Keep Focused On Jesus Always As First

WOLFL-2024-04

Transcript

 Thanks for connecting me. That’s like when you know your prayers are getting through. Finally, you pray and pray and pray, and then all of a sudden you know that you’re connected to the Lord. It sure is fun to meet you. Did you know it’s easier when there’s so many less of you than normal? It’s easier to get around and find you. But it’s early and you guys I’m admire you for being here and being ready and going. Do you go five hours to just like they do in New York? You have five straight hours? Wow. You’re sleepy at the beginning and sleepy at the end and sleepy in the middle. That means next hour is my best shot, right? First hour you’re struggling and last hour.

We’re going to be in chapter two. It’s a big transition. We’re going from the island of Patmos to Jesus actually visiting the churches. Now, what I want you, right now, I’m going to just walk around because I want you to think about what it was like to those people realizing when they got the letter that Jesus had come and visited their town and they didn’t know it. It was amazing for them that all of a sudden, they realized, as they heard this letter read to them, that He actually had been there, He knows about them, He knows what’s going on in their life, He had seen them. Now all of us have someone that we deeply admire, like a coach, or a counselor. I remember my school counselor, that always, when I was in high school, public schools, and would always come up and say, there’s a new opportunity, are you interested in it? And I got to do these fantastic things, travel to conferences that, like the Rotary Club, or the Kiwanis Club, or I don’t even remember, the Elks Club, would pay for! When you’re a poor kid, and they’re going to pay, and I never knew about those things except this counselor told me.

I really liked my counselor. I loved my youth pastor. He challenged me all the time. My pastor was, of the church I attended, was great. I had some teachers that were great. They just taught me things I didn’t, I’d never heard before. They taught me ways to study. All of us have someone we deeply admire, and we don’t want to disappoint them. And we look up to them and it’s almost when they come in the room, we sit up. Maybe they’re a dear friend or a relative or whoever they are, and when they talk to us, we look at them. See that, that idea is what Jesus was reminding them of. He says that’s what I want to be. I want to be your favorite coach. I want to coach your spiritual life. I want to be your favorite teacher. I want to teach you things that, that will amaze you. I want to be the one you want to emulate. If there’s something you’re going into, there’s probably an expert in that field that you look at and you go, wow. If I could be a mechanic like them, or a programmer like them, or a cook like them, or a doctor, you hear about these doctors that can do surgery that no one else can do, they can sew things up. Jesus said, I want to be all that. I want to be the coach. I want to be the counselor. I want to be the person you emulate, the person that is your idol. Wow. And they all found out that person came to their church. That’s what’s going on.

This is the first report. And the reason I’m taking time telling you this is, we’re changing gears here. This is actually the most fascinating part of the book of Revelation because this is how Jesus looks at us sitting here today. He actually looks with these eyes of love. He looks like the coach that says I know exactly how to make your game of life the best possible, and I want to help you. I’m alongside of you. See that’s, these are the reports.

Now a little bit, it’s like a doctor. Now you guys aren’t old enough yet to be going to doctors much, Bruce and I do, but the rest of you don’t. When the doctor comes in and just has his iPad and talks, it’s not bad. When the doctor sits on that little stool and he doesn’t look at you, he rolls up to you. Have you got, you have been in the doctor’s office, right? That little gown they make you wear that doesn’t close in the back. It’s really embarrassing. All those things they do when you go to the doctor’s office. When he rolls up on a stool and looks up into your eyes and said, I got the results of the test. Your heart starts sinking. See that there’s a power a doctor has over you because he knows what’s going on inside your body. And usually, they can tell you things that can devastate you. You know, that you have elevated whatever, or you have a tumor of some kind. You understand what I mean? Maybe your parents have gone through that or a brother or sister. In a real sense, that’s what Jesus is doing. In this letter, He’s coming as a cardiologist, as a heart doctor, and He’s looking at these churches and saying, you have a heart problem.

Let’s pray and ask for Lord’s blessing, and then we’re going to dive in for our hour. Father in Heaven, I pray that by Your Spirit, Your Word would penetrate our hearts, and that we would look at You, Lord Jesus, like our doctor that’s telling us what’s going on inside of us, like our coach that’s telling us what we’re doing wrong, that’s hindering our game. Like our best friend who’s honest with us. And I pray that we would want to seek You first and grow in our ability to seek You first every day of our life. For Jesus sake we pray, amen.

