Rekindling Your First Love

Transcript

July 11, 2021 Notes
Our Next Guest | Rekindling Your First Love
Brandon Watts | Revelation 2:1-5

Aaron Brockett:
Hey Traders Point family. I hope you are having a fantastic summer. One of the things that I've been thinking and praying a lot about here lately are all the ways in which God grows us spiritually. And clearly there's a whole bunch of ways in which he does that but I think the primary way is when we begin to follow the very example of Jesus. When Jesus said, "I have come not to be served, but to serve and to give My life as a ransom for many." I think that that's really key in all of our lives. When we can begin to take the focus off of ourselves and place it upon others. That's when God begins to do a supernatural work in all of our lives. And I want you to be a part of that here within our own church family. To find all the ways that you can serve, just text the word serve to 87221, because we want you to find that sweet spot, or that lane in which God has created you to do what you do best.

Well today, I am really excited to introduce our next guest in our summer message series. Brandon Watts is the lead pastor of Epiphany Church. A multi-ethnic church that he planted in Brooklyn, New York, several years ago, Brandon and his wife, Ty had two sons, Jayden and Jeremy. I first met Brandon several years ago when I was in New York for some meetings. And we took a group of church planters to a Yankees game one night and Brandon and I sat next to each other on the subway. And immediately I liked this guy. He's bright, he's articulate. He asks incredible questions and he's an encourager. Those are all great qualities to have in a leader. And Brandon has just done an incredible job at Epiphany Church. Every time I am around him, I learn something new and I'm encouraged. And I think you will too. Brandon's got a great message for us today. And so at all of our campuses, would you please put your hands together and give a big rowdy Traders Point welcome to our friend, Brandon Watts.
Brandon Watts:
Traders Point. What's going on? [inaudible 00:02:05] It is a delight and honor to be with you. Grace and peace be multiplied to you and the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ Our Lord. My name is Aaron Brockett. I serve as... I mean, did you see the video? We are about the same complexion and that dude has a sabbatical tan, is what he has. Well, it is good to be with you guys worshiping Jesus together. My wife and I were talking earlier and it's interesting because of the pandemic. New York has just been a little crazy. And so, things are just now starting to reopen a little bit in New York and we haven't been like an in-person service where our church meets online still. We do some things at an amphitheater outside, but we haven't been like inside, in-person in worship. And it's incredible to be here. Just like Linden is just like amazing and the singing doctor like the whole thing is just, it's encouraging. It's incredible to worship together with you guys.

Let me rush to publicly thank God for my friend, Aaron Brockett. He is really one of the most brilliant godliest people I know. You guys see him all the time, so it's normal for you. But every time I get around him, I'm always inspired. You have to just get around somebody you feel like you can just like take on the world? Well that's what Aaron Brockett does when I get around him. So I'm grateful for him and I'm grateful for the opportunity to worship Jesus with you. Can we just do it in this room? Can we just like lift up a praise to Jesus in here? Just like... Give me a little bit more, right? Well listen, they have a countdown clock going, so I don't have a lot of time to build any credibility with you, but if you'll do me a favor and just grab your Bibles, let's trust that the Holy Spirit's going to use our time together today.

Do me a favor and go to the last book of the Bible. The book of Revelation. It should not be hard to find. The very, very last book. Once you get there, go to chapter two. We're going to hang out today. As you turn there, just so you know and we're clear. I put my cards on the table. I've been watching you guys for a long time. Aaron and I met at least six years ago at this point and I've been just kind of following your journey. You are ahead of us and everything you do is just so amazing. And so we get inspired and as a church plant, we watch what you guys do and have done and if I'm honest with you, there have been times where I've watched something that you guys have done and I've taken it back to Brooklyn. I took your name off and I just put my name on it. Everybody thought I was brilliant. I was a genius.

If the people in Indianapolis only knew that I was stealing stuff. But real talk, you guys are... The longer you go to a healthy church with healthy leaders, that is preaching the gospel. Serious about making sure that people are connecting and discipleshiping community, the more normal that becomes. I just want to put it on the table. There's nothing normal about this atmosphere, that the ability to be able to gather with God's people, there's nothing normal about this. You guys are our special. God's church is special. The way Paul tells Timothy is that this is the pillar ground in truth, the church of the living God. And you guys are inspiring and changing the world and changing Indianapolis and I just want to encourage you guys like stick to it, stay with it because our God is faithful. Our God is coming back soon and until then, as the song said, let's just worship him.

All right, let's get in it together. We're in Revelation chapter two. [inaudible 00:05:38] Pick me up verse one. It says, "To the angel of the church in Ephesus," right? "The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand who walks among the seven golden lampstands. I know your works. Your toil and your patient endurance and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who called themselves apostles and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my namesake and you have not grown weary." Watch verse four. It's kind of a plot twist. But I have this against you. That you have abandoned your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen and repent and do the works that you did at first, if not, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. I simply want to preach today from the topic entitled, rekindling your fire.

Really it's rekindling that first love. Do me a favor, let's pray and then we'll dig into the text. We'll read a little bit, talk a little bit with the remainder of our time. Let's look to the Lord. Father we are grateful for the opportunity and the privilege to be able to worship You together. I thank You for those that are online. I thank You for those that are online, those that are in the room and those that'd be watching later on Lord. I just pray that Your spirit would dwell in our homes and our cars or wherever we are. At brunch. Wherever we are lord, I thank You that there's not one central place that we have to come to see You, but You're everywhere. And Lord so I pray today that we would be able to experience You. May we behold the wondrous things out of Your law. Would You open our eyes so that we can see Your word today. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

Rekindling your first love. My wife is with us, Ty, we're about to be married in two weeks for 19 years. Amen. Thank you. Appreciate that. 19 years. And throughout the last 19 years, it's been a healthy balance of good times and hard times, just like any other marriage. We've had seasons of great communication where we were on the same page and we were always communicating well. And then we've had seasons where we were in full of arguments and we never saw eye to eye. In fact, I still believe that the Lord is going to redeem some of that and help her to see that I was right in a lot of those arguments. But I'll let the Lord deal with her. 19 years, you're not marri... And some of you have, you're like 19 years? This young guy, he doesn't know anything about marriage. You've been married for a lot longer than I have, but I think one of the common themes that most married people will say is, you don't stay in love by emotional feeling. Love is a commitment. It takes intentionality. It takes deliberation.

