The LOVE You Had at FIRST // Summer Lean In series (part 2) // Pastor Morgan

over here. Please come back.

All right. Good morning.

How are we today? The sun's not shining

today. It's kind of sad. Where was it?

It wasn't when I was looking.

Well, I am excited to speak to you

today. I we are in our summer leanin

series and pastor Drew gave us two

challenges last week and does anybody

remember? Shout out the two challenges

if you remember.

Okay, say that louder.

>> Church every Sunday. Attend every week.

What was the other one? Join the reading

plan. So you can put that slide up. We

are doing a psalm reading plan. And I

got to tell you this, you are not going

to believe this. I couldn't believe

this. We have a couple here today that

said they are taking this summer lean-in

so seriously. They were married

yesterday and they are here today.

Taylor and Jay, would you stand? Come

on, let's give them a round of applause.

Isn't that insane? They were like,

"We're coming. We're not going to like

fall off now. We just started. We're one

week in to the leanin plan." So, I love

that. I I want to give you just a couple

things that I asked our team. I said,

"With our summer lean-in, we're one week

in. How is God changing you?" I want to

just share a couple stories. One person

said, "I have had a heck of a time at

work this week. My boss has been on me

and I felt like a failure. I didn't

think I had enough left in the tank and

was questioning why I even came to

Nebraska. And after some self-loathing

and struggle time, I turned to some

friends that pointed me right to Jesus

into his word. I dropped everything and

started praying the next morning that he

would lift some anxiety off of me, that

he would return my smile and my joy for

my work. The next mo morning I woke up

refreshed. I didn't feel anxious about

going into work and I remembered why God

brought me here. By leaning into his

word and his people and to prayer, my

anxieties and doubts and my loathing

have subsided. Isn't that awesome?

And then I got another one that I

thought was so funny. He said, "I've

been struggling with my routines because

I got sick and I just found myself

needing more sleep and being lazier."

And I honestly probably would have felt

okay

with skipping my reading and prayer if I

didn't get all of the messages of other

people posting in the Bible app.

And I was like, if they can do it, I can

do it. Isn't that awesome? So they uh go

on to share that they dove right in. So

I love that. So if you have not taken on

the challenge yet, you can join us

today. join the reading plan. We're only

one week in and it would be really easy

for you to catch up. So, um it's just ch

six or seven chapters so far. So, we are

going to dive in the word. And before we

do that, another thing that we started

last week is our commitment prayer.

We're taking time this summer to really

lean in. We don't want it to be a a

summer where we fall out of routine with

God. And so, um, before every message,

we're just going to say this prayer

together just to show the Lord and to

say to him what our intention is. So,

would you pray this prayer on the screen

with me? Here I am, all of me. I prepare

my heart, ready to receive what you have

for me and to give what I have for you.

I will worship you with my whole heart

and seek you with my full attention and

follow you with my best effort. I am

leaning in eagerly anticipating how you

will shape my soul and send my life as

your blessing to the world. And then I

just want to pray over you before we

start. God, I just pray

that every distraction that we walked in

here with, as we said earlier, that it

would fall. Lord, every word that you

have prepared for me to say,

I pray that I would say it. And the

things that I need your boldness on,

would you give me your boldness? And the

things that you don't want me to say,

would you shut me up? God, we ask that

this would be

the next 30 or so minutes that it would

be a moment

of redirection for our hearts.

Lord, we soften our hearts right now. We

are ready to receive whatever it is that

you have.

If it's a difficult word to hear, I pray

that you would give us ears to hear it.

And if there are things that you want us

to change, would you give us the courage

and boldness to do so?

We are ready to receive from you. Amen.

Well, today we are going to talk about

the love that you had at first.

I'm going to be talking from the book of

Revelation today, which I feel like we

we don't really go there a ton, but in

the book of Revelation, you can open up

to chapter 2. Um Jesus writes in the

beginning of Revelation, he writes seven

letters to the churches of that day.

