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Well, if you have your Bibles, please, turn to the book of Ephesians, the New Testament book written by Paul to the church at Ephesus. Today we will have another attempt to finish the book of Ephesians, but I will not make a promise today like I did last time.
The book of Ephesians, as we want to study the Bible in depth, superficial analysis will not do. We want to dig into the depths and the riches of God's Word. The book of Ephesians, written by Paul, almost reminds me of the time when Paul was saying goodbye to the church at Ephesus and he was down on his knees, kneeling with them.
They were falling on his neck, weeping and kissing Paul, saying goodbye to Paul. I almost want to do the same thing here as we leave the book of Ephesians. It's been such a great book to see Christ lifted up, high and exalted, glorified in his church.
I think it's been transforming our church as we have studied it. The glory of the church, the bride of Christ, found in the book of Ephesians, how God wants it to operate, why it exists. Whenever I go to a wedding, and I like to go officiate many weddings, and I see the bride, beautiful in a white, and I always think, boy, she's so beautiful.
I make it a point not to say to ladies outside of my own daughters and family and a few others. I don't like to say, oh, you sure look pretty today, or you look beautiful, just because I don't think it's my place.
I think that's the husband's job. But I get to say they're beautiful one day, and as I marry them and I'm kind of up close and nobody else can hear, and I just usually kind of whisper so the groom can hear too, I say, you look beautiful today to the bride.
Oh, you look so pretty today. And that's really what Paul wants to do with the book of Ephesus, the book of Ephesians rather, to show how beautiful the bride of Christ is, how it operates, how it came to be.
And now I can't believe we have to say goodbye. It's like I'm losing a great friend. And you think, well, pastor, 75 messages in Ephesians is too slow. Remember that man north of Boston, he preached for 40 years.
He started his ministry with Isaiah chapter 1, and 40 years later when he died, he was up to Isaiah chapter 8. So I think I'm pretty fast. That's a true story, by the way. Strangely, supernaturally, as we study the Word of God and the Spirit of God presses it to your conscience, informs your mind, Christians get changed as the Word of God is read and preached.
We want to be more like Christ. So we want to dive into these books and say, God, we believe this book is without error. We believe this book is for our good. We believe this book is sufficient for everything we need, and we believe this book holds authority over us.
And as I was reading Leviticus this week, so many times God asks people to do strange things and then He gives them the reason to do it. What's the reason? I am the Lord. I'm thankful when God says, this is the reason, but He doesn't have to give us a reason.
I'm thankful when He said, I'll even help you to fulfill these commands. I like that. I like it when He says, I'll even give you rewards to do things that I've asked you to do as I help you. And I'm thankful we can go to the book of Ephesians, if you go to chapter 6, and still dig some treasures out of something that you might have just zoomed by.
It's hard to preach final greetings. It's hard to preach benedictions, but I think there's so much here it'll take next week and maybe even next, this week and next rather, to get through these last several verses.
Let's read them together as we look to the scriptures and see how Paul ends this book. But that you also may know about my circumstances, how I am doing, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will make everything known to you.
I've sent him to you for this very purpose so that you may know about us and that he may comfort your hearts. Peace be to the brethren in love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love. Bow with me please in prayer. Lord this side of heaven, we can only see your greatness in a partial way. Father, your spirit has unveiled our eyes to see much of your glory and splendor and majesty, and yet still we sin and we are in these bodies.
And Father, we would ask today that you would let us see with keenness and insightfulness these great riches found in Christ. And oh Lord, we've learned so many things in this book. No salvation outside of Christ, no Christianity without Christ, all your gracious promises found in the risen Savior.
And now Father, we'd ask that you'd bless us. Some of us need words of encouragement today and others need exhortation. So Father, may you be a great teacher as you use your Holy Spirit in this preaching today in Jesus' name, amen.
Well how would you outline something like that, Ephesians chapter 6 verses 21 to 24? Let me outline it this way. I'm going to give you four takeaways from Ephesians chapter 6 verses 21 through 24. They're almost called takeaways because they're at the very end.
Four more lessons, if you will, that we can learn from Paul. They're not real commands, but they're almost pastoral desires, pastoral wishes. He's a pastor. It's at the very end of his letter and he wants to kind of go out with some key thoughts.
And so let me give you those four key takeaways as we set an outline up for today. Four takeaways from the Apostle Paul for the church there at Ephesus to the local area that would receive the circular letter and for us 2 ,000 years later.
First takeaway, first pastoral desire is that Paul sets an example by encouraging others. Paul encourages others. By the way, where is Paul when he writes this pastoral, no, prison epistle? Where might he be?
He's in prison and he still wants to encourage those people even though he's in jail. I've only been in jail a couple times. Not for crimes that I have committed, but when Steve Cooley was a sheriff, I asked him to take me into the jail and there's nothing like those huge doors.
Boom! And you just think, and then another one and that door just shuts and you think, oh. And I've snuck into a few jails. Matter of fact, I went into two jails, maybe one of the jails that Paul was in in Rome.
And just to think of the confinement and to think about not like jails today with cable TV and weight rooms and everything else, but just maybe no food, maybe no clothing, maybe no sustenance. And what's Paul doing?
He's thinking about the church. He loves the church. He wants to encourage them. He's not thinking about himself. And if you look at verses 21 and 22, you'll see that example of Paul's encouragement. And then I'm going to press your consciences too.
