Ephesians - The Church that Forgot Why

Well, y'all be praying. Um, we'll be looking for a new contemporary worship pastor beginning next week after that last comment about not wearing a cowboy jersey. What a good day to be in the house of the Lord, right? Listen, we have a treat this morning. Um, I'm not preaching. That may be the treat for you, but um, we have a special guest preacher today. And let me tell you a little bit about him. Maybe about 40 years ago when um, I know I was much younger and cooler. And we may even have a picture up there to kind of show you. There was a day 40 years ago, but but God gave me a friendship with an individual, his name is Todd Gaston. And um we have gone through seasons of life together. We have gone through engagement period. We've gone through getting married about the same time. We've gone through bearing some of our parents um at different seasons. We've just gone through lots of seasons together, but maybe my most favorite season was when we got to do ministry together. Um, we were at a church in Irving, Texas, and I was the high school pastor, he was the middle school pastor, and it was during this season that God gave us the foundation for ministry. And um, I I I kind of get emotional now talking about it because it was more than the how-to of ministry. It was this. Don't get so caught up in doing the church work that you forget the God that you're doing the work for. And nobody keeps your pastor more sharpened in his spiritual life. Nobody keeps me more accountable in my life to this day, 40 years later, than my friend Todd. Um, our wives fuss that we probably talk on the phone more to each other than we do to them. And so we get in trouble sometimes. But church, it is my just blessing to um to introduce you to my best friend, my iron sharpening iron. But our pastor and preacher today, Todd Gaston, would you welcome him today?

All right. He said I have what we got three hours. Is that what he said? I got to fill. Man, it is so good to be with you guys today. This is an honor to to take a little break from my neighborhood church to be here in your neighborhood to be able to be here in this way. And so if you have a Bible, we are going to be in the last book in the Bible, Revelation chapter 2. Go ahead and turn there with me if you would. Hopefully you got a listening guide when you came in today. We're going to take a few notes together today. Uh as I spend just a few minutes kind of sharing a little bit with you. Uh as Keith said, uh we go all the way way back uh together in Texas. Uh it's where we were born and raised. And looking at those pictures, man, oh my word. Some turn gray, some turned loose. Okay. So, you just you just got to you just got to deal with whatever God deals with you in that. But, uh as I was thinking about just our time together, uh he has been a mentor and a friend to me for so so many years. And so, I didn't grow up in a church family. Some of y'all can relate to that, right? Uh we didn't do the church thing in my family, loving family, divorced family, but not church family. And really, my neighbors are the ones who started taking me to their neighborhood church. And in I have this early memory. They invited me. My first experience was at vacation bible school. I think it was like in fifth grade. And the teen helper that year was Keith Smith in my class. And so here I was, my first introduction trying to learn and here's this older guy in this class kind of leaning in and teaching in that way. It took several years later though as God continued to plant seeds in my life. Uh I didn't become a Christian till 13. And it was right after my mom and stepdad divorced. And I was wrecked. I knew I was broken. I knew I was angry at the world and all these things going on and my neighbors just kept loving me and they started taking me even more faithfully to their church. And it was there that I heard the good news of Jesus Christ. It was there I knew I needed him in my brokenness. And it was there that I repented and believed and began a relationship with Jesus Christ at age 13. And you can see I've never gotten over it. And so all these years later, I served uh uh in Texas alongside of Keith. I was there at that church for about a decade. And then I went up to the DC area, uh, Northern Virginia, and I served in Stafford, Virginia, right next door to Quanico for about 19 years. I was a pastor out there. And then the last four years, my wife and I reset. We're down in Florida in a place called Stewart uh, Family Church, North Stewart is where I'm shephering now. And we're a family of neighborhood churches. We've got about 20 different locations. We have neighborhood pastors at every location. And my location is North Stewart. And so that's what I've been doing up into this place. But it is indeed a just an honor to be here this morning with you. Now, I I've heard that you guys have been walking through the book of Ephesians. So, where we're going to pick up today is going to be, I think, a great place in the Bible to reinforce kind of that church that you guys have been studying for the last several months together. Now, as you turn there, uh, as I was thinking about that theme of grace, I let me just ask the question this way. How many of you are grateful for grace? Yeah. Amen to that. Grateful for the grace. When when I thought about the the church in Ephesus, it reminded me of the the the story of the prodal sons. Y'all know that that story, that famous parable that Jesus taught that day in front of that crowd, two sons. Y'all remember the two sons? Remember the one son, the younger son? You know, there's