Have You Lost That Lovin' Feeling?

And it can create a story, and it can create a certain degree of evoked meaning and feelings. December of 1964, the Righteous Brothers released the song, You've Lost That Love and Feeling. The Righteous Brothers, many of you are familiar with. It was a vocal duo that was made up of baritone Bill Medley and Bob Hatfield, who was a tenor. And the two men performed for decades, ultimately until Hatfield's death in 2003. And they were one of the more popular groups in the early to mid-60s and 70s, kind of in the blue-eyed soul genre is kind of what they called it. But with the success of the movie Top Gun in the 1980s, I think the song saw a resurgence in popularity through the 1980s. And quite honestly, the 90s, and then as each new generation discovers Top Gun and the Top Gun soundtrack, I think the song just kind of continues in perpetuity. But the lyrics to the song describe a relationship between two unnamed people and ultimately the waning of that relationship and one party's desire to rekindle it. The verses to the song tell the story, and I'll spare you, I'm not going to sing it, but it's going to be stuck in your head the rest of the day, so my apologies. But here are the lyrics. You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips. There's no tenderness like before in your fingertips. You're trying hard not to show it, but baby, right? Baby, I know it. There's no welcome look in your eyes when I reach for you, and now you're starting to criticize the little things I do. It makes me just feel like crying, because baby, something beautiful's dying. And then he goes on and says, baby, baby, I'd get down on my knees for you. If you'd only love me like you used to do, yeah. We had a love, a love, a love you don't find every day, and so don't, don't, don't, don't let it slip away. Throughout the song, the chorus repeats, you've lost that love and feeling. Whoa, that love and feeling. I said I wasn't going to sing, I can't help myself. It says you've lost that love and feeling, now it's gone, gone, gone. Whoa, whoa, right? Now the song's harmonies are beautifully written, but there is a sadness that is inherent in this song despite the beautiful harmonies. And that sadness consists of a feeling of one party looking at the person whom they love and realizing that that person doesn't necessarily feel the same way about them anymore. Something's just different. He can see it, he can feel it, she's pulled away, and she's distant. Her touch, it doesn't have the same tenderness, she doesn't close her eyes anymore when they kiss, she doesn't welcome his embrace, she's begun to criticize his actions, and ultimately the gradual pulling away of this love of his is crushing him.

He desires it to return, he wants to see it mended, he wants to see it repaired. You know, the song describes a love which is fading, a love which is growing cold, and which is not necessarily being shown anymore. Her words, her actions, they're not illustrating her love for him. In some ways, she's just going through the motions. There's a number of relationship researchers that have determined and identified five kind of primary stages of love in human relationships. Now some break that down and they go as far as identifying like upwards of 12, but for our purposes for today we're going to suffice with five because the 12 are just kind of further breakdowns of some of these other primary categories, but relationships they've said and they've identified, they go through five basic stages as they develop. They is the falling in love stage. There is the becoming a couple stage. There's the disillusionment stage. There's the creating real lasting love stage. And then there's the final stage that they've kind of, this one's labeled differently depending on who you look at, but using the power of two to change the world. The vast majority of relationships follow this pattern. People are attracted to one another. They become interested and they begin to date. They love, in this stage, you remember this stage, they love everything about the person. Everything! Every last little thing! Every new thing they learn, they're so excited about and it's so interesting to learn. They want to spend every waking moment together. Now these are the first steps in the process. They become, at that point, a couple. They begin to exclusively date. They begin spending more and more time together. And as many of you recognize, as you spend more and more time together, you begin to notice one another's idiosyncrasies. We'll use the word idiosyncrasies. But this might occur anywhere in the process. It might occur in the dating process. It might occur after a person has been married, but most human relationships reach a point of disillusionment. And kind of that's a place where there's this degree of disappointment. Maybe there's at least, maybe disappointment's a strong word. There's a degree of frustration with the things that the other person might do.

And to be quite honest, many relationships don't make it through this stage.

