I don't like to be corrected.
I have this natural pride that has been with me my whole life
and it hasn't gone away, and it resists being told that I
am wrong. It's just something about that.
Even when my wife tells me I've done something wrong, I take
offense. I wish I wasn't that way. But I was thinking about
a comparison in our own relationship with others. if your wife told you, because
I can speak only from this perspective of husband and wife, I'm the
husband, she's the wife, and if my wife told me she had something
against me, it would make me listen carefully, of course,
but I would already be on my guard, wouldn't you? I don't
know, maybe, or not that way, but I would be receptive, but
always, you know, with a great deal of self-protection in the
whole engagement of listening to her because that's just the
way I am. I'm sad that it's that way, but I could tell you a lot
of other things about myself you wouldn't like either, but
let's stop there. But here's the thing. If my wife
told me that she had something against me and the one thing
she had against me is that I had stopped loving her as I once
did, then I would realize that she was in love with me, and
the thing that she most missed was my love to her. And that
would move me, you see. If someone said, you need to
straighten up, you need to make your bed, you need to tuck in
your shirt and comb your hair, brush your teeth for crying out
loud, you look like a bum, you know, that just doesn't compel
me. But if my wife tells me, you
know, of all the things that bother me, this is the only thing
that is really important to me right now, is that you've left
your first love. And I think that because of that,
it helps me to understand this particular scripture in Revelation
chapter 2. And I want to read the first
seven verses here. As you know, we're trying to
take an overview of the book of Revelation. I'm not going
to be able to give you a detailed explanation of everything in
this book. But one thing you'll see in this book is that it instills
fear in the hearts of men. And it's a prophecy in that way. There will be fear in the hearts
of men. I'll give you one example. It
says in Revelation 6, 14, the heaven departed as a scroll when
it is rolled together, and every mountain and island were moved
out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and
the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the
mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves
in the dens and in the rocks, the mountains, and said to the
mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face
of him that sits on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb
for the great day of his wrath has come and who shall be able
to stand? If we believe those words, and
I do, that he's telling about what will happen, then there's
cause for concern, isn't there? But notice that given the context
of this book and all the trouble that the Lord Jesus Christ tells
about coming upon this world, that to his church, he starts
out this way. He starts out here, as we read
it in Ephesians 2, and these two chapters, actually the first
three chapters of the book of Revelation, is the letter of
Christ to his church first and foremost. And that's something,
isn't it? That tells us where his heart
really lies. It's not with the economic conditions
of this world, is it? Is the Lord concerned about the
economic conditions of this world? Well, He does give us peace by
maintaining a certain amount of stability, but that's not
the main concern, is it? It's not about the inventions
and science of this world. It's not about climate change. What is it about? It's about
what the Lord is doing with his people. You see, that's where
God starts in this magnificent revelation of Jesus Christ. who
Christ is, that he is among them. As we saw, he's among the seven
golden candlesticks, which represent his church. He holds those seven
stars in his right hand, which represents his messengers to
those churches, his pastors and preachers and teachers, the gifts
he's given to the church. And here he starts out in these
first three chapters in chapter two, and he's addressing his
people as those whom he loves. Those whom he loves. In chapter
3 and verse 19, he says it this way. He says, as many as I love,
I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous, therefore, and repent.
These are words for our good. They're words for our good, and
that's the way we need to understand them. They're good words to us
of our love for Christ and how important it is to him. Here
he says in verse 1 of chapter 2, unto the angel of the church
of Ephesus write, These things saith he that holdeth the seven
stars in his right hand, that would be his messengers that
he has sent to his people, the churches. And he's speaking of
himself who walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. That's among his people. All of his people are represented
as seven golden candlesticks or seven churches, as he says
here in chapters two and three. So these seven churches in chapters
two and three represent all of his people throughout the period
of time from the cross to the end of time. He says, I know
thy works and thy labor. Notice how he's commending this
church. The first thing the Lord does is he commends his people.