there's lots of ways you can run towards rebellion, but his choice was, I'm going to leave my home. I'm going to leave my father, and I'm going to do whatever I want to do. Come on, yolo. This is my life. I can do whatever I want to do. Nobody can tell me what I can do. Dad, I wish you were dead. And that's what it means when you want his inheritance, right? I just want what you can give me. I don't want you. So, give me my stuff and I'm out of here. And y'all know how the story goes. For some time, he lives that way. And and it says that he finally comes to the what? The end of himself. He comes to his senses. He wakes up in the pig pin, right? Going, "What the heck am I doing here?" And he starts to realize, man, what I ran away from is actually the life that I actually want. And he begins to think, man, I could go back home. Maybe I could go back home. Now, remember back home, he had an older brother there. And remember when he finally does come back home, the older brother's posture. Remember that guy? He gets angry, right? He's like, "How in the world? How dare my dad love and forgive my little brother for all the stuff that he did against our family? There's no way my brother deserves grace or second chances or another way to come back home. And you know what he shows us? You don't have to leave home to get lost. You see, his rebellion wasn't hedonism, living for yourself, just doing whatever you want to do. His rebellion was legalism. I'm gonna work in a way where I just got to be better than my little brother. And if I can just outrun him, then I'm good. And if I live a certain way, Dad, you you got to bless me. And so, both of them prod. Can y'all relate to that today? As I thought about that, I thought about my own family. Let me introduce my family. This is my wife, uh, Pam. We've been married for 33 years. We've got three daughters, Hannah, Sydney, and Lexi. and then a nephew, Eli, that we were responsible for raising. And so, these are our kids uh now grown. Two of my daughters are married. My oldest daughter's married to a guy in the army and they're serving over in Germany right now. And then my middle daughter just got married and she's working at Disney. Uh she's friends with Stitch or Jiminy Cricket or whatever she's wearing that day. And then uh my youngest daughter is working on nursing school right now. But as I show this picture of my family, uh I've got some kids that are running after Jesus that are loving the Lord. But I look at this this picture and it breaks my heart because I also have some prodals. Can anybody relate to that? Where you can lead your kids and pray for your kids and encourage your kids, but you can't you can't force their hearts. They got to say yes, Lord, or not. And so as I look at this today, as I think about the story of the prodal sons, I I wondered what do you do with the prodal son or a daughter? And then let me ask the question this way. What do you do with the prodical church? And that's what we're going to pick up today in Revelation chapter 2. Now, to kind of understand a little bit about the book of Revelation, uh let me go ahead and say, Keith, thank you for giving me such uh an encouraging book to preach today, the book of Revelation, because the the stats say this that the number one book that people in churches want to hear about is the book of Revelation. And the number one book preachers don't want to preach is what? The book of Revelation. And part of it is is we think it's got this cryptic stuff that we got to figure out all the imagery, which is part of it. And we're always wondering, is this book written to help me understand current events? Or was this book originally written to struggling Christians back during a time where it wasn't really easy to be Christians? And this book was written to give some future hope and some present hope of what could be for your life. Now, to understand a little bit of context, even though we're going to get to chapter two, let me give you this. Uh, this John, the Apostle John's going to write some words down, and I want you to know where he got these words. Look at this. Revelation 1 verse one. It says, "The revelation came from who?" Come on, church. Came from who? The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending an angel to his servant John. Now, John the Apostle bore witness to the word of God and to this testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Now, read this last verse out loud with me. Read it from the screen because it's ESV here. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it. For the time is near. Count yourselves blessed right there. Right? Verse verse 11 though tells us who he's specifically writing to these churches. Watch this. Write this down, John, in this book. Send it to the seven churches. And those seven churches are what? Oh, there it is. Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Titara, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Leoa. And so today, we're going to pick up on that first letter, the book written to or the letter written to Ephesus. Ephesus. Now, if you know anything about the history, which I think you guys do because y'all have been talking about this, this church got planted by a guy named Who? Keith, you're such a good preacher, man. Come on. church planner, what's his name? The Apostle Paul. He plants lots of churches in the New Testament. And so, he is responsible. That's found in Acts chapter 19. He started the church here in Ephesus. Now, what I want you to see about this church is this church in Ephesus is central to sending out missionaries, sending out church planters. It was actually a training center for the movement of what God was building in that moment. Now, let me show you a map to show you where these churches were located in this modern day. It's actually modern day Turkey now, this area. But see where all the stars are? That's where those churches are on the map there. The reason I'm showing you this is the center of Christianity moved from Jerusalem to Antioch and then now it's moved to Ephesus. And then it's in Ephesus where later it's going to move to Rome. And then it's going to move to where? Littleton, Colorado. Well, I'm joking about that last part, but Christianity is on the move. And I want you to see that. I want you to feel that because it's moving out. And this church in Ephesus was a central church. Now, you might not realize this, but this church was like the who's of pastors. I mean, the first pastor was the guy named Paul. Paul lets the next pastor become a guy named Timothy. And then the Apostle John ends up becoming a pastor of this very church. So here John is on Patmas Island, right? And he's he's writing back to a church that he used to kind of be a part of and used to care for and share. Now if you know your Bible, remember when Jesus on the cross, he turns to John and he tells John to take care of who? Mary. So guess who's also a member of this church? The mother Mary. Can you imagine Christmas Eve and they're singing Mary? Did you know? She'd be like, "Yeah, that's my son." Right? I mean, are you getting a vibe? This is an impressive church. But now they're getting a letter 40 years after they launched. And now these are words written back to them 40 years later to see how are they actually doing. So are y'all ready for God's word today? Let's go. Let's go. All right. So, Revelation chapter 2 beginning in verse one. To the angel of the church in Ephesus, they write this. The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand. And who are we talking about there? Jesus holding the stars in his right hand. And then he walks among the seven golden lampstands, which is significant because that's the churches. That's the seven churches he written to. He says this, "I know your works, church, your toil, your patient endurance, how you cannot bear with those who are evil. But you have tested those who call themselves apostles and they're not and they're found you found them to be false. So, so far so good, right? They're getting encouraged here. He says, "I know that you're enduring patiently and you're bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary, but oh man, the butts in the Bible, never miss the butts, right?" He says, "But I hold this against you. You have abandoned the love that you had at first." So remember, therefore, therefore, he says, "So that you will not fallen." So therefore, you have not fallen. You will repent and do the works that you did at first. If not, I will come and I will what? Remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. Yet this you have. You hated the works of the niclatians which I also hated. He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will grant to eat from the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. Amen to the word of God. Now, let's quickly do a couple of things here because I want you to see a couple of things in this passage together. But I want to give you first of all the title of today's message. It's not on your outline there, but I'm going to go ahead and give it to you. I want you to hear this right out of the gate. God always wants you back. God always wants you back. Maybe you're here today and you are the prodical. I love my pastor Keith. I I don't think you're a prodical church by any means, but we all have things we need to lean in on. And what would God want to say to us today that we wouldn't miss that he wants to share? You see, in this letter, we get an image of Jesus. Jesus is holding the seven stars and he's walking among the golden lampstands. He's walking among the churches and he takes John on like this supernatural tour and he tells him to write some things down. Now, all the letters start with some affirmations, some good things, and then it comes with a correction. I want us to hear this because he starts off with some really good praise about this church that they're committed to the word of God. They're committed to the patience with patience and doctrinal integrity and consistent activity. So, they're believing some right things. They're living out some right things. They even hated the niclatians. Y'all know the niclatians, right? Y'all probably don't know what that is, do you? Do you? The word breaks down. Nico means over. Latians means ley. So, it's this group over the ley. It's actually a bunch of kermagins that are more upset about you sitting in their seats. They're more about pagan worship really. They're about this theme of, hey, we can take the world and God and mix it together. and they had a false message and they were le leading people to go worship Dianises instead of worshiping only Jesus. And so it's it was breaking down. And so he's like, "Listen, y'all hate their behavior." And that's a good thing because I hate their behavior, too. So, are you getting a vibe here? 40 years later, the church is still packed. 