Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
"Here as in Heaven."
For more information visit : garden.church
Welcome to Garden Church Podcast. We're in a series in the book of Revelation. We're gonna spend the next 26 weeks doing a deep dive into both how to read and how to interpret this amazing book. Enjoy.
Darren:Hey. 11 AM. Somebody put some cash in a bucket, up here. So, I I I'll just take that as a sign that if somebody's here and they need money, this is for you during worship response. You can come take cash out because we don't do buckets anymore.
Darren:So if I see that, we're just gonna give it to anyone that has need. Okay. There you go. So if you have cash that you wanna give outside of your tithes and offerings and you wanna put in that bucket and you're here and you have need, you can come take it out. Sound good?
Darren:I said, does that sound good? I'm giving away money. Where are you at 11 AM? Are we awake? Wow.
Darren:You're okay. This is gonna take me I mean, after that worship, you're gonna be this dry. Do I need to say amen and get Lindy back up here to lead some worship for you? Because we have the word of God this morning. Grab your bibles, go to Revelation chapter 2 verse 1.
Darren:We are in a series called Revelation. And today, the title of my sermon that I renamed right before I got on stage in the first service was warning labels and promises. So have you ever seen a warning label on something? Come on, play with me now. Let's go.
Darren:I need you. I have had a crazy week of like the worst week and my boys are really sick. 1 of my kids is having lung problems. I talked about him last sermon. My wife is still ill.
Darren:It's like 8 weeks of testing my patients. In all seriousness, it's been opposition. I'm not I'm not I think, you know, every time there's a battle, there's also a breakthrough, right? And so I believe I'm contending for breakthrough. And all to say like I'm not in the head space where I can do all the heavy lifting.
Darren:We need a holy spirit, but I also need you church to be with me. The word of God is gonna be preached. Poorly or good, I don't know, but we need the holy spirit for that. But would you be good soil right now? Have you prepared?
Darren:Yes. Like, were you all week going, lord, make me good soil for your word to come into my life and make a ministry that's a 100 times what's planted? Is that the where you're walking in, or are you coming entitled? You coming to judge and sit on the outside with your arms crossed. We're not a seeker friendly church.
Darren:We are Jesus presence hosting church. We love you if you're outsiders. I'm so glad you're here. But we've had plenty of great churches that are seeker friendly that might not host the presence of God. We wanna build a church for his presence.
Darren:So we're gonna be reliant on him. And that might mess up your expectations of what you want from a gathering or from a local pastor. And I just say sorry about that. We're gonna do our best to lead out of the faithfulness God's called us to. So today, Revelation chapter 2.
Darren:Warning labels. You guys know what warning labels are? So here's a warning label. Handle with care. Right?
Darren:Or here's this one. Yeah. That's perfect timing, by the way. Danger. I'll pay you for that later.
Darren:Hard hat area. Like, you put these warning labels off out there because of a couple things. 1, there's a potential threat. Right? You could go down this route without a hard hat and something is gonna knock your head open, right?
Darren:You could take this fragile thing that's in this package and throw it around, thinking it's just a book but it's glass and you could destroy the thing inside. These warning labels are to prevent the thing from happening. Warning. Warning. Today's sermon is from a a part of the text where there's a warning label involved.
Darren:And I wanna start with it because I think it's important for you to set your heart with Jesus. And I can't do that. I'm not gonna woo you. I'm not gonna win you. I'm not gonna, slide you into believing these things, but I believe Jesus can.
Darren:So your heart needs to be open. So today's sermon is a warning with an invitation. The thing is you are in danger. And here's what I mean by that. If you're a follower of Jesus, there's a good chance that you could build an incredible life with incredible things and you can accomplish amazing amazing things in the name of Jesus.
Darren:There's a possibility and a potential that you can do all these amazing things. You could go to church regularly, serve on Sunday in one of our many gatherings next week, 8, 10, 12 and 6 PM. We need volunteers. You can join our serve teams. You can give lots of money.
Darren:You can practice the way of Jesus, build an emotionally healthy life, a purpose driven, ruthlessly eliminate, hurry up most for his highest Jesus calling kind of life. And you can miss it. Warning. You could do all of these amazing things and miss the very thing Jesus is after. So, Jesus, we pray.
Darren:We're not gonna transition. I'm gonna really pray. Lord, we need you. We just set this moment with everything we're carrying. My kids, my wife, the church, the the finances, the growing ministries, the growing needs, the people who are battling in the spiritual realm but they think it's just their health.
Darren:They think it's just a conflict in work. They think it's just a pattern in their relational strife, but it is from Satan. They're dealing with habits, they're longing for freedom in, they're dealing with loneliness, they're longing for community in, they're wanting to grow in their faith but they're struggling, they just wanna get by, they wanna be able to afford rent. There's so many stages and places of life in this room but we know that you are Lord. We just come under your lordship and as we are already presented with a potential threat to our life, we ask now, Jesus, for your Holy Spirit to give us grace to receive from you what we need in this moment.
