Sermon - Returning to Our First Love: Kingdom Reset Series

Jesus is saying to the church, you held on the truth.

You kept working.

You persevered, but somewhere along the way, your heart for me moved away from you.

Welcome to the Church of the Lakes Weekly Sermon Podcast.

We're so glad you've joined us, and we're honored to be part of your spiritual journey.

This year, Church of the Lakes is focusing on having a kingdom mindset in all that we do, and by living counter-culturally to the world to become more like Jesus.

Today, Pastor Jared Prepsett starts a new sermon series called Kingdom Reset.

Sometimes the greatest dangers in life are the things we can't see, things that are happening quietly underneath the surface of our lives.

Which brings us to the title of today's sermon, Returning to Our First Love.

It is possible to keep doing the things of Jesus while slowly losing our affection for Jesus.

So before we step forward into Kingdom Mission, Jesus calls us to reset our hearts and return to our first love.

And now, here's Pastor Jared.

Be blessed.

Would you agree?

Like if you were to walk in your house and you saw flames coming out of your kitchen, you would not need somebody to explain to you what was happening, right?

It's obvious.

The danger is obvious.

But carbon monoxide is different, isn't it?

It is something you cannot see, you cannot taste, you cannot hear.

And that's precisely what makes it so dangerous, if not deadly.

Friends, sometimes the greatest dangers we face in life are things we cannot immediately see.

They're things that are happening quietly underneath the surface.

And I think the same is true for us spiritually speaking.

There is a kind of spiritual danger that is very easy to recognize.

Open rebellion, false teaching, moral compromise, walking away from faith.

Those things are very easy to spot.

But in Revelation 2, where we're going today, we are introduced to uh, let's call it a more subtle danger in the spiritual life.

Let me ask you a question.

What if you keep showing up?

Keep serving, keep giving?

Well, what if you keep working hard, keep defending the truth, keep doing ministry, and Jesus still looks at you and said, There's something missing.

That is what makes this letter Jesus writes to the church in Ephesus and Revelation 2 so unsettling, at least to me.

Because this church in Ephesus, here this was not a dead church, was not a compromising church, was not a lazy church.

No, they were working hard, they were persevering, they were a biblically sound church, and yet Jesus still says to this church, yet I hold this against you.

You have forsaken your first love.

Friends, I think that may be one of the most sobering possibilities in the Christian life for us.

That we can keep doing the things of Jesus while slowly losing our affection for Jesus.

We can still be active while our hearts grow cold.

We can serve Jesus and stop enjoying Jesus.

We can be passionate about ministry and forget the one to whom we do our ministry for.

So before we step forward this morning in the mission, I feel in my heart stirring a need for us to stop.

Because I think Jesus is calling us, friends, to ask the deeper question.

Not what are we doing as a faith family to build God's kingdom, but what's happening in our hearts?

What's stirring within us?

Because the kingdom of God does not begin with activity, it begins with intimacy.

Before Jesus wants our hands, friends, he wants our hearts.

Before we ask him, Lord, advance your kingdom through us, I think we need to ask the question and allow Jesus to examine his kingdom within us.

And that brings us to Revelation chapter 2.

Revelation 2 · chapter mention

We're going to be looking at the book of Revelation this fall, starting September 6th.

But today's going to be a little teaser sermon for that eight-week series.

One, it's only eight weeks, and I wanted to give another week out of Revelation, so we're doing nine just a couple weeks before.

Revelation 1 and 2.

Jesus is giving seven letters to seven churches that are in the diaspora that are all littered throughout the Roman Empire.

And Ephesus is the first church he gives a letter to.

And uh listen to God's word.

This is John writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the words that Jesus had conveyed to the angel of the church in Ephesus.

Here it is.

And by the way, open your Bibles if you got them.

You might want to underline, take notes.

If you don't have a Bible, let me tell you, I'll give you one.

Big study vibers or little compact Bibles, whatever you want.

I have them, I want to get them into your hands if you don't have one.

But listen to God's word.

To the angel of the church in Ephesus, right?

These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.

For I know your works, your toil, and your patient endurance.

I know you cannot tolerate evildoers, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, you have found them to be false.

I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary yet.

Yet I have this against you.

You have abandoned the love you had at first.

