“YOUR FIRST LOVE”
SELECTED SCRIPTURES

I. Introduction
Do you think Lighthouse is a good church? I suspect that most of you would answer and say, “Yes!” After all, you probably wouldn’t be here this morning if you thought LBC was not a good church, would you? But how do you define a good church? More to the point, how does Scripture define a good church? What standards, practices, traits, or characteris-tics does the Bible say are marks of a good church in the eyes of God? When all is said and done, His opinion of Lighthouse Bible Church is the only one that will matter.

In the Book of Revelation the Apostle John records Jesus’ words as our Lord reveals the condition of the seven different kinds of churches that existed at the end of the first century.
• The suffering church was marked by persecution and even martyrdom. The church at Smyrna suffered greatly for Jesus’ sake. There are churches all over the world that are suffering like that right now. (Revelation 2:8-11)
• The compromising church was all too willing to ally itself with the state. The church at Pergamum was such a church. There are churches everywhere that, when faced with obeying the dictates of God or man, will readily obey man. (Revelation 2:12-17)
• The corrupt church was marked by idolatry. The church at Thyatira was such a church. Idol worship is common in the church today. While many churches are engaged in one form or another of it, Roman Catholicism has raised idol worship to
an art form. (Revelation 2:18-29)
• The sleeping church was essentially a “dead church.” The first century church at Sardis was such a place. Much of today’s Protestant church is dead. It goes through the motions with its traditions and its liturgies, but there is precious little spiritual life to be found in it. (Revelation 3:1-6)
• The faithful church clung to God’s Word, made missions a priority, and loved the very thought of Jesus’ return in power and glory. Such was the church at Philadelphia. (Revelation 3:7-13)
• Finally, there was the apostate church such as the one at Laodicea. It was a church in name only. There was not so much as one true Christian in the entire church. “Laodi-cean” churches today are populated by hypocrites who profess faith in Christ, but have virtually none. (Revelation 3:14-22)

Jesus spoke of such so-called churches and the unbelievers who fill them in Matthew 7:23 when, at the last judgment, He will say to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.” There are “Laodicean” churches all around us today. You may even know of one.

For the past two thousand years the Church of Jesus Christ, since the moment it was born on the Day of Pentecost, has suffered (Smyrna) and been faithful to Him and to His Word (Phila-delphia). And for the past two thousand years the Church of Jesus Christ has compromised itself (Pergamum), has been corrupted (Thyatira), has slept (Sardis), and has even fallen into rank unbelief (Laodicea).

In the Book of Revelation the Lord Jesus has neither indictment nor warning for the suffer-ing church or the faithful church. And while there can be some good to be found in the com-promised, corrupted, and sleeping churches, there is virtually nothing good to be found in the apostate church.

But there is a seventh church in Revelation, and it is the one we will focus on this morning. It is the church at Ephesus… and by almost any standard, it is a “good” church. Yet our Lord has both an indictment and a warning for Ephesus. Brett read what the Lord had to say about this so-called “good” church.
*Revelation 2:1-3, 6-7
1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this:
2 ‘I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot en-dure evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false;
3 and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and (you) have not grown weary…
6 ‘Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
7 ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.’”

Obviously, there is much that is good in Ephesus. But there is also something wrong. And it is a serious problem. First, Jesus indicts them in v. 4. Second, He warns them in v. 5.
*Revelation 2:4-5
4 ‘But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.
5 ‘Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you, and will remove your lampstand out of its place – unless you repent.

It is Jesus’ indictment of and warning for the church at Ephesus that we will ponder today.
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II. Text
Do you remember your first love? I remember mine. I was sixteen. She was eighteen.
And I was absolutely smitten! I couldn’t think of anything or anyone else. I was focused solely and completely on her. It was great while it lasted. For six months or so I had a date for every movie, every dance, and every party. And when she got tired of it and went away to college, it took me another six months to get over it.

Some people would call first loves like that infatuation, or puppy love, or a teen-age crush. While there are examples of such relationships developing, maturing, and becoming genuine life-long love, many such relationships usually cool off and fade away. Eventually one of the two people involved “leaves their first love.”

For the true Christian, Jesus is their first love. That love must never cool off or fade away. If it does, it is never the Lord Jesus who leaves the Christian. It is always the Christian who leaves the Lord Jesus. But even then, the true Christian may still love his church work, his religious zeal will remain, and on the surface, at least, all will appear to be fine.

Yet there is a problem. The problem arises when our Christian work and our religious zeal push our love for Jesus – our first love – to the side. It’s usually pretty subtle. I don’t think any of us sets out to leave our first love. But when the work or the religious zeal, no matter how important or noble they may be – when they become our first love – then we’ve pushed the Lord Jesus Himself to the side. And in doing so, we have lost our way. And Christianity becomes what some have called “Churchianity.”

