolaitans reference there. And they see that attached to the comments that are made about Balaam before it, and they say, well, the Nicolaitans probably, they must, I read scholarly, they must have held to some heresy that the people following Balaam held to stuff. They don't know.
They're listing them separate from the Nicolaitans. Why would they even talk about the Nicolaitans if they're the same as the people who are committing the same things as those who followed Balaam in sexual immorality and so forth?
So we don't know who they are, but we know this. that they stepped outside of orthodoxy. We know this. That they didn't map onto the truth. We know this, that following them caused people to pull away from Christ.
We know this, that which Jesus cherishes was threatened by them. We know that much, and that's frankly enough to know, and enough that He. affirms hatred. You hate the work of the Nicolaitans, which I. Also Hate.
Um In Romans chapter 12. There's this smattering of ethical exhortations and imperatives that really form a kind of recipe for healthy relationships. It starts off. with this one. Let love be Genuine.
Now, for love to be genuine, it doesn't mean that you really feel it. Right. it means that it actually matches the truth.
Okay. That's different. You can really feel a deep heart as you enable somebody who's falling apart. And call it love. That's not genuine love.
Genuine love is when it maps on to what is in another's best interest. It is when you are operating to the end of their highest need. Let love be genuine. And then he says, abhor what is evil. And that's a strong word for hatred.
Abhor what is evil. Think of a good marriage for a moment. In my marriage, The health of my marriage is not only told by the things that I love, but it's actually told by the things that I hate, namely anything that infringes upon my commitment to my wife. When when when you do I do a wedding, And these two naive saps that have no idea what in the world's coming in their life. They're so, they're so.
Starry-eyed and naive, they don't even have a clue. And they think they're in love. They don't even know what love is. They don't know a thing. But they're gonna come up and we're all gonna celebrate with them.
wed their ignorance to the world. And so here they are. And they say yes. I Do. Or I will.
In that moment, they are saying, I don't and I won't to everything and everyone that infringes upon the treasured confines of that covenant relationship. Anything that threatens it. is not neutral. If you come and threaten my marriage... I don't look at you neutrally.
You have become an enemy. You have become someone. that now Is position themselves in such a way that that which I'm called to guard, I'm called to shield, I'm called to shepherd, I'm called to cherish. I cannot tolerate threats. to that.
Jesus says, you're mine. I treasure you. And I hate anything. that gets in the way. of what that would mean for us.
Together. You've got to learn in your life to hate anything that will take you away. from Christ. Hate anything will take you away from Christ.
Now. He commends them. And in some, what's he commending him for? Essentially, you hold to good doctrine, you're perseverant in it, and you've learned to hate. The right.
Things. You've learned that. That is commendable. That's a church that's rooted in truth. That's a church that people can look at and they can say, you know what, I don't know where to go or what to do, but they could help me and they could direct me.
So far, so good, or is it? Or is it just half of the exam? That you've aced. And there's a whole second page. that you got to turn over.
Look in verse 3 again. I know you're enduring patiently, bearing up for my name's sake, and you've not grown weary. But But And this is his correction. And this is uh Tragic in many ways because everything that I mentioned to you is so. Commendable.
So commendable. In fact, I'll share something, a little historical insight. We don't know infallibly about what happened with the apostles after the New Testament. But there is a lot of good. Evidence in church history that John spent much of his time in ministry in Ephesus.
And uh I remember on a previous trip, I'll be in Turkey in the fall, but I remember on a previous trip to Turkey going up to a house that was venerated by the Roman Catholic Church. And at that house and along a wall, they had a prayer wall where people were putting in prayer requests and so forth. And it was alleged that this was the house. In that general region of Turkey where John. brought Mary After Jesus at the cross said, woman, behold your son, son, behold your mother, and John cared for her from that day forward.
And it was thought that this was the home that he brought her to and cared for her in that general region.
