Mr. Clyde Kilough

Sermon Transcript

December 28, 2002

The Way

Good afternoon everyone. Thank you, all of you who performed special music. It was truly very special, beautiful, and meaningful. Good afternoon to those of you in TV land across the hall, and those of you on the cybercast wherever you are. I wish you could be here, because it’s really good. Mr. Smith mentioned that some are here from coast to coast. My understanding is it’s further than that. I have heard that there is somebody here all the way from France who came just for this weekend. And if so, that is really remarkable. I know last year a couple of young people came from northern California. And this year over a dozen came. Because they took the word back home. You know, it is quite an investment to come from afar, but we invest in what we deem to be valuable. And I have talked with a number of the young people, and they feel their investment is paying off this weekend. It really has been something that we are grateful for and can only echo all the words of appreciation and thanks, because it took a lot to do this.

I had my sermon in mind before I left, but on the flight out here Wednesday I reached in my briefcase and pulled out something to read that I had brought with me, doing a little work, catching up on some things. And as I read this little essay, it did not change my sermon but it changed the introduction. It really cemented what I feel is something that is critically important and extremely valuable for everybody, but in particular our young people.

One of the high school students in Sacramento had asked for me to write a letter of recommendation for her college application. And included in this packet of information that she gave to me was an essay that she had written. And this essay was required as part of the college application. And it was to answer the question that said to write a summation about any activity outside of the classroom that has defined who you are, and what you have gained from that involvement. And I want to read excerpts from this essay. But before I do that, I have to give you a little bit of background as to what it is all about.

There is a judge in Placer County in northern California who began a few years ago, actually some years ago now, a program where for juvenile offenders he wanted to add another layer into the mix of trying to help these young people who are heading down a wrong path. And so he instituted what he called peer court. Where he got peers from the community to come into the courtroom and engage in the process of listening to cases, and to really in essence be part of an intervention program where a juvenile listens to their peers. And their peers get involved in trying to help them make some other choices where they step into this person’s life, and they try to show them some alternatives. Because it is very clear if they don’t pick a different way to go, some of them are heading down a way of life that they will not return from. They are on a bad path.

Over the years several of the young people in the church have become involved through their schools in this program, four of them in the Sacramento church. It has been quite intriguing. And so that is the background to this essay that you are going to hear. It goes like this.

"Subtle echoes of a girl my age reverberate off the high green fabric walls of the superior court judge’s courtroom in Placer County’s historic courthouse. She leans into the microphone, her eyes holding back the deep pools of regret, and threatening to send down an avalanche of black mascara. Her peers in the community examine every inflection of her voice as they look on and she is questioned about her crime. The girl’s eyes blink a few heavy tears as she quickly looks at the jury and then looks down. I asked her to speak into the microphone, but she can’t seem to lift her head. At this point, I can’t tell if it is just the emotional weight of her story that is getting to her, or if she is playing for sympathy. We know that she stole a watch from a friend’s parent’s jewelry box, and then attempted to trade that watch for marijuana. I asked again for her explanation of her behavior. This time it comes spilling out. I empathize with her as she tells how sad and confused she has been since her parents divorce. I cannot, however, muster any sympathy for her choices. After nearly four years of defending and prosecuting several dozens of real juvenile court cases, the process becomes rote except for one thing. The alarm bells go off when the defendant blames her circumstances as the reason for her criminal behavior. Not everyone hears the bells. When I first started the program as a very shy, quiet, brand new 14-year-old freshman I couldn’t hear them. Gradually though, very gradually, the many criminal cases I observed began to yield a common denominator. At first it was just an observation. I couldn’t quite develop it into any substantive comment or action. I simply noticed that when a defendant who had already admitted guilt deteriorated into excuses, excuses he listed as reasons to commit a crime, the whole courtroom seemed to pause. Just for a moment, paralyzed. None of us kids knew how to handle the emotional mess that was pouring out of the stand. One kid’s parent had recently died, so the kid had no choice but to beat up anyone who looked his direction. Another kid’s dad turned out to be his step dad, so the kid had no choice but to vandalize a train. Still yet, another kid’s parents were so busy being rich the kid had no choice but to shoplift. Every kid in the courtroom became that kid on the stand. We do that, you know. We kids strain under the labels given to us by some adult that says we are concerned only with self. The truth is, though, we dissolve right into another person who is hurting. And carrying that pain even for a moment is almost unbearable, and certainly paralyzing. Throw the book at them was my answer. None of this weak, touchy-feely stuff. That’s the old shy me, and I'm not going to be that anymore, so teach them a lesson. Throw the book at them, keep our system in check. Again, it seems little alarm bells cannot be heard over the noise of a freight train going full speed.