Because there's only really a few solutions when you reach this point in a relationship. Either the relationship is terminated or the couple is forced to grow. And they're forced to grow together to the next stage. And that requires growth on the part of both parties. It requires both individuals to be incredibly humble and to be incredibly willing to work with one another. And quite frankly, it's an incredibly challenging stage. Often at this stage, one or more of the couples can become angered. They can be hurt. They can become withdrawn. They begin to wonder where the person that they married or if they first fell in love with has gone.

They desire what they once had, but that connection is waning and that intimacy is beginning to disappear. In the vernacular, we might say that the check engine light has come on and the couple needs to decide at that point what to do.

Do you keep driving or do you fix the engine? At some point, if it's not fixed, the engine will blow up. You know, even if you can manage to limp it down the road a few more miles. But unfortunately, most relationships—and at most, that's not fair—many relationships end in stage three.

Those that work through the disillusionment, those that come out of this stage together, come out the other side stronger. They become out the other stage kind of more effective as a couple. They're moving to this kind of more mature love. And that doesn't mean the challenges are gone. The reality is these relationships, they don't—it's not linear. You know, they don't operate necessarily in this perfectly linear fashion. You know, you can go from one stage and take a step back sometimes and then take a couple of steps forward as well.

It doesn't mean the challenges are gone, but what it does mean is that both individuals are on the same page and both individuals are moving forward together to achieve common goals. And that kind of brings us into this final stage, which is recognizing the incredible opportunity that having a like-minded partner can be, and ultimately using that power as a force for change and for good. The Bible speaks of not being unequally yoked, and it's this that that concept is getting at, this idea that both individuals are pulling in the same direction.

They're yoked together, the goals are similar, the focus is similar, and you're both working for the same thing, not working against one another. Not one person pulling this way and the other person pulling this way and just, oh, coming my way, but pulling together in the same direction, focused on plowing life together. And again, as we mentioned before, this doesn't happen always in perfectly linear patterns in these relationships. Sometimes you can have steps forward and steps back, and so it doesn't necessarily mean that once you're through the disillusionment phase that you won't ever be there again.

But what it does mean is that once you've gone through that phase, when you hit it again, you're in a location where you're pulling together, you're communicating with each other, and you can solve the problems with one another. You know, the song that we began with, that we looked at at the beginning in the lyrics that we explored, describes a relationship that has largely reached stage three.

There's some doubt beginning to creep in, maybe there's some challenges that have arisen in the life and in this relationship that have resulted in a pulling back or a withdrawal. Whatever has happened, it's clear from the lyrics that, you know, from the repeated chorus that she's lost that love and feeling. And you might say that excitement, that passion, that spark just doesn't appear to be there anymore. And he wants it back. He wants that back. But as he mentions in the song, he recognizes that it's gone.

Gone, gone. Whoa, whoa. Let's go over to Revelation 2. Let's turn over to Revelation 2 here to begin. We've been digging through the churches of Revelation as our congregational study, and between timing and issues and quarantines and illnesses, you know, we've had a couple of postponements, and so we're not as far into that process as I would like to be. But one of the ones that we went through recently was we started exploring through the church at Ephesus.

Started exploring through the church at Ephesus. Revelation 2, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 1. Revelation 2 in verse 1 says, To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, these things says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands, he says, verse 2, I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil.

And you've tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars. Verse 3 says, You've persevered and have patience, and have labored for my name's sake, and have not become weary. Verse 4, Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Verse 5, Remember therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

Verse 6, But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. The Church in Ephesus was one of the chief cities in Asia Minor. It was one of the largest cities in the region.

I think about 250,000 people in the city. It's kind of an estimate. It was a major hub of wealth and influence, and it was a gateway to Rome. Those coming from Rome stopped off at Ephesus first. Those leaving Asia Minor for Rome departed from Ephesus.

Apostle Paul started an incredibly powerful work in this city, and that work began like a whirlwind. For two years, he preached and he taught, and the believers came to him in droves.