Today, we're going to talk about one of

them. All of these churches had their

own culture, their own issues, and Jesus

took the time to lead and coach them

because he knows the condition of these

churches best. And he writes to tell

them what they're doing well and how he

wants to call them higher. And I love

that he gives these letters because it

shows us that God is not absent from his

church. He is not an absent leader, but

he is present with us in the work. He

cares deeply about the condition of his

church. And the church that we're going

to talk about today is the church of

Ephesus.

He cares deeply about this church, not

just how they're doing corporately, but

also as individuals. And so, the church

of Ephesus is the first letter that we

read about in Revelation. And I want to

give you a little insight about this

church.

This was not a weak church.

Very strong church. It's actually the

church that Paul spoke at and was with

for three years. Priscilla and Aquilla,

they were a ministry couple. A lot of

people would say that they were church

planters that served the church of

Ephesus. Timothy was likely a leader or

a pastor of this church. This is a

hardworking church with legends that

were a part of it. They were a church

that showed up. They were a church uh

particularly uh good with discernment.

They had endurance and from the outside

they looked really good. They looked

strong. They were doing a lot of good

things. One of the things that was

happening in this day was there there

was a lot of people um into magic and

into occult practices and a lot of

people were coming out of that within

this church. There were former idol

worshippers, Jews, Gentiles, trades

people, families, new believers, mature

believers.

And I read this in my study and I

thought that sounds a lot like us,

right? Like I don't know that we have a

lot of magic and occult people coming

out of that, but um a lot of new

believers, a lot of mature believers,

different types of people. They were a

hardworking church in pursuit of Jesus.

And so Jesus begins by commending them.

If you read in Revelation 2:2, it says,

Revelation 2:2

"I know your works, your labor, and your

endurance. I know that you have

persevered and endured hardships for the

sake of my name." I love what how the

message version says it. It says, "I see

what you've done. Your hard hard work."

It's not a typo. It's actually says it

twice. Your hard hard work. your refusal

to quit. I know your persistence and

your courage in my cause and that you

never wear out. I love that they were

building the church and Jesus was

telling them, "I see it. I love it. And

I'm here for it." They were seeing

people saved, set free from sin, healed,

and delivered. And I believe that he

would see say the same thing of us and

the people here. He loves what is

happening. He sees the labor. He sees

the setting up, the grind week after

week. Sometimes, you may not know this,

but sometimes we wonder where our next

service is going to be, or sometimes we

got to move over to the Mustang Center.

Sometimes we This morning actually we

forgot the guest water bottles and we

had to go to storage and grab them. We

don't have a building to store them. We

lose keys. We work together to see lives

changed. We put up sound. We don't get

to use their sound. We put up sound

every week so that the word can go

forth. We put up walls in our kids area

so that they can be in a safe place. And

did you know that there are about five

homes at least that have turned their

houses into storage units for

collective? My sister, her car is

literally a storage unit. It's crazy. I

am confident that God sees this church

and is proud of the people that we are

not just talking about the mission, but

we're being about it. Amen.

>> It's the greatest work. It's the

greatest call we've been given. And I

think that if Jesus were here today, he

would say to us, I'm grateful for your

labor. I see your hard hard work. I'm

grateful for your partnership.

It takes the body at work and not just a

few people but everybody pulling their

weight and God sees it and is pleased.

Then the chapter goes on. If you look in

verse four, it says this, "But

I have this against you.

You have abandoned the love you had at

first."

The church of Ephesus had gotten good at

doing. And my studies show that they

were not just good doers, but they were

spiritually impressive. They knew the

Bible really well. They could quote it.

They could teach it. But Jesus was not

looking for impressive. He was looking

for people that were in love with him.

He was be looking beyond what they could

do or the eloquence of their speech

about scripture. And he cared more about

the relationship that they had with him.

And I wondered today if this could be

something that we are guilty of. Have we

lost the love that we had at first? I

want to ask you a couple questions and I

just want you to think about it. Are you

serving Jesus but not enjoying Jesus?

Are you doing Christian things but your

heart feels distant?