At the expense of making this feel like this is a marriage conference, it's not, but for those of you who are married, you should know what I'm talking about that, that love is one of those things that you often have to work at and you have to make sure is there. And those of you who are dating or you're engaged, or maybe you're in a relationship, or maybe it's just complicated. You don't know where the relationship is. It's important for you to understand that love takes work. My family, we do Thanksgiving at my in-laws house. And at my in-law's house they've kind of charged me with the responsibility of making sure that the fire is going through the entire weekend. And we do it from Thursday all the way to Sunday and we make... I got to make sure that the fire keeps going. And what I found out about a fire is it's easy to start the fire. Throw some logs in there, put a starter in there. Light it up, do that... What is that thing? Do that thing and kind of get the fire go. What's it called? Anybody know? What is it?

I knew that, I just wanted to see if y'all knew it. You got to kind of keep that... You got to kind of keep it going. I found that it's a lot easier to start the fire. It takes a lot more work to keep the fire going. You have to turn those logs. You have to put new logs in there. I mean, you've got to go through the entire thing and it's the same way when it comes to love. So, in our text today Jesus is writing a love letter to the church at Ephesus. In fact, this is like a Netflix series. It's a seven part series. It's seven letters that He writes to seven different churches and this is the first of the seven churches. He writes a letter to a church called Ephesus. And in this letter to this church at Ephesus, He does really three things. Kind of my three points that I want to go through today.

He celebrates the things that they are doing well, the church at Ephesus. The second thing He does is He correct them. Corrects the church for the things that they're drifting away from, particularly love. And the third thing, He restores the church and helps them to get it right. That's all found in these five verses that I read today. In fact, you'll indulge me. We'll kind of go through this love letter and see where it is that we're drifting. One of the things I found out about drifting, is drifting is interesting. You can be sitting in a boat and you think you're in the same place, but you could be a mile away from where you started and not know that you're drifting. It is a dangerous place to be. And if we're honest, before we dig into the text, if we're honest on any level, the last year and a half of a quarantine and a pandemic has not been conducive for spiritual growth.

We have not had the ability to gather. We've not had the ability to disciple and we haven't had the ability to come together to worship and for some reason, the last year and a half has thrown many people off spiritually. I'll be honest with you, there were a couple of months that I felt myself going backwards. Felt myself, not discipline, felt myself not praying, not really getting it in with the Lord. I felt myself not being gracious to others because I didn't understand the grace of God that He has given to me. I felt myself drifting. I felt myself in verse four where, I was abandoning that first love. And so what Jesus is going to do today is He's going to help the church at Ephesus rekindle that love, but in doing so, what is good for the church at Ephesus is good for Traders Point, is that all right?

What was good for Ephesus is good for us today. And He wants to rekindle that love. And I think He can do it today in the text. Pick me up in verse number two, He says, "I know your works." He says, "Your toil, your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but you have tested those who called themselves apostles and found them to be false." If you notice in the first couple of verses, He celebrates them. He encourages them. He tells them that, that you're doing a good job. And He says, you really, you're doing a good job in two ways. You're doing a good job because you have good behavior. He says, you can't bear with those who are evil. That you don't like an atmosphere that is a cesspool of sin, you're doing a good job in terms of morale and your behavior but you're also doing a good job in terms of door doctrine.

You've found some people that called themselves to be apostles, you've parsed over their theology and you realize that they're not doctrinally sound and so you have good behavior and good doctrine. And when I'm reading this, I'm going, "Man, that sounds like a great church. What could possibly be wrong with the church at Ephesus? They sound amazing." In fact, if you read the beginning that the start of the church at Ephesus, it's one of the few churches that you can get the most information on. Many people will say that the church at Corinth was the most healthiest church or the strongest church. I'd argue and you get two long books over their abuse of spiritual gifts and the sin that was going on. But I think the church had Ephesus was an amazing church. Read Acts 19, the Bible says that the church at Ephesus starts to grow and evil spirits start to get cast out of people.

There was one point in Acts 19 at the starting of Ephesus, where everybody was practicing magic and sorcery. And they brought all of their books together in the middle of the city and burnt them. Riots are taking place because the church is on its job. The Bible says that evil businesses in Acts 19 start to crash down. Can you imagine that? That all the evil businesses, all the strip clubs that are in Traders Point... Not Traders Point, that would be bad. That would be bad. Aaron forgive me. All the strip clubs in Indianapolis start to close down because everyone who was going there is now becoming believers and coming to Traders Point and lifting up their hands to Jesus Christ. That's exactly what was happening to the church at Ephesus. People were getting saved. They used to worship this God named Artemis and people went from saying greatest Artemis to great is the Lord Jesus Christ.

All because the church at Ephesus was on its job. In fact, they have great leadership in the church too. Timothy is an elder at the church. I mean, if Timothy is on the team, that's a pretty solid team. This church is amazing. In the beginning of this letter, he encourages them. He commends them. He tells them that you doing well. He is not coming down on them for smoking weed and smoking hookahs and having sex, he's not doing... He's like, "Look, you're doing a great job." [inaudible 00:14:59] you can't stand evil. You found the apostles that called themselves apostles and you found them to be false. You're doing an amazing job. And I also want to encourage you. That many of you through the last year and a half, somehow, some way you continue to grow in your faith. And man that's a testament. That is encouraging. I commend you today. This church sounds amazing.

We have people in New York... I don't know how it is here, but in New York, it's a hard place to quarantine. It's overpopulated, it's expensive, and we don't have a lot of square footage. So a lot of companies have told their employees, you can work from home and definitely you don't have to come back. And so what they've done is they've relocated. They moved south of New York and they moved to Jersey and moved some other places and one of the questions I'm often getting is, pastor B can you tell me some good churches in the area that I'm moving to? And whenever I'm looking at giving them a recommendation on churches, I'm looking for a church like Ephesus. I'm like is the church... Are they serious about calling out sin? Remember they said that they can't stand evil in the text. Is that church a place that is going to make sure that sin is not running rampant in the church? And is it a place that is solid in theology.

Solid in the gospel. Unashamedly serious about Jesus. Those are the churches I recommend so when I'm reading this passage, I'm sitting here going, "Jesus, you can't possibly have something bad to say about them. They sound amazing." I'll say it like this, one of the first signs that you might need to rekindle your love is when you think that you've arrived spiritually. When you think that you've learned all it is to learn and that there's no more. You feel you've prayed enough. That's the first sign that you need to rekindle your faith. I can promise you you always need to pray more. We can always read our word more. There's always sin in our life that we need to confess. We always can grow in our integrity and we can always grow in our character and so, he says, listen, church at Ephesus, I know you're doing an amazing job but please don't think you've graduated. We are never standing at the cross chilling.

