Mr. Clyde Kilough
Sermon Transcript
July 13, 2002
God's Great Promises...
Focus on the Kingdom of God
- Teton Challenger Youth camp, WY -

Mr. Luecke said this is my sixth time to come here within seven years. It is hard to stay away. I was actually thinking I would probably be in the Philippians at this time this summer, but that trip ended up being changed and I didn’t have to go there. As a result I asked if we could at least come up for a weekend. My wife hasn’t been able to come before and I have been wanting to show her again this area that we knew many years ago. And it is a beautiful area, but the main reason I come is not because it is so pretty. I have got very pretty places, beautiful areas, that I can go to within two hours of where I live. The main reason why I come here is for you guys, because when I go back home every year I am just jazzed up from being around all you young people and being able to spend a week or two here. That is what, I guess, every year it really stirs my blood. I hope it keeps me young. I feel younger when I go back home after being with everybody. And even being around some of my older peers, that keeps you jazzed up too. It is a good thing and I hope all of you will make it a habit in your life to come back to camps as years go by, and make it a part of your life and make yourself a part of other peoples lives.

I am also here on behalf of the Home Office and the Council, just to remind you that we are intensely interested in our young people We are interested in what you are doing, the programs that we have, all of our youth development. We really seriously look at these camps and all of our programs as an investment in our future. It is not just for you. It is for all of us. The church is a family and every family needs grandparents and children, and it makes for a healthy family. And the part that you play in it is critical to our future. Some of you have been here a number of years now. I was asking Kathy Jeffers if she doesn’t hold the record. Has anybody been here, besides Kathy, five times as a camper? Anybody else? Brian? Yeah I know your folks just drag you kicking and screaming here every year don’t they? How many of you have been here four times? Some four. Three? Quite a few.

Well if I were to ask you the question, why do you keep coming back? You could probably come up with a number of answers. I think you are coming back because this camp is giving you something that is affecting your lives. Something is happening here for you that is good and that is beneficial, and something clicks in certain ways in certain environments. And that is why the camps are designed as to give an environment which God can do something in your life in a different way than can happen anywhere else. I know last year, I am going to tell on Liz a little bit, if you don’t mind. Even if you mind, I am going to tell. After one of the Christians Living classes last year, something clicked and prompted something and Liz and I sat up in the tent up there in the kitchen area and talked for an hour about baptism. And then exchanged some emails over the next few months, and she got into counseling, and not long ago was baptized. A major change in life. And part of it, a major part of it was the environment here at camp where some things began to jell in certain ways. Now God could have done it in other ways too, and He would have done it in other ways, but sometimes get accelerated or they come together in a certain way in certain environments that helps you grow. And I hope that is what this camp is doing for you.

The statement was made last night, and it has been made very many times, that youth are the future of the church. I would like to put a little different twist on that today that I think is even more important. The church is the future of the youth. The church is the future of the youth. When I say that, I mean the church in its broadest terms of all that it represents. The church was built by Jesus Christ to represent something not only for His family. Yes, it was built to be the firstfruits of His family, but the Church was placed on this earth to represent the kingdom of God. Our job is to preach the message to announce the coming kingdom of God and to offer some hope that this world doesn’t have much of. And we are also, though, to represent God’s way of life. The way we live is supposed to be something that people can look at and say, someday that is the way the whole world is going to live.

Now that is quite a responsibility on our shoulders to live up to that, but that is what the church is to do. The church represents the future for the world. The church is representative of that because the kingdom of God that we represent is coming. And it is sure. If there is one thing sure in life it is that the kingdom of God is going to come. Christ promised it. God’s word is of no value, you can’t trust God at all, everything He says is out the window, if the kingdom of God doesn’t come, because He promised it. And Jesus Christ came to be the King of that kingdom, and it is just as sure as anything can be in life. Christ is going to come and the church is going to take over the world under him. And it is going to be relatively a small group of people that is going to turn the world on its ear, and change the whole way of living for the entirety of the world.

