Christ's Message to His Church: Ephesus Revelation 2:1-7

Christ’s Message to His Church: The Seven Churches of Revelation

Last week we looked at Revelation 1 where Jesus sets the table for chapters 2 and 3 of this glorious book. This prophetic book is known as Revelation. In chapters 2 and 3 Jesus addresses seven different historical churches.

Over the next seven weeks we are going to look at each of these churches. Some theologians believe that each of these churches describes a period in church history that can be described best with the evaluation that Jesus gave.

And there may be truth to this and I will sprinkle that in to each of these sermons. Each of these churches described in a specific church and a period of church history has similarities and differences.

One similarity they have is that they are all considered a true church. Jesus is not addressing churches that are engaged in full-blown apostasy. A false church is not a true church. Just because a place has the name church attached to it does not mean it is a true church.

He's addressing churches that he considers somewhat legitimate. Although a few of these churches were very close to being false apostate churches and Jesus warned them of that, he still considered them at the time this was spoken to be true.

When we think about what makes a church a church no human decides this. All the instructions as to what a church should be is outlined in the pages of this book, the Holy Bible. All true churches believe that the Bible is their sole authority.

Man's tradition does not run the show the Bible does. The leadership of the church is made clear. There are elders and deacons. The preaching from a true church comes from the Bible. Man's opinions on their own hold no value.

The model of church is also to be unified in love for God and love for one another. Every church should strive to be a model church. There are lots of unhealthy churches out there and Jesus is going to describe some unhealthy churches as he addresses these seven churches.

And every church that we are going to see him address has relevance for us. Some of the churches that Jesus addresses, as I just mentioned, had serious issues. And we do not want to be like them. But any church that thinks it can never become like this is not being careful.

Over time churches can fall into ways of doing church that are not in accord with the Bible. So every church we are about to hear about we need to pay close attention to. We want to be like the model churches and we of course do not want to be like the ones that had serious issues.

And as I think about our church, Eureka Baptist, the church that started in 1881 and is still going over 140 years later, what I want to say now and what I will sprinkle in throughout is that I believe God has done wonderful things in our church over the last several years.

I have never loved a church like I love this church. With all due respect to my past church experience, I have never been a part of a church where I see the love that you have for the Lord and for one another.

I'm really encouraged by what I see taking place here. But even as I say that, we are not a perfect church. We can still grow and I pray that we would grow to even more health through a look at these seven churches that Jesus addresses.

I pray that we would heed the warnings and not fall into a place of unhealth. This can happen to any church that is not diligent in continuing to do what made the church healthy in the first place. So this is our second Sunday in our sermon series through the first three chapters of Revelation and the next seven Sundays will have the same title.

The sermon title is this, Christ's Message to His Church and the first edition here is Ephesus. That's the church he's addressing, Ephesus. At this time I encourage you to turn with me to Revelation 2.

We'll begin by reading the text, verses 1 through 7 of Revelation 2. And if you don't have a Bible, we do have the red Bibles in the pews. These are the words of the Lord Jesus. 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 namesake 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. Here's our big idea. What this text, what Jesus is calling you to do, what he's calling this church to do.

Beware of focusing excessively on sound biblical doctrine. Beware of focusing excessively on sound biblical doctrine. And Jesus gives us one reason why, and I'm going to share that reason why at the very end as we will see it come out in his address.

We are going to begin by reading verse 1 of Revelation 2. We already read it, but we're going to zero in on it now. Jesus says again to the church in Ephesus, The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.

What we read is that Jesus is addressing this church in Ephesus. And as I have already explained, this is a historical church. Ephesus was located in what modern geography says is Asia Minor. It was located three miles inland from the Aegean Sea.

When I was 26, I actually was on the Aegean Sea. Only I was on the other side, Greece and Thessalonica. On the other side of Thessalonica is the location of Ephesus. And the Aegean Sea is a portion of water.