Many, many, many believers came to faith within the city. And as more and more people understood the Word of God, as more and more people understood the things that Paul was teaching, and more and more than were convicted by it, that church grew. And it grew. And it grew.

In fact, it grew to the point that the teachings of the church began to impact the culture around it. Let that sink in for a minute. Not the culture of the area seeping into the church, but the church impacting the culture of the area.

This way of life that Paul was teaching was now a threat to the livelihoods of those who made their living through idolatry, or those who wrote these little sorcery spells and sold them in the marketplace. Again, Paul was making such an effort in the city, and an effect in the city, through God's blessing, that we have a city with an estimated population of 250,000 that had a riot on the scale of that. Because they saw their livelihood completely threatened, their way of life completely threatened. You don't reach that point overnight. You don't reach that point in a day or two. God was doing something incredible in Ephesus. You know, the early converts in Ephesus were on fire for God and for his teachings, but as we can see here in Revelation 2, by the time John comes around to write the letter here in the mid to mid to early to mid 90s, 90 95 AD-ish, that despite all the good things that Christ has to say about Ephesus, he provides them with a bit of correction as well. He says that they had lost their protos agape, their protos agape in Greek, their first love. Now, we as a church, we traditionally understood these passages in Revelation 2 to be applicable in several ways. We have taught that these seven churches have been eras of the church throughout time, and I think you can make a very good argument for that, but I think it's really important, and I think if we look at it only in that capacity, there's a danger. Because if we look at it only in that capacity, then the argument can be made, well, I'm not of the era of Ephesus, I'm not of the era of Smyrna, I'm a Laodicean, because I'm clearly at the end of the age, so all I have to worry about is becoming lukewarm. That's the only thing I need to worry about. As long as I'm not lukewarm, I am good to go. So we have to be careful, limiting it solely to the understanding of it being church eras. The other thing that we've taught and that we've considered, at least in the greater Church of God community, is that we've considered these different churches in Revelation to be specific churches. In fact, there are some that have actually taken on that name to indicate that it is their era that they have continued that particular thing, and I'm not trying to throw shade at any of those groups, I'm just saying that's something that has been done. But again, there's a danger in that, because that absolves us of our responsibility towards any of the other messages of the churches. Because if we're Philadelphian, well then we're good to go. I don't have to worry about anything. I'm Philadelphian. I'm not Laodicean. You're Laodicean, right?

The third way that we've looked at this, and I think this is one of the more applicable recognitions, not to say that these other two are not in effect, but because they are.

But I think we have to recognize that these attitudes of these seven churches, they are going to be among us in the church today. That in a congregation, that even in this largely Laodicean era, we can have issues relating to Smyrno, we can have issues relating to Ephesus, we can have issues relating to Thyatira and Sardis, all within our congregations. We all have the ability to become lukewarm, we all have the ability to become dead or to compromise, and these states, they can ebb and they can flow with time. And so when we talk about these messages to the churches, I think the critical aspect of this is that these messages to the churches are applicable to us at all times, in all eras of the church, quite frankly, in all parts of the church of God body.

And I think that lines a little more along the lines with the way that this letter was delivered in the first place, because once again, each of these churches didn't just get their little snippet, they got the whole thing. They got the whole thing. They got the whole letter that John wrote that included the messages to each of those churches as well as their own. And so in many ways, the good, the bad, the ugly in each of those congregations, in each of those areas, that was laid bare for the region to see at that point in time. So as we kind of consider this concept, and as we look at this, as we come into the end of the spring holy day season here this year, as we conclude with the day of Pentecost tomorrow, I want to ask a question today. And you know, I like trying to ask hard, challenging questions, because I like to ask myself hard, challenging questions. Some people don't like that, but I hope you'll bear with me here today as I ask this question. And I think it's a question that all of us need to confront again as we exit the spring holy day season, as we're now seven weeks out of the Days of Unleavened Bread in the Passover. Have you lost that love and feeling? Are you withdrawn? Are you pulling away and distant?