It was about this time when my own bells started jangling. But no one heard, except my mom. Now I'm not going to say that I deteriorated into a life of crime. It was nothing like that. But I did feel that emotional paralysis that I had seen so many other kids go through. A paralysis which leads one to believe there is no way out, no choice except to be buffeted about by circumstances."

And then she goes on into a description about a personal event that took place, which I won’t cover here. But let me skip to her conclusion. She reached the point where she said:

"Just like those emotionally paralyzed kids on the stand, I too had a choice. I simply hadn’t seen it before. What I learned then, and what I was now wishing the girl on the stand could know, was that even though we may not choose what happens to us, we do choose how we react. It then follows that no matter where we are now, each of us has chosen our path. The question then is, where do we go from here? Drawn back to the present by the judge’s call for my closing statement, I instinctively gather my notes. Nearly four years ago I would have tensed at the call, wary to have the spotlight, tightly clinching my clipboard for the reading of my prewritten general all-purpose statement. Today I leave my notes on the table, but fully prepared to fix the spotlight back on the one who matters. A girl’s alarm bells have been going off. It is time we helped her find another choice."

I thought that was a very powerful essay. When you choose to become involved in trying to help other people make better choices in life, to turn away from the way that they are going, it is going to impact your own life. You become involved with people. As she wrote, she saw herself in the life of this girl. It was a totally different circumstance. It wasn’t a criminal circumstance, but in principle fundamentally we are all in the same boat. Alarms go off sometimes in life, and we realize that we have choices to make about the way we are going to go in the future. Things have molded and shaped us based on choices we made in the past, and we are going to continue to make choices. This girl figured that out.

Now whether it’s the life of the girl on trial that I read about, or whether it’s the life of the girl who read the essay, actually, brethren, we find in what I read there the story of all of our lives too. In that was the story of our lives. My life and your life. We may not choose what happens to us, but we choose how we react. And no matter where we are now, she wrote, each one of us has chosen our path, and the question is, where do we go from here, and how do you know what to do?

Where do you go in life and how do you know what to do? This is a really important question. It is a very pertinent question for all of us. Because actually God is preparing all of us for peer court. God is preparing every one of us to participate in a system in the future, as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 6:2. He said, Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? The saints are going to judge the world. And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters. Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life?

When the kingdom of God comes, God is going to place us in responsibilities to rule in that kingdom under the oversight of Jesus Christ, the chief justice, you might say. But it will be judging with a particular goal in mind. It is a process of judging, helping people to understand what the judging is that is going on, and it will be judging as a goal. In essence, it is going to be the same goal as expressed in that essay. The goal will be to bring people to the point where they understand their behavior and help them find another choice of how to go another way. The alarm bells are going off for the world around us, and people don’t know what to do. And part of our responsibility is going to involve helping people understand what to do.

At the Feast of Tabernacles every year we read a certain verse. It is in Isaiah 30:20-21. That verse says in the future your teachers will not be moved into the corner any more, but your eyes shall see your teachers. Your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, this is the way. Walk you in it. When you turn to the right hand, or when you turn to the left. In other words, when you start going the wrong way, there is going to be somebody there saying, no, this is the way. Walk in it.

Now that prophecy, I don’t think it just literally means we are going to be walking behind people, "This is the way, this is the way." No, it’s a summary statement of everything that has to do with the way of God. It involves all the myriad things that deal with the way of God. There are many things in life that we have to choose to do that involve a right way or a wrong way. A good teacher leads a pupil to discover knowledge. And then he opens up to that pupil worlds of understanding so that the student then is armed and capable to understand and make right choices. That is the goal of good teaching. That will be our goal as well. We will be judging, trying to help people turn lives around.

What does it take to be a judge in the kingdom of God? What will qualify you? I am going to give you a little bit of a feast type sermon today, because we are going to talk first of all about what we are going to be doing in the long run in the kingdom of God, and then we are going to come back to the present. In order to answer that question, let’s project ourselves first into the future, when shortly after the resurrection Jesus Christ is going to delegate responsibilities to each and every one of us, responsibilities to teach, judge, influence lives. When you receive your responsibilities, what will be your first priority? Have you ever made a to do list of the things you would like to see done in the kingdom of God? That would be a lot of fun. You would start filling up pages if you work at it very long. But what would be at the top when you prioritize? What is the important thing to do in the kingdom of God? What will be right up there? Let me ask you another question. What do you think will be the most rewarding aspect of judging in the kingdom of God? What will be the most rewarding part of judging in the kingdom of God? Roll those around in your mind for a while. We will come back to those.