It's a smaller sea that's a part of the Mediterranean Sea. The Cayster River allowed access to the sea, so this made Ephesus a port city. All these ships are coming in trading at this location. And not only was Ephesus a big sea trading location, it also had four major roads that ran through it.

St. Louis, Missouri historically has been called the gateway to the west because it's located on the Mississippi River. In ancient times, Ephesus was known as the gateway to Asia. The primary worship of the people in the city was the worship of the Greek god Artemis.

The Greeks called this god Artemis, while the Romans called the god Diana. Artemis' temple was there, and this temple was so impressive that it was considered one of the seven wonders of the world. But even though false religion abounded in the city, there was a strong Christian presence.

The book of Acts describes the Apostle Paul's missionary journey there. According to Acts 20 .31, the Apostle Paul spent three years there, and the letter of Ephesians is addressed, of course, to the church in Ephesus.

Church history records that the Apostle John also spent time there. In fact, this is the last place he was believed to be before he was exiled to this island in the Aegean Sea, the island of Patmos. And he was exiled by the Roman emperor Domitian.

If you look at a map of the Aegean Sea, the island of Patmos is not far from the port city of Ephesus. So the church in Ephesus is the first church that Jesus addresses. What we read in verse 1 is that Jesus specifically addresses the angel of the church in Ephesus.

So the church in Ephesus is the first church that he addresses, and what we read in verse 1 is that he specifically addresses the angel that belongs to this church. Now, as I have already explained one week ago, the Greek word for angel means messenger.

In some context of Scripture, this messenger is a spirit being, sent from God to serve God's people. But in this context, this is not the case. In each of these seven churches that Jesus addresses, he opens by addressing the messenger.

The messenger is not a spirit being. It is the elder of that specific church. It is the shepherd, the pastor. Here Jesus is speaking to the apostle John, and he is telling him to write this to the elder of the church, the pastor, who will then pass this on to the church.

What we will notice, too, as Jesus addresses these seven churches, is that he always says something about himself. He says something glorious about who he is. As he speaks to the church in Ephesus, he says concerning himself, in the second half of verse 1, the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.

Once again, the seven stars are the elders that Jesus is addressing. The seven lampstands are the seven churches. What he is saying is that he holds the seven elders in his hand. They are his instruments, that his instruction is communicated through.

The ultimate authority is not in the pastors. It is in the Lord Jesus Christ. The only authority I have is this book. The moment I veer from this, my authority goes away. This is the authority of any church.

What Jesus is saying is that he holds the seven elders in his hand. So the seven stars are the seven elders, while the seven lampstands are the seven churches. What Jesus says about his relationship with the seven churches is that he walks among them.

This is to indicate that he is intimately involved with them. He cares what happens at these churches. As we think about our church, we might think that he cares more about some big church somewhere that everyone knows about.

No, he cares deeply what happens here, and he cares deeply what happens at any true church. What he does with his churches is that he examines them. He wants churches to do what he tells them to do, and to be what he tells them to be.

And as we think about this, we need to remember that as he addresses these churches, he's also addressing us. The message we are getting from Jesus is not exact. We don't have a letter in the Bible addressed to Eureka Baptist, but there is something in each of these addresses that we are to take away.

So after this introduction in verse 1, he gets to the meat of what he wants to say in verses 2 and 3. Once again, he says, 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 namesake, and you have not grown weary. Here Jesus is speaking to the Apostle John. And again, this is addressed to the elder, who is addressing the churches, and the first thing that Jesus says is that he knows their works.

In our Proverbs study on Wednesday night, we recently saw a proverb that Jesus is describing here. Proverbs 15 .3 says, The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.

This is describing the Lord's omniscience. Omniscience means that the Lord knows everything. There's not one detail in all the universe, in all of history, that he does not know. He knows every detail about your life.

He knows everything that is happening in this church. He's omniscient. If Jesus walked into our church, it's not as if he would have to be informed by someone. This is what's happened over the last several years.

No. He knows exactly what is going on here. And because he knows every detail, he is able to give an accurate evaluation. He's the judge of all the universe. One day, everyone will stand before him. Everyone will have to answer to him.