Now, in the meantime, we live our lives. And we are some where between now and whenever the kingdom of God is coming. And you are in the church. And you are also in the process of making decisions about whether you will continue in the church or not. And you may, some of you may go out and come back. That happens occasionally. But we hope that all of you will stay.

But how we view the kingdom of God is going to make a tremendous difference. It is going to make all the difference in the world. Anytime I think about doing things off in the distance, there is a story that comes to my mind. It is not a story, it is an actual event that took place. Probably in the late 60’s sometime, there was a group of fathers and sons in the Houston church that decided that we would go deep-sea fishing. And we picked a Sunday. And there were several of us down on a party boat. And the Sunday we picked was a beautiful day except for one thing. The wind was blowing, and the waves, the captain said, were higher than he had seen them in a long time. They were probably fifteen foot waves. We had to go 80 miles out in the gulf. It was a four hour trip on this big boat. We had gotten not too far into the bay and we hit the rough water. And there were people getting sick very quickly because something happens when you are going up and down and sideways at the same time. And the boat is lurching. And the boat was big enough that sometimes the propeller would come out of the water at the end of a wave. And when that prop would come out of the water the whole boat would just shutter.

And I had a friend I was sitting right beside and he got really sick real quick. And he was just, his skin was changing color about every few minutes. And if you are not sick, it is sort of funny to watch somebody else. Especially it if is a buddy and you can razz them. But he was really feeling awful. And the deck hand came around, he is walking around preparing all the fishing lines, and he said, hey buddy no need to feed the fish. We have got lots of bait. And he was kidding him as well. And then the captain came around and he finally said, he said son, keep your eyes on the horizon. Look at the horizon. And so he started doing that. And he had these sun glasses on, and I was sitting right beside him, and I could watch his eye balls. I could see his eye balls to the side, and it was so funny because no matter when the boat went, if we went down in the trough and we were facing this way, his eyes were on the horizon. If we went up, his eyes were on the horizon. And no matter where we went he was keeping his eyes on the horizon.

Funny thing of it was, the odd thing, he stopped being sick. Who can tell me why he stopped getting sick? Anybody have a idea why? Well, the answer is is that the horizon never moves. There is something that happens in the equilibrium when you are on the ocean. And it is not because you ate something bad, it is because this motion does something inside which triggers certain responses in your gut and it just throws you whole system in disorder. But when he put his eyes on the horizon, which was miles and miles away, it stabilized him. And he stopped being sick. And it was a tremendous metaphor of life, that when you keep your eyes on the horizon no matter what is going on around you, you can stabilize yourself internally. I thought of that many times. The horizon doesn’t change.

Now how does that relate to the kingdom of God? Well, the kingdom of God is what is on the horizon for all people who believe in God and understand what He is doing. The question that I have for you is, where are you looking? Where are you looking in life? Where is your primary focus fixed? It doesn’t matter how old we are, whether we are little kids or a 100 years old. It is the same issue. We are on the same boat. We are all in the same world. And it is the same thing that affects everybody.

How far do you see ahead? Where do you look in life? And why? Why do you look where you look? Do you look at the long term or the short term? Or maybe more important, the question is, what difference does it make? Does it actually make something that differs in your life one way or the other? Let me put it a different way. Are you a visionary? Do you see out into the future? Do you think about that a lot? There aren’t many visionaries in life.

In 1965 I had the chance to go to camp at SEP in Orr. The first year they had camp there. And that was a turning point in my life for several reasons. But one of the major turning points had to do with vision. If you would have asked me in 1965 at age thirteen, where do you see your life when you are 50 years old? Because now I am 50. I never looked, I don’t think at that point in my life, I had even thought about being 50. I don’t think I thought about being 20. And I had no idea of where that would have been.

