Extinction - Bethlehem Baptist

Once upon a time, there was a company called GameStop?

For those of you who don’t know, GameStop is a store where you can buy and trade video games and equipment - there’s one in Milledgeville.

They’ve been struggling like a lot of companies, but something peculiar happened to them several years back.

It’s complicated but as I understand it, a giant financial group essentially made a bet that GameStop was going to go bankrupt.

So they did this financial thing where they borrowed shares of the stock - actually they borrowed 150% of the stock - more than actually existed and they sold it only to buy it back later when the price tanks.

It’s kind of like you sell me something for 10 dollars that you know is going to break, and when it breaks, you do me the favor of buying it back for a dollar.

I lost 9 dollars, you made 9 dollars.

It’s all legal - but it feels kind of shady.

And to make it more shady, these big investors go on financial shows and talk bad about the company to help the stock go down.

Basically, they run the company out of business so they can make money.

But something really unusual happened.

A whole bunch of small investors saw what was happening and they said, “not this time.’

They started buying GameStop to drive up the price and keep it up long enough that the big investors ended up losing their shirts - to the tune of billions of dollars.

Several reporters said these small investors all posting to one group on Reddit changed the financial markets in a way that they can never go back to business as usual.

That may or may not be true - one guy said you really can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys until all of the dust settles and you can sort it all out.

But one thing is for certain - a whole bunch of ‘little people,’ powerless, not in control people, changed the world, really, by shining a little light on something that looks a lot shady.

Our scripture today is from Revelation - it’s the first letter to the seven churches.

It’s all Jesus’ words.

Hear now the Word of the Lord from Revelation 2:1-7.

Revelation 2:1-7

Revelation 2:1–7 ESV

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. “ ‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Pray with me… Amen.

In Revelation 1:6, the Bible tells us, “Jesus made us…priests to his God and Father.”

The job of a priest - have you ever thought about that?

What is the job of a priest?

I mean when you really dig in, what is a priest’s basic function?

We need to know, right?

If Jesus made us priests - what does that mean?

It means our job is to shine the light of a holy God in a dark world.

What did Jesus say in Matthew 5:16, “[Matthew 5:16 ESV] 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

Did you ever sing this song as a kid?

“This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.”

Remember the hand motions - (hold index finger up) “This little light of mine…”

Little light - my light - I’m gonna let it shine.

That’s what the church is supposed to do - it’s our most important function in the kingdom of God - we let the light of our holy God shine out from us.

Now, before we go any further, we need to talk about Ephesus so we can see how relevant this text is to us.

Ephesus was a huge city in its day - over 250,000 people lived there and untold numbers of tourists arrived almost daily.

The temple of Artemis was located there.

It was considered to be one of the seven wonders of the ancient world and people came from all over to worship there.

Emperor Domitian knew that and being the kind of guy he was, he chose Ephesus to be the center of his worship too.

Ephesus was kind of like Atlanta or Macon.

There is a stretch of road in South Macon where you can get your palm read and buy your healing crystals, go to a Christian church, store all of your stuff, eat Mexican, get your car washed, go to the drug store and buy Barbeque for tomorrow’s lunch all within half a mile of each other.

Ephesus was just like that.

There were all kinds of people from all kinds of places believing and teaching all kinds of things coming and going in the city of Ephesus every day.

Ephesus was a very influential place full of very powerful people.

It is believed John lived there for a while in his old age and, nobody knows this for sure, but it makes sense, when Domitian made Ephesus a center of emperor worship, and John lived there - well, I don’t think John just let that slide.

After all, it was John who recorded Jesus saying, [John 12:46 ESV] 46 I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.

I suspect John shined some light in that darkness and that darkness didn’t like it.

The island of Patmos was only 50 miles away - Domitian was happy to send John there.

So their world looked a lot like ours - when our text opens, Jesus is walking among the seven golden lampstands - he’s walking in the middle of the seven churches.

What do you think he’s doing?

Well, He’s tending to the lamps.

He’s making sure they are burning as brightly as they can.

He’s checking the fuel, he’s trimming the wicks.

He’s watching to make sure their lights shine.

He - Jesus - is personally tending the lamps.

Bethlehem Baptist’s lamp.

“I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance,...” he says.

I know what you do.

I know how hard you work to do what you do.

I know how committed to you are to making sure it gets done.

I know you are putting up with the crazy culture and crazy people and crazy politicians and you just keep on going.

You have not grown weary.

I know you guys will never give up.