If Paul can encourage, we'd do the same thing. He says, but that you also may know about my circumstances. How I'm doing. They had a relationship together. They loved one another. They knew about the Apostle Paul.
They wanted to know what he was doing, how he was doing. And he said, I'm going to write this so you might be encouraged, so you'll know what I'm doing. I'm sending you Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, who will make everything known to you.
Back in those days, you could have letter carriers. Matter of fact, I read Cicero wrote to Atticus and said, send us some letter carrier that both you may know how it goes with us and that we may know how you fare and what you are doing.
That was just common. What's going on? They couldn't get it on the internet. How's that group of people doing? How's Paul doing? And he's going to send Tychicus to let the church at Ephesus know exactly how Paul's doing.
And remember Tychicus? What was his name? If you translate the word Tychicus into English, you would get the word what? Lucky. Tell me how old Lucky's doing. Tell me how Mr. Luck is doing. Strange name.
We almost should start a Tychicus ministry here that would be facetious, that we don't believe in luck so much so that we call people, it's the Tychicus ministry where people's lives have been so transformed.
The world would think it was chance and luck and we would think it only could be the providence of God. Tychicus. Maybe I'll even change my name, Tychicus. I never really did like Michael. My mom was watching that TV show one day with some funky French director with M-I-C-H-E-L and she said, I'll give my son a name Michael without the A so everybody in fourth grade when the teacher says, I can't really pronounce things very well so let's start with the A's.
Please forgive me ahead of time, Michelle Aferhoffy. I didn't care about the Aferhoffy, I cared about the Michelle. And here he's named Tychicus. I think that's the way Paul did it. He just left him as Tychicus.
He could have changed his name. I was in India and the man's name was Ganesh after the false god. He got saved and the pastor said, I don't want you to be called Ganesh anymore. From this day forth, why don't you be called Gabriel?
And here the man remains Tychicus. The beloved brother. Paul just completes Colossians and Ephesians and Tychicus is going to go deliver those letters. Paul's concerned about their comfort and their encouragement.
Did you see the word in verse 22 that he might comfort you? We get the word paraclete, to come alongside, to comfort, to encourage. The Holy Spirit's called an encourager and Paul filled with the Holy Spirit does the same thing.
He wants to encourage them. One aim, I want you to know what's going on with me so you might praise God. Paul wanted to encourage them. I could just stop there and ask you, are you an encourager? If Paul sets the apostolic precedence of encouragement, I want to imitate Paul as he imitates Christ.
The text doesn't say encourage one another. But I could go to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 11 and it says, therefore encourage what? Whom? One another. What a great ministry of encouragement the body of Christ has been giving and I think we should follow Paul's example.
We have little blue cards. Do you see any blue cards in front of you? Matter of fact, people write little cards of encouragement and we send them off. But we don't have anybody to send them off anymore.
There's one right there. How about picking up that ministry? I'll take those cards, I'll get the church-paid postage stamps, postage too for that matter, and I'll send those off. We've got people writing encouragement cards and nobody to send them.
How about that for a ministry? How about people behind the scenes? Are you the type of person that says, oh thank you for that piano playing. Thank you for watching my kids in the nursery. Thank you for setting up these rows.
Thank you for serving. So much easier to nitpick and complain and why this didn't measure up or that didn't measure up. I try, and oftentimes I have to just put a little yellow post-it on my desk and say with one word, encourage.
Here's the Apostle Paul and he's encouraging from prison. We need words of encouragement. Not flattery, but just encouraging the saints. Promote their spiritual growth. Hebrews 3 .13 says, but encourage one another day after day as long as it is still called today.
It's kind of an interesting verse, isn't it? How about Hebrews 10 .24 and 25? Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. We always get this part down. Not forsaking our own assembly, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.
Christians need to be at church, why? For lots of reasons, but one of the main reasons is so you may encourage one another. How about calling Chris Bowman and say, hey Chris, you probably can't really do the lawn like you are now, can you Chris, by the way?
And somebody, we've got a wounded soldier and so we call up Chris and say, how can we take care of your lawn? How can we take care of your trash? How can we take care of those kind of things? There are ways to encourage.
And we don't do it for them, we do it for the glory of Christ Jesus. One man defined encouragement this way, encouragement is the kind of expression that helps someone want to be a better Christian even when life is rough.
We can encourage people with, here's who God is, look to the Lord. We can encourage people by praying, we can encourage people by ministering to them. Secondly, besides Paul setting an example for encouragement, the second takeaway, Paul desires peace in the local church.
Paul desires peace in the local church, uh-oh. Verse 23, peace be to the brethren, skip that middle phrase there, that'll be next point, from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace, kind of a different benediction that Paul normally does.
It's not third, it's not second person, but it's third person, peace be to the brethren. He usually says peace be to, to you, peace be to the brethren. What's this all about? You've got Jews and Gentiles in that situation, and Jews and Gentiles are kind of different back in those days.
They might even be different now, but the greater degree was back then. And Jews and Gentiles in the same body, he's already talked about in chapter two that Christ is our peace, and we're unified in Christ, and there's, according to Galatians chapter three, no male or female, or bond or slave, or Jew or Gentile, we're all equal in Christ.