That is not the question they asked me though. That is not the main thing that stuck in my mind at camp in 1965. It is hard to predict. It is hard to predict. If I were to ask you today, where do you see yourself at age 50? You could give some general ideas. But it is really going to be difficult to predict exactly what is going to happen in your life for the next number of years. That is not the most important thing though. And that is not what being a visionary is all about. Being a visionary is not where do you see yourself ten years from now. It is not where do you see yourself 30 years from now. Being a visionary has to do with looking way past that and seeing well into the future.

What helped me at camp in 1965 had nothing to do with anybody telling me anything about what life would be like at 25, or 35, or 45, or 50. But it had a tremendous impact on my life at each of those ages. It had a huge impact at where I was at 25, 35, 45, and 50.

What was talked about that had such a tremendous impact and was critically important and did something to my life, was that there were some very important messages about the kingdom of God that were given at that time, that at age thirteen, altered some of the way that I looked at life. There was vision there. Something clicked. I began to sense that I was part of something that was a bigger picture than what I had realized before. I began to realize I was part of a chain, like you are here. That you don’t belong to the church in 2002. You are part of a chain that has been existing since 31AD. You are part of something that is much bigger than life right now. And no matter what comes, you always can be a part of that. Something that is really, really, big in life. We are a part of something going on that is in the work of God.

Where do you see your future? How do you look at the kingdom of God? The moment I mentioned the kingdom of God, that is not a phrase that somebody sitting here is going, what is he talking about? You have all heard about it. But everyone of us can see it a little differently. Just because we have all heard those three words doesn’t mean we all see it the same way.

I borrowed Mr. Luecke's binoculars and I am going to pass these around. And I am going to ask you to look through both ends of these. Depending on which end you look through, your perspective is very different about what is around you. One of these ends puts everything way out in a distance. If you look through the other end it pulls what you are looking at very close to you. And it makes a huge difference.

It is a very simple exercise and you know what you are going to see, but I want you to look at it anyway. And I want you to look at and say how do I see the kingdom of God? Which end am I choosing to look through when I look to the future? Do I want to see the kingdom of God as something way out there? Or am I going to pull it in very tight to me? And am I going to chose to see it up close and personal? Why is this important? Well, let me ask it a little different way. When you look at the rest of your life, when you do take time to look at the rest of your life, where do you see your future? How do you look at your future?

I would like to plant a little seed of perception in your thinking today. And that I hope you think about your future in very different terms. I would like to suggest that the rest of your life, you should start viewing the rest of your life in the kingdom of God first. That the rest of your life, where ever you see the rest of your life going, that you should start with the kingdom of God and work back this way to where you are now. Rather than starting here, and saying well, five years from now I see myself here. Ten years from now I see myself there. Fifteen years, or even when I am fifty. I would suggest starting at the kingdom of God and seeing where is my life going to be there? And then work back this way.

Why do that? Well because if your life starts in the kingdom of God, everything between now and then is going to be different. What you do between now and then is going to be very different if you start viewing you future starting at the kingdom. It is going to mold and shape your life in a very different way. It is called vision. It makes you live the life of a visionary. It makes you live life in a very different way, with a different outlook, than most people have.

Let’s go to Matthew 6. We are going to stick primarily in Matthew 6 today. Last night we had this question about prayer. It was really a great question because it is part of developing your relationship with God in a very special way. When Jesus gave this model of how to pray, it is not accidental that He began it and He ended it with the focus on the kingdom of God.

Matthew 6:9-13 In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. The first thing He looks at is our Father. The origin of life, the giver of all life. He is on His throne. His name is holy and all that represents.

[10] Your kingdom come. One of the things that God wants us to pray about first and foremost is the kingdom of God coming. Why? At the end of the prayer, the very last sentence, He says,

[13] … For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

You open the prayer thinking about the kingdom of God. You close the prayer reminding yourself of, God has this kingdom and to Him belongs all the power and all the glory that is going to exist forever. That is what really life is all about from His perspective. When God looks to the future, what is He seeing?

