A (1:38)

Well, Tay, this episode is brought to you by the Masters University. If you or someone you know is looking to continue higher education, I would encourage them to check out my ALMA material, the Master's University, which is committed to Christ and to Scripture. Obviously, on the podcast, we look at God's word in depth, and so I'm thankful for my time at the Master's University. If you or someone you know is applying, they can use our unique code dial in to waive the application fee. Would highly encourage you to check out Masters Edu. All right, Hank, what year were you born?

B (2:07)

1995.

A (2:08)

Okay, well, you weren't alive when this happened. But in 1986.

B (2:13)

You weren't alive in 1986.

A (2:15)

In a way, I was.

B (2:17)

What happened in 1986?

A (2:18)

Well, Cape Canaveral, Florida, millions of school children are watching a historic event. Kind of class was shut down for the day, but they're watching within class as one of their teachers, teacher Krista McAuliffe from Concord, New Hampshire, was one of seven in the crew to be taken up into outer space in the spaceship or rocket ship that was known as the Challenger Space Shuttle. Space shuttle, there you go. The space shuttle had been deployed to study Halley's comet and deploy communication satellites. And President Ronald Reagan had delayed his State of the Union address for later on in the day so that he would be able to talk about the space shuttle in his opening remarks. You can watch this video on YouTube and I was watching it again last night just to kind of get refreshed about it on it. But CNN, they are like 4, 3, 2, 1, and they're off. And then they say, and they clear the tower and there's this moment of silence as you watch the space shuttle rising into the sky. And they begin to kind of pick up the commentating once again. And they begin to talk. And there they are. And they begin to talk about the people on the crew within the space shuttle. And then 73 seconds into the launch, that space shuttle explodes just into a massive, massive fireball. Cameras, you know, are just there, fixated. Everybody goes silent as the space shuttle erupts into a huge cloud of smoke.

B (3:36)

What went wrong?

A (3:37)

Well, a critical piece was ineffective. There were these elastic O rings that are about the shape of a pencil that are used to seal the rockets initially upon the launch. You know these, you know how that back part falls off the booster? The booster 100%. Now, these O rings were not designed to withstand the cold of that morning. And cold ruins elasticity. And without it functioning properly, heat began to escape from the rocket and just pour onto the massive fuel tank that accompanies the back of the space shuttle on its initial launch. So, so this heat was pouring onto this 535,000 gallon tank of liquid nitrogen. And then the whole thing erupts into this massive explosion. Later on, they found out that the crew actually survived this initial explosion, but they died on impact when they hit the surface of the ocean. And the last recorded words within the cockpit were, oh, it's a really tragic story because gives you an example that you can have on the surface. The right team, the right preparation, the right strategy, all of the Ingredients, all of the ingredients for success. But when there's a missing piece, it renders the mission not only ineffective, but destructive and really dangerous. And the same thing is true not only as it relates to a space shuttle, but to the life of a believer and to the life of a local church. You can have everything right on the surface, and you can have all of the right ingredients to your point. But when something critical is missing, it can render the Christian's usefulness for Christ, a church's usefulness, ineffective, and it is dangerous. And so I want to look at Revelation 2, and I want to look at a church, a group of believers that seem to have everything going for them, but there's something critical that's missing. And because of that, it renders their usefulness for Christ at risk, at great risk. Would you just read that opening verse of Revelation 2 for me?

B (5:28)

Yeah. So 2. One says to the angel of the church of Ephesus, write, this is what the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven golden lampstands says.

