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okay let’s pray father we do thank you so much um bringing us together today uh to be able to once again to be in the word of God what what a privilege it is to have scripture in our hands to be able to read it study it and Lord uh just to be able to think about it and make it part of our practice as we learn what is said in the word of God and how it applies to us and I just pray Lord that we would always when we hear the word of God put oursel in the equation asking ourselves the questions that are needed to see if we’re con committing a sin uh that the scriptures identifying before us and if so Lord help us to repent of it and I pray you would bless our time together in the word of God amen amen all right so we’re going to look at Revelation chapter 2 uh verse 1-7 and I want to to start off by as we look at this uh chapter at these these seven verses that it’s really about this next section is about a church that declines in their love for the Lord just think about that for a minute Christians who Christians who have moved away from or abandoned love for the Lord um that I I I wonder sometimes though the first churches the church at Ephesus um why is why is it first and I think because this is the most Grievous sin that we can commit as a Christian that we don’t we’re not living our life as we’re uh as growing in our love for Christ maybe our life has become mechanical or um it just we’re numb to the truth um we’re just so familiar with things that we really don’t respond to them the way we ought to um that’s not a good thing uh before the Lord and we’re going to find out that the Lord um is one who walks among among his churches he’s right in the middle of the church he’s examining the church he’s looking at the church his church that he died for and those he shed his blood for and is saying how are my people living how are they serving me how are they worshiping me and he takes that extremely serious and I think we ought to too and I believe the scripture is going to remind us that we ought to but one I I ran across the story that this is one this is how one dear man learned to love the Lord he said one morning as he was going to work I was thinking of the words Simon son of Jonah lovest thou me and he wished with all his heart that he could answer that question that Peter did that Peter says I do love you Lord but he said I felt sad because I honestly could not then this thought came to me he said well if I cannot say so much as Peter perhaps I could turn it around a little and make it easier so he began to think there is one thing I could not say I could not say to myself Lord thou knowest that I do not love you and I found some comfort in that At Last I grew bold enough to look up to the Lord and say Lord thou knowest that I want to love you more then I began to think of his great love for me I thought of his life on my behalf I thought of his words he spoke in the word of God I thought of his cross and the agony he paid and the price he paid for me and almost before I knew it what what was happening I looked up and says Lord you know I love you and at that very moment he says the consciousness of the Forgiveness of that sin and New Life flooded his heart now I don’t know about you but maybe at one time in your Christian Life you’re going to find yourself there that you really honestly can’t answer that question but the Legacy of Heaven and the inexhaustible Riches of God’s love belong to all who trust and love his son so pursuing our relationship with Jesus Christ is the most important goal of the Christian Life Beyond anything else it’s actually the very thing that fuels everything out else here in Revelation Chapter 2 the Ephesians church church got knocked off their course by good and Noble and spiritual Pursuits in fact they were doing the things that were vital and important to the ministry of all churches and yet their love for Jesus was declining now we can’t forget that chapter 1 2 and three all go together the seven churches of Asia selected from a greater number than existing are each analyzed by the Lord and their spiritual condition is laid bare Christ follows a general pattern for all the seven churches as he speaks to them two exceptions are notable however each church as a whole is commended except two Sardis and leysia each church as a whole is criticized except to Samina and Philadelphia so a careful study of each of these letters giving attention really to the background and the location of each church and the kinds of things said to each church and the spiritual counsel that’s presented by the Lord will prove should prove to be very rewarding for us as we examine ourselves in our own church so he says to John Jesus says to John I would like to speak to the church and when you get it John when you get what I’m telling you get it to the churches the seven letters to the seven churches this is what ought to be in a church and here’s a pattern of all Church Ministry Jesus gives the state of the church whether by Praise or by rebuke or by warning or by promise therefore as the Lord walks among his church and that’s the picture we’re getting here he is not far away he’s right here as he walks among his churches he’s examining them and he continually knows their Works he knows their sufferings he knows their sins his eyes are as the a flame of fire so he sees with penetrating discernment and inaccuracy to which no one can attain if we were to judge the church ourself we probably would be too lenient on us or maybe we would judge inaccurately or maybe we we would even be too severe on ourselves therefore as we think about the Lord only Christ can judge the church properly and be sure of this he