This is the audience of Revelation. You see them on the screen. These are the people that got this letter. These are the ones Jesus directed all this attention to. This is where He visited. We know where Jesus was in about 95 AD. He was walking around those seven churches and visiting them one at a time and looking at each individual while they didn’t notice Him even there. He’s at the first one. Ephesus, it’s just off the, Patmos is just off the coast, and He starts there first, does His visit, then He comes back and reports to the Apostle John. Now this is what He gave them. Can you believe, to a group of people that were suffering, that were dealing with materialism, that were dealing with persecution, that were dealing with martyrdom. One of the churches we’re going to, Antipas was a faithful martyr. They’re already dying for Christ in this time period, and He sends them a prophecy chart? Have you ever heard that…, what’s Revelation for?

What do we need all that for? Makes you not focus on the Earth, you’re thinking about Heaven all the time. That is a criticism. I told you yesterday that the Reformers wouldn’t teach this book. They wouldn’t. In fact, to this day, you go to an Episcopalian church, or a Lutheran church, probably to most Methodist churches, Presbyterian churches, Roman Catholic, they don’t cover Revelation. They don’t teach through it. In fact, most Baptist churches, except now everybody wants to because of what’s going on in the news, prophecy is popular right now, but normal church life doesn’t usually include Revelation in the majority of churches. Now there are a few and they are really into it. You all know those, and, but the rest aren’t yet.

Why did Jesus send a prophecy chart? Why does He send the most detailed information about the future because He knows what we’re like. Do you guys remember when you were little in the car and your dad or mom would load you in and maybe you’re strapped into your car seat? What’s the first thing that happens as soon as, dad hasn’t even started the car yet, where are we going? Do you remember asking when are we going to get there? We, Bonnie and I, have eight wonderful children I have heard thousands of times. Where are we going? We had not even lifted the garage door yet and they’re saying, when are we going to get there? How much longer? Do you understand there’s this inside us desire to know where we are, where we’re headed, when we’re going to get there, what’s going on. That’s why Jesus sent this.

Did you know that you, your life changes when you know right where you fit? Do you see where you fit? You’re the Church on Earth. You are the body of Jesus Christ, the people He died for, that we have become His temple. He lives inside of us. He actually lives His life outward through us. And He said, I want you to know, that’s where you are, and I’m visiting you. I’m tracking with you. I know what’s going on in your life. It’s like the teacher that always is coming and looking at how you’re doing with the assignment or with the test or whatever. That feeling you get that they’re watching, that’s what Jesus was showing them. And then He showed them what’s coming in the future.

Now, what we’re looking at today are these letters. And by the way, all of them have the same pattern. It’ll get old after a while because I’m going to read them out loud. You’ll hear these same statements; to the church at, and there’s a city that the Lord picked. Now, He didn’t pick all the churches. We know already all these churches were in this area, because you’ve already read the book of Acts, you’ve had that class, you’re the ones that had the new teacher, not Chris, and he was great. You know all those hard, long names of those cities. Paul was there planting churches, Antioch and Pisidia, and Lystra and Derbe and all. None of those, you notice, are in this list. Why? Because the Lord picked seven representative churches, and He bypasses others. He goes to Laodicea and He doesn’t mention Hierapolis or Colossae, who are all right next to it. It’s like the Tri City area. So, he skips them, because he had a complete message.

When He hit these seven churches, He hit every type of Christian that there’s going to be throughout all the ages because this letter was written for God’s servants. We covered that yesterday. That’s the opening in chapter 1, which God sent His servants. It’s His servants right then in the seven churches that represented all the churches of the day and His servants all the way through time and us.

Then there’s the chosen name. Jesus gives some of His titles every time and He mixes them up. Some He’s already mentioned, chapter 1, some are brand new. Then there’s His accommodation. And He says something good about them. Isn’t that nice? That’s what comes first, even in the worst churches He does say something nice. For one thing, He calls them a church. He calls them His children, His blood bought saints that are His own. He finds something, a commendation for every church. Some more than others. And then His concern. And that’s when He says, usually, never the less. And then comes His exhortation. He never leaves them with, you’re not doing right. He says, this is how you get out. Jesus always gives us an escape route or a restart.

How to… I was telling someone on the end, which one of you was the electronista? Let’s see, I remember, I don’t know. I was talking. I don’t know where you went, but I was talking to you on the way in. I said, sometimes my phone gets so bad, do you know what I have to do? I have to restart it. And it seems to come back to the way it used to be, that’s the restart. You probably don’t do that because you’re young, but for old people, we restart our iPads and our phones, so they go back to the way we remember them. The reset. That’s what Jesus does. That’s what He calls His exhortation. How to reset your life back to the way I designed you to be. And then, the next one is His promise and that you could harvest. They’re always to overcomers.