So He tells us, begin to talk with God and think with God in these ways. Now sandwiched in between are some of the short term issues in life. He does talk about here in verse 11 Give us this day our daily bread. What is your daily bread? It may be the way you are facing things in school, family life, situations with friends, jobs, the things that are challenging you every day; to talk about those things. But He doesn’t put those things at the first and He doesn’t put them at the end.

He says sandwich the short term view of life and what is going on every day, sandwich that in between these two big major concepts; what we need and where we are going. Put everything in your daily life in between the concepts of the large picture of the kingdom of God. He said pray this way.

Matthew 6:9-13 In this manner, therefore, pray:

Our Father in heaven,

Hallowed be Your name.

[10] Your kingdom come.

Your will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.

[11] Give us this day our daily bread.

[12] And forgive us our debts,

Give us the things that we need physically. Help us be the people we ought to be spiritually,

As we forgive our debtors.

[13] And do not lead us into temptation,

But deliver us from the evil one.

For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

That is just an outline that can take up hours and hours of consideration of what this means.

What happens if you think this way? Why did He say this? Was He just throwing a few ideas together of what to pray about? Or did He understand that something happens to a person if your focus begins with the kingdom, ends with kingdom, then you put everything else in life in between those two? What happens to a person? Actually something very profound begins to happen. The way we see the future changes the way we deal with the present. The way you see the future affects and changes and alters the way you deal with the present. And He illustrates this in verse 10. Your kingdom come. If that is really in somebody’s mind, if they are thinking about the kingdom of God and all that means, and how the world is going to change and how all the difficulties and the sufferings are going to be different; and if you look at life around you and you get sort of tired at times of life;

You know, I was telling my daughter the other day, I said, "Becca, you know you need to stay more up on world news." And she said, ":Dad, it depresses me to watch the news." And when you read some of the things about the generational differences, one of the markers of today’s generation, young generation, is that they are, you know, they tend to be pretty disillusioned about the world around them. One of the hallmarks of today’s generation is that they want to be spiritual but they don’t want to be religious. They do sense that there is something that is really important in life. But you look around, life today which is a lot of times sort of depressing, and then just don’t stick there though, don’t look at life today. What does God say you are living here for? Why are you here? You are part of a kingdom that is going to change that. You are trail blazers.

I was walking down to the lake this morning. This path that you follow. If any of you were here in ’96, that trail did not exist. There was no trail to the lake. I was looking at that today and thinking this is really amazing. This is so well trodden. That trail has been created by campers here. And with this sermon in mind I was thinking, you know the world is sort of like this right here. There are some beautiful things. A lot of dead fall. A lot of forest fires raging in the world. But here we are walking down a path. And it is a narrow path. And you reach a point up there somewhere in the woods where you are winding and curving around. And I remember that first year we were trying to find how do you get to the water?

And here you are on a path that a lot of people have walked already since the time Christ created this church. And it has taken you to a point, where you round the corner down there and all of a sudden you see this beautiful lake, and these mountains, and you walk out there on the beach, and you are out of the forest and you see this beautiful grandeur. And I was thinking this morning, that is the way the future is going to be for the world. They are living right now, but someday we are going to take them on a path of life that is going to open up something that they are going to walk out of the woods and say, wow. This is the way that you can live. And that is what you represent. And you are on that narrow path that is taking to that direction.

So what difference does it make for you? Verse 10, Your kingdom come. If you are thinking about the kingdom, that leads automatically to the next thing. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. It affects the way you look at the will of God. You realize, if God has a kingdom that we are working toward and that is going to come, then it is important right now, if I identify with that, to do what the will of God is. And you begin to seek the will of God in the world that you are living in right now; in a world that has little concern for the will of God; that is pursuing its own will, it is looking very short term; you see life differently. When you look at the kingdom of God it focuses you on what is the will of God. Where are we going? Where is life taking us? And it becomes something that really begins to affect your lives.