does and as the Lord examines the first church we’re going to look at this morning the Church of Ephesus the church the people of the of Ephesians the Lord first gives a commendation and then secondly he gives a criticism thirdly he gives counsel and then lastly he gives a challenge so before proceeding to the passage of scripture just some background about Ephesus Ephesus was a thriving commercial City in Asia Minor today of course modern day Turkey its religious life centered around the worship of the Greek goddess Artemis or Diana we we hear that we see that in the book of Acts in chapter 19 it was the god the goddess of it was the fertility goddess cult and her Temple was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World so many people came to that area just to see this and even to worship this cult and like other large cities it had problems with crime and immorality and in spite of these conditions the gospel flourished there under the ministries of the Apostle Paul and the Apostle John and Priscilla and Aquilla aided Paul in the evangelism and the found ing of this church so in other words it was kind of a famous Church everybody knew about it it was famous because of the people who actually founded it and preached there but now I want you to look with me at the passage because each passage also has gives a characteristic of Christ a characteristic of Christ is highlighted look at verse number one of chapter 2 it says to the angel of the church in Ephesus is right the one who holds the Seven Stars in his right hand the one who walks among the seven golden lampstands says this now as we look at that we have to ask of course the question what do the Seven Stars and the SE seven lamp stamps represent well you got to go up to back to chapter one in the last verse verse 20 of chapter 1 it says As for the mystery of the Seven Stars which you saw in my right hand and the Seven golden lampstands the Seven Stars are the Angels of the seven churches and the Seven lamp stands are the seven churches and of course the stars are the elders or the pastors or the leaders of those churches and so the Lord is is walking amongst the church and Jesus holds this church in his right hand really the hand that symbolizes protection but also it is the hand that shows shows how dear the church is to himself Jesus also is smack in the middle of the church the Lord prows the ground and as he does that he is there for the needs of his church when we pray he is listening when we have needs he is providing he’s giving us spiritual gifts he’s giving us the word of God He Is sanctifying Us by his spirit so the Lord is providing for the needs of his church right here he is doing it and emphasized in verse number one is really the sav the sovereignty of the head he walks among the lampstands he holds the Seven Stars in his hand The Messengers and the leaders and the pastors and the Elders of those churches and he does that because he has the place of authority and honor in the church also the Lord sees and knows everything going on in the church and he is very keen on what is in the hearts of his people which is the most important in the church what is going on in your heart when I can’t see your heart I don’t know like the old preachers to say I don’t know the Scruples of your mind and heart I can’t see that but Christ sees it and we know what’s going on in our life sometimes and we could hide those things from everybody else but here in scripture you cannot hide those things from the Lord you cannot hide secret Sin from the Lord you cannot hide uh even a declining heart from the Lord you’re just going through the motions you’re really not serious about your Christian walk you don’t you you don’t take it as something that is a high priority so Jesus sees his church and what does he see secondly in verse 2 and three the commendations Christ perceives in his church the Lord says something very encouraging about this church at Ephesus and notice in verse number two it says I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance that’s the first part of verse number two what what is he saying to them you’re you’re a hardworking Church you have good deeds and you labor in your good deeds to the point of exhaustion enduring even the burdens and you’re doing it with great patience so in other words the Lord is pleased with their good works and the exhaustive toil and their patient endurance secondly in our verse two it says and that you cannot tolerate evil men meaning that it is it’s a it’s a church that has separated themselves from the world and they could not bear evil they’re unwilling in other words to put up with people that are good for nothing when it comes to spiritual things they have uh it could also mean that things are not as they ought to be spiritually in these particular people morally they can be off track spiritually they are off track it’s it’s we can even say uh say it like this it’s like people who are cowardly soldiers when they’re supposed to go to war and they back off and don’t go or a lazy student who wants to get AIDS but they don’t study or possibly a dis graceful church member they’re living a secret life and they’re giving a nice face to everybody else so Jesus is saying listen I’m pleased that you do not tolerate evil men meaning it’s a church that to uh carried out church discipline and then also it’s a pure Church which exposes heretical teaching the end of verse number two and you put to the test those who call themselves Apostles and they are not and you have found them to be false that means they were doctrinally sound unwilling to put up with false teachers especially the nickol aans from verse number six which we’ll look at later on that Jesus was pleased