Now, let me ask you. What’s an overcomer? Are there two kinds of Christians the not overcomers, like the under livers or the underdogs or whatever the opposite of overcomer would be? The undergoer or something like that? What is an overcomer? Have you guys covered 1 John yet? Is that one of your books you’ve studied? The whole book of 1 John defines, in fact, that’s the highest amount of overcomer teaching in the Bible, is in the Epistle of 1 John, the five chapters. Here’s what an overcomer is. A born again Christian. You say, what? Yeah. Who’s he that overcomes the world but he that believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God? Who believes Jesus is the Christ, Son of God? A Christian. And this is the faith that overcomes the world, even the Lord Jesus Christ, risen from the dead. Who is an overcomer? Those who believe in the resurrection, those who believe in the deity of Christ, those that have been born again. Who is an overcomer? An overcomer is a Christian.

But yet, in our minds, what do we think an overcomer is? A super Christian. And that’s where we are today. You want to talk about the problem in Christendom today? Most people think there’s two kinds of Christians, people think of those as overcomers and then there’s us. And I’m struggling memorizing my verses, and I’m struggling reading my Bible, and I’m struggling witnessing to people. I’m not an overcomer. I’m a normal. Isn’t that how, in your mind, think about how you look at it at your home church. There are these Christians, they like walk on water and then there’s the rest of us. Yet, that’s not how God sees us. He sees us all the same, that we’re all overcomers. Some are just not following. They need the reset of their phone. They’re using their phone as a paperweight or a hammer instead of as a phone, as a digital device. And He gives that promise, if you live out all that you are in Christ.

And then, His challenge which is interesting. Every church, singular, has a challenge that ends with, he that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the…, and what’s the last word? It’s plural, isn’t it? And that’s a reminder, that even though the message was targeted toward one geographic place, that local church, the implications of it go to all the churches.

Let’s do Ephesus, real quickly. Jesus designed our physical and spiritual DNA, and Jesus tracks our spiritual disciplines. Verse 1, to the angel of the church at Ephesus. Jesus knew every one of those people in a way like no one else knows. He knew, from Psalm 139, Jesus knew their DNA that He designed for who they were. You understand your DNA, they’re learning more about it all the time, it has everything about you. At conception, there were all these little switches clicked that’s going to tell whether you have wonderful, thick, full hair, or very thin hair. I have thin, like invisible hair, and some of you have this wiry, or you have light colored red. All of the…, your eye color, your, the structure of your face, your body type, whether you’re a mesomorph or an ectomorph or whatever we are. All of those things were in that coil, designed by God.

So, He knew them physically, but He knows them spiritually. Notice what He says, these things, says He, who holds the seven stars. Now in chapter 1 I didn’t mention it, but the stars and the lampstands. There’s two things going on in each of these churches. The stars is the messenger. He’s called the angel. And there are some people that think that there are guardian angels over every church. Now, in a sense, Hebrews 1 says that. It doesn’t say over every church, it says over every saint. Did you know Hebrews 1 says, angels are ministering spirits sent to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation. You have an angel that’s been guarding you before you got saved and protecting you until you got saved. That’s what Hebrews 1 says, but I’m not teaching Hebrews, but that’s what the angels are.

That’s probably not what the star thing is, this is not an angel. There was a literal human, and Paul had established and ordained in every church, elders. Remember he did that everywhere he went. That’s, you covered that in Acts in that class with a good teacher, Acts 14:23 says that, and he ordained elders in every church. Jesus said I’m ordaining apostles, and He did. He picked 12. Then He said, My church is going to be overseen not by apostles, but by local men that meet these qualifications. Remember 1 Corinthians 3, Titus 1, tells what they look like. And they become the teaching shepherds of the church. Usually there’s a plurality, there never is a singular. It’s always a plural of these elders. Now in our churches, I’m an ordained Baptist minister. Usually, one of the elders is called a pastor and all the rest are called what? Deacons. That’s the normal form. But in the Bible, the Bible calls those that lead the church and teach the church. It calls them by three names, elder, pastor, overseer. Those three and there are three separate Greek words, but they’re all used for the same person. There’s an element of them that is a leader thing. And there’s an element of them that is a teaching thing and there’s an element of them that oversees stuff like the affairs of the church, but those are the stars. It says in Ephesians 4 that God gives to every church, pastors and teachers and that’s a gift. These men were the ones He gave to these churches and they’re the ones that got the letter. See, someone has to open the mail. Someone’s in charge. And this person got the letter from the Apostle John on Patmos to read to Ephesus. And Jesus, after that star, that messenger, that pastor that Jesus holds, got the letter, look what it says.