Darren:So Lord, I thank you for the canon of scripture, the word of God that's living and active And I pray that as it's preached that holy spirit you would set our hearts ablaze, that our hearts would burn with fire, that we would sift through the distractions and focus on your word to us as a local community, as individuals. I pray that you would light a fire in us at the 11 AM, God, that would never be quenched, that would never be satiated by the world, by things, by idols, and imitation, and inferior kingdoms, but that we would center ourselves in you in Jesus name. Amen. That's good enough for me. Let's call it a day.
Darren:We're we're in the series, Revelation written to 7 churches. Here's here's a picture of those 7 churches, of where they were in Asia Minor. Now were there more churches than this? Yes. But the number 7 is important to John as he writes apocalyptic.
Darren:Remember 7 has meaning behind it. It's not these are 7 literal churches, but they're also 7 represents the whole, the complete church. So he's gonna speak to specific churches, but he's talking about the whole church of Jesus. Are you with me? It's written as a prophetic word about what God's doing and declaring in that moment, what he will do.
Darren:It's written in apocalyptic style meaning that we have to see that this is an unveiling. As a disciple of Jesus, you see things, but John is training you to see beyond the physical senses. You think it's empire crushing you. You think it's politics influencing the world. You think it's that habit that you got from your family system or generational curse, but underneath that is systemic evil that's personality.
Darren:Satan is working against God's kingdom. They'll name him dragon in this book. And systems of the power will be like beast from the earth, beast from the sea. Are you with me? So it's this beautiful book we're in and now we're in this section where John has just revealed Jesus has revealed himself to John and we have this invitation to center ourselves around that and then he's gonna write to these local churches.
Darren:Are you with me? So it says this verse 1, to the angel of the church in Ephesus write. Now I'm gonna chop this up because there's so such rich theology and I want you to understand the meaning behind things. So again, I apologize. It will feel more like a bible study.
Darren:I'm sorry. I'm not gonna apologize anymore. So I apologize for apologizing. We're gonna love the word of God. Here we go.
Darren:So John writes to the angel and last week I shared if you missed it, you need to catch up in the last 2 weeks. There's so much content there that will help you really digest what what's what we're about to go on what we're about to eat. But to to the angel, it's referring to supernatural beings that oversee the work of local churches. That I know it's hard for us in the evangelical world when we live with, you know, events on Sunday and websites to think that there's a supernatural, unseen realm that's energizing and activating and leading the local church on mission. So this is directed to the various guardian angels that bring order and empower mission for the local church.
Darren:That's what I believe this bible This teaches. And there's other places in the scripture that would argue for this but it's to the angels. So there's something here that's speaking to the the authorities that are not seen and to the local church in Ephesus. Can I just emphasize that? I'm gonna keep emphasizing the local church in Ephesus.
Darren:This isn't for the person that's left and deconstructed the church listening to a podcast with their friends in a coffee shop. This is for the people of God who are covenanted to a community on mission together in a space as the bride. Like we don't get to cherry pick and just dissect the body of Jesus Christ. We are in or we're not. It's to that local church in a context.
Darren:And Paul Oh, sorry. John is writing to this church. Jesus is speaking to the local church and he says, before I go there, what does he say? He says, he says, to the angel of the church in Ephesus right now. The church in Ephesus is important because he's now gonna speak to the local church, then he has things to say that are very specific to this context and context matters.
Darren:Do you agree? Say context matters. So here's the context of the church in Ephesus. The church was started by the apostle Paul. We read about this in Acts chapter 19, shows up, finds 12 guys.
Darren:He questions their theology because there's no evidence of the Holy Spirit. They're filled with the Holy Spirit. He takes them from the synagogue to the Hall of Tyrannus which would have been very expensive. It was a lecture hall for philosophers in the middle of the day. They met every day for 2 weeks, he preached the word and then a couple within two and a half years, the city riots against the church because they're drawing people from worshiping Artemis to Jesus and they're no longer buying all the trinkets and all the merch from the false gods.
Darren:Are you with me? So this is the story of that church and it it's placed in Ephesus. Now there's 3 things you need to know about Ephesus. Now before that, Paul plants it, hands it off to Timothy. Timothy, we we read about the letters that Paul writes when Timothy was leading that church in Ephesus, a young man with tummy issues who's leading much people older than him.
Darren:This is all true. Timothy gets beaten to death. I got your attention on that. You're like, woah. He's beaten to death.
Darren:John the Apostle comes to take over the church in Ephesus. It's in Ephesus that he writes the book of John most scholars believe, but also John had a companion with him because remember when Jesus was on the cross, he says to John, this is your mother and mother, this is your son. And that was John's cue to take responsibility for Mary. So we know that most likely Mary was in Ephesus at this church. Talk about a resume.
