Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast, where we are all about providing sound doctrine for everyday people. My name is Kosti Hinn, and I have the pleasure of being your host. And on today's episode, I want to talk about first love. As in the kind of first love we have for Jesus when we first get saved, and then it fades over time. We start going through the motions. And I believe this is a good and healthy discussion for us to have and a concept for us to face so that we can always be renewing our minds and going back to first love mentality with God and asking ourselves hard questions. Is our love growing cold? Are we going through the motions? Is the Christian life becoming more of a checklist and a checkbox than a burning, passionate desire to follow Jesus? For this topic, I want to turn our attention to the book of Revelation, chapter two, verses one to seven, where the phrase first love comes from and where we get the idea of losing your first love. So let me read the passage to you, and then we'll walk through it with some helpful applications. If you're listening to this in the car or maybe on a jog or at the gym, hey, just keep on going. I'll read and walk you through the text. But if you are just sitting there at your house and listening to this, grab your Bible, and if you have a chance, let's study it together. Revelation chapter two, verses one to seven. To the angel of the church in Ephesus, right, the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot endure evil men. And you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false, and you have perseverance, and you have endured, for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary, but this I have against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent, and do the deeds you did at first, or else I'm coming to you, and I will remove your lampstand out of its place, unless you repent. Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaatians, 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 in the paradise of God. That's Jesus talking. And all but dead, the beloved disciple John is sitting on a ten by six mile island called Patmos. He's in the middle of the Aegean Sea where that island is, still there today, thirty-seven miles from Miletus. He's sidelined in a cell like some political exile. His co-apostles have all been pretty much martyred. John writes a beautiful letter about the end of all things. That is the book of Revelation. This is a vision, direct revelation from God. And in splendor, Jesus comes to him essentially saying about this beautiful letter, John, my beloved disciple, get your pen for the final time. I've got last things to say to the church. And in there we find this message to the church at Ephesus. Now, in verse one, it's the angel of the church in Ephesus, and you have the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walking among seven golden lampstands. You might think, well, what is all that? Basically, Jesus is centered in the middle of seven lampstands. And that is, they are the churches. Everything revolves around him. He walks among them, he observes their actions, their motives, their thoughts, their outcomes. He is watching what he loves with an invested interest. Jesus is watching the church today and building the church today. The word there to the angel of the church at Ephesus, a word that means messenger or church leader. And so many scholars agree that John is writing to a messenger or church leader who's going to read this out loud to the church in Ephesus, a real church, a real place, a message from God. Now the church at Ephesus was pretty significant. We have Paul visiting on his second missionary journey in Acts 18, verses 19 to 21. The church at Ephesus evangelized along with Priscilla, Achilla, Apollos there. The third journey, Paul goes on his missionary journey. He helps establish the church there for two years. Timothy oversaw the church after Paul. Paul's team labors there. John was leading Ephesus and writes to them. And first through third John is historically believed to be addressed to many of the Christians at Ephesus. Ephesus as a city is highly important. It's in Asia Minor. Many historians believe the population to be pretty accurately about 250,000 people there, which is significant at that time. It was a hub for athletics and arts, economy, trade, worship. The seventh wonder of the world, the Temple of Artemis, was there. They were passionate about their festival to the goddess and to their culture. The church at Ephesus was perfectly positioned to make a difference in their community around them with the gospel. So it mattered that they could discern and point out false prophets and evil deeds, but also burn with evangelistic passion and a love for Christ because they're in the middle of such darkness. That is where we find ourselves when we think about the church at Ephesus. The first thing that John points out, really Jesus is pointing out, is in verse 2 it's it's your faithful deeds. He says, I know your deeds, your toil, and your perseverance. You don't endure evil men. You put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not. Basically, this church is really good at discernment. They're really good at living out the Christian life in the sense that you are to call out error and point out the truth. You're to discern wolves and keep dangerous people away from the people of God. The church, you could say, was hitting all their performance goals in the right way. They were disciplining evil deeds. They even tested what was taught. So they were really