Skip on down to verse 19 for example. Matthew 6:19 "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal;

Well, this is pretty easy to understand what treasures on earth are. Any of you have any investments in the stock market? Any of you young people, parents or grandparents give you a little money and say hey, you need to put this away for your long term planning. It is not just that people can steal it from you. If you are banking on the economic system of the world to give you your salvation and your security for the future; if you have seen the stock market in the last little bit, you may be a little unsteady right now. If you hit it when it is good, it is good. But it is not a real lot of security. People can break in and steal, …moth and rust can destroy it. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

I am going to be gone Sunday night, but I will give you a question in advance, if I was here at the camp fire. What are treasures in heaven? What is verse 20 talking about? What can you lay up for yourselves that are treasures in heaven that nothing can destroy it and nobody can steal it? What are those things? It is very easy to understand verse 19. Money is tangible. What are the treasures in verse 20 that it is talking about? If you are going to start saving something and building something in your life, what are those things? Think in terms of character. Think in terms of things that nobody can take from you; that becomes what you are, that is a reflection of what is in heaven. And this is the key thing, verse 21, Where your treasure is there your heart will be also.

Why does this relate to the kingdom of God? What are some of the big labels today that make you, you know, it designates when somebody sees what is on your collar, or what is on your shirt, or what is on your rear end, somebody’s advertising label, that tells people you are cool. You know what I am talking about. How much is put into style and all these values that some people treasure. Well, you know. He says, isn’t life more than that?

Matthew 6:25-27 …. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? [26] Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? [27] Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

I was a big old boy before I realized I wasn’t going to be six foot. That was one of my disappointments in life. I had a minister’s wife, when I was fourteen say, oh you are going to be a six footer one day. And I rode on that for three years. I must have been seventeen when I realized it ain’t going to happen. And it was important to me at that stage. And I look back and I think, why? I don’t understand why that was important to me. But that was part of the vanity of youth that Mr. Burg was speaking of.

Matthew 6:28-32 So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; [29] and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. [30] Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? [31] Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' Because that becomes a focus in life. [32] For after all these things the Gentiles seek. The word Gentiles here is an expression that broadly captures the spiritual sense of those who aren’t tuned in to God. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

God knows what you need. He knows you need to wear things. That you have need of food and shelter. He knows you need all these things, but He tells you something. He says I am going to be involved in your life. I will be directly involved in your life. I will be walking with you. I will be listening to you.

Mr. Burg didn’t tell the rest of the story when he talked about holding up his hand and asking God in prayer. God always has taken his hand. And He will always take your hand. He will always be there, and He is going to walk with you. And He tells us here, your heavenly Father knows you need all these things, but God is also telling us I know you need something else too. You need vision. You need to see life in a certain perspective. And so He says in verse 33…

Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

God says I will bless you. I am going to work with you. I want to be a part of your life. I love you like a father, but I want you to seek first the kingdom of God. Here we are back to that again. Jesus was trying to really explain to people one of the greatest lessons of life is to be a visionary. Look to the kingdom of God because it is going to affect everything in the way you live. It will affect your standards, your values, your behaviors, your decisions in life that are going to be based on those values. And something profound will happen to you.

So, as He speaks here, He is telling us to have our priorities in the right place. And He repeats the lesson here that I am trying to get across; seek first the kingdom and His righteousness. Nobody will seek His righteousness first unless you are seeking the kingdom. Seeking His righteousness, then, has to do with the way we live. Seeking the kingdom has to do with where we are going. Seeking His righteousness has to do with the way we live then.

What happens in a person when they begin with the kingdom of God? Their lives begin to conform to the standards of that kingdom. The more you see the kingdom of God, the more you will begin to conform your life to those standards and ideals of that kingdom. The kingdom of God is going to be based on righteousness. The right thing. The righteous way to live. You have the opportunity, we all have that opportunity, now at this point in our lives. If you see the kingdom, and its values mean a lot to you, you will conform your life to those values.