The God-man that everyone will stand before cannot be accused of having false information or of not having enough information. Everything that he says concerning the evaluation of one's life will be 100 accurate.

So as Jesus addresses these churches, there's no debating what he says, since he knows everything. And what he tells the church in Ephesus is that he knows their works. Then in the remainder of verse 2, he tells them what he knows about their works.

Specifically, he knows about their labor and their patient endurance. What he's telling them is that they have been through many battles and they have endured these battles. The battles they have endured are dealing with those who are evil.

Then he gives more detail about what he's talking about in the remainder of verse 2. They have tested those who claim to be called apostles, but are really phonies. The battles the church in Ephesus have endured are doctrinal battles.

They're battles over what does this book say? What is the true understanding of this Word? This Word from God. They are battles over the fidelity of God's Word. To fight for the fidelity of God's Word is a very good thing.

Let me be very clear on that. It's a very good thing. It must be done. Jude 3 describes upholding the fidelity of God's Word as a fight. There Jude wrote, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the graces of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.

What Jude is saying here to these Christians is he's saying contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. This comes from God to his people. And we have a responsibility to protect it. Think of how many people try to pervert the Bible today.

And we say, no, that is not what it says. The truth that came from God's mouth never changes. It was passed down from the mouth of God to his followers, and we are to preserve it with all our might, that which God has given us.

And it's a great fight in our day. False teaching is rampant, and we are called to fight. In our present world, we hear, we need to hear what the prophet Jeremiah said in his day. Because what he experienced in his day is similar to what we experience in our day.

In Jeremiah 6 .16, the prophet Jeremiah said on behalf of the Lord, he said, stand by the roads and look and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.

But they said, we will not walk in it. We are to follow the ancient way. We are to follow God's way. His truth never changes. In this progressive world we live in, we hear that we should move on. Be more progressive.

Get with the times. Move on from that archaic way of thinking. They'll call you Neanderthals. We've been called that. Move on. There's a better way. Man has progressed. There's new thinking. There's new wisdom.

And when you hear that, you know that's not from God. His word never changes. Truth is timeless. It doesn't matter what era you live in. It stands the test of time. It's always the right way. We are to contend for the faith.

And in Jesus' address to the church in Ephesus, in verse 2, he is praising them for doing this noble thing. He tells them they have patiently endured the battles. They have stood for the truth and exposed false teachers.

Everyone should know what Eureka Baptist stands for. They should know what we proclaim. They should also know what we're against. Sometimes you hear people say, we should not be known for what we are against but what we are for.

That's partly true, but we should be known for both. We are for this and we are against this. They used discernment. The church in Ephesus did. And this discernment came from who? The Holy Spirit. 1 Thessalonians 5 .21 says test everything.

Hold fast to what is good. But even though they were faithful in testing spiritual leaders through understanding sound doctrine and exposing those who were false, this was not a perfect church. What we will see Jesus do in his address to these seven churches is take the sandwich approach to criticism.

Anybody heard of the sandwich approach? You may have learned this approach in offering criticism in school and managers in business learn how to do this with those below them in the company. The sandwich approach is offering criticism in a constructive way.

The goal of constructive criticism is to build someone up rather than tear them down. The goal is to bring positive change in the future to the person being corrected. So if you want an example of constructive criticism in the Bible, Jesus does this in chapters 2 and 3 in his address to these seven churches.

He starts off by telling them that they are doing something good. He tells them you are standing for the truth against false teachers who are spreading false doctrine. But then he points out an area where they need to improve and then he ends it with something good again.

Before we look at how he corrects the church in Ephesus, let's look at what he says on the other side that ties in with what he says in verses 2 and 3. So verse 6 is a compliment again. He says in verse 6, They're doing good.

What is interesting is that Jesus also addresses the Nicolaitans with the church we will look at in two Sundays, Pergamum. So who were these people? There were two sound teachers in the early church that mentioned this group, Irenaeus and Clement of Alexander.