But first I want to take you to my song. I'm not going to sing for you. That would not be music, and it would not be special. But I just call it my song because is really like this song. It came out four years ago in 1998, and I know that virtually all of the young people in here have heard this, and probably a lot of the older ones too if you listened to the radio at all four years ago. You still hear it occasionally. I did last week, and the moment I hear it I always crank it up. I know it by heart. I know I look life a goofy 51 -year-old driving down the road singing at the top of my lungs, but that is just one of those songs that I love because it makes me think about life. I am going to play it for you today because it ties in to what we are talking about. The song is really about what has brought the world to the state it finds itself in today. It is a song about life. And I think it is rather amazing, because the first time I heard this song I thought, wow! In that four minutes is the story of Adam and Eve and all of humanity. Right there. It came from a rock group, of all places. But somebody understood something. I would love to talk with the composer sometime and find out what was on his mind when he wrote it, because maybe it may be even deeper than what he thinks. But as we play it, I would like for you to consider it from the perspective of humanity throughout history. And the central question that this song raises again and again, there is one question that it raises. It's a song with a question. And it has to do with the fundamental premise of judging the world in the future, and judging our own lives today. The name of the group is Fastball, and the song is called "The Way."

Maybe you could or couldn’t understand all the words. It depends on how your ears are attuned. I'll go back through them in a moment. "The Way" is a new song, but The Way is an old phrase. If any teenager thought, wow, that’s really deep. No, that phrase is in the Bible. It has been there for thousands of years. God is the author of putting things in the easy to understand form, and over and over he has used the phrase "the way". Do a word search of your computer program and you will find it popping up "the way" over and over and over. And that is partly why this song title caught my ear. But as I listened to it, I really began to conclude that really is the way it is. If you review the words of this like you would do an English lit class, to say okay, what is the symbolism all about, it is very clear, at least it is to me from a Biblical perspective. It starts off saying they made up their minds and they started packing. And boy that is the story of Adam and Eve. Right off the bat they were in the garden, but Adam and Eve made up their minds, and they left. Do you know what it says in Genesis 3:24 after they left. It says, God placed cherubim with flaming swords at the garden to guard the way to the tree of life. They left the way and they went off in another direction. The song says, they exited to eternal summer slacking. Well that’s what Adam and Eve did. Eternal unproductivity. Doing nothing. But where were they going, without ever knowing the way.

The second stanza says, they drank up the wine. Well that’s symbolic of, even revelation uses that symbolism of a world that is drunk on the wine of a system that impairs judgment, distorts values. And they started talking, it says. They now had more important things to say. The Bible talks about that too. Man’s ways considered more important than God’s. But when the car broke down they started walking. And every way that humanity has tried has broken down sooner or later, and they start off walking in some other direction. But, where were they going, without ever knowing the way? Proverbs 16:25 says, there’s a way that seems right to man, but the end is the way of death. And the next stanza of that song says, anyone can see that the road that they walk on is paved with gold. It seems. It is always summer, they will never get cold, they will never get hungry, they will never grow old and grey. It seems. But eventually, you can see their shadows wandering off somewhere. They won’t make it home, but they really don’t care. They wanted the highway, they are happier there today. That’s the way it is. People are happier going their own way even if they don’t know where they are going, than going God’s way.

The last stanza goes to the next generation. Their children woke up and they couldn’t find them. They left before the sun came up that day. They just drove off and left it all behind them. And that is what happens. One generation can somehow not be able to impart the knowledge to the next generation of the real way to go. And so each generation reinvents the wheel of trying to figure out the way. But, we come back to that question. Where were they going without ever knowing the way?

What is lacking with the song as catchy as it is is that the writer doesn’t have an answer. He poses the condition, but he doesn’t give an answer. Nice problem, but tell us what the answer is. Well, God does give an answer, and we should know the answer too. The solution is, you ready for this? The solution is the way. Somebody told me recently, you’re a conceptual type of person. Well, yeah. This is all about concept today. But it is a fundamental concept. The solution is the way. The reason why I say the solution is that is because very similar words were spoken by Jesus Christ as he prepared to exit, not to eternal summer slacking but to eternal productivity, and he talked about the way in a set of verses that are extremely relevant to every young person sitting here.