Here is the thing, we all conform to something. Everybody here will conform to something. Everything that can be done in life has already been done. And we are going to conform to somebody’s way of thinking. In broad terms it will either be God’s or the world’s. If we see the kingdom, it begins to affect us. If we see the kingdom of God out there, then we say okay, here I am now. Now what? If we look to that kingdom and we seek it first, then we begin to live in a different way.

Matthew 6:34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Visionaries say I don’t have to worry about tomorrow because I am not living for tomorrow. Tomorrow is going to come, but I am not living for tomorrow. If tomorrow changes and there is upset and my plans fall apart because of something that may not even be of my own doing, it is not going to disrupt me. It is not going to make me sick and discouraged, and like my friend, wondering why did I spend all this money to come out here just to get sick? The kingdom of God puts your mind on the horizon. And when the worries of tomorrow come, as they will, and you heard in a very graphic way in Mr. Burg’s message, some of the toughest things that come in life, they will come. But with eyes on the horizon, it keeps you stable. It doesn’t make you become a person who changes the way you are one day to the other depending on what is happening around you.

If you win the lottery, hey, life is good. If somebody steals it from you, oh life is terrible. It is not based on what happens from day to day. Tomorrow is going to come and it is going to come very quickly.

At Oakhurst we take the challenger on a couple of long hikes. One of them is to climb Halfdome. After we finish climbing Halfdome I like to sit down with them and one of the things that is important to tell them is, look guys, there are going to be a lot of Halfdome’s in life. Some of them are mountains you chose to climb and others are mountains that are just thrown at you that you have got to climb them.

When you conquer some of those things it helps you realize that is the way life it. Some days you are standing on top of the world. And you know you have conquered things, and other days you are slogging up the trail. And it is a long way to the top, it feels like. And it can be tough. But visionaries have a different perspective. Visionaries don’t make stupid mistakes.

I have another question for you. Well, I won’t pose this as a question. If I was going to be here a little longer maybe I would. What is it about a visionary that makes life different? If you are a visionary, if you are a person who lives their lives looking way down the road, what will that do to you? Well there are a number of things I was sitting thinking this morning. Visionaries always have something important to live for. They are living for something that is always out there in the future. And it is part of something that is so important to them that daily life doesn’t affect what they are living for. Visionaries are people who really develop a good view of cause and affect. They begin to understand cause and effect very well. Because they look to the future they consider, what is going to happen if I do this? Does it take me toward my goal or away from my goal. And so before they even step toward any decision in life, they are thinking in terms of long distance cause and effect. Where will this take me? And so a person who is a visionary who begins their lives the future, begins to develop a pattern of thinking that analyzes life through the lens of cause and effect.

So many people in the world get in trouble because they don’t think too much further than the end of their nose. They want’ things now so they grab it now, not thinking about what does this lead to. Visionary thinking helps you that way. Visionaries never lack zeal and enthusiasm for life. Even when life is tough they have a zeal for life because they understand the purpose of life. Visionaries reap blessings in special ways. Mr. Burg was talking about some of these blessings. Visionaries reap blessings because one of the benefits of being a visionary is that God helps you think. People who have an eye to the kingdom of God will begin to think like God thinks. And if you begin to think like God thinks, you set up certain patterns of thinking that help you analyze life. And one of the greatest causes of blessings in life is that God simply helps you think. If you think the right way, you position yourself to be blessed.

There are certain blessings in life that come unexpectedly where God just grants you things. But many of life’s blessings come because we position ourselves to be blessed. In other words, we think in a certain way, and because of the proper thinking we make the right decisions. And the decisions themselves are blessings. They lead us to blessings instead of curses. Most of the curses in life do not happen accidentally. They happen because of wrong decisions. And so one of the ways God blesses us is to simply help us think. If you want something to pray about, as we were talking last night, I would regularly add it to your prayer life, where you go to God and say help me think. Just help me think right, God. Help me think the way You think. That is a prayer that God will answer.

