The highest point on earth for 200. What is Mount Everest at 29,035 feet?

Since 1952, over 1,600 people have made it to the top of Everest. I don’t plan to make the climb because frankly I feel that it’s been overdone.

Actually, I have other, less complimentary reasons. Since 1921, over 160 people have died on Everest. Of course that’s the attraction. It’s saying “I am in a small group of people that did something really dangerous.”

But let me ask you another question. Is it more dangerous to climb Mt. Everest, or to come back down? Now the way I asked that question, you know the answer, right? More people have died coming down than trying to go up.

There’s a spiritual application to this. You have to be extra careful coming off of a high place.

Some of us have just come through the 40 Days of Purpose. Then we had Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Easter. Right now, we may be on a high in our relationship with God. But in life we are going to find both the ups and the downs. We’d better learn how to negotiate both. In fact, today, the Sunday after Easter, is a classic low for preachers. “Where are all the people who were so happy to be here last Sunday? Don’t they realize that we meet on a fairly regular basis?”

You know, the highs are so good and the lows are so painful that there is something in us that just wants to hang on to the highs. We want to capture as much of heaven on earth as we possibly can.

Matthew tells how Jesus is on the mountain with His disciples. They have unique, spiritual and emotional experience. The disciples beg “Can’t we just stay up here? Let’s build some shelters.” We just want to hang on to the pieces of heaven on earth that we get.

We want to stay spiritually high. But is it possible? No, it’s not. As you read the Bible, you find is a parade of highs and lows, one right after another. Some examples. Daniel was very, very faithful to God. That’s a high. But because of his faithfulness, he is thrown into a den of hungry lions. That’s a low. But the lions don’t eat him. That’s a high. There’s the story of Jonah. He runs away from God. That’s a low. He is swallowed by a great fish. That is a low. But the fish vomits him up on dry ground. Is that a high or a low? It’s a high there are only two ways out of a fish! Highs and lows are relative.

Go to the New Testament. Jesus is baptized and His Father’s voice is heard from heaven, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” That was a high. What happens immediately after that? Jesus is in the desert for 40 days being assaulted with temptation by the devil himself. That is a low. But what happens after that? He begins His ministry of teaching about the Kingdom of God and transforming lives and performing miracles. Crucifixion leads to resurrection. Palm Sunday leads to Good Friday which leads to Easter. The Bible is full of highs and lows. And it is in the highs and the lows that we will learn to become like Jesus.

Revelation 2:1-7 describes a group of Christians that obviously have had some spiritual highs in their lives. In Revelation, Jesus speaks to seven churches in the Roman province of Asia. Janet preached on these in 2002.

Each church gets a different message -- from flat out praise to flat out criticism. The church in Ephesus is in the middle of the spectrum.

To the Church in Ephesus Jesus says: “I know your deeds and your toil and your perseverance and that you cannot endure evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles and they are not, and you found them to be false; and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary. But, I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first."

Years earlier the Apostle Paul had written a letter to this same Ephesian church. At the end of his letter Paul gives a benediction -- the blessing he desires for his Ephesian friends. He writes, “Peace be to the brothers and sisters, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with a love incorruptible.”

Paul’s closing benediction is a wish and a prayer. Their love must be of the kind that is “incorruptible.”

Paul recognizes that there is a very real danger of corruption for the Ephesian’s love. I think he uses this word on purpose for he is very aware of the danger they face. For during Paul’s last interview with the Ephesian elders recorded in Acts, Paul gives a warning of what the future holds.

First, Paul warns, “I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.” This was soon to be a tragic reality. Persecution broke out in the empire and the Ephesian church was a prime target. It had long been hated by those who made their living from the tourist trade at the great Temple of Diana. They had been opposed to the church from the beginning. Now, with the empire declaring open season on the church, the enemies of the church in Ephesus waste no time bringing all the horrors of persecution to the Christians of their own city.

Second, Paul warns of danger from the inside. “And from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.”

Paul speaks third of his own life among them. “In every thing, I showed you that by working hard in this manner you must help the weak, and remember the words of our Lord Jesus that He, Himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

In other words, “Don’t forget to love!”

Love! That is the one great thing the Ephesians need to remember.

Some twenty years have gone by. The Ephesians have faced the hatred of their townsmen and battled false teachers from within their own group. Now, Jesus Himself appears to John on the Island of Patmos and gives the Ephesians a report of their progress. He commends them for their strengths, chides them for major weaknesses, and calls them to renewal.

First the praise. Jesus compliments the Ephesians on their works. Jesus also affirms the Ephesians for their endurance. This group of believers has faced a lot of difficulty. They have paid a price for their faithfulness and Jesus compliments them for their endurance. Third, Jesus affirms them for their orthodoxy. This church is made up of believers who are spiritually aware. They aren’t carried away by theological fads. They aren’t suckers for things like the DaVinci Code. They have a theology deeply rooted in the scriptures.

Jesus gives the Ephesians straight A’s for toil, endurance, and orthodoxy. But something has happened. Somewhere along the way, in their journey with Jesus, something had changed.

It isn’t a work problem. They are working. They are steady in the face of opposition. It’s also not an information problem. They aren’t thinking the wrong thing. Their problem is a love problem. Jesus says, “But this I have against you, that you have left your first love.”

Do you hear what Jesus says? He says that it is possible for you to be a hard working Christian, who endures great suffering, and have your theology all neatly packaged, but lose the joy and enthusiasm of a vital, loving relationship with God and your fellow believers. Paul said to the elders at Ephesus, “Don’t forget to love.” He closes his great letter by saying, “Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus with a love incorruptible.” And now Jesus comes to them some fifteen years later and says, “You’ve done it! You have left your first love.”