In John 14, the night before he was going to die some very important things were told to the disciples by Jesus Christ. And he said in verse 1, Let not your hearts be troubled. Now there are a lot of troubled hearts out there. That is what this whole program is about I was reading to you in the essay. A lot of you have had times of troubled hearts. But he says, don’t let your hearts be troubled. Now how can you stop it? What is the solution? Well let’s see what he says. He says, You believe in God, believe also in me. Now he was making that as a statement, but every one of us do well to pose it as a question and answer that. Do you believe in God? That is a fundamental question. Do you believe in God? I don’t mean that he exists, but believe everything about him. As Hebrews 11 says, if you come to God you must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Do you believe everything about God? If we believe that, and then if you believe in Jesus Christ, that is the solution to letting your hearts not be troubled. And why is that?

He says, In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. Christ is telling us, there is something going on in life besides what we see around us. Every day, every moment, no matter what you are doing, no matter what your thing is, God the Father and Jesus Christ are at work preparing something, doing something, bringing to fruition a plan. While you were playing basketball yesterday, or at the dance Thursday night, they are working too. They have something on their minds that they are working out, and there is something going on out there, and it involves you. Who are you sitting out here? Every teenager here, who are you? He says, I am going and preparing a place for you. That’s very personal to him.

In verse 3 he said, And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself. That where I am there you may be also. Now why does he want to come again? That’s not hard to understand. I think we can relate to this. This is my first time to come to the winter weekend, and I have thought several times already, I want to come back. This is great. I really am enjoying this, and I want to come back. But you know what, I didn’t die to come here. I did not give up, I don’t have that great of a stake in coming here. Jesus Christ gave his life for the purpose of coming back. And returning to this earth, coming again is a big deal to him. That is a really big deal to him. It is important. But equally important to him as coming back is the reason. He wants to come back for the same reasons I want to come back here, the same reason you want to come back here. I didn’t play any basketball games, I didn’t dance a single dance the other night. So why do I like being here? For the same reason you do. As one of the teens told me last night, it’s not the basketball and the dances. It’s the friends. We’re here to be with each other. That is the value of being here. Ninety-nine out of 100 of you would say that is why I am here, for old and new friends. What did he say? I am coming back to receive you to myself. Christ is in essence saying, I want to be with you guys. That is what it was all about. I want to be with you. It’s for the people. You first, and then eventually for the whole world. God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son, he said, in hopes that people would believe him and have the chance to live forever.

Now the song says for humanity, where were they going without ever going the way? Jesus Christ said, you know the way. Now Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going. Give that man a guitar and let him sing along. How can we know the way? Even a disciple said, how do we know the way? Where were they going? That is the big question, isn’t it? Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Now what does this mean for a teenager sitting here today in this audience. If you are 13 years old, what does verse 6 mean for you? Is that something for the adults to ponder, or is this meaningful for every person here? I mean literally in everyday life. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. What is life all about? What is truth? What does Jesus mean when he says, I am the way? What does that mean for you right now, tonight, Wednesday afternoon, and next summer? Does this have any relevance to you? I am trying to target this to young people, because I know that many of you are putting pieces together. You are in a process of putting pieces together about God, about truth, about life, about this church that you belong to, about where you are going to go, and the way that you will go. You are putting these things together. Everybody has to at some point in life. This is a spiritual sermon. And it is directed to teenagers and young adults, because you are also spiritual. When I say you are spiritual, what I mean by that is you think about spiritual things. You pray. You read God’s word. You think about moral issues. Every teenager I know in the church has their minds on a spiritual area of life. If you don’t, sooner or later you will, because these things cannot be ignored forever. Everybody in life has to be confronted at some point with spiritual issues. So yes, this is quite a spiritual sermon. But it is very important. The truth is, the sooner you begin to think about spiritual issues like truth and life and the way, the sooner you mature. The sooner you mature, the better decisions you make. The better decisions you make, the wiser you are and the happier you are. This is why John 14 is very relevant to a young person. Life has to do with destination and purpose. Truth has to do with what is right and what is wrong. The way has to do with what do we do with it, how we go depending on life and truth. These concepts are woven together. The way we live, the way we think, what you are thinking right now, what you are thinking tonight at the dance. The way you think, the way we talk, the way we behave, the way we react to people and circumstances are formed primarily by two things. Our understanding of life and what it means, and how important it is to us, and our understanding of truth and what it means, and how important it is to us. These things weave together to determine the way we go. Then he had this statement, the latter part of verse 6. No one comes to the Father except through me. Well there’s another strange one to ponder. What does that mean? What does this have to do with the way we live? Christ is saying the way is through me. So what does that mean for a young person? It is no different for an old person either. What does it mean for all of us?

