Farewell to Ephesus

13th, 2020. As a church, we were just kind of,

I guess you might say, getting back to some sort of sense of normalcy after the year that 2020 was.

At that point, I had a 12, 10, 8, 6, and 3 -year -old child, and it was on that date,

September 13th, 2020, that we began the book of Ephesians.

And here we are this morning, May 19th, 2024, and it is on this date that we conclude this letter to the

Ephesians. Now, I'm not saying that everybody should preach Ephesians this way. There's probably some weeks that we maybe took too long on certain passages, but nevertheless, it is what we have done, and we did it out of honor and reverence for God's Word and belief that His Word teaches us, instructs us, shapes us, fashions us in the likeness of Christ.

We've gone through, I guess you could say, a few twists and turns as a church in this three and a half years, but at the end of this journey, all

I can say as one of your pastors is, I'm grateful that God has given us this great letter, and I'm grateful for the things that He has done through this letter in my own heart and even in the life of this church.

So hopefully by now you're in Ephesians chapter 6. I invite you to stand with me one last time, at least on Sunday morning from Ephesians, for the foreseeable future as we say farewell to Ephesus.

Ephesians chapter 6, verse 24. Grace be with all who love our

Lord Jesus Christ, with love incorruptible. Father, thank you for your

Word. Thank you for this precious letter to the church at Ephesus. We pray for years to come that we remember the great blessing that this letter is as we read it, as we memorize it, as we teach it to our friends and neighbors and children.

We remember the great things that you have done. You have no need to continue to prove yourself faithful, but yet you continue to do so, and you've proven yourself faithful in this great letter.

So encourage us today, challenge us today, equip us today by your Word. We are needy.

We pray that we come before you humble. Feed us today. Lord, there perhaps are some here who need

Christ for the first time and pray that they would repent, believe the gospel. There are some here who are tempted to stray from their first love.

I pray that they repent. You'd bring them back, all for the glory of Christ. We pray it in his name.

Amen. You may be seated. On paper, it's a simple outline, but it gets a little complex as we go through it, but really just three points, but you know, it's one of those sermons that the sub points have sub points at times.

Anyway, it'll be a journey. So the point number one is I want to offer a review. Number one,

I just want to offer a review. So the text says, Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible.

Now, the letter ends on a high note, and we should expect that the letter ends on a high note because at the time that this letter was written, remember in or around AD 62, this church is a very healthy church.

And so we see here it ends on a high note, a bit of an encouragement. Grace be with those who love our

Lord Jesus Christ with love and corruptible. So I want to do a bit of a review now as we say farewell to Ephesus.

This is just a general review. We have spent, this sermon included, 143 sermons in this letter.

And if you do the math of about, you know, 50 minutes a sermon or whatever, you come out to just under 120 hours that we have spent together in this book over the years.

So just a bit of review here. If a church is to be strong and healthy, first of all, doctrinal purity is non -negotiable.

So we said this church at this point is a healthy church. If a church is going to be healthy, doctrinal purity is non -negotiable.

And what I want to do is take a, make a few brief comments on chapters one through three under this heading.

So first, doctrinal purity is non -negotiable. First, chapter one, we might call God's prerogative.

God's prerogative. What is chapter one about? I have Ephesians 1 .11 hanging in my office.

It says, in him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.

We're calling chapter one God's prerogative. We are reminded in chapter one that this is God's world, that God is supreme and that God is sovereign with an irrevocable plan for this universe.

And it is a plan that drips with grace. He has, Ephesians 1 teaches us, chosen believers out of the mass of fallen humanity before time in Christ to make a name for Christ, the one who shed his blood for unworthy sinners, that Jesus is the

Messiah, the long awaited Messiah, fulfilling the scriptures, completing all the requirements for his people, redeeming them by his blood, dying in their place, taking

God's wrath upon himself, rising again in victory. This Jesus, Ephesians 1 teaches us, is now ascended into heaven and is far above all rulers and authority, and he is king of all and he's ruling all.

We see God's prerogative. Secondly, we might say we see God's power. We might summarize chapter two that way.

God's power. This isn't perfect, but just giving you a brief review. God has brought us in his power from death to life.

While we were hating God, while we were going our own way, while we were following the prince of the power of the air, dead in our sins, children of disobedience, it was at that point that God stopped us dead in our tracks by his power, bringing us from death to life, saving us.