Are you showing up but you're no longer

burning?

Are you obedient but not affectionate?

Are you busy for God but not deeply in

love with God?

God is giving a wakeup call to his

church in Ephesus. And I believe to us

today, he's saying, "We've got a

problem.

You're great people." And yet somewhere

along the way, we have forgotten the

most important thing. And I feel like

for some in the room, you've come to

love the things of God rather than God

himself.

You love the blessing of God rather than

all of him. We love what he can do for

us, but we drift from his love when it

doesn't align with what we want from

him.

Or for some, you may have become so busy

with good things that you've missed the

one thing. And good things become bad

things when it replaces a relationship

with God. And if you feel today that

your relationship with God is not like

it used to be, I want to call you back

to greater intimacy with him.

It is not that God has changed. It's us.

His love doesn't change. But

unfortunately, our love can drift

because we are limited and sinful

beings. And so somewhere along the way,

we may have drifted and now we have this

lack of intimacy with God. And so I want

us to treat today like a letter from

Jesus to you. And God is saying, "I'm no

longer your first, but I want to be. I

can see that I'm not. I see your hard

work, but you've lost the love. You used

to wake up in the morning, and he was

first before the rest of the house woke

up. It was time with you and him and now

maybe he gets just a few minutes of your

hurried day. For some, you used to sit

and sing worship in your bedroom and now

you just leave that to Sundays.

God loves your worship and he misses it.

He used to have your total surrender and

now he's just invited into the parts

that you allow him into.

He used to be able to speak to every

area and now he can only speak to the

areas that you are comfortable with

changing.

You used to tell everyone about him and

now your relationship feels private.

It's similar in marriage. In marriage,

the things that we were date that we did

when we were dating were crazy. We were

so in love. We would give all of our

time and attention to each other because

we wanted each other to know how

important they were. Anybody do

ridiculous things when you were dating?

If you're married now, I have to tell

you this. You aren't going to believe

this.

What? On our oneyear anniversary,

we Pastor Drew thought, "Let me take her

kayaking. Number one, that's bad." like

he would never do that today. He knows

better. But he takes me kayaking on the

Plat River

on dry ground.

I'm not kidding. It was dried up. So,

it's the hottest day of the year in

July. He I wish it would be like he

pulled me on this for hours up here. I

am not kidding. He pulls me in this

kayak and I'm like, I'm not getting up.

Like, you brought me out here. So, we

are He's reading me a love letter while

he's pulling. And when I say for hours,

I am not kidding. It was hours. We were

getting bit by hornet flies. I didn't

even know what those were. Then we my

nose had blisters

because it was so bad. And I look back

now and I'm like, I can't believe I did

that. Like I sat there and it made me

think like the things that you do when

you're in love, right? It's like they

can do no wrong. Now we look back and

we're like, I cannot believe we did

that. him especially. He's like, "I

can't believe we did that."

But what happens is time goes on, life

happens, and the crazy things that we

used to do, if we aren't careful, we

stop. We stop showing love to each

other. We no longer talk for hours, not

because we don't love each other, but

because we stopped putting in the work,

stopped putting in the intentionality.

And so the desire and affection is no

longer as it used to be.

And I'm sure that every marriage in the

room, you've been there and you can

understand this that over time you get

comfortable in the marriage. And the

relationship looks and feels different.

And we have seasons where we drift and

life gets busy. It gets full of good

things and we drift or disappointment

happens and we grow distant. And the

same thing happens in our relationship

with God. Life gets busy. It gets full

with good and necessary things. Yet, if

we aren't intentional and careful, we

can forget about the best part of us.

Our relationship with Jesus is the best

part of us.

or if God let us down and we've turned

to sin and we get more comfortable in

the distance because facing it feels

like too much and so we drift and so I

want to call us back to the love that we

had at first. The first part of verse

two or chapter 2 verse 5 Jesus says

remember then how far you have fallen.

This word fallen,

it does not mean fallen away from God.