I am not going to give the answer. I want to lead you in a line of thinking to where I hope we discover the answer. But to answer that let’s go back to the future. Let’s go back to the kingdom of God for a moment. Let’s put yourselves in the kingdom, and when God has given you responsibility again and you have made that to do list of the things you want to get done, and you know that your job is to rule over people, and to judge people, what will be your first priority? What will you do? Where will you start with people? What would you do to bring people to making right decisions, following the right way? The place to begin is where Christ began. The first thing you do is go to the Bible and find out what did he start with. When he started teaching, it’s the place that he began with people back then. It’s the place where we will begin in the kingdom of God. And what we find out is it’s the place where we began today. Jesus Christ pointed people toward the kingdom all of the time. He said fix your eyes there, start there, and then work back this way into life. He always started with the kingdom. And then the first message he gave when he began his ministry, he took people straight to the kingdom of God, and then he linked them to an event that is very personal in every person’s life right now. Christ took something way out there, and he said here’s the relevance of it today, right now. And when I say it’s very personal, it’s one of the most personal things that will ever happen to you in your relationship with God. It is profound. In this room right now are a number of young people who in the last year or two have gone through this very personal event. Very real to them. Also in this room are some other young people who are considering it. They are mulling it over. They have been gauging it and weighing it up. Others in this room went through it years ago. And still go through this process occasionally. This event that happens in our lives right now on the earth is directly tied to the kingdom of God that is yet to come. You could make the argument that in fact it is understanding the kingdom of God that leads us to this event. And to go the way, you will come through this event sooner or later.

Let’s go to Mark 1. When the kingdom of God comes and we are dealing with people in that kingdom, they too will have to go through this event if they are going to follow the way. In Mark 1:14 we read this. Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. This was what was on his mind. In John 14 when he talked about I am going to return again, that is what is on his mind. He wants to bring this kingdom to the earth. Now that’s something that is way out there in the future, we may think. Or we may think it is not so far. But it is still future. So how does it relate to our lives now? Does it impact our lives now? He said, following up verse 15 saying, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. Repent and believe in the gospel. What does repentance mean? What does it have to do with believing in the gospel? Why is it linked. You may be saying, he’s going to talk to teenagers about repentance? Yes sir, I am. Because if we are going to talk with them about the kingdom of God and ask them to believe in it, sooner or later we have to make a connection with them. That this kingdom of God we are pointing them to, and have been pointing them to since they were little kids, we have told our children growing up all the stories about the wonderful world tomorrow. But sooner or later we have to make a link, that that kingdom relates to life right now. And the relationship to life is, do you believe it first of all, and then it has to do with this thing called repentance. Very real, very personal event that takes place. I am not leading teenagers to say, you should get baptized today. But I am saying in your thinking about life, if you are thinking about a way of living, which everybody has to think about sometime, understand the link and the choices. That essay talked about sooner or later we make choices. This is the big one. This will be one of the biggest. And it has to do with the kingdom, and it has to do with now. The reason that it is linked is very simple. When Christ talked about the kingdom of God that is a summary word for the "the way". It is the way of God. It is the way that is going to be instituted on the earth. It is the way that his laws are going to wrap around, that they are going to show. It is the way to live. It is the way of truth. It is the way of happiness. It is the way that is going to be instituted for eternity. That is the way, and that is the good news, the gospel of the kingdom. Because it represents the way to do everything that is good, and it offers hope and solutions and answers to questions that humans ask about. It is the way of God. When the kingdom of God comes, it is not just to bring another religion to the earth. It is to bring a way of life.

You might notice 1 Corinthians 6. Paul made it very clear there are ways that simply will not exist in the kingdom. Because that kingdom cannot be a way that integrates several other ways of living into it. In 1 Corinthians 6:9 Paul said, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not be deceived. Don’t be tricked. Don’t be tricked by people offering all sorts of ways of thinking. Understand this. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. Because the kingdom represents a way. And things that bring difficulties and pains and suffering and problems that hurt other people as well as oneself, will have to be left behind. That way cannot exist. But in order for people to live that way of God, they are going to have to change. And the change is going to have to come from within. Something is going to have to happen to people where they reject one and accept the other.