Darren:Are you with me? So there you got that, and then you got context. So at, Ephesus is the epicenter for Artemis. So I have a coin. There's lots of things I could show you, but here's a picture of Artemis.
Darren:It's the one on the right. She was this goddess of beauty and fertility and she was worshiped. She was a goddess of sexual promiscuity. At the center of Ephesus was the temple of Artemis which was the one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was the banking capital for Asia.
Darren:So tied to worshiping Artemis was this idea of bringing your body, your sexuality, bring your finances. If you wanted your business to grow, you worship Artemis. If you wanted to have lots of kids, if you wanted to get pregnant, you go to Artemis. In the middle of the temple of Artemis was a tree they called the tree of life. And if you wanted healing for anything, you go pay a fee, you worship Artemis, and you go to the center of the temple and you touch the tree and ask Artemis for the things.
Darren:Business blessing, financial prosperity, health, children, so on. You with me? Yeah. So part of the culture of Ephesus, if you were Ephesian was to worship the goddess, Artemis. But not just that, Ephesus was the 2nd largest capital for worshiping the gods of Rome.
Darren:So Ephesus built 2 temples to 2 Caesars. Caesar Augustus and here's, the ruins of Caesar, Domitian. So the book of Revelation was written under the rule of Domitian and he had the largest temple or, sorry, a temple with, on on top of the hill so that anywhere you looked in Ephesus, you could see Domitian's image. And to worship Artemis or to be Ephesian was to Artemis but to be Roman, part of the Roman empire meant you worshiped Caesar as Lord. So there was a regular reoccurrence throughout your daily life, your weekly rhythms where you would have to provide evidence of your worship for Caesar being lord.
Darren:So if you would go and sell goods, you would have to, you'd have to you'd have to worship Caesar as lord. So the third thing you need to know context. So you have the cult of Artemis, the cult of Rome, and then you have the Agora which was the marketplace. So this is where all the activity of life would take place outside of the temples. This is the ruins of the Agora, but imagine a giant swap meet with goods from around the world because this was a port city where people would buy and sell goods.
Darren:And so if you were a farmer, you would sell your goods here. If you were a craftsman, you would sell or buy the goods that you needed for the week here. And what you have to understand is to go into the Agora, you had to take a pinch of incense and offer it to Caesar as Lord. So in your buying and selling of goods, it required you to worship Caesar. And some Most scholars would say, that Ephesus, the economic activity in Ephesus was often tied to religious practices.
Darren:So there were specific deities and rituals that Christians couldn't, engage in in good conscious as they confessed Jesus as Lord. So in other words, there was a direct connection between commerce in Ephesus and idolatry. Meaning as Christians, they had to choose between economic stability and faithfulness to Jesus. That's the Ephesian context. One scholar says the mark on the right hand or the forehead signifies the total allegiance required by the empire empire and its economic system which is deeply intertwined with idolatry.
Darren:Meaning, that idea of taking that pinch of incense and giving it to the lord, in order to go into the marketplace. Some scholars say that you take that dye and put it on your hand or head, taking the mark of the beast in order to sell your goods. The question is, will you take on that mark to have financial stability or will you resist it to remain faithful to Jesus? It's not the vaccine. Got you early.
Darren:So I'm just placing this as we're gonna read the text because I love this as we now hear from the words. When you understand the context, there's something going on. To understand a Christian living in Ephesus meant they had to reject culturally acceptable default identities and lifestyle habits that were associated with just living in Ephesus in Rome at the time. So they had to choose to opt out of the social norms. Meaning they would be socially social outcasts.
Darren:They had to choose to opt out of things that would provide economic stability for their families because of their faith. Otherwise, they were at risk of worshiping false gods and idolatry. So imagine living in a moment of time where you had to rearrange your finances to no longer engage in commerce and certain activities of buying and selling things because of your faith. Imagine if you were have You lost your business because to participate in that business was to set up and prop up false gods. Imagine if you would lose your family members because you confess Jesus as lord and they would reject you completely because they see you as an atheist not worshiping the goddess of their city or the goddess of their empire, god of their empire.
Darren:Imagine if following Jesus cost you something. Imagine if today, following Jesus cost you your reputation, Cost you your good standing in the places that you live? Cost you your business deals? Cost you relationships? What would encourage you to keep going with that kind of pressure to conform to the culture around you.
Darren:That's where we get this letter. Are you with me? Can I just put a little side note that I wanna come back to? This letter, this little part is going to kill something that has infected the local church in Southern California. In the next few verses, it will put to death what I will call cultural Christianity.
Darren:This idea that you can be associated to Jesus without surrendering to him. That you can take on characteristics of being a Christian without being, having a life laid down to Jesus. And and that's the truth. And that's what revelation is gonna make clear that there is no playing games anymore. That's why I love this this book for this moment in Southern California.