with their discernment to expose evil and doctrinal error and then also they were an enduring Church in other words they weren’t quitters it says at the end of the verse and you have perseverance and have endured for my name’s sake and have not grown Weary at the end of verse number three so they refus to give up even when facing opposition and hardship and they did it all because of the name of Jesus Christ and Jesus was pleased with their stamina of bearing burdens and hardships on account of his name and of course in verse number six of Revelation chap 2 it says it was a church that hated what God hated yet this you have said that you hate the Deeds of the nicians which I also hate so you can say there hey that’s the kind of church I want to be part of man they are they are on the ball doctrinally they they are they are doing what they ought to do and they’re doing it in the name of Jesus Christ so we could conclude that these things that the Ephesian church is doing and we can say they’re a strong biblically Orthodox church with strong conviction s it was disciplined it was sound in faith they were its accuracy towards Heretics so they were doctrinally sound and just think of that for a moment you can have a church like this a church may have every wheel turning and the Machinery of ministry moving at a steady rate yet something very important May Escape their notice and I believe that our church can be commended for these things we have been growing in sound Doctrine we have been getting better at organization of our time and our Ministries we should always be striving in these areas but we should always be diligent and careful to make sure make sure that the very important things do not Escape our notice and if you notice in this section of scripture that the Lord’s assessment of what does not please him comes next so the Lord and this is really really this is a thing that will ruin you and will ruin a church and scripture will be really telling us about the kinds of things that Jesus approves of in the church and the kinds of things that he disapproves of or and he rebukes in his church and these are the kind of things that we ought to love and the kind of things that we ought to hate so thirdly I want you to notice the criticism Christ pronounced on the church in verse number four look what it says in your Bibles but I have this against you that you have left your first love that’s a sad passage of scripture but it’s one that we ought to take to heart because he’s talking to us I say wow a church can be Orthodox in all their behavior and Ministries and lack love to the Lord how is that a Robertson said that this early love proof of the new life in Christ has cooled off in spite of their doctrinal purity the great physician puts his finger on the problem and diagnoses the condition this criticism is singular but a very serious one it’s declining love it’s waning love of his people these not these are not we’re not talking about people that are not his these are his people this is his church this is no complaint of an enemy but this is a complaint of a dear wounded friend our Lord Jesus Christ there dis Spurgeon of the last century said will we grieve a em Manuel will we grieve him whose heart was pierced for our Redemption brothers and sisters can you and I let Jesus find out that our love is departing because this is departing love they left so the Ephesian Church along the way of running the Christian race and fighting the the Christian Warfare got distracted away from their Devotion to Jesus in other words they stopped pursuing the goal of the Christian Life the goal of christlikeness through a personal ongoing relationship to Jesus Christ we don’t want to become the Church of loveless Orthodoxy we don’t want to become a church like that so the Ephesian Church they seem to have settled into a cold Orthodoxy with surface strength but no depth in their love for Christ and what is more important depth for Christ or Surface strength I would say this death for depth in Christ gives you surface strength you can’t Reser reverse those when you go to Ephesians when he’s talking about the gifts he’s saying listen here’s a gift and the strength that God gives you to perform that gift can’t reverse those things the condition this church has fallen into is critical but it’s not hopeless and the reason why it’s not hopeless is because Jesus is speaking to them he’s talking to his church through the gospel uh the Apostle John and this Greek word left really means to abandon these Believers have abandoned they have departed from their first love for something else and be sure of this Brethren anytime we depart from our first love we depart to something other that would be the object of our affection we cannot have a there’s no void there we can’t leave a void we will love the Lord or we will love something else but one thing you can’t do you cannot love the Lord and something else you can’t love money and God or whatever whatever else you want to replace in there it can happen see the Lord is calling us for wholehearted devotion that we really want to give him when we love him now I I say to myself what could be the triggers of departing love in in any church not just the Ephesian church because the Ephesian church I could say it could be physical weariness because of the Relentless relentlessness of ministry but here they weren’t wor weary in the Ephesians church so that wasn’t part part of it it could be mental fatigue because of the resistance that we are displaying as Believers against the pervasiveness of of wickedness and evil in our culture and the remaining corruption that’s still in our life we’re always fighting that battle that could be wearisome it could be