And Paul writes to them and says, I want you to have peace in your body, your local assembly, I want you to have peace there. This is not necessarily a farewell or a farewell greeting, this is almost a prayer for reconciliation.
We want the church all to get along here at Ephesus, that local church. It's found nowhere else in the Bible, peace to the brothers. How about this church, I wonder? I think we've got pretty good peace and unity at the church.
How about the little circles you run in? Peace to the brethren. Peace with the homeschoolers, public schoolers, and private schoolers. How about peace with those who think there should be birth control or shouldn't be birth control?
How about peace to those who think you can dance and those who can't? Peace to those who think cable TV is a sin and those who don't. There's all these little extraneous things that could separate us.
How about music? I prefer this kind of music and I only kind of hang out with those who prefer the same kind of music I prefer. It could be skin color, it could be age, it could be male or female, it could be views of end times, it could be all kinds of other things.
Paul said, I want you with mature believers and immature believers at the church to all get along and have peace. Anybody in this room that you kind of try to avoid, that you don't like and there's some kind of thing going between you, then you need to cover that and love them or you need to go to them and address it so you can have reconciliation.
That's the prayer for Paul. We could have talked about it in chapter four of Ephesians where there's unified body. We've had issues at this church on, do you schedule feed children or do you feed on demand?
Fights, cat fights. Does it matter? You can do whatever you want and if you ask me what I prefer, I'll tell you but I'm going to tell you it's not a biblical thing, it's just my preference. What do I care?
In five years, your kids aren't going to be doing that anyway. You're going to be taking them to restaurants and going out, it doesn't matter and we kind of at the church and back at Ephesus too, if somebody does what we do, it validates what we have decided to do and therefore we feel good about it versus if someone else says, you know what, divine strike there.
You do something and I don't do it that way, that's okay, I love you, it's fine, you can do whatever you want. I just said to someone today, if you'd pick public school or home school, it doesn't matter to me.
It's a family preference. The family can say we are convicted to do this kind of private school, great. I love you. They used to tell me when I was a new pastor, two things will split a church wide open so watch out for them.
Music preference and school choice, not school choice, political school choice with vouchers but and so we love one another and so I don't think we have a big problem but may it never be that we have demand feeders over here, schedule feeders over here, home schoolers over here, private schools over here, public schools swimming around in the middle, nobody's their friends.
They don't know what to do. Home schoolers over here ascribing to the sixth sola of the reformation, sola homeschula. It's okay, we can all love each other. Paul said, there's all kinds of differences, it was more ethnic and more racial and more geographical back in those days at Ephesus, there's all kinds of Jews there, it was a huge port, it was a huge trading city, there's all kinds of different people there.
We want prayer for reconciliation, we want the church to get along. Why are you on this earth? So you come to be fed on Sunday and then you go out, preach the gospel, evangelize. We can't have little fights here at church because we have a bigger issue.
That's one of the reasons, by the way, I tell married couples and I think it is, I'm far from being a great husband, but I know that if I build my marriage on my marriage, the marriage isn't big enough.
The marriage has to be built on, we are put together for a reason and that is to glorify God in his local church. And so we need to get over some of the issues that may tear us apart because there's a bigger issue and the bigger issue in the local church is not do you demand feed or schedule feed, the bigger issue is people die every day, 80 of the people that die in New England are dying and going straight to hell and we're concerned about carpet.
That's why with the $155 ,000 that we should receive from the state, Lord, may it never be that we argue about where we're going to spend the money. The elders didn't force it down your throat, should we sell the land, nor are we going to say this is what we're doing with the money, we're going to talk about it as a congregation, but at the end of the day, if you don't get your way, what should you do?
Start a blog site? Start an internet site that talks about it? No, you just say, Lord, I'm not responsible anyway, it's the elder's responsibility and you'll get them at the end anyway, so fine. Are you an encourager?
I hope every time you walk past the kitchen when there's a kitchen night, you say, hey, ladies, and there's a man in there, hey, everybody, thanks for serving tonight. What does that cost? And are you reconciled with those here in the body as much as possible?
Thirdly, Paul desires that Christians love each other with faith. Right there from the text, I think it's the goal of preaching, that the point of the passage is the point of the sermon, and the sermon's point is the passage's point.
Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, we preach not what? Ourselves. I'm not here preaching myself, I don't really know what to tell you. The only time I talk about myself is so you can just take a relaxer, take a breath before we get on to the next point with some kind of illustration.
The point of the passage is the point of the text, and look what Paul says here in verse 23, not only peace be to the brethren, but love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. As an expression of your faith, love the brethren.
Would you turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter 3, and let me just show you that it is par for the course for Christians to love other Christians. It is regular and normal. It should go without saying that Christians love other Christians, and 1 John hammers it with lots of different verses.
By the way, if it was very easy to love other Christians, I wonder why the Bible would talk so much about it. I think it's difficult, and you might not like people here, but you're to love them. Look at 1 John, the epistle, chapter 3, and I just want to give you an idea that we're going to see our Lord's example of loving others, so we might say, if we want to be Christ-like, then we in fact will do the same.
Faith manifests itself in brotherly love. Paul wants the church to love one another, 1 John 3, 16. We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
Didn't say like. It didn't say agree with. It says we ought to lay down our lives. That's the expression of agape love. Only John uses this kind of talk. Let me just read you a few from his gospel. From chapter 10, four times he says it.