This says, He who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands, plural again. That, we already know from verse 20 of chapter 1 are the churches. It’s the church and the pastor. It’s the congregation and the teaching leader. Now look, this is something that fascinates me. Jesus planted His greatest church in the shadow of the greatest satanic spot on Earth at that, the temple at Ephesus. How much do you know from history? This is one of the, this is the third of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

This is number three. I’ll just read to you about it. Jesus wrote to this church. In the center of the city, Ephesus, 10 stories high, taking up an entire city block. That’s why it was a wonder of the world, it was so big, it was the largest building built in the ancient world. Not the largest structure, the pyramids were larger, the Great Wall of China has a lot more blocks of stone in it. This was the largest building they ever built in the ancient world. It was an entire city block. You ever go to a city? Imagine a building that fills an entire block. 100 feet high columns. This thing was overwhelming. It was just amazing. It was the temple of Diana or Artemis, the Greek name she had. It was completely covered and overlaid with pure gold. It stood in the sun directly in the center of the city and it became the number three of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

So that sounds beautiful, doesn’t it? Isn’t it? It’s pretty. That’s what one archeologist says it looked like, with all the steps going up and everything else. But listen to what it really was. In and around Diana’s temple, prostitutes, both men and women, lured people for unbridled immorality because the worship of Diana was, she was the goddess of sex and fertility. And hundreds of temple prostitutes were always on the grounds to promote unrestrained and free indulgence of the flesh. But Ephesus was also a magnet, not just for the sexually enslaved, but it was the center of black arts, witchcraft, superstition, and all the powers of Satan. That’s why there was the riot. The people made these little shrine idols and sold them and the black arts and the magic books. All of those things I said fostered a culture of evil that promoted materialism and pride and occultism and sensuality. That’s why when Paul was there, he said all the powers of darkness and wickedness.

Remember in Ephesians 6, he told them about the spiritual armor in this city. He said, there are principalities and powers and rulers of the darkness of this world. And they were clustered around that building. And that’s where God chose to plant His most successful church. This was the biggest church in the ancient world. This, probably the reason the seven churches are listed is, Ephesus planted those seven churches. Ephesus was a church planting church. And so, from this church, outward, came all these other churches. What was Ephesus like? This miracle church? It was the longest ministry of Paul. He wrote more than two letters to them.

He wrote, of course he wrote the epistle to the Ephesians, but he also wrote to Timothy and two times. Timothy was the pastor of this church. But Paul possibly wrote other letters, not every letter Paul wrote is in the Bible, only the ones that are inspired. Paul wrote more than two letters to this place. They had the greatest revival, and we’re going to look at that in one minute. They were the largest church. When Eusebius of Caesarea wrote the first Church History in the 4th century, he said this is the largest church there was. They had 20,000 people.

Now, you’ve heard about, Thomas Road Baptist Church was huge under Falwell, the original, the older Falwell. And then there was Rick Warren who had the Saddleback Church. And then there was, what was his name? Oh, Jack Hyles was in Chicago back in the 70s that was a mega church. Then there was Hybels in Chicago that had a mega church. This was the original mega church. They were the first love church, we all know that, you’ve left your first love. But they got the most detailed words about spiritual warfare because of where the church was planted. They were planted in like a cross between New Orleans, Las Vegas, the worst part of Los Angeles and the worst part of New York city. And you put it all together and that’s what Ephesus was. And you know what Ephesus…, why Jesus writes to them first? Because they were the miracle church. They were the church that lived the Christian life to the extreme that we read about.

And for just a minute, I want to read to you from Acts 19. This is the bio of this church. And from that, Ephesus, this is what Ephesus was, and this is why Jesus comes and criticizes them. Number one, Ephesus was a church where Jesus was magnified. That’s in their origin in Acts 19. That’s first thing you’ll see. Then it was a place where God’s people, the more Jesus was magnified, they became consecrated. What does consecration mean? It’s like the Word of Life campfire where you dedicate and give to the Lord or tie, it used to be through a stick and then you tie a ribbon or whatever you do, it’s a saying, I’m all in. They said, we’re all in. And what happened is, God’s word prevailed in that church.