He says, I know thy works and thy labor and thy patience and
how thou canst not bear them which are evil and that has tried
them which say they are apostles and are not and has found them
liars and has born. and has patience, and for my
name's sake has labored and has not fainted." I wish the Lord
could say that about me, don't you? I know your works. I know your labor for me. I know
you can't bear those who are evil, and you've actually been
able to discern. You've tried those who say they
are apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be liars.
And you have borne, you've borne this burden of trouble and under-patience. It's not like you were on today
and off tomorrow. You were persistent. You were
persevering in this. And for my name's sakes, you've
labored and you have not fainted." That's a great commendation here,
isn't it? And if you remember, the book of Ephesians that was
written by the Apostle Paul, or in the book of Acts, where
the Apostle came to the Ephesians and he told them how much he
would miss them because he was going away. and he would not
see them anymore, in Acts chapter 20, and he reminded them that
God had purchased the church with his own blood, the Lord
Jesus Christ, our God and Savior, and the Ephesians were so sad
when he told them these things that they wept much because they
would not see him again. So he had a love for them, they
had a love for him, and that book of Ephesians teaches us
how much God had revealed to that church of his eternal will
and work in Christ and our salvation. And so they labored, they were
working, they were careful not to put up with those who were
evil or those who claimed to be apostles and were liars. And
they bore all kind of trouble with patience in perseverance
of faith. And for Christ's name, they had
labored and had not fainted. So we see in that that God's
people can be very consistent in their works and yet have this
problem. And so it always touches me,
and I know it does you also, when we read God's word and we
find in there something that's wrong with us. It bothers me,
doesn't it? When the Lord himself points
it out, and as I said, if we read this further, we're gonna
see this, let's read on, he says, nevertheless, I have somewhat
against thee because thou hast left thy first love. Remember,
therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the
first works, or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove
thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. And this
thou hast, but this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of
the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. And notice in verse seven.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to
the churches. To him that overcometh will I
give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the
paradise of God. All right, that's the message,
Christ's first message to the first church, those seven golden
candlesticks. And you can tell here in those
two ways that this represents God's people, not just then,
after Christ had just ascended to heaven in those short 40 or
50 years after that, when this letter was written by the Apostle
John, and Christ speaks to the Church of Ephesus, not just to
the Church of Ephesus, but to all of his people, this is our
tendency, and this we need to be corrected for, that we have
left our first love. And notice how Scripture always
does these things And I'll read this to you to get the list of
the things that God does in scripture. But in 1 Timothy and chapter
3, it says it this way. He says, well, it's actually
2 Timothy. He says in chapter 3, he says,
all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof. for correction, for instruction
in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly
furnished unto all good works." So we see here, the Lord Jesus
Christ is correcting his people. He's providing a rebuke of love
to them. If the Lord didn't care about
his people, he wouldn't tell them what was wrong, would he?
And that's true with parents. If we love our children, we will
correct them. If we don't, we won't correct
them. And this is a principle. And it's a principle we take
comfort in because the Lord himself says, as many as I love, I rebuke
and chasten. And that's why he says, be zealous,
therefore, and repent. So here we have a correction,
but it is a correction of love. And it's not just to the church
at Ephesus. historically, but to God's people,
the church, throughout the New Testament era. For in verse 7,
chapter 2, verse 7, he that has an ear, let him hear what the
Spirit says unto the churches. Do you see that? And so he's
exhorting his people throughout time to be careful of this. I have somewhat against thee
because thou has left thy first love. So I'm going to talk about
this today, leaving our first love. And I've entitled today's
message, Christ, Our First Love. And so we see here in the context
of all these persecutions coming upon the church, the trouble
that would come upon them and the world, all of the death and
fear that the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to his church in
love here. And so we see what's important
to Christ. Everything in this world, on
all the trouble, is meant to bring us to love the Lord Jesus
Christ. How does that begin? What does
it even mean to love the Lord? You wonder about that. I mean,
it's sometimes we might deflect and say, well, what do you mean?