40 years later, still buzzing with programs and ministry activity. They're so proud of their past and who their who's who list of pastors were. Yet in this moment, even though they hammered down on right beliefs, hammered down on right behavior, this once on fire church had a glaring blind spot. And what was their blind spot? They had forsaken their first love. You see, you can do all the right things and not becoming right. And he said, "You've forsaken your first love towards me and your love for one another." You see, interesting enough, I think if you leave churches alone, they'll always drift this way where we'll continue to do the things that we know to do, but you can do it and they can be loveless. And he said, "This is a sin. This is wrong. I'm trying to wake you back up again." And so in the few minutes that I have left, I want to share with you three invitations that I think this passage is inviting them then and I think God is inviting you and us right now to also participate in this letter of Ephesus is an invitation. Number one, right there on your outline, Jesus invites them to remember. He invites them to remember how did this once vibrant church planted by Paul, pastored by Timothy, led by John, end up here all these years. They forgot God. Now, think about that for a second. Let's just get real practical here. How many of you here today are in a relationship, whether it's dating or in a relationship called marriage? How many of y'all That's you. That's you. Okay. I want you to think back. Do you remember when you first met one another? I mean, think back to those those early days where you were meeting for the very first time? Those early flutters in your soul where you just couldn't get enough of one another. I mean, you just wanted to hold each other's hand. You just wanted to open up every door. You just wanted to buy them flowers. Now, you won't even get up or you won't even grunt when they walk in the room. Ain't that interesting? I thought about that first summer Pam and I met because Keith is right. We shared a lot of life parallel to one another. In those early years when we first started dating, this was a picture of us all together. Now, that was my grandmother and my my a great aunt. But this is me and Keith with our uh significance then. Yes. Uh Keith dated Selma right there. Did he? Again, this was a younger version of all four of us, but I thought about those years. We couldn't get enough time together. When I was with Pam that summer, I didn't care about skipping work. I didn't care about staying up late. I didn't care about skipping my summer classes at the college. I just wanted to spend time with her. And I remember we'd get on the phone at night. You say good night. You say night. You say goodbye. You say, and we didn't want to get off the phone. Y'all y'all know what that's like. Y'all remember back in those days? And here we are 33 years married, you know, four kids later, and all of a sudden you just realize, man, life drifts to responsibility and duty and chores and paying mortgages and planning activities. And I'm not saying yeah, but listen, if you're not careful, you you'll lose your loving feeling. You'll lose those things that you once felt on those early days if you don't practice love with each other. C can I get a witness today? Y'all know what I'm talking about here? And it doesn't mean the love's not committed. It's still committed. But if you don't go out of your way to try to do things to show that I still feel the same about you, it is easy to drift away from that kind of commitment and connection. You see, I think that's also true for Christianity. If we're not careful, you see, a lot of times when we come alive in Christ, I want you to think back to when you first met Jesus. Listen, I just shared with you. I became a Christian at 13. Can I ask you a personal question today? When did you first believe? When did you come to a place of realizing you were lost and broken and you needed Jesus? Now, don't give me that answer. I've been a Christian my whole life. No, no, no. You might have gone to church your whole life, but you had to come to an intersection where it wasn't mom and dad's faith anymore. It was yours. And you had to come to a place of realizing, I need Jesus. So, where were you? What was happening in your life when you repented and believed? Some of you, you were kids, weren't you? You were in childhood and maybe it wasn't a vacation Bible school or at church or something and you heard the good news and you went, "Man, that's me. I need that." And you prayed. Some of you maybe were teenagers like I was and that's when you began to realize, "Man, I don't want to live just for myself. That's a small life. I want to live for someone greater." And you surrendered your life to Christ. How about you? Maybe you were in college. Some of you that was your salvation. Some of you young adults. Maybe some of you when you finally had your first kid and you realized, "Oh my word, this is a big responsibility for the rest of my life. I need help. I need somebody to lead me." And you realized you need Jesus. I love it. Sometimes even in my church, I have senior adults that come to a place realizing they've gone their whole life and they never began a relationship with Jesus Christ. Now listen, I don't know where all y'all stand spiritually today, but can I take you back to that first day? that moment where you trusted and believed in Jesus personally for yourself. And if today you can't recall that moment, there could be a reason why you're here this morning. And I'm going to go back to my title. Can I tell you, God wants you back. God wants relationship with you and me. And and listen, sometimes we have to go back to those early moments so that we can be reminded of what we have found in Jesus Christ. I'm going to ask you a question again. Are you grateful for grace? Come on, sing this with me. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that save the rich like me.