Therefore, remember from where you have fallen, repent, and do the works you did at first.

If not, I will come to you, I will remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

Yet this is to your credit.

You hate the works of the Nicolaitians, which I also hate.

Let everyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

And to everyone who conquers, I will give permission, hear this, to eat from the tree of life in the paradise of God.

Yet I have this against you.

You have forsaken your first love.

Therefore, remember, repent and return.

Friends, this is the word of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

Will you pray with me?

Holy God, I thank you so much for your presence with us in this space already.

I thank you for the way you've used the prayers and the music and your life-giving word to speak truth into us, to remind us of who you are.

And Lord God, as I offer up life-giving uh reflection on this life-giving word, I just ask that this message be soaked in the blood of Jesus, that it be undergirded by the power of your Holy Spirit, that it be a message that edifies, that encourages, that convicts and challenges us to return to you our first love.

It's in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

So what is happening in this story right now?

The Apostle John just has been exiled to the island of Patmos.

You see, the Roman Empire didn't like John much.

John was a thorn in their side, and so they actually previously tried to kill John.

They tried to kill him by pouring boiling oil all over his body, but it didn't work.

He didn't die.

So if you can't kill one of God's preachers, what's the next best thing?

Well, try to silence him.

So they put him on an island in the middle of the Aegean Sea.

But here's the problem, church, you cannot science the Word of God.

And so the scripture tells us in Revelation 1, as John is heading up to worship on the Lord's Day, that he is given this vision that he is called to write down.

And in this vision, he sees the risen and reigning Christ who tells him to write seven letters to the churches in Asia Minor.

Asia Minor is modern-day Turkey.

So John pulls out a pen and he begins to write letters to Ephesus and Smyrna on Pergamum, Thyatira and Sardis and Philadelphia and Laodicea.

Now all these are sound like ancient names of ancient places except Philadelphia, maybe.

But we have to remember that these are real churches facing real problems that dwell within real cities.

And so throughout each of these letters, Jesus' pattern to address the churches is pretty much the same.

He gives a word of commendation.

Here are the things that are going well.

Then he gives a word of chastisement or condemnation.

Here's what's not going well.

And then he gives a word of correction.

Here's what you are to do now.

Commendation, chastisement, and then correction.

Why does Jesus do this?

Friend, it's because Jesus loves his church enough to tell his church the truth.

So Revelation, it pictures Jesus walking among the lampstands.

The lampstands are representative of these seven churches.

What we're supposed to understand this moment is that when it comes to Jesus' relationship with his church, he sees the church, he knows the church, he examines the church, and he loves the church.

And because he loves his church, he refuses to ignore that which threatens his church.

So maybe the important question for us today as a church in 21st century America is not what do people around us think about us?

Why do we care so much what people think about us as human beings?

Right?

That's just an aside.

To not be so worried about what people think about us.

No.

What we should be worried about is how Jesus sees us.

Not are we busy, but are our hearts still his?

And so we get to the first church Jesus addresses, the church in Ephesus.

Let me tell you a little bit about Ephesus.

Ephesus was one of the most significant cities in the Roman Empire.

I've been to Ephesus.

It is a brilliant place.

Only about 10% of it's uncovered by archaeologists, and it is still just an amazing place to go visit.

Ephesus was, again, a leading city.

It was prosperous.

It was influential.

Think of LA, Chicago, New York City.

That was Ephesus, religiously diverse.

And yet what we get from the scriptures is it was also a very spiritually dark place.

It was home to the temple of the goddess Artemis, deeply connected to pagan worship, to occult practices.

And so right in the middle of this prosperous, influential city that yet was spiritually dark, God says, I'm gonna set up a church there.

Oh, and what a church it was.

Give you a little homework this week.

Read Acts chapter 19, Acts chapter 20, to understand how this church came to be.

Acts 19 · chapter mention Acts 20 · chapter mention

Paul arrives to Ephesus preaching Jesus, and through his message, God is moving in a powerful way.

Lives are changed.

I mean, radical transformation is taking place so much that the people of Ephesus who used to practice pagan worship, who used to follow false God, who had scrolls and enchantment spells on parchments, took all of that hocus pocus, put it in the middle of the city and lit it on fire, went up in flames.