Let’s see the steps here. Here’s the first one with that small print, but I can read it. Now, 11 unusual miracles by the hands of Paul. Now, do you remember what Paul did? Paul didn’t burden people, he worked. He worked as a leather worker, a tent maker, actually the word means leather worker. Tents were made of leather, so he could have made tents too. They even had tents back then that they wore. They actually had one on their shoulder, it was like a rain tent and a sun protection. And they would wear this because they walked everywhere on these roads. Paul walked thousands of miles, so they had this, kind of balanced, it would strap on your shoulders, and it was like a combination between an umbrella and a rain bonnet and a protector from the sun. But he was gifted in that. But as he worked, look what it says, that even handkerchiefs or aprons brought from his body to the sick. Those two things are what leather workers had. They had the handkerchief because they were in un air conditioned stone buildings with the sun beating down, it was hot. He would wipe his head with his handkerchief, wipe his face, and he’d set it down, and he’d go back to work, and when he went back, it was gone. The apron thing was what they wore as a leather worker so they wouldn’t puncture themselves when they were taking those sharp tools. And he would take his apron off and set it on the workbench and go to lunch, and when he came back, it was gone. Where would it go? That even aprons or handkerchiefs brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them, and evil spirits went out of them.

Now that, notice what it says, unusual miracles. That’s unusual. Now do you remember when Peter would walk through the marketplace in Jerusalem? His shadow would do the same thing. It says in Acts, remember in Acts 5 all that was going on? Those are unusual miracles that were part of the birth of the Church. Verse 13, so some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call on the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits and saying, we exorcise you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches. And there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest who did so. Now, look at this. Verse 15. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?

Boy, that’s insightful. Demons know who you are. Of course, they know who Jesus is, they’re scared to death of Him. Demons know who you are. A demon can see that you’re a Christian, can see that the Holy Spirit lives inside of you. It’s very interesting. And if you’ve ever encountered a demonized person, and anybody that’s been in ministry very long has, when you encounter a demonized person, when the demon figures out who you are, the person changes and they look at you differently. They know who you are. They know who lives within us because the Bible says greater is He that lives in you than he that is in the world, so they see God. And the man, whom the evil spirit was, leaped on them, overpowered them, prevailed against them, so they fled out of that place naked and wounded. It’s sounds like one of these action movies where one guy takes down…, like Tom Cruise gets the whole biker gang or whatever, and just knocks them out. Only this was supernatural, this one person.

See, a demon produces supernatural strength inside of normal humans. Do you remember that? Gospel of Mark, chapter 5? There was a demonized guy that was so bad, they would take hammers and hammer shackles, iron shackles. And his arms, and they would put chains on him and hammer them on iron. And he would go like this and break them. He just pulled and would break. Do you know how hard it is to break a hammered iron thing off your wrist without tearing your hand off? And they had supernatural, what we would call, strength and would break the iron. That’s one of the men Jesus encountered in chapter 5 of the Gospel by Mark.

We see this demon power. Look at verse 17. This became known to all the Jews and Greeks dwelling in Ephesus. Boy, the word spread. Those seven running out of there with their clothes torn off of them and they’re all beaten and wounded. And fear fell on everybody in the city. Now look at the next part. I put it in yellow for you. And the name of Paul was magnified. Is that what it says? Does it say that? Yes, or no? Who is magnified? Christ. Do you see how different things are? Nowadays, when there’s a fantastic ministry, they say, I’m going to…, and they name the pastor’s church, because it’s a mega church. And they have great music, and they have great programs, and the name of the denomination, or the name of the church, or the name of the leader of the church is magnified. We have Christian superstars nowadays. We really do. And if you hear that superstar is playing, or speaking, oh, we go to it. Do you know what the Early Church had? It doesn’t even mention who the pastor of the church is. He’s just called the messenger. They magnified Christ. They talked, they said, these miracles, this growth, the largest church with 20, 000 people is not because of Timothy. It’s not because of Paul. By the way, who followed Paul and Timothy as a pastor? John. John was the pastor. The Apostle John from Patmos was the pastor of this church before they arrested him. Jesus was magnified.