This is commendable.

You are working hard and doing some very good things - don’t stop.

Revelation 2:4 ESV

Revelation 2:4 ESV

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

You know what’s killer here - Jesus doesn’t define what this love is that they had at first.

He just says that they “have abandoned the love you had at first.”

I wonder what Jesus means?

When I was a little boy, my daddy used to take me and a few friends fishing at Factory Shoals on Sweetwater creek.

It’s called Sweetwater Creek State Park now.

The bridge we used to drive across is now a pedestrian bridge.

My dad and his friends used to jump off that bridge into the creek when they were little.

Golly, it was a wonderful place.

There is an abandoned and decaying civil war mill there.

It opened in 1849 and when the civil war started it made uniforms for the Confederate troops.

That is until Sherman’s troops burned it down in 1864.

When I was a kid, you could walk through the ruins.

There was hardly anyone ever around.

It was amazing.

Even on the hottest day it was cool there - there was always a breeze filled with river mist.

The creek got very wide there and it thundered over thousands and thousands of rocks just like it had for 10,000 years.

The water formed natural water slides that dad would pick out for us to go down.

We would sit down and the water would immediately shoot us down those slides a thousand miles an hour.

I bet I said, “Hey Dad, watch this,” a billion times - and he always watched.

We never really did much fishing at Factory Shoals - but I’d love to be 12 years old for just a day and maybe have my kids 12 years old too so they could be there.

With Dad watching, showing us where it was safe, keeping us from places where we could drown, and truly laughing every time one of us said, “Hey dad, watch this.”

When we’d go back to school on Monday we’d tell everybody what we got to do.

We didn’t think about anything anyone might say or if they had a good dad or a bad dad or if they were depressed or upset.

It wasn’t that we were heartless or cruel, its that we had discovered one of the coolest places on earth and they needed to be there - they needed to go with us and my Dad.

I miss that part of my Dad.

Telling you this story makes my heart ache - you know.

That’s what Jesus means when he says, “the love that you had at first.”

It’s a love that stirs the very bottom of your soul - that makes you misty eyed when you remember about it.

It’s not syrupy sentimentality - it’s actually an ache - it’s a yearning to get back a piece of something time and bother drowned out.

What happened at Ephesus is what has happened in the church.

We love seeing people come to Christ, to join the church.

It’s a rush to baptize them, to hear their stories young and old - to hear children reciting Bible verses and singing songs about Jesus.

To see tears in wives eyes when their grizzled bear of a husband is lowered into the water and comes out new.

It’s the biggest rush alive to see people who have lived hard lives that have been beat down time and again and see them, you can see the rebirth that Jesus gives right before your eyes.

We love the testimony of addicts who have been set free from addiction by Jesus - of people who have dabbled in all kinds of sins and perversions whose lives were saved by Jesus.

We love the stories of families who held the hands of saints as they gently left this life because they knew Jesus.

We love hearing about families who could not have kids, either have an unexpected kid by birth or have a kid by adoption after years of praying to Jesus.

We love Jesus stories - real, not embellished or spiritualized, not told in religious language, simply cold, straight up, this is what Jesus did for me.

When’s the last time you’ve heard a true, real, heart-felt Jesus story - or told one, other than here in this house.

We used to hear Jesus stories more.

Let me tell you what happened - and we’ll understand the Ephesians.

Preachers were told to be careful what they said from the pulpit - don’t touch politics or you could lose your IRS tax exempt status.

Be careful when you celebrate Mothers’ day -even though the Lord ordained motherhood, take it down a notch or two or ten - think about how those women feel who want children but can’t have them, or had a bad mom, or can’t remember ever having a mom.

Be careful on Father’s day - don’t celebrate too big because many people have had abusive fathers and we don’t want to awaken old wounds.

Be careful what you say at work - you might offend someone who doesn’t share your beliefs, cause yourself all kinds of trouble.

Be careful at the ball field or at the school with your kids.

Watch what you say if you are interviewed for a newspaper article.

Why not you just talk about Jesus at church?

That’s what happened at Ephesus.

That’s what has happened here - and in churches all across the country and around the world.

Pay attention, Jesus praised them over their doctrine - they had it going on in the church building.

But lamps are made to light the way for the world around them and if they flame is sputtering, you either fix the lamp or get rid of it and get a new one.

Jesus says if the Ephesians, if the church, does not return to its first love, “I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.”

Let me ask you a question - how many churches have you driven by in that have closed their doors or are about to?