Darren:When we wanna we wanna make this book about who which guy wins, our political leader or our hopes in an economic system or the United States. We say it's none of that, it's Jesus is Lord. But it's not just Jesus is lord and destroy all the enemies. It's faithfulness in the ordinary simple things in your life. That's where Jesus is lord is loudest.
Darren:So you will have to decide today, will you be a cultural Christian warning doing all the right things but still missing what it means to follow him. You good? We alright? Got a little quieter, little more serious, thinking about it. Am I a cultural Christian?
Darren:Elon Musk said he's a cultural Christian. Richard Dawkins said that, the famous atheist. We live in a moment where people like to be associated with what Christianity can do for society and people and families, but we don't know that the source of this beautiful kingdom is a king. Thank you, Jesus. I said, thank you, Jesus.
Darren:These So what do you do? How do you get encouragement? Well, this is what John writes. These are the words of him who holds the 7 stars in the right hand and walks among the 7 golden lampstands. Okay.
Darren:So this is borrowed from the previous vision, right? So if you wanna encourage a church that's experiencing lots of opposition and pressure, you remind them of the vision and the vision is the resurrected glorified Jesus. Remember last week? And where is Jesus? Among, you guys already forgot, among the lampstand.
Darren:Who's the lampstand? Sevenagers. Sevenagers. Yes, let's go 11 o'clock. Crushing the 9 am brothers and sisters.
Darren:I don't wanna compare the siblings, but you're winning. So the the among the lampstands, so he's not now he's walking among. He's here. He's close. This isn't Jesus on the throne way up there when you're going through a job crisis.
Darren:This isn't Jesus in somewhere absent, you know. You're having to conjure up the best prayers to get his attention like an absent father who's emotionally unavailable. This is right here in the midst. He's right here. He knows exactly what you're feeling because he's standing next to you in it.
Darren:Not only that, he holds the 7 stars. Remember what that means. It's not the Greek goddess, Hecate. It's not Caesar with his 7 stars in his hands. It's Jesus, and he's not far away.
Darren:He's up close and personal. How are we doing? It preaches itself. I told you. Revelation just gonna go.
Darren:Push play. Listen to it. Jesus is near and now he goes he goes on. He says, I know your deeds. Now, we're gonna hear this 7 different times for all the churches.
Darren:I know your deeds. This is a formula. This is a pattern. This is something that you would draw back to the old testament. You go back to the old testament and be reminded of the prophetic oracles that the prophets would write to the people of God.
Darren:I know your deeds. You've done this but this. But it's not just that, it's also a royal edict. So the Caesars and the generals back in the day would write to cities or officials saying that you've done this well. I know your deeds, but you need to improve on this.
Darren:And we have historical writings on this. So as as John writes this letter, he's following a formula that we can see. Jesus is speaking specifically to a local church saying, I know your deeds. And he'll he'll he'll he'll affirm them and then he'll convict them. Warning.
Darren:The the thing he affirms them in in his amazing, but I just wanna say pull back. We're gonna hear the word deed a lot. But remember in the Jewish consciousness, deeds were the key for it was the primary way you lived out covenantal faithfulness to the law of God. So if you're Jewish, the 613 commands, there were 613 commands that you followed. And if you were a Pharisee, you had a 1500 oral traditions and commands on top of that over 2,000 commands.
Darren:So they question, how do I live out covenantal faithfulness? The answer was Mitzvot, deeds. You lived it out through good behavior in your relationships to each other and to God. Commands. The word mitzvah also is translated to command.
Darren:Command and deeds, they go together. So he's saying, I see what you're doing, Ephesus. Let's go. And let's read what they do. Remember the context.
Darren:So read this in context. I know your deeds, your hard work or strenuous labor, and your perseverance. So you're under pressure and you're persevering. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked or impure people. That you have tested those who claim to be apostles but aren't, and have found them false.
Darren:You have persevered and have endured hardships. You've lost jobs. You've been put into prison. You lost your business. You've lost family members.
Darren:You Some of you been killed but you've endured these hardships for my name and you have not grown weary. Come on, church. That is a strong well done church. You've done it. Right?
Darren:Could you imagine that context? We're talking about a church with probably some great programs. We know that Ephesus becomes the epicenter of the Christian movement for 100 of years. They probably had great programs, right. They had kids ministry, youth ministry, alpha ministry.
Darren:They're doing house church trainings. They're doing prayer trainings. They're doing how to read your bible with pastor Darren, all those great things. It's a strong title. They probably created like this urban ministry with spiritual formation discipleship program.
Darren:They're training people in the way of Jesus to resist Artemis. They're caring for the poor. They're pro and they're we know that Ephesus was a center where they took in discarded babies and they cared for those that were discarded. They're doing amazing things. They were powerful, influential, hardworking.
Darren:They're persevering. They're holy. They're pure, and they're faithful and orthodox in their theology. Let's go, Ephesus. Yet, I hold this against you.