I'm the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Even as the father knows me and I know the father, I lay down my life for the sheep. For this reason, the father loves me because I lay down my life so I may take it up again.
And lastly, in John chapter 10, no one has taken it away from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. And here, what does the text say in 1 John 3? We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
Same standard that Christ had for us, we are to have for others. My question to you this morning is, what do you do for people here at Bethlehem Bible Church? What do you do? Not your wife, not your kids.
What do you do for the local church? Ministry is part of laying down our life for others. It costs us. Let's keep reading in 1 John chapter 3 verse 17, but whoever has the world's good and beholds his brother in need and closes his heart against him, be warm, be filled.
How does the love of God abide in him? No, we're not talking about just the grandiose redemption of God at Calvary, but also smaller things that trickles down into life. Little children, let us not love with word or tongue, but in deed and truth.
The Hoffmans had a concert here years ago and their album was entitled what? Love with Shoes On. I love you, I love you, I love you, but you do something about it. How about this for a test of Christianity?
Verse 19, we shall know by this that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him. You say, well, I don't have assurance of my salvation. Serve others like mad and God will grant you that if you're a Christian.
He'll show you that your love is genuine. Look at verse 23 of 1 John 3, and this is his commandment that we believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he has commanded us.
The massive weight of all these texts, God loves us, we love others. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Paul wants that for the church at the end and I want that for us.
We've been given gifts. Everyone gets a spiritual gift. Do you know what yours is? What's your spiritual gift? Do you need to know? Should we take a survey? I don't even think we need to know. I think especially for you new folks who are at the church, you see something where we're lacking, an area that we're lacking, and you say, well, I want to step in and do that for the glory of God.
Philippians 2 says, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Lastly, number four, Paul sets an example, number one, to encourage others.
Paul wants peace in the local church. Paul wants Christians to love others in the church, but number four is the tough one. Verse 24 says, grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love.
So what's the point? What's the outline point? You have real love for Jesus if you have incorruptible love. You say, what's that mean? I wanted you to ask the question, so now I have to provide the answer from the text.
I can put it this way. If you love Jesus to the end, you're really saved. How about that? What does this verse mean? I have the NAS update. Do you see the last word if you have NAS? I have the last word, love, and it's in italics.
What must that mean? It's not there. This is a hard verse. That's why I don't think people preach it. They just put it at the benediction. In Jesus' name, amen. Let me read the English standard version.
Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible. King James, grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. NIV, grace to all who love our Lord Jesus with an undying love.
RSV, grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love undying. Greek, transliterated into English. Grace with all the ones loving our Lord Jesus in incorruptibility. Let me repeat that. Grace with all the ones loving our Lord Jesus in incorruptibility.
Let's close in prayer. What must this mean? Love modifies something, but what? Some say love modifies a future life. It's going to be one of love. Some say immortality or incorruptibility doesn't modify love.
It modifies Jesus Christ, that Jesus is glorified. Some say that incorruptibility and immortality modify our life in heaven. We get eternal life. But I think NAS has got it down the best. And some of the other ones, ESV, will translate it properly as well.
King James properly as well, and NIV hits it on the head too. Loving the Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love. So Paul's got the benediction. He's talked about the riches of Christ Jesus, how great grace is, what God has done.
And God holds us responsible to respond to him. So here's revelation. There's response. God reveals himself. There should be a response. Paul doesn't say at the very end, grace be with you, lay back, and let God.
There's action and accountability and responsibility for Christians. John Calvin translated it this way. May God continue to bestow his favor on all who love Jesus Christ. What kind of love do Christians have?
They have an undying love, an incorruptible love, an immortal love. This is talking about character. This is not talking about eternity. This is talking about the character of our love, a pure love. Matthew Henry said, so not as to be corrupted out of it by any baits or seductions whatsoever.
And whose love to him is uncorrupted by any opposite lust are the love of anything displeasing to him. How about this? He who loves to the end shall be saved. Is that a pretty biblical statement? I think of the parable of the soils.
I get myself in so much trouble so often. Someone will come to me and say, do you know so and so just accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord? Isn't that wonderful? They just became a Christian. I'm sunk.
I don't know what to do. Why? Should that make me happy? I'm certainly happy that they didn't say, I hate Jesus, get him out of my face. I'm a Buddhist. But also I've been taught, as George Whitfield would say, and Asheville Nettleton and all these other great old preachers, evangelistic preachers, that you don't want to count your chickens before they're hatched.
Wait, that's not that biblical. How about something biblical? Jesus said, regarding the parable of the soils, those on rocky soil are those who, when they hear, they receive the word with joy. They hear the gospel and they go, oh, hallelujah.
Praise be to God. Oh, I can have my sins forgiven. And these have no firm root, Jesus said. They believe for a while, and in time of temptation, fall away. People hear the gospel. They respond to the gospel, but response is not always a saving response.
So when people come to me and say, do you know, they just prayed the sinner's prayer. Part of me wants to go, hallelujah. Let's set up a baptism. And the other part is the hard part, because my lack of enthusiasm on my face betrays my thoughts, which are, time will tell.