A (5:38)

So in Revelation, John has seven letters to seven different churches. These are real churches at a real point in time in real history. They are churches in the first century. But even though they are churches historically, they represent a lot of the church, you know, the things in the church that we would interact with today. Meaning that the strengths of the churches then are the strengths of the churches now. The warnings that, you know, God gives to these churches then are many of the similar warnings that he would give to us now. And this first church that John addresses is the church of Ephesus. This is a church that Paul had started. In Acts 19, he comes to the city. It's situated in a large harbor in the ancient Asia and one of the most populated cities in the ancient world. It was sexually perverse. It was greedy. In, you know, elementary school, I learned about the seven wonders of the world. You had the pyramids, the hanging gardens of Babylon, and then you had this temple dedicated to this sexual goddess that they had there. They was known for the way they worshiped her was in sexual promiscuity and idolatry. And God had, in his providence, begin to establish a church. A group of believers in the middle of this culture and context of corruption. And in the book of Ephesians, Paul is giving them encouragement and commendation that they stand firm, stand fast. Ephesians 6, put on the armor of God to be able to withstand temptations. What temptations? Well, they lived in an environment where every single day they're passing by this temple with sexual, prostitution, everything. And that was part of the way that this culture worshiped.

B (7:14)

And so this is. It's really helpful context because you're thinking like, this is almost like if New York, Vegas, and like, Miami on steroids. Yeah. Were all combined, rolled into one. It's not necessarily the place you'd expect a church and a fruitful church to be planted that Paul's writing to in these contexts.

A (7:31)

No, not at all. And that's why even when you look at, like a starting five of a basketball team or what it may be, they had a starting five from a biblical perspective, that was really noteworthy. They had Priscilla and Aquila, John, the gospel writer himself, Paul's son, in the faith. Timothy was there. So this was a church that had a strong religious kind of pattern. Yeah. You know, even religious, just. They had a faith that was. Sure they were invested in big time. So this is 40 years later. This is the last book in the Bible that's being written. And John is writing to them. God is giving them a warning, so to speak, in this passage. But before he does so, he commends them. He's going to affirm a few main things. First of all, he says in verse 2. Want to read that for me?

B (8:14)

Yeah. It says, I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot bear with those who are evil. And you put to the test those who call themselves apostles. And they are not. And you found them to be false.

A (8:25)

Read verse six as well.

B (8:27)

Absolutely. But yet this, you do have that. You hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans.

A (8:33)

Nicolaitans.

B (8:34)

Close. Which I also hate.

A (8:36)

Yeah. Galatians. Nicolaitans, Potato, tomato, Nicodemus. Yeah. Jesus says, well, he commends them here for their diligence. He says, I know your toil. He knows his church. He's not reluctant. I think this is encouraging about Jesus. He's not reluctant to affirm or to encourage or to commend people within the church. Sometimes we get this idea that Jesus is kind of like a driver's test instructor. By the way, I failed twice.

B (8:59)

Infraction. Infraction.

A (9:00)

I failed because the guy had to verbally intervene because I was going 47 on a 45.

B (9:05)

You know, you had a tight wad also. What were you doing speeding on a driver's test?

A (9:10)

Different story for a different guy.

B (9:11)

Sorry.

A (9:11)

We're. Sometimes this idea we have of Jesus as it relates to kind of like the way he watches and examines his church. He's like, no, not this, not this. As if he's an auditor trying to suck the joy out of his church.

B (9:21)

Find anything wrong?

A (9:22)

Not at all. You know, the Puritans used to say that Jesus can be likened to a gardener who loves this garden. And when he sees his, you know, something that might be toxic or harmful to his garden, he is careful to prune it. But he loves and rejoices in his garden. You know, that's why the, the scripture likens Jesus to the groom and the church being his bride. And he loves his bride, so he commends them for their diligence. As we embark on a new year. One of my new goals is the same goal I had last year and the same goal I had the year before. And it's just to grow in my walk with the Lord and in my personal holiness. That's the will of God for my life. First Thessalonians 4. 3 says, this is the will of God, your sanctification, that is that you become more like Jesus. And then it tells us what sanctification looks like. It says that you walk in sexual purity, that you abstain from sexual immorality. And so that's one of the goals for my life, because that's God's will for my life. And so in that regard, one of the tools that I use to help me on my quest for personal holiness through the power of the Spirit is Accountable to youo, which provides accountability for me as I live in this day digital world. You live in a world that so often lacks digital transparency. People look at things and have this idea that no one else would know. And I highly encourage and challenge guys to eliminate and women to just eliminate from their life even that idea. And so one of the things that Accountable2U does is it provides you with this partner relationship where people can see what you're looking at online and ask you questions if need be. It's a tremendous and needed tool, tool to walk in freedom from any sort of impure sin. And so if you want to learn more, and I highly encourage you to do this and to join thousands of others, you can go to accountabletoyou.com dial in and use our unique code. Dial in to receive 25% off your first year for your personal or family plan. And it says in verse two, their toil and their perseverance and that they're doing all these things. He says, you have doing this for my name's sake, meaning that's in verse three. They're not doing it for on the surface, their own glory. He tells Them, you're doing it for God's glory. They're serving other people. They're not riding the bench, so to speak. They were in the game. This is not a spiritual country club. This is not a cruise ship where people are just hanging out. This is a church full of workers and servants. So this church is very diligent in their ministerial labor.