Darren:You have forsaken the love you had at first. Warning, you can do all the right things in the name of Jesus and miss it completely. This is the case, the death of cultural Christianity. You can be doing all the right things and you can miss the whole point because Jesus doesn't want your good deeds. He wants your heart.
Darren:He doesn't want all of the activity. He wants your affection. There's a form of Christianity that is, a kind of Christianity by proximity And Jesus is saying, you can't do that anymore. And here's the truth, this is what I wanna tell you church garden. If you're here and, this experience of Christianity is not about falling falling in love with Jesus, then it's probably a hobby or a habit or a form of religion, and you're wasting your time.
Darren:The church of Ephesus had had, fallen out of affection for Jesus. You see that word first love, that word first, what you had at first is about priority and motivation. It's like you're getting all the work done, all the right things, but there's no love in it. Here's why I struggled all week with this sermon because this is my story. Anyone relate to this?
Darren:I I mean, here I I had prepped all week long and studied and do what I do and and the whole time, I knew there was like this conversation that I had with I had to have with Jesus and my wife. Because it came first from my wife. Can I tell you what happened? Can I share this stuff with you? Is this okay?
Darren:So my wife's been sick for a long time, like it's been very strange. It's clearly health stuff because sickness is going around but I I also think there's spiritual stuff in there. So we we know that there's a We have an enemy yada yada yada. I don't think I was prepared for the kind of threat or the opposition we're receiving right now as a family. So she's been sick for 4 weeks dealing with crazy stuff and then my kids are very sick so they haven't been sleeping.
Darren:So I'm I'm exhausted. We also homeschool our kids. I'm in seminary getting a master's. We're launching a 4th service. We have a midweek start and there's a lot going on.
Darren:So when my wife's sick, I just take the ball and run, right? So I'll take what you were doing, I'll just keep going. And I'm doing all this stuff like all the extra stuff. You know what I'm saying? You guys, anyone here married?
Darren:You're like I I got your stuff, I got this. And it's been weeks of it so I'm enduring hardship. You know what I'm saying? So it's like strenuous labor. I'm persevering, like, I got this.
Darren:Let's go. And just this week, my wife's like, babe, you have done amazing. Thank you. But you know what I needed? I needed nurturing.
Darren:I need you to sit with me because I'm I'm discouraged in my health. So here I am doing all the right things but missing the thing. Do you know what I'm talking about? Do you see what Jesus is after? He's after this this way of of living and Jesus is not far off.
Darren:He's watching the activity and he's seeing that there's something missing and he says you have forsaken the love you had at first. What Eugene Peterson says, first love is the spontaneous enthusiastic devotion that mark the church's beginnings. A love that hasn't been replaced by a dutiful routine religiosity. Michael Gorman says that the message to Ephesus is a reminder that orthodoxy without love is not enough. Love is the essence of the Christian witness.
Darren:So this is what frustrates me because for me, I know as a follower of Jesus, it's so much easier to practice the way of Jesus than to stay in love with him. Right. We can train you to practice the way of Jesus. We can market resource podcast website resource, but how do you train people to have a burning heart for the love of God? To be woo it.
Darren:This is not the language of theologians and revivalists and historians. This is the language of poets and lovers. That's what Jesus is inviting you into. He's wooing you from the way where you still are stuck on the idea that to be loved by God requires you to be conditioned into performance. You have to receive your belovedness for no good reason and be ambushed by the fiery love of God.
Darren:And from that surrendered life, live the rest of your life at in love. Not in dutiful religious practices. Because you can do all of those things and he will say you are far from this other thing. And this other thing is what Shakespeare writes, but soft what light through yonder window bricks. It is the east.
Darren:And Julia is the sun. Arise. Fair sun and kill the moon or something like that. I don't know what it is. You're like, wow, you're going.
Darren:It's lover's language. It's poetry. It's the wooing. It's it's like throughout the entire scripture, God is a groom and you are his bride. And yet for whatever reason, we lose our love.
Darren:And this is true. Is it not? I mean, think about your earthly relationships. I mean, when I was dating Alex, I would stay up till the late or the early morning hours on a I m just to stay connected to her in our dormitories. Lexi Girly 03 hot d r.
Darren:We're like going back and forth ataol.com. That was my first web first email. 4th grade. I chose that one. That's a good one.
Darren:Right? So you you drive You don't have gas money to drive as far as you need to. There's no excuse because in love, it doesn't matter what the cost is. It's love It's lover's life. You know what I'm saying?
Darren:But then you date for a while, you get married and you get excited and then you get responsibilities and and that lover's life is lost in almost all relationships. You take for granted the very gift, the grace, the love, the joy, the the things that you want. I used to write sonnets and love songs and poetry. Boxes of poems. Living that lover's life and then you can just hit that default setting and become roommates.
Darren:Co workers, and you lose that love you had at first until something wakes you up. She's at the gym and you're like, those guys are checking her out. Hold on. Wait a second. It's like you're doing a jump.