There are two specific dimensions of this love of which Jesus speaks. Bible scholars continue to debate which of these two Jesus is talking about. I am convinced that He’s talking about both because they are related.

First, He talks about our love for Him “You no longer love Me as you did at first. Things aren’t the same as they were. You are cooling off. The joy you had in me when you first came to know Me has been replaced with church business or knowing things about Me. You have become so ‘mature’ in your faith that you no longer rely on me day by day like you did. You have done so well that you have forgotten how badly you still need the basic gospel of gracious love and forgiveness.”

The second dimension involves loving our brothers and sister in Jesus Christ. The Moffett translation states it in these words, “But I have this against you, that you have given up loving one another as you did at first.”

It’s possible to cool off in your love for the Lord. It’s also possible to fall out of love with other Christians. This is a particular danger among those who really do work hard at their faith and endure difficulty and do their best to maintain theological purity. It’s possible to be a very orthodox, active Christian who becomes so uptight in the desire to maintain the faith that you allow forgiveness and tenderness and compassion to be squeezed out of yourself.

Jesus says that the Ephesians are suffering from what can adequately be described as heart drift.

Have you ever experienced heart drift? Where your heart used to be just inflamed with passion and now it’s cold? This happens in male/female relationships all the time.

Let me give you some attributes of what first love looks like. First, you have an insatiable desire to learn all you can about the other person.

Second, there’s a heavy investment in that love relationship. You are willing to invest heavily. You want to spend some time together? No problem, you have all the time in the world.

A third attribute of first love is that there’s an intense preoccupation of the heart.

What can happen to love? Jesus does not say, “You have lost your first love.” He says, “You have left your first love.” It was a choice. Actually, it was a small series of choices -- some small, some big.

And, In the same way, Jesus says that coming back to where you belong is also a choice -- and a series of choices.

Jesus gives the first step in Revelation 2:5. Jesus simply says “Remember” – “remember what we had together.”

Some years ago, Larnell Harris wrote a song that gives the same powerful message. God is the singer and what God says to the listener is, “I miss my time with you. Those moments together. I need to be with you each day and it hurts me when you say you’re too busy. Busy trying to serve me. But how can you serve me when your spirit’s empty?”

Do not let your work for God destroy the work of God within you. This whole life is supposed to be about a love relationship with the very One who made you. So could you take time this week and maybe take the Bible out and maybe thumb through the pages, and maybe there was a time when you wrote something in the margin when God spoke to you from these pages. Maybe you’ve written something in a journal, or something like a spiritual diary. Read about a former time in your faith, where your love for God was red hot. Or maybe this week, you just come into this building and maybe a spot in this building has become special to you. Or maybe you just find a quiet place in your heart and you say, “God, I miss you too. I remember, and I am coming back.”

Notice the next step you take. When you have allowed love to slip, verse 5 says, “repent.”

Now that is a heavy, heavy word. But what does repent mean? I mean you think about preachers screaming that word with a lot of fire in their voice. But the real definition of repent is, “I recognize that where I am is not where I am supposed to be. So, I turn and move toward where I am supposed to be.” That’s what it is.

The same truth is found in Lamentations 3, “Let’s take a good look at the way we’re living and reorder our lives under God.”

How do you move to the place that you want to be with God if you are a low place? First, Jesus says, you remember. Second, Jesus says, you repent.

And number three, and this is also right out of verse 5, is that you remember – you do what you used to do. You take one step at a time. You do the next right thing and then the next right thing.

You don’t get to a spiritual mountain top in one step. And you will not get through a low valley in one step. So what do you do? You put one foot in front of the other. You take one right step at a time and you will successfully make you way through the low places.

When you leave your first love, but go through all the religious motions, your life becomes spiritually blah. In this condition our Lord gives you a choice. You can drift along in this condition to the point that you will ultimately walk away from Jesus and His church altogether (although Jesus will not walk away from you) or you can look at what’s happened, turn around, return and begin again with Jesus and His people.

And if you do this you may, in a spiritual way, experience what Larry and Janet Krusinski experienced romantically in 1982. Janet told this story a couple of years ago but it’s such a great story that you deserve to hear it again.

Larry Krusinski, then age 28, left the hospital in Chicago after a year’s stay. He went home to a wife he couldn’t remember marrying, but to a woman who cared so deeply for him that he fell in love with her all over again.

Larry Krusinski is suffering from amnesia -- the aftermath of head injuries suffered when his car crashed into a tree. A priest had given him last rites of the church. But Janet Krusinski, then age 25, didn’t think he would die. She stayed by his side for ten days while he was in a coma. When his eyes opened, he didn’t recognize her. He remembered the rest of his family. He could recall when he was a little kid. He could even remember his first date. But Janet related, “He was real honest. He didn’t remember me. But he seemed to like me.”

Then one special day, after she again told him she loved him, he told her that he loved her too. He was still amnesic. But after months of faithful visits, this woman who he had once loved but forgotten, was his fresh, new love. Janet said, “Yes, I do think he fell in love with me all over again.”

I invite you to look at yourself. If you have left your first love, or if you are not sure you ever have loved, Jesus offers you the opportunity to begin again or just to begin. As John wrote in his first letter, “We love, because He first loved us.”

The Ephesians had the word of God from the hand of Paul, the hand of John and from the mouth of Jesus Himself. But having the Word isn’t enough. Life comes from doing the Word.

And above all, don’t forget to love.