We're stuck. And what's Paul doing? Paul knows that you have been sealed by the spirit to the day of redemption. True? Chapter 1, verse 13. Chapter 4, verse 31, I believe. He knows that if God saves you, he'll finish it.
So why would he say, but still I want you to love Jesus to the very end? Because that's part of our life. Here's what God does, and here's how he wants us to act like who we are. That's really Ephesians chapter 4, 5, and 6.
Here's who you are in Christ. Become more who you are. And so you become who you are, more and more and more. So he says at the very end, do you know the ones who are going to receive the grace from God are those that have unlined doves.
I like unlined doves, but that's pretty much moot. Why did a dove come down when Jesus was getting baptized, not an ostrich or something? You ever ask that question? Because a dove was a sacrificial animal.
And here God inaugurates Jesus Christ on that great day where his public ministry is starting. And he inaugurates him as the Holy Spirit descends in the form of a dove and Jesus on the sacrificial substitutionary work.
What does that have to do with anything? Nothing, but it's cool, isn't it? It's really cool. It could have been an ostrich. It could have been an owl, anything. No, it was a sacrificial bird. Paul starts off the book of Ephesians with grace, and now he ends it with grace.
But he says the grace is only to the ones who love Jesus. Let me flip it a little bit to make it easier to understand. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 16, another Pauline epistle, and see how Paul ends that book, if you would please.
You say, I don't quite get it. I don't understand. What do you mean by love incorruptible? God has provided everything you need in Christ. Live worthy of the gift. If God has given you the spirit inside of you that part of his fruit would be love, then be loving towards God and towards neighbors.
Look at the counterpart. It's exact with theological counterpart, not quite exact with words. It has a different word for love here, but the point is still the same. It's more of a negative way to end a book than a positive.
The positive way is Ephesians. Grace to you, the loving ones of Christ, with love undying. Be faithful to the end. The negative side is 1 Corinthians chapter 16, verse 22. They need more of a spanking than the church at Ephesus needed affirmation.
If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be what? Accursed. And then Maranatha means what? It's not a music company. It is, but it means Lord, come. Lord, come soon. If anyone doesn't love the Lord, he's cursed by God, who's bound by a solemn vow to give you what you deserve.
Wow. What's that all about? You say, I love Jesus. And then Paul would say, then love him to the end. Be faithful to the end. He started a good work in you, and he will be faithful to complete it, but that does not alleviate personal what?
Responsibility. God will be faithful. He's the author and the finisher, yet God calls you to be faithful. To walk in the spirit. I wonder how they did. How did the church at Ephesus do? I would have to say, outside of Jerusalem, it was the greatest church ever.
Can you think of anything about loving to the end? The church of Ephesus, where maybe they were chided a little bit for not loving to the end? Anything come to your mind? Let's go there. Revelation chapter 2.
How did the church at Ephesus fare in the future? Revelation chapter 2, written by John, the apostle on Patmos. And this church is an amazing church. Paul started the church. Timothy was the pastor. And we think, if we can put everything together, that John himself actually ministered at the church after Timothy.
Can you imagine that kind of church? How would you like to have your three pastors be? Paul, Timothy, and John? Just imagine what kind of church that must be. Perfectly and providentially placed by God in the center of the universe outside of Rome.
A port city. High commercial area. The temple of Diana was there. One of the seven wonders of the world. That's like having Spurgeon as your first pastor. Lloyd-Jones takes over and then MacArthur follows with Boyce soon to follow.
Something like that. Pick your own three. Boy, that church must have had it going on. What's happening now, church? That was it. Boy, the preaching. And here in Revelation chapters 2 and 3, Jesus himself writes letters to churches.
Seven churches. And the first one is to Ephesus. Probably because it was the greatest church. Probably because it was the closest to Patmos. Doesn't really matter. But one to Ephesus. And it was specifically written to Ephesus.
But it expands a little bit to all the churches because in every one of these sections in Revelation chapter 2 and 3, all the sections end with, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
And it goes beyond just that particular church. And I think this is very applicable for us today. We can learn what happened to Ephesus, how God exhorts them, and is that applicable for today? Seven churches.
At Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. If you had to analyze Bethlehem Bible Church, which one would we be? Well, you say, I don't know what they all mean. I think we're the church at Ephesus.
Not maybe to the extreme that they were, but if I had to pick one, I don't think we're the suffering church, do you? I mean, it's kind of hot and muggy in here. Suffer for the Lord. I mean, that's it for us.
Real church growth is going to start when the IRS stands out in front of our door and says, If you come in here, I want your ID number, your social security number, because you're going to get taxed double.
Would we have a lot of extra seats or would the place be packed? I don't think we're Sardis, the dead church. Can you imagine? I don't think we've arrived at Philadelphia level. I don't think we're so bad like Laodicea, where there's Jesus outside the church knocking to say, If there just was a believer or two in there, I'd come in.
The verse has nothing to do with personal salvation. So if the pastor of the church at BBC thinks we're like Ephesus, let's read this, not just to see what happened to Ephesus, but to see if this is true.
And if it's true, there's a remedy here for us, even. We'll just spend the rest of the time here. To the angel of the church in Ephesus, Revelation 2, 1, write. The angel's the representative of the church.
It's not directly to the church, but if the representative gets it, the rest of the church soon will. And he's writing to the church at Ephesus. By the way, I didn't say before, this is the vanity fair, they called it, of cities.