Darren:I don't know what you're doing over here. Hey, babe. I'm not jealous. Something wakes you up. It moves away from habit and obligation and duty, and you get back into that fiery love, that passionate heart burning for God.
Darren:And he says, I hold this against you. You're doing all these amazing things, but there's no love. Paul will say in 1st Corinthians 13, if I speak in the tongues of men and or of angels but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clanging symbol. If the gift of if I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all the mysteries and all the knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I have possessed to the poor and give my body to hardship that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Darren:Have you forgotten your first love? He says, consider how far you have fallen. Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand. Warning.
Darren:Warning. If you don't get that this is about love, he's gonna remove the very essence that gives you power for witness in the world. The warning to remove a lampstand is a drastic measure that signals the end of the church's effectiveness and mission. It highlights the non negotiable necessity of love as the driving force behind all the church's actions. All these great ministry you do will lose the very essence of my presence when you don't do it with love.
Darren:Not just what you do with love, but when you don't come to me with your affections. You see, I can train you to practice the way of Jesus, but I have yet to train someone to say I'm filled with greed. I need to confess that. And so I'm coming today and in response to all that Jesus has done, I'm gonna lay down my resources and finances with an extravagant gift. I have this alabaster jar perfume and a year's wages.
Darren:I'm just gonna pour out wastefully on Jesus's feet. I've yet to meet that disciple. I've met plenty of disciples who like that man in that book, or or came to I think his name's Abba Abbot. And he came to Abba Abba and said, I'm following my little rule and I follow I do my little fast and I read my little book and I say my little prayer. What most what else is there?
Darren:And Abba Abba reached out his hands and his fingers became like candlesticks and they were filled up with flames. And he said, why not become totally consumed with fire? You see, we follow these things but we miss the fiery love of God. That's right. And the threat, the warning not the threat is that we will lose the very thing that makes us the church unless we repent.
Darren:Are you with me? How do you restore your first love? Anyone have an experience of first love? Do you know what I'm talking about? Raise your hand.
Darren:If you came to Jesus, raise your hand. Oh, I just wanna see. There's a lot of us. You know that that remember that early season of your life when you accepted Jesus and it was like you read the scriptures, you're like, oh my gosh. This is insane.
Darren:I can't be just crying over the text. You just can't sleep at night. I don't know about you. I came back to Jesus at 19 and it was like, I just ate the book of God. I just ate the word.
Darren:I just read everything. I brought my NASB Giant study bible everywhere I went. I'd be like at the restaurant and be like, boom. Yes. I'm a Christian.
Darren:And then I'd pull out my tracks and leave the $1,000,000 tip for the waiter or bring my bible. This is all true. I'd go to Huntington Pier and I'll bring my bible and say, do you know where you go if you die die today on your way, from here? Will you go to heaven or hell? And I'm like, you're going to hell unless you I would just convince them.
Darren:I, like, studied and memorized apologetics. I didn't know what else to do. I didn't I was informed. I wasn't I was just so in love with God. I was like, this is what I gotta do.
Darren:I went to the the homeless shelters and served at Skid Row every single Saturdays making pb and j's, walking the streets of Skid Row and MacArthur Park for 4 years. I served in the youth ministry at Rock Harbor as a volunteer. I studied theology. I was in love with God and I had this fiery love. And then I would go, I learned about the holy spirit.
Darren:I'll go into Starbucks when I used to go to Starbucks. And I'll no, I still go to Starbucks. I'll go to Starbucks especially right now, pumpkin spice. And I would I would I would I'd be like, alright, god. I want you to speak to this person.
Darren:I would give him a prophetic word, and I'd be completely wrong. And and then I'd be like, well, god loves you, and they'd be like, why didn't you say that? And I'm like, oh, okay. And I just did it every day, Every day. And then I stopped because I got professional.
Darren:I grew out of it. I learned some stuff. I followed some other people on YouTube. I followed that other teacher who's a little more sophisticated, You know, says it with a polished tone and really amazing slides. Fiery love of God.
Darren:You've forsaken that. He says, consider how far you have fallen. That word considers remember, dwell. Remember the story of Ephesus. It's like go back to your origin story.
Darren:I love origin stories. Don't you love the origin story movies? Yes. Am I the only one? I'm like, give me back.
Darren:Yeah. That's so good. Just humor me, please. Let me get through this. I'm almost done.
Darren:Origin stories. Get back to oh, Ephesus. They they're not They don't know the holy spirit. They're filled with the holy spirit, and then it's 2 and a half years and the word of God spreads. There's people taking handkerchiefs and casting out demons.
Darren:People are riding. There's a bonfire. They put all their idols on the bonfire. We're not gonna worship Artemis or or Rome or anything else. We're gonna follow God.
Darren:And then they do all this amazing ministry. They figured it out. They probably multisided. They conference. They wrote the podcast.
