The Game Plan, Part 3: Our First Love
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Introduction
Introduction
It was one of those losses that stings over the whole offseason. The Green Bay Packers had lost the 1961 football championship by blowing a two-touchdown lead in the fourth quarter. When training camp came around in July, the players expected the head coach, Vince Lombardi, to lambaste them with a fiery speech, and then break out new tactics and techniques.
Instead, Lombardi grabbed a ball, and spoke five now-famous words, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” Then they started with the very fundamentals of football: blocking, tackling, and running with the ball. The result is now equally famous: Lombardi would win 5 of the next 7 championships and never lose another playoff game again.
As we consider our own Game Plan for the future, we come today to the third and final part of our game plan that is about US as individuals. The first two were to
- Get good
- Get immoveable
If you were not here, please go back and listen to those. The third is this: to get grounded. Get grounded.
The Ephesian church needed this, in the first century. They were once a great church - that Paul wrote them the letter called Ephesians is evidence of that. But then sometime later, Paul needed to send Timothy to them to shepherd them. That’s what 1 Timothy is all about. But then in Revelation 2, it seems that they have come to the brink again. So Jesus says in this passage, time to get back to the fundamentals. Time
to get back to the heart of what it means to be a Christian, and what makes a group of Christians a real team to be reckoned with.
They/we are to return to the fundamentals by three verbs:
- Remember - Repent
And
- Recover
Brethren, this is Christianity.
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1. The Reason
1. The Reason
Before we get into these three words, John the writer wants us to know who’s doing the talking, and why. The speaker is he who, verse 1,
Rev. 2:1 . . . holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.
“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.
This refers back to 1:12
Rev. 1:12
12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. 14 The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, 15 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. 16 In his right hand he held sev- en stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.
This is an image of the resurrected and ascended King Jesus. So what are the stars and the lamp stands signify? Chapter 1:20 tells us:
1:20 As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
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Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands,
Lots of imagery here. Jesus is speaking through John to seven actual churches in John’s time, signified as LAMPSTANDS. Yet the fact that it’s the perfect number seven seems to make these letters applicable to all churches for all time.
And Jesus, chapter 2 verse 1, is one who “walks among the lampstands.” The phrase is reminiscent of the LORD God, walking in the Garden in Genesis 3, among the trees. The crucified, risen and ascended Jesus walks among the fruit trees of his kingdom, looking for fruit. That’s because, in my understanding of Revelation, it is his plan is for the fruit of these trees - the churches - to serve for the healing of nations, Revelation 22:2
through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Right now, Jesus walks among his churches, inspecting them, looking for the fruit that he wants, and that the world needs, for its healing.
And what Jesus SEES in the church in Ephesus, and I believe very similarly in OUR church, is mostly GOOD, and worthy of his affirmation:
Rev. 2:2
“ ‘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.
They seek to do good works (that’s us)
They work and toil for him (that’s us)
They are a patiently enduring bunch (that’s us)
They do not bear with those who are evil and seem to know a false teacher when
they see one (that’s largely us)
And, Jesus says, Rev. 2:3
I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary.
I have every confidence that you will continue this way
into the future.
But I have this against you, Jesus says, Rev. 2:4
But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.
- you have ABANDONED the love
you had at first.
They may not have MEANT to do this. In fact, most times in life, when we abandon
something, we don’t realize we’re doing it. That’s because the reason we abandoned the one thing is because we were drawn away in our affections for SOMETHING else. We unwittingly abandon what we once loved by a bigger love, that expels the old love
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“ ‘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.
out of our hearts, and therefore causes us to NEGLECT it. We abandon what we love because of love.
But the good news is that this process can be reversed. If one’s first love can be expelled by a bigger love, then that bigger love can also be expelled, if the first love becomes bigger again.
And if the love here sounds like romantic or marital love, that’s intentional. Be- cause Jesus’ words here echo something God once said to Israel, in Jeremiah 2:1-3:
The word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2 “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the LORD,
“I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride,
how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.
3 Israel was holy to the LORD, the firstfruits of his harvest.
All who ate of it incurred guilt; disaster came upon them,
declares the LORD.”
But Israel fell away from that first love, and played the whore, as the American church has often done. Thus Jesus speaks, BEFORE that happens.
You’ve abandoned your first love. Return. If you do not, end of Rev. 2:5:
I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place . . .
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The word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord,
“I remember the devotion of your youth,
your love as a bride,
how you followed me in the wilderness,
in a land not sown.
Israel was holy to the Lord,
the firstfruits of his harvest.
All who ate of it incurred guilt;
disaster came upon them,
declares the Lord.”
Jesus prunes his trees, and even removes entire trees from his Garden, in order to make his Garden FRUITFUL for the nations.
Rev. 2:7
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.’
7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
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2. Return
2. Return
How do we return?