It's a seaport, lots of immorality at seaports. The temple of Diana was huge. They had these huge marble posts, hundreds of them given by kings, some with gold, some with rubies, some with all kinds of diamonds and things on these.
And it was a huge block and a half city block, long deal, could hold 25 ,000 people in there to worship. You could just walk in and worship things. And there was all kinds of ritual prostitution there, all kinds of whoredom.
They would peddle flesh and they'd say you'd be communing with God if you'd be with a prostitute. There would be those who committed crimes and would rush in and they would say, Kings X, I'm in the sanctuary.
It was a bad place, a horrible place. Paul writes to this church there, this church that had, I mean, excuse me, John writes to this church here, the church that had Paul, Timothy. It's amazing. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians from Ephesus.
And it says, the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand. He's the one that writes this. The one who holds the seven stars in his right hand. Both warning and comfort. Warning because God's in control of it all, and comfort because God knows exactly what's going on.
Authority, control, he holds it. That word hold means I just hold it with complete force and authority and you can't take that from my hand. It's almost a kind of John 10 language where no one is able to snatch you out of Jesus' hand, the Father's hand rather.
The one who holds the seven stars, these seven churches, in his right hand, his powerful hand. The one who walks among the seven golden lampstands says this. Here's this church faithfulness for 40 years in a horrible place.
It's like kind of having a church in Las Vegas. Las Vegas Bible Church. Something like that. And then he says, like he says to every one of these, I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance. You can't endure evil men.
You put to test those who call themselves apostles and they are not. And you have found them to be false. I know your deeds. Just like Jesus knows our deeds here. He knows all about the church with his laser beam revelation and one kind of eyes searching and knowing.
He knows everything that happens here. He says, I know that. For you Greek students, there's a know that's progressive where you kind of learn building block knowledge, first grade, second grade, third grade.
And there's a know that just knows everything without even needing to know or trying to know. Which one might you think this would be? It's not progressive. He just knows fully, completely. And what does he know?
Since nothing escapes him, he knows deeds. By the way, Ephesus, he could have said, I know your deed. You're not really much of an evangelistic church, but you're good in edification. He said, I know your deeds.
You work hard. They've probably fed the poor. They probably took little children who were born to the ritual prostitutes in and fed them and clothed them and all kinds of things. I know your deeds. I know your ministries.
I know your toil even. Look at this. They were sweating so much. They loved the Lord or did they? They did the external things. They toil. A toil used to mean if you got a beating, you would wail so much you'd kind of start to sweat.
And then it began to just be used of the word that you work so hard you would sweat. And so if you want to see the sweaters of the church, not in work, but you'll look at me when I preach and Brent Burns when he sits and listens because we just are both soaked with sweat.
But this means soak with sweat because you're toiling for the Lord. Churchill said, blood, sweat, toil, and tears. That's how they served the Lord. And they had perseverance. They weren't flashes in the pan.
With perseverance, oh, they had the capacity and the ability to endure no matter what, this horrible city even. Doctorally, they were good. They even did church discipline. You put those to the test who called themselves apostles.
Can you imagine? They spiritually had discernment. They knew right. They knew doctrine. They could cut it straight. I think they remembered what Paul said, be on your guard for yourselves and for the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.
I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And they were waiting for that. You can't endure evil men. And look at verse 3, you have perseverance and have endured for my namesake and have not grown weary.
Forty years later, they never thought we're giving up. It's too big a price to be a Christian. Great city, great church. With two exceptions, there are problems with these churches, and here's the problem.
That was the commendation, and now here comes the problem. But I have this against you, that you have what? Left your first love. Literally in Greek, your first love you have left. Emphatically, your first love.
By the way, does your text say lost at all? They lost their first love. It doesn't say lost. It says left. They abandoned. It's a very forceful word. They abandoned. They forsake. They quit. No scandals, no organization failures.
The internal mechanisms are dry. Now, if you take a map and you say Ephesus is a port city and you go there today, guess what? It's not a port city. Six miles inland. All the silt coming down from the Castor River made it the opposite of what will happen to California in an earthquake.
You want to buy property in Vegas if there's a California earthquake because that will be oceanside. The very opposite happened here. The silt comes down the mountains from the river, and it just filled up the port, and now they're six miles inland 2 ,000 years later.
Forty years removed, the church at Ephesus, the church that Paul once commended in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 15 of having great love, it's kind of dying down a little bit. It's dying out. The spiritual silt has come in.
They've grown cool with age and maturity. And what does the text say? Forsook their first love. It's okay to have lots of loves, but the primacy of love, loving the Lord Jesus Christ, loving God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength, it's kind of just waned a little bit, gradually.
Maybe like Martha. She wanted to serve more than she wanted devotion of God. I find it interesting when Jesus appointed his 12 disciples, he gave them two purposes in the Greek text, to be with him and then to send them forth.
And it's like here, the church at Ephesus, they've got the sending forth part right, but the relationship with the Lord has grown cold. Is it okay just to have mere orthodoxy? Is it okay to just have doctrine?
Is it okay to be just busy? Jeffrey Wilson said, mere orthodoxy is not enough for the searcher of all hearts. What do you do? I think this can kind of be our church. I don't think we're there yet, but I think we're much better on the orthodoxy side and the dogmatics and the doctrine and systematic theology than we are, oh, I love the Lord.