I once was lost but now I'm found. Was blind but now I see. Listen, it's too easy over time to to wonder why in our faith. Why do I give? Why do I serve? Why do I join a small group? Why do I just still go to church? I like what Michael Hyatt said. He said, "People who lose their way, they lose their why." I think we got to come back again because drifting is always a natural thing to drift away from the Lord. And you know what? Drifting happens always in small decisions. Maybe it's running fast in our daily devotions. Maybe it's feeling slighted, overlooked, and we find ourselves defending ourselves, defending our reputations. Maybe it's when we feel snubbed by someone. Maybe instead of turning to God, we go to others that we can talk to about this. And then when we can't fix our brokenness, where do we turn to at least numb our brokenness? That's where we turn to maybe feeling something for a minute. Let's go buy something new. Come on. Let's go to the man cave. Let's let's do our fantasy football. Let let's let's work out. Let's overeat and overindulge. Let's binge watch one show after another on Netflix. All these things that we can do to nurse our lives, then all of a sudden we realize it's still not enough. I love what Mr. Anonymous once said. He said, "When you're doing things for God, but not spending time with God, you'll begin to act like you are God." Too often, I think that's what we fall into. And it's almost like Paul here is saying, "Hey, Ephesus, you forgot your first love. Come back. God will always take you back." Don't just get caught up in doing the right thing. You got to realize we got to become the right one. You see, when you're close to Jesus, you'll start to care about the things that Jesus cares about. So, what does Jesus care about? People. People. People. God has uniquely placed South Sub Church right here in Littleton, Colorado. I want you to think about all the people within the radius of this church that have never experienced the good news of Jesus Christ in their life. Does that bother you, church? I wonder if they were to show up tomorrow or next Sunday to through these doors, how would you receive them? Would you see them? Would you care about them? Would you welcome them? Would you give them your seat? We start thinking about what we would sacrifice for another person to come in here and to experience the good news of Jesus Christ like you did many years ago. You see, we got to remember what I love. We're going to take the table here in a little bit. The bread and the cup. What are we doing there? Remembering what Jesus Christ has done for you and for me. And so it's right here in Revelation 2. He says, "Remember." Look at what David said back in the Old Testament. Psalm 51:12 talking about this idea of remembering. He said this. He said, "Restore to me the what? The joy of my salvation." I think about that idea of the salvation that God has given to you and to me. Let's not forget it. Let's come back and revisit it. Here we go quickly. Number two, write this down. Number two, Jesus invites them to repent. He invites them to repent. Look at verse five again. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent. Do the works that you did at first. If not, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. Now, do you know what it means to repent? Now, in the New Testament, it's written in the Greek language. This word is metaninoia. Metaninoia. Say that with me. It means to change your thinking or to change your mind. It means I'm going in a wrong direction away from God like that younger son. I'm living for myself. I'm living for me. And I realize, man, this is not the life I want. And God turns me around. He changes my thinking and he leads me to go back in another 180 direction. That metaninoia is repent. It's turning away. It's confessing, repenting our sin that I've made mistakes and Jesus, I need you. I need your grace to turn back to you. This idea of repenting is key to us moving forward. Now, what does that mean within your marriage? Listen, if you're married, it might mean you need to go plan a date or go write a love letter or go buy some roses or plan a great vacation so you can keep making more memories together. But if you're a Christian, it might means come back to a right relationship with Jesus Christ. And maybe you're here, but spiritually you've not been here in a while. God's calling you home. Now, you guys have been studying the book of Ephesus and it's the book of Ephesians talking about this church in Ephesus. And I want you to think back to some of the ministry partners that Paul had. He had Priscilla and Aquilla. And as he wrote back to that church, do you know how many times Paul used the word love in those six chapters in Ephesians? 22 times he used the word love. Isn't that interesting? right there in the middle verse chapter Ephesians 3:17 he says so that Christ may dwell in your hearts and in your hearts through faith that you being rooted and grounded in love. He wrote that 40 years earlier and then he closed out the letter said peace be to the brothers and love with the faith from God the father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with you all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with the love that's incorruptible. And here they are 40 years later and Jesus through the apostle John writes that you got to remember and you have to what? Repent. Can I give you a better and not better but a more full completion of this word repent? Because the Bible is written in Old Testament and New Testament. In the New Testament it's Greek. In the Old Testament, what's the language? It's Hebrew. You know, the word repent shows up in the Old Testament. You know, the word used there is the word tshoua. Tshoua. Say that. Tshoua. I like the word here. It means to return or better yet, come home. That beautiful. I think back to that prodical son's story. Isn't that exactly the invitation to come back home? Point three, Jesus invites them to come home. He invites them to return, to return.