Are you going through the motions, but the feeling is gone? Are you trying hard not to show it?

And is something beautiful dying? The title of the message today, not surprisingly, is have you lost that love and feeling? And in the time we have left today, I'd like to explore this concept, and I'd like to explore its importance to us today. So first off, we need to identify what does it even mean? What does it mean to lose our first love or to leave our first love? So interestingly, one of the things that we notice when we take a look to the church in Ephesus, we see that one thing stands out. Christ complements them in Ephesus for trying false teachers and proving those false teachers to be liars. So I think that's critical because there's a recognition here that leaving your first love does not mean departing the faith.

It does not mean departing the faith because these individuals commended for not straying and not walking away, but yet chastised—I don't know if that's the right word—rebuted for having lost that first love. These are folks that stood fast in the face of these wolves that Paul predicted would come among them after his departure, those that would come from their own ranks and rise up and lead people astray with falsehoods and heresies, as was described by Paul in Acts 20. But again, Revelation 2, verse 4, Christ's admonition to the brethren in Ephesus was that they had left their first love. We see that phrase actually translated a number of different ways the word that's used there, and one of the reasons for that variance is because of the very utilitarian usage of the Greek word ephiemi. Ephiemi is the word that is used there when it says left in Revelation 2 and verse 4. And according to Mounts' complete expository dictionary of Old and New Testament words—I would have chosen a shorter title—but ephiemi can be translated to send away, to dismiss, to depart, to emit, to send forth. And it's also a word, as you go through in Scripture and you look at the different usages of it in various places, it's also a word that's been used with a whole lot of poetic license, because it's been used in Scripture to describe divorce, departure, leaving, forsaking, crying out, forgiving, and letting loose. All from the word ephiemi. Let's go over to a couple of places where we can see this. Matthew 23 and verse 23. I want to take a look at a couple of the words and a couple of the usages of this word in context, because we want to try to understand what exactly is being gotten at here. What are we looking at? What's being discussed? Matthew 23 and verse 23.

Matthew 23 and verse 23, we see Christ's rebuke of the Pharisees.

Matthew 23, 23 says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done without leaving the others undone. That word neglected in verse 23 is from the Greek word ephiemi. The Pharisees had departed, they had left, or they had forsaken, or in this case, as the translator puts it, neglected the weightier matters of the law. Specifically, while enforcing the other aspects. So, its usage in Matthew 23 or Matthew 23. Matthew 23 is implying something which has been left undone. Something which has been left undone, contextually. Turn over just a couple of pages here to Matthew 27. Matthew 27 and verse 50, another example of this word in context. Matthew 27 and verse 50. You know, as Christ was dying in the crucifixion, and as his end drew near, he cried out to God in Aramaic, and at that point the crowd who was intrigued by his words, they drew closer, they offered to give him something to drink, others suggested maybe they should wait and see whether Elijah came in response to those words. But in verse 50 of Matthew 27, it says, Jesus cried aloud again with a loud voice, and he yielded up his spirit. The word yielded comes from the Greek word, ephiemi.

The breath of life departed. It left from him, and he died. His spirit didn't neglect him. He didn't neglect his spirit. It departed. It divided from him. One last example, Matthew 18, and we'll pick it up in verse 21, Matthew 18 and verse 21.

Matthew 18 and verse 21, kind of in the middle of a treatise on forgiveness and on going to your brother and dealing with offenses and the things that come up in our lives. Matthew 18 verse 21, Peter came to him and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me? And I forgive him up to seven times. And Jesus said, Do him I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. The word translated forgive here in Matthew 18 21 comes from the Greek word, ephiemi.