Friends, this is the power of God towards undeserving sinners. Just thank children, children, adults, teenagers.

Listen to me. Has this power been made evident in your life? God doesn't move us from sick to healthy.

God doesn't move us from needing a little bit of assistance to now having him, you know, at our beck and call.

The text says that God moves us from death to life.

This is the power of God in the gospel. Is that power evident in your life? Are you relying church?

Are you relying on this power to save sinners? God's power reminds us I don't need gimmicks.

I don't need tricks. I don't need a sermon prep team. You know, there are churches out there that have that.

I don't know what you do with a sermon prep team, but anyway, there are churches that have it. I don't need those things.

What I need is the gospel because the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.

It is the gospel, the power of God in the gospel that brings dead sinners to life, unites them to Christ, unites them to one another.

So God's prerogative, God's power. Thirdly, we might summarize chapter three by calling it God's purpose.

Go to chapter three, verse 10. I understand there's a lot left on the table. You might say it in Arkansas this way.

We're leaving a lot of meat on the bones here. I get it. But we're just trying to show forth a brief summary of this letter.

It's undoubtable here in chapter three that God has a grand purpose for the church in chapter three, verse 10.

It says so that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

If you go down to verse 20 of chapter three, it says now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever.

Amen. The church is not God's afterthought.

The church is not God's plan B. Rather, she is the culmination of God's plan for the nations,

Jews and Gentiles now united together in one body in Christ.

In my personal Bible reading this week, I was reading Psalm 26, Psalm 26, verse eight says this.

Oh, Yahweh, I love the habitation of your house, the place where your glory dwells.

Now, do you not see a connection with verses like that from the

Old Testament and what we just read in Ephesians three? I think that we're trained and maybe kind of conditioned to forget about the first 39 books of the

Bible and just focus in on the final 27 books and say, yeah, the Old Testament, that was for another time period.

No, no, it's even the Old Testament that points us forward to and shows us the glory of the church.

Oh, Yahweh, I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells and the

New Testament tells us the church is the house and the church is where Yahweh's glory dwells.

This is God's purpose in the world today. While we're distracted with sports or politics or buying more stuff on Facebook marketplace or selling stuff or family time or whatever the case may be,

God is building his church. Now, I'm not saying those things I listed are wrong. I got to cancel

Facebook marketplace today. That's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying there is a biblical lens in which you must view all of those things that I just mentioned.

And that lens is the church of the living God. Friends, this is what

God is doing in the world today. The church, the church is

God's work in the world today. And all we do in the world today is filtered is to be filtered through this grand reality.

It will shift priorities. Absolutely. And it'll topple nations as well.

But give us holy men and holy women and boys and girls who will spend and be spent for the church.

Ephesians has taught us that the church is not just a nice little addendum to one's life.

If you are a Christian, if you are a Christian, your life is revolving around and centered on and prioritized in many ways in and through the church.

So there's a rough view there of rough review of chapters one through three. And we said doctrinal purity is non negotiable.

Without right doctrine, a church is not healthy. I don't care what else is happening. There's a second point under this heading of review.

So we're also going to remember chapters four through six. So our second point under review is holiness of life is non negotiable.

Doctrinal purity is non negotiable. Secondly, holiness of life is non negotiable.

See what I meant when I said my sub points have sub points. It's it's what happens sometimes. But I'm going to give a weak attempt here at now summarizing these chapters like we just did.

Chapter four, we might call the church's unity. So in chapter four, we have verse one,

I therefore a prisoner for the Lord urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.

I wonder if you really believe these verses here, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call.

One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all who is overall and through all and in all.

Friends, this is the church's unity. And I would even argue this. The church's unity is actually one of the major themes of this entire letter.

We have union with Christ and therefore in the local church, we have union with one another.

OK, so for example, I mentioned this in Sunday school, but you can't walk around with a be kind bumper sticker on your car that is just citing

Ephesians 432 and think you've actually captured the essence of the text.

OK, because because this is all this idea of the unity of the church is expressed in our formal, visible relationships with one another in the church.

So, for example, in Ephesians 432, it says be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ gave you.

