Jesus

MESSAGE TRANSCRIPTION: 

Well, good morning. How’s everybody doing today? Is everybody doing good? Yeah, well, I’m super excited about today. We’re launching a new sermon series called Legacy Maker. And I don’t oftentimes ask you to do this, but I’m asking you to do it today. I would highly encourage you to take notes either on your phone in the note app or on the program that you received when you came in today. If you’re new around here. My name is Virgil Grant. I am the senior pastor and one of the leaders. We have about 140 leaders that help to lead all the different ministries in the church, and super excited I get to be a part of the leadership team around here and to help us to get on the same page. today I just want to ask you to think about what are some of the things that you love. let me just share with you some of the things that I love. For example, I love my family, and I especially love these two right here, Jesse Ray and Ruby Rose. Our two granddaughters, I’m crazy in love with them and super excited about how God’s going to use them in their life. Just super excited about that. Another thing that I’m super excited about is a place that I’ve been going to for the last 23 years, and that is a place down in Florida called Bonita Springs. And my dad bought a place down there, and my family and I have we’ve been going every year for the last 23 years, and this is a place where we find refreshment, renewal, we’re recalibrated. And many of you have a geographical location that you love to go to. Maybe it’s to the mountains. Maybe it’s to the desert. Maybe it’s to the woods. Maybe it’s to the beach. But when you go there, you find rest, and you find refreshment as well.

Now, love may be a strong word for the next thing that I’m going to show you. But I absolutely love Mexican food. I don’t know about you. I appreciate the three basic food groups. Right. Burritos, enchiladas and tacos. Right. I mean, the three basic food groups. But how many of you love Mexican food? Raise your hand. Yeah, absolutely. Of course, you do. And then, for all of those people that are in this place and that is truly a lover of God, all of you are truly a lover of U.K. athletics as well. And if you’re not, I’m praying for you. Okay? I just want you to know that. But one of the things that I love is I love the church. I don’t know about you, but I love the church in all of its expressions. I love the church. I know that for some of you that when you think about the church, you’re not in love with the church. Maybe you’re disappointed in the church because you’ve been hurt in the church. You grew up in the church, and you had a bad experience because the people hurt you, devalued you, they didn’t accept you, or whatever. And some of you are skeptical. Some of you are maybe doubters when it comes to the local church. If I had the same experience that you had or I was treated the way that you were treated, I would probably be in the same shoes that you are in. But can I just say something to you? I love the local church. I love all of the different expressions of the local church globally. I mean, just think about it as we’re meeting in this worship center this morning, there are churches that are meeting in cathedrals, there are churches, this meeting in caves, there are churches, there’s meeting in movie theaters, in schools, there are churches. This meeting is underground in countries around the world where expressing your devotion to Christ is a crime, and you’ll be punished by death. And they’re underground worshiping the Lord in secrecy this morning. I love every expression of the local church that you can express around the globe. But let me just be crystal clear. I love this local church. I love Eastside. I love the history of Eastside. I love what God is doing in our midst. It is mind-boggling to think about all that God is doing in and through Eastside.

Today we’re beginning a series looking at some important words to churches that we read about in the Book of Revelation in the weeks ahead. I want to ask you to dream some dreams with me. I’m going to ask you to look at the vision. In that, we have been planning. I’m going to ask you to think about some strategies. But before we begin to look at the strategies and the dream, and the vision. Before we unpack what our leaders have been wrestling through for the last five years, I want to begin today by looking at a church that was super on mission with God, but they were in spiritual danger. A church that was so busy going through the motions of doing all of their acts for God that they forgot who they were doing the acts for in the opening chapters of the Book of Revelation. We find Jesus writing some words to the seven churches that are found in Asia Minor. Now, if you’re the red leather edition of the Bible, all of Revelation Chapters Two and Three are in red. Because why? Jesus spoke these words. They were recorded by his beloved disciple, John. And these words that were written to the seven Churches of Asia Minor are words that were relevant some 2000 years ago, and they’re still relevant today, not just to those churches that existed back then, but they’re relevant to every church that exists today globally. And these words were recorded in A.D. 90. So I want you to look with me at Revelation chapter two, verse one.

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands.”