Visionaries keep the faith. Visionaries don’t loose faith because, you see, a lack of faith is based on very short term thinking. People loose faith when they are thinking in the immediate short term. Visionaries look long distance. So they are not defeated; visionaries do not loose heart. Visionaries see that life changes, and that we will get through this. Visionaries have the attitude, this too will pass. So they don’t’ loose heart. Visionaries see through temptations. Visionaries can have a temptation rise up, but a visionary will look on the other side of temptation and say okay, where does this lead me? And as a result they can pass by that.

Visionaries understand the principle of delayed gratification. There is a law of life; the principle of delayed gratification. It is one of the greatest tools of thinking that you can have. I may be tempted to be gratified by something now, but if I wait longer it will be better. I am not going to gratify myself now because it will be a lot better if I wait. Delaying gratification comes from being a visionary, and being able to see down the road. Visionaries don’t throw away their future just because life is a little tough now. Visionaries don’t throw away their futures. Visionaries are positive people. Visionaries are positive people They have hope. They are encouragers. They look that way. They lift you up.

When our country began, we had some leaders who were rather remarkable because they had vision. When you look around at the world today you don’t hear a lot of speeches by statesmen that are lifting the eyes of the nation to high ideals; that rally the whole nations’ spirit for something much higher. You don’t see it much. Visionaries have that rare capability. Visionaries are wiser. Visionaries fear the Lord, because their relationship is based on God. Visionaries fulfill Proverbs 29.

Mr. Register said something on a church visit a few months ago that I thought was hilarious. He said, I will turn to my children’s favorite scripture growing up, in conclusions. Does that go right over your head? They loved it when they turned to conclusions. In conclusions, let’s go to Proverbs 29. I loved it because I identified with it as a kid in the church, and I know my children did too.

Proverbs 29:18 Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law.

When you have vision, you restrain your life to a certain pathway. You don’t go wandering off all over the place looking for things in life; looking for meaning, looking for purpose, looking for happiness. People with vision know where it is. They know how to get it. And they know the path to take. And as a result, they keep the law of God. They have vision. Translated into everyday life, they keep the law of God. That law of God results in happiness.

In 1965 when I was a young teenager, there were certain discussions at camp about God and the kingdom of God that lifted my vision to a different level. And that has made all the difference. It made a profound difference. I hope that summer camp thirty seven years from now, for you, if we are around for summer camp, well we will be, we will probably have summer camps in the kingdom too; if the kingdom of God comes between now and thirty seven years from now, then you know, you may be camp directors.

I want to close with something that was said to a young lady a year ago. She was at church services and somebody made the statement, they used this phrase, "You youth are the future of the church". And sitting a couple chairs down was an older person who muttered out loud to the person beside them, "That is a scary thought, isn’t it?" Now this young person really didn’t like that. They said that was very discouraging. I thought about that. The youth are the future of the church. Is that scary? I am not scared at all by that, by the youth being the future of the church, because I see a lot of young people who have made the church their future.

If you make the church your future and what the church is all about and what it represents as the family of God, if you are catching the vision that God has, and I know a lot of you are, it is molding, it is taking shape, it is jelling in your minds. The message and the vision that He has given, and you are conforming your lives to that, with that vision I know it is going to mold and shape you. You are going to mature speedily. You will be making right spiritual decisions. You will be maturing and becoming leaders in your future families, in your local congregations, in the church as a whole, in your community, on your job. And that kingdom of God is going to be molding and shaping everything that you are between now and then. You will know where you are going and you will know how to get here.

None of us are here because we were great visionary leaders. But since we are here, God says you can become one, if you will simply seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And everything will be added to you between now and then. And when that kingdom comes you are going to be on the cutting edge, and the pioneers in a new way of life for the entire world.