Our King commands three actions we MUST take, in order to RETURN to our first
love, all of them in Rev. 2:5
Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.
Remember
Remember
The first action is to REMEMBER. Slow, stop all your doing’s for God, and remember, Jesus says, from where we have FALLEN. That is, the HEIGHT of our LOVE. Remember that.
He’s NOT saying, remember the good ol’ days. He’s NOT saying, remember the glory days, when we had so many people in this or that ministry. He’s NOT saying, RE- MEMBER the level of EXCELLENCE we had in the past, or the PERFORMANCES, or that we had more people than the Methodists down the street.
Jesus is saying, Gentlemen, THIS is a football. The heart of Christianity is not what we DO, but LOVE - the LOVE of God for US, which then begets LOVE for HIM in us .
1 John 4:19
We love because he first loved us.
As Jesus said before, EVERYTHING flows out of our hearts. Matthew 15:17-19
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Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
So Jesus says, REMEMBER that high point of your love.
Remember it. What did that love look like for you?
For me, it meant my parents worried about me, because I WASN’T going out par-
tying, but that I was at home, reading my Bible. Which I grant you WAS weird, but I simply was doing what I ENJOYED.
For me, it meant an adventure, in trusting God. How God has provided for us, through the years.
And for me, it looked like an eager joy to share the gospel. Remind me some time about the miraculous way that God answered my prayer, and allowed me to share the gospel with a pornographer, after I had turned him down for a loan.
What did it look like, for you?
What do all those memories have in common? For me, all my memories have this one word in common: HAPPY. Simply HAPPY and FREE in the Lord.
Please do not skip over this step. Do not give it a casual touch. Jesus is giving commands that are stern and direct. Do not take it likely.
One more thing: perhaps you say, you know, I really don’t HAVE those memories. Though I don’t know for sure, it’s possible that you don’t because you’re not CON- VERTED. You’re not BORN AGAIN.
It’s OK - well it’s NOT, but it’s OK in the sense that, you CAN be. No one gets into heaven by going to church, or by learning the gospel, or by having Christian parents, or by tithing. As much as those are all good and full of blessing. The only people who inherit eternal life are those who are already RAISED from the dead.
So I simply and straightforwardly implore you, to simply and straightforwardly SEEK your own JOY, your own happiness, by BEING CONVERTED; by being BORN AGAIN.
Just as Jesus told Nicodemus, so I say to you:
John 3:6-8
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Be born again. How, you ask? Trust in the Lord Jesus, in his death, for the forgiveness of your sins, and in his resurrection, for eternal life. And then ask God to SEND His Spirit from on high, upon you. As the Spirit hovered over the waters at creation, and as the Spirit came upon Mary to create Jesus, ASK God to send His Spirit, to come upon you, and make you NEW, born again.
So then, as we REMEMBER, what then? Jesus then says,
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Repent
Repent
Remember
Repent
Now, I believe Jesus means this word in its most basic sense, which is, to realize that you are going in the wrong direction, and realizing this, determine in your mind to go in the OTHER direction, and then to actually DO that.
In other words, Jesus is telling us, RETURN to your FIRST LOVE of God.
First, we need to realize that Jesus doesn’t make commands of us that are impos- sible. You might say, well, that was the high point, and I can’t get back there, because that was like puppy love.
And Jesus says, not good enough. THIS is a football. Go back. Return to where you have fallen from.
Which implies, we CAN go back. Get that in your head. Believe what Jesus is say- ing here. You CAN go back to your first love. That is POSSIBLE. More than possible - the coach says, you MUST go back. It’s more than possible; it’s a requirement.
Rev. 2:5
Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
Now, the word “FALLEN” tells us that we fell unwittingly. We didn’t realize it. So many distractions, especially for us, the wealthiest generation of anyone who has ever
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lived ever. So many hazards. So many ways that this evil generation can drill grooves into your mind and heart that lead us astray.
The love in our hearts is like a balloon that inflates. And when we were at our FIRST LOVE, that balloon came into our hearts, and it inflated, and it pushed out every other love. And that’s why we were so doggone HAPPY then. Because God is a HAPPY God. When we were filled with the love of Him, we were filled with HIM, and thus we were supremely HAPPY.
But then other loves crept in unnoticed. And they began to inflate. And they con- tinued to inflate, until they pushed out, they expelled that love of God from our hearts. This is crucial to understand. Because it also tells us the way of repentance. If
those loves expelled the love of God from our hearts, then the process can be re- versed.
I’m riffing here off of an old Puritan sermon, preached by an ordinary pastor a long, long time ago. But the name of the sermon says so much -
The Expulsive Power of a New Affection, by Thomas Chalmers
Affection meaning, LOVE or DESIRE.
The way we repent is by, YES, stopping those things that we know to be wrong.