It doesn't mean a loss of your salvation

or that you've turned away. He's talking

to believers and it would be better said

that their spiritual life with God had

taken a step back.

And so Jesus gives them the recipe for

how to take a step forward. And I want

to give that to you today. My first

point is to remember.

I want you to remember this message is

going to be very reflective. I want you

to remember what it was like to first be

saved and for God to be your everything.

Not just a part of your life, but to be

what the rest of your life revolves

around.

Maybe this message is not for you. Maybe

you feel like you are in the new stage

with God. Maybe you were recently saved.

Cherish this season. Do all that you can

to stay in this place, but save these

notes for a later season that will come.

To everybody else, I want you to hear

me. You can be near the things of God.

You can be a theologian of the Bible.

You can do great things and be far from

the heart of God. So I want us to

remember today. Do you remember when he

was first?

Do you remember his amazing grace? Do

you remember the pit that you were in?

Do you remember the addictions that you

left behind?

Do you remember your gratitude?

Do you remember the hunger?

When is the last time that worship moved

you to tears?

Do you remember opening the word and it

coming alive to you? Do you remember how

you used to tell everyone about him? Do

you remember when obedience felt like

love and when your sin bothered you? Do

you remember when he was the person you

went to first with your hurts and your

joys?

It's important that we remember what it

was like when God was more than enough.

When you didn't need anybody else but

him.

There was a point probably for all of us

when he was the first thing that you

thought of when you woke up. You had

time set aside for him. Maybe you still

do. I pray that you do. Extended time

with God. But for some of us in the

room, that may no longer be the case.

Maybe you've lost your zeal or your

eagerness to just be with him. Our world

is so fast-paced that it's so hard to

just sit in the silence of Jesus.

Do you remember when it was your Bible

before your phone? Or when life got hard

and you no longer turned to the bar, but

you turned to Jesus? One of the things I

felt convicted of lately is do I say

thank you to him before I celebrate that

success with other people?

I used to go to him with that first. But

recently I've celebrated with others

before thanking God for the very thing

that I asked him for and he answered.

Do you remember when you went to him

first?

Because where you go first is choosing

your direction. Just like when you go

out of a neighborhood, you're driving,

you take a right or a left, that's going

to determine your direction. And the

same spiritually, where you turn when

you first wake up, where you turn when

you are making a decision, where you

turn when you need help, where you go

first will determine your direction. Do

you turn to him first?

Where do you share the deep things

first? Is it your spouse or is it Jesus?

Some of you, you used to journal to God

all of you your feelings. You used to

share and pour your heart out to him.

And I want you to know today that he

misses you.

Some of you used to be so confident in

who you were. You knew your purpose and

you were running wholeheartedly after

Jesus. But somewhere along the way, you

started receiving affirmation and

identity from other people more than

from God. Something else became more

satisfying to you than his presence. And

over time, you've grown distant with

him. And you've lost and forgotten why

you were created. And your identity is

now formed by your relationships and

what people have to say about about you

rather than what he has to say. And God

wants to remind you that if you let him

speak first into your purpose and into

your heart and into your life, then

things are going to go much better for

you. He wants to be the one that you

hear from first. It's easy to get the

instant gratification from somebody who

can actually speak verbally with their

mouth to you in a moment. But I promise

you that if you take the time, God can

do that, too. He can speak to you in a

moment.

Do you remember where you first gave?

When you fall in love, money leaves your

pockets. It's like no matter how fancy

the dinner or how much the flowers cost

on the same date that I talked about, he

took me on a carriage ride, $150

trying to impress me, right? We He was

paying for all the things. He was poor.

He went into debt for that carriage

ride.

But money has no limits when you're in

love, right? Have you become stingy with

your savior? You used to be generous.

You used to give without convincing.

God doesn't need your money. But where

you love first is where you give first.

The Bible says, "Honor the Lord with

your first fruits." And God is giving us

a principle. He says, "Where your

treasure is, what

there your heart is." It tells where you

love. Every guy knows this. When it

comes to the person that you love, you

will give to that relationship. You give

your time and your money. What you give

to first says a lot about what you love

most.