So the question I have is, is forgiveness a neglecting? Well, no, not really. Is it a departure? No, not really, not technically. What is forgiveness at its core? It is a release of the debt that a person owes you, so to speak. It is you releasing that debt to them. You are forgiving the person and releasing that debt. In fact, the following parable, as you go into kind of the end part here of Matthew 18, beginning there in verse, kind of a little bit further down, verse 21-ish, down in through the rest of that. It specifically talks about that in more detail. The willingness to release that debt or the willingness to take that debt and then go after the fellow servant for it. But the thing that this word has in common in all three of these uses is the concept of a separation. The concept of a separation. Pharisees were separated from the entire law, the weight of your matters included. Christ, you know, rebuked them for not doing the things they should have done while doing the other things. Talks about the breath of life separating from the body of our Savior and the separation of the guilt and debt of the individual through the act of forgiveness. And so when you look at what we're getting at in Revelation 2 and verse 4, the brethren in Ephesus had become separated or distant, we might say, from their first love.

And they may have been trying hard not to show it. I mean, they may have really been trying, but they'd lost that love and feeling, so to speak. So how does it happen? How do we reach this point where it happens? Let's turn over to Matthew 22. Matthew 22. You know, we consider the two great commandments that are outlined here in Matthew 22. You know, we consider the various things that that Christ gets at with regards to what is expected of us. This loving God and loving your fellow man. Loving God and loving your fellow man. No amount of orthodoxy, so to speak, quote unquote, can replace those two things. You know, if our love for God isn't genuine, if our love for man is not genuine, the things that we do, the boxes that we check, so to speak, our understanding, our prophetic knowledge, doesn't matter. Following Matthew 22, we see Matthew 23. Kind of just skim through here, just a second, looking at Matthew 22. Just kind of quickly skim it. Look at the basics here. You know, down in verse 37 of Matthew 22, he says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. The second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And he goes a little bit further, and on verse 40, he says, on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Now you get down into Matthew 23, and you get an example of that not being done appropriately. He's telling the Pharisees that tithing on the mint and the anise and the cumin, it wasn't enough. It was important. He says, don't stop doing it. It's important. It's critical. Don't stop doing it. But that orthodoxy, so to speak, just kind of check in the boxes. It wasn't enough. He said, I also want you to practice justice, practice mercy, practice faith, show that love. Let's go over to the book of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians, we're going to pick it up in chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 13. You know, we talk about love and when we consider relationships in general, the understanding of love and ultimately what it means is incredibly important. And again, not just in our human relationships, but in our relationship with God as well. 1 Corinthians 13 verse 1 says, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clinging symbol. And though I have the gift of prophecy and I understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. All the orthodoxy, again, quote unquote, all the knowledge in the world, it cannot replace that love. Doesn't mean it's not important. Doesn't mean you don't do it. But God is expecting us to do both and to do them well. Because the reality is this love has to be our underlying reason why we do the things that we do. It has to be the outward action of our knowledge. It has to be the outward action of our faith and of our prophecy. Because, quite frankly, without it, those things profit us nothing. They profit us nothing. You can't just keep checking the boxes without the underlying reason why. To maintain the original analogy that we began with, if the love in that relationship isn't there, the actions mean nothing.

The kiss is a check of the box. The touch is a check of the box.

The eyes don't close when they kiss. There's no welcome look before the embrace.

The tenderness of the touch fades, but the touch is still there. That's what he said in the song.

It's still there, but it's not there, if that makes sense.

Paul goes on to talk about what a proper love looks like. Proper love both for God and for our fellow man. 1 Corinthians 13, he continues in verse 4, says, Love suffers long and is kind. Love doesn't envy. It doesn't look at others and wish for something else.

Love doesn't parade itself. It's not puffed up. It doesn't behave rudely. It doesn't seek its own. It's not provoked. It thinks no evil.

It does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. It hears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Verse 8, Love never fails.

But whether there are prophecies, they will fail. Whether there are tongues, they will cease. Whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. He says, For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part will be done away. Verse 11, For when I was a child, I spoke as a child. I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. He says, For now we look, or now we see in a mere dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.

