Back to Our First Love 1981

A few Wednesday nights ago, we were studying the first of the seven letters to the churches in the Book of Revelation, and it struck a chord in our hearts, as it always does when we are called back to our first love. The message which came to us that night through the Spirit, by means really of the mouths of many brothers and sisters, was obviously one that should be shared really with the whole body, the whole flock. And so today, I'm going to try as much as possible to take the substance of what came that night, as I perceived it, and share it with everybody.

And those who were here that night, I'm sure, can stand to think this through again, and to be praying that the message that came that night, through many mouths, won't get distorted now as it comes out of one. From the Book of Revelation, chapter 2, 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 evil men, but have tested those who call themselves apostles, but are not, and have 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 that you had at first.

Remember, then, from what 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 spirit in which the Lord speaks to this church at Ephesus is really a spirit of great kindness.

He speaks from a position of absolute authority as the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, but he also speaks as one who stands down among them, walks among the seven golden lampstands, appreciates and sees what they're going through. I know your works, your toil, your patient endurance. I appreciate the fact that you have not allowed yourself to be misled by false prophets, and that you're bearing up under the strain for my name's sake, but I have this against you.

You have abandoned the love that you had at first, and now this merciful, kind, self-giving, compassionate Lord, who has already laid down his life for these people, gives them a warning of what's going to happen if they don't get back to their first love. Remember, then, from what you have fought, repent, and do the works that you did at first. If not, I will come and remove the lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

So if this congregation of believers in Ephesus is going to continue to be a light in that city, the love that drove them in the beginning to move in the will of their Master with tremendous power and great joy is going to have to burn in their hearts again, and it's going to have to keep burning in their hearts right up to their dying day. Now, most of us seem to be pretty much resigned to the idea that the love that we had for Jesus in the beginning, in time, inevitably is going to have to just kind of cool down and become a little bit less than what it was. How can you possibly, we seem to think deep in our hearts, how can you possibly sustain that kind of devotion to the Lord, that flame on and on through the years? When a man and woman come together in marriage, who expects the love that they had for each other on their honeymoon to continue for 40 or 50 years? God does.

He made them male and female, gave them to each other for as long as they both shall live. And it's certainly not in his order that this love, which they had for each other at the beginning, should now become dull and stale and sour with monotony and with the injuries which they inflict on each other, but rather that this love should become more pure and increase as they learn to forgive and help and give to each other. A woman gives birth to a child.

She loves it with self-giving love. If she has to get up five times during the night to take care of it, that's okay. If she has to do without basic necessities in order to provide for it, she's glad to do this.

Now the child is 30 years old or 35 or 40. Does she love it any less? Maybe he's sitting in jail. Does she love it any less? When Peter first began walking with Jesus, he very soon developed a love for his master that was willing to do anything for him, even to die for Jesus.

But later, when the opportunity actually came on the night when Jesus was arrested, Peter fell apart, finds himself cursing and swearing that he doesn't even know this man. After the resurrection, Jesus said to Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these other things, these fishing boats and nets and all this stuff? Lord, you know that I love you. Then feed my lambs.

And Peter then went back to his first love. And he began to feed those sheep and tend the flock of the Lord out of love for his master. Years passed and that love for Jesus increased to the point where he in fact laid down his life for Jesus.

He was able to die on a cross for his Lord because he went back to his first love and stayed there. In those early weeks when you and I first began walking with the Lord, how easy it was to do almost anything he asked us to do. If he wanted us to forgive somebody, we were glad to forgive.

If he wanted us to give something away, we gave it away with joy. Then we moved out of our spiritual infancy into the wilderness. We began to hit some rough spots and go through some trials and we began to stumble.

The Lord was still there standing at our side. We traveled on, still trying to be faithful to his name, still trying to do what he called us to do, to toil and to be enduring and to be faithful right down to this moment. But for most of us, that first love is no longer there.

We're still hanging in there. We're here. You know, that's something.

You know, we're still trying to be faithful. But that love for Jesus no longer burns with that pure flame. So he says to us, to us now, remember then from what you have fallen, repent and do the works that you did at first.

If not, I will come to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place unless you repent. So what does it mean to come back to our first love? What does it mean to repent and do the works that we did at first? Our first love was a direct personal love for Jesus himself. Simon, son of John, do you love me? See, not my blessings, not my attributes, not my promises, not my power, just me.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. The kingdom life is only possible. And this feast of victory we eat again today only becomes real and something more than just another ritual.

When we fix our hearts on Jesus himself and love him, love him. Our first love was a joyful giving of our lives to Jesus. And he said to all, if any man would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me.

What else is this but a giving of our lives to him? And it's a joyful, not a morbid, a joyful giving of our lives to him. You know, they don't deny themselves or we don't deny ourselves, take up our crosses and follow Jesus with tears in our eyes for all the things we have to leave behind. But we do it with really with joyful abandon, knowing that he is our life.

Glad to do it. For whoever would save his life will lose it. And whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it.

For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will a son of man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the father and of the holy angels. So we lose our lives for his sake because we love him. And now we're not afraid and we're not ashamed to go out there and boldly confess his name.

God help us to get back to our first love, to come down off our high horse of pride and become poor in spirit, lowly children who are unselfconscious and unashamed to love Jesus. So that now we can say to the world without any shame that he's Lord, never mind knowing that the world is going to reject us just as it rejected him. That's part of it.

But that's our privilege. To love Jesus, to get back to our first love is works done just out of love for him. In other words, we do what we do not because it's the Christian thing to do, not because of our belief in certain Christian principles.

But because Jesus tells us to do these things and we do them in his word because we love him. If I try to forgive somebody because it's the Christian thing to do, I know forgiveness is a Christian principle. So I'm going to try to forgive.

It's going to get harder and harder until it becomes really quite impossible. But if I try to forgive someone because Jesus tells me to do this and I do it out of love for him. Now it becomes he helps me.

I can't do it, but he enables me to do this. If I try to keep my eyes single and to give to those who are in need because these are Christian principles that I learned someplace. I'll very, very soon run out of steam.

But if I get back to my first love and begin to do these things simply out of love for Jesus, I'll never run out of steam. Shortly before he went back to the father, left this world to go back to the father. Jesus met Peter again at the shore of the Sea of Galilee and called him away from his fishing, away from his nets, back to his first love.

Do you love me? Peter, do you love me? Then feed my sheep and follow me to a cross. For us to the hour is late and there's much to be done. But the most important issue of our lives is what kind of relationship with Jesus do we really have? Do we love him more than the other thing? Today Jesus calls us to come back to our first love for him.

I know your works, your toil, your patient endurance, how you cannot bear evil men but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not and have 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 that you had at first.

Remember then, from what you have fallen, repent and do the works that you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. Let's just wait for a while in silence and just think about this and pray about it and I'll break the silence with that.

Lord, we ask that you give us a clear vision of what this means and how this applies wherever it does apply to us. How can we possibly mount up on wings as the eagles and run and not be weary and walk and not faint until we remember from what we've fallen, Lord? And enable us to get back to that clean, clear, childlike love for you. And whatever it costs and whatever has to be ripped out of our lives in order for this to happen, help us to get cracking on it.

Lord, help us this day to begin to pull out the clutter and where we don't even know how to repent, where we're so stiff-necked and so caught up in our own egos that we just don't even know how to let go. Help us, Lord. Help us.

Help us to repent.