Like the gospel was so forceful in Ephesus at this time, hear this, that it threatened the socioeconomic vitality of the city.

The idol making industry.

People stopped buying idols.

You want to start messing with people?

Mess with their money, right?

Gospel is just moving.

Paul spends years preaching and teaching and leading the people of this church.

Then in Acts chapter 20, he warns the elders of the church listen, I'm leaving.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

What I need you to promise me you'll do is protect the flack.

False teachers are gonna come in, they're gonna try to weasel their way into you.

Protect the truth.

And apparently, these elders of the church, they listen to Paul.

Because a generation later, we get these words from Revelation chapter 2.

Revelation 2 · chapter mention

Jesus says to the church, I know your deeds, your hard work, your perseverance.

He says, I know you cannot tolerate wicked people, that false teachers have come among you and you have proven them to be false.

Like this is a faithful church.

They work hard, they know the doctrine, they reject false teaching, they endure hardship.

If Jesus would have just stopped there, we would think to ourselves, wow, that's a church I want to be a part of, right?

But then comes the sobering word, yeah.

Yet this I have against you.

You have forsaken your first love.

Can you imagine the silence in that mic drop moment?

Jesus is saying to the church, you held on to truth, you kept working, you persevered, but somewhere along the way, your heart for me moved away from me.

And friends, what makes this more sobering in my mind is the history of this church.

Like the church in Ephesus was the one who received the letter to the Ephesians from the Apostle Paul.

Like the beginning of that letter, Paul says to the church, I pray for you that you would be rooted and established in love, that you would come to grasp how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ is for you.

I mean, he even ends that letter saying this grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love.

An undying love.

Now a generation later.

Oh, you have forsaken your first love.

You know what that means, church?

That means yesterday's fire does not guarantee today's flame.

It means you can know great theology and lose great affection.

Like, please hear me.

Ephesus understood theology and doctrine.

They did not lose their doctrine.

What they lost was tenderness.

And so Jesus gives them this command.

If that is you, and it is you, remember, repent and return to me.

Return to your first love.

The first thing Jesus says for those of us who've drifted is to remember.

Jesus says, remember therefore from where you have fallen.

In other words, look back and recognize what changed in your relationship with the Lord.

Look back and remember when grace amazed you.

Look back and remember when worship wasn't something you evaluated, instead, it was something you entered into.

Look back and remember when you opened up the scriptures just because you wanted to hear the voice of God.

Look back and remember when prayer wasn't merely asking God for things, it was spending time with Him.

Look back and remember when the cross overwhelmed you.

When you marveled at the reality that the blood of Jesus that was shed on that cross forgave you of your sins and gave you access to heaven again.

Remember.

You know, I think one of the dangers of being around Christianity for a long time is that we can become all too familiar with things that should still amaze us.

Church, we get used to grace, don't we?

We get used to worship, we we get used to the cross, we get used to the name of Jesus.

John 3 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, so that those who believe in him would not perish, but have eternal life.

Friend, let me ask the question: has that gotten old to you?

Has that lost its luster to you?

Like the eternal Son of God, hear me, took your sin upon himself, pierced for your transgressions, shed his blood on your behalf, bore your judgment, entered the grave, and three days later got up.

Friends, that story should still move us, humble us, stir worship within us, and if it doesn't, Jesus says to you, remember.

Remember.

Let me ask you a question.

When did delight become duty for you?

When did prayer become occasional for you?

When did worship become routine?

Friend, you cannot return until you have first admitted that you have drifted.

And so Jesus says, remember.

And then he says to repent.

Do you know repentance is not just feeling guilty about something?

You know what repentance is, is a literal turning around.

Like you're moving in one direction, you come to the realization it's the wrong direction, so you stop, and you literally turn around and you start going in the other direction.

Repentance is saying, Jesus, something in me has changed, and I don't like it, and I no longer want to settle for it.

So I'm gonna turn around and start moving in the other direction.

You know, what is so striking about Jesus' letter to Revelation here, or to Ephesus here in Revelation 2, is that hear this, this is incredible.

Jesus doesn't tell them to repent by stopping doing bad things.

He's not telling them to repent because they're doing bad things.

They're doing good things.

We've established that, which means you can have right activity with the wrong heart.

