Pulpit Curriculum: Return To Your First Love
October 13th – October 19th, 2024
Sermon Summary
This sermon is an exposition of the letter to the church at Ephesus (Revelation 2:1-7), under the theme “Return to Your First Love”. In it, Pastor highlights three main points: a) Recognize Your Strengths – commending the Ephesian church’s labour, patience, and doctrinal purity; b) Resist the Lure of Spiritual Drift - warning against allowing one’s inner passion for Christ to fade while committing to outward religious activities, as had been the Ephesians’ plight; and, c) Respond to the Spirit and Walk in Victory – encouraging believers to be attentive to the voice of God, discern and reject false practices, and claim the promise of victory in Christ. In conclusion, he emphasizes the importance of remembering, repenting, and repeating the necessary actions to restore one’s first love for Christ.
Verse of the Week
Revelation 2:2
2 “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 call themselves apostles and are not and found them to be false. ”
Going Deeper
Review: Revelation 2:1-7
1) What does “forsaking your first love” mean in relation to a church commended for its hard work and perseverance as per the text and sermon? Identify and compare any other similar circumstance elsewhere in Scripture.
2) What is your understanding of Jesus’s threat to remove the lampstand (Revelation 2:5)? What would be its possible impact on the church?
3) Who were the Nicolaitans and why did Jesus hate their practices (Revelation 2: 6)? Support your responses with reference to Scripture.
4) What is your understanding of to “have ears to hear” (Revelation 2: 7), and what is its relevance to the church’s spiritual condition? Identifying at least one other instance where Jesus used this same phrase, compare its circumstances to this one.
Assess Your Life
The following questions are meant to encourage personal reflection and identify areas for spiritual growth in your relationship with God. Ask yourself the questions, respond honestly, write down your responses, and then prayerfully seek God’s conviction and guidance to move forward to repentance and restoration. In discussions with your friends and family, or in your Small Group, be open to sharing your responses with others in a spirit of accountability and transparency.
How effective have I been in practicing my charge to be a disciple who makes disciples?
Who have I intentionally discipled this year?
How have I helped others to share their faith and disciple others?
In what ways have I used my interactions in community to promote these objectives?
Application
One key objective of this Pulpit Curriculum is taking God’s truth as exposed in the sermon and helping people apply that truth in practical and intentional ways to plot a course toward obedience and transformation. This section is intended to achieve that objective.
I plan to journalize my responses to the foregoing questions and immediately enlist a mature Christian colleague to join me as a prayer and accountability partner to help me respond to the Spirit and improve my service in these areas.
I will ask_____ to hold me accountable in this.
Sermon Main Points
Main points of the sermon are:
Recognize Your Strengths (Revelation 2: 1-3)
Remember your former heights of spiritual passion and closeness to Christ
Resist the Lure of Spiritual Drift (Revelation 2: 4-5)
Be wary of spiritual complacency and the slow drift away from commitment and passion for Christ
Respond to the Spirit and Walk in Victory (Revelation 2: 6-7)
Be attentive to the voice of God, repent, and reclaim the love of Christ
Quotes
- When hate for the practices of those who err becomes hatred of those who err, Christians depart from the redeeming love of God in Christ and pervert the faith.
- While heresy and its practice must be despised, the heretic himself remains an object of God’s love and potential candidate for redemption.
Unless you are intentional about maintaining the passion for something, it fades.
We only start to panic when we recognize the drift, not the drifting.
Just coming to church isn’t your strength; being the church is your strength.
Click here it listen to First Love (An orginal by Marc André Daniel)
Sermon Reflection
What stood out for me in this sermon?
What can I do to remember this?
5 Day Study Plan
Use the Inductive Bible Study method to study these scriptures this week and remember to share with someone else.
Follow these steps
1. Observe the text.
(What do you see in the text? Look for answers to questions like: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?)
2. Interpret the text.
(What did God and the human author of the text want the original people reading this text to understand/do? Why?)
3. Apply the text.
(How do I need to change in my thinking, my affections, my attitudes, and/or my actions?)
Day 1 - Ephesians 1:15-23
A prayer for spiritual wisdom and revelation, which aligns with the call to listen to the Spirit in Revelation 2:7
What I learned / How I will Respond?
Day 2 - 1 John 4:7-21
This passage discusses positives about love, in contrast to Revelation 2:4 where the church in Ephesus is criticized for forsaking its first love.
What I learned / How I will Respond?
Day 3 - Matthew 24:12-14
Jesus promotes the merits of endurance in the End Times, in alignment with the praise for perseverance in Revelation 2:2-3.
What I learned
What I learned / How I will Respond?
Day 4 - James 1:12
This verse is reminiscent of the special promise in Revelation 2:7.
What I learned / How I will Respond?
Day 5 - Acts 20:28-31
Paul’s warning to the Ephesian elders about false teachers resonates with the commendation of the church for testing false apostles in the Revelation 2:2.
What I learned / How I will Respond?
For best results, this content should be read and prepared privately and then discussed in your small group or with family / friends. We were not created to do life alone - get connected with a small group and grow together.