We're never sitting there going, "Yo! I made it. I'm good." We're always kneeling at the cross going there's room. Please come. I'm always kneeling before Jesus and so He says to the church at Ephesus, "I need you not to get spiritually comfortable because you think you're doing a good job," in verse two and three. This is going to mess you up. For every verse two and three there's a verse four. I know it's deep. I know. I know. And in verse four, Jesus turns the corner. He's like, "Yes, you're doing an amazing job." But look at what He says in verse four, He says, "But I have this against you. That you have abandoned the love that you had at first." If you write in your Bible, why don't you underline verse four and draw a line out to the margin and just write wow. He literally just said, I have something against you. Note that these words are in red. This is not a email from a disgruntled member.

This is not a text message from somebody that has their own agenda for the early church. No, this is the head of the church. That these letters are in red, that this is Jesus himself talking. He says, "I have something against you." And when I read verse four last night, we're staying not too far from here. I went down to the lobby and sat down and just kind of read over the passage over and over again and when I got to verse four I got stuck. And the reason I got stuck is because I realized, if Jesus wrote me a love letter and commended me for things that I did well in verse two in verse three, what would my verse four read? Let me help you. What would your verse four read? If Jesus wrote you a letter and says, "But I have this against you dot, dot, dot, dot dot." What would it read? I don't know about you but that messes me up. That messes me up realizing that there might be some good things that Jesus will commend me over but there are some areas that are inconsistent.

I don't know about you but there's always a gap between what you profess you believe and your demonstration. There's always a gap. Let me say that again. There is always a gap between your profession, what you say you believe, and then your demonstration, how you actually operate it and, spiritual growth really is making sure that gap shrinks. That that's all spiritual growth is. It's the profession of faith, my demonstration, and closing that gap. And here's the crazy thing about the gap. The people closest to you see the inconsistencies and they can call you out on the gap. It's a dangerous place to be where you feel you've arrived but in reality, you need to see that gap. Here's a gap between verse two, verse three and verse four. He says, "Look, you're doing well, but I have something against you." You know what? It's comical to me whenever I realized that, I look at people in the Bible and there's some people I look down on, I laugh at.

I'm going to be honest with y'all, when I first started reading the Bible, I used to like, "Doubting Thomas. He doubted? How are you going to doubt?" Right? Or Peter. Peter like you denied Jesus? How you going to deny Jesus? Or what about job's wife? Y'all know we give her a hard time. Like you told him to curse God and die like... But I realized over time, the only difference between Bible figures that made a mistake and us that are in this room is that they're mistakes got caught in scripture, ours did. Because if God gave you a verse four, and we got to pass Greek over it, I'm sure we'd be here all day. If we were to take all of the things that nobody knows about and put them up on all of these screens we would run out of here embarrassed. What is our verse four read? But I have this against you.

Here's what He says to the church at Ephesus. He says, "I have this against you." What do you have against them Jesus? That you've abandoned your first love you. You've abandoned Acts 19 where you first started. You've abandoned watching demons flee simply because you were pronouncing My name. You abandoned that love. Can you think about when you first met Jesus? When you gave your life to Jesus. Remember how on fire you were? Those of you who have trusted Jesus. Listen, if you haven't that I understand how weird it can be, coming into a building with believers that are worshiping this Jesus that's not here. It's kind of odd. So, thank you for coming. I speak on behalf of Traders Point, that told you I'm Aaron Brockett. Thank you for coming. If you're not a believer, we're glad that you are here. If you have trusted in Jesus, think back, just rewind back for a second to when you first met Jesus, remember how hungry you were.

How thirsty you were. You would stay up all night and you would read your word and you would confess sin and you would pray. You were spiritually disciplined. And those who were really, really disciplined, you would fast and you were serious about your faith but what happened? Where did it begin to dwindle off? When did it begin to... That fire begin to die down? When I read this, it makes me think about when I first became a believer. No joke, and this is not hyperbole. I would spend at least seven or eight hours each day just reading my word. I had this insatiable thirst for the scriptures. I would start in Genesis and I will go all the way to Revelation 22 and when I tell you, I'd enjoyed Leviticus, who enjoys Leviticus? I'd enjoy just reading the word of God and over some time, seven, eight hours turns into two hours. And two hours turns into I'm going to just pick it up when I got to preach.

I remember the first time I had to preach, I had knots in my stomach. I prayed all night. I just wanted to be faithful. I wanted to make sure I represented Jesus really well and now if I'm not careful, I've preached enough sermons that I know how to grab a text and put three points to it, put an illustration and some explanation and we're good. But what about that deep abiding in Jesus? Well, what about that deep dependency on Him? There's a verse tucked away in John chapter 15. I asked the tech team to pull it up for me. That there's a verse tucked away in John 15. And there was a word that messes me up when I read it. Here's what John 15 says, "I am the vine and you are the branches, whoever abides in Him will bear much fruit." This messes me up. For apart from Me you can do nothing. Imagine that? Nothing? Then He goes on to say, if anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away like a branch.

Look at this word. And withers. That's basically what He's saying in verse four. Withering is interesting because withering doesn't speak to the death, withering speaks to the process before the death. When we first started the pandemic, just like every other church, we went into full virtual mode. So we wanted to be cool like Traders Point so we had a little set design. We set up a real cool with some lights and stuff and we... Someone thought it was a good idea to put a live plant in the shot. Now it was a good idea week one and week two, but that person didn't remember to water the plant and that person didn't remember to make sure it had the appropriate light. And so week three, you begin to see it dwindling. Week four a couple of leaves fell off. Week five it's brown and there's only a few more leaves and, by week six week seven, there's one strong leaf that's just hanging and the rest of is just the stick.

And as comical as that is, that is John 15 withering. Many of us that that are withering don't even know where withering. We come to church. We know how to land in is up here singing... We know how to do it, right? But after a while, we perform for Jesus and don't abide in Jesus. And Jesus doesn't want employees, Jesus wants those that are going to submit their life completely to Him. So He says, "Listen, if you're not abiding in me, you're like a branch. You're cut off." And because you're not connected to the source, you wither. And that's exactly what He's saying in verse four. He says, "I have something against you." What do you have against me? That your love dwindled. That you've allowed the secondary thing to become the primary. That's the worst. When you serving and you're serving and next thing you know, the secondary things, the things that really don't matter become primary to you.