Darren:They did all this stuff, but they lost. They lost the thing. Remember remember remember for you, you wanna activate that first love, remember what God has done. Dwell on the things God has done. I was sitting with Allen and Nessa, leaders in our church.
Darren:She had major heart surgery a couple months ago. We're at our house yesterday and all she can do is tell the testimony of Jesus through the suffering she's been experiencing. All the good things that God did along the way. I was shocked. I was like, man, I don't have this perspective right now.
Darren:She totally transformed my perspective. She's like, it's not a setback in my life. God is showing me through suffering the goodness of Jesus. Oh, dwell on the goodness of Jesus. And if you're a cynic and you don't have anything good going on in your life, and you have a bad memory and you can't remember anything in your life that's good, just go to the cross and behold the rest of eternity.
Darren:What happened on the cross, you can sing about for the rest of eternity. You don't have your own stories of goodness? Listen to the stories of others and be encouraged. You don't have language for that affectionate divine lover's poetry language. Just listen to some worship songs and repeat after them.
Darren:Read the Psalms. Fill your life to remember the goodness of Jesus. Start there and then repent. Church, repent. We know that awakenings throughout history start with repentance.
Darren:It starts actually with the revelation of Jesus and it works into the hearts and people are like, I can't live this way anymore. God, forgive me. Forgive me that I'm a cultural Christian that I like going to Sundays for what it feels like but I don't live like that Monday through Saturday. Forgive me that I breed discontentment through social media and Amazon Prime and Zillow. And I just long for a fantasy life that's something else.
Darren:Forgive me that on Sundays now I'm obsessed with ESPN sports because my fantasy teams gotta win. And even in this service, I'm just half hearted in here watching the teams play. I don't know if they're playing today, but my point is, we are divided in heart and repentance is not some shameful word. It's God, I missed it. Thank you, Lord, that you revealed it to me in your mercy.
Darren:Because as soon as I turn, it's a loving father trying to embrace me saying, my boy, my girl, you're home. Repentance is 1 inch this direction for the rest of eternity as you become more like Jesus. So what is it that you need to repent of? And I'm not talking soft anymore. You need to repent of idolatry.
Darren:I'm not talking about, oh, I consume a little too much. You're obsessed with alcohol. It's your outlet for resting. You earned it. I'm sorry.
Darren:That's entitlement language. Get rid of that deity. I'm obsessed with social media. I mean, I gotta do it for work. No, you don't.
Darren:Maybe some of you, like 2 of you. It's like literally your job. Have boundaries. Don't let it come into your home. Set hours.
Darren:Get rid of the app. Delete the apps. You're gonna buy something every time you feel like you need it on Amazon Prime, it's created this dopamine hit. You're a gamer. We haven't talked about this much.
Darren:Dude, all the signs coming out that if kids are playing video games, they're 80 times per 80% more likely to deal with depression because of the dopamine level that it gives them in their brains. Right now with all the technology advancement and integration of communicating to people. So if you're if you're watching and interacting at games, there's dopamine levels going off the charts. So when you get away from that and you're like, I gotta go take a walk and walk my dog, that that crash comes and you won't be able to experience the meaning of life which is relationships and real things because you've been addicted to this other thing. Guys, we have to see these as threats to our discipleship to Jesus.
Darren:And Jesus is saying repent. This isn't something that you play with. Burn it on the altar before the Lord. Maybe repentance is your body. You've allowed Jesus to have your songs on Sunday, but not your body Monday through Saturday.
Darren:And you keep crossing that line with your boyfriend or girlfriend saying that it's okay. We'll get married one day. That's not okay. You're called to holiness. Why?
Darren:Because he bought you with his life. Yes. And you're now the living temple that the sacred spirit of God who's holy by the way, the holy spirit dwells in you. And now you are this inhabitant, this like mini micro temple that's walking around mobile everywhere representing heaven on earth. So what you do with your body matters.
Darren:How we doing church? Yes. You need to repent today? Do you need to repent from the religious spirit that you carried in here? Do you repent from that cultural Christianity that you carried in here?
Darren:Do you need to repent from that consumer Christian that's here? That, hope in my politician, you know, Jesus in the name of, of the American spirit, way of the American dream, kinda Christianity that you carried in here. Jesus in the name of justice without faithfulness to Christ in the bible and so, in biblical justice. Do you know what I'm talking about? Repent.
Darren:3rd thing, last I'm almost done. Don't worry. Thank you. I I love this row. You you I'm I'm a come to you.
Darren:The third thing is to return. It's so simple. He says he says, do the things you did at first. Go back to Starbucks and start sharing that Jesus loves you. Go back to, hey, you know what?
Darren:I gotta tip 30%. Hey, you know what? I gotta live beyond this comfortable place of generosity. I gotta be sacrificial in my giving. I gotta get here early so I can sing the whole time that we're here.
Darren:Get back to there's a prayer gathering. You're always there. Get back to the there's places to serve. I'll show up. There's someone sick.