B (11:47)

They're living on mission. They're living on the outside looking in

A (11:50)

and everything described to this point, they're going after it. Furthermore, they're discerning. It says here in verse two, that you put to the test those who call themselves apostles. And they are not. You already read it in verse six. Yet this you do have that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate, meaning that this church, they labor in the Lord. They're ministerially a beehive. There's a lot of activity going on, but they're also discerning. They're like Bereans. They are scrutinizing what is being taught against the word of God. They are not tolerating of any sort of deviation from the pure doctrine that had been handed down to them by the apostles. In Acts chapter 20, Paul is leaving the church of Ephesus and he tells them, you are never going to see my face again. I'm going to Rome. And he tells them, I'm going to die there. Now, Paul had been there for years and he had been teaching them for five hours a day. He was their pastor, he was their friend. And it's an epic scene, you know, kind of like a movie thing. In Acts chapter 20, he says, after my departure, savage wolves are going to come in and they're going to try to infiltrate your life with false teaching, false doctrine. That's subtle and yet very dangerous. And 40 years later, they are being commended for heeding Paul's words.

B (13:07)

They're holding the line.

A (13:08)

They're holding the line convictionally. They have a strong sniffer, so to speak, in regards to anything that doesn't seem to be orthodox. They drove home the claims of Scripture and they are driving away wolves that threaten the sheep. They're not easily swept away by false doctrine. There's a third thing that they're commended for. It says that they are commended basically for their perseverance. In verse two, John says, or Jesus says to them, I know your deeds and your toil and. And your perseverance. Sometimes people write us and they say, like, hey, how do I know a good church? One of the marks of a godly church is they're willing to suffer for the sake of the gospel. And Jesus commends them that. He says, I see your perseverance. These are cross bearing Christians who modeled their savior not only in their diligence to serve, not only in their soundness in doctrine, but they're willing to suffer for Christ. They kept on going. They hupomene that word for perseverance. My dad used to explain it.

B (14:14)

This is like the. I love that we have these touchstone Scott Artivanis. Like Greek words that were taught to between the ages of like 5 and 12.

A (14:23)

Well, I'd be like, hey, good morning, son, come here and I'll hupo mene goo goo gaga. Johnny, learn the, you know, learn the word hupo menex.

B (14:31)

What does hupo mene mean?

A (14:33)

It means to remain under the weight. My dad used to tell me the story of a Russian weightlifter.

B (14:37)

Do you remember his name?

A (14:39)

Vasily Alexeyev.

B (14:41)

Oh, that was impressive.

A (14:43)

Won the clean and jerk, I think twice. But he would, you know, press and he would stand there under the weight and my dad always used to tell me, johnny, and then he would drop the weight and then on national tv, global tv, he would just look around and say, I'm bad, bad. But he just said that idea of standing under the weight, that's the idea of biblical perseverance. And this is what this church is known for. They're not a flash in a pan. They're not kind of like it's not easy believism type of thing.

B (15:12)

This is 40 years.