Irenaeus said that Nicolaus was an apostate Christian who taught people that freedom in Christ meant a license to sin. And by the way, this is still around today. You can live how you want, but what does Paul say?

Should we go on sinning that grace may abound? By no means. You're freed from sin, why would you go back to it? But this is what Nicolaus taught. And Clement of Alexander said that this false sect led a life of self-indulgence and called it Christian.

Jesus compliments the church in Ephesus by telling them, I hate what they are doing and you are standing against them. One of the ways that we follow Jesus is by hating what he hates. We're supposed to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and might.

We're also supposed to hate Satan with all our heart, soul, and might. The reverse is true also. We hate darkness, we hate evil, we love God. So we need to love what God loves, we need to hate what God hates.

So he compliments the church in Ephesus by telling them, you're doing good here. The church in Ephesus hates two groups that Jesus hates, the false apostles and the Nicolaitans. They are both working on behalf of Satan, not God.

He is telling them keep up the good work and guarding the truth and exposing falsehood. Think of how many people harm this book, reinterpret it, say things that it doesn't say. People try to say, well the Bible supports this, the Bible supports that.

No it doesn't. Not even close. This book is clear and we need to defend it, we need to guard it. It's our responsibility to do that. Every church should do that. But what was their problem? What is the problem with the church in Ephesus?

And what is the problem with churches like the church in Ephesus? In between these two compliments he rebukes them on a very important area where they have lost their way. In verses 4 and 5 he says this, Unless you repent.

We see the sandwich approach. Compliment, criticism, compliment. So now we're going to focus in on the criticism. He tells them in their effort at doctrinal precision, in their effort to stomp out poisonous teaching, they have forgotten the most important thing.

The most important thing is to love him. Think about this. The goal of learning is to get to the truth. But the pursuit of knowledge does not stop there. If you stop there, you miss what it's all moving toward.

The goal of learning is to love God. That's it. That should be the motto of every school. I remember the college I went to, Crown College, on the library wall, it said, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

All intellectual efforts fail if the love of God is not at the center of it. That's the whole goal. That's the end. It's not enough to accurately know who God is and what his word says. You must love him.

This is the greatest commandment of the law. As I read this morning, Deuteronomy 6 .5, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. It's the greatest commandment.

It's not nearly enough to know truth. You must love God. This is the reason you exist. This is the meaning of life. To love God. I remember when I graduated from seminary, we had a commencement speaker give an appropriate message to us students who had massive heads from several years of studying.

The graduates, including myself, had immersed ourselves into lots and lots of study over a four to five year period. We read an enormous amount. We wrote lots of papers. We learned Hebrew and Greek. And we took lots of exams.

We had received information overload on the Bible and theology. Molly knows what I'm talking about. She just graduated Friday, by the way. Congratulations. But none of that mattered. None of that mattered if we missed the whole point of our study.

At the heart of any study must be a deep love for God. That needs to be the end, as I've already said. Proverbs 1 -7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And what is the fear of the Lord, by the way?

It is an awe, a reverence, and a love for Him as you learn about Him and His world. It's not just learning the Bible. We need to understand everything in accordance with the Bible, yes. But it's studying science and math and history and all these different fields, anthropology and everything.

This book has all the answers, but you can learn more out in the world. And this is always at the center of it, of anything that we learn. Everything must be learned through the lens of Scripture. This book is not a diving board.

Okay, we start here and it just gets us going and then we really find the truth out there. No, this is the center of it. So at my graduation, this commencement speaker took us to the last chapter in John's Gospel, chapter 21, where Jesus had a conversation with Peter, His disciple.

In this famous conversation, Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved Him. And Peter was hurt because he felt like he didn't need to keep answering. But three times was appropriate, since this was the number of times that Peter denied Jesus.

So Jesus asked him three times, Do you love me? Then after Jesus said this to Peter, he told him to feed his sheep. Peter, for the remainder of his life, would be one of Jesus' shepherds. But he was only qualified to feed his people, his sheep, with the truth of God's word, if he loved Him.