Revelation 2:1 (NLT)  

Again, we see the number seven everywhere, wherever we go. And the seven lampstands represent the seven churches that he’s going write to. Now Ephesus was a great city. And yet, to understand the context in which this church at Ephesus sets in, in order to understand everything that Jesus is going to say to the church in Ephesus. So Ephesus was the fourth largest city in the Roman Empire at that time. There were 225,000 people in the city of Ephesus. Ephesus had this temple of Diana, and it was the temple of this goddess Diana. And if you remember, the temple of the goddess of Diana was one of the seven wonders of the world. And there was a tremendous amount of prostitution that was going on in the temple, all in the name of worship. And so the Ephesus was a city that was wild, as wild could be. But there in the city of Ephesus, there was a church that was planted. Suppose you want to read about the Church of Ephesus. Just go back one day and read Acts Chapter 19. In Acts Chapter 19, you’ll discover how the church at Ephesus came into existence. The founding pastor of the church, Ephesus, was the Apostle Paul. You would imagine the Apostle Paul is the founder of the Church of Ephesus. He stays there for a couple of years and he hands after he starts the church, he heads the church off to a couple called Priscilla and Aquila. And they came along, and they nurtured the church, and they turned it over to Apollos and Apollos. He nurtured the church. And then there was this emerging leader that was coming up in the ranks, and they handed over to this guy named Timothy. And Timothy had a couple of books written about him. And to him, it’s in the New Testament first and second Timothy. And then, after Timothy, there was Paul, who came back for the season, and then after Paul was there for a couple more years, he turned it over to John.

The thing that you need to understand this is kind of an unknown fact about the Church of Ephesus. Now we’re talking about the local church in the city of Ephesus, while the Asia Minor, there is a woman who is a member, and her name is Mary. The mother of Jesus is a member of the church at Ephesus. Now, can you imagine being the pastor of the Church of Ephesus and you’re preaching a sermon series, John, on the Life and Ministry of Jesus, and Mary is sitting in the church, and everybody’s going, Hey, Mary, is that how it happened or not? Or maybe it was time for the Christmas play. And you go, Hey, Mary, why don’t you play yourself in the Christmas play? Then you go, Well, Mary, is this how it went down the with the birth of Jesus? And she goes, You have it all wrong. Let me tell you something. The babies were screaming and yelling. The cows and the lambs were all bawling. And the angelic choir that you thought was making a beautiful noise, they were so loud we could not even concentrate. That’s not how it went down at all. But the mother of Jesus was a member of the church. And so, in the city of Ephesus is a great church. It is vibrant. It is alive, and it is strong. It has amazing leaders and preachers, and pastors. This is a hard-charging church. And notice the compliment that Jesus gives to them. He says.

“I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have Found them false.”

Revelation 2:2 (NIV)

He goes, Not only are you hard working, not only are you persevering, but you also are in this city in a culture that is full of sin, you’re standing up for truth, you’re standing up for purity, you’re standing up for my name, and you’re vetting every leader, every church, every pastor, every theology that comes along. You’re vetting that. I am super proud of the fact that you are taking the time to have this sermon, to know what is truth and what is not truth. Now, look with me at verse six in Revelation chapter two, he says.

“You have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.”

Revelation 2:6 (NIV)

Now, the Nicolaides was a group of so-called Christians that was minimizing the Grace of God. They were saying that Grace was cheap. They were saying that you could receive Christ and you can live any way that you wanted to and you didn’t have to worry about it, you know, And Jesus was coming along, and he was saying, you know what? You understand this because there was a great price that was paid for you to be holy and for you to be blameless. And you understand their deceptive teachings, and you hate their teachings. And I’m super proud of the fact that you have the spiritual gift of discernment. And then Jesus goes on, and he throws out another compliment to them.

“You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.”

Revelation 2:3 (NIV)

Now folks, do You get the picture here? This is a hardworking, hard-charging church. This is an influential church. This church, when they received this letter, was about 40 years of age. It’s long enough for them to mature. It’s long enough for them to raise up another, you know, generation of leaders. And can you imagine, as you’re hearing this letter that was being read to the church? Can you begin to since there was a sense of pride that was coming? I mean, like you was like, yes, we are hardworking, we are persevering. We are, you know, discernment of the truth. But as you’re getting ready to, maybe full of pride, get ready to just stand up and start singing and shouting, that there’s a knot that begins to form in your stomach. And you begin to know that something else is coming, and you don’t know exactly what it is. But then your hands start sweating. And then we have these words from the lips of Jesus.

“Yet. I hold this against you. You have forsaken the love you had at first.”