That's even the way I talk. So probably the church is like me. I like to say, oh, look at the election and the atonement. Can you believe the Bible, what it says here? Do you hear me talk much about, oh, the Lord's so good.
The Lord's faithful and kind and sticks closer to you than a brother. Oh, look at how the atonement magnifies God. Look at how unconditional election shows the greatness of God. Oh, God is so great. That's what they were doing.
Say help, I need help, what do I do? One man said, take a husband and a wife. A wife may take care of the house, fulfill all her duties so as to leave nothing undone for what your husband could find fault.
But if her love for him is diminished, will all her service satisfy him? Jesus said, I'm not blind to your good qualities, but I want you. So what do we do? Let's say our church is kind of like this. Let's say you particularly are like this, are me.
Say Christianity is not as exciting as it used to be. It's kind of bull. I have a problem today. It's kind of dull and boring. Lost the joy of the Lord. What shall we do? The goodness of the God is, here's the three-pronged corrective.
Here's three exhortations, three commands, literally in the Greek. I was studying cold remedies this week and there's no such thing. They're just all kind of pacifiers. There's relief but no cure. I found antitussives, expectorants, bronchodilators, anticholingerics, national decongestant.
National is good for the whole country. Ask not what the country can do for you, but nasal decongestants. Sometimes you just can't speak. Sometimes you don't want me to just speak. Antihistamines. I read this week, you want a cold remedy, stop all sugar intake, take vitamin C, put peroxide in your ears and suck on zinc lozenges.
It's all relief but no cure. Here's the cure for those who are sliding in their love for God. How do you know if I'm sliding? How do I know if I'm sliding? Remember when you first got saved and how excited you were and then think about you today and if there's any difference, then you are starting to leave your first love.
I was so hot for God when I got saved. Nobody wanted to be around me. I'd get in the car. You've got to talk about the word and how good God was and, oh, I can't believe how sinful I was, yet God saved me and I wanted to talk about him, I wanted to think about him, I wanted to pray.
Nobody ever had to say, you better read your Bible and you better have your devotions and you better pray and you better evangelize. Now I have to be told to do that. It's kind of like, well, you know, I have to read my Bible today.
It's hard being a Christian. Remember when you were hot for God and just that zeal and that fervor that you had and that desire. That's what God wants. People say, well, you know, I've fallen out of love with my spouse.
That may be bad, but it's really bad if you fall out of love with the groom, Christ. What do you do? And he gives these imperatives out of love to tell us, here's the real cure. It's not just a placater, but a real cure.
By the way, these will take time because you don't fall out of love overnight and you don't get back there overnight. So you say, okay, I'm going to do all these things tonight and then tomorrow I hope to wake up and I'm just hot for God.
Well, maybe you will be. It's probably going to take a little bit of time. That's why habits are done in six weeks. Three prongs. Prong number one, the first way to increase your love for Christ, to stir up love, is to remember, therefore, from where you have fallen.
You see that in verse 5? Literally keep on remembering. Hold in your memory. Take a picture. We just got a digital camera this week. You put it around, you take that picture, and you see it. And you see the picture of you when you were first saved.
MacArthur said, forgetfulness is frequently the initial cause of spiritual decline. Remember the way it used to be when you were saved at the beginning? Walking with your Savior day by day? Memory is important.
I think of the prodigal son, Luke 15. But when he came to his senses, he said, how many of my father's hired men have more than enough bread, but I'm dying with hunger. I will get up and go to my father and will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight.
He remembered what it used to be like back at home. He said, that's what I want, God. Secondly, repent. You have to go fast to finish. Remember number one. Number two, repent. Change your mind. This is decisive here.
The first ones, keep on remembering. This one is with decisiveness. Say, I'm changing my mind. If your mind's changed, you'll change. This includes confession of sin. What is repentance? A speaker once asked a Sunday school what was meant by the word, and a little boy raised his hand.
What's repentance, son? It's being sorry for your sins. A little girl in the back seat raised her hand. Well, what do you think repentance is? The girl said, I think it's being sorry enough to quit. And that's repentance.
Packer said that change is radical both inwardly and outwardly, mind and judgment, will and affections, behavior and lifestyle, motives and purposes are all involved. Repenting means starting to live a new life.
I want that. I want the love of my life to be the Lord. And then lastly, do the deeds you did at first. Keep on remembering. Decisive break with sin. God, I don't want that. I don't like that. Please forgive me.
I want to love you with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. And thirdly, do the deeds you did at first. At Ephesus, when they first were a church, and for you, the things you did when you were first saved.
Here's what I'm going to practically do, because we're pretty much out of time. I used to devour God's word when I first got saved. Did you? Why'd you stop if you stopped? One of the practical applications of this, when I first got saved, I got a bunch of audio cassettes.
And I was a sales rep in the car, so for two hours, three hours, four hours a day, I could listen to cassette tapes. So now, guess what I do? I probably listen to 2 ,500 MacArthur tapes, all kinds of other tapes, and I don't want to say this with pride or anything, but it probably will reveal that.
I'm kind of taped out. Every Tuesday, I listen to some preaching, and I've got all these tapes, and sometimes I just like to listen to music in my car. I mean, don't hold that against me. Come on, some talk radio, 96 .9.