You drive around. I don't know. Be kind. It may not even exist. But if it does, and I'm talking about you, I'm not

I'm not even actually thinking of you. I'm just using this as an illustration. But if you're driving around and on your car says be kind and has

Ephesians 432 and you just take that to mean in a general way, you're just to be a kind person in the world today.

You've missed the essence and the thrust of Ephesians 432, because it's not just talking about being kind in the world today, though you should.

But it's specifically talking about being kind and tenderhearted and forgiving to one another in the local church.

Why? To maintain unity in the church. You understand that this is all connected.

So the Bible is not about you. Uh, well, that's a good

I could just stop there, right? Period. The Bible is not about you, period, period. But these commands in Ephesians.

Four through six, they're not just general life principles. They're not just there to help you be a better person.

The Bible is not a self -help book in the modern therapeutic sense.

Rather, these commands are within the context of life in the local church of using the

Bible to just try to better yourself in this life or just get ahead in this life or what and separated from the local church.

You miss what it's about. And Christian has been brought from death to life.

He's been or she has been regenerated by the gracious work of the spirit of God. And as an outflow of that,

Christians are now united with the local church, whereby they live and love one another unto the glory of God.

So we must strive to maintain unity. So first, the church is unity. Secondly, under this heading of the reality of holiness that is non -negotiable, we might call chapter five the home's stability now.

So the church is unity. Secondly, the home's stability. That's not a great summation of chapter five.

I get it. Because you still have exhortations in chapter five for the church about corporate singing, using our time wisely, all those things.

But what I'm trying to do in this heading, the home's stability, is just capture the idea of the home instructions that we find at the end of chapter five and into even the first part of chapter six.

So listen to me very carefully. This is very relevant to today and even this week.

A healthy church is non -negotiable on the importance of stable homes, homes where husbands actually lead humbly and lovingly, homes where wives are in submission to their own husbands humbly and respectfully, where moms and dads are pointing children to Christ and children are obedient to their parents.

This is a non -negotiable importance. This is a non -negotiable priority for a local church.

A local church cares about what's happening in the home, teaches about what should be happening in the home, and upholds a high view of the

Christian home. I hesitate to use it because he does have the gospel wrong.

But I'm going to use it anyway. But this happened this week, very relevant. If I wasn't a

Dallas Cowboys fan and it wasn't $120 or whatever how much they are, I might buy Harrison Butker's jersey.

But Harrison Butker this week, he's kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs. They just won the

Super Bowl. So like this is a prominent guy. Harrison, right? Harrison, I think, Butker.

So this week he was at, he's a Roman Catholic. So that's the problem. Okay, that's the rub. And that is a problem, a serious problem.

But let me just tell you what happened this week. He was at a commencement ceremony for a

Roman Catholic university and he gave a speech. And in the speech, one of the things he highlights, he told women they've been lied to by our society.

He told men they've been lied to by our society. And one of the things that he said about women is that one of their highest callings and vocations is as a wife and mother.

And what do you think should be the response of the world?

Well, what should be the response? Like that's obvious. Like 10 seconds ago in our society, that's obvious, right?

But today it's hate speech. You understand? Bit of a tangent.

In the NFL, you can have men that have multiple women, that have multiple children, that get on stage like Travis Kelsey and chug a beer and talk about all the wickedness and foolishness.

And what does the NFL and the world do to men like this? Men who beat women, literally men who are accused of beating women.

What does the NFL and what does the world do to these men? They applaud and they clap and they buy their jerseys and they support them.

What does the NFL and the world do to a man who stands up and says, we should have a higher view of women, mocks him, ridicules him, tries to cancel him.

Why is that? Because the West has all, but you understand the stability of the

Christian home built the West. And today the West has all but lost the home.

And so I'm telling us this morning that there is not a government program that is going to bring it back.

There's not a sociological study that is going to recover it. Stable homes flow from Christian churches.

You know, you understand? So if I'm saying stable homes built the West and stable homes flow from Christian churches, you understand where the

West came from? It came from the Christian church, right? And so this is a non -negotiable reality and we're not embarrassed.

We're not ashamed about what the Bible teaches us about the home.

This is outflow of sound doctrine. It's an outflow of the gospel. I'll just mention at the end of Ephesians 5, when

Paul connects marriage in the church, he says, Ephesians 5, 32, this mystery is profound and I'm saying that it refers to Christ in the church.