Revelation 2:4 (NIV)

Jesus comes along, and he commends them for all the great things that they’ve done. But he says literally, you’ve allowed erosion to occur in your love. For me, you have forgotten about me. You got everything in the world, but you don’t have me. You do all of those things, but you’re no longer motivated by your genuine love and passion for me. Jesus is talking about the initial passion that you and I would have for Him that flows out of the gratitude of being saved and changed and given a fresh start. I mean, we’re talking about going back to the very beginning, the love that flows out of the fact that even when you didn’t have an idea of who God was when you were 17 years of age and you don’t even want to go to church. You didn’t want to talk about God when you were in the middle of your divorce and when you were alone and isolated, and you thought nobody cared about you, even when you were in the middle of your sin. Jesus says I died for you. I rescued you from the kingdom of darkness, and I’ve placed you into the kingdom of light. He says, Remembers that first love. Remember that passion that made you sing about Amazing Grace. And when you sang the song Amazing Grace, tears flowed down your cheeks because it was the gratitude for the unconditional love that was lavish upon you. He’s saying you’re doing so much good stuff, but you don’t love me anymore. You don’t seem for me anymore. You used to be this flaming inferno. But now there’s even a barley palate locked. So here’s the question. You and I have to wrestle with it.

Have I fallen out of love with Jesus?

Some of you are going. Well, I don’t know. I’m at church most Sundays. That’s not what I ask. Well, I give a little bit to the Lord. I serve. I go to the life group occasionally. That’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking you the question. Have you fallen out of love with Jesus? And how do you even know if you’ve fallen out of love with Jesus? I mean, you’re going through the motions. You’re going through every single motion. You’re doing all the right things. You’re doing it. But are you really doing it because you’re passionate and in love with Jesus? I think there are many different signs that we could point to that would indicate that you’ve fallen out of love with Jesus. I just want to give you what I think are just three characteristics of a person who’s fallen in love with Jesus. The first one is this.

I drift into annoyance with the mission of Jesus’ church rather than passion for the mission of Jesus’ church.

Did you hear what that said? Is that you’re annoyed, you’re aggravated, you’re not happy because we just keep talking about reaching more and more people for Jesus? Folks, if you love Jesus, you have to love the thing that he loves the most. And what does he love more than anything else? He loves people. I mean, here’s how Jesus said it In Luke, and I paraphrased this.

“Jesus told a parable about a great banquet where many guests were invited and the owner says, ‘Go out into the streets and the alleys and the highways and the country roads and invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind because God wants his house to be full.”

Luke 14:21-24 (Paraphrased)

See, folks, when I move from having a personal relationship with Jesus, when I move from walking with him and talking with him and just abiding in him and remaining in him, I forget about all of that. And then I sit down, and I just begin to study Jesus. I begin to dig deeper and deeper into the Bible and have head knowledge, but I’m not living it out. It is a sure sign that you have lost your first love. And the third sign that I just want to say to you that I see is.

I talk myself into sitting on the bench.

Now, could you imagine, Justin, the people at the church at Emphasis that all of these great leaders they had Paul, Timothy, Apollos, you know, Priscilla Mcquillen, Timothy and John and even Mary, the mother of Jesus. And they go, you know what? We just got such an all-star lineup. There’s nothing that I need to do. I can just sit on the bench. I can just take it easy. I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to serve. I don’t have to lead another small group. I don’t have to do anything. I can just take it easy. I just wondered if that was the attitude. But here’s the question that I have for you this morning. Are you sitting on the bench or are you actively engaged? Are you doing your part? Listen to me, my friends. Some of you are here today. And you believe that you don’t matter. You believe that your contribution does not matter. Your contribution is essential because we’re missing out on you not doing your part. The Kingdom of God is missing out. Some of you, you’re here this morning, and you’ve said, You know what? I’ve done my time. I’ve pulled my time just like you got out of prison or something. I’m through with it. I’m no longer cooking casseroles anymore. I’m no longer leading a group. I’m not attending any more prayer meetings. I’m not going to be a leader anymore in the church. I’m just going to retire. I’m going to turn in my jersey. Listen to me, my friends. If you are Christian, the only time that you can retire is when you take your last breath. And here’s the thing, my friends. We’re committed to raising up the next. Generation for Jesus. And we have to have your wisdom, your knowledge, and your love to pass it on to those the next generation because they need to be poured into. Now, here’s the question. If we’ve lost our first love, how do we recapture our first love? Well, what Jesus tells us is how he says in Revelation chapter two, verse five, he says.

“Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.”

Revelation 2:5 (ESV)

And so if we were to take this verse and we were to say.

Remember

 Repent

 Return

That is the way that we read this. Rediscover our first love. And would you say these words to me? Please remember, repent, and return. Say it with me again. Remember, repent, and return. This is the formula if you will. This is the recipe to rediscover your first love. Remember back to when you came into a relationship with Jesus. Remember how it felt when you were saved. Your sins were forgiven. You were set free, and you gained a whole new life and a whole new identity. Remember the pit from which you were rescued. Remember how much you were forgiven for. Because those who have been forgiven much shall what? Require much love. Go back and take an honest look and say to yourself. Or ask yourself, When did my passion for the Lord begin to wane? Because the fact is that your passion began to wane. At some point, it begins to dissipate at some point. And for some of you, it was an addiction. You became addicted to something. And then your passion begins to wane some of you. You’ve just been going through the motions for so long and playing church and playing good church member and playing good godly husband or good godly wife that you don’t even remember when you lost. Your passion for Jesus. I mean, like, you can’t even point back. You’ve been playing church for so long that you can’t even remember. For some of you, it’s when you decide that you’re going to be the captain of your own ship. I mean, you got so enamored with making money, making a name for yourself, that you just told God, God, I’m just going to take the wheel, and you took it over. And at that point, your passion, your love for Jesus, began to dwindle for some of you. You went through a hard time in your life. And because you went through that hard time in your life, you just said, forget about God, and I’m just going to live life on my own. Some of you, you were devastated. You were hurt because a spouse cheated on you or because you have a wayward child or whatever it may be. And I don’t know when it started for you, but you have to remember and go back to the point of your first love when you first received Jesus as your Lord and Savior. And then you have to go back to that very beginning and say, that is the passion that I want. But you have to be honest with yourself. When did it start? When did your passion begin to leak you to come to that conclusion? Go back and remember what it was like with your first love with Jesus and then repent.

Now, here’s my guess. That most of us in this room today. We do not understand or do not view the absence of passion for Jesus as a sin. See, for most of us, our passion has waned, or passion has leaked, or passion has drifted, and we don’t see that as a sin whatsoever. But can I tell you something Jesus sees as a sin? See what we call it. We call it being more mature. We don’t call it growing up. We call it getting old. But the reality is, is that God wants us to remember and repent. And go back to our first love. Tom Smith. Tells us a story of going to a nursing home. He went to a nursing home on a particular Sunday, the Sunday that you went to the nursing home. It was on Mother’s Day. And he was going to this nursing home. And I don’t know about you, but I hate going to a nursing home. I hate walking in those places. I’ve done it many times. But he was going in there, and he took a bouquet of flowers, and he was going to give out roses and wish people happy Mother’s Mother’s Day. As he was walking the halls, he was just trying to find somebody that was alive enough in order to give them a rose and wish them happy Mother’s Day. And on this particular hallway that he went down, he said that this seems to be the worst of the worst people, you know, strapped into their chairs. People strapped into their wheelchairs. And as he was walking down the hallway, he kept on looking for someone. He gets down to the very end of the hallway, and he finds this lady sitting in her wheelchair. And as she was sitting there in her wheelchair, strapped in, her face was hard to look at. He says this because the empty stair and walking pupils made it obvious that she was blind. She had a gigantic hearing aid over her ear, which indicated that she was hard of hearing. One side of her face was eaten by cancer, and the other side had all of this, this drainage that was coming out of her face, and she was drooling the entire time. So you get the picture. And he reached down and handed her a flower and said Happy Mother’s Day. And she lifted the flower up, tried to smell it, but could not smell the flower. And she said, Sir, do you mind? If I could give this flower away. And at this particular point is that he realized Tom realized that this lady was very cognitive. Her mind was very sharp, even though her body was dwindling away. Her mind was very sharp. And he goes, Absolutely. And so he takes the wheelchair that she’s strapped in and begins to meander down some hallways. And they find this hallway and found this lady. And the lady who received the rose, her name was Mabel. And she said, here, I want to give you this rose. Because it came from Jesus, and at that point, Tom goes well, Mabel. How old are you? She said 89 years of age. He’s a Mabel How long have you been here in the nursing home? She said, I’ve been here for 25 years, and I’ve not had one single person come and visit me. And he goes, Mabel, what do you think about all day, and she goes, Well, I think about Jesus. I think about how he’s been so good to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life. And Mabel, at that moment, broke out in singing an old hymn.