Now today in this life, anybody who begins to understand and really grasp the concepts of the kingdom of God, the standards of the kingdom, the ideals of the kingdom, what it is all about and why it is so necessary, and they begin to really think about that, the laws, the values, they begin to see cause and effect of the way of the world, and they look at the kingdom of God and they see, they understand why it is going to be very different. And when they are confronted with that truth, and then they choose to believe that, because what does Christ say? Believe the gospel. We have to choose to believe whether that is going to come or not. But when we do choose to believe that, something begins to take place. If that person says, hey, I don’t want what is described here. I don’t want the way of the world any more. I don’t believe in it. I don’t place any trust in it. I don’t believe it works. In fact, I have tried it. It leads nowhere. It is not the way. I reject it, and I am sorry I have been a part of it. The kingdom of God is not here yet, but I have already rejected the kingdom that is here. The way of the world I don’t like. That person who really begins to sense something deeply will be motivated to conform his or her life to the ideals of the kingdom that is to come. You begin to think in different terms. You begin to act in different ways. This is called repentance. This is what repentance does to a person. It is what it does to older people, younger people, anybody who comes to that crossroads and makes that choice.

Verse 11 makes the point very clear. Paul said, And such were some of you. Now in verses 9 and 10 he gave really a short list of different ways to go that are not good. And he said, and such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the spirit of our God. Why do people do this? Why do they change? Because they see a way of God. And they have experienced the way of the world and they reject it. They turn away consciously from a way of the world around them and seek to follow the way of God. That is why sometimes you hear us talk about the kingdom of God has to be real to us. We are not only talking about the reality of what is to come, but we are looking first of all at what the kingdom represents, the way of life. The way of life can be very real to us. The kingdom is not here yet. But the way is. The way of behavior has been outlined. It has been given to us. And when we are truly repentant we are in a mindset where we ask God, show us that way. Teach us that way. We ask God, be the voice behind me right now that says, this is the way, walk in it. Don’t turn to the right, don’t turn to the left. Walk in this way. A repentant mind identifies with Jeremiah when he said, the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walks to direct his own steps. And so it turns to God and asks for help that way. The people who will be in the kingdom of God are those who show God they have rejected the way of the world. They are not going to drag these things into that way of life. In other words, they are people who have repented. That is what repentance is all about. It involves expressing sorrow for specific sins, but also goes deeper than that. Real repentance means we understand something fundamental about not just things we have done, but why people do things. Real repentance means a person begins to see, hey there is a nature going on here that leads us to do things. You know all of us have heard at the Feast of Tabernacles over the years the prophecies about the nature of the animals changing. The lion and the bear will lie down with the lamb, and the children will play on the snake’s den, and lions will eat grass, etc, and straw. What is that prophecy really about? What is that really telling us? It is telling us that God is going to change the nature of the animal world. There are other prophecies that he is going to change physical things too to make the world more inhabitable.

But it makes us think, it leads us to a deeper way of thinking if we pursue it further. If the animal world and its nature is going to change, and if the physical world and its nature is going to change, what about us humans? That nature has to change too. People will stop doing wrong things if their nature begins to change. If their fundamental way of looking at life changes. We think making animals play together and be at peace is a miracle? God says I can do that at a snap of my fingers. But he is going to send us into the world to deal with human nature. And human nature will not be changed by a snap of God’s fingers. It is going to be changed by essentially the same process that we go through to alter the way the mind thinks. Because humans are made with the capacity to make decisions. It is free will. So this event is going to be going on, and each individual will be worked with on a personal level. When we read in 1 Timothy 2:4 that it says, God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, one of our jobs will be to bring people to the knowledge of the truth. But then in goes on a little bit later and says as well, it talks about Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. There is going to be knowledge too that this king of kings that is over them, there is something very personal in their relationship with him. When you as teenagers think about God, you say your prayers, you are in a process of beginning to establish a relationship with that God. And you are going to come to know him a lot better as you get older. But there is going to come a point someday that you are going to have something really profound in terms of your understanding about that relationship that will happen to you. And it is the same thing that will happen to people in the kingdom of God. Something is going to click in a very special way. It is going to help people see something and move them to departing from the way that they have gone.