But He's calling them back to when they get first gave their life to the Lord. He's calling them to go back to that first desire and that first burn. Now here's what's interesting about Jesus. Jesus has an amazing way of lighting you up in one verse, but building you up in another. And verse four, He deconstructs them. And verse five, He reconstructs. Jesus' like fashion. Jesus never goes around and demolishes everything and then doesn't rebuild. He tells you to tear down the unhealthy so that you can rebuild in a healthy way. So after verse four, He says, "Listen, you've abandoned your first love." He goes on in verse five and He says, "Remember, therefore from where you have fallen repent and do the works that you did at first." Notice that the wording here. Remember, repent and redo. That is all in verse five.

Remember where you fail, repent of falling and do what you did at first. He tells him to remember. Trace back to that what made you fall. Normally it can be a person. The company we keep. Relationships that we're in. Because friends have a way of influencing. In fact, in the book of Galatians, Paul says, "Oh, foolish Galatian, who bewitched you?" Not what bewitched, not where. Who. Who was it that bewitched you? And so what Jesus says to them is, "I know you fell off, but I love you so much. I'm going to give you an opportunity to get it right. So therefore I need you to retrace." Remember where you fail. I got a confession to make. My wife and I've been married for 19 years in two weeks and I pray that we can get to the two weeks because last week I lost my wedding ring. Like I know, right? I've searched all over the place. There's two spots in the house that I put it in. I've checked both of those spots.

I've looked under the bed, I've tore up everything. Sometimes I put it in my pocket when I'm washing my hands and I checked all my... I can not find my wedding ring. So I went to my wife and I said, "Babe, I lost my wedding ring." And the first thing she says, because she's gracious, is retrace your steps. Go back in your mind. Think of when... When's the last time you had it on, where were you? She caught me to remember where I lost something. And that is what Jesus is doing in verse five. He says remember. Retrace your steps. This week, that's all I want you to do. If you feel your love has dwindled for Jesus, retrace your steps. Look back over your life. Look back over the last year and a half of quarantine and see where it was that you fell off, because I'm encouraging you after you do that.

The next thing he rolls through is repent. After you find out where it was say, God, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to turn my back on you. I know in this season, I feel my prayers have gone up and hit the ceiling and come back down but Lord I want to get it right. That's repentance. Repentance isn't just saying I'm sorry, it's turning away and doing the opposite. It starting one way and going back the other way. So He says remember. Then I need you to repent. And the last thing I need you to do is redo the first works you did. Whatever you did when you first met Jesus, whatever that hunger was when you first met Jesus, get back to that. What He's telling Ephesus to do is go back to Acts 19. Get back to that type of desire. Now here's the crazy thing about our love for the Lord. Even though our love dwindles over time if we're not careful, His love for you remains faithful. His love remains consistent.

In fact there's a verse in Ephesians chapter two. I think it's verse four or verse five, where it says "With the great love in which He loved you He made you alive together with Christ." It doesn't just say He loves you, it says He loves you with great love. The greatest place that we see, the love of Christ is on the cross of Jesus Christ. Where the guilty get to walk free and the innocent Jesus was condemned so that we could walk free. He says, "Remember, repent and redo." Repent of what? The areas that I was wrong. Redo what? Redo that first love is what He's calling us to do. Now, the entire sermon I was talking to the people that have been in relationship with the Lord and I'm asking you to rekindle that fire, but I know that there's... Listen I've pastored long enough. I'm not naive. I know that there's a group in here that doesn't know who Jesus is. And He's not calling you to rekindle, He's calling you to start the fire. He's calling you to give your life to Jesus.

Listen, tomorrow's not promised. I don't mean to be morbid, but you're now... We've been in here for what? An hour and a half? We were an hour and a half closer to death now than we were when you first walked in. And I don't care how much spinach you ate this week. [inaudible 00:30:22] it didn't matter. I don't care if you hit the gym. You did... None of that matters. At the end of the day, all of us have an expiration date. I would implore you to give your life to Jesus. Let me tell you something, I would serve Jesus even if heaven wasn't promised to me, because He's good. Because He's good. And this good Jesus loves you. Think of you. Not the you that you have in your mind. Not the social media you. You know you. We can't live up to our social media. Not the social media you, the actual you that nobody knows about. That Jesus loves you. And He's not angry with you. He's not mad at you.

There's a story or a parable in Luke 15 where the Bible says that there are a hundred sheep and one of them wanders off. And when that one wanders off, He goes after it. When He gets it, He doesn't smack it. He doesn't break its legs. He doesn't fuss it out. He takes it and He throws it on His shoulders. And He brings it back to the fold. Who is it in this room that needs to rekindle that fire? Who is it that straight away... And Jesus is like, "I'm going to bring you back, because I love you." Who is it that doesn't know Jesus. And you've kind of lived life on your own terms and you're doing your own thing and... Jesus wants you. And He wants the you now, not the future you. Not the you that prays more and gets in your way. Not that you, the trifling you now. That you. That you in your heart, you know you're unlovable, Jesus' like, "But I love you. I want you." He wants that fire burning. He wants it burning bright.

Can I pray for us? Father there's somebody in this room today that has strayed away from You. I'm convinced of it. Not just this service, but the service before this one. Somebody online. They're online because You're wooing them. You're pulling them back into that relationship. You're pulling them first into that relationship. And so father I pray today, that You would do that work. That You would help them to realize that they are loved and that no other place can show us that like your cross. So father, as we walk out of here Lord, I pray that we wouldn't check the Jesus thing off the list today. Pray that coming into service today wouldn't be, "I did my Jesus thing now I move on with the list."

I pray that we realized that Jesus ain't a check off the list, He's the whole list. He's everything. Apart from me you can do nothing. You're everything Lord. So father as we end this service and as we end this time, I do pray that whoever that is that you're moving on their hearts, that they would respond rightly to You. I pray that, that You would mess up their week. If they don't hear and heed to Your voice. Because You were speaking to them now. Whether they are here or online, thank You for Your faithful witness and Your faithful presence. I thank You for loving us, even when we don't love You the same way. And ultimately Lord, I thank You for dying for us. Because You died for us I pray that we would live for You. It's in Christ name I pray. Amen. Thanks Traders Point.