When Jesus gets magnified, looks what happens in verse 18, the very next verse. And many who had believed, that’s the believers, came confessing and telling their deeds. They got shaken up by this demonized guy doing this and it was stirring through the city and many of those who practice magic still had their old junk from before they got saved. Do you catch what’s going on here? They’re confessing, I’m a Christian, but I haven’t completely separated from all this junk. I still have the old life junk. The magic stuff, the demon stuff, the stuff…

That reminds me. Do you know what those little statues, that they made, were? Do you know what Diana was? Diana, this goddess that’s in the temple in Ephesus. In the center of the temple there was a 30 to 40 foot high, a nude statue of Artemis. It was like 50 feet high, and you could get your own little pornographic copy of her. And these people had them. It was like the original pornography, only it was a statue. And look what they do. They brought out all this magic stuff and they brought out their books that they used to practice magic, and they burned them in the sight of all. You know what that means? God’s people are consecrated. You know what consecration is? It’s when you say, I don’t want any connection with things that lead me back to my old temptations. What the writer of Hebrews calls, the sins that so easily beset us. Hebrews says, lay aside, strip off all the sins that so easily beset us, that make you depressed, that make you feel defeated, that make us feel far from God, that make us feel like we’re not even a Christian. That’s what sin does. It makes us feel horrible. God’s people get consecrated.

By the way, it’s very costly. How much is 50,000 pieces of silver? One piece of silver was a day’s work. Most people work 250 days a year. Five day weeks, 50 weeks, two weeks’ vacation. 250 days. That is 200 years pay. What’s the average pay of an American right now? The average wage is about $22. That’s $44,000. And 200 years x $44,000 is like $8.8 million. That’s a huge amount of money. Do you know that was costly? You notice they didn’t sell them on eBay. That’s what people do They get rid of their old junk. They shouldn’t have it. They sell it on eBay If it’s anything about the occult or anything that is like this was, Satanic, they destroyed it. They wanted nothing to do with it.

That’s why I told you yesterday about that lady that was riding the subway that had her, she actually had the records, the early ones were the Beatles record and the Rolling Stones record and all that. She had them on her wall and she told me, she said, I destroyed them. I didn’t want to sell them because she said they were so tied to my sinful former life. That’s what consecration is.

And then look what happens when we go through this magnification of Christ and consecration of the believers, it unleashes the Word of God to do great things. Most churches, if they want to have a revival, it starts with getting the spotlight on Christ, getting the people living a holy life, and then the Lord just takes off. You want to do the greatest ministry for the Lord? Focus on Him, let Him show what we need to get rid of in our lives, and it unleashes Him.

Here’s the unleashing. Some of those who were hardened and did not believe but spoke evil of the way before the multitude, he departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus. This is the beginning of Paul’s teaching, deeply at the saints in Ephesus, verse 9. Now that word reasoning, you all know, I’ll say it in Greek. And see if you know the English word, Dia logizomai what does that sound like in English? Dia logizomai. Dialogue. You ever heard the word dialogue? Dia logizomai means to talk through something. Dialogue is not one sided, I am not dialoguing, I’m teaching. Yesterday, with that wonderful question in the back, we began a Dia logizomai. We talked through. That’s how Paul started training the Ephesians. They were all, during their lunch hour, they would come, and they would reason daily in the school of Tyrannus. And it says, and this continued two years.

See, everybody in the Roman Empire, it was like living in South America. You know what they have in South America and a lot of Mediterranean countries? Siestas. You ever heard of siestas? Where you eat and have a nap in the afternoon. Doesn’t that sound good right now? It sounds really good to have a nap and to eat. During that time, it was a natural part, it was during the hottest part of the day. And in the Roman Empire, they closed down everything and let people get out of the sun, stop working, go have a meal, rest up, and then they worked late. They had this two hour plus, maybe longer, spot. Paul said, hey, you want to use your siesta to dialogue with me? Can you imagine getting that invitation? Can you imagine being able to talk over the Bible with Paul? And have him explain how it all connects? He did that for over two years. And people would start dropping in. See what it says in verse 10, all who dwelt in Asia heard the Word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

But look at what verse 20 says. After Christ was magnified, after the people were consecrated, look what happens. The Word of God that they had been taught by Paul starts being lived out in their lives. And the Word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. Would you like to have the best life possible? Let the Word of God grow mightily in your life. Become very acquainted with the scriptures and then let it prevail. Do you know what that means? Let it change your life. The Bible, 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, the more we look into the Word of God, we’re conformed more and more to the image of Christ. The verse is, we all with open faces, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image. You know what the most powerful thing in life is? To look like Jesus Christ.

