All Your Heart, All Your Soul

Well, thank you, everyone. Thank you, Stan. Thank you to our companies, too. Nice to have you with us today and add something to the hymn service.

Well, we have a couple of themes, I guess, on this weekend. One we've talked about, the other one you know about is we are in a holiday weekend. And you know, as we look back on the Fourth of July, what it means to this country, I guess one of the things that I very much enjoyed studying all the years in school was a Revolutionary War and another war as well. And I know that we all are very familiar with the stories that are back then.

They kind of rouse us. They make us appreciate the country we live. Hopefully we appreciate the lives of those men who made decisions and made some sacrifices in their lives so that we have the opportunity to live the way we did today, because what they did in this country, what they envisioned and what they saw and what they were willing to fight for, was different than what the rest of the world had been experienced to in the governments they lived in. We look back on that time, and if we can transport ourselves back, though, what is it, 200, 230 years or so, 238 years? Back to 1776 and the years before that, the world that the Revolutionary people lived in was quite different. They had come to America, and they had begun to experience what life could be like, apart from the oppressive rule of a monarchy. As they were over here, an ocean away from the people that ruled them, they began to see what the fruits of their labor could be. They had to spend some hard time and some hard winters figuring out how to live life in this country and in this land.

They began to see that they could do it, and with the blessing of God, they were very well aware of the blessings that God gave them to be in this country. As the British began to see how the prosperous, the colonists were becoming, they began to impose their rule.

As they saw the prosperity and the tea, they began—you remember the Tea Act and taxation.

Large tax action was put on the colonists, and the Tea Act was imposed. Of course, you had the Boston Tea Act, and then you had the Intolerable Acts, where Britain was trying to seize control and put things back the way they had always been, and enacted some laws that would force the colonists to house British soldiers, would exempt British people from any of the laws of the land. Those were the things that stemmed the Revolution.

Over the years that they lived here, they began to see there was a better way of life than they had always been accustomed to. Better than having a king tell them what they would do, where they would live, hold them down, repress them, keep them from developing their potential. As they lived here and as they grew here and as they began to work with one another and realized we don't want to be under that type of rule anymore, that's when the Revolution began.

They had no idea what the future would hold. But there were stirring speeches during that time, and we can appreciate what the people did during that time because they were committed to a cause. Something that they hadn't lived in before, something that they imagined, but they couldn't even imagine what America became. They couldn't even imagine what the Revolution would bring that virtually around the world democracy would begin to take place. People would begin to see that it's just not right for a man to hold back other men. Patrick Henry, during that time, gave one of the famous quotes that we've all heard, give me liberty or give me death.

It's quite a statement, isn't it? We recite it, we know it, but would we say it? Give me liberty or give me death. Behind those words, there's a lot that we can learn. Behind the years that led up to those words being spoken and the colonists beginning to echo that sentiment, there's a lot we can learn about who we are and what God has called us to. Give me liberty or give me death. He was willing to die for what they saw this country being able to become.

They were willing to give up their lives so that you and I and the people before us would be able to live in a land that they had envisioned would be so great if you didn't have an oppressive king controlling every move, watching every move, dictating everything that you did. Give me liberty or give me death. If he died, he would never even see the fruits of his labor. He would never even experience the vote he was willing to do it so that everyone that came after him would be able to see and live a life far different than they had been exposed to.

And it's a legacy for all of us. They loved this country, and they loved that vision of what it could become. They loved it with all their hearts and all their souls. And that's the title for the sermon today, All Your Heart and All Your Soul.

Several hundred, or I guess 170 some years later, another war that was one of the things that I liked studying about in school was World War II. And World War II was another time when the security of the nation and the future of the free world was its fake. We had the you had Hitler and the Third Reich threatening to take over Europe and change everything in the way the world had become.

And you had brave men in this country. One author claimed that the greatest generation, probably many of your fathers, fought in World War II. Mine did. And it was always interesting to hear the stories that they had to give. But my dad didn't talk much of it. Well, when he did, he talked more of it with my sons than he did me. There's one thing that always struck me.

I would try to put myself in the shoes of being a soldier because that's not one thing I ever, ever did. And I wondered what it would be like to just be over there with death being literally the next minute behind enemy lines, paratrooping as he did in the 101st Airborne, and having your life just be on the line all the way away from home, but for a cause that benefited so many people, and not just yourself.