Think about that. At the top of the list to be qualified to be a pastor is to have a great love for God. It's more important than knowing every little detail about the Bible. To be a faithful Christian, it's the same thing.

What God cares about most is your love for Him. And please understand that sound doctrine is very important. But precision in doctrine is not as important as loving God. It's not like the most mature Christians are the ones who know the most.

They're not. They're the ones who look most like Him. Those are the most mature Christians. We need to know the character of the God we love. That comes through study. But sometimes the people who know the most about the Bible and theology don't really love God that much.

And some don't love Him at all. There will be theologians in hell who didn't really love Him. I once had a professor who said that more important than understanding the Trinity, which is a complex doctrine, is loving the Trinity.

Far more important. Love the Trinity. Love the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We want our church to be defined by our love for God. More than anything, that's what we want to be known for. When people ask about Eureka Baptists, we want them to say, these people love God and they show it by the way they live.

And by the way, why do we fight false doctrine? Because we love Him. That's at the root of it. A church that loves God will have certain characteristics. A church that loves God will have people who show their love for God by loving each other deeply.

The church will be a warm and friendly environment that truly feels like a family. It should be this way because we are a family. God is our Father. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. Any church that lacks this, that's a huge problem.

And this should be a top priority in any church. And I'm delighted to see this in our church. As I said earlier, I've never been a part of a church where I've seen so much love and unity. In my life, I have visited churches that were known for doctrine.

They were known as churches that sang theologically sound songs like the songs we sang today. That preached verse by verse through the Bible. We do that too. That knew the ins and outs of theology. That had a respected pastor.

But what I noticed that was present was coldness. It was cold theology. One of the churches in particular I visited 20 times in my life probably, and no one ever said hi to me. It was not a warm environment.

My experience was a church that was doctrinal, but there was something that was missing. Love. How sad it is when a church is doctrinally sound but lacks love. When people see this, they leave the cold doctrinal churches and instead, they are drawn to churches that are super friendly.

But the problem is sometimes these churches that they're drawn to are weak in doctrine. Not very deep. But they're nice. And so, like, oh, I'm going to go here. And what a shame that is. It's not supposed to be this way.

The healthiest churches teach the whole counsel of God and show their deep love for God and this is shown in the love and unity within the church. The greatest commandment is to love God and the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor.

You know that you love God when you love his image bearers. There are few things worse than cold theology. When Jesus was with his disciples, there would have been such warmness. It's an understatement to say that Jesus loved his Father and out of the deep love for his Father, he loved his disciples and he loved everyone he came into contact with.

We should not get so caught up in sound teaching that we forget the whole point of truth in the first place. The goal of all truth is to love God more. We live in a time when we need to contend for the faith.

False teaching abounds. We could spend several years going through every problematic teaching that exists in the American Evangelical Church. We do pay attention to that and we want to be those who expose false teaching as Jesus praises that.

We invited John Harris here last year who exposes social justice for what it really is. I've called out the corruption in the American Evangelical Church on numerous occasions. I have named false teachers from this pulpit and in pastor's pages.

We are supposed to do this. Jesus praises that. But he does not want us to forget our first love. As he says in verse 4, The zeal for Christ can wane while a passion for just holding on to truth can grow.

Our passion for the truth is intended to develop a stronger love for him. But it doesn't always work this way. Churches and individuals can make the same mistake that the church in Ephesus made. As one author said, the Ephesian's passion and fervor for Christ had become cold, mechanical orthodoxy.

Their doctrinal and moral purity, their undiminished zeal for the truth, and their discipline to service were no substitute for the love for Christ they had forsaken. There is no one more glorious than Jesus.

He deserves our highest love. We are to love him far more than anything in this world. So the question is, do you love him? The question also is, do you have a desire to love him more? This should be the greatest desire of our hearts.

Now aiming to love God more does not mean that we should diminish our understanding of the scripture. Biblical illiteracy is never a good thing. We need to know the one we love so that we can love him better.

