June 14, 2015
Morning Worship
Text: Revelation 2:1-7
Subject: Complacency
Title: Reclaiming Your Passion for Christ
Do you have a passion? Maybe before you answer that question I should define the word for you.
Passion (from the Greek verb pascho meaning to suffer) is a very strong feeling about a person or thing. Passion is an intense emotion, a compelling enthusiasm or desire for something.
Looking back at my own life I can see that in my early teen years I developed a passion for music. I had an old guitar and I was determined to learn how to play it. So nearly every spare moment I had you could have found me with my guitar in hand and my Mel Bay chord book in front of me learning how to play chords and then to play songs and sing along. It was something that was important to me and the fruit of it has stayed with me through my whole life. I must say that it isn’t the same passion that I had when I was young – yet it has stayed with me and I still enjoy it. That is why sometimes you could stop by the church and hear me practicing on the piano or the drums or the banjo or mandolin. But I am not consumed by it.
When I first started in construction I became passionate about carpenter work. I enjoyed it and wanted to be the best I could be at it. I worked hard at it and learned quickly.
Over the years my passion for the things of the past has wained. Those things are still important to me but they are not the number one focus of my life any longer.
The reason I am telling you these stories is that passion is something we all have I us. Whetehr it be a passion for family, work, hobbies, or whatever it may be, we all have or have had pasisons in our lives. And like my early passions they may have faded somewhat.
In the book of Revelation the Lord Jesus spoke some words to the churches in the province of Asia that have application to churches everywhere today. And I want to look at a couple of passages today that should get our attention.
Revelation 2:1-4,
1“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write:
These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands: 2I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.
4Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.
I believe this is God’s word…
I believe it is for me…
I accept it as mine…
I appropriate it to my life today…
Do you believe that the Lord wants you to be passionate in your relationship with Him? Let’s look to see what we can do to reclaim the passion.
The Lord begins the first of these letters to the churches – to the church in Ephesus – by listing the things that they are doing well…2I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.
Every one of those things is about what is expected of us in our Christian walk.
Ephesians 2:10,
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Colosians 3:23,
3Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men…
Hebrews 10:36,
36You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.
Romans 12:9,
9Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.
1 John 4:1,
1Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
Can you say “AMEN!”
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that were all that was needed to maintain your walk with the Lord? Wouldn’t it be nice if Jesus hadn’t said what He says next?
4Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.
WOW!
In the world today among the Charismatic/Pentecostal church groups there are three movements afoot.
1. The Seeker friendly movement where the focus is getting people in the door by appealing to their senses. Good music (contemporary), good programs for all age groups and a gospel that doesn’t offend.
2. The traditional movement where the focus is on continuing the way it has always been and hoping the Holy Spirit moves in the service. If there is a message in tongues with interpretation or a prophetic word then it was a good service.
3. The final movement is the group of people who are just so in love with the Lord that their focus is just on getting into His presence and allowing the Holy Spirit to take them where He wants to take them.
The first two movements are people oriented. The last one is God oriented.
The first two are about what seems good to us. The other is about what seems good to the Holy Spirit.
The first two are focused on externals. The third on the internal.
4Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.
Have you ever been to that place in your life where it seems like you are going through the motions? But it seems like the Lord is far away. There are two groups who can reach that point.
First there is a group who do all the right things, much like the church in Ephesus. But doing the right thing becomes so much of a routine that the whole purpose behind them looses its meaning. You go to church, you tithe faithfully, you work hard, and you read your bible and pray because that is what you have always been taught to do. But the fire is gone.
The second group is like the first only a little different. Because they have lost the fire they have stopped doing the other things they should be doing and the hole just gets deeper and deeper.
Fortunately, Jesus doesn’t just point out the problem in the church. He also gives the two-step remedy for the problem.
5Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.
Step 1: 5Remember the height from which you have fallen! Have you ever done what I have done before and get so caught up in being a Christian that we for get the Christ in Christianity? There was a book that I read many years ago entitled “Surrender” that had a line in it that went something like this… “Before you do the work of the Lord you have to remember the Lord of the Work.” Jesus’ call to each of us is to go back to the beginning of your Christian walk and remember the cleansing, the freshness, the excitement that you had then and realize that you have fallen from that place. It often happens so gradually that you don’t even know what has happened until you wake up one day and find yourself in an unfamiliar spiritual place and wonder how you got there. The Greek word translated “fallen” is ekpipto (ek-pip'-to) v. and it means,
1. to drop away
2. (specially) be driven out of one's course
3. (figuratively) to lose, become inefficient
All three of those meanings can be seen in a progressive sense. 1) you begin to lose interest in spiritual things and then 2) it opens a door for the enemy to tell you lies and force you further away. “You don’t need church. You don’t have to pray. You surely can’t believe all the things the bible says. You don’t need to be in church. If you do, don’t even think about going back on Sunday night or Wednesday. It’s just a waste of time.” 3) Then you become ineffective… the truth is that you are losing out on what the Lord desires for you. 5Remember the height from which you have fallen…
Step 2: Repent and do the things you did at first. Repent = metanoeo (met-an-o-eh'-o) to think differently… do the things you did at first. I can’t speak for you but one thing I remember about when I first experienced God’s love was my love for God. I never knew I could love that way. It changed my life. And the love for everyone else that I had was elevated to that same level. Jesus says repent – thing differently – about your relationship with Him. Do the same things you did at first. When I got saved you couldn’t keep me out of church. You couldn’t keep me out of the word. You couldn’t keep me away from my prayer time. You couldn’t keep me from talking about the Lord and my personal experience with Him.
So what changed?
Turn to Revelation 3. 15I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
There is a spirit of complacency in the church today and we just go through the motions of playing church instead of being the church. And yet the Holy Spirit wants to light a fire in you that will burn so deep that you can’t control it.
Hebrews 12:28-29, 28Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, 29for our “God is a consuming fire.”
do the things you did at first. Get back into the habit of church. Put everything in the right perspective. You say, “well, I just don’t have time to be in church on Sunday night or Wednesday night or in Sunday School.”
I wonder what would happen if I told my wife, “Honey, I love you but I don’t have time to develop our relationship any further. It requires work and I just can’t seem to find the time for it… maybe later when things slow down a little…” No, in building the relationship with my wife I do the same things I did as at first and then build on them. I still have to work at it, but I want to.
The last passage I want you to turn to is Revelation 3:20. This is the conclusion of the letter to the church that was lukewarm.
Revelation 3:20 (NKJV)
20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.
This has often been interpreted as the Lord knocking on the hearts of unbelievers in order to come in to save them. But it is written to the church.
1. Jesus is knocking… He wants to take you back to the place of your first love…
2. He wants you to hear and to open the door to let Him in. He will never force His way into your life but He will do everything He can do to make you understand your need for that deeper ongoing relationship with Him.
3. He gives you the promise of intimacy. The symbolism of dining includes intimacy. You get to know people more around a dinner table than you will in any other kind of setting.
Do you have passion for the things of God? Do you want to have the old passion once again?
Remember the height from which you have fallen…
Repent and do the things you did at first…
When Jesus knocks open the door to Him…