You know, all the stories that he gave, he was always positive. He remembered them with fondness, but neither he nor my uncles who fought in that war, I never heard them complain once. Not once did I hear them complain. Not once did I hear them say, you know, I had to go and spend four years of my life over there doing that. I lost those four years, productive years of my life where I could have been developing an education, doing that, or doing whatever. They never complained. I've never heard a World War II veteran complain about anything they did.

They were willing to do it, put their lives on the line because they believed in the mission with all their hearts and with all their soul. It never entered their mind that they wouldn't fight. It never entered their minds that they wouldn't go over there and give it their all to keep the way of life and preserve the way of life that America had fostered over the years and to stop the oppression and to stop the evil that they saw going on in Europe.

It never entered their minds. They believed it with all their hearts and they believed it with all their souls. It makes you stop and wonder about America today. Do people believe in America today with all their hearts and all their souls? What's happened to America? What's happened to the cause that stirred so many emotions, that stirred so many people, so many stories of bravery, people willing to put their lives on the line, just to preserve something even if they died in the process and weren't going to reap the rewards of the victory or whatever it was that was to be gained?

You look at the wars America has recently been in and you see people coming back. We hear a lot about post-traumatic stress disorder. And it's tough. I can't imagine. Actually, I can't imagine.

I can imagine in my own way what it would be like to be over in Afghanistan and fighting for something that I didn't really understand what we were fighting for or to be in Vietnam and all the controversy that surrounded that or in Iraq a few years before or a few years ago. When we do things with all our hearts and with all our souls, we pour ourselves into them. And it takes all that passion. It takes everything with all our hearts and all our souls to really make something happen.

The world changed back in the 1700s. The world changed more in the 1900s when people with all their hearts and all their souls, great leaders, made things happen. And the world today and the world since World War II is a far different place than it was for all of human history before that. It took belief. It took faith. It took people willing to do things and doing things with all their hearts and with all their souls.

Today, if we're going to look for a group or someone that does something in the world with all their hearts and all their souls, we would look to some place far different than we would hope to look. Today's terrorists do things with all their hearts and all their souls, don't they? Can you imagine putting yourself in a car with a bomb, driving yourself into a place and just blowing yourself up?

For whatever cause or whatever reason there might be. Can you imagine believing in something that much that you would be willing to just allow yourself to be blown up? Just so that a few other people were killed that you didn't like. Can you imagine teaching your children, that's good! That's good! Kill these other people! It's great to blow yourself up! It's great to be part of this, because they teach them that the afterlife is so much better than the world we live in today, that they're willing to sacrifice themselves for that.

It takes all your heart and all your soul to do something like that. They're doing it for a very, very, very wrong purpose and a very, very dangerous purpose. But we see in the world today and all your heart and all your soul. And the only thing we can learn from it is, look at the passion behind it. Look at the passion behind it. And as you see the world changing before your eyes, all your heart and all your soul is what it takes.

It took that back in 1776. It took it back in the 1940s. And today we see all your heart and all your soul on the other side of the foot, or the other side of our bodies, I guess.

But the passion is there. And there's a lesson that we can learn from that.

Now let me switch gears a little bit. We're here, and on this holiday we may think of the national history, and we absolutely know that God blessed this country. It's of Him that we enjoy the things that we do in this country. And we know that He is the one who puts rulers in place, and we allow His will to be done and just pray that His will be done. But there's another theme, if you will, in this weekend, and that's one that's not of war and not of revolution, but one of love, as we have a wedding planned later on today.

And there are some stirring stories of love that we can talk about. You could probably give stories of your parents or someone you knew that loved each other with all their hearts and with all their souls. I remember back a few years ago, and every year now it seems like hurricanes go through and just demolish—not hurricanes, tornadoes—just demolish cities. Different than when I grew up in the Midwest, when you would have a tornado, and it might hit a block or might hit a few homes, but not just roar through an entire city and flatten it.

And I remember back in Joplin, Missouri a few years ago, when a tornado came through there, and Joplin, Missouri was not too awfully far from where my grandparents lived. And a few times we've been in church in Joplin, Missouri over the years—not so much when we visited my grandparents, but later on. And I remember a story that came out of there that seemed to get played over and over and over on the news. And it was about a man and his wife. They lived in the path of the tornado.