that we’re spiritually spread thin because of the constant fight for doctrinal Purity we’re always F the church is always fighting for doctrinal Purity and soundness look at our culture today we’re fighting everything we’re fighting the their stance on abortion we’re fighting the lgbtq mindset that has pervaded our culture we’re we’re we’re fighting things like women in Ministry and being pastors when the Bible uh clearly forbids those things we’re fighting all these things all the time it never stops and it’s never going to stop it could be that they’re weary in in the sense they’re battle warn being a Christian you could be battle warn struggling with your own sin Oh I thought I put you to death what what are you doing back here and you’re you’re constantly battling things or it could be just being familiar with the things of God I go to church I read my Bible I witness when I can you know I’m I’m trying to put things into practice but you’re doing it in a way it’s like you’re a robot there’s no heart in it so maybe all these things and more but a church who moves away from its first love will be sus susceptible to de develop misplace affections and will be at risk of cooling off and even becoming coldhearted and hard-hearted in some cases so many things can easily be given to the throne of our own hearts and crowd out our affection for God and the things of God as the Bible says in Timothy the love of money could do it the love of pleasure can do it the love of self can do it all those things things could do it but we can’t forget and I I believe this comes out in this passage of SC scriptures that Jesus is a jealous God he is jealous for his church he’s not going to let us go along with this and not come and address it so understandably Jesus points out their departure of their first love the fervent and passionate love that they had for Jesus and his gospel when they first received him had waned and they were just going through the motions now if our love has grown the least bit cold then we have done a terrible wrong toward our best and closest friend can there be greater grief grief in the church then that our Lord would find this against us that we have left our first love so so God takes special notice of the way and the manner in which his people think of him and attend his service and worship [Music] him it’s like a marriage couple who feels helpless while their marriage grows cold and distant from W want of attention even while it retains its its formal boundaries and its predictable duties so Christians may feel helpless while the hot flame of their Christian love dies down to an ash coated Ember that all the while they deny no G Cardinal truth nor relinquish their ongoing Christian respons abilities or Ministries but inside they’re dying and they know it and they feel they can’t escape so if someone were to ask you uh what does love look like in the Bible as a Christian well the Apostle Paul or the Apostle John would say if you love me you’ll keep my Commandments and that if you love me has to come first before keeping the Commandments also John would have said but by this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and observe his Commandments and then of course Galatians Paul would say in Galatians for the whole law is fulfilled in one word in this in the statement you shall love love your neighbor as yourself of course the two great Commandments to love the Lord first before you love your neighbor see it’s always been from the Old Testament to the New Testament it’s always been love for God always you can never got away from it in any place in scripture so see my friends if you love Jesus you would not follow it would follow actually that you would love the children of God too because love is the crowning virtue of the church and just as life within the tree causes the fruit to appear so that so the life within the believer produces beautiful fruit we cannot cause fruit to grow but we are earnestly asked to cultivate and weed and prune and protect so the fruit fruit of the love of the spirit comes through because if when you read Galatians the first thing when it talks about the the fruit of the spirit is but the fruit of the spirit is what love why is that first it’s first for a very good reason because it is the fruit that the spirit of God first produces in our life see we think that we love God before we became a Believer we didn’t love God before we became a Believer but when we find out he loved us first then we love him right CU then we find out what he what he’s done for us what he has accomplished on our behalf so you have to ask how are we doing as far as growing in biblical love love is the badge of the Christian Community and Christians May advance in in many areas of the Christian life but without growth in the most important Christian distinctive that is that of being loved it profits nothing whole chapter is written about that in 1 Corinthians 13 so when love begins to diminish and grow cold and sin increasingly manifest itself we will look more unlike Jesus than before so one of my professors Robert Thomas who’s with the Lord now he said this Jesus calls members to return to the actions prompted by love that they as a church had Formerly Known so look at verse number 5 of Revelation chap 2 this is the council Christ prescribes notice what it says in verse number five and it starts with this word therefore remember from where you have fallen remember from where you have fallen so this is the first point of his counsel Christ admonition for immediate correction you cannot let this go on too long before you slip too far away remember from where you have fallen the church had lost their bearing and needed to regain them again the