A (15:13)

They're commended yet after Jesus. And I think this is, it's encouraging to know that at least, okay, Jesus sees, he sees their diligence. They're ministerially busy. They're all chips and they are discerning. They know false doctrine. They're not tolerating anything that is in any way a compromise from biblical clarity. And they persevere. They're willing to suffer for the sake of Jesus. Yet Jesus says something to them in verse three. He says, you have perseverance and have endured for my name's sake and have not grown weary. And then there's this contrasting conjunction in verse 4. Jesus says, But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. You know, you just gotta imagine, you know, the deafening silence amongst the Ephesian church when after Jesus has said, I commend you for this, I commend you for this. And I commend you for this. And then Jesus says, I have something against you. You don't love me. Like you used to. And he's gonna tell them that when your heart grows cold, you're in danger. It's the most critical piece you can have on the surface. A church that is ministerially busy discerning, no false doctrine here perseveres. You know, we just gotta. Jesus did say the world's gonna hate us. And yet they don't love Jesus like they used to.

B (16:38)

Well, and you started by saying these letters to the churches, though very specific places in time and historically accurate, are also applicable or like, we can see these archetypal truths that are played out in churches today and even in our own individual lives. But so the point being here, I hear you saying they've held the line. They've, like, from the outside looking in, I'm trying to place myself there. You'd see this as like a prolific, time tested, doctrinally sound church.

A (17:07)

This is an elite church.

B (17:09)

And yet Jesus seems to be saying, here you've left your first love, so maybe unpack for one second. Does that mean, like, these people have lost their salvation? Or maybe. What does it mean practically for someone to lose the first love?

A (17:23)

Well, it means that they left their first love not in sequence but in prominence, meaning, you know, Jeremiah 2, it refers to the love of the spousals. It's like the love of a bride as she walks towards her groom. The love refers here to the time in a believer's life where the Bible is food. Prayer was fresh, evangelism was natural. There was a hunger to serve, a delight to just share what God has done in your life. And this is what Ephesus had departed from. Like the carbonation in the coke, they had gone flat. Their love was declining. And it was kind of just this free fall into this mechanical motion of ministry. We don't tolerate false doctrine. We serve the Lord, and Jesus is coming to them and saying, listen, the most critical piece in all of this is absent. And that is that you have a heart full of devotion and affection for me. You know, it's one of those things that you begin to think about. Even as you said, the churches that, you know, church in Pergamum, for example, really evangelistic, but seeking their community, but absent in sound doctrine, very applicable today. Some of the greatest churches today that are all about reaching the community are the most shallow in their depth of doctrine. Conversely, the churches that are most rigorous about theological acumen and doctrinal understanding are those that can be prone to going through ministerial motions but without growing in their actual affection.

B (18:51)

And this is going out on a Limb, maybe a little bit. But I would say practically, if you found your way to the dial in channel, I would say it's not maybe obvious, but it's fair to say I would be prone to maybe one side of that spectrum. And I'm prone to Ephesus's rebuke here. And so it's just, it's fitting that we have to hold these. Both are true, both intention. And everyone might be prone to either side, but it's particularly applicable to me maybe listening this, that doctrinal purity is not the test of a heart wholly dedicated to Jesus.

A (19:26)

Well, it's not the end, you know, it's a means to the end. And this is a rebuke, not from some sort of a critic, you know, you know, Theodore Roosevelt, you know, the man in the arena, it's not the guy, but from a groom, this is from the one who is building his church, who loves the bride and he's jealous for affection. He wants love, he wants affection. And churches are sensitive to their reputation. You know, even in our environment, you know, I go to such and such a church, there's a, I think sometimes a pride. And I go to a healthy church and our church actually teaches the Bible. Our church doesn't compromise, you know, this church that, this church that. But it's very easy, biblically speaking, to confuse reputation with reality. It's easy to impossible to appear attached to the vine and in fact yet be detached from Christ and have everything going on the surface and yet be lacking what Jesus says is the most important thing.