And this is why we always have to examine the why behind what we do as Christians.

Like we serve people, we foster children, we support mission locally, regionally, and globally.

We give generously, we help families in crisis, we come alongside and lift up the vulnerable.

And we should.

We should do all of that stuff, but why?

If your answer to that why question is just simply because helping people is a good thing to do, friends, that's altruism.

Now, altruism is admirable in and of itself, but that is not Christian mission.

Christian mission is something that penetrates much deeper than altruism.

Why do we do what we do?

Why do we love?

Well, because Jesus first loved us.

Why do we serve?

Because Jesus Himself came to serve and not to be served.

Why do we forgive?

Because we have been forgiven.

Why do we give because Christ gave himself to us?

Friends, the deeper motivation for Christian mission, it is not look at all the good I or we are doing.

No, no, it's look at how good Jesus is.

And when we've been overwhelmed by that reality, the love of Christ that moves into us now flows through us into the world that He came to save.

Friends, the deepest motivation for Christian mission must always be worship.

Jesus is worthy.

Listen, when mission becomes disconnected from intimacy, even good things can become spiritually hollow.

You can have ministry without worship.

You can have service without surrender.

You can have mission without communion, you can have activity without intimacy, and if that's where we are, Jesus says to us to repent.

You know, maybe some of us don't need to repent from doing sinful things right now.

Maybe some of us, you and I, need to repent from doing good things, but without Jesus at the center of those good things.

Some of us need to repent by saying, Jesus, I've been serving you but not seeking you.

I've been doing ministry without enjoying your presence.

And if the Lord leads you to a place of repentance, the next thing Jesus says is to come home.

You remember, you repent, and the third is you return.

Jesus says, do the things you did at first.

Now notice he doesn't say feel the things you felt at first.

He says, Do the things you did at first.

Remember the places where your love for me was cultivated, is what Jesus is saying.

Like, open up the Word of God again, but not Because you want information, just because you want to hear God's voice.

Pray again, not because you want answers, but because you just want God's presence.

Worship again, confess again, slow down again, sit with Jesus again, look to the cross again.

Jesus says in John 15, Sue read it a moment ago, remain in me.

No branch can bear fruit by itself.

No, fruit comes from abiding.

Activity, friends, flows from intimacy.

Kingdom fruit does not come from working or running harder.

Kingdom fruit comes by staying connected to the vine.

And some of us here today have exhausted ourselves because we're trying to produce fruit without first abiding.

We keep asking, God, how can I do more?

And Jesus keeps saying, Well, you just stay close to me.

Friends, Jesus does not want to become merely one priority on the list of priorities in your life.

He wants to be the page every one of your priorities is written on.

He wants to be the center of everything you do that of all your life needs to revolve around him.

And that's why his warning at the end of what I read a moment ago is so serious.

He says this in verse 5 if you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

Do you know a church can remain busy yet lose its spiritual light?

That's what that's saying.

Like buildings can remain, programs can remain, services can remain, and the fire can go out.

Friends, God forbid we ever become satisfied with simply keeping church machinery running.

As your pastor, let me say this.

I don't want us to simply exist.

I want Jesus here.

I don't want us to have our ministries succeed.

No, no, I want lives transformed by people who encounter the Holy Spirit and hear the good news of Jesus Christ.

I I want to be known in our community as a people who love Jesus so deeply, and because we love Jesus so deeply that we cannot help but love the people he died to save that live around us.

Church, I believe there is kingdom work ahead of us to do.

Like there are people within your circles of influence who need Jesus.

Some of them are in your own home.

There are children who need a safe place to lay their head.

There are hurting people who need healing.

There are families who need hope.

There are people all around the world who need the gospel.

So please don't mishear me.

Let's serve, let's give, let's go, let's build, let's take risks, let's be kingdom builders.

But hear me.

We dare not go wider without first going deeper.

I don't want bigger ministry if that means smaller love for Jesus.

I don't want to be doing more for God if it means we're experiencing less of God.

So maybe before we say Jesus, use us, we have to say, Jesus, search us.

Before we say, Jesus, send us, we say, Jesus, we need you to sanctify us.

Before we say, Jesus, expand our influence, we need to say, Jesus, deepen our love.

