A different way of doing things

Back from his first Sunday away from Elan Church in four years, Pastor Max Lyons shares his visit to 121 Church in Barcelona, a five-week-old church plant Elan helped fund, where five people gave their lives to Jesus. Spain's tiny cars and 10 p.m. dinners remind him that the way of the world and the way of God are just as different. The world says sin is harmless and to follow your heart; God says sin is destructive and the heart is deceitful. Christians in every era have faced this tension, including the Puritan pastors ejected in 1662. Today the world loves to hear that God is love, which Scripture says twice, but not that God is holy, which it says around six hundred times. God's love is a holy love.

Holiness starts with you

Our culture is drawn to self-advancement, not humility or holiness, yet Hebrews 12 says that without holiness no one will see the Lord. Holy means set apart and dedicated to God. The world talks about holiness for other people, but Jesus says to first take the log out of your own eye. Pastor Max recalls paying batting coaches for feedback because he did not want to be average. If you want to be set apart for God, you need feedback, and in Revelation 2 and 3 Jesus gives it directly.

Why Revelation matters

John, the only apostle not martyred, wrote Revelation in exile on Patmos about sixty-five years after the resurrection. Apocalypsis means unveiling, not end times. Revelation 1:3 is the only place Scripture promises blessing simply for hearing a book read, and the enemy works hard to keep believers away from it. Jesus writes to seven real churches, two commended and five in danger, telling each what they are doing well, what they are not, and what must change.

The first mega church

Ephesus was the Chicago of its region, led by Paul, Timothy, and John, and it planted the other six churches. Jesus writes as the one who walks among the lampstands, which is both encouraging and sobering: He is present in His church and nothing escapes His notice. He commends their work, endurance, discernment, and rejection of false apostles. He also commends their hatred of the Nicolaitans, the ancient version of teaching that grace covers everything so holiness is optional.

Dutiful service is not love

Yet Jesus has this against them: they have abandoned the love they had at first. Ephesus confused dutiful service with genuine love. It is possible to do right things for wrong reasons and to be doctrinally sound but spiritually dry. Pastor Max describes automaticity, the autopilot of an experienced driver, which is useful for driving but deadly for following Jesus. "Your love for Jesus is not a to-do list to be completed. It is a fire to be fed." Leviticus 6 commanded the priests to keep the altar fire burning continually; God lights the fire, but we feed it. He asks listeners to remember the hunger of their early days with Jesus and echoes David's prayer in Psalm 51 to restore the joy of salvation.

Remember, repent, return

Verse 5 gives the way back: remember where you have fallen from, repent, and do the works you did at first, or the lampstand will be removed. The church in Ephesus no longer exists, which tells Pastor Max they never returned to their first love, and he feels the weight of that warning for Elan Church. To the one who conquers, Jesus promises the tree of life. Pastor Max recalls taking the wrong fork on I-90 at Ritzville, Washington, and having to recognize the error, turn around, and go back before he could move forward.

Feeding the fire again

After twenty-one years of following Jesus, Pastor Max confesses he felt convicted this week that he had been going through the motions. He has spent the week rising at 5 a.m. to pace his basement in prayer as he did when first saved, asking God to reignite the fire. He closes by praying for everyone who recognizes autopilot in their own walk, inviting them to remember, repent, and return, because you do not drift your way back into love; you have to make a decision to return.