So John has a long association. with uh Ephesus. In fact, Irenaeus tells a story. That John cared so much in Ephesus about the truth that there was a heretic named Cerinthus. And Cerinthus was in the bathhouse in Ephesus.
I have been in the ancient bathhouse in Ephesus. It's like a row of a bunch of toilets. It looks like you ought to have walked into Costco or something. Ancient Costco. But I've been in this bathhouse, and it was alleged that he went into the bathhouse, and he saw the heretic Serinthus.
And he said, essentially, let us fly, let us get out of here, let the bathhouse itself fall down around this heretic. And he got out. He was a man who cared about doctrine. In regard to to the church at Ephesus. But another church father, Jerome, writes of him on the other side of that equation.
And Jerome writes that in his old age John would hardly, it says he could kind of barely muster, he wrote it in his commentary on Galatians, Jerome did, that John would get up and he could barely muster the strength to be in front of the people. in his old age in Ephesus. And he would simply tell them, Little children love one another. Little children love one another. And finally someone said to John, Why is it that that's the only thing you keep saying?
You just keep repeating it over and over and over again. I want to read to you the exact quote from Jerome. John replies this way. Because it is the Lord's commandment. And if it alone is kept, It's sufficient.
John. has one thing he can tell the church at Ephesus. What is it? Love each other. Love each other.
Love each other. Do you think That maybe John might have been driven by what Jesus revealed to him on the island of Patmos? Do you think that an aged John might have been radically convinced? That this church that treasured the truth Needed Not. The preaching to the choir as much as they needed judgment to begin at the house of God, and what they needed to hear wrapped up in their ancient fundamentalism was Can you love?
So scholars question now. But I have this against you. Look at it. They question what? I have this against you.
You abandoned the love you had at first. No. What's the love? Is it love for God? Is it love for one another?
And it seems pretty clear to me, even from John's own writings elsewhere, that the answer is yes. The answer is yes. Why? Because they're of a peace. 1 John 4, 20 and 21.
If anyone says, I love God. And hates his brother. Do you know anybody like that? Love to come worship. Love the toxiology.
Love to blog. Love to communicate to others about doctrine. But boy, I got some people that really drive me nuts. And it's them, of course. It's not me, but they drive me nuts.
He hates his brother. He's a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. Do you get that? Do you understand that when you look at each other?
You're looking through each other. You're looking, peering through each other to the Lord, and you are always to see his shadow behind your brother or sister in Christ. You're always relating to people, as C.S. Lewis said, who are immortal in that sense, who will one day through a glorified body be the kind of person that you would, if you saw them today, you'd probably bow down and worship, Lewis says, because God is doing something with them. And do you see them like that?
2 Corinthians chapter 5, Paul says, We're not regarding anybody anymore, just cat to sarks according to the flesh. We don't look at anybody like they're just human. Instead, we're making the connections. They're the visible opportunity for us to demonstrate our love to the Lord. He says here, you cannot love God whom you've not seen if you can't love your brother or sister whom you've seen.
And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
So, my encouragement to you is this. When I read this text, I learn real quick, I shouldn't talk about extolling the love of God. I should not come and celebrate the love of God. Brad is up here talking about the communion text in 1 Corinthians 11, where people are marginalizing people within their community in the context. The wealthy are coming.
They're indulging in their own little potluck dinner. They're not serving and giving food to other people. They're marginalizing the poor. And Paul says, don't come and celebrate the Lord's Supper when you're hoarding your own and you're not caring for your brother and sister. because you're an inconsistent, hypocritical lover of God.
Ephesus can check the boxes. Ephesus can tell you about substitutionary atonement. Ephesus will talk about Christus Victor. Ephesus will go pneumatology, Christology, bibliology, eschatology, ecclesiology. They're going to get supralapsarianum, infralapsarianum.
They're going to talk about the hypostatic union. They're going to go on and on and on. And everybody's going to go, wow, that's a mature church, man. And Jesus. Says Yeah, and you're dead.