However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

So the home stability, non -negotiable reality of a healthy church, the church's unity, the home stability.

And then let me just summarize chapter six by calling it the Christian's armor. Now, hopefully this is a quite quite a bit fresher, right?

In your mind, because it wasn't that long ago that we were in the armor.

But as a reminder, the armor flows from the gospel, right?

Christ is the warrior king who won redemption for us. He won the battle for us, triumphing over Satan for us, bearing the wrath of God for us, procuring for us a necessary and perfect righteousness, defeating death, defeating hell, defeating the grave all for us.

Christ is the king who wore this armor, as it were, for us. And now he bestows it upon those who will look to him, repenting of their sins and believing the gospel, resting in him, the

Christian's armor. This is the armor that we have in such a wicked world today.

And this is the armor that we take up and we battle not just individually, but together as the church.

So there it is, that's a brief review. Wow, man, what I've done in 143 weeks, we could have just done in 10 minutes, right?

God's prerogative, God's power, God's purpose, the church's unity, the home stability, the

Christian's armor. And again, it reminds us that doctrinal purity and the holiness of life, that they are non -negotiable.

So all of that falls under that big point, number one, a review. OK, secondly.

A warning. So let's go again to the end. This is where we began this morning, verse 24 of chapter six,

Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ, with love incorruptible.

Again, this was written around 62 AD and the leadership and influence in the church at Ephesus is quite impressive, right?

If you walk through the Bible, these are the types of men that were involved at Ephesus. Paul, Apollos, Timothy, the apostle

John, Tychicus. These are all examples of men in some way or another were involved.

Some of these men were actually pastors at this church. And so this is quite a pedigree.

You want a church with these type of men in influence or in leadership positions or as pastors.

Nevertheless, there's a warning. And the warning is, so listen carefully.

The warning is there is a way to attend to doctrinal purity and holiness of life and drift from love for Christ.

Do you hear me? There is a way to attend to doctrinal purity and holiness of life and drift from love for Christ.

So keep in mind the last verse of the letter, grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible.

And now turn in your Bibles for just a moment to 2nd Ephesians. That's Revelation 2.

Revelation 2. Revelation 2. So keep in mind the last verse says, grace be with all who love our

Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible. Now let's spend a few moments in Revelation 2. Revelation 2 verse 1, to the angel of the church in where?

Not rhetorical. Where? To the angel in the church in Ephesus. To the angel of the church in Ephesus.

This is church in Ephesus. Same church, right? That's how they used to do church, right?

A church, a city has a church. Okay. To the angel of the church in Ephesus. Right. 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 burying up for my name's sake. And you have not grown weary.

Praise, praise, praise, praise. Jesus understands the church. He knows the church. He loves the church.

You are doing good things. Verse 4. But I have this against you.

Now, remember how Ephesians 624 ended, Grace be with those who love our

Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible. And now verse four of Ephesians of Revelation two says,

But I have this against you that you have abandoned the law.

You had it first. We'll stop there for a moment and I'll pick back up in just a minute.

It's interesting, though, from the last verse of Ephesians to the verse four of Revelation two, we're not sure how much time had passed here on the high end.

It would have been 30 years. That's the high end. So from sixty two to ninety two, that's the high end.

But it could have been less than 30 years. Isn't that long? I used to think 30 years was long. Right. Then I turned 30 and then

I got a little older than 30 and now I'm close to 40 and I think, well, that's not that long. Right. It's not that long.

Well, 30 years is not that long, but could be even less than that, that you move from Grace be with those who love our

Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible to Revelation two four. You have abandoned your first love.

That's the warning. So I was tempted this week, but I thought this would take us weeks and I didn't want to get into that.

I almost preached the whole message today from Revelation two, and I was just going to call it a church at the crossroads part two.

That might have gone over, that might have been too cutesy and gone over your head. What I would be referencing is in the summer of 2022, spring and summer,

God convicted me about my failures as a pastor. I repented, I publicly repented.

I've sought to lead us in repentance. But on July 24th, 2022,

I preached a sermon on Jeremiah six. We called that sermon a church at the crossroads.

So in that sermon, we highlighted five points of reform that we had to make as a church theology, ecclesiology, worship, the home and missions, theology, ecclesiology, worship, the home mission.