When we know good well what things mean, but it's good to let the
scripture tell us what it means. In Psalm 116, he says this, I
love the Lord because he has heard my voice and my supplications. He goes on in Psalm 116 verse
2, because he has inclined his ear to me, therefore will I call
upon him as long as I live. You see, he loves the Lord because
the Lord heard him when he cried out of his great need. He goes
on, he says, the sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of
hell got hold upon me. I found trouble and sorrow, then
called I upon the name of the Lord. Oh Lord, I beseech thee,
deliver my soul. Gracious is the Lord, and righteous,
yea, our God is merciful. The Lord preserveth the simple.
He's talking about himself. I was brought low, he helped
me. And then he goes on. Return unto thy rest, O my soul.
He's talking about returning, isn't he? For the Lord has dealt
bountifully with thee. For thou hast delivered my soul
from death, mine eyes from tears, my feet from falling. I will
walk before the Lord in the land of the living. I believe, therefore
have I spoken, I was greatly afflicted. I said in my haste,
all men are liars. What shall I render to the Lord
for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation
and call upon the name of the Lord. You see, How the Lord,
He gives us the words that explain what love is. It's that love
that comes to us when we need to be saved. And we call, and
He hears us, and He delivers us. And He teaches us to return
to Him. And the Lord is showing us that
he's concerned about us. And I think about how the Lord
has been gracious to us as we were singing those songs. Oh,
the love that sought me. Oh, the blood that brought me.
Oh, the grace that brought me to the throne, to the fold. He
brought me to himself. You think about all of the days
of your life and your youth until the Lord revealed himself to
you in the gospel, how you lived your life for yourself. And I'm talking about myself
again. For myself, proud, self-serving,
seeking pleasures. Nothing could satisfy. And yet
we continue to pursue it in our stubborn rebellion, and the Lord
graciously kept us. And he preserved us, and he brought
the gospel to us, and he showed himself to us. And we say with
the psalmist, I love the Lord, because he heard my voice. He
caused me to call, and then he heard my voice. And the Lord
has done this, and he not only saved us, he converted us, but
he continues to keep us. And all these things, and here
we have this, the correction of the Lord of us. Now, how do
we love the Lord? Why do we love Him? Because He
inclined His ear. He heard us. He saved us. Look
at 1 John chapter 4. In 1 John chapter 4, this love
of ours to Him is essential. He tells us, you've lost your
first love, and here He tells us how that love comes about. How we come in the first place
to love the Lord and what it means. He tells us what love
means here in verse 9, 1 John chapter 4 verse 9. In this was
manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his
only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. We were dead. He sent his son
to die that we might live. Well, here we have it. We live
because Christ died. And that death of Christ is the
expression of the love of God. It's not that God was just saying,
well, here's how much I love you. I'm going to send my son
to die for you. No, that just demonstrates his love to us in
an open way. Because that is the love of God
that he would do this for us. Look at verse 10. Herein is love,
not that we loved God. You can't measure love by our
love for God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the
propitiation for our sins. He sent his son to take away
our sins by bearing our sins and making satisfaction to his
justice and taking away his wrath that was against us for our sins. And that is love. That is how
we know the love of God, he says. He says, verse 11, beloved, if
God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man has
seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwells
in us and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we
dwell in him and he in us because he has given us of his spirit.
And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son
to be the Savior of the world. That's evidence that God has
given us His Spirit. We've seen it, we've believed
it, and we tell about it. God has sent His Son to be the
Savior of the world. All of us are out of this world.
The Lord sent His Son to save all of His people out of this
world. Verse 15, whosoever shall confess
that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him, and he in
God. And we have known and believed
the love that God has to us. You see? We've heard of it. We've
heard of Christ being sent. We heard how he is the propitiation
for our sins. There's no way that God could
be merciful to us unless God made him the propitiation for
our sins, the mercy seat. And God can have mercy on sinners
in Christ, by Christ. And so the publican, like we,
found ourselves calling out to God through the revelation of
the gospel that Christ is the propitiation for our sins. We
say, God, be propitious, be merciful to me, the sinner. Look upon
the satisfaction of your son that you provided, you accepted
in love in order to save your people. And consider him, and
in considering him, have mercy on me. You see, that's knowing. That's believing, that's relying
on, that's coming to God with the words that he has told us
in our heart and coming to him that way. So he says, we've known
and believe the love that God has to us. God is love and he
that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him. Herein
is our love made perfect. that we may have boldness in
the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world.