I've got to know what's going on. But I felt myself slip from where I was when I was first saved till now. That's kind of like the church that says, oh yeah, there's that new Christian at the church. They're super on fire for God, but they'll get over it as they grow.
They'll be okay later. I don't want to say that. I want to see these new people get baptized, and they're so hot for God, I want to go, I want to be that way. God, I need to remember. I need to repent.
And I need to do these things that I did when I was first saved. We're an overflow, an outflow of the love, and so this week, guess what I've been doing? I don't know what's going on in the world. I don't know what Jay Severin's talking about.
I never did. I'm just kidding. I'm listening to tapes in the car, preaching Philippians and rejoicing. 2 Corinthians 4 about, we preach Christ, not ourselves. It's gotten me fired up. It's gotten me so fired up today, I can't even speak English properly.
So I'm going to go back to what I used to do. Because what I used to do is what God was having me do just naturally. Brand new Christians, I don't think, ever need to be told, you need to read the Bible, because they just want to read.
They say to themselves, I used to think the wrong way, now I want to think God's way. God, let me think your views, your worldview, the way you think. God, when you assess the situation, I want to assess it that way, and the only way you can do it is to read.
That's why I'm reading. I'm reading through the Old Testament again, because when I was younger, nobody had to say, read the Old Testament. I was given a Bible when I was saved, and I got it, and I go, well, where do you start?
Well, Genesis, I guess. You start books at the beginning, unless you're some kind of mystery reader and you want to know what happened at the end. I want to start at the beginning, and nobody ever told me.
No one told me, Leviticus is boring. Leviticus isn't boring. I'm boring. We tell our kids, I'm bored, Dad. We say, that's not the problem. You're boring. That's the problem. We have all these things. We don't want to get too fired up.
It's white-collar around here. That's why we have that prayer ministry on Wednesday. Twelve were there this week, praying that God would do great things. God, give us a school. God, give us a building.
God, give us church plants. God, help us send out missionaries. Please come on Wednesday. God, give us back that desire that we had when we were first saved. We just couldn't stop thinking about anything.
When I first got saved, true confessions, I wasn't a Christian, and that's not the true confession part, but when I met Kim, I thought, there's never a lady like this. I couldn't believe she'd marry me.
By the way, I told you, and it's all truthfulness. We were only engaged a month because I didn't want her to figure out who I really was. She'd have to say no. I thought, oh man. I worshiped Kim. I just wanted to be with her and hang out with her and look at her.
She was my first love. And I got saved, and there was a huge problem. Here's this girl that I love that I want to hang out with and everything, but I love somebody more. And it was very difficult for me because I was immature and did it kind of all the wrong ways, but how do you have somebody that you love and then somebody you love more?
By the way, what I didn't know is that if I loved God more, I'd really love her more, but it's taken me 16 more years to try to even figure that out. It's called the love of your life. People make time for those that they love.
I don't have time. I'm too busy for Bible study. Remember and repent and do the deeds. Southern Baptist preaching, if you have a weak point, you just shout. All right. God gives a little promise down in verse 7.
To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. There's promises for those that persevere to the end. There's promises for those of pleasure, and the Arabs would think that the paradise of God was so wonderful.
Pleasure park or garden. Paul writes a letter to Ephesus and says it's about the glory of the church. He wants the church to be pure. He wants the church to look like Christ. At the very end, he said, I want the church to maybe understand my example of encouragement.
I want the church to have peace, reconciliation between all those in the local body. I want the church to love one another, and especially I want undying love for the Savior. And for those of us that need help in that area, the cure is remember, repent, and do those first deeds.
Let's pray. Lord, you're very good to us. And Father, I think about how your goodness is manifest even today. And Lord, these are the days that I cling to the promises about it's not persuasive words of wisdom.
It's not eloquence. It's not about the preacher. I don't preach myself. Lord, I'm not the message. The message is the gospel. The message is Christ crucified and raised from the dead. The message is Jesus Christ saves sinners, gives them new life, gives them new thoughts, new appetites.
And Lord, would you give us a desire for the appetites that we had at the very beginning before we became, quote-unquote, mature. Lord, would you give us desires to tell other people about the gospel?
Father, I'm convinced that in my own life, I don't offend people enough when I'm preaching to them one-on-one because I somehow cloak it under sophistication and maturity. But Father, we need to be zealous for good deeds, and we need to tell people with urgency.
Father, I think about those who would preach in old days, John the Baptist, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Samuel, David. Wouldn't give you anything, Lord, unless it cost him. Father, may that be our church. May that be this church.
Father, may we have learned about Ephesus and Ephesians, and then would you protect us from some of those errors and help us to remember, to repent, and to do those things we did at the very beginning of our salvation.
Father, I would ask that you'd give us great things at this church. Father, new believers so we might rejoice at baptism. Father, new believers so we might be able to disciple them and train them. Father, you'd help us pay off this building.
You'd help us have a school here. You'd help us be a light here in New England, and that you would give us New England. We might be able to plant dozens of churches, send out dozens of missionaries. Father, you could do it all, and you could use people like us because we're just earthen vessels.
And Father, then, as my friend has prayed this morning, that we might be careful to give you the praise. In Jesus' name, amen.