These are things we need to improve upon as a church. And by God's grace in the last two years, I believe that we have and are reforming in each of these points.

And here's what's interesting. There are 18 families in this church I call household. So not individuals, but 18 households, if you will.

There were 17. And then we added Miss Virginia. And of course, we have one of the families currently in Benton and searching for a church home.

But of those 18 families in our church today, May 19th, 2024, nine of them, 18 families, nine of them have joined after July 24th, 2022.

That is nine have joined after the sermon about the church at the crossroads and the need we have for reformation.

So we have seen reformation, we have seen growth, but here comes the warning.

And here's why I considered calling the whole message a church at the crossroads part two, because in a in a sense, as we leave the book of Ephesians, we find ourselves at a crossroads again.

And that is there is a way to get all of these things right, if you will, on paper and yet lose our first love.

And that's what the text says. But I have this against you that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

You want to be a solid church. You want to be serious about church membership.

You want to be reformed Baptist. You want to subscribe to the 1689. You want to be zealous about dealing with false teachers and false churches and false gospels.

You want to do all these things that aren't bad in and of themselves, but these things are nothing without love for Christ.

Now, don't mishear me, do not mishear me and walk out confused this morning. It's not love

Christ or do these things. You got people maybe in here, maybe

I doubt it, but you got people who might hear the first part of that message like, yeah, that's right. All those churches serious about doctrine, serious about membership, serious about holiness.

You're all abandoned the love of Christ. No, that's not what we're saying, right? Doing these things, doctrinal purity, holiness of life, they flow out of true love for Christ.

You don't really love Christ. A church doesn't really love Christ if it doesn't love doctrinal integrity and holy living.

A church that says we don't concern ourselves about doctrine or holiness. We just focus here on loving

Jesus. I'm going to tell you the first thing I know about a church like that. They don't really love Jesus. You know, you're serious about loving

Jesus. You're going to be serious about these things. But there's a warning for us. Listen, don't rush over the warning.

We can do these things. We can say we're serious about doctrine. We can say we're serious about holiness and we can be drifting all the while from our love for the

Lord Jesus Christ. It's very easy to do because our flesh is ready to promote self.

Satan is ready to get a church off the rails. And so we can pat ourselves on the back and we can say, look how great we are.

Look at all the good things we're doing. Look how God has brought reformation in this church. All the while we're like a boat in the lake and we're drifting.

We're like Braden and Caleb in the canoe yesterday on the Buffalo River, just drifting along, out of the way and all of a sudden into the rapids.

That's what a church is like. It abandons its first love. And so let it not be so for providence.

That's what I'm saying. You ever Googled? Man, I do this. You ever

Googled a symptom, right? So you're like, oh, I got a in the neck. You Google it and it's some sort of jungle fever from Botswana, you know, and you're like, whoa, how did

I get that? I'm dying, right? Like you Google your symptoms and now it's worse than you could have ever imagined.

Well, don't do that. Okay. But listen to me, give the symptoms here that I'm about to say serious attention.

And if these are true of you in any way at all, let us do a heart check. So, for example, look at your love for the brethren.

What does that look like? Because love for Christ spills over to sincere love.

For one another in the church. So let me ask you, I can't answer this.

You have to. Are you short with your brothers and sisters? Are you grumpy with them?

Are you impatient with them? Do they just get on your nerves? Why don't they come to church as much as I do?

Why aren't they farther along in sanctification? Why are they so needy?

Why are they not farther along in this doctrine? Why don't they come to the things that we do?

Why don't they evangelize more? Now, I'm not talking about the biblical requirements we have to hold each other accountable, to disciple one another, to encourage one another, to sharpen one another, all in godliness for the glory of Christ.

I'm talking about, listen to me, do you have a begrudging spirit towards your brothers and sisters? Because it may be you've gotten a bit me -centered in your theology.

You have moved away from love for Christ, adoration of Christ, devotion to Christ, and you have made it about people meeting your standards.

You've forgotten who you were. Listen, you've forgotten where Christ found you.

I promise you, He did not find you in the doctrinal condition that you are today. Your slow process of holiness, your slow growth in grace.

He found you as a needy sinner. And I wonder, how do you treat your brothers and sisters?