B (20:17)

Well, and then just real quickly, but even individually, I was meeting a guy for coffee this morning and he was talking about in college how he had hopped from church to church because he was searching for like the healthy, the right church. And I kind of made the joke like, yeah, there's no perfect church. Because he's now been attending our church. I was wanting to like level set expectations, but to the same reality. Like each of us individually, if we're so preoccupied with everything being perfect, we can totally lose sight of what's actually at the center of this whole thing.

A (20:43)

Yeah, and obviously we want to be a part of a healthy church. There's this danger here. And so I want to look at the prescription that Jesus gives because he comes and he commends them. He says, okay, you're diligent, you're discerning, you're persevering, and yet you've missed the most important part. So he continues in verse five, he says, therefore, okay, because you've lost your first love, you've left your first love. He says, here's a prescription. Remember from where you have fallen. Okay? So this is the antidote to an apathetic heart. If your heart is growing stale, you've been saved for a while, you've been discipled, you're serving, you know, your gift. And you, you use your gift. What's the antidote that Jesus gives to our apathy?

B (21:25)

Remember.

A (21:25)

Remember what?

B (21:26)

Remember the Gospel. And maybe like, he who's forgiven Much.

A (21:30)

Yeah. Loves much.

B (21:31)

Yeah, absolutely.

A (21:32)

Loves much. She says, remember from where you've fallen. I mean, this is one of those things, you know, I heard it growing up that the first generation church is the gospel, the second generation stewards the gospel, and the third generation just kind of with the gospel, and this is what's happening here. Forty years later, they know the truth and they can theologically affirm, like we talked about previously, you know, we've been saved by grace through faith in Christ. Then Jesus comes to them and says, hey, your love is cold. And because your love is cold, it tells me something about the way that you're preaching the gospel to yourself. You're standing firm on the gospel truth. It's orthodox. And yet you don't necessarily realize the importance of preaching that truth to yourself every single day.

B (22:12)

So he says, it's not find something new. Yeah, it's remember.

A (22:15)

And remember it personally, not just corporately. Then he says in verse five, therefore, remember from where you have fallen. And then he says, and repent. Now he says, repent, meaning this is a sin issue. Right. And then he says, and do the deeds you did at first. Okay, so I wanna talk about that. He says, remember, repent. This is a sin issue. Repent, turn to Christ. And then he says, do the deeds. Repeat. Repeat the deeds. He says, you did it first.

B (22:44)

That's what's striking me is, like, so far, this is not. Part of me is thinking, if you've lost love, like, part of me goes to the heart. And almost. What's so associated with the heart today is emotions. It doesn't feel like he's addressing kind of any emotions here yet, but rather he's giving us, like, actually a fairly straightforward set of instructions.

A (23:04)

Practical. Yeah, yeah. He doesn't say, feel the same. He says, repeat the works you did at first. And one of the things that Jesus says, and I think this is kind of so different than maybe we would expect, he says, you, heart has grown cold because you haven't been doing something. So what does he say to do? He says, to do the deeds you did at first. And I want to just maybe think about those. Like, what were the deeds that the Ephesian Church did at first that cultivated that affection? Because maybe this is you. Maybe you're going through the ministerial motions and yet when Jesus says, you don't love me, you don't even love me, you just do stuff, maybe go, hey, that's me. So what is Jesus prescription for that? Well, the church of Ephesus was grounded upon an actual hunger for the Word of God. When Paul is preaching there in Acts 19:20, it says they are gathering all day long just to hear the Word of God. And over time it is possible to be committed to the Scripture just so you can learn to discern truth from error and use the Scripture as a weapon to kind of defeat other people in intellectual, philosophical, moral, or, you know,

B (24:13)

it becomes a matter of debate as opposed to a matter of the heart.

A (24:16)

Yeah. Or coming to the Word of God primarily to nourish your soul. It's possible, like the Ephesian Church here, to always be on a quest of purifying, you know, and maintaining sound doctrine that you don't just come to it and say, lord, feed me, feed me. So I think a hunger for the word of God. Secondly, there is in the Ephesian Church initially this fervent prayer. In Ephesians 6:11, Paul says, Always, always pray, always pray. And it sounds so basic, so rudimentary, so simple, but potentially neglected by the Ephesian Church because you can get fairly rhythmic in ministry and what that does is maybe cripple this dependence upon the Lord.