Because friends, revival does not begin when the world gets better.

Revival begins when the church comes home.

When the church remembers.

Revival begins when the pastor gets on his knees and says, Lord, forgive me for loving ministry more than you.

Revival begins when the longtime Christian says, Jesus, I've been going through the motions for far too long, and I don't want to do that any longer.

Revival begins when the teenager says, Jesus, I am done living off the borrowed faith of my parents.

I want to know you personally.

Friends, maybe the call today isn't necessarily to go forward.

Maybe it's simply to go back.

Back to wonder.

Back to surrender, back to prayer, back to the cross, back to our first love.

So let me ask you a question.

This is not a question for your spouse or your children or even the person sitting next to you.

This is a question I have for you and you and you and you and you.

Hear it us.

Do you still love Jesus like you once did?

Not are you busy in ministry, not are you serving, not not do you believe the right things?

Is Jesus still the treasure of your heart?

And friends, if the answer to that question is, you know what, I think I drifted, Jesus gives us the prescription back home.

He says, remember.

Remember the grace that has saved you.

He says, repent.

Repent from that thing or person that has captivated your affection.

And he says, to return, to come home to me.

You know, I have uh whenever I preach, I really live with this conviction that I need to open up the altar rail for invitation for you to respond.

And I've been doing that every time I preach for probably close to a year now.

And I've invited you during the last hymn to respond, and if other than singing in another physical way, to kind of um showcase what the Lord is doing to you inside.

And so I've invited you to come if you want to surrender your life to Jesus, to kneel at this altar rail and maybe open up your hands with your palms up and say, Lord Jesus, I realize I need you.

Be my Lord and Savior.

Forgive me of my sin.

Give me your Holy Spirit.

Let me walk the rest of my life with you, living with a purpose and a hope that is rich in Jesus.

Sometimes I invite you to come up as just an act of gratitude, to come and humbly kneel before the living God and just say, Thank you, thank you for all you have done for me and given me primarily in Christ.

This is a place is also an invitation for healing.

Maybe you're searching and seeking for healing, and it's a place you can come and say, Lord, I need your help in my body or my mind or my soul.

I'm wondering if today, when we open up this altar rail, it can also be a place where you come for a kingdom reset.

You drifted, and now you want the Lord to say, Jesus, reset my heart toward you again.

You know, when I was transitioning out of law enforcement 19 years ago, that's crazy that I've been out for 19 years.

I got friends that are retiring from the department I worked for in their late 40s, and I'm thinking, I gotta work till I'm at least 70.

But but I but that's an aside.

19 years ago, my last shift on duty, I met up at a 7-Eleven on Sunset Hills Drive with a guy named Lonnie Dusset in Northern Virginia.

It's probably 4:30 in the morning.

We were just sitting and chanting together.

It's about you know where life was taking me and some of my hopes and dreams of becoming a pastor, some of my fear of becoming a pastor.

And he's you know, an older officer kind of pouring into me and blessing me and edifying me.

And before we parted ways that night, he said one more thing.

He goes, Can I offer you one more word of advice?

I said, Lonnie, I'll take whatever you got.

He said, When you become a pastor, don't get so caught up in the work of the Lord that you forget about the Lord of the work.

Don't get so caught up in the work of the Lord that you forget about the Lord of the work.

I'd love to tell you that my ministry has been a faithful witness to not getting too caught up in the work of the Lord.

That I have forgotten about the Lord of the work, but I'd be lying.

In a moment of transparency, there's been times in my ministry where I got too fixated on ministry and not fixated enough on Jesus.

So at the 830 service, I felt the Lord telling me to kneel at the altar rail.

Because I've drifted.

And I needed the Jesus to reset my priorities in my heart.

And so I invite that to you today.

In a closing hymn, if you've drifted and you want the Lord to reset your heart as he reset my heart, I invite you to come and kneel at this altar rail.

Will you pray with me?

Oh Lord Jesus, I ask you to reset our hearts today.

That you'd return us to our first love.

And then and only then, Lord, may your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as is in heaven.

We pray this all in Jesus' name.

In all God's people said, Amen.

Thank you for listening to the Church of the Lakes podcast with Pastor Jared Preset.

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Until next time, stay encouraged and keep walking in faith.