Sermon Tone Analysis

Revelation 2:1-7

When The Love is Gone

/Dearest Jimmy,/

/No words could ever express the great unhappiness I've felt since breaking our engagement.

Please say you'll take me back.

No one could ever take your place in my heart, so please forgive me.

I love you, I love you, I love you!

Yours forever, Marie./

/P.S., And congratulations on willing the state lottery./

We have an epidemic in America.

I am not telling you anything new.

According to www.divorcestatistics.com,

45-50% of first marriages end in divorce in America.

60-67% of 2nd marriages end in divorce, while 70-73% of 3rd marriages are ended by divorce.

According to a study by Oklahoma State University on Marriage, of those who were happy in marriage 34% admitted to having had what they described as “serious trouble” at some point in their marriage; however, 92% said they were glad that they had stayed together.

Now one of the things we often hear from those who are ready to “throw in the towel” is they say “it’s better to just move on, than taking the time and effort to reconnect and rebuild.”

However, if you look at the statistics, the average time that most people wait to remarry is 3 years, and the average length of divorce proceedings is 1 year.

That’s 4 years on average of wasted life before you can “get on with your”.

It would seem to me that effort could be given to the year or two years of work to rebuild what was once there.

So, what do we do when the love is gone?

Now on the spiritual side, church is supposed to be about people who love and serve God.

And yet 2.7 million church members become inactive each year.

They often leave hurting or wounded, perhaps neglected.

Now, George Barna estimates that 50% of people in our churches today are not actually born again Christians.

And that may well be true.

But if even ½ of those leaving the church are truly believers that have been deceived by Satan, and waned in their love … then the question is what do we do when the love is gone, when we don’t feel about the things of God like we once did?

What if I don’t love God like I once did?

My guess is that someone here today is struggling in their walk with Jesus Christ.

Perhaps you have been considering just stepping back and “taking a break” or maybe you are stuck in apathy and can’t break out of that feeling …

My guess today is that someone here may be struggling in their marriage.

You don’t feel like you did and you don’t know what to do or don’t care to do what you know …

Whatever area of your life, Spiritual, Marital, Business, Friendships, Ministry, any area where your love has waned, the Words of Jesus Christ are real, practical and if applied can take you where you need to be

Read with me John’s record of the words of Jesus Christ to the Church in Ephesus in The book of Revelation chapter 2.

Now remember as we read that in talking to Ephesus, John is writing to a church that he had been the Pastor.

He knew these people and he loved these people.

*READ REVELATION 2:1-7*

Alright did you see the steps?

I see 5 things all beginning with an R.

!

*1.

Realize*

We have to realize the truth and that is that we don’t feel like we felt.

Before we can deal with a problem we have to admit that there is one.

But something else I see what we have to admit is that just because you don’t feel like you felt, doesn’t mean you are “all bad”

Sometimes we respond defensively because we are feeling the way we are feeling and we think we are an altogether terrible person.

Jesus told them they were doing some great things

Hard work, perseverance, intolerance of wicked men, and testing the words of false preachers, are all good things.

Some who are struggling in their marriage and they feel like a complete failure … but the fact is you may be a good father or a good mother.

You have perhaps been good at your job.

You might have survived a lot of wrong done to you

Perhaps you have done great things for God in the past

Perhaps you have stood for right and righteousness

Perhaps you have been a faithful giver

But Jesus says to Ephesus /“You have forsaken your first love”/

/Aphiemi = depart, leave behind,/ A.T. Robertson defines it as /a definite sad departure/

This is not something that happened by accident but it is something that happened because of a decided decision.

The Oklahoma State Study discusses the process of falling out of love and says that the decisions might be gradual decline, little things over a long time that take us to that place

Or there may be a pivotal moment where you allow an event to reshape your feelings.

It could be a change in the way you think about yourself that causes you then to change the way you feel about others.

But whether you got there over time or you seemed to get there all at once, there is a problem.

It is emotional, it is spiritual, but it is also physical.

Dr. Brandt Gardner says that /“falling out of love is … the peak level of the emotional pain threshold”./

He describes how hormones fire because of pain that increases our adrenaline and embeds memories of pain.

Then it gets to a point of trauma and cortisol floods the area of short-term memory to the point that it does actual nerve damage to the area of the brain that stores short term memory.

(http://www.reddirtchronicles.com/2011/06/is-falling-out-of-love-the-deathblow-to-your-marriage/)

Basically this means that in “falling out of love” distorted emotional memories are being created.

It’s like the short term memory is damaged to where we often can’t see the good being done right now, all we can see is the thing that hurt us and we enlarge it or distort it and it’s all we see.

So, whether you have fallen out of love with your spouse, or fallen out of love with God and his ways, it is a serious process that involves every part of your being.

Jesus says you have left your /“first love”/ or /“your love the first”/ – the word is /protos = first, before, prominent/

In Jeremiah 2:2 God pronounces the same thing for his “bride” the people of Israel and he says /“… I remember the loyalty of your youth, your love as a bride – how you followed me in the wilderness in a land not sown”/

So then Jesus says

! *2.

Remember*

/“Remember the height from which you have fallen”/

Back to Jeremiah 2:2 God was saying, /“you followed me around in the desert and were loyal to me, when you had nothing but tents and the dust of the desert, but now that you have houses and cities, yet your loyalty has waned.”/

Remember … how you used to love

Remember when there was nothing but each other, when you didn’t have two chairs that matched or dishes that went together or a had mismatched of silverware, or a tiny little apartment, or your parents basement, you didn’t have ANYTHING … but you had LOVE …

Remember when you first came to Christ and you couldn’t wait to get to read your Bible in the morning.

You would tell everyone who would listen to you and many who wouldn’t how wonderful Jesus is.

You were at Bible Study and Sunday School, Sunday Worship.

You were anxious to serve.

You took notes.

You sang the songs.

You didn’t understand it all but you didn’t care because you were filled with love.

But somewhere along the way something happened … or little by little you changed your process.

In your marriage, perhaps jobs, kids, dirty socks, habits that were cute before and became annoying after; and little by little things changed.

Maybe you were ignored or unappreciated.

You might have been legitimately wronged.

Perhaps you didn’t say anything and by the time you did and your mate tried to change it was too late

Or perhaps you said something but it fell on unsympathetic ears, until by the time they do, you don’t feel the same.

Perhaps you stopped attending church regularly because of work or other commitments.

Maybe someone said something to you that wasn’t kind or treated your excitement with a big bucket of cold reality, as they perceive it, telling you to settle down …

Perhaps a major trauma happened in your life that separated you like a sheep from their shepherd and in the separation you lost your passion for God

Jesus says, “don’t focus on where you are right now but REMEMBER the HEIGHT”

Remember how GOOD it was

Focus on the feeling you had First

Remember from WHERE …

You most likely didn’t get married because you were bored one day.

You were IN LOVE …

This man was your knight in shining armor

This woman was princess in an ivory tower

/“Remember” – mnemoneuo (mnay-mon-yoo-o) = remember, keep in mind …/

but this is in the present active tense which is telling us to continue to be mindful, keep thinking about