And you death? I want you to notice, he doesn't say that doesn't matter. He isn't driving the love bus. Isn't just about that. He's saying that matters.
But that doesn't make you alive. We only know if you got a pulse. If love It's permeating. Love is flowing. But there's hard people to love.
Don't look around. Don't side-eye anybody.
Okay. There's hard people to love. To that end, I gotta share. I couldn't, I could literally, I could not. Do this sermon without highlighting this text.
I just couldn't bring myself to it. 1 Peter 4, it's one of my favorite texts in the Bible on love. Look at it. Above all, keep loving one another. And I love this word, earnestly.
I don't love it for what it communicates in English to us. I love it for what the Greek has sitting behind it as a word picture.
So It can be rendered deeply.
Some translations render it deeply. But to love someone earnestly.
Okay. It means, strictly speaking, to love at full stretch. And I love that picture. You got people in your life you just got to kind of stretch to love. It doesn't come naturally, it isn't organic.
You wake up and you go, Family reunion. You gotta stretch. He says, Keep loving one another. At full stretch. Since love covers a multitude of sins.
Gospel love. stretches to people you don't naturally connect with. Then he says, show hospitality, one of the worst words in English. Because it makes you smell like when I say hospitality you smell fresh-baked cookies and bread and and you you think yeah, that's grandma. She was so hospitable Yeah.
And I'm on the hospitality committee, and I make everybody feel good and warmed and welcomed. That's not hospitality. You know what the word for hospitality is here? Philosenos. Love of strangers.
Isn't it interesting that you're exhorted to one another, people you're familiar with, to have love of strangers? Yeah. I will bet you anything. Anything. That if you're a husband here, you speak to your wife in ways you would never speak to another woman in this church.
I'll bet you if you're a wife here, you'll speak to your husband in ways you'd never speak to another man in this church. I will bet you A child here. will speak to you, mom, or dad, in a way they'd never talked to me. Why is that?
Well, it's because we'd be humiliated. We'd be embarrassed. Hey, they'd see the real you Right?
Sometimes I've got to remember. That I'm supposed to, in this way, live my life with this woman, Jennifer, who's a stranger in one sense. I am to treat her with the dignity With the respect? With the reverence With the patience. With the character?
With the best foot forward? that I would of a stranger.
Now, when you love people who are strangers well, what happens? They get healed hospitality. Hospitality. See that? You get healed up.
You get strengthened. You get a chance to grow. Because you are putting your best foot forward in love. And he says, This is what I want you. I want you to stretch to love each other.
I want you to put your best foot forward and keep respecting one another, not rolling your eyes at each other. As each Hezre, he says, do it without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another. God's gifted you in ways to serve people in this body as good stewards of God's varied grace. Whoever speaks is one who speaks, oracles of God.
Whoever serves is one who serves by the strength that God supplies. In order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever.
Now listen carefully here. Why is it that you're supposed to love one another well. as a demonstration of your love for God well. Why is that the case? And I want to make a claim to you and back it up with a quote.
I think you're supposed to do it because if loving someone. is operating in their best interests. That means that loving God is actually operating in God's best interests. And you should love each other well because that's how you do good. for and to God.
It is the prime way by which you are good to God. is that you demonstrate love for people. Who are these visible, as it were, representatives of Him? I love, love, love this quote from Dallas Willer. To love God with all your heart is to have your will and your spirit entirely set on the accomplishment of what is good for God.
We often talk about a surrendered will. That's what the old hymn, I surrender all is about. It's being able to say, listen carefully to this. Is this how you evaluate your life? There isn't anything in my life at this point that I would prefer over what is good for God.
Except my resentment. Except for the fact that I would cede the moral high ground to that person if I humbled myself. Except for All of the Frustration. that I feel entitled to inside. Except for all the scorekeeping.
Except for all the trauma. Except for all the brokenness. What happens is when you hold on to relational bitterness, you are telling God that you treasure that more than you treasure him. That you actually Think. that that is more valuable.