You know, at some point in our relationships, we move into a place of comfort. You know, it's not necessarily a bad thing. You know, it is. Comfort is a good thing. You like to be able to, you know, come home, undo the belt, so to speak, kick back in the recliner, and just, right? Comfort is a good thing. It can be a good thing. Because what that means is that we've moved through the disillusionment phase. It's difficult to be comfortable in the disillusionment phase, because you are in, like, hyper-sensitive, what does that word mean? What did that person just say? How did they just say that? What does that mean? What are they trying to get at? It's disillusionment. It's really tough to be comfortable. Once you move through that disillusionment phase, you can move into this place where you end up in a place of comfort. And for those of you that have been married a number of years, you can understand this phrase. You know, the days go on, you deeply care for your spouse, you love one another, but as they say, the phrase, some of the spark, so to speak, has faded. I'm getting myself in trouble here with my wife, but without intentional efforts to continue to date your spouse, to continue to kind of, you know, progress that relationship like you did when you were originally together. You can fall into a rut, and your relationships can reach a place where maybe you're not as active in your efforts to show that person love.

Now, everybody's love language is different. Many of you are familiar with the love language concept. For those that are not, I brought an example. Hopefully, this will help you understand. Five love languages. There's five. There's words of affirmation. There's acts of service. There's receiving gifts. There's quality time, and there is physical touch. And so, to kind of make this make sense, everybody likes tacos. So, here's the example. Words of affirmation. To show love using tacos with words of affirmation, you tell the person, your tacos are delicious. That's a perfect word of affirmation. Acts of service. I made you tacos. Receiving gifts. Here's a taco. Quality time. We should go out together for tacos. And, of course, physical touch. Let me hold you like a taco. Not sure what that means. Moving on. But, everybody's love language is different. Everybody receives and gives and appreciates love in different ways. But, to use a simple example, talking about the quote-unquote spark fading, perhaps, maybe we stop bringing them flowers. My wife, for her, she wouldn't care. She's not a flower person in that regard. She's an acts of service person. So, maybe I stop and I refuse to finish the projects that we've started. That would send the signal, for sure.

Maybe guys, and I'm going to pick on us guys because I feel like I can get away with it, maybe we don't do our best to make sure we look and smell as nice as we once did. For those of you guys that have been married, you know, 20 plus years or so, when was the last time you looked in the rearview mirror before you got out to go in the house to make sure your hair looked good and you look nice? It's been a long time for me, too. It has. But, you know what, I'll tell you when you're dating somebody? Yep. Okay. Okay, we're good. Ding-dong! Hey, you ready to go? When's the last time you did that, gentlemen? Nope. You get me at my worst. Just kidding. Not at my worst. But, you know what I mean? We're comfortable. We're in a place where maybe we're not as concerned about that. That love's matured. It's no longer that quote-unquote first love, so to speak, where it's exciting and you can't wait to spend every moment together. It's matured. You appreciate one another in different ways. But, brethren, if we're not careful and we're intentional about how we maintain our relationships, those relationships can stagnate and we can reach a point where we're simply enduring. We can reach a point where we're simply enduring. And, to be honest, our spiritual relationship with God and with our brethren is no different. You know, as we mature and as we, you know, develop that relationship and maintain that relationship for a number of years, we might reach a point where we're maybe not as purposeful, or we're maybe not as focused, or we're maybe not as excited about our faith or our relationship with God and with one another. You know, there was once a time in your life where you couldn't help but tell everyone what you were learning. In fact, probably got you in trouble in a couple of capacities, as you told people, different things.

There was a time where you were at every Bible study, every service opportunity, every opportunity that you had to learn and to grow, you were there. Every opportunity to spend time with brethren, every chance that you had to spend as much waking moments with people who understood the same things that you understand, because that's not those people out there. I don't mean that to be derogatory. They don't understand.

And so you don't have as much in common with them as you do with the individuals in this room.

But maybe now we're more careful than we were, because we're tired. Retired.

Some of you have been running this race for 60 years, 70 years. It's tiring.