But that’s only part of it. The way back is by inflating that old balloon, because it does have the POWER to EXPEL those old affections, those old loves.
A great French writer once put it this way:
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If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery
So when Jesus says, REPENT, he’s saying, DO THAT to YOURSELF. Teach yourself the endless immensity of the sea of God’s love for you, manifested to you in His glorious grace in Christ. x2
Fill that balloon with the immensity of that love, and that immensity will expel the dead air that gives NO LIFE to your soul. Breathe the fresh sea air of His love.
To bring this down to a very practical level: this is why we want every leader at Grace to always be bringing up another leader behind you. Because then you have someone to take over, when come to that new season, when you just need to BE. When you just need to feast on Christ. God doesn’t want our arms and legs, if he doesn’t have our HEART.
Never perfectly. No one loves God perfectly. And even one’s FIRST love is filled with imperfections. But even the imperfections are delightful, because they’re laced with JOY and HAPPINESS, at the OBJECT of the love.
Pursue your own joy, Jesus says. Return to your first love. How?
By
recovering the works we did at first.
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Remember
Repent
Recover
This is my rephrasing of “and do the works you did at first.” Rev. 2:5
Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
Which, you might say, I thought works were not the point. And they’re not. But they are the MEANS of reacquiring this first love.
As in so many cases, C.S. Lewis puts it better than most:
"Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures and with it- self. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other." -C.S. Lewis
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In other words, we think that we have to get our hearts right, by going to Bible studies, and yes, read your Bible.
But for every action we take, that action, while it may be doing something OUT- SIDE of us, it is also working a force ONTO us. It is shaping us, even while we are shap- ing our world.
So Jesus is saying, REMEMBER that first love, and what you DID then. What was it, for you?
I was talking to a brother recently, who said he would simply go to Elk Grove Pizza and have a beer with a friend and simply read verses together from the Bible. What was it for you? Jesus says, DO those things again, NOW, even BEFORE you feel like it, even BEFORE your heart is bought into it. THAT is how you will inflate that balloon afresh.
That will require FAITH, to move despite your feelings. But then again, FAITH what Christianity is all about.
Our ascended King walks among the churches, and I’m convinced he tells us, Grace Church - well done:
you work hard;
you endure;
you seek to be holy;
you want to be theologically correct;
you care for the holiness of my name;
and you are not giving up.
I saw you endure, during the housing crisis. I’ve seen you keep on, as people leave
California. I’ve seen you resist false teachers. I’ve seen you, at the middle school, putting up chairs and equipment, every Sunday.
Rev. 2:6
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Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
And, verse 6: I see that you still hate the works of the Nicolaitans. We don’t know who these people were, but it’s very likely that they were very sexually immoral, in the name of Christ. Think about those Christians today who are going along with our cul- ture’s sexual identity insanities. Jesus says to us - I see that you’re holding fast. Well done.
I see that, and I love that, our Lord says.
But this he has AGAINST us - that we have fallen from our first love. Return, he says, by
remembering
repenting and
recovering the works you did at first.
Because, lastly,
I am no one’s debtor. I reward.
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3 .Reward
3 .Reward
The Reason
Return
Reward
Yes, Jesus said at the end of v. 5, that he doesn’t NEED any particular local church. He prunes his Garden. He WILL take away entirely lampstands that do not produce the fruit that he wants.
But he doesn’t leave us there. He reminds us of the REWARD in front of us, v. 7: Rev. 2:7
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.’
He says, verse 7, it’s not Jed that’s been talking to you today. It’s my very Spirit
that’s been talking. So HEAR these words. Take them to heart.
Because there is great REWARD in hearing. Run for the reward. Gentlemen, THIS is
a football. Lombardi was not returning to the fundamentals just to have an acceptable team, nor a pretty team, nor a team that could say, well, hey, we tried.
He wanted a team that would WIN the prize. As Paul wrote at the end of 1 Corinthians 9:22-27:
22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.
24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I disci-
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To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
pline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
And Jesus says,
Rev. 2:7
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.’
“To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”
The reward is CONQUERING - conquering evil; conquering sin; conquering death it- self, with Christ.
And the reward is to eat of the tree of life, the tree that Adam and Eve were meant to eat from.
The reward is satisfaction, joy forever.
The reward is paradise.
You have it Christian, all by grace, all as a gift. We don’t EARN it. Jesus simply
GRANTS it, as a gift, to all who endure to the end, to all who CONQUER.
And all that is needed for conquering is found in His love to us. Fill yourself with that love. Take yourself in hand, and preach to yourself, as David did, in Psalm 42. And
you WILL conquer, Christian. And you WILL be rewarded, with Pleasure
Portion in his resurrection, and Paradise.
So with this I close:
Psalm 42
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To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah.
As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food
day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude keeping festival.
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.
My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God, my rock:
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?”
As with a deadly wound in my bones,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.