July 11, 2021 Notes
Our Next Guest | Rekindling Your First Love
Brandon Watts | Revelation 2:1-5

Aaron Brockett:
Hey Traders Point family. I hope you are having a fantastic summer. One of the things that I've been thinking and praying a lot about here lately are all the ways in which God grows us spiritually. And clearly there's a whole bunch of ways in which he does that but I think the primary way is when we begin to follow the very example of Jesus. When Jesus said, "I have come not to be served, but to serve and to give My life as a ransom for many." I think that that's really key in all of our lives. When we can begin to take the focus off of ourselves and place it upon others. That's when God begins to do a supernatural work in all of our lives. And I want you to be a part of that here within our own church family. To find all the ways that you can serve, just text the word serve to 87221, because we want you to find that sweet spot, or that lane in which God has created you to do what you do best.

Well today, I am really excited to introduce our next guest in our summer message series. Brandon Watts is the lead pastor of Epiphany Church. A multi-ethnic church that he planted in Brooklyn, New York, several years ago, Brandon and his wife, Ty had two sons, Jayden and Jeremy. I first met Brandon several years ago when I was in New York for some meetings. And we took a group of church planters to a Yankees game one night and Brandon and I sat next to each other on the subway. And immediately I liked this guy. He's bright, he's articulate. He asks incredible questions and he's an encourager. Those are all great qualities to have in a leader. And Brandon has just done an incredible job at Epiphany Church. Every time I am around him, I learn something new and I'm encouraged. And I think you will too. Brandon's got a great message for us today. And so at all of our campuses, would you please put your hands together and give a big rowdy Traders Point welcome to our friend, Brandon Watts.
Brandon Watts:
Traders Point. What's going on? [inaudible 00:02:05] It is a delight and honor to be with you. Grace and peace be multiplied to you and the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ Our Lord. My name is Aaron Brockett. I serve as... I mean, did you see the video? We are about the same complexion and that dude has a sabbatical tan, is what he has. Well, it is good to be with you guys worshiping Jesus together. My wife and I were talking earlier and it's interesting because of the pandemic. New York has just been a little crazy. And so, things are just now starting to reopen a little bit in New York and we haven't been like an in-person service where our church meets online still. We do some things at an amphitheater outside, but we haven't been like inside, in-person in worship. And it's incredible to be here. Just like Linden is just like amazing and the singing doctor like the whole thing is just, it's encouraging. It's incredible to worship together with you guys.

Let me rush to publicly thank God for my friend, Aaron Brockett. He is really one of the most brilliant godliest people I know. You guys see him all the time, so it's normal for you. But every time I get around him, I'm always inspired. You have to just get around somebody you feel like you can just like take on the world? Well that's what Aaron Brockett does when I get around him. So I'm grateful for him and I'm grateful for the opportunity to worship Jesus with you. Can we just do it in this room? Can we just like lift up a praise to Jesus in here? Just like... Give me a little bit more, right? Well listen, they have a countdown clock going, so I don't have a lot of time to build any credibility with you, but if you'll do me a favor and just grab your Bibles, let's trust that the Holy Spirit's going to use our time together today.

Do me a favor and go to the last book of the Bible. The book of Revelation. It should not be hard to find. The very, very last book. Once you get there, go to chapter two. We're going to hang out today. As you turn there, just so you know and we're clear. I put my cards on the table. I've been watching you guys for a long time. Aaron and I met at least six years ago at this point and I've been just kind of following your journey. You are ahead of us and everything you do is just so amazing. And so we get inspired and as a church plant, we watch what you guys do and have done and if I'm honest with you, there have been times where I've watched something that you guys have done and I've taken it back to Brooklyn. I took your name off and I just put my name on it. Everybody thought I was brilliant. I was a genius.

If the people in Indianapolis only knew that I was stealing stuff. But real talk, you guys are... The longer you go to a healthy church with healthy leaders, that is preaching the gospel. Serious about making sure that people are connecting and discipleshiping community, the more normal that becomes. I just want to put it on the table. There's nothing normal about this atmosphere, that the ability to be able to gather with God's people, there's nothing normal about this. You guys are our special. God's church is special. The way Paul tells Timothy is that this is the pillar ground in truth, the church of the living God. And you guys are inspiring and changing the world and changing Indianapolis and I just want to encourage you guys like stick to it, stay with it because our God is faithful. Our God is coming back soon and until then, as the song said, let's just worship him.

All right, let's get in it together. We're in Revelation chapter two. [inaudible 00:05:38] Pick me up verse one. It says, "To the angel of the church in Ephesus," right? "The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand who walks among the seven golden lampstands. I know your works. Your toil and your patient endurance and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who called themselves apostles and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my namesake and you have not grown weary." Watch verse four. It's kind of a plot twist. But I have this against you. That you have abandoned your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen and repent and do the works that you did at first, if not, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. I simply want to preach today from the topic entitled, rekindling your fire.

Really it's rekindling that first love. Do me a favor, let's pray and then we'll dig into the text. We'll read a little bit, talk a little bit with the remainder of our time. Let's look to the Lord. Father we are grateful for the opportunity and the privilege to be able to worship You together. I thank You for those that are online. I thank You for those that are online, those that are in the room and those that'd be watching later on Lord. I just pray that Your spirit would dwell in our homes and our cars or wherever we are. At brunch. Wherever we are lord, I thank You that there's not one central place that we have to come to see You, but You're everywhere. And Lord so I pray today that we would be able to experience You. May we behold the wondrous things out of Your law. Would You open our eyes so that we can see Your word today. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

Rekindling your first love. My wife is with us, Ty, we're about to be married in two weeks for 19 years. Amen. Thank you. Appreciate that. 19 years. And throughout the last 19 years, it's been a healthy balance of good times and hard times, just like any other marriage. We've had seasons of great communication where we were on the same page and we were always communicating well. And then we've had seasons where we were in full of arguments and we never saw eye to eye. In fact, I still believe that the Lord is going to redeem some of that and help her to see that I was right in a lot of those arguments. But I'll let the Lord deal with her. 19 years, you're not marri... And some of you have, you're like 19 years? This young guy, he doesn't know anything about marriage. You've been married for a lot longer than I have, but I think one of the common themes that most married people will say is, you don't stay in love by emotional feeling. Love is a commitment. It takes intentionality. It takes deliberation.