We trust Christ as all of our coming to God and our shelter
in the day of judgment, our answer to God for our sins, our answer
to God as the judge and as the one who stands before the judge.
He's everything for us. We expect him, we trust him,
we ask him, we rely on him. to do all this for us because
God has revealed it. He says in verse 18, there is
no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear because
fear has torment. He that feareth is not made perfect
in love. We love him because he first
loved us. Now, And with all that, we see
something about love, don't we? We see a lot about love. Where
does our love for God come from? It comes from Him. How do we
come to love Him? Because He first loved us and
sent His Son and He taught this to us in the Gospel and persuaded
us of it. that Christ, for me, is my answer
to God. And so even in judgment, even
in our conscience, in the day of judgment, at all times, we
are asking Christ to be our answer to God, through His blood to
make, bring us to God, and to take away our sins, and to clothe
us in His own obedience that moved Him to do this for us.
Lord, be my all. And that is given to us through
the work of the Holy Spirit to cause us to understand and know
this love and persuade us of it so that we rely on the provision
God has given out of love. We have known and believed the
love God has for us. You see, and knowing that he
so loved us in Christ, then we are coming to him as sinners
knowing he saved us and we love him this way. This is the result
of faith. You see, love, our love to God,
comes to us through faith in Christ. That's what this is teaching.
It says in Galatians 5, 6, faith worketh by love. We know faith
is there because the outward working of faith is love. And
our love, therefore, comes out of faith. And where does faith
come from? It comes from hearing. and the application of the hearing
of the gospel of Christ. Faith is given. It's given under
the hearing of the gospel, the preaching of the gospel by the
Holy Spirit, and that faith produces love for Christ. And so we see
that the beginning of our love, the beginning, our first love
comes from God, His work. And it comes to us as sinners
when we hear the gospel of His Son. And this is important that
we understand this. Our love begins with faith in
Christ. When we hear the gospel as a
sinner, that's the beginning of love. That's our first love. You see? And turn to Luke with me, Luke
chapter 7, if you want to see this. Luke chapter 7 and verse
36. It's setting here a great occasion
where the love of Christ's people is expressed for the Lord Jesus
Christ and how that love came about. In Luke 7, 36, one of
the Pharisees desired Jesus that he would eat with him. And he
went to the Pharisee's house. And he sat down to meet. And
behold, a woman in the city which was a sinner. She was publicly
known as a sinner. She just wasn't a quiet sinner.
She was a publicly recognized sinner. If anyone's going to
have a problem with sinners, they would have a problem with
this woman. When she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's
house, she brought an alabaster box of ointment. Now, this wasn't
cheap. And she stood at his feet behind
him, weeping. And she began to wash his feet
with her tears. There was something going on
inside of this woman. This was not just a calculated,
cold, sterile performance of a work, was it? She did this
under the unction of love produced by faith. And there's going to
be a reason for this. It gives it later. Weeping, she
began to wash his feet with tears. And she did wipe them with the
hairs of her head and kissed his feet. And in those days, feet were always in the muck.
They weren't clean. Sometimes it's hard to get our
feet clean, even around the house. Walk out into the garden, you
walk inside, and there you got dirt on your feet, and it's hard
to get off, because it's tenacious. It gets between your toes and
your toenails. It's not pretty. But she's washing
his feet with her tears, and taking her hair down, and wiping
his feet with her hair, and kissing his feet, and taking this alabaster
box that says, that she had, and she kissed his feet, and
she anointed them with the ointment. She poured out this expensive
ointment on his feet. And when the Pharisee, which
had bidden him, asked him to come, saw this, he spoke within
himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, he would have
known who and what manner of woman this is that touches him.