Darren:I'll drop off the meal. Get back to the simple things. Get back to just reading the scriptures and just doing it because you wanna find him, and you wanna fall in love again, and you want your heart to burn like it did. Return to the basic things that you did at first. Dwell on him.
Darren:Remember, repent, and get back to those basic things. And I'll just end with this story that I read because every time I think about this idea of love, I think about how much I've struggled with it. I'm a works guy. I'm act active. You can tell.
Darren:I walk around a lot. Yeah. I'm very active. I love the active approach to our faith and getting back to this affectionate lover's life with Jesus is really hard for me. And you wanna know why it's hard?
Darren:Because I have a hard time being loved by God. I would way rather do the works, the practices. I would way rather practice the way of Jesus than to think that he loves me for no good reason. And to think that all I have to do is remain in his love, that's too easy. I gotta earn it.
Darren:Not just that, I have a life of pain. And it's easier for me to perform to hide from the pain that I'm carrying than to bring the pain to Jesus and let him deal with it. Does you know Did anyone else what I It's it's easier to run through the sickness of my family doing all the things than to simply acknowledge that this is not right and it's hard. And I'm tired and I'm tired of them getting sick. And why does the enemy do this all the time to our family?
Darren:For 18 years, that's all I know is health problems. And when I get there, I get into this place of despair until I get to this place. And that's when I start to cry because then I don't wanna cry because it makes me a little bit vulnerable. But when I start to cry, this is what happens. Jesus goes, now I can meet with you.
Darren:Yeah. Because that's your true self. Because at the end of the day, I'm just a boy who wants to be loved by a father in heaven. Do you know what I'm talking about? It's why Brennan Manning who was my one of my heroes, I don't know if you know his story, he died of the effects of alcoholism.
Darren:He was a priest, wrote several books. One that I read every year in January called Abba's Child. And he changed my life in this in in so many ways. I was with somebody. He came to our school vanguard back in the day, and he preached a sermon that changed my life.
Darren:But he says this, in the 48 years since I was first ambushed by Jesus in a little chapel in the mountains of Western Pennsylvania, in in literally thousands of hours of prayers, meditation, silence, and solitude over the years, I'm utterly convinced that on judgement day, the Lord Jesus is going to ask each of us one question and one question only. Did you believe that I loved you? That I desired you? That I waited for you day after day, that I long to hear the sound of your voice. Just let that sit for a second.
Darren:Did you believe that I loved you? That I desired you? That I waited for you day after day? And that I long to hear the sound of your voice? He goes on to say, the real believers there will answer, yes, Jesus.
Darren:I believed in your love and tried to shape my life as a response to it. But many of us who are so faithful in our ministry, in our practice, in our church going are gonna have to reply, well frankly, no sir. I mean, I never really believed it. I mean, I heard a lot of wonderful sermons and teachings about it. In fact, I gave quite a few myself, but I always thought that that was just a way of speaking a kindly lie.
Darren:Some Christians pious pat on the back to cheer them on, And there's the difference between real believers and nominal Christians that are found in our churches across the land. No one can measure like a believer the depth of intensity that is God's love, but at the same time, no one can measure like a believer the effectiveness of our gloom, pessimism, low self esteem, and self hatred and despair that block god's way to us. The invitation to recover your love for Jesus is to receive his love first. We love because he first loved us. The warning is don't do all the things without understanding what he's after.
Darren:You'll become like Ephesus. The promise is this last verse. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, who conquers, who's faithful to Jesus. I will give them right the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
Darren:So if you're in Ephesus, and you have lived in this context where it's hard to endure and you're being called out for all this great activity and he's wooing you back to love and receiving love and being affectionate towards his love. You would hear 2 phrases that are so counter cultural. 1, the tree of life. Where is the tree of life in Ephesus? It's in the center of Artemis' temple.
Darren:And if you wanted anything in your life, you wanted the wounds of your past to be healed, you wanted the ability because you struggled with infertility to have a a child, you wanted your business to be blessed, You worship Artemis and you go to the center of the temple and you touch that tree of life and you pray to Artemis for that. And in this counter assault against the cult of Artemis, John and Jesus is saying, he has the tree of life. Not just the tree of life, but he's telling you where that tree of life is. It's in the paradise of God. That word paradise is very familiar for Christians in Roman empire because the word paradise is what the Caesars had.
Darren:It was their gardens. They were called paradisos. They had these elaborate beautiful gardens that they would throw these parties for all the Roman elites. And during the time of Nero, Christians were thrown into cages and lit on fire to light the garden paradise parties for Nero. And so in this moment where all of life is being pressed, he's saying Jesus holds the paradise.
Darren:He is the one you go to for the the effects of the tree of life. And how do you gain access to that? Keeping your love on fire. Staying faithful, not with good deeds, with affection in lover's life. Should we pray?
Intro/Outro:Thank you so much for listening. For more information, please visit us at garden.church.