I found Trevor’s closing application questions particularly helpful. As we seek to apply God’s word from Revelation 2, here are some good questions to ask:

1. Has your first love eroded away? If it has, if you have walked far from God, he is only one step away. As the passages teaches, we are to remember, repent, and return to our former deeds.
2. Do you need to protect your first love from erosion? While our first love may still be intact, there may be distractions or sins that are threatening to remove it.
3. Has the first love for Christ ever been present in your life? Some may not be able to return to their first love because they have never come to know the love of God in Christ Jesus through repentance toward God and faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
4. Do you know someone whose first love for Christ has eroded away? In Hebrews 10:24 we are called to consider ways to stir one another on to love and good deeds. As our church covenant says, we are to “exercise an affectionate care and watchfulness over each other and faithfully admonish and entreat one another as occasion may require.”

So I came to the website this morning to update our “Where We Are” section. After inserting a couple of new maps, I perused the site to see if I needed to change anything else… and I didn’t. While moving is a big change for our church, nothing else has changed. Our history, our beliefs, our church covenant, and our desire to bring the gospel and grace to Louisville, Kentucky, are all the same. Who we are at our core – a church who desires to see God glorified through the spread of the good news that Jesus has come to be the Savior of the world – is the same.

Everything is different, but everything is the same. The change is big, but what defines us has not changed at all.

So come check out the new Grace Fellowship Church… which is a lot like the old. We’ll be having our first services at our new location this Friday at 7pm, and then on Easter Sunday we’ll have breakfast together at 10:15am and our service at 11am.

And yet we are filled with excitement and anticipation. There is an excitement about having a space to call our own and the anticipation of seeing what the space will look like once it is fully renovated. But what is most thrilling to us are the opportunities this new location provides for Grace Fellowship Church – opportunities to meet new neighbors, to invite old friends, to offer new ministries. At its core, the new space gives us renewed opportunities to share the message of the gospel with those who we pray will walk through our new front door. We are excited about the new place, but only because we consider the move one that will allow us to more effectively do what Jesus has called us to do – to make disciples of all nations.

So we’ll be in the basement at Beechwood for a little while longer, but in a short time we will be making the big move. Our prayer is that the move is not one that simply gives us a new mailing address and some natural light. Rather, our prayer is that the move gives us a renewed zeal to see the wonderful news of salvation in Jesus proclaimed to the city of Louisville, to the ends of the earth, and to the nations that God has seen fit to bring to our city and neighborhood.

I saw this video on Desiring God’s website. In it, Pastor Piper offers a practical tool for daily walking in and being made holy by the Spirit rather than by the Law. You can read a further explanation here, which is a note that followed a sermon he preached from Galatians 3:1-5.

Let us not be deceived fools (Gal. 3:1), but those who joyfully realize that we have begun by the Spirit, and so we must end by the Spirit as well.

A.P.T.A.T. from Desiring God on Vimeo.

Hopefully one byproduct of these discussions within our church will be that we find ourselves pursuing conversations with those who are not followers of Jesus, simply asking them to read God’s word with us. As I think about and actually engage people in these simple evangelistic Bible studies, I am forced to reaffirm in my heart a few important truths that are sometimes easy to forget.

• I believe the Bible is God’s inspired word to all people. When I sit across from someone and they say, “Tell what really matter; tell me what truths will really change my life,” I open my Bible. I open my Bible because I believe it is filled with the very words of God, and the act of pointing someone to verses of Scripture as real truth is an act of faith in the authority, clarity and veracity of the Bible (Heb. 4:12; 2 Pt. 1:21).
• I believe in the work of the Holy Spirit. I cannot convict a person of their sin, nor can I open the eyes of faith in a person so that they see the gospel not as foolishness, but as the message of eternal life that it is. So as I open my Bible, believing its inspiration and power, I also affirm my belief that God the Holy Spirit will do his work of convicting and convincing (Jn. 16:7-11, 13). While he may use my feeble words, it will ultimately be his work through the power of the Word that accomplishes any true, lasting life change in a person.
• I believe in the gospel. To study any portion of the Bible with someone who does not profess faith in Christ is to come face to face with the claim of Jesus to be the way, the truth and the life, and the corresponding truth that if he is the one way, truth and life, then there is no other way to the Father except through him (Jn. 14:6). In the midst of being bombarded by pluralism and syncretism and other ways or truths, to sit across from someone and actively present the message of the gospel to them is to consciously and even subconsciously say, “Yes, I believe this is true.”