He's saying to us as a church today,

remember how far you've fallen.

What are the areas for you as you

remember that are not as they were

before?

The second thing Jesus tells us to do

after we remember that's also in verse

five is to repent.

I don't believe that drifting is

intentional. I think that most of the

time it's accidental. But just because

somebody does something on accident, it

doesn't mean that we don't repent.

Right? If my kid accidentally hits their

sibling, they still have to say, "I'm

sorry." Right? I think of Peter from the

Bible. Peter forgot for a time who his

first love was.

I want you to think about this. Peter

ministered with Jesus for three years.

He saw miracles alongside Jesus. He was

a part of a lot of them. He walked with

him. He sat under his teaching. He steps

out on water and Jesus holds him up,

right? He confesses Jesus

as the Messiah and yet he still forgot

after all of that his first love.

If I were Jesus, I would have been so

frustrated. You are by my side every

day. And then after all of the time that

I spent investing in you and raising you

up, you're going to deny me.

Can you imagine that?

And then after Peter denies him, he

remembers what Jesus said would happen

because Jesus told him that this would

happen. It happens. Peter remembers and

he repents and he weeps bitterly at what

he did. I don't believe that the drift

for Peter was intentional. I don't think

that three years prior he thought, "Oh,

this is what I'm going to do. I'm going

to deny him." No. Scripture tells us

that that wasn't a thought of Peter's. I

truly think that it surprised him that

he would do that. And doesn't it sound

like so many of us where we are

surprised at times where we find oursel

with God,

we may have become accidentally so busy

and distracted and consumed or so hurt

that we have forgotten him to be our

first love. And if that is you today,

Jesus is calling you to repent.

And after the scripture in Revelation

says to remember to repent and then he

says do the works you did at first. And

so my third point is return.

I want you to think back to some things

that you used to do. I know that there

is not a person in this room, myself

included, that doesn't have room to grow

in their walk with God. And so what are

the areas for you?

Remember what you used to do. Repent and

go back to what you used to do. What did

you used to do?

Maybe you used to pray bolder prayers.

Maybe your heart was softer.

Maybe serving has made you bitter. It's

not because everybody else is bad. It's

because you've forgotten your first

love. You've forgotten the reason you do

it. Go back to your first love. and

remember why you started in the first

place.

Servant leaders in the room, I want you

to listen. If you don't have a deep love

for Jesus first, you will do a lot with

bitterness.

You will do a lot with no zeal. You will

do with an expectation and no

satisfaction because you are doing

without love.

We've made it about us and our ego and

our name and our status instead of

simply doing it because you love Jesus.

Because the love goes so deep.

And I want you to hear this today. The

greatest danger in following Jesus is

not abandoning him. It's continuing to

do things for him while no longer being

deeply in love with him.

My kids, they are really in I should

have brought it. They are really into

the dumpling squishies. Do you guys know

those? Okay. Yeah. My husband and I, we

found ourselves last weekend getting up

early to go run to multiple stores to

find dumpling squishies for the kids. We

waited in line. We waited in line for a

ball that you can squish. Crazy,

right? We get done and we're beaming.

We're playing with the squishies. We are

naming them. They're like, "Now we say

that we have six kids." Like, we put in

the work. We are running around for

squishies. Now they want squishy

siblings. And we loved it. It was easy

to do because our kids were so excited.

And who would have thought a year ago

that we'd be doing that and loving it.

Serving is easy. Working alongside the

Lord to build his church is easy. And

it's the greatest joy when you love him.

I'll be honest, there are some Sundays I

walk out of here, I am spent.

I've got nothing left in me. All of my

words are used up. That's saying

something. I'll go home and I'm like,

"My words are used. I need a moment."

And yet I am filled with joy because I

know that God is pleased and that he's

in it with me. And on my best days, I

can say I'm doing it because I am deeply

in love with Jesus.