We need to know what pleases him, but we need to remember that the ultimate goal of following the Lord is not getting every detail right about doctrine. It's not aiming to impress others by how much of the Bible and theology that you know.

It is not forgetting the whole point of knowing the Bible. The ultimate goal is loving him to the fullest. It is loving him with everything you have. And what Jesus communicates to the church in Ephesus is that if anyone knows lots of biblical data, but does not love him, there needs to be repentance.

What he's telling the church in Ephesus is this problem is rampant at their church. He's giving a perfect evaluation. Remember, he knows everything. He's saying this is a rampant problem at your church.

He says return to your first love. He's calling for repentance. And repentance is a change of course. They are loving doctrine and not him, and they need to change course. He even warns that he will remove their lampstand if they do not repent.

What does this mean? It means that if they continue this course of cold doctrine, they would experience God's judgment. This judgment would be shown either through the church not existing any longer, he shuts it down, or he would judge the church by giving it up to apostasy.

And that happens. All the apostate churches in America were once orthodox churches. They were once churches that believed in the authority of Scripture. What happened? God turns them over at some point as they fail to listen to his warnings.

They need to return to the early days. The days when they loved him. The days, the richest times in the history of this church in Ephesus. It's like a married couple that falls deeply in love and then over time the marriage becomes stale.

The strong affection that was once there is gone. This happens because people forget what drew them to their spouse in the first place. The newness wears off and the wonder of it all wears off. Husband and wife take each other for granted and what happens over time is a dead marriage or divorce.

The Christian life can be like this. When someone becomes a Christian, one has great joy in his or her heart and this person's love for the Lord is obvious to everyone. But what happens far too often is that this love that was once strong wavers.

But it does not need to be this way. Christians should always desire to have a strong zeal for the Lord Jesus. A deep love for him should always hold steady through the twists and turns of life. You should be able to say, as Peter said in 1 Peter 1, verses 8 and 9, though you have not seen him, you love him.

Though you do not now see him, you rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory concerning the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. It can waver over time if we're not diligent in continuing that zeal for the Lord.

So we need to be careful. Our church, Eureka Baptist, should never assume the truth. But we should be filled with a strong zeal for him. It should be obvious. When people walk into this place and when people run into people from this church, the love for Christ should radiate out of us.

One of the ways it is obvious that you love him is that you tell people about him. Think about when you first started dating your future spouse. I can't wait to tell you about my wife. I remember when I met Brianna, all I talked about for three months was her.

It's all you want to talk about. And it's that way with your love for the Lord. Can I tell you about him? He is amazing. You need him. If you follow him, you will be happy forever. So people shouldn't see this come out of us.

And you should be the kind of person that you're a delight to be around because there's love pulsing from you. It's not cold theology. It's boring. Come on. Isn't it boring? A seminary can be really boring.

It shouldn't be that way. This is meant to light a fire in us. And as Jesus says in verse 7, the one who listens to this instruction will be greatly rewarded. He says again, 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. What marks true believers is that the love for the Lord, that flicker of light, that flame never goes out.

It continues. And sometimes it does wane. And that's where we need to pay close attention. Say, Lord, light that fire that was once there. Light it in me again for Your sake. So beware of focusing too much on sound biblical doctrine.

Obsessively focusing on it. Missing the whole point of it. And in this text, we have seen one reason why. That reason why that Jesus gives is that a church with this obsession forgets to love the Lord.

They forget to love Him. As I mentioned in the introduction, some people believe, some theologians believe that this describes the church of the first 70 years from 30 A .D. to 100 A .D. The apostolic fathers were the earliest defenders of the faith.

And their fight against false apostles and other false teachers is described in the New Testament. It may have been that in their fight, many churches, like churches today, forgot what the goal of truth is.

A deep love for the Lord. So Eureka Baptists, in one sense, we want to be like Ephesus. We want to be defenders of the truth. But if that's what we are known for, we have fallen way short. May it be true of us that we not only defend the truth of God's word, but that each one in this church has a deep love for Him.