At the expense of making this feel like this is a marriage conference, it's not, but for those of you who are married, you should know what I'm talking about that, that love is one of those things that you often have to work at and you have to make sure is there. And those of you who are dating or you're engaged, or maybe you're in a relationship, or maybe it's just complicated. You don't know where the relationship is. It's important for you to understand that love takes work. My family, we do Thanksgiving at my in-laws house. And at my in-law's house they've kind of charged me with the responsibility of making sure that the fire is going through the entire weekend. And we do it from Thursday all the way to Sunday and we make... I got to make sure that the fire keeps going. And what I found out about a fire is it's easy to start the fire. Throw some logs in there, put a starter in there. Light it up, do that... What is that thing? Do that thing and kind of get the fire go. What's it called? Anybody know? What is it?

I knew that, I just wanted to see if y'all knew it. You got to kind of keep that... You got to kind of keep it going. I found that it's a lot easier to start the fire. It takes a lot more work to keep the fire going. You have to turn those logs. You have to put new logs in there. I mean, you've got to go through the entire thing and it's the same way when it comes to love. So, in our text today Jesus is writing a love letter to the church at Ephesus. In fact, this is like a Netflix series. It's a seven part series. It's seven letters that He writes to seven different churches and this is the first of the seven churches. He writes a letter to a church called Ephesus. And in this letter to this church at Ephesus, He does really three things. Kind of my three points that I want to go through today.

He celebrates the things that they are doing well, the church at Ephesus. The second thing He does is He correct them. Corrects the church for the things that they're drifting away from, particularly love. And the third thing, He restores the church and helps them to get it right. That's all found in these five verses that I read today. In fact, you'll indulge me. We'll kind of go through this love letter and see where it is that we're drifting. One of the things I found out about drifting, is drifting is interesting. You can be sitting in a boat and you think you're in the same place, but you could be a mile away from where you started and not know that you're drifting. It is a dangerous place to be. And if we're honest, before we dig into the text, if we're honest on any level, the last year and a half of a quarantine and a pandemic has not been conducive for spiritual growth.

We have not had the ability to gather. We've not had the ability to disciple and we haven't had the ability to come together to worship and for some reason, the last year and a half has thrown many people off spiritually. I'll be honest with you, there were a couple of months that I felt myself going backwards. Felt myself, not discipline, felt myself not praying, not really getting it in with the Lord. I felt myself not being gracious to others because I didn't understand the grace of God that He has given to me. I felt myself drifting. I felt myself in verse four where, I was abandoning that first love. And so what Jesus is going to do today is He's going to help the church at Ephesus rekindle that love, but in doing so, what is good for the church at Ephesus is good for Traders Point, is that all right?

What was good for Ephesus is good for us today. And He wants to rekindle that love. And I think He can do it today in the text. Pick me up in verse number two, He says, "I know your works." He says, "Your toil, your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but you have tested those who called themselves apostles and found them to be false." If you notice in the first couple of verses, He celebrates them. He encourages them. He tells them that, that you're doing a good job. And He says, you really, you're doing a good job in two ways. You're doing a good job because you have good behavior. He says, you can't bear with those who are evil. That you don't like an atmosphere that is a cesspool of sin, you're doing a good job in terms of morale and your behavior but you're also doing a good job in terms of door doctrine.

You've found some people that called themselves to be apostles, you've parsed over their theology and you realize that they're not doctrinally sound and so you have good behavior and good doctrine. And when I'm reading this, I'm going, "Man, that sounds like a great church. What could possibly be wrong with the church at Ephesus? They sound amazing." In fact, if you read the beginning that the start of the church at Ephesus, it's one of the few churches that you can get the most information on. Many people will say that the church at Corinth was the most healthiest church or the strongest church. I'd argue and you get two long books over their abuse of spiritual gifts and the sin that was going on. But I think the church had Ephesus was an amazing church. Read Acts 19, the Bible says that the church at Ephesus starts to grow and evil spirits start to get cast out of people.

There was one point in Acts 19 at the starting of Ephesus, where everybody was practicing magic and sorcery. And they brought all of their books together in the middle of the city and burnt them. Riots are taking place because the church is on its job. The Bible says that evil businesses in Acts 19 start to crash down. Can you imagine that? That all the evil businesses, all the strip clubs that are in Traders Point... Not Traders Point, that would be bad. That would be bad. Aaron forgive me. All the strip clubs in Indianapolis start to close down because everyone who was going there is now becoming believers and coming to Traders Point and lifting up their hands to Jesus Christ. That's exactly what was happening to the church at Ephesus. People were getting saved. They used to worship this God named Artemis and people went from saying greatest Artemis to great is the Lord Jesus Christ.

All because the church at Ephesus was on its job. In fact, they have great leadership in the church too. Timothy is an elder at the church. I mean, if Timothy is on the team, that's a pretty solid team. This church is amazing. In the beginning of this letter, he encourages them. He commends them. He tells them that you doing well. He is not coming down on them for smoking weed and smoking hookahs and having sex, he's not doing... He's like, "Look, you're doing a great job." [inaudible 00:14:59] you can't stand evil. You found the apostles that called themselves apostles and you found them to be false. You're doing an amazing job. And I also want to encourage you. That many of you through the last year and a half, somehow, some way you continue to grow in your faith. And man that's a testament. That is encouraging. I commend you today. This church sounds amazing.

We have people in New York... I don't know how it is here, but in New York, it's a hard place to quarantine. It's overpopulated, it's expensive, and we don't have a lot of square footage. So a lot of companies have told their employees, you can work from home and definitely you don't have to come back. And so what they've done is they've relocated. They moved south of New York and they moved to Jersey and moved some other places and one of the questions I'm often getting is, pastor B can you tell me some good churches in the area that I'm moving to? And whenever I'm looking at giving them a recommendation on churches, I'm looking for a church like Ephesus. I'm like is the church... Are they serious about calling out sin? Remember they said that they can't stand evil in the text. Is that church a place that is going to make sure that sin is not running rampant in the church? And is it a place that is solid in theology.

Solid in the gospel. Unashamedly serious about Jesus. Those are the churches I recommend so when I'm reading this passage, I'm sitting here going, "Jesus, you can't possibly have something bad to say about them. They sound amazing." I'll say it like this, one of the first signs that you might need to rekindle your love is when you think that you've arrived spiritually. When you think that you've learned all it is to learn and that there's no more. You feel you've prayed enough. That's the first sign that you need to rekindle your faith. I can promise you you always need to pray more. We can always read our word more. There's always sin in our life that we need to confess. We always can grow in our integrity and we can always grow in our character and so, he says, listen, church at Ephesus, I know you're doing an amazing job but please don't think you've graduated. We are never standing at the cross chilling.