They are all over Atlanta.

My daughter lived in Vermont once.

I landed in Boston and drove up through New England to get to Brattleboro.

And strangely enough, New England looked like the pictures of New England I have seen all my life.

Every town looked the same.

They all had that old American charm - that small town, tight knit look.

Every town had a church spire reaching for the sky - idyllic, except for one thing.

Most of the churches were closed.

They were senior centers or libraries or government offices.

Everything but a church.

They looked like a church, but they weren’t.

What happened?

Why did they close?

Well, I suspect one of two things.

Either they got old and set in their ways and their 21st century worship services looked a lot like their 1950’s worship services - they did what they always did without a whole bunch of thought.

They did what they were supposed to do each week, every week, not because they were that enamored with God.

But they were supposed to do it.

Doing it made them good, or respectable, or something.

Until folks slowly but surely got tired of it and they all drifted away.

Or, they became tried so hard to be relevant to the culture that they started accepting just about anything into the church.

And you know the old adage, if you stand for everything you stand for nothing.

No body wants to be a part of something as powerful as what the church has stood for for centuries and is now as ferocious as a toothless Chihuahua.

Why bother?

So the people left.

Except, this scripture frames that a little differently doesn’t it.

The people didn’t close those church doors - Jesus did. (pause)

Jesus closed them.

They lost their first love.

They forgot about Factory Shoals and the one that brought them there.

The forgot about who God really was to them.

Have you thought about that in a while?

Who IS God to you?

Let me ask another question: These people who are in charge of things, how will they know they are doing wrong if there is no one there telling them what is right?

How can the darkness see the light if no one is shining any light?

A little while back, I had no idea that multi-billion dollar hedge funds could short sell a struggling company’s stock, then do their best to destroy that company so the hedge fund could get rich off bankrupting someone else - until a bunch of garden variety day traders shined the light on them.

Why are we surprised that the world is crashing down right now - there is no one to remind them of what is right.

Our rallying cry is “We’re mad as all get out and we’re not going to take it anymore.”

According to this text, that will get us closed down.

We need to remember the one who brung us to the dance, and fall in love all over again.

Jesus says to do three things to fix this, remember, repent and return.

Remember how things used to be - not how you did things in the good ole’ days, but the way you loved Jesus in the good ole days.

The way you would talk about Jesus then - like, you found someone who truly made something in you different.

Not fake phony story different - not embellished story different.

But different.

Remember how you talked about that - do you remember how you prayed then and read the Bible then?

Remember it and repent.

There are four steps to repentance - if you are note taking, write these down.

First, you grieve.

You mourn over what you have lost - remember I used the word ache when I think about Dad and factory shoals.

Those few days can never be had again and that hurts.

Maybe you are so young that your faith has always been throttled, you’ve never freely said what you believe in your heart.

Grieve over that - that’s a loss - that’s sad - that’s regrettable.

Grieve.

Second, confess your grief and sin to Jesus.

You don’t have to dress it up, He’s standing right here among us - He knows already and His ears are listening for your voice.

He honors your pain.

Don’t be shy about it - when we sing later you can come pray at the altar, or you can steal away at home and privately come back to the Jesus you remember.

Third, forsake the way you are acting.

We must stop throttling our faith.

We aren’t saying to go to work and start preaching on your next conference call.

But quit worrying so much about what might happen to you, and simply share what Jesus did for you when it’s appropriate.

The enemy has made us believe that the world is hostile to the gospel, and that’s partly true.

John heard Jesus say, “people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” Jn 3:19

But John also heard Jesus say, “lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.” Jn 4:35.

Someone is waiting to hear what Jesus did for you.

Fourth, cry out to God for mercy.

Listen, Jesus is more real than your husband or wife, brother or sister.

If you hurt them and you realized it, would you not try to make it right?

Would you not want them to show you mercy and not treat you like you deserve?

Jesus is standing in the midst of us and He is promising if we don’t return to Him, He will close our church.

Randy I don’t believe that.

I do - he says so right here.

But Jesus also says this, Revelation 2:7, “To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”

Jesus is foreshadowing here.

Revelation 22:1–5 ESV

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

Our nation needs healing.

Our state needs healing.

Our community needs healing.

Our churches need new life - that’s what revival is - new life.

We have the cure.

We don’t need to keep it in the house.

If we will receive it, our job is to wake up a whole lot of people by shining the light of Jesus on a whole lot of shady.

One little light at a time.

That’s what our first love is calling us to do.