good at weighing everything against Scripture. People were kept accountable. They obeyed Paul's final orders and John's advice on discernment. Acts 20, verse 28. Paul had told the elders there, be on guard for yourselves and all the flock. They were. Jesus says, You have perseverance. You've endured for my name's sake, and you haven't grown weary. So they were patient, they didn't give up, they stayed the course while other people abandoned the faith. This is a job well done for the name of Jesus. And in verse six, he also commends them because they hated the deeds of the Nicolaitians, which he also hates, God not taking lightly the deeds of these so-called Nicolaitians. So Ephesus excelled at standing up against false doctrines, but they also stood against false deeds. That's the idea here. There were people who were like Nico, the root word conquer, and Nicolacians or laity, these are like lay people. A lot of scholars believe these were power mongers. They were people who were dominating and controlling the people. They were lording their church authority over people. They were saying things maybe like today, I'm more anointed, I'm the big shot here. This is my church. They were abusive, spiritual, so-called spiritual leaders. And so a lamp stand burning bright. Ephesus was a church contagious with a passion for Christ and reaching souls with the truth. They were protecting the people of God, they were strong on doctrine. So what was the issue? Well, they started that way. But second, outside of their faithful deeds, was their faded devotion. In verse 4, Jesus says, But I have this against you that you left your first love. This is a divine indictment. Your your agape devotion, your unconditional love and passion has turned from unconditional affection into routine religion. This is what Jesus is saying to them. You've gone from being like a church planter, passionate, you're gonna save everybody in the city, to a church preventer. Your passion, your lampstand, your lights have gone out. Where is it? And so suddenly the one Jesus who sees into the hearts of his people sees a heart condition. Perhaps identifying how those early years of conversion and the church plant there at Ephesus and the explosive passion for the Lord had grown into doctrinal maturity and they were doing awesome, but then their devotion had grown cold. You who are listening, you remember the dating phase if you're married? Oh, you you'd get a haircut if you're a guy or a gal, you'd do your hair, you'd pick the right restaurant ahead of time. Some of you guys would get your car detailed, you'd spray cologne on everything, you'd make sure you brushed your teeth and you took a shower and you're looking all proper, you smell good, you look good, you're clean. You'd get you'd get go to the gas station, make sure you had enough gas in the car. So when you pick her up, you got a full tank and you're able to drive to where you're gonna go. You got the right playlist, maybe you did a burnt CD if you're old like me, and you've got the right songs on there, and you think of all the heart emojis flying all over the place, and you're excited, you want to marry her, and you go all out to prepare yourself for this one. It's all the early dating phase, the courtship phase, or what many will call when you get married the honeymoon phase. Then we get married, we get comfortable, and your passionate love leads to procreation, as it should. And you get babies, and then all of a sudden you got babies and you got a lot going on, and so yeah, forget date night, and you just sort of focus on the kids, you're paying the bills, you go to church, you barely talk, you zone out on Netflix, and then oops, you know, was that our wedding anniversary yesterday? I don't know. Oh, I think it was like fading marital romance. Jesus for Ephesus had become a routine. And we do this today. We like some Jesus, we sing some Jesus, we serve some Jesus, we we want our kids to know Jesus, let's make sure they know him. But what happened to all of that passion for Jesus motivated by our time spent with Jesus? We forget why we do what we do. We stop pushing forward for more of the Lord, like our conversion days. You know, prayer for us when we get into that loss of first love is like turning the same song on repeat. It's old news. Time in the Word is more, you know, check, I did my one year reading Bible plan, I'm good. And we lose that edge, we lose that drive and that passion. Warren Wearsby, wonderful theologian and commentator, writes this. What is first love? It is the devotion to Christ that so often characterizes the new believer. Fervent, personal, uninhibited, excited, openly displayed, it is the honeymoon. And while it's true that mature married love deepens and grows richer, it's also true that it should never lose the excitement of those honeymoon days. When a husband and wife begin to take each other for granted and life becomes routine, then the marriage is in danger. The Ephesian believers were so busy maintaining their separation that they were neglecting adoration. He says labor is no substitute for love, neither is purity a substitute for passion. The church must have both if it is to please him. What appropriate words for your fated devotion, my fated devotion, the church at Ephesus, their fated devotion. So finally Jesus puts in front of them a final decision. They got faithful deeds, they got fated devotion, and as gracious as ever, the Lord gives them a final decision. He calls them to make a clear decision. He says in verse 5, Remember therefore, so because of all that, remember where