Jesus is all the world to me, My life, my joy, my all; He is my strength from day to day, without him I would fall: When I am sad, to him I go, No other one can cheer me so; When I am sad, he makes me glad, He’s my friend.

The question I have for you this morning is. Is Jesus still all the world to you? See, folks. Maybe you’ve fallen. Maybe have drifted from your first love. Can I tell you something? It’s not. It’s not something that can’t be reversed. It can be reversed. How do you do it? You remember. You repent and you do what? You return. And how do we return to Jesus? We return by meeting with him, and we return to reading his word on a daily basis. You return by praying, Talking with God, sitting, and listening to God so that you cultivate intimacy with God. What does intimacy look like? Is that intimacy looks like, Hey Lord, this is going to be a rough week? But I just know that whatever I’m facing, you’re going to be with me. Hey, God. You know what? Walking onto campus as a freshman is hard, but God be with you. We’ve got this. Intimacy with God is going into the operating room, laying on the operating table, and saying, God. Will you heal me if you don’t? It’s okay. I’ll win either way. Intimacy understands that even though you’ve been betrayed, hurt, and damaged. Your loved one has walked away from you. that God is still present. Now some of you are asking the question, Well, I don’t want to do that. What’s hanging in the balance if we don’t do this and fall back in love with Jesus? Have you ever thought about that? What does it look like? If we don’t return to our first love. What if we don’t come back to Jesus? Well, Jesus, from his own lips, gives us some very startling words. Here’s what he says in Revelation chapter two, verse five.

“If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.”

Revelation 2:5b (NIV)

Is that the light that you have? The impact that you have, the relevancy that you have? I will remove it if you do not repent. And here’s the sad thing, my friends. You go to Emphasis today. And guess what? There’s no church in the city of Ephesus. This once great church with great pastors and great leaders no longer exists. And why? Because it started with a single drift. It started with a slow progression toward drifting away from their first love. Friends, listen to me. Eastside is a great church. We have great leaders. We have faith-filled people. We have a great history. And I honestly believe that our greatest days are not behind us. But our greatest days are ahead of us. But before we jump into vision before we jump into strategies, before we jump into dreaming. Let me just say something to you. If we don’t get this first thing right, nothing else matters. The first thing I want you to understand is that our number one passion will always be to love Jesus Christ. And if we don’t put him first, nothing else that we do will ever matter. Because it’s all about loving Jesus and him being our number one passion, I want to ask the worship team to come back out. They’re going to lead us in a song in a moment. We’ve had this song picked out for probably about six months, and I’m still going to use the table. All right. Thank you, though. We’ve had this picked up for six or seven months. Didn’t know when we were going to use it, but we decided that it was going to be today. And here’s what I just want you to understand our first priority, our first passion, has to be Jesus. I want Eastside to be known, first and foremost, as a church that is in love with Jesus. I want us to be known as a church where our identity is firmly established in Him. I want us to be a church that understands how wide, how long, how deep, and how high the love of Jesus is. I want us to be a church where when Jesus asks us to do something. The answer is an absolute yes with no reservations. I want us to be faithful. I want us to be full of grit. I want us to be filled full with faith that we go against the culture, that we stand up for the truth, that we go against what the culture says and says. There’s only one way to heaven, and it’s through the blood of Jesus Christ. And there are not a thousand ways to heaven. There are not a hundred ways to heaven or ten ways to heaven. There’s one way to heaven. I want us to be a church that gives and who serves and love others, not in our own power, but in the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I want us to be a church that is passionate about Jesus and whatever. Jesus asked us to do something. We will do It. And so we’re going to sing a song it’s brand new. It is called Coming Back. And for some of you, you need to come back to your first love. You come back to passion. For some of you, you’ve got family members and loved ones that are drifted away. And so we just thought it’d be good today if we had some of our leaders down the front. They’re going to come. Staff, elders prayer team. There’s going to come down front. They’re going to stand. And as we sing this song, I’m going to ask you to go ahead and stand as we sing this song. I’m going to ask you if you want to be prayed for to come down. One of her leaders would be glad to pray with you, and Well, can you give it up for Jesus? Yeah. Can you give it up for Jesus? Yeah. Nothing matters more than him and folks. He’s always been the focus of our church. We have to get that right. If he’s not our number one passion and priority, nothing else matters.