She is a sinner. Jesus answering said to him,
Simon, I have somewhat to say to thee. And he said, Master,
say on. He was absolutely presumptuously
self-confident that Christ had something to commend him for.
And there was a certain, he said, Jesus said, there was a certain
creditor which had two debtors. The one owed 500 pence and the
other 50, 10 times as much. And when they had nothing to
pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which
of them will love him most? You see the key here, love? Simon
answered and said, I suppose that he to whom he forgave most. That's some great insight, Simon.
And he said to him, thou hast rightly judged. And he turned
to the woman and he said to Simon, If seest thou this woman, I entered
into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet. But
she has washed my feet with her tears, and wiped them with the
hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss, but this
woman since the time I came in has not ceased to kiss my feet.
My head with oil thou didst not anoint, but this woman has anointed
my feet with ointment. Wherefore, I say unto thee, her
sins, which were many, or are many, are forgiven. For she loved much. That's not
the reason for her forgiveness. That's the evidence of it, by
the way. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. You see, love is the result of
the knowledge of forgiveness. And he said to her, thy sins
are forgiven. See how he reassures her. She
came in to worship him. And what does he say to her?
Your sins are forgiven you. And they that sat at meat with
him began to say within themselves, who is this man that forgives
sins also? He's God. Because the sins were
against him. And only God can forgive sins.
The one who is both God and man is the only one who can forgive
our sins. And he said to the woman, thy
faith has saved thee. Notice. Faith in Christ. Because of the forgiveness of
her sins, she loved much. And her love to him was expressed,
and it showed the great faith she had. Because she knew that
her sins, which were many, were all forgiven her. Ten times more
than the nearest competitor. She knew it. And so she loved
him, you see? Love for Christ is the result
of faith in Christ. Faith in Christ is a result of
God-given grace. Hearing the gospel, producing
that faith towards him that causes us to love him. Remember what
Jesus asked Peter? And John 21, after Peter had
denied the Lord, Peter bitterly wept. And Jesus caught his eye
after he had denied him that third time from his position
as being held captive and being accused there in the hall of
Caiaphas, the high priest, and he caught his eye. Peter saw
him catch his eye and he went out and he wept bitterly. And
Jesus meets up with the disciples, and Peter was there at the seaside. They were out fishing. It was
after Jesus had risen from the dead. They had already seen him.
Peter said, I'm going to go fishing. And they all said, yeah, we're
going to go with you. They caught a few fish. They were bringing
them in. And there Jesus was, had already prepared fish even
before they brought their fish. He's there, and Peter's there. They're all sitting around and
Jesus looks over and he says, Peter, do you love me? You see, that's the issue, isn't
it? Love for Christ, born out of faith, that's the issue. Could
a woman ask more of her husband? for this, or a wife, I mean a
husband of his wife, or a parent for their child, do you love
me? That's the issue, isn't it? Everything else, it doesn't matter. There's lots of things you're
going to do that are going to be incorrect. You're going to
ruin the couch, or you're going to wreck the car, you're going
to do something. But do you love me? And Lord
Jesus said to Peter, feed my lambs, feed my sheep, you see. If you love me, then you watch
over those I love. You give them the gospel of the
grace of God that tells them about the Savior's love. In Romans chapter 5, it tells
us, this is the ministry of the Holy Spirit of God Himself. He
says in Romans 5, Hope maketh not ashamed, verse 5, because,
notice, the love of God And the words mean, gushing forth in
abundantly poured out into our hearts. He says, the love of
God is shed abroad. It's gushing forth out of the
Holy Spirit of God into our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given
to us. And here's what he says to us.