We're never sitting there going, "Yo! I made it. I'm good." We're always kneeling at the cross going there's room. Please come. I'm always kneeling before Jesus and so He says to the church at Ephesus, "I need you not to get spiritually comfortable because you think you're doing a good job," in verse two and three. This is going to mess you up. For every verse two and three there's a verse four. I know it's deep. I know. I know. And in verse four, Jesus turns the corner. He's like, "Yes, you're doing an amazing job." But look at what He says in verse four, He says, "But I have this against you. That you have abandoned the love that you had at first." If you write in your Bible, why don't you underline verse four and draw a line out to the margin and just write wow. He literally just said, I have something against you. Note that these words are in red. This is not a email from a disgruntled member.

This is not a text message from somebody that has their own agenda for the early church. No, this is the head of the church. That these letters are in red, that this is Jesus himself talking. He says, "I have something against you." And when I read verse four last night, we're staying not too far from here. I went down to the lobby and sat down and just kind of read over the passage over and over again and when I got to verse four I got stuck. And the reason I got stuck is because I realized, if Jesus wrote me a love letter and commended me for things that I did well in verse two in verse three, what would my verse four read? Let me help you. What would your verse four read? If Jesus wrote you a letter and says, "But I have this against you dot, dot, dot, dot dot." What would it read? I don't know about you but that messes me up. That messes me up realizing that there might be some good things that Jesus will commend me over but there are some areas that are inconsistent.

I don't know about you but there's always a gap between what you profess you believe and your demonstration. There's always a gap. Let me say that again. There is always a gap between your profession, what you say you believe, and then your demonstration, how you actually operate it and, spiritual growth really is making sure that gap shrinks. That that's all spiritual growth is. It's the profession of faith, my demonstration, and closing that gap. And here's the crazy thing about the gap. The people closest to you see the inconsistencies and they can call you out on the gap. It's a dangerous place to be where you feel you've arrived but in reality, you need to see that gap. Here's a gap between verse two, verse three and verse four. He says, "Look, you're doing well, but I have something against you." You know what? It's comical to me whenever I realized that, I look at people in the Bible and there's some people I look down on, I laugh at.

I'm going to be honest with y'all, when I first started reading the Bible, I used to like, "Doubting Thomas. He doubted? How are you going to doubt?" Right? Or Peter. Peter like you denied Jesus? How you going to deny Jesus? Or what about job's wife? Y'all know we give her a hard time. Like you told him to curse God and die like... But I realized over time, the only difference between Bible figures that made a mistake and us that are in this room is that they're mistakes got caught in scripture, ours did. Because if God gave you a verse four, and we got to pass Greek over it, I'm sure we'd be here all day. If we were to take all of the things that nobody knows about and put them up on all of these screens we would run out of here embarrassed. What is our verse four read? But I have this against you.

Here's what He says to the church at Ephesus. He says, "I have this against you." What do you have against them Jesus? That you've abandoned your first love you. You've abandoned Acts 19 where you first started. You've abandoned watching demons flee simply because you were pronouncing My name. You abandoned that love. Can you think about when you first met Jesus? When you gave your life to Jesus. Remember how on fire you were? Those of you who have trusted Jesus. Listen, if you haven't that I understand how weird it can be, coming into a building with believers that are worshiping this Jesus that's not here. It's kind of odd. So, thank you for coming. I speak on behalf of Traders Point, that told you I'm Aaron Brockett. Thank you for coming. If you're not a believer, we're glad that you are here. If you have trusted in Jesus, think back, just rewind back for a second to when you first met Jesus, remember how hungry you were.

How thirsty you were. You would stay up all night and you would read your word and you would confess sin and you would pray. You were spiritually disciplined. And those who were really, really disciplined, you would fast and you were serious about your faith but what happened? Where did it begin to dwindle off? When did it begin to... That fire begin to die down? When I read this, it makes me think about when I first became a believer. No joke, and this is not hyperbole. I would spend at least seven or eight hours each day just reading my word. I had this insatiable thirst for the scriptures. I would start in Genesis and I will go all the way to Revelation 22 and when I tell you, I'd enjoyed Leviticus, who enjoys Leviticus? I'd enjoy just reading the word of God and over some time, seven, eight hours turns into two hours. And two hours turns into I'm going to just pick it up when I got to preach.

I remember the first time I had to preach, I had knots in my stomach. I prayed all night. I just wanted to be faithful. I wanted to make sure I represented Jesus really well and now if I'm not careful, I've preached enough sermons that I know how to grab a text and put three points to it, put an illustration and some explanation and we're good. But what about that deep abiding in Jesus? Well, what about that deep dependency on Him? There's a verse tucked away in John chapter 15. I asked the tech team to pull it up for me. That there's a verse tucked away in John 15. And there was a word that messes me up when I read it. Here's what John 15 says, "I am the vine and you are the branches, whoever abides in Him will bear much fruit." This messes me up. For apart from Me you can do nothing. Imagine that? Nothing? Then He goes on to say, if anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away like a branch.

Look at this word. And withers. That's basically what He's saying in verse four. Withering is interesting because withering doesn't speak to the death, withering speaks to the process before the death. When we first started the pandemic, just like every other church, we went into full virtual mode. So we wanted to be cool like Traders Point so we had a little set design. We set up a real cool with some lights and stuff and we... Someone thought it was a good idea to put a live plant in the shot. Now it was a good idea week one and week two, but that person didn't remember to water the plant and that person didn't remember to make sure it had the appropriate light. And so week three, you begin to see it dwindling. Week four a couple of leaves fell off. Week five it's brown and there's only a few more leaves and, by week six week seven, there's one strong leaf that's just hanging and the rest of is just the stick.

And as comical as that is, that is John 15 withering. Many of us that that are withering don't even know where withering. We come to church. We know how to land in is up here singing... We know how to do it, right? But after a while, we perform for Jesus and don't abide in Jesus. And Jesus doesn't want employees, Jesus wants those that are going to submit their life completely to Him. So He says, "Listen, if you're not abiding in me, you're like a branch. You're cut off." And because you're not connected to the source, you wither. And that's exactly what He's saying in verse four. He says, "I have something against you." What do you have against me? That your love dwindled. That you've allowed the secondary thing to become the primary. That's the worst. When you serving and you're serving and next thing you know, the secondary things, the things that really don't matter become primary to you.