It is what happened on the day of Pentecost when Peter stood up and he understood something, God inspired him to understand something about turning people to a way. Let’s go to Acts 2. On the day of Pentecost they had this miracle going on, and people were running from all corners of the city, and Peter said this is what has been planned for a long time. This is what was prophesied. And he talks about the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And he comes to verse 32. And he said, This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. And in the kingdom of God we will be going through the same essential sermon. We will be teaching people the same thing. This Jesus Christ who is your Lord of lords and king of kings who has returned, he was here before. He died, he has been raised up, and therefore being exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he poured out this which you now see and hear. For David did not ascend into the heavens. But he says himself, The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. Now Peter was explaining these things. But then in verse 36 he got very personal. And he talked to people, and here is where every single person has to have a confrontation with God. At some point in life every one of us has a confrontation, just you and God. And he said in verse 36, therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ. People are going to have to understand, this king of kings who is over this kingdom right now is the one that your way crucified. The way that people have been walking all over this earth ended up in crucifying him. When somebody really sees that, when it really becomes personalized, when that really clicks, it gets inside people’s heads. Something really begins to happen. When a person realizes there is a way that seems right to man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death, we read in Proverbs 16:25 earlier. Have you ever thought about this, young people? Most times we think, well it ends in the way of death, that’s for me, I die, people die. Well, that’s not all there is to it. More importantly, Jesus Christ was killed, and crucified in order that the way could be changed. It becomes very personal. We become humbled, changed when we come face to face with our behavior and what it did to Jesus Christ. One on one. Every person will come to the point where they have to acknowledge that. What they do with it may depend on person to person. But everybody will have to come to that point where they acknowledge that it what happened. You know, this is how the world will begin to change. This is how we can go in and begin to turn the world around. Nothing less will start solving problems between people.

You know, my ancestors are from Ireland. If God told me in the resurrection, hey, I want you to go to Ireland and fix that mess, how should I go about doing it? All right, I'm setting up court. We’re going to go back in history for 700 years and figure out who fired the first shot. That’s not going to solve anything. But you know, the way to start solving the world’s problems is to get people to say, hey, forget about everybody else. Forget about everybody else that you’ve had problems with, who have done you wrong, who have contributed to your life and made your life so wretched and all of this. Forget about all of that first. I want you to understand what the root of the problem is here. Because you begin to see something about self. My way. My manners. My nature. And when a person repents of that, and their big concern then is hey, I want to get right with God and do the right thing in God’s sight, I have got to start going the right way, it becomes a lot easier to start forgiving other people for things they have done. That is the only way you are going to turn around the enmity between peoples, is when people start repenting before God, and then they start just treating other people differently. They forgive them. They treat them differently. They change.

Verse 37. When somebody really gets that, here is what happens. And when they heard this they were cut to the heart. And they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, where are we going without ever knowing the way? That is in essence what they said. Men and brethren, what do we do? We see it, but what do we do? Peter said to them, here’s the same message that Jesus Christ preached that we read in Mark 1, Repent. Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you, and to your children. To your children. And yet the children have to grow up and go through the same thing that the adults did. Every child has to grow up and come face to face with God as well. But the promise is there. And to all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call. God has promised this. This process leads to a new way of life. Repentance means we say, I'm going to conform my way to the way of the kingdom of God.

The Greek word for the way is hodos. It means a traveled way, a path. Vine’s says it’s a metaphor for a course of conduct. It’s a manner of thinking, feeling, and deciding. That’s what the way is. It’s a manner of thinking, feeling, and deciding. It’s a course of conduct. People who repent start on the way. It is the only way to start on the way. That is where the commitment for life comes. What is really interesting also, in the book of Acts several times the early church was called — guess what? The church itself was called the way. In chapter 9 it says Paul wanted to persecute anybody he found in the way. Sort of interesting, isn’t it. But go to chapter 19 of Acts, verse 8. He went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months. Reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God. And there is no more fundamental thing that we can start with for our young people than reasoning, and teaching, and persuading about the things of the kingdom of God. That is the highest ideal. That is the way. But when some were hardened and did not believe, but spoke evil of the way…They didn’t talk about the church. When your peers talk evil about you, when you get tossed into court as Mr. O’Brien was talking about, because you go to the Feast, because of why? Because that’s the way. You are doing the way. When that happens it can be tough. It can be persecuting. Sometimes it calls for sacrifice.