He ministers the gospel of Christ to us. This is the love of God. When we were yet without strength
in due time, Christ died for me, the ungodly. For scarcely
for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good
man some would even dare to die. But God commended his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners opposed to him, Rebellious,
seeking to promote ourselves to his throne and honoring ourselves
instead of him and seeking our own pleasure when nothing would
give us any satisfaction but himself, the one who created
us and made us and must save us. When we were sinners, Christ
died for us in order that God might satisfy the requirements
that we could not satisfy and would not satisfy in order that
he might bring us to himself, much more than, being now justified
by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. Do you
see this? For when we were enemies, if when we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God by the death of his son, Much more, being
reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. This is the ministry
of the Spirit of God. Now, we who believe he's continually
pouring out this gushing overflow of abundance of the love of God
towards us that's revealed God's love toward us before we knew
him. When we were in rebellion, serving
ourselves and arrogantly going on in our presumption, fighting
against the God of glory, our Creator, and our only Savior,
we didn't know Him. And He saved us. And the psalmist
says, I will love the Lord because He heard my voice. He heard my
voice. Now in the Church of Ephesus
that we're reading about here, in Revelation chapter 2, notice
how he says this. He goes on, he says, I have somewhat
against thee, in verse 4, because thou hast left thy first love,
remember, remember, remember, from whence you've fallen, and
repent, and do the first works. What are the first works of a
sinner? Coming to Christ. You see, coming to Christ. The first works of a sinner are
to own his sin, his nothingness, his inability, his impotence
and his wickedness, and know that not only is he guilty under
the condemnation of eternal judgment, before the throne of God and
cannot answer one thing, yet He is also corrupt in His nature
and in His mind, and He can do nothing to correct the fundamental
problem, which is Himself. And He does not know what to
do. And He has no strength, even
if He did. And the Lord says, the Lord Jesus
Christ, the God of glory, came and took your nature into union
with himself and made himself a servant lower than a man, the
worm, and was enduring the wrath of God by bearing your sins and
taking from God what you deserved. He said, remember, remember,
and repent, do the first works, turn again. And that's why we
read there in Psalm 80, Do you notice how many times there in
that psalm it says, again, again? When he says again, it means
that there was a time when he was turned. And now the Lord has to turn
him again. Do you know that in scripture,
I can give you a few here, it's the Lord Jesus Christ who sits
on the throne that gives repentance? God has exalted him a prince
and a savior for to give repentance unto Israel and the forgiveness
of sins. Acts 5 31 and 2 Timothy 2 and
verse 25. If God per venture would grant
them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, You see, God has
to give us repentance, and so the psalmist, by the Spirit of
God, prays out, he says, turn us again, Lord God of hosts,
cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. Turn us again. We once were with you, now we're
gone. Turn us again. Notice how the Lord not only
gives us those words there in Psalm 80, but here in Hosea,
I mean, He had the book of Hosea in chapter 14. Listen to this
gracious words. How the Lord must do for us what
he tells us to do. He says in Hosea 14, O Israel,
return unto the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine
iniquity. Take with you words, and I'm
going to give you the words, and turn to the Lord, say to
him, take away all iniquity and receive us graciously. So will we render the calves
of our lips, the offerings of our lips. Asher will not save
us. That would be Egypt and Assyrians.
We will not ride upon horses as if we had strength in a horse.
Neither will we say anymore to the work of our hands, you are
our gods worshiping our own works. For in thee, the fatherless find
mercy. The Lord says, if you do this,
I will heal their backsliding. I will heal them, and I will
love them freely. For my anger is turned away from
him, from the Lord Jesus, and therefore against us. We were
being justified by his blood. We shall be saved from wrath
through him. Now, this is the way love comes. This is what love is. Our love
to Christ is born out of faith to Christ which is given to us
through the gospel. And this is a very true thing
that the believers' love to Christ can diminish. But Christ in love
speaks to his loved ones and he tells them this. He says,
thus saith the Lord, In Jeremiah 2.2, I remember thee, the kindness
of thy youth, the love of thine espousals. And so it was here. You've left your first love.