Then what it means to love him. It is not for the good and glory of God. when you harbor something in your heart toward another. It is for God's honor and glory. that you and I are called.
to love really, really, really.
Well so what do you do? If you've abandoned your first love. He gives you three steps. Look at verse five. Remember, therefore.
From where you've fallen. The first thing you have to do. is not become nostalgic. But you have to do what people have called memory. They call memory a handmade of faith.
It's a help to faith. You have to go back and you have to think. You know How was I before bitterness said in? How was I before it became same old, same old? How was I back when I first came to Christ?
Think about that for a moment.
Some of you have been believers for a long time.
Some of you have been getting into rhythms of church and life for a long time. What was it like? when it was fresh. What was it like? When it was new.
You know, I can think back when I was 20 years old, 21 years old. And I started my first preaching ministry. in a little church in western New York. And I'd get up super early on a Sunday morning and I would drive from Bingham to New York two and a half hours south of Olean, New York, along Highway 17. And I would drive on a Sunday morning.
South on the Pennsylvania border to a little community called Little Genesee. And I would go into that community at a little Baptist, or a little Bible church called Faith Bible Church. And they had asked me to be an interim preacher for nine weeks as a 21-year-old young man. And I'd get up, I'd drive, I'd stay all day. I'd preach again Sunday evening, I'd drive back.
And every other week, my wife, who was not my wife at the time, but we were engaged, she would come up to college for the weekend. She'd ride out with me. We'd spend all day there. I then Sunday night would speak, and then we'd leave, and we'd drive four and a half hours to her house. I'd sleep at her parents' home.
I'd get to bed at about 1 in the morning. I'd get up and leave at 5 a.m. to make a 7:30 class two hours to the north where I was back at college. And I did that triangle, and we did that thing for about two months. And I would love, I would lie to say to you that I was exhausted and hated it.
I loved every single minute of it. And I found. That God put a fire in my heart through that ministry. That even now, when I feel a sense that the fire is slowing, that the embers might be dying a little bit, I take my mind back to a day at the end of that nine weeks where everybody in the church gathered around Jennifer and I as a young engaged couple and affirmed our call to ministry. And I think, Dear God, may that kind of fire be remaining in me, what I had at the first, and don't let the world.
Don't let my flesh and don't let the devil distill it. Don't let him take familiarity and turn it to indifference, let alone contempt. God protect us from that. Remember. Think back, retrieve it.
Pull it in. You're older in here? Don't die a sorry, lame, curmudgeonly sap. Pursue the King of Kings with passion to your dying breath. Let young people look at you and say, I don't know what's going on, but I want to be like that.
On fire. Remember. The love you had at the first. Get back to it. Great doctrine.
And Jesus says, but. Remember. Therefore. from where you've fallen. And here's the interesting thing.
He doesn't say, all right.
Now, put on a couple Dr. Phil tapes and get all... Jazzed up. Listen to your favorite preacher and go, let's go get him. He says, repent.
Repent. Because it wasn't okay that you lost your fire. Do you hear that?
Well, it's just life, it's hard, man. You know, I'm up against it, and it's difficult. I know. Yeah, I know. It you're not it's not unique to you.
It's everybody. I don't get a pass for letting my spiritual fire get extinguished. It's not okay. I'm not a victim. of things around me.
I'm responsible to blow on it. And if I stop blowing, it's sin. It's wrong. He tells me, repent. Get in a turning lane.
Get ready to turn it around. And then he says, and do the work she did at the first. What do you do? Ah, you go back. You go, yeah, I remember when I was a, I can remember when I came to Christ, I can remember, I can remember when I came to Christ, I was a wild evangelistic banshee.
I'd talk to people who were strangers. They looked at me like I had nine heads, man. I can remember so many times walking around on the streets, walking up to somebody and going, How are you? Hey, you know, if I just punched you right in the face and you just died right here, where would you spend eternity? And they look at you like, what in the world?