Relationships are designed to mature in that way. They're designed to move through those phases. But, brethren, if we're not careful, even outside of the disillusionment phase, we can end up in a place where, day to day, we're not going through the motions. But that spark ultimately has faded.

Think about these phrases. Maybe you've heard these said before, she knows I love her. I don't have to say it. She knows. Or maybe I can't do anything right. He's always critical of me and of my ideas, my efforts, the things that I want to do. It's always critical. Or maybe we've said things like, I sure wish he'd make the effort that he used to make. You know, a little romance would be nice.

That's a place of extreme comfort, where we're so comfortable that we've taken advantage and taken granted, or taken for granted, that level of comfort. So how do we fix it? How do we identify it? How do we fix it? Well, as we've looked at already, it requires purposeful and intentional focus. Purposeful and intentional focus. And the beauty of the message to the church in Ephesus is that ultimately Christ gave them the formula. Let's go back to Revelation 2. Revelation 2 and verse 5.

Revelation 2 and verse 5. Christ gives them the formula to fix it.

Revelation 2 verse 5, he gives them three things. He says, Remember therefore, from where you have fallen. He says, Repent and do the first works. So remember from where you have fallen, repent and do the first works. Or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. So the first and the most important thing that we need to do is to remember from where we have fallen. And that requires a very stark self-examination of our relationship. And we do this each year at the Passover season, at the Days of Unleavened Bread. But brethren, we are seven weeks out from those days. I'm going to ask you to do it again. Do a check-in seven weeks later. Where are you?

Let's go over the book of Jeremiah. We went here in the messages that I gave on the Days of Unleavened Bread. Book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah 2 and verse 1. Once again, I want to revisit this. Jeremiah 2 and verse 1. Because I want us to see, I really want us to see the love that Israel had for God at the beginning. The love that Israel had for God at the beginning. And the way that God remembers that love. The way that he recalls that love early on in Israel's lives. Jeremiah 2, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 1. Jeremiah 2 and verse 1.

It says, Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Go and cry in the hearing of Jerusalem, saying, Thus says the Lord. God said, I remember you. I remember you. The kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothal, when you went after me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.

Said Israel was holiness to the Lord, the first fruits of his increase. All that devour him will offend disaster, will come upon them, says the Lord. God says, I remember you. I remember the kindness of your youth. I remember the love of your betrothal, when you went after me, when you pursued me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. God remembers those early days of Israel's first love. How they followed after him. How they were holiness to the Lord. How they were distinct, and they were set apart, and they were different from the nations around them. But then he goes on to talk about what happened in verse 4. Verse 4, he says, Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. Verse 5, Thus says the Lord, What injustice have your fathers found in me that they have gone far from me? They have followed idols and have become idolaters. Neither did they say, Where is the Lord who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and pits, through a land of drought and the shadow of death, through a land that no one crossed and where no one dwelt. Verse 7, I brought you into a bountiful country to eat its fruits and its goodness. But when you entered, you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination. The priests did not say, Where is the Lord? And those who handled the law did not know me. The rulers also transgressed against me. The prophets prophesied by Baal. And again, as we mentioned, they walked after things that do not profit.

You know, idolatry came into the relationship when we might say Israel wanted to see someone else.

You know, God evocatively kind of laments this throughout the rest of Jeremiah 2 and Jeremiah 3. Again, we won't read it all, but there is a very strong desire from God for Israel to regain that love and feeling, to regain that first love that they had, that pursuit that they went after him with. Early on in the relationship, God desired him to follow through on that commitment and ultimately to strengthen that relationship with their husband. But God tells us to remember, to remember to think back to what it was like, not necessarily to lament, but to repent. Not to lament necessarily, but to repent, to recognize what's happened, to identify it, to restore that relationship. You know, Israel's issue was idolatry.

Spiritually, our issue may be different, but often ours is idolatry too, in some capacity. Things that we put in front of our relationship with God, things that we ask God to share the stage with in our lives, whatever it may be, maybe take a backseat to the pursuits that we desire.