Do you know what the Early Church was accused of in Acts 11? Back to your professor in Acts, I hope he jumped all over this. They were called Christians first in Antioch. Do you remember when he said that in chapter 11? What does Christian mean? Christian was a disparaging term. You know how people have bad nicknames for people that are critical, they’re racial, they’re prejudiced, they have all these terms? That’s what Christian was. Do you know what it means? You’re trying to be a little Christ. You’re just a little Christ. And they disparage people. They said, you’re a little Christ. Yet that was the best thing they could have said. That was the greatest compliment. They’re saying, you’re looking like Him, you’re acting like Him, you’re trying to be like Christ, and that was God’s whole plan. Did you know that God wants to invade the world with little Christ? That’s His goal. You know D-Day, where America and the Allies invaded Europe and conquered it back. God’s plan to conquer the world is to invade it with little copies of Christ. That’s what we are. And the way we are the best copy of Christ is, we want to magnify Him in our life, we want Him to consecrate us, and then we want to unleash His Word, because it’s the Word of God that changes people. It’s the Word of God that can transform people’s lives.

How did the people do this? They were from such a bad background. How on Earth? They chose to not give Satan a foothold.

 Let me read to you from Ephesians 4 and any of you that are maybe going into a ministry where you’re going to work with some of these kind of first generation Christians, the ones that have had a rugged, they didn’t grow up in a Christian home, they grew up more like in Ephesus, around all the gambling and the occult and the immorality and the alcohol and the drugs and all that stuff. Did you know that it’s really hard to disciple those kind of people because it’s like Satan really has moved in and has a hold of them? So how do you get them following the Lord? Well, right there, Ephesians 4:17-24 is the actual method Paul used to disciple these horribly enslaved sinners. And this is what he says in 4:17. This I say and testify in the Lord, you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, alienated from the life of God. Ignorance is in them and blindness in their heart. Verse 19, their past feelings, they give themselves over to lewdness. This is his description of his congregation that he got initially that comes to Christ. Verse 20, you haven’t learned this from Christ. Verse 21, if you’ve heard Him and been taught by Him, this is what you do.

Verse 22, And look at this set of choices. I’ll read them first. Verse 22, put off concerning your form of conduct. Verse 23, be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Verse 24, put on the new man. That is Paul’s plan. Three parts. Put off the old you. Every time you see it, every time someone points it out in your life, put it off. Ask God to renew you. And then say, I want to put on Christ anew and afresh. That’s how we start every day. It’s like, what you do when you go work out, you get all sweaty and smelly and everything, and then you take off your exercise clothes, throw them in the laundry basket, take a shower and put on fresh stuff. That picture is the choice he told them to make.

Back to this church. The power of the Early Church was simply genuine holiness. People energized by grace magnified Christ, let God’s word prevail in their lives, and they lived consecrated lives.

Now the lesson for us, as we go back to Revelation 2 is, if God, His Spirit, convicted us in our lives, what would we have to get rid of? Are there songs that bring back bad memories? Are there pictures that stir wrong desires?

And Jesus tells the church in Ephesus, I know your works, I know your labor, I know your patience, I know you cannot bear those that are evil. All this stuff we’ve talked about. You’ve tested those who are apostles and are not, and found them liars, and you have persevered, you’ve had patience, you’ve labored. He’s laying it on. You have not become weary. Let’s read. Look at verse 4. BUT, You have lost your first love.

I told you He was a cardiologist. What He’s saying is, He looked at their hearts and He said, did you know there was a time when you loved Me more back then than you do today? Earlier in your Christian life, you were zealous and fervent and doing that whole list I just read, but now you’re down here. He said, you have heart problem.

His problem that He points out is, Jesus wasn’t first.

He wasn’t first in their schedule. That’s the first place it shows up.

We used to have a little thing we said when I worked at a Christian camp. No Bible, no breakfast. No Bible, no bunk. That was the mantra. Now, watch what’s happened nowadays. Now we have this impossibly difficult choice, which is first? Checking up, seeing everybody, what they’ve done, or hearing God’s voice. And Jesus wasn’t first in their schedule. He wasn’t first in their concentration. And that signaled He was no longer supreme ruler of their hearts.

And Jesus admonition to them was, you have to love Me more. I have to be on the top shelf. See, the problem was not for these people that they had taken Jesus off of the top shelf. He was still on the top shelf. They just put everything else up there on the same shelf. There were many things that were first.

What do you do when that happens? Jesus says, I want you, look at verse 5, remember from where you’ve fallen, remember what you used to do, what you used to want, how you used to love Me, and repent.

