When Love Grows Cold

Revelation 2:2–5 [NKJV]

How We Lose Our First Love.

1. When You Lose Your Why, You Lose Your Way.

2 “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil…”

Revelation 2:2 [NKJV]

2 “I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false.” 

Revelation 2:2 [NIV]

3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for My name, and have not grown weary.

Revelation 2:3 [NIV]

2. When You Lose Your Way, You Leave What You Once Loved.

4 Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.

Revelation 2:4 [NKJV]

15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.

1 John 2:15 [NIV]

9 Do your best to come to me soon. 10 Demas fell in love with this present world and has deserted me, going off to Thessalonica.

2 Timothy 4:9-10 [GNT]

10 Many will stop following me and fall away, and they will betray one another and hate one another… 12 There will be such an increase of the sin of lawlessness that those whose hearts once burned with passion for God and others will grow cold.

Matthew 24:10, 12 [TPT]

15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of My mouth.

Revelation 3:15-16 [NIV]

3. When You Leave Your First Love,  You Fall  From Grace.

5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.

Revelation 2:5 [NKJV]

4 If you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.

Galatians 5:4 [NLT]

18 As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 19 “Come, follow Me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” 20 At once they left their nets and followed Him.

Matthew 4:18-20 [NIV]

13 [Jesus] asked His disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” 14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 “But what about you?” He asked. “Who do you say I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Matthew 16:13-16 [NIV]

69 Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came to him. “You also were with Jesus of Galilee,” she said. 70 But he denied it before them all. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. 71 Then he went out to the gateway, where another servant girl saw him and said to the people there, “This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth.” 72 He denied it again, with an oath: “I don’t know the man!” 73 After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, “Surely you are one of them; your accent gives you away.” 74 Then he began to call down curses, and he swore to them, “I don’t know the man!”

Matthew 26:69-74 [NIV]

1 Jesus appeared again to His disciples, by the Sea of Galilee. 2 Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. 3 “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

John 21:1-3 [NIV]

15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love Me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “You know that I love You.” Jesus said, “Feed My lambs.” 16 Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love Me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, You know that I love You.” Jesus said, “Take care of My sheep.” 17 The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love Me?” He said, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus said, “Feed My sheep.”

John 21:15-17 [NIV]

Jesus was calling them back to:

Spirit-filled Passion:

6 When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.

Acts 19:6 [NIV]

Devotion To God’s Word:

10 This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.

Acts 19:10 [NIV]

Exalting Jesus Above All Else:

17 When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor.

Acts 19:17 [NIV]

Radical Repentance:

18 Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done. 19 A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas.

Acts 19:18–19 [NIV]

Generosity And Service:

35 “In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

Acts 20:35 [NIV]

20 The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

Revelation 1:20 [NIV]