Sometimes we can make an idol out of our bitterness. We can make an idol out of our hurts and our offenses, out of the slights that we face. We can place those in front of our relationship with God and with our other brethren as well, which is, quite frankly, nothing more than idolatry in a different form. God says, remember and to repent. Let's go to Joel, book of Joel. Joel 2, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 12 of Joel 2. It's one of those passages that is read every year, right around this time of year, because it's one of those passages that Peter quoted on the day of Pentecost. Joel 2, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 12. So the book of Joel is, again, a prophecy that was not only for the people of Israel at his time, but was also a prophecy that was for the time of the end. Again, we know Peter quotes it as a partial fulfillment in the events of Acts 2, which is a series of passages that I am pretty certain will be explored tomorrow at Pentecost, the spirit of God being poured out upon mankind. But this call to repentance is as much for Israel during the time of the Second Temple as it is for us today. Joel 2, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 12, he says, Now therefore says the Lord, turn to me with all your heart, turn to me with all your heart, your total heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. Verse 13, So rend your heart, not your garments, return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious, and he is merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and he relents from doing harm, who knows, verse 14, if he will turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God.

God has always desired his people to turn to him with all their heart, to turn to him with weeping and with fasting and with mourning.

Not as an outward show, as we talked about earlier, with a certain amount of orthodoxy, so to speak, but a legitimate heart-rending repentance. God desired that they would love him with their whole heart, and that we would love one another as we love ourselves.

God desires that we're cut to the heart, regarding the distance that we may have between us and God, or the distance that we may have between us and our brethren, and he asks us to rend that heart of stone, not our garments, that heart of stone, and return to him, to restore that love and feeling. So he asked us to remember. He asked us to remember the fire that we had for God, the desire that we had to please him, to clean up for him, so to speak, we might say, check our breath before we came to the door, to remember the love that we had for one another, the desire that we had to be with the people of God continually, first in, last out, so to speak, over Sabbath, the joy that we had in gathering together for services and socials and service projects and Bible studies. And he asked us to repent when we recognize that we've fallen down in some ways. Again, as we examine ourselves and our lives in this spring holy day season, as we ask the hard questions. But God tells us to do one final thing in this process, in the message to the church in Ephesus. He says, do. Go and do. An action word. Go and do. He says, go and do the first works, the protos erga, the first works, the first deeds. What were those first works and first deeds? Let's go ahead and turn over to book of Acts. Head in that direction, book of Acts. It'll be in Acts 2. You know, as Christ gave his disciples a mission, kind of their marching order, so to speak, before he ascended to his father, and he told them they were to go and they were to preach the gospel, to make disciples, and ultimately to care for those disciples. As that gospel was preached, and as those disciples were made, there are glimpses of what this looked like throughout the book of Acts. One of those places is Acts 2, verses 44 to 47. Acts 2, verses 44 to 47 is one of those places that gives us just a glimpse, just a brief glimpse, of what the first works looked like. What it looked like for those that had just come out of the world, those that had just given their lives, had just committed to God in that capacity. Acts 2, verse 44 gives us quite possibly the earliest look at what the first works were and what the first works looked like in the life of a newly converted individual in a newly converted church. Acts 2, verse 44 to 47 said, now all who believed were together.

They had all things in common. Verse 45, they sold their possessions and their goods, and they divided them among all as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, it says they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people and the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. And what are the first works? What are the first deeds? You're looking at them. That's it right there. These things are the reason why we are called to be part of a body.

This is the first love. This is an expression, an outward expression, of our love for God and our love for our fellow man. You might call this the spark, if you will, of that calling.

The outward love that we show. So, brethren, as we come into Pentecost, have you lost that love and feeling? Have we reached a point where that spark is fading?

Where that tenderness is not present in our touch? Where our eyes don't close when we kiss?

There's no welcome look in our eyes when he reaches for us.

Brethren, remember, repent, do, and don't, don't, don't, don't let it slip away.