you have fallen from. The original language here reads, the heights you have fallen from. Remember the times when nothing came between you and me. Remember the times where you couldn't stop talking about the Lord and you constantly want to spend time with the Lord in his word and in prayer. And he says there in verse five, repent, go back and do the deeds you did at first. The word repent means a total 180. Go back, do a U-turn. Those deeds, that toil and that labor, the derivative of this word, like a vine dresser, a farmer, a busybody. So you put all that together, and what is he saying? Go back and cultivate your love for me the way you used to. Go back, pull the weeds, trim the branches, clean it up, get focused. Remember the way that we used to spend time together. There is here a divine threat, or else. Jesus says, or else I am coming to you, and I will remove your lampstand out of its place unless you repent. How gracious. He says it again, one more time, unless you repent, as if to remind them this is the threat, but but repent. You know, why do marriages fail? Because we make mistakes? No. They fail because we go we don't cultivate the love that allows us to overlook and forgive each other's mistakes when we repent, when we lay ourselves down before one another, when we love one another. Any marriage can survive any mistake if both individuals are humble, repentant, and forgiving before one another. How do you get those traits in your marriage? You've got to cultivate love for one another. Well, the same thing with our devotion to Christ. Why does devotion to Christ fade? Because we stopped cultivating love for him. So he calls Ephesus, go back. Isn't it amazing? Within just a few decades, that's about the timeline here. The mighty Ephesus went from world-changing ministry to threats of removal from Jesus Himself. Why? Because a church that loses its love loses its light. You and I are on planet Earth to be a light for Christ. You and I are not here for ourselves. And so it's not, oh, what did you do 10 years ago? Oh, what's what's that one time you gave money to poor orphans? Or oh, remember that one time you used to serve? Oh, remember that one time you alluded to the gospel? No. It's not, it's not for them, quote. It's not for your kids. Oh, you know, I send my kids to to Iwana. I send my kids to VBS every summer. You know, I send them to places where people give them the Bible. I'm a good parent. No, it's your burning love for Jesus, you filling up on him and then overflowing to others, your family, the body of Christ around you, your neighbors, your community. Ephesus for God. It's not just about doctrine and defending against wolves. I think that's humbling and sobering for all of us. It's not just about discernment, although you never can be or should be. Without that, it's not just a passive defense against threats, it's a proactive movement forward, taking back ground, sharing the gospel, pressing into new territory, if you will, spiritually speaking, because we are filled with the spirit. We are passionate about Jesus. We're not just trying to protect the church from evil, we're trying to save the lost through Christ. Jesus says, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches in verse 7. To him who overcomes, I'll grant to eat the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. Do you have ears? Do I have ears? Yes. So this passage speaks to everyone. Ephesus serves as an example to us today of God's warning, but also God's grace. If you're a believer, you're an overcomer. If you open up your spiritual wallet, so to speak, you check that ID, you're his. And so the call here is if you're his, love him like it. And go back to first love. So how do you know if you're a first love kind of person right now? Let me give you four marks to close out this episode. First, well, number one, first love people are marked by a contagious passion for Jesus. I remember at a membership breakfast once with new members at our church in California, I was illustrating about the way uh, you know, a restaurant served their pizza. It was, I was talking about pizza dough briefly, just in some of the small talk before the membership class, sharing my excitement about a restaurant. And I I had never been to the restaurant before. I had researched it, I had planned to go. And so based on the reviews I was sharing, yeah, I saw this restaurant and heard about this and heard about that, apparently this. Well, a few weeks later, before I had even been to the restaurant yet, eight people, eight, I remember counting, had told me they went. Really funny illustration, but a sobering example and lesson. You know, a pizza joint, a little bit of excitement, sent people to it, just based on what I was saying, according to research and reviews on Yelp. Well, when's the last time my excitement over Jesus spilled over into somebody else's cup and sent them running to him? How does an example like that stir up my desire to be a witness for Christ? You know, sure, go ahead and share good tips about good food, but how much more if we share our excitement over the good news, will it press into people's minds and into their hearts and push them, or maybe an existing Christian who is stirred up by your love for the Lord and suddenly they want to read, they want to pray, and they remember where they have fallen from. Next, first love people are marked by a confessional life of repentance. If you have a credit card, it should cause you some anxiety when you don't pay it off. And when the list gets long and we've got a lot of charges that we haven't