Now, every church gets the same thing. What is repentance? A change of mind that leads to a change of behavior. That’s repentance. I’m going this way, the wrong way. I say, oh, I shouldn’t go this way, and I say, Lord, help me. I have a change of mind, and it leads me to a change of behavior. Remember, repent, and do the first works, or else I’ll come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place. And here it is again, unless you repent.

Jesus asked us to remember, repent, and start over. He says, reset on Me no matter how often, how many times. The bottom line is this church, then and today, it’s always the same. Jesus didn’t take first place in their lives. Their heart didn’t belong solely to Him. They had put many things on their top shelf. And Jesus says, repent of that.

Then He says this, it’s interesting. But this you have, you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. Did you know Jesus knows our loves and hates? And that affects Him.

He says, I’m glad that you hate what I hate. Now he’ll tell Pergamos, you don’t. You love what I hate. But He says to the Ephesians, you hate what I hate.

Jesus speaks to all believers through all the ages. He who has an ear to hear. Whoa, what does that mean? What does John 10 say? My sheep, Jesus said, hear My voice and they know Me, and they follow Me. What’s the mark of a Christian? Hearing the voice of Christ. How do you hear the voice of Christ? His word. We receive the implanted Word of God. We hear the Word of God, it comes into our heart, it’s implanted and it saves us, it regenerates us. When He says, if you have an ear, He’s again talking about Christians. All the saved people hear the voice of God. When they hear the Word of God, it impacts them. Let him hear what the Spirit says. When you read the Bible, you’re listening to the voice of God through the Spirit.

But notice what it’s saying to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God. You notice that note? Jesus sees us as we will be. Jesus saw the Ephesians in paradise eating from the tree of life. That’s in chapter 21 and we’ll see that soon.

Basically this, here’s what the Ephesians were told. Love God most by loving what God loves, hating what God hates. That’s how you can have this kind of first love, life.

I just want to tell you real quickly, we have what two and a half minutes before we go. What can God do with someone that has this kind of first love in their life? Amazing things. I want to tell you about a man I met in Morocco and what God did with an Ephesian type first love, surrendered life. And see, God had a plan for Ephesus in the world that they were supposed to do. And these people that seek Him first, He has a plan for their life. This man is one of them.

He started praying in the late 60s and early 70s, that Transworld Radio, he was in a Muslim country in Northern Africa, and he prayed Transworld Radio would send Gospel tracts and Bibles to people. He wrote them and he said, if you will say on the air, Transworld Radio was a missionary broadcasting place in Monte Carlo, Europe, that beautiful Mediterranean port city. And he wrote to them from Morocco and he said, if you will say on the radio that anybody in the Arab speaking world that wants to know about Christ, we will mail you a Bible and a Gospel tract, they started saying that on the radio show, but they ask him how. We can’t mail stuff. You can’t mail stuff from Europe to Morocco without the Moroccan police opening it. They censor everything that comes from the West. They said, how do you plan to do it? He says, if you’ll announce it, I will distribute them.

He began praying every day for this and they started announcing it and six thousand people in the Muslim world responded. You know what they did? They started finding mission teams to take the Bibles to the man in Morocco so he could distribute them, and the idea was if you could smuggle them into Morocco, they can mail anything. It’s called Dar al Islam. Anything that’s inside of the Muslim, 21 Arab speaking countries, they don’t censor the mail. It’s all set. The problem was getting them in. 6,000 Bibles. This is what they did. They took brown paper, wrapped the Bible, put a track inside of it, and hand wrote the name and address of everybody that responded to the radio. They put them in a trailer, in brown paper bags, and they hired a mission team. Not hired, they asked 8 people. And I was the driver of the mission team. I was in the truck, and the trailer was behind us, and we had 6,000 Bibles, and we drove from Germany. All the way down by Monte Carlo through France and Spain and Gibraltar and took the ferry and got in line. And we’re waiting to go into Morocco and the Bibles weren’t hidden, they were just in paper bags.

 We got there at 7 a. m. and at 8 a. m. we’d only made one car length of progress because what they did is they took the cars apart in line. They took the carpet out, they took the seats out, they took everything out, the people got out, they would stick stuff in the gas tank, looking to see if anything’s in your gas tank. They got on a little trolley and went underneath your car and tapped it with a hammer to see if there were hollow spaces. And they did that to the first car, and the second, and the third, we were the fifth. And at noon, we had watched them disassemble five cars, and it was our turn.

And now it’s time for a break, and I’ll tell you what happened after.