And as they saw it coming, they retreated into the bathroom. They didn't have a basement. And the man laid his wife down to the bathtub, and he laid on top of her. And they knew they were in the path, and it was the only place they could go. And he died. He died. The house crumbled on him, fell on him, and he died. But the wife was okay. He knew the danger, but he was willing to do that to save his wife.

And the news stations played that story over and over and over again of how what love is like when someone really loved someone else, that he would be willing to sacrifice his life for his wife. Those are great stories. I would hope that we have many stories like that among us, and everyone in the room would do the same thing. Several months ago, I read a story here about a couple that was married.

And when I found this on the Internet, and I was looking for it for something else and not a sermon, it just struck me. And I read it then, and I want to read it again today, about a man and the love he had for his wife, demonstrated in such a simple way. This is from a book called A Promise Kept written by Robertson McQuillan. He's the president of a seminary and missionary. Let me just read a couple of paragraphs here.

He says, Once our flight – he was talking about him and his wife Muriel – Once our flight was delayed in Atlanta and we had to wait a couple of hours. Now, that's a challenge. Every few minutes, we'd take a fast-paced walk down the terminal in earnest search of what? Muriel always had been the speedwalker I had to jog to keep up with her. So he can get the picture. When they had to wait, she just wanted to walk, just to be walking, and he would keep up with her.

An attractive woman executive type sat across from us, working diligently on her computer. Once, when we returned from an excursion, she said something without looking up from her papers. Since no one else was nearby, I assumed she had spoken to me, or at least mumbled in protest of our constant activity. Pardon? I asked. Oh, she said, I was just asking myself, will I ever find a man to love me like that?

Will he be willing to do what I want to do and just keep up with me because it's the thing I like to do? Nikolkin says, I turned to the woman and said, oh yes, you can find a man like that. You can find a man like that because I found a man like that.

The only reason I love my wife the way you see me loving her is because the man Jesus first loved me. The only resources I have to draw upon to love my wife the way I do are the resources he gives me. Mirrored in my relationship here with my wife, you can see the faithful love of God for me. I don't know what it was that struck me about that story, but I guess it is rare in the world today to see that kind of love displayed in such a simple fashion.

A simple fashion that someone just sitting by and watching it can see the dedication of one to another. That man loved his wife with all his heart and all her soul. He was willing to do things that he didn't want to do just because it would make her happy. And God wants us to do those things as well. When He gave us the marriage relationship, He has some very clear words for us in instructions to it.

Words we'll read tonight, but let's turn back to Ephesians 5 and read them here in this context as well.

In Ephesians 5 and verse 25, husbands, it says, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. Why? That He might sanctify it and cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word. That He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. Gave Himself for her, wanted to make her perfect. Gave Himself for her because He saw there's something better than the world that we have it, that we would live in today. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. You who loves His wife loves Himself. Love your spouse with all your heart and with all your mind or all your soul. Love Him. Love her. Commit yourself to Him and her. Let God build in that marriage, in your marriage, what He can. Because, you know, there's so many marriages in the world today that are just empty. They're there until the first, you know, crack in the wall and then people go running.

Where's the commitment? Where's the commitment to making each other better, to making each other stronger, to growing in love and not just wanting things to always be the way they were? Where's that commitment to each other? Love with all your heart and with all your soul. Let's go back to John 3 16, cover as you all know, and see the ultimate story of all your heart and all your soul. John 3 verse 16.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life, gave Him for us, gave Him that we might have a life different than what mankind had been living up to that point and what they chose for themselves when they rejected God, gave Him so loved the world that He gave Christ and Christ gave Himself.

You know, Christ is the only one who knows that the life He has called us to if we fully obey it, if we fully embrace it, if we fully live it, if we obey His laws and make it part of our hearts, part of our minds, part of our very soul, if He defines us how much happier, how much better life could be. He's lived in the world as a human. He saw the times of the Jews around Him, a people that said they knew God. They may have thought they were happy, but He knew if you would just do it God's way, you don't even know how much better life could be.