I like this song written by Keith Green. He says, my eyes are dry. My faith is old. My heart is
hard. My prayers are cold. I know how
I ought to be, alive to you and dead to me. What can be done
for an old heart like mine? Soften it up with oil and wine. The oil is you, your spirit of
love. Wash me anew in the wine of your
blood. Now, that's a good thing. Our
love may diminish, but the Lord Jesus Christ will not let one
of his sheep go. Not one of them shall perish
for whom Christ died. And so he seeks them, and he
brings them back. By his word, he tells them, you
remember. You remember what caused you
first to call on the Lord and to say with the psalmist, I love
the Lord because he heard my voice. I saw in Christ the full
answer God requires by his own nature and his will and his justice
and all that he provides in his grace. And I remember that. And now I don't know how to turn
back. My heart is so old and hard and cold. And my eyes are
dried up because I have no love for Christ, it seems. And then
he says, you turn to the Lord, you return, take these words
and say to the Lord, oh, take away our iniquities. None of
these things that I trusted will save me. But we hear again, my
anger is turned away from him and I will love you freely. So
this is how we, how we're turned. This is the only way we can be
turned. What causes us to lose our first love? Well, if faith
is the reason for love, what causes us to lose our love is
because of unbelief, isn't it? We forget. that we have known
what we've known and believe that the love that God has for
us. The diminishing of faith is the diminishing of love and
the restoration and the strengthening of faith is the only way we can
be strengthened and increase in love. The father said, Lord,
help my unbelief. I believe, help my unbelief. And so we pray, Lord, I love
you as Peter. You know my heart, you know I
love you, but cause me to love you more. And what do we do? Well, we start
where he said, do the first works. What did the publicans say? God,
be merciful to me, the sinner, again. Turn me again. Bow down your ear, O Lord, he
says in Psalm 86. Hear me, for I am poor and needy.
He goes on in Psalm 86, Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I cry unto
thee daily. You remember? Remember how sweet
it was when you found in the Psalms those words, Lord, say
unto my soul, I am thy salvation. Save me. Save me, Lord, by your
grace. Look upon your Son for me. And
so we see this, this is the way we diminish in our love for Christ
when we forget, we presume, contrary to what we learned in the beginning,
that by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, He saves us as
sinners. We forget we're sinners. We forget
our great need, what God had to do in order to bring us to
Himself. And this is the way it is. Now
notice in how Jesus instructed his disciples. In John 15 verse
9 he says, As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. You see the emphasis here? Continue
in it. So what happens is when we lose,
the reason for losing this love, this first love is what? is neglect. That's the first thing. We neglect
Christ, the one we love. And how do we have Christ? Well,
he says, we eat of his body broken and we drink of his blood poured
out through faith in him. And in so eating and drinking
of him, he dwells in us and we dwell in him. There's this communion.
There's this intimate exchange. We have or we are opening our
hearts to Him about everything. Remember that sweetness when
you knew that you could tell Christ everything about your
sin and your great need and your lack of faith and your lack of
and need for love and you came to Him for everything? And you
poured out everything and then the ministry of the gospel came
to you and He continued to pour out in gushing abundance the
love of Christ for you and you drank it in. And like the woman
at the well, you heard him say, if you knew the gift of God,
you would have asked me and I would have given you living waters.
And so you say, Lord, that's my warrant. Please give me this
living water. And there was this mutual communion
of a sinner naked in need of a Savior and Christ filling that
need and clothing him and assuring him in his heart, you can come
by the blood of Christ to the throne of grace in boldness.
And so there's this not neglect, but there was this intimate communion
with the Lord Jesus Christ. There was this always going to
him in supplication and in dependence. And this fellowship with him
over what he did, amazed at his work, wondering at his person
that he would do such great things for us, and we realize the love
of God for us. And so that's the first thing,
neglect. Good habits are hard to make, aren't they? Bad habits
are easy to make. And good habits are hard to make.