To present the truth of the gospel to someone through the simple study of Scripture is to remind ourselves afresh of the beauty of God’s truth. Our hope with such opportunities to testify to glory of God in salvation is always that the individual with whom we are studying will repent and believe in Jesus, but whatever happens, God will use our faithfulness to present His gospel as a means of deepening our roots in the truths we live by every day. In fact, there is a growth in our faith that can only happen as we share it. So as you go, make disciples; it will make you a disciple.

Please take 2 minutes to watch the video below as we prepare our hearts for this Sunday. And if you feel compelled to be challenged more in this area, I would encourage you to look at some of the many resources and links on the webpages for Together for Adoption or Orphan Sunday. And here is a great song we plan to sing this Sunday.

So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Rom. 8:12-17, ESV)

So Colossians 3 serves as a great reminder that the call to love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, as well as to love all people, is not something we follow because we are striving to be good and acceptable to God, earning salvation and favor with Him. Rather, the unique way we are to treat one another is grounded in the fact that Jesus has lived, died, and risen from the dead, and that we are now in Christ, united with him in his life, death and resurrection.

If we strive to be what God has called us to be as a church in our own strength, we will fail. It is only as we find our life in Jesus that we can put to death the sins of our body and the sins that are often found in the Body of Christ. May Jesus give us his new life so that we might glorify him in all our ways, and particularly in the way we treat one another.

You can listen to Paul’s sermon over on our Sermon Audio page, and I would encourage you to take the time to do just that.

The first was the encouragement to consider Jesus. This person, Jesus of Nazareth, is described to us throughout Mark and the other gospels. We see his power over all things and hear him teach with authority. Here we see him climb a mountain to choose his disciples, later we see him climb a mountain and reveal his glory in the transfiguration, then we see him climb Mount Calvary to glorify God by his sacrificial death, and we finally seem him ascend from the top of a mountain, promising to return for his children. As we consider the incomparable Jesus in the gospels, we may often respond as the disciples did, by asking, “Who is this man?” Of course, Jesus can become unsurprising because of our constant contact with him or our familiarity with the gospels. We fail to read about him and lose our breath or shake our heads in awe. But when we truly consider who this man was, we do what the disciples did and drop everything to follow him.

As we considered Jesus on Sunday, we looked at his prayer life. God has been working on my heart in this area, and the thought of Jesus rising early to pray in preparation for the choosing of his disciples was a convicting one. Those of us who claim to be Christians, followers of Jesus, would all readily admit that we want to be people of prayer, as Jesus was. Yet too often we pay lip-service to this core practice of the one we want to be like, and choose to do everything but sit and speak to God in prayer. Even with a renewed desire to seek God in prayer this week, it has been difficult. Yet, we must press on to know God in this way – it is a righteous desire to be people of prayer, but it is also a desire that we have to put feet to. If we claim to be followers of Jesus, we must follow his example and pray.

Finally, as someone who often struggles with the love of God for me personally, I was thankful for the opportunity to muse on the thought that Jesus has called me because he wants me to be his. That calling is not rooted in anything good or lovable in me, of course, but in the goodness and graciousness of God. And while such conversations often segue immediately into debate about God’s sovereignty and man’s free will, Eric encouraged us instead to sit and soak in the love of God for us. God loves me. He wants me. He has chosen me and called me to himself. I am his disciple – his child. Whatever theological conundrums that creates, it should first create a humble awe at the amazing grace and love of God.

These were all good reminders for me. I pray you were encouraged by God’s word from Mark 3:13 as well. Maybe you even want to share a comment about how God’s word challenged you Sunday – feel free!

I imagine the feast in Jerusalem would be similar to a Summer Camp experience – a concentrated time of growth and fellowship that eventually must come to an end. The pilgrims in Jerusalem had been on a spiritual retreat, away from the pressures of everyday activities, focusing on their worship of God and being encouraged by others. And while it was sad to leave this wonderful place of God’s nearness and blessing, they knew they were returning home changed.

This psalm then, whether sung late at night or in the wee hours of the morning, is the parting song of the pilgrims and the closing psalm of all the psalms of Ascent. As the pilgrims walked out the gates of the city, they would have turned to see the night watchmen in the tabernacle or the temple – these individuals who watched over the temple while the rest of Israel slept. And the parting pilgrims called out to these men as they exited the city the words of verses 1 and 2:

¹ Behold, bless the LORD, all servants of the LORD,
Who serve by night in the house of the LORD!
² Lift up your hands to the sanctuary
And bless the LORD.