And on my worst days,

every time I look at my worst days and I

think, why did I feel that way? Why am I

bitter in the work? It's always because

I've forgotten my first love. It's

always because I've lost sight of how

far he's carried me. It's always because

I've lost sight of my why. It's always

because my quiet time hasn't been as

good as it should be. It's never my

circumstance if I think about it. It's

because I need to return back to the

basic things. And we can't put life on

hold or the work of God on hold. But we

can reposition ourselves. We can

reposition our priorities and our focus.

We can get back in the word daily. We

can start showing up consistently.

We can start praying again. We can turn

on some worship music. Some of you are

playing the wrong music and expecting

something different from God.

Turn on some worship music. You can give

an offering. You can start family

devotions. You can change your behavior

to get your heart back to a position

where he's your first love.

Too often what we do is we mope around

and we say,

"My relationship with God's just the

same. He's not doing anything. I don't

feel him. I don't hear him."

If that is you,

God hasn't changed. You felt him at one

time. You can feel him again. I promise

you that it is us that we have to do

something different.

And God does the supernatural work. So

if you're not in the word, if you're not

praying, if you're not amongst the body,

if you're not serving, you will feel

lack. You will feel distance from God.

And God in a love letter to you today is

saying,

"Lean in.

Come a bit closer today.

I'm not satisfied with your doing. I'm

not satisfied

with your

leaning back. I need you to lean in. I

need you to do something different

today.

And so I want us to just close our eyes

right where we are. If you want to

stand, you can stand. However you need

to position yourself

because we're going to take some time.

Lunch can wait.

Cleaning can wait.

All your to-do list can wait. We are

first going to remember. I want you to

remember what it was like with those

questions that I asked. What it was like

when he was first.

What it was like when you didn't have a

care in the world as long as you had

Jesus.

What was it like when you actually had

faith to believe him for greater things?

Some of you have lost your faith.

So, I want you to just take, we're going

to take 30 seconds and just remember

what are those things.

We're going to take another 30 seconds

and I want you to repent.

What do you need to say? I'm sorry, God,

for

I'm sorry, God, that I've replaced you

with other things, sometimes good

things, but I've made them the main

thing.

Would you just out loud or in your mind,

would you repent?

The Bible says, "Confess with your

mouth.

The last thing is return.

I want you to write down what are you

going to go back to doing. It could be

little. It could be big.

It's between you and the Lord that

tomorrow when you wake up, it's going to

be a new day and a new season.

What do you need to return to? What do

you need to start that maybe you've

never done, but God is speaking to your

heart?

God, I pray for every person in this

room. Let's just put our hands out like

we're receiving something. God, I pray

that you would give them supernatural

power and grace,

Lord, that you would bring them back to

the love that they had at first,

God. That you would not just be

a box

in our life, but that you would consume

our life. that you would consume our

thoughts,

that everything would revolve around

you,

that we would not keep any part to

ourselves. Lord, the things that you

want to rid us of,

I pray that you would do that.

the things that you

want to bring to our attention to call

us back to you. Would you bring those to

our mind?

Jesus, we ask that you would make us

more like you.

We don't want to be like us. We want to

be like you.

So give us your heart.

Give us your attitude.

Give us zeal.

Give us purpose.

Give us faith,

hope,

love,

endurance.

God, we need you. We need your help. We

need your supernatural strength.

We love you.

We praise you. And we put you first in

Jesus name. name. Amen.

>> Hey, thanks so much for watching today's

message. Our prayer is more than the

words that were spoken in the message

that you would remember the things that

God spoke to your heart.

>> Yeah. And no matter what it was that God

spoke to you, I know that part of your

journey is other people being in a

community because we are better

together. So, if you made a decision to

follow Jesus today, would you click the

link below and fill out the form? This

is going to help us so that we can

celebrate with you and equip you with

some tools so that your next steps are

great steps.

>> Yeah. Thanks so much for watching. We're

praying for you. We're cheering you on.

We believe that the best days are ahead

of you.

Heat. Heat. N.