paid off, we are not maintaining good credit habits. Well, this is the idea of keeping short accounts. A helpful illustration when we think of our marriages, our church, and our relationship with God. That we confess sin. We don't let the account grow long. We're not indifferent towards the quote charges that are racking up, just sinning and not ever really talking to the Lord about it or going, ah, his grace covers whatever. No. First love passion is set ablaze when you confess quickly, when you squash offenses, when you keep communication channels open with God and ongoing. God loves relationship with his people and repentance will rekindle first love. So are you fading in your first love? Check your life, check your heart, check your prayer life, and check your confession. Are there things you are holding on to and you are sinning repeatedly about or in or with, and you're not taking those things to the Lord and getting honest with him about it? Rekindle first love and repent. Third, first love people are marked by a commission focus for souls. You know, Ephesus in its church plant mentality was world-changing. Why? Because they were innovative, because they were this, that, the other. No, because they were always just trying to save people. They they see people as an opportunity to go from zero to hero, if you will, in discipleship. They're thinking, man, this person is sinful, they're lost, they're in idolatry. Let's preach Christ to them and watch him grow them. There is about a hundred percent chance that if you're not kindling first love with Christ, you're probably not seeing others through the eyes of Christ. The more you love him, the more you know him, the more you know him, the more you become like him, and vice versa. The more that you get to know him, the more you love him, the more you love him, the more you want to be like him. It's an ecosystem in the relationship with Christ. Well, what's the result? Well, how can you not share Christ, his love, the gospel? We remember and we return. To the deeds we did at first, sharing the gospel with everyone around us. And finally, first love people are marked by a commitment to enduring faith. Peter loved Jesus so much that he believed he could walk on water. Okay, no one is asking you to drown here, but when's the last time you let your love for Christ influence your faith and your decision making? What are you excited about to endure with, or even to pioneer and to press forward? What I mean by enduring, or even a pioneering faith, is not being complacent, never being satisfied with the status quo. So I would ask, is the way you're living your life and serving Christ requiring a great deal of faith, or are you on cruise control? Are you giving up constantly or are you pressing forward in enduring faith? Because real faith lasts. Real faith endures. What are the risks you're willing to take? What are the conversations you're willing to have? What are the sacrifices you're willing to make? Because your first love for the Lord keeps exploding out of you. And so you're in a way what I would call contagiously crazy about Jesus. You actually believe that he'll be with you when you step out in faith and share the gospel, when you step out and give towards the gospel, when you step out and serve, when you open up your mouth or your hands to serve his gospel work. That is first love overflowing. And you know that's what they did at Ephesus? That's what Paul was doing. That's what made Priscilla and Achilla, quote, risk their neck for the Apostle Paul in their gospel work. It's what made Barnabas crazy. It's what made Timothy go to Ephesus, what Titus go to Crete. These were New Testament heroes, sure, but they were normal people like you and I, living out an enduring, passionate, pioneering faith because they really did love Jesus and they believed that he was the Son of God. I love an illustration that I read about once. There was a race during the Olympic Games in ancient Greece. It was called the torch race. It's where we get the modern practice of carrying the torch from country to country as they light the flame for each new Olympic Games. And though we no longer practice the race part, in the ancient version, teams would light a torch and cross distances in a relay race, trying to be the first to make it across the finish line. But in this race, you didn't win by being the fastest team or the strongest team, or even the team with the fanciest torch, like some of those torches that they make today for the Olympic Games. How did you win the original torch race? It was the team who crossed the finish line with their flame still lit. See, many's flame will go out. Many people's light will fade. Many people will start off like Ephesus, fade into a lackluster devotion to Christ, if no devotion at all, perhaps. Well, a passage like Revelation 2, 1 through 7 is the call to all of us. When it's all said and done, is your flame still lit? If it's fading, will you look to Christ who will ignite it? Your life burning ablaze once again, once more, for his glory. My prayer is that this episode will challenge you to ask those questions and face those questions, and perhaps even today or even right now falling to your knees, bowing your head and talking to the Lord about the account that has grown, your sin unconfessed, or your fading devotion. He can turn it around. So look to him for a rekindling of your first love. Thank you all for listening to the For the Gospel podcast and for your support for free video teachings to learn from or share. 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