church’s previous condition is a alluded to in this way from where you had fallen their departure from uh their first love is now viewed as a fall from their previous position and you know when we back slide it’s not the Lord who has moved or Chang changed his love for us or toward us it is we who have moved away from the Lord and here’s the subtle truth love can grow cold while outward religious performance still appears to be acceptable even praiseworthy so it’s easy to be satisfied if IED with religious performance is it not what Jesus said to the religious leaders of his day was in Luke 11 listen what he says he says woe to the Pharisees for you pay tithe and menth and Rue and every kind of green herb and yet disregard Justice and the love of God they disregarded it Jesus says you you should have done done both both so when the love of God is not there and Wayne is uh it’s waning in our hearts we don’t do ministry the way we ought to we just we just do it because we have to and that’s that’s the worst thing that could happen so the danger and problem is external religious performance can subtly replace true inner faith and heartfelt love and Mark this down the greatest danger to any real church is declining love which displeases the Lord aren’t we supposed to Colossians chapter 1 learn how to please the Lord in all things so when we’re doing things that displease the Lord that’s not a good place to be in fact the word right there remember in verse number five it’s a an imperative command but as I was doing my research I find out it’s not just an imperative command it is a durative imperative now you say what what’s that well it simply means this we have to continually remember it’s to be constant in our impulse toward recovery that’s that means we’re preaching to ourselves the very things that we ought to know from the word of God and we’re not stopping it every day we’re getting up and you know we’re saying Lord thank you so much that you died in my place you took the wrath of God for for me you satisfied the Justice of the father you shed your blood to wash away my sin that you Rose again to give me eternal life you’re in heaven praying for me and keeping me you’re preparing a place for me and where you are I can go every day you say that until the doctrine takes hold and grips your heart and convinces you you of all the things that you ought to know and ought to do but to do it with a heart if you ever sense a distance in your Christian walk with the Lord if you ever sense a coldness or a you’re distracted into some other area that is important and not necessarily looking sinful and you drift away from the Lord you have to do this you have to remember continually what the Lord’s done for you that’s what you have to do now it seems simple but it’s a discipline that we have and remember means to recall your faithfulness of earlier years and you take inventory of those things you remember when you first came to Christ and he saved you and you had a joy in your heart and a love in your heart and you love the word of God and your you love life and God’s opening up the whole world to you in other words you keep bearing in mind the loving relationship you once enjoyed and make a clean break with your present manner of life and you recall past Joys even past sufferings how the Lord brought you through them you recall attitudes you had back then how God was changing your mind in your world view how God brought you into new experiences and new relationships with people because you came to Christ I wouldn’t even know you people if I I didn’t know Christ you wouldn’t even know me we would never meet very rarely we would me but now I know people from all different uh cultures and backgrounds and ages and situations and that becomes the body of Christ that’s the most exciting thing you wouldn’t have gone some of the places you went if you weren’t a Christian see at at one time nothing diverted your attention from him you were never weary of hearing of him and hearing from him you were once zealous and to serve him and to tell everyone you could about what Jesus had done for you in your life you couldn’t get enough of Jesus Christ you couldn’t get enough of his word in his gospel and every time you heard the gospel preach you were excited about it but now maybe perhaps sermons are too long you’re thinking more of lunch than the word of God your Christian Life is kind of dull you have a spiritual appetite of being excited with novelties and Satan is trying to itch your ears with new doctrines once you were never displeased with Jesus but because of a sickness or a loss of a job or a family problem or a disappointment in life you were not so much interested in him and you cooled off and you kind of blame the Lord for all those things and at first you would have blessed the name of the Lord in everything but now you grumble in your homes at the slightest problem you were once consecrated to him in zealous joyful service and when someone asked you to serve you were right there to serve all that drips of either departing love or a love that you still are growing in in the love in the Lord Jesus Christ and signs of departing love in in any assembly in our assembly too several things could be obvious number one if you’re not serious and and you’re not serious or you’re unprepared for worship you stay up way too late the night before not prepared in your mind you’re drifting all over the place you’re not paying attention at all matter of fact you may not even be interested you you think that’s just because you’re still in the flesh that’s a spiritual problem or if you never plan never plan in your schedule to pray with your brethren in a public prayer meeting you never plan it I always