Or, listen, what about your personal time with the Lord? This is meddling, right? Do you love

Jesus devotionally? Do you seek Him personally?

Do you remember those days as a Christian when it was just you and the Lord? You just had time.

It's just you and the Lord. You got up. You opened your Bible. You read your

Bible. You wept before the Lord. You worshiped the Lord. You sang to the

Lord. And now all of a sudden, you've just gotten too busy for that.

Do you spend time with Jesus? Do you spend time with Jesus?

Are you studying doctrine and Bible passages because you want to be like this or that group of people?

Or are you doing it because you love Christ? Because Christ is worthy, because Christ is beautiful.

Is your podcast intake about Christ or cultural revolution?

I'm going to say something. There's a serious movement in our camp. That seems to want to rightly respond to the effeminacy of our godless culture.

But when you examine the fruit, it seems to be it's not about love for Christ. It's about the patriarchy or whatever.

It's about manliness. But I'm going to tell you this morning that the answer to the effeminacy of our culture is not cold hearted men.

It's not domineering men. It's men who love Christ.

I am just telling you this morning that there is a real danger to us if we will not heed this warning.

I can go on. What is your view of lost sinners, for example? A warm love for Christ results in a zeal for gospel witness to unbelievers.

Do you care about your lost friends and neighbors to pray for them, to give them a gospel track, to discuss

Jesus with them over a cup of coffee? Again, our text in Revelation 2, verse 4,

Jesus says, I have this against you that you've abandoned the love that you had at first.

Listen to this commentary from Don Johnson. He says we would rather debate others than sit alone at the feet of Christ in great delight.

We would rather perform some religious act than spend time with the Lord. The loss of affection and love for Christ is the first step to apostasy.

I can't do this for you, but you must take an account of your life. You must consider the gravity of this situation.

Now, those who love Christ, they absolutely do stand for truth. They do perform religious duties.

Of course, this flows out of true love for Christ. But what I'm saying to us this morning is there is a way this is and we see it in this letter.

We see it in the very church we've been studying for three and a half years. There is a way to have the doctrine right and the membership right and yet be drifting from your love for Christ.

Hating evil, for example, being against abortion, but losing love for Christ is not gain, it's loss.

Loving sound doctrine, loving holiness of life while losing love for Christ, it is not gain, it is loss.

Should we hate abortion? Of course, we should hate abortion. You understand? And those who love

Christ, they will hate abortion. But you understand there is a way to separate

Christ from that cause and you can put Christ over here and you can say, I'm forgetting about loving

Christ, chasing after Christ, praying to Christ, reading the scripture for Christ, being a follower of Christ.

I'm putting over there and oh, I'm just going to rail on abortion at expense of love for Christ.

I'm just saying to us, please hear me and understand there's serious warning.

Again, Don Johnson, we have not forsaken Christianity altogether, but we have allowed our love for orthodox doctrine and our obedience to become more important to us than knowing and enjoying

Christ Jesus. So we love Christ and all these things I said, they flow out of that, but your hatred of abortion, your love for sound doctrine, your hatred of evil, it better be out of flowing from a love and devotion for Christ and not separated over here on an island where you're making a name for yourself.

Now, again, the warning presses a little further, verse five says, remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the work you did at first.

If not, so if the church at Ephesus does not do this, Jesus says, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent.

Now, what does that mean? Well, for Christ to remove a church's lampstand is for Christ to remove his own presence.

And here's the scary thing. Just because Christ removes the lampstand doesn't mean the meeting stop.

Doesn't mean the building crumbles necessarily. This would be a farewell to Ephesus indeed, right?

But listen to me. So a group of people can cease to be at church at some point and not even realize it.

I mean, they should have realized it. They should have take assessment, but instead they keep meeting, they keep doing outward things, but they're not a true church.

Christ is not there. So you can look around today at the evangelical landscape and be warned today.

See this people happily involved gathering even this morning. They're singing songs. They're doing children's ministry.

They're passing out food. They're shaking each other's hands. They're saying, wow, I'm so glad you're here today.

I'm great. But Christ is not there. What a sobering reality.

The name of the church has been changed in heaven to Ichabod.

That is, the glory has departed. Take this seriously.

Which brings me to my last point, and that is an encouragement. So we review a warning and encouragement.