I love that song that the teen choir did here. You sang it, but as you grow older be sure you live it, that you will not be ashamed, because this is the way that is right. You said in that song, I will not compromise, and I will not be ashamed. Never be afraid to stand with the minority when the minority is right. Because someday the minority that is right will be in the majority. And you are in a minority. The way is a minority way right now. And it takes courage, it takes commitment, it takes sacrifice, it takes knowing, it takes vision that you know this is right. You can look around you and you can say, this isn’t right. And I'm looking ahead and I know what is. And I'm going to conform my life to the way.

Verse 23. About that time there arose a great commotion about the way. Notice what Paul said in chapter 24, verse 14, when he was called before Felix, the governor. You read this and you realize, boy, some things never change. Acts 24:14. But this I confess to you that according to the way which they call a sect, so I worship the God of my fathers, believing all things that are written in the law and the prophets. I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust. This being so, I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and man. He said, the kingdom affects the way I live now. It is not here yet, but it is dictating the way I live. I have chosen the way of the kingdom. That is what it is all about.

For you young people today, do scriptures like repent for the kingdom of God is at hand carry any meaning for you? Is God concerned about how you view the kingdom? Is God concerned about how a 13 -year-old or a 16 -year-old or a 23 or 29 whatever views the kingdom? Does he want you to make a connection between the kingdom of God and the way to live right now? Well absolutely he does. You’re in a neat place in life. You’re in a rare place in life. You have more important knowledge than most people in this world have ever heard. And that knowledge equips you to make a change. In the last couple of years at summer camps, a number of you have asked questions like, how do you start preparing for baptism? How do you start thinking? How do I know if God is calling me? Well start thinking about just two simple things. The way of the world and what you see, and the way of God. The gospel of the kingdom is totally relevant to you right now. When you reject the way of the world and you tell God, I intend to be in your kingdom. That’s where I want to be. I know that is your purpose for me. And therefore, right now I am going to start conforming my life to those standards. You have engaged in the process that will lead you through that repentance, and that baptism, and that receiving of God’s Holy Spirit. The heart will change. You will move from the heart.

When the millennium comes and the reign of God is set up on the earth, people will be in the kingdom physically, but they are still going to have to decide to conform to it. Right now we are not in the kingdom physically, but repentance can still take place, and we can make commitments to conforming to that.

Let’s close with Psalm 119:59. Here’s what it all boils down to. I thought about my ways, and turned my feet to your testimonies. You are in the process of doing this, young people, thinking about my ways, God’s ways, the world’s ways, and turning your feet to your testimonies. Those who do that will become influences in the lives of other people then. You will then start being qualified to step into the role of judges. You will then start being qualified to help people turn their ways. Because in order to help somebody else know the way, you have to go through it first yourself. You have to understand it first. That is when you can become a good teacher. That is what that essay was all about, when she wrote, "I began to see in my life what I see in the lives of those on the stand. We will choose our paths. How do we know which path to take? When you have chosen God’s way through knowledge, through understanding, through commitment, through repentance, when you have chosen God’s way then you can help others.

There is one question remaining. What will be the most rewarding aspect in being in the kingdom of God? Well, I think it is this. When Luke 15:10 says, There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents, I think that tells us something about the way an understanding person really feels. That there is joy over seeing somebody when you participate in the process for somebody to see the way, and they turn to follow that, there is such tremendous joy. I can verify that. As a minister there is no greater thrill than to be a part of somebody’s life where you can see the wheels turning, the mind clicking, and they come and say, I have figured things out. I know where I have been, and I know where I need to be. When somebody says, I want to counsel for baptism because there is a way of life that I am committed to, there is no greater joy than that. There is no greater joy than putting them under the water, laying hands on them, and seeing the miracle of a change of nature begin to take place. To me the most gratifying part of this weekend is something I hadn’t thought about when I came here. I have thought about it several times since I have been here. The most gratifying part of this weekend, and probably the biggest reason why I want to come back next year and the year after that, is I have run into a lot of young people from years ago, ten, twelve years ago, six, seven years ago, from Ohio and Pennsylvania, young people who were teenagers back at that time. I have talked with them and it is nice they have children, and it is nice they are married, and things like that. But what is really gratifying, and what really makes the difference is to see that here they are, they have chosen the way. They have chosen the way. They went through that process. They made the choice. And for the rest of those who were younger and on their way, for every young person growing up and maturing and learning in the church, I hope that we all as older brothers and sisters can be a part of your lives and help you discover that this really is the way, and that we can help you walk it.

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