He says, Do the works. That you did at the first. Do the works why were you on fire then? Because some of the stuff you did.
So go back and do it. It didn't rocket science. Criticizing the turn toward fundamentalism that was leaving behind. The idea of extending in love into the world. One of the most influential churchmen of the 20th century, Carl Henry.
had this to say in a wonderful book that quite honestly is as valuable today as when it was written called The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. Henry was kind of a pioneer of authentic evangelicalism. Passion and substance, disposition and doctrine, grace and truth together. And here's what he says: if fundamentalism ceases to work, We have imported into it elements which violate the innermost essence of Christianity. The apostles were convinced not only that they possessed the one name under heaven whereby men must be saved, but also that they were the ambassadors for Christ whose faithful service measured the impact of redemptionism upon their generation.
What they did. mattered intensely. Intensely. for the representation. of Jesus in the world.
And if I have prophetic powers. Understand all mysteries and all that. I can I can ace The theology exam. If I have all faith.
So it's true mountains, but I don't have love. I'm nothing. I'm nothing. Do you believe that? You believe that?
If you believe that... If you believe that. Then you will be of those who conquer. Every single letter. has an appeal to being someone who conquers.
You'll see it in all seven of these letters. We close with verse 7. Verse 6, yet this you have, you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what Spirit says to the churches. Are you paying attention?
Are you listening? He's saying, Hear this to the one who conquers. I will grant to Eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. That is um those are metaphors, paradise. Tree of life goes back to Genesis 3, shows up again at the end of Revelation.
Paradise, end of Revelation, paradise lost, it'll be paradise regained. The bookends of your Bible, God creates in goodness. He creates the Garden of Eden, a paradise. He puts within it a tree of life. And the tree of life shows up in Revelation 21:2 at the very end.
It's a metaphor. For what it means to live in eternity with Him, to have eternal life. There aren't people, listen carefully here. There aren't people who go to heaven. Hear what I'm saying.
There aren't people who go to heaven. who don't have a victorious Christian life. The normal Christian life is the victorious Christian life. That doesn't mean that it's always, always, always a climb. It's not a York peppermint patty that you eat and just sail off into the spiritual distance.
But what it is. is that you move forward. And yeah, you might take a step or two. You move forward and a step or two. You move forward.
But you're seeking to grow. You're remembering repenting and returning. You're remembering repenting and returning. You're remembering repenting and returning to conquer. And you'll see it in each letter is simply a way of saying obtaining eternal life.
And he's saying, I've pulled you to me. And I've pulled you to me because you are to be the kind of people who value doctrine, who value love, who are loving one another well. And in doing that, you are people who move forward to the end of eternal bliss that is conferred by Christ himself. That's what it means. To authentically be the church.
And Jesus is gracious enough in this text to remind us that we're not allowed. to simply hold truth. As valuable as it is. But we are to be a people. of measurable quantifiable distinct Tangible Palpable love.
for one another and love for him.
So we are to be people. of all people. Who wake These tired old breaking bones up in the morning. And roll that sorry carcass out of bed. And we get ready.
for the day With the thrill and passion of God in our hearts.
so that we can authentically be people. Who are First lovers. Of him. Can you do that? The old polymath and intellectual Albert Schweitzer.
Famously said, You've heard me quote it probably a million times. Here's a million and one. The tragedy of life is what dies in a man while he lives. Don't be the walking dead who are cohering. with truth.
Because you might actually end up fooling yourself. You might think you're alive. But you're not. And the test of life. The test of life.
Is what shows up in the essay of love that God is writing through your life in regard to others and in regard to Himself. Father, I pray that you would bless us. And help us to be a people of radical commitment to love you well, to honor you and glorify your name, to seek your face above all others. Make us a people. who can stay faithful to the truth.
but who can love one another and find that first love. Passionately. Burning in our own hearts for your glory. Bring us to a place where we might be repentant. of having wandered in Jesus' name.
Amen.