This can sneak up on us. We love our brothers and sisters in Christ. We love to be together. We love our church. Therefore, we just seem to assume that we must love Jesus too. But if that were the case, the Lord would not have had to say what He said to the Ephesian church in Revelation 2:4; “But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.”

Listen Christian, the reality is that no matter what you and I do for Christ, or for His family, or for the lost and dying world around us, we must love Him above all else. We must put Him first. We must! This is not optional. Do you remember what Jesus said about the place He expects to occupy in our lives? Referring to His first coming, He said…
*Matthew 10:34-39
34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth.; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 “For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
36 and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.
37 “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.
38 “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
39 “He who has found his life shall lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake shall find it.”
Could it be any clearer than that? Well, maybe so. Consider the parallel passage in Luke.
*Luke 9:23-26
23 And (Jesus) was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.
24 “For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.
25 “For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?
26 “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”

“…take up your cross” is a metaphor for the death of the person you were before you came to saving faith in Christ. Prior to that your life was focused on this world. But the true Christian is a new creation. Physically the new Christian is still in the world, but spiritually the new Christian is no longer of the world. Therefore, the Apostle John tells us…
1 John 2:15-17
15 Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.
17 And the world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever.

What is the difference between believers and unbelievers? It is who and what they love first. Two short and otherwise unrelated verses confirm that difference. In John 8:42 the Lord Jesus says, “If God were your Father, you would love Me…” In 1 Corinthians 16:22 the Apostle Paul says, “If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed.” The believer loves Jesus. The unbeliever does not. First, and foremost, always, and ever, the Christian life is about loving Jesus first. All that is good and righteous and holy stems from that love.

Ephesus was a “good church,” but it had a problem. The believers’ love for Jesus was start-ing to wane. Thus the indictment from Jesus. “…you have left your first love,” and the sub-sequent warning “…I will remove your lampstand out of its place – unless you repent.”

The removal of their lampstand meant that the light they projected to the world around them would be taken away. Some commentators believe that Jesus was saying he would literally remove the church at Ephesus; it would simply cease to exist. Others believe that the church would remain, but it would become useless. Either way, the Lord is saying that their light would go out.

What about us here at Lighthouse Bible Church? How are we doing? Are we anything at all like the church at Ephesus? Let’s take just a moment and evaluate ourselves.
In Revelation 2:2-3, 6 Jesus says the church at Ephesus did good deeds, worked hard, and persevered through difficulties. The Lord acknowledges the Ephesian church’s refusal to tolerate evil men and false teachers. The church could easily identify error and false teach-ing because it knew and understood doctrinal truth. (The Nicolaitins were a first century cult.)

Lighthouse does good deeds, works hard, and has persevered through a number of difficul-ties. More than that, we know and teach doctrinal truth. Therefore, we can discern error and can readily recognize false teachers. Those are things for which LBC can be commended. But if we revel in those things and our love for Jesus wanes, then the very same warning will apply to us. “…I will remove your lampstand out of its place – unless you repent.” So we need to ask ourselves, “What good is a lighthouse that projects no light?”

Think of it. The Ephesian church was most likely founded by Priscilla and Aquila. It was taught by the Apostle Paul for over three years. Later, he warned the Ephesian elders to be on the alert.
Acts 20:27-32
27 “For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.
28 “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He pur-chased with His own blood.
29 “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock;
30 and from among your own selves men will arise speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.
31 “Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.
32 “And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanc-tified.”

Thereafter it counted Timothy and John among its pastors. Could any church have a better foundation and be more blessed than that? Yet hardly forty years after its founding (Revela-tion was written in the 90’s) its love for Jesus had already begun to grow cold. If that can hap-pen to a church like Ephesus, it can happen to us.

Please understand that I am not accusing us of leaving our first love – not at all. But it is imperative that we understand what our Lord expects of His church. Listen, our hard work is good. Our sound doctrine is good. Our spiritual discernment is good. Our hatred for false gospels and false teaching is good. But if we value any of those things more than we love Him, then Jesus warns us that He will remove our lampstand, and we will lose our light. We will cease to exist as a church or we will remain but lose our effectiveness for Him. That is one of the lessons that we are to learn from Revelation 2:1-7.
As a church and as individual Christians, our relationship to Jesus is everything. We know that it meant everything to the Apostle Paul.
Philippians 3:7-8
7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ.

John MacArthur has said that the Christian life can be summed up in this: It is the continual pursuit of a deep and intimate relationship with Jesus. That was the Apostle Paul’s life-long pursuit. May it be yours and mine as well.