B (25:05)

Well, and maybe I would just say, like low hanging fruit. I was joking about this with my wife the other day. Joking like a serious topic, but realizing been wrestling with a decision at work for weeks and weeks and months and months. And then the practical question of, like, well, have we actually been praying about this in like a focused, measured, repeated way? It's so easy to say, yeah, I'm gonna pray about that.

A (25:27)

Can you actually make the assumption that you already think so biblically?

B (25:29)

Totally.

A (25:30)

You know, that you're going, you know, like, if I have clarity already.

B (25:34)

And there can be a huge gap between that intellectual reality and then time actually spent just abiding with the Lord

A (25:40)

in on your knees. Yeah. And that's like real communion with God.

B (25:45)

Yeah.

A (25:46)

Like you can be in the church and be, you know, serving other people. Now, the antidote to, you know, losing your first love isn't like, hey, stop serving until you feel a certain way yeah, because that's what a lot of people do. You know, I'm just going to take a back seat. I'm going to take a little bit of a break. No, Jesus says, hey, do the deeds you did at first, so keep serving, but preach the gospel to yourself. Be fervent in prayer. It says in Ephesians 1:15, Paul says, For this reason, I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ which exists among you and your love for all the Saints. So that's 40 years earlier. There was this third idea here of a love for God's people. Do the deeds you did at first. What's that? You love the people of God, but over time you can almost become more callous towards each other. If you've been a part of a church community like I have, where people have been at that church for a long time, you can just begin to kind of see the worst in people. Right. Like right now, you know, one of the things I love about our church is so many people at our church are new. Right?

B (26:40)

Like there's a freshness that comes with

A (26:42)

that, like deep seated bitterness towards anybody. But in 40 years, in 20 years, 30 years, kids have grown up together. You see people, you know everything about them. You see their weaknesses.

B (26:53)

Familiarity can breed contempt.

A (26:55)

Yeah. It is quite possible, according to the scripture, to be theologically rigorous and personally affectionate. But many at, you know, many times people are personally affectionate or lacking theological rigorous or theologically rigorous and stale and cold towards one another. So I think that was a big one. 4. When Jesus says, Do the deeds you did at first, this is again the prescription he gives to a cold heart evangelistic zeal. You can be. That's one of the things that marked the Ephesian church. You can be so busy battling air and protecting your church that you forget that the church is not on defense trying to keep Satan out of your backyard. The church is on offense. And Jesus says the gates of hell will not prevail. But one of the things that inevitably happens is a church just tries to keep the world, the flesh and the devil out of their church, is they become cold and callous. And what God does when he fills our hearts with a burden to proclaim the gospel is it sensitizes us to his spirit, makes us dependent, makes us love others. Right. But I think they had begun to stop to do this over time.

B (28:03)

Yeah, well, that again, I don't mean to just like constantly be the foil, but it's so personally convicting because in a time where you're raising young kids there. There's so much thoughtfulness that goes to like, what are we putting in front of our children that we're trying to protect them from? But that. That isn't the end and end of itself. And so many times I'll find myself kind of getting towards a postural posture of defense as opposed to like, no, no, no. We're supposed to be taking the fight out into the world. And to your point, God's put us on offense.

A (28:30)

Yeah. Okay. Number five, do the deeds you did at first in Acts 19, transparent confession. You know, when a church is young, when a believer is young, there's no big deal of just communicating the depths of their corruption within their heart. Like, I'm a new believer. There's no expectations.

B (28:50)

They've been set free.