They call out, “Bless the LORD!” We are not used to that phrase in English – we are more prone to say, “Praise the Lord,” but the phrase “bless the Lord” is seen throughout the Old Testament. It is parallel to praising God, in that it is a call to speak forth and remember all the manifold greatness of God and all his grace to us.

We are reminded of that wonderful psalm, Psalm 103, when the writer says, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all of his benefits.” He then lists to God all of the wonderful things he has done. In many ways, then, to bless the Lord is to thank him for all of his blessings. It is to acknowledge that he is the almighty source of the goodness in our lives.

To bless God is to say, “Lord, I acknowledge, not only that you are perfect in all that you are, but that every good and perfect gift comes down from you, the Father of Lights, with whom there is no shadow of turning.” And there is a sense in which when we do that – when we tell God that we understand his greatness and the greatness of his kindness to us – that we bless God. We honor him. We, his creatures, have the privilege of blessing God by rejoicing in who he is and what he has done for us.

When a child or a friend or a relative points out an evidence of grace, a way that God is working in and through us, we are blessed. We are blessed by the knowledge that we are a blessing. When my kids say thank you or want to be near me or express love to me, while they may be saying, “Dad, you are a blessing,” I am blessed in that. And when we do the same for our heavenly Father, in an amazing and mysterious way, we bless him. What a beautiful thing – that our praise and worship to God blesses him.

Now, it doesn’t bless him in the sense that our words of blessing fill up something lacking in God. Neither is our blessing God a means of making God happy with us – of earning his favor. In fact, when we come to God in our poverty and in our need, we bless him by acknowledging his bounty. Psalm 116:12 asks the question we often ask – what should I do in response to this love? How can I seek to repay it? Of course we cannot begin to repay it, but that is what we want to do. Rather, the psalmist simply says, in essence, “I will lift up the cup of salvation and continue to drink from it.”

If I came to your house, and you offer me food, the way to honor that is not by adamantly refusing it. I do not bless you in not taking the gift you offer, or, worse yet, trying to pay for what you are offering. But if I receive that gift, I bless you, because it is more blessed to give than to receive.  We bless God when we receive his gifts with grateful, willing hearts. And if that is true, than God is the most blessed of all beings, because everything is from him.

There’s another aspect to the call for the priests to bless the Lord. As the pilgrims leave they call out to the night watchmen and say, “Bless the Lord, you who will be in the temple all night. Don’t let the worship and blessing of God cease simply because the sun has gone down, for his benefits and blessings and the beauty of his character never end. So while we sleep, you priests, bless the Lord. And while we are gone from Jerusalem, though this season of focused worship is coming to an end, may the worship of God never cease.”

As worshippers of God, our hearts are to be filled with a desire for the constant praise of God. We long to see all peoples, everywhere, worshipping God. It’s not a time issue, like we are desiring that there not be a pause or a lull in the praise of God, but it is a saturation issue – “Let the whole earth be filled with the glory of the Lord!” Our God is worthy of constant, unceasing praise May our Savior receive the praise he deserves at all times!

In verse 3 we hear the response of the night watchmen, and they call out to the parting travelers, saying,

³ May the LORD bless you from Zion,
He who made heaven and earth.

They respond by saying, “May the Lord bless you!” This verse is a benediction, which is a call for God to bless and empower and strengthen others. The night watchmen see the pilgrims leaving the city and they say, “God bless you! May your journey be filled with God’s goodness, and may you know his blessing until he leads you back to this place!”

They ask that God would bless them from Zion – from the city of God, the place where his presence dwelt, but they also say that God is the maker of heaven and earth. While acknowledging the special nature of Zion, of the city of Jerusalem, they say, “But God is the maker of all things, and his blessing extends to the ends of the earth.”

For us as followers of Christ, the picture here is wonderful, for the source of all blessing is not Mount Zion, but Mount Calvary. All the blessings of our lives are the result of the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the blessings of our salvation flow from the cross and saturate every part of our lives.

The blessings of Calvary bring about this wonderful cycle of blessing that is focused completely on God. We are blessed in countless ways, most fully in the cross of Christ, and we bless the Lord for it. As we bless the Lord, he continues to bless us, and we bless him as we gratefully receive of all his blessings.

What a fitting end to these beautiful psalms – a call to bless the Lord and an encouragement to be blessed by him. May all of these words become a significant part of our journey. Blessings.

EE-TAOW (The Mouk Story) from oliver wong on Vimeo.