And let’s be clear. Such devotion is not limited to so-called “super-spiritual” or particularly pious Christians. It should be the goal of every believer. In fact, back in the seventeenth century Puritan preacher Thomas Vincent took the position that if the pursuit of a deep, inti-mate, and loving relationship with Jesus wasn’t the goal of the Christian’s life, he probably wasn’t a true believer at all. Listen to Thomas Vincent…
“The life of Christianity consists very much of our love (for) Christ. Without love (for) Christ we are as much without spiritual life as a carcass when the soul is fled from it is without natural life. Faith without love (for) Christ is a dead faith, and a Christian without love (for) Christ is a dead Christian, dead in sins and trespasses. Without love (for) Christ we may have the name of Christians, but we are wholly without the nature. We may have the form of godliness, but we are wholly without its power.”

But listen to what the same Thomas Vincent said about true believers…
“If (Christ) has their love, their desires will be chiefly after Him. Their delights will be chiefly in Him; their hopes and expectations will be chiefly from Him… All their senses and the members of their bodies will be His servants. Their eyes will see for Him, their ears will hear for Him, their tongues will speak for Him, their hands will work for Him, their feet will walk for Him. All their gifts and talents will be at His devotion and service. If (Christ) has their love, they will be ready to do for Him what He requires. They will suffer for Him whatever He calls them to. If they have much love to Him, they will not think much of denying themselves, taking up His cross and following Him wherever He leads them.”

Loving Jesus that much shouldn’t be difficult. After all, who is Jesus?
*Colossians 1:15-19
15 And He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation.
16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things have been created by Him and for Him.
17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; so that He Himself might come to have first place in every-thing.
19 For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him.

The fullness of what? Colossians 2:9 says, “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.” Who is Jesus? He is God in human flesh. Listen to the writer of Hebrews.
*Hebrews 1:1-3
1 God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways,
2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.
3 And He (the Son) is the radiance of His (the Father’s) glory and the exact repre-sentation of His (the Father’s) nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He (the Son) had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high…

Who is Jesus? He is God in human flesh. This is why, in John 14:8-9, when Philip asked Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and it will be enough for us,” Jesus could say, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” Who is Jesus? He said is God in human flesh.

So you can love Jesus because of who He is. And you can love Jesus for what He did in eternity past.
*Ephesians 1:3-6
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love
5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,
6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved (Christ).

Ten years earlier Paul had said the same thing to the believers in the church at Thessalonica.
2 Thessalonians 2:13-14
13 But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the (Holy) Spirit and faith in the truth.
14 And it was for this (that) He called you through our gospel, (so) that you may gain the glory of our lord Jesus Christ.
In the OT God told Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you (dedicated you and set you apart).” (Jeremiah 1:5) And in Romans, Paul puts it all together…
*Romans 8:29-30
29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren;
30 and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

So, can you love the One who knew you before you were born, chose you in eternity past to be one of His own, and predestined you to salvation? Can you love Him above all else?

Can you love the One who, two thousand years ago, loved you so much that He went to the cross for you? Can you love Him above all else?
Romans 5:8;
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sin-ners, Christ died for us.

Can you love the One who called you through the good news of the gospel, saved your soul, and justified by you by faith? – a faith which, by the way, He gave you; “…and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8b)” – Can you love Him above all else?
John 15:13
13 “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

Can you love the One who died for you, who willingly laid down His life for you, and from whose love and care you can never be separated?
*Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

These are the things He has already done for you. Can you love Him above all else? Or how about this… Can you love Him for what He will soon do? Whether we pass into His presence individually when we leave this life, or we all go together at the Rapture of the Church, we will be glorified with Him.
1 Corinthians 15:51-56
51 Behold, I tell you a mystery; we shall not all sleep (die), but we shall all be changed,
52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
53 For this perishable (body) must put on the imperishable, and this mortal (body) must put on immortality.
54 But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written (in the OT), “Death is swallowed up in victory.
55 “O death, where is your victory (now)? O death, where is your sting (now)?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law;
57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Can you love the One who has given you victory over death, the grave, and even hell itself? Can you love Him above all else? How can you not?
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III. Conclusion
The church at Ephesus was a good church. But it had a potentially fatal flaw. It was so busy being a good church that it was in danger of forgetting why it was a good church. Good churches aren’t good churches solely because of what they do. They are good churches because of the One whom they love!

May the Lord Jesus Christ be the first love of your life. After all, 1 John 4:19 says, “We love, because He first loved us.”
1 John 3:1-2
1 See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God, and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as what we shall be. We know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.

Let me close with this…

Do you love the very thought of Jesus’ return? Yes? Did you know that there is a special reward or crown awaiting those who do? Listen…
2 Timothy 4:8 (Paul speaking to Timothy)
8 “In the future there laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

Revelation 22:20
20 “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming quickly.’ Come, Lord Jesus.”

~ Pray ~