So, let's fast forward again because I want you to see something here and we'll end with this before we break the bread and take the cup. Younger son says to dad, "Dad, I wish you were dead. I'm going to go live for me. I'm going to do what I want to do whenever I want to do it." And I he goes and he leads his life. And then he gets to a place realizing that all the parties, all the things that he spent his time and money and resources on left him empty, dirty, and broken. And he wakes up in his brokenness, realizing, man, even the servants in my dad's house has it better than me. Do you remember this? He starts to rehearse his speech. Remember the speech? Maybe I can go home and not beg to become a son again because that's just off the table. But maybe I can go home and beg to become what? One of the servants. Remember that? And then he starts to make his way back. And what he does he discover is he starts to get closer and closer to his house that he sees a figure on the front porch, right? And who was it? His dad. Because every day he looked and said, "Is this the day my son's going to what? come home. And he runs, which you didn't do in that culture. He runs to his son and he embraces his son. His son has that speech, right? He's ready to give his speech. I'm going to be a slave. And what does the dad do? He puts his arms around his dirty, broken son, and he says, "Bring the best robe and put it around my son's back." And wait a minute here. Think about this one. This is pretty scandalous here. I mean, he didn't say, "Get my son on a payment plan so he can pay me back all he took from me." He didn't say, "Put the servant's robe on his back." He didn't say, "Cover him up." He does what? He says what? He says what to him. He says, "No, put the what? The best robe." Son, you're not earning anything. You're not performing anything. You're receiving the very grace that I want to give to you right here, right now. Is that not powerful? And so he says, "Go kill the fatted calf. Tonight we're going to have a barbecue." And so the house starts to celebrate. Out in the field, there's the other son, the older brother, and this makes him angry. I can't believe what's happening here. My dad's going to take back my brother who did all that and squandered all that wealth, all that stuff. He's going to bring him back. And you know what I love about the father? Because he's really the hero of the story because the father in the story is God himself. And what does he do? He steps out of the party and comes out to the older son, tries to put his arms around that son, but that son's going to have nothing to do with it. Right? You see, you can get lost in hedenism or you can get lost in legalism. You can get lost on the same. But what I love about this is he comes out there to embrace that son, too. But you remember what his son said? You'll have to go back and read it later today. He said, "All these days, Dad, I have been what? Slaving for you." As if he was the servant and not the what? He said, "All these days I've been slaving for you." And they both used the wrong language here. One thinks he has to earn his way back and the other one thought he has earned his way to all the blessing and it's almost like the tension of the story is exactly like Ephesus. You can do all the right things but if your heart's far from God, God says it's time to come home. How do you get home? You remember, you repent. And then you return. Come on, church. You remember, you repent, and you return. I don't know where you are today in your spiritual life, but I don't think anybody here today is here by accident. And I believe today, somebody God is calling you to come home for the very first time. And you're thinking, "Oh man, what will people think? I've been coming to this church for a while now." Listen, what? Listen what they're going to think. They're going to celebrate that somebody finally realized they need to repent and believe and receive Jesus alone. But see, I'm probably talking to the home crowd today and you don't have to leave home to get lost. And I'm wondering today if maybe God's showing somebody today that you've been trying to do everything in your own effort, thinking, "God's going to love me more. God's going to love me more." Can I tell you, God already loves you more. you're his his son, his daughter, you're not earning anything. But when he loves you and he loves me, you know what he wants us to do? He just wants us to love him back. And that's why we serve. That's why we get in a group. That's why we give. We want to just show him that he is our our first love. Is Jesus your first love? For some of you, this is a church family you need to come be a part of. It's time to come home. They need you in this family. They need your gifts. They need your your your life in here. You're going to make this church better. Come join one of their groups. Come join one of their Listen, it's time to come home. It's time to come home. It's time to come home. Would you pray with me? Father, thank you for what you have spoken today through your living words. And thank you, God, for what you're doing in this family of faith here at South Sub Church. But God, today your word is living and active. And just like John wrote those words to be delivered to that church in Ephesus, right here today, right here today, Holy Spirit, you're delivering these same words right on time to each of each one of us. I love the spiritual intersection you've put us in, Holy Spirit, today where we have to look at our own hearts and say, "Do I have a relationship with Jesus or does something need to change?"

God, thank you for your heart in this moment

that you'll always want us back. I don't know who needs to come home today, God, but you do. As we remember with this bread and cup, help us to remember what you have done for us in Jesus name. Amen. You know,