say plan it because I think that’s the problem when it comes to prayer you don’t plan it put it in your schedule and plan it and you have if you have not done it get to get to it because you know what when you don’t pray with the Brethren that’s a sign of declining love if Ministries have only a few faithful workers and it’s like pulling teeth to get people to serve that’s a sign of a church declining in love if you serve more out of Duty than obligation an obligation then love for the Lord and the Brethren that’s a sign of declining love serving with half-hearted initiative that’s a sign of declining love so remember the beginning and compare them with your present State for the Ephesian Church The Way Forward was going backward evaluate you and I need to evaluate where you where you are now and where you were then and then ask yourself self how am I really fairing with my Lord have I fallen in any measure like the Ephesians have I abandoned my first love so if we’re there if you feel like you’re there what do you do well look back at verse number five of chapter 2 because he gives the second point of counsel he says not only remember remembering is the first and followed by another imperative command repent and we hear that word all the time the Lord’s counsel is by way of command and here it is an urgent appeal for an instant change of attitude thinking and conduct before it’s too late in other words repent completely and do decis decisively the first works and remember when you repent you always have to name it name your sin Lord It’s declining love that’s my sin and then you have to drop it that’s repentance right and you got to prove that you dropped it there’s got to be a change repentance is always a change of mind a change of of attitude to change of Direction and then also you have to replace your sin with righteous Behavior Lord I pray my declining love would be replaced by a love that is intense for you from the bottom of my heart and then of course in verse 5 it says it’s you you return and you repeat and do the Deeds you did at first and notice does not say repent and get back to the get back to your first love it says repent and do the Deeds you did at first this is practical repentance for in doing the first works you will prove that you have come back to your first love not doing more things it refers to the quality of how you do them from the heart Duty motivated by transparent love for the Lord and one another the church finding Delight in the two great Commandments to love God with your whole heart and soul and mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself because they go together and then what does the Lord do he gives them counsel he show them he shows them first who he is he shows them identifies their sin very specifically and then he gives them a challenge and notice in verse number five through verse 7 Christ’s challenge with a warning and a promise what’s the warning look at verse number five right in the middle of the verse the Lord pades with a warrant uh persuades with a warning or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place unless you repent now now he’s talking he’s talking to the whole church and he’s saying listen if you guys as a church as a body do not get back to loving me the way you ought to I’m going to come and remove your church there’s a lot of Church buildings that are now daycares right there’s a lot of church buildings there are art art museums too but I tell you what there’s no people coming there to hear preaching anymore see God does that God closes churches because he knows what’s going on in the church for it to close he tells them if you don’t repent this actually will happen I will cut down the lampstand and that holds the light so that it will be unable to hold the light and share the light with the geographical area in which it sits the one great mission of the church will be to shut down U that local church unless they repent so Christ can do no other Christ cannot allow his church to uh to be apart from the love that we’re talking about here in scripture if the first love has been abandoned and there is no repentance then the church shall be left in darkness left as a sputtering candle in a dark Wilderness until it goes out now this may mean that the Lord removes the faithful ministers who he holds in his hands who bring the word of God to that community he removes them to another sphere it may also include that the Lord will cut loose its usefulness to preserve and uphold the truth if love doesn’t return and further it could mean the Lord uh if he Wills takes away from the church her very existence as a church and closes its doors repentance will prevent a church from losing its W witness that’s what a church is supposed to do when they see this is happening so the Lord’s call to remember to repent and to do the first Works did Ephesian Church do that we know it the church did do that but today and the reason why we know that is because there’s a section written the church fathers where Ignatius uh was arrested a Church Father Ignatius was a disciple of one of the Apostles the Apostle John I believe and he was arrested taken to uh by Rome to be executed and on his way to Rome the people from Ephesus went to meet and greet him and uh comfort him in his trial and situation and um he was so encouraged by that he wrote back to to the Ephesian church and in this letter he said he praised their love commending them as a church characterized by faith in the love of Christ Jesus our savior so they were still they have repented of it by that time but today there’s no church in Ephesus it’s just a bunch of ruins now when God closes the church here he opens it over there right right he’ll he’ll