But He's calling them back to when they get first gave their life to the Lord. He's calling them to go back to that first desire and that first burn. Now here's what's interesting about Jesus. Jesus has an amazing way of lighting you up in one verse, but building you up in another. And verse four, He deconstructs them. And verse five, He reconstructs. Jesus' like fashion. Jesus never goes around and demolishes everything and then doesn't rebuild. He tells you to tear down the unhealthy so that you can rebuild in a healthy way. So after verse four, He says, "Listen, you've abandoned your first love." He goes on in verse five and He says, "Remember, therefore from where you have fallen repent and do the works that you did at first." Notice that the wording here. Remember, repent and redo. That is all in verse five.

Remember where you fail, repent of falling and do what you did at first. He tells him to remember. Trace back to that what made you fall. Normally it can be a person. The company we keep. Relationships that we're in. Because friends have a way of influencing. In fact, in the book of Galatians, Paul says, "Oh, foolish Galatian, who bewitched you?" Not what bewitched, not where. Who. Who was it that bewitched you? And so what Jesus says to them is, "I know you fell off, but I love you so much. I'm going to give you an opportunity to get it right. So therefore I need you to retrace." Remember where you fail. I got a confession to make. My wife and I've been married for 19 years in two weeks and I pray that we can get to the two weeks because last week I lost my wedding ring. Like I know, right? I've searched all over the place. There's two spots in the house that I put it in. I've checked both of those spots.

I've looked under the bed, I've tore up everything. Sometimes I put it in my pocket when I'm washing my hands and I checked all my... I can not find my wedding ring. So I went to my wife and I said, "Babe, I lost my wedding ring." And the first thing she says, because she's gracious, is retrace your steps. Go back in your mind. Think of when... When's the last time you had it on, where were you? She caught me to remember where I lost something. And that is what Jesus is doing in verse five. He says remember. Retrace your steps. This week, that's all I want you to do. If you feel your love has dwindled for Jesus, retrace your steps. Look back over your life. Look back over the last year and a half of quarantine and see where it was that you fell off, because I'm encouraging you after you do that.

The next thing he rolls through is repent. After you find out where it was say, God, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to turn my back on you. I know in this season, I feel my prayers have gone up and hit the ceiling and come back down but Lord I want to get it right. That's repentance. Repentance isn't just saying I'm sorry, it's turning away and doing the opposite. It starting one way and going back the other way. So He says remember. Then I need you to repent. And the last thing I need you to do is redo the first works you did. Whatever you did when you first met Jesus, whatever that hunger was when you first met Jesus, get back to that. What He's telling Ephesus to do is go back to Acts 19. Get back to that type of desire. Now here's the crazy thing about our love for the Lord. Even though our love dwindles over time if we're not careful, His love for you remains faithful. His love remains consistent.

In fact there's a verse in Ephesians chapter two. I think it's verse four or verse five, where it says "With the great love in which He loved you He made you alive together with Christ." It doesn't just say He loves you, it says He loves you with great love. The greatest place that we see, the love of Christ is on the cross of Jesus Christ. Where the guilty get to walk free and the innocent Jesus was condemned so that we could walk free. He says, "Remember, repent and redo." Repent of what? The areas that I was wrong. Redo what? Redo that first love is what He's calling us to do. Now, the entire sermon I was talking to the people that have been in relationship with the Lord and I'm asking you to rekindle that fire, but I know that there's... Listen I've pastored long enough. I'm not naive. I know that there's a group in here that doesn't know who Jesus is. And He's not calling you to rekindle, He's calling you to start the fire. He's calling you to give your life to Jesus.

Listen, tomorrow's not promised. I don't mean to be morbid, but you're now... We've been in here for what? An hour and a half? We were an hour and a half closer to death now than we were when you first walked in. And I don't care how much spinach you ate this week. [inaudible 00:30:22] it didn't matter. I don't care if you hit the gym. You did... None of that matters. At the end of the day, all of us have an expiration date. I would implore you to give your life to Jesus. Let me tell you something, I would serve Jesus even if heaven wasn't promised to me, because He's good. Because He's good. And this good Jesus loves you. Think of you. Not the you that you have in your mind. Not the social media you. You know you. We can't live up to our social media. Not the social media you, the actual you that nobody knows about. That Jesus loves you. And He's not angry with you. He's not mad at you.

There's a story or a parable in Luke 15 where the Bible says that there are a hundred sheep and one of them wanders off. And when that one wanders off, He goes after it. When He gets it, He doesn't smack it. He doesn't break its legs. He doesn't fuss it out. He takes it and He throws it on His shoulders. And He brings it back to the fold. Who is it in this room that needs to rekindle that fire? Who is it that straight away... And Jesus is like, "I'm going to bring you back, because I love you." Who is it that doesn't know Jesus. And you've kind of lived life on your own terms and you're doing your own thing and... Jesus wants you. And He wants the you now, not the future you. Not the you that prays more and gets in your way. Not that you, the trifling you now. That you. That you in your heart, you know you're unlovable, Jesus' like, "But I love you. I want you." He wants that fire burning. He wants it burning bright.

Can I pray for us? Father there's somebody in this room today that has strayed away from You. I'm convinced of it. Not just this service, but the service before this one. Somebody online. They're online because You're wooing them. You're pulling them back into that relationship. You're pulling them first into that relationship. And so father I pray today, that You would do that work. That You would help them to realize that they are loved and that no other place can show us that like your cross. So father, as we walk out of here Lord, I pray that we wouldn't check the Jesus thing off the list today. Pray that coming into service today wouldn't be, "I did my Jesus thing now I move on with the list."

I pray that we realized that Jesus ain't a check off the list, He's the whole list. He's everything. Apart from me you can do nothing. You're everything Lord. So father as we end this service and as we end this time, I do pray that whoever that is that you're moving on their hearts, that they would respond rightly to You. I pray that, that You would mess up their week. If they don't hear and heed to Your voice. Because You were speaking to them now. Whether they are here or online, thank You for Your faithful witness and Your faithful presence. I thank You for loving us, even when we don't love You the same way. And ultimately Lord, I thank You for dying for us. Because You died for us I pray that we would live for You. It's in Christ name I pray. Amen. Thanks Traders Point.