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Harsh Words and the Gladness of God

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By Jason Comerford

What does the word repent bring to mind for you?

I’ll bet it’s not pleasant. For me, it conjures images of angry protesters with signs. Yelling preachers with pointing fingers. And this heavy, heartfelt exhaustion of yet ANOTHER thing I’ve apparently done wrong. It tires me.

It’s not a word that I naturally incline toward.

I’ve only been a Christian for 12 years, but one of the most consistent qualities of my walk with God has been His apparent love for giving me good things in unexpected, often unwanted, situations. Relationships I didn’t want now strengthen me as my closest friends. Injuries and illnesses have conveyed the tender care and kindness of our Church community. Financial difficulty has grown a steady—and happy—confidence in God as our faithful provider.

There’s a pattern to much of the Christian life: happiness seems to be found in the most counterintuitive places. The places where death, particularly death of self, dwell.

Which brings us to that unhappy word—repent.

In this Sunday’s sermon, Jeff read from Revelation 2:1-7, wherein Jesus calls the church in Ephesus to repent, or change their minds about something.

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

Easy to miss in there is the powerful line “Consider how far you have fallen!” Jesus’s call is, I think, not merely about making a decision but about coming to a conclusion. Repentance is as much a coming to your senses as it is an actual decision you make.

So what is Jesus calling them to? Change their minds about what? Come to their senses about what? Consider how far they’ve fallen from what?

Himself.

More specific to this situation, they’ve lost connection with their first love, Jesus Himself. The source of all glory and goodness. The Happy, Holy God of Heaven wrapped in flesh, who gave up His life in order to save them. There’s no greater treasure to be had, and they’ve wandered off from that.

So for the Ephesians, and for all of us, that painful word “Repent!” conceals something wonderful.

It’s an invitation back into all joy with the God of Heaven.

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Church Cardiology

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by Pastor Steve McCoy

Abdu Murray is a Christian speaker who works with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. He speaks about Christianity on various college campuses.

At one major university, a member of the audience took the microphone during the Q and A time, posing an interesting question. He prefaced the question with his backstory: “I am a software engineer. Once we’ve designed the software, we test it for things that bug us about it. Not just glitches, but things about the software we personally don’t like. If you were to do the same test on the church, what would bug you about it?”

The audience nervously laughed as they eagerly awaited Abdu’s answer.

How would you answer that question?

What bugs you about the church?

What bugs you about our own church, Elim EFC?

What needs to be fixed? What needs to be left the same?

During August, I am going to give a sermon series called Church Cardiology: Strengthening the Heart of Our Church. We will be dialing down on Revelation 1–3.

In chapters 2–3, John the Apostle writes seven letters to seven churches throughout Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey. In these letters, Jesus attempts to debug seven church situations.

Interestingly enough, we find Jesus evaluating these seven churches. He addressed them as unique congregations with unique gifts, skills, contexts and opportunities. He doesn’t expect them to conform to a cookie-cutter template; His goal is to help them be the best church Jesus created them to be.

Jesus wants us to evaluate ourselves so we can be the best Elim can be.

Join us this August as we listen to the Chief Cardiologist debug our church.

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