After all we've seen in Ephesians, after the sobering warning from our Lord, there's actually encouragement in this text too, from Revelation two.

Remember, therefore, wherever you fall, sorry, remember verse five, remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first.

When Christ commands a local church to repent, there is encouragement. How so?

It doesn't sound very encouraging. Here's encouragement. He's not done with this church.

For example, he could have just shut Ephesians, he could shut the church at Ephesus down immediately.

But he does not. Instead, he calls them to repent. Why? Remember this, this morning,

Christ is for the church. Christ loves the church.

He loves her success. He loves her sanctification. He loves her sound doctrine.

He loves her holiness of life. Christ loves the church, and he loves local churches.

You remember Ephesians 5 .25, when Paul gets out and he starts talking about the marriage relationship, and he says, husbands, love your wives.

How? As Christ loved the church and did what? And gave himself for her. Christ loves the church.

All the things that you may love about the biblical and holy and sound things we do as a church that you think you love, you don't love them nearly as much as our

Lord Jesus loves them. He loves the church. He loves the purity of the church.

He loves the sound doctrine of the church. He loves the discipline of the church. He loves the worship of the church.

He loves the evangelism of the church. You can't love the church more than Jesus loves the church.

He loves the church, and he is for the church, And he is so patient with his churches.

This text drips with this reality. He knows their works. He knows their trials.

He knows their sufferings. He knows their victories. He knows their defeats. So he essentially gives three commands.

I'll just walk through them quickly. Number one, remember. That's verse five.

Remember. Actually, they're all in verse five. Remember. Remember.

I'm telling you, church, remember Christ. Remember the gospel.

Do you remember? Do you remember what the Lord has done for you?

Do you remember the Son of God equal with the Father and the

Holy Spirit, condescending to the womb of the Virgin Mary, humbling

Himself by taking on the form of a servant, by taking on human flesh?

Do you remember that this Jesus lived perfectly? Do you remember that He completed the covenant of works, that He fulfilled all righteousness?

Do you remember today, church, that He is perfect in every way? Do you remember today that this

Jesus went to Calvary for you? Do you remember, not just for you, but we might even say as you, taking your sins up on His shoulders to demonstrate and placate

God's holy justice, but also, do you remember that this is a demonstration of God's great love for you?

Do you remember that you are the wretch the song refers to?

Amazing grace, how sweet to sound, that saved a wretch like me. That's me.

But do you remember God loved you anyway? To win you back to Himself by Christ's work, and this is a certain reality, because Jesus rose again from the dead, and He rose again, do you remember, in victory over death, over hell, over the grave?

And do you remember that Jesus ascended into heaven? And do you remember that He's King, and He sits at the right hand of the

Father, and He's King of kings and Lord of lords? Church, do you remember these things?

Remember from where you have fallen. Remember the gospel this morning. Remember Christ.

Remember the loveliness of Christ. Remember what Christ has done. Remember your affection and adoration of Him, and behold your

God. Remember. And then He says, repent. Repent.

Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent. Repent. Is there any area of your life that you need to love

Christ more? I'll answer that for you. Yes. Yes.

Is there anyone in here today who would stand up before this congregation, your pastors included?

Is there anyone here who would stand up and say, I love Jesus as perfectly and as absolutely much as I need to?

No. Is there any area of your life that you need to love Christ more? Answer, yes.

So what should you do? Repent. Listen to me, Providence and guest.

Will you turn that over to God right now? Is it your children?

Is it your work? Is it your grandchildren? Is it a loved one in your life?

Is it your desire to just beat others up in theology? Is it your fear of man?

Is it your laziness? Is it your insecurity? I'm telling you this morning, don't hold on to these lesser things.

Turn them over to God. Repent of them. And look again to this glorious gospel, the gospel of God slaying his son for unworthy sinners.

And remember this day that God is for you in Christ if you'll take your sins to him and rest again in his great love and the work that Jesus has done.

Remember, repent, and thirdly, return. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first.

Love for Christ results in works. We love our church family with tangible love.

And I'm not just showing up on Sunday mornings, but real tangible love. This is hard.

This is messy. This requires sacrifice. This requires putting self second, third, fourth, 150th.

It requires denying self. But at the end of the day, all this work, all this labor, all this difficulty, it's only gain for those who love

Christ. We love lost sinners. We love sound doctrine. We love holiness of life.