he’ll bring another group of people that are faithful to him and are serving him and love his word and another way we know that they did repent is in verse number six if you look at verse number six uh it says this is kind of a hopeful sign that they still had time to repent because they still hated what the Lord Jesus Christ hated in verse 6 yet this you um this you do have that you hate the Deeds of the nicians which I also hate the nicians had misplaced affection for the practice of idolatry and immorality so that they served other gods and loved the glorification of fleshly desires and the Ephesians hated their doctrines and their sinful practices they propagated as the Lord himself hated and also the Lord persuades with the promise look at verse number seven in other words a promise to every Church who has ears open ready to listen to the Holy Spirit notice in verse 7 he who has an ear let him hear what the spirit says to the churches to him who overcomes so the promise is to those who are Overcomers actually it is the word too those who are victorious those who are conquerors overcome overcome comers ultimate Victory are in God and God alone and what he has accomplished for them because if you look over quickly to chapter five of a of Revelation in verse number five and six see it’s it’s Jesus who accomplished Victory by bearing the curse for sin on the tree and then has granted to those who believe in him access to the tree notice what it says in verse number five of Revelation 5 and one of the elders said to me stop weeping behold the lion that is from the tribe of Judah the root of David has overcome so as to open the book and its Seven Seals and I saw between the throne with the four living creatures and the elders a lamb standing as if slain there it is we overcome because of the slain Lamb of God who died in the place of Sinners so the Victor the Conqueror has a promise to them and only the Victor shall receive a reward as a gift of the Lord’s abounding Grace in verse number seven what is that that I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God there’s the gift that’s to have access to the Tree of Life to partake of the fruit to the enjoyment of eternal life see remember Adam expelled from the Garden of Eden and forfeited access to the Tree of Life in Genesis because of his sin of Disobedience here in Revelation Christians regain access to the tree of life through the last Adam Jesus Christ see that’s the gift and as I said to our membership class you know what there’s no better word Than Paradise I mean even if you’re not a believer of paradise yeah man that sounds good right but here this is a promise reality of the promise of paradise and access to the tree of life right we read in Revelation CH 22 what was that access it says then he showed me a river of the Water of Life clear as Chrystal coming from the Throne of God and and of the lamb and in the middle of the street on either side of the river was the Tree of Life bearing 12 kinds of fruit yielding its fruit every month and leaves of the tree were for the healing of the Nations so the Lord’s promise to those who continue continue I will bring you closer to the center to the very tree of life that is in the presence of God so see brethren we need to heed the message of the Lord Jesus Christ who communicates through the word of God to us to the church and why do we need to heed it so we remain a light-bearing community of obedient believers who are continually growing in our knowledge and love for our Lord Jesus Christ that’s why we need to heed this I don’t believe we’re here as a church yet and I don’t believe that we’re heading there but we have to be cautious that we don’t head there and we all have to do that together so do we hear do we see he says he who runs well till the end will receive a Crown of Life he says these who hold in there who keep going and walk with me all the way they will have this reward and so there’s always hope that Jesus gives counsel to his church so that they as light berries light be erors continue to fulfill their mission in these latter days in which we live so will you be there in Paradise will that be your reward will that be our reward as a church I believe that we need to be careful about this and so we must never forget that there is always one who walks among the churches unseen but seeing all things so let’s hedge against together as a church the sin of declining love so we it’s not found amongst us amen let’s pray Lord thank you again today Lord your word again so convicting it’s so exposes us us but Lord thank you Lord when you expose us you just don’t leave us there you build us up you tell us what to do and you tell us Lord that we need to hedge against this this very sin that you displease of the most of anything else I pray Lord that whatever we do however long we are here as a church that we would always grow in our Liv love for you I pray Lord that would always be evident by our Joy by the peace of God that you give us and by our availability to serve you and Worship You from the depth of our heart and Lord if we see any inkling of declining love that Holy Spirit you would convict us immediately of that and that we’d run to you in Repentance and Lord you would warm our heart Lord so help us to remember and continually remember the things that you’ve done for us and how you brought us where we’re at and always give you praise for it and never forget that the core of the Christian life is to love the Lord Jesus Christ to love our God with all our heart with all our mind with all our soul with all our strength and to love our neighbor which goes right with that command and I pray this that morning for us as a church in Christ’s name amen let’s