A (28:50)

They've been set free. Hey. And so in Acts 19, it says many of those who were, you know, came forward, they're confessing their practices. Those who practice magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone. And they're just saying, here's my sin. And the Ephesian church bonded over the reality that everyone was just coming together, saying, I'm a mess. Here's my sin. Here's the wickedness within my own heart. Over time, though, you've been in the church, you get this idea. People don't sin. You know, this is postured, this is plasticity. This is kind of like, that's not welcome here. Yeah, that's not. Yeah, yeah. It's not welcome here or it's not. No one here struggles. Right. And so when you do that, first of all, why do I. Why does it say to confess your sins to one another? Well, well, because when you confess your sins to one another, the other people within, you know, around you get to be champions of the grace of God in your life. And then it's just this constant, perpetual, vicious, recycling reminder that everybody here is the product of the grace of God self, ethically, but also progressively. But when you stop confessing your sin and you just kind of make the assumption that everyone has got their act together, then you start beginning to look at God's grace as a thing and not as this act active reality through the power of God's spirit that keeps everybody humble. And I think that's one of the things that was missing in this church.

B (30:04)

And it just makes me think of the garden we were created. What? To be in union with one another, with God. And then sin enters the scene. It separates and creates this barrier. And practically for the Christian who's had their sins paid for, though sin continues to create that division and that breakup. And so it's not surprising when you phrase it like that. That. Yeah, that would start to calcify an otherwise, like, beating heart and start to render it a little more ineffective, for sure.

A (30:30)

So Jesus gives him this warning, you know, but I have this against you. I mean, that's serious. That's not like, hey, I've got this little bump in the road.

B (30:37)

Would you consider, I'm against this.

A (30:39)

I'm against you. He says, you've left your first love. Now read verse six for me.

B (30:46)

Yet this. You do have that.

A (30:49)

Yeah. Read six and seven. Yeah.

B (30:50)

That you hate the deeds of the nickelodeons.

A (30:53)

Nicolaitans.

B (30:54)

Nicolaitans. Which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is the paradise of God.

A (31:04)

And then back in verse five, he says, do the deeds you did at first. And then there's this warning, and it goes with what you just said. He says, or else I am coming to you and remove your lampstand. I'll remove your lampstand out of its place unless you repent. Now, what does he mean when he says, I'll remove your lampstand? Does it mean that a Christian can lose their salvation?

B (31:22)

Yeah, I prefaced this earlier. Unpack. Maybe what that actually means.

A (31:25)

No, it doesn't mean that you can lose your salvation. But you know what you can lose? Your influence, your effectiveness for the gospel. Shine bright or die. He's saying, you love me or your usefulness for the gospel, for my glory, for my sake, will be rendered ineffective. You know, one of the things, this is the dynasty of churches in the first century. You know what church exists in Ephesus today? None. There's no church in Ephesus today. You give the gospel away or you lose it. You love the Lord Jesus Christ, and that love and that passion, that affection for Jesus ripples to the next generation. If it's just this mechanical going through the motions, the church doesn't. It won't continue. That's why Psalm 145 says that one generation shall allude your works to another. Not just train, not just teach. It's laud. Now, this is one of the sad things, because this church, maybe initially they heeded the warning of God, but within a few centuries, we don't know there's no church there. Theologically astute, but lackluster in their love for God. You know, going back to the story we told at the beginning. The night before the 1986 Challenger launched, there was a group of contractors from Morton Thiokai, they wrote NASA telling them that these elastic O rings were not designed for the cold temperatures and that the entire mission was in danger. And sadly, the message, the letter, was not heeded. It was ignored. And the question for everybody today, you know, listening to this, obviously God's spirit works through God's word to convict us is, are we going to heed the message? Jesus says, listen, you can have everything right on the surface. You can be diligent, you can be discerning, you can be persevering. But unless you have the most important thing that renders the mission of your life and the mission of your church ineffective. And what's the most important thing? It's a simple love for God. A simple love for God. That's the first and greatest commandment. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. God does not speak to us audibly today. He speaks to us through his Word. And through his word, he just asks us that question, do you really love me?

B (33:33)

It's a helpful question. I appreciate you taking some time to unpack it. So thanks for this afternoon, Johnny.

A (33:38)

Yeah, thanks, Hank.