Because all of this flows out of sincere devotion to Christ.

And they don't take the place of Christ. You can't let them take the place of Christ.

They flow out of Christ, and they all serve the great end of knowing

Christ more, loving him more, and bringing him glory.

Remember, repent, return. And then Jesus says this in verse 7. 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.

Do you have an ear to hear today? Listen to the word of God. That's what the

Spirit says. Not get in a corner and try to get some sort of audible voice. No, no, listen to the word of God.

That's what the Spirit says to the churches. Submit yourselves to the Bible. Submit yourselves to the

Bible's teaching. Quit running around and finding all these things on the internet to make you a new and improved and better person or whatever the case may be.

And sit down with your Bible. Submit yourself to it. Listen to its teaching. And then there is maybe nothing more encouraging than Jesus's words at the end.

All the pain, all the work, all the heartache, all the sorrow, all the difficulty, all the trial,

Jesus knows it all. But he's waiting for his bride. And when his bride gets home, he'll say, well done, my good and faithful servant.

Eat now from the tree of life in the paradise of God. Live forever.

Let the church cultivate serious, tangible, warm love for Christ.

Because she will one day be with him forever in the new heavens and the new earth, a place called paradise.

Christ, there's much to consider here for you today. And all that we've been through in Ephesians, the people we've seen come, the people we've seen go, the people we've baptized, all we've learned, all we've grown in, as we conclude this series today, where are you, sir?

Where are you, ma 'am, with Christ, your King? Do you love him?

He is altogether lovely. He is worthy of your love. What if you've come up short?

You have. But I tell you today, there is grace. Will you go your own way or will you be a partaker today of the sovereign efficacious grace of God?

Remember, repent, return. Church, Christ is worthy. We must take these realities seriously.

Christ is for the church. And Christ is worthy of a healthy church.

How can you grow today? And then I'll step off this platform after saying these words.

Are you one here who needs to partake of saving grace today? You've heard the gospel.

Your sin deserves the wrath of God. And just to be sure, just so you know,

I'll quote the great theologian Shyland. God loves the world for sure, but he loves his glory more.

So know this, if you sit there in your sins, if you sit there in hypocrisy or in sexual immorality, whatever the sin may be, greed, envy, anger, pride, whatever the case may be, you sit there today in your sin and you say, yeah, but the preacher says

God loves me. No, the preacher says if you don't repent of your sins and believe the gospel,

God will send you to hell. So I say to you, listen, you must repent and you must believe the gospel.

But listen, here's the good news. Christ receives.

Sinners. Don't go clean yourself up and come back to Jesus when you got yourself better because you ain't getting better.

Not without Christ. Jesus receives sinners. He receives the most vile and wretched people in our world today.

I, too, was once among them. So was every believer in this room.

But listen to me. I don't know a better way to close Ephesians than to issue a gospel call.

This gospel that you've heard in Ephesians, it's real. It's true.

And God can change your life. But you must not sit there in your sins.

You must see who you are apart from Christ. A child of disobedience.

A wrath deserving and hell bound sinner. You must see what Christ has done. He fulfilled righteousness in your place and the punishment that you deserve,

Christ has taken upon himself and he's risen again in victory. And you must turn to that message. You must repent.

And listen, don't stand before judgment one day and you try to say to God, you never knew what to do, you never heard, you tried your best.

No, you're hearing today. Whether you're 8 or 98, you must repent and believe the gospel.

And know this, never in the history of the world, ever, has a repentant person turned to Christ in faith and Jesus cast him out.

You turn to the Lord today in faith. He'll receive you just as you are, by the way.

He ain't going to leave you there, right? He's not going to leave you as you are. But you bring all your sins and your shame and your sorrows to King Jesus and you see him change your life for his glory.

Come love Jesus with us. Father, thank you for your word.

We pray that you would bless this church. Let us take soberingly the warnings that we've heard today.

And let us remember that Christ is worthy of our devotion, that we should even take account of our lives and think through the things that we do and say and the priorities we have.

And may Christ be central to us. We pray that you would bless the preaching of your word today.

We pray even today there would be a young one or an old one or a middle aged one who would come to Christ for the glory of your son, who is worthy to receive the full reward.