Bad habits are hard to break. So if you have a habit, Make
it this your habit, go to Christ at all times. Pour out your heart
to him, oh you people. Take the cup of salvation and
call upon the name of the Lord. That's what he's saying in Psalm
116. Our love also grows cold. because other things enter in
and choke out the word. Isn't that what the Lord says
in Matthew 13? He that received the seed of the gospel among
thorns is he that hears the word and the cares of this world,
the deceitfulness of riches choke the word. He becomes unfruitful. He's not found in tears at Christ's
feet with ointment and kissing his feet. No, because his sins
weren't that many. The attractions of this world.
I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to me. Jesus says, because iniquity
shall abound in Matthew 24, the love of many shall wax old. Another
thing that causes our love for Christ to diminish is self-confidence
in our self-righteousness. Our presumption that we can have
an attitude of living at a distance from Christ and yet lose nothing
in doing so. You see, the love of God is shown
to us in His grace. Faith is believing that God saves
us by His grace, by His sovereign will and His sovereign grace,
freely given to us because of the righteousness of Christ.
We should never, never presume or take it for granted Christ
offered Himself. God gave His Son. And he says
in Romans 12, I beseech you by the mercies of God that you present
your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable before God.
This is your reasonable service. It doesn't earn you anything,
but it's the reasonable response of a heart believing Christ.
If we no longer hear the gospel as a sinner and no longer, therefore,
know the joy and the wonder of God's grace that we are saved
in Christ and by Christ and with Christ, God loves us as Christ,
then we've left our first love. It ceases to be a wonder to us.
We need the Lord to turn us again, don't we? If we love someone,
say your wife, for example, this is again back to the things that
we know, or our children, or our brothers, our sisters in
Christ. If we love anyone, what do you want to do? I want to
be with them. I do. I want to be with them. If you've ever had a bosom friend
that you loved or someone so dear to you as your own wife,
your brother, your sister, whoever it might be, especially in the
Lord, we want to hear about what they love, don't we? What do
you love? Tell me about the things that
are on your heart. And we're happiest when those
that we love are happy. And we want to be with them.
In fact, we're happy to be only with them. It's enough for me
to be with you. I don't care if I have any money.
I don't care if I have a car. If I can just be around you.
Isn't that the way first love works? When you first fell in
love with your wife. You just want to be around her. You know what the Lord said to
Martha? He said, Martha, You're cumbered about with much
serving, but there's one thing needful, and Mary has chosen
the good thing. She sat at Jesus' feet, in his
presence, and heard his word, and that caused her to love him. Because the one thing that she
desired above everything else was to love the Lord Jesus Christ. To hear of his love for her and
that response of love to him. How do we regain this love then?
We have to hear the gospel of sinners. The Holy Spirit has
to abundantly lavish and shed abroad the love of Christ in
our hearts. And there's this fellowship with
Christ that takes place in our heart when we hear of him. That's
the one thing needful. Now the love we have to the Lord
Jesus Christ, he tells us, if you love me, Peter, then feed
my lambs, my sheep. So that we see in scripture in
Matthew 25, for example, if you've done this to the least of these,
my brethren, you've done it to me. If you love Christ, then
you love his people. You want to be with them. What
is that you said? What is that you said you love?
What is the dearest thing in life to you? What has the Lord
taught you? You see, this is the revelation
of the Lord to us. Don't lose your first love. Go
to Christ every day. Good habits are hard to make
and easy to break. Bad habits are easy to make.
They're hard to break. And we need to have this good
habit of hearing the gospel and fellowshipping with God's people
with this goal in mind that we would love the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, we pray that
you would give us this grace today to hear from Christ, our
Savior. This one thing is needful to
us. We want to know Him. We want to be found in Him. We
want our hearts to run out to Him. We would love to be as this
woman who was forgiven so much she could think of nothing else
but to just lavish upon the feet, the very feet of the Lord Jesus
Christ, who had carried the good news of the gospel to her and
fulfilled that gospel in His own self, her tears and her ointment
and drying His feet with her hair, to worship Him because
of His great saving grace to her in love. Help us, Lord, to
have this, this gift from You, the gift of Your Spirit, put
in our hearts. And we ask this, Lord, for all
of Your people here today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.