And He knew. He knew the physical life compared to the spiritual life or the spirit life. He knew that this life, while it was very good, and we could learn a lot from it and we can enjoy the things He created us to enjoy the physical creation, that if we would just yield to Him, if we would just let Him change us, motivate us, give us the power to overcome and to become like Him, that life in the Kingdom would be so much better that we can't even imagine, not even a comparison to what we have now. No matter how much money, no matter how much we have in this life, He can't possibly compare to what life in the Kingdom would be like.

He gave Him that whoever believes in Him shouldn't perish but have everlasting life.

Patrick Henry, in the men of the Revolution, couldn't even imagine what America would become.

We can't even imagine what the Kingdom of God will be like.

We have the verses in the Bible and we can ask God to inspire, to show us, but we can't even imagine how good things will be.

You can mark down 1 Corinthians 2 and it says there, Eye hasn't seen, ear hasn't heard, it hasn't even entered into the hearts of man the wonders that God has prepared for those that love Him, that love Him with all their hearts, with all their souls, with all our hearts and all our souls is something that God is very interested in, something we should be very interested in.

Another one of those common phrases that we just say that rolls off of our tongues, but it does have great meaning. Let's go back to Mark 12. Mark 12.

Mark 12.

And verse 28.

Mark 12, verse 28.

One of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that Christ had answered them well, he asked him, which is the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered him, the first of all the commandment is, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.

This is the first commandment. And the second like it is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There's no other commandment greater than these.

So the scribe said to him, well said, teacher, you have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is none other but He, and to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.

And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, you're not far from the kingdom of God. You get it. You're understanding it.

You love God with all your heart and all your soul, all your mind and all your strength.

You learn to love as Christ defines love and the Bible defines love, and with the mercy and compassion that goes with it. You learn to do that, and you're not far from the kingdom of God. God didn't call us to be partly there.

He expected us through the course of our lifetimes to grow, to become more and more like Jesus Christ as we allow Him, the Spirit, to live in us, weed out the sins, weed out the faults, weed out the weaknesses, but to grow in love, and to, over the course of time, know what it means to love God with all our heart, all our soul.

Not just to say the words, but to really say that, or to really mean it and to really feel it.

Let's go back to Deuteronomy 10. It's a concept that's not just a New Testament concept like so many people say. So many in the world want to say, well, that does away with the Ten Commandments.

No, not at all the case. The Ten Commandments are God's way of life. And back in the Old Testament, where they're repeated for Israel, as He reminded them and educated them in the way of life that would lead to the blessings and the happiness and the longevity that they would want, He said this back in Deuteronomy 10, verses that they probably didn't understand, but in Deuteronomy 10, verse 12. Deuteronomy 10, verse 12. Then the Eternal said to me, ah, I'm in verse 11. Okay, verse 12. And now, O Israel, what does the Eternal your God require of you? But to fear the Eternal your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Eternal and His statutes, which I command you today, for your good. What does that require?

Love Him with all your heart, all your soul, and keep the way of life, keep His commandments, which He gives us for our good. Because when we follow them, when we live them, when we embrace them, when they become part of us and they become just part of the standard of the way we live, the blessings, the way of life, the happiness, the peace, the things you can't put a price tag on, they all make a huge difference. And for those of us in this room who have experienced it, you wouldn't want to go back to the way things were before. You realize how empty life without God is.

You realize how empty life is if you were living it by the ways of the world with no future, no hope, no standards, nothing to cling to. Love Him with all your heart and with all your soul.

How can we do that? Let me give you four points here on how we can begin to put into practice loving God with all our hearts and all our soul, and even loving our mates with all our hearts and all our souls. First point I'll give you here in a minute, but you know, a few days ago I woke up in the middle of the night, which isn't an unusual occurrence, and you know what was on my mind? I hadn't thought anything about it, but for some reason the Pledge of Allegiance was on my mind, and I thought the Pledge of Allegiance. But I found myself laying there and I thought, what is the Pledge of Allegiance? And I remembered, of course, the first line and the last line, but I could not remember how the Pledge of Allegiance went. And I thought that is so strange. And I wouldn't let myself get out of bed to go to the internet and look it up, because I thought, I will figure it out. But you know what? The next night the same thing happens, I couldn't remember it. And I thought, you know, every day when we went to school, the first thing we did every morning, and most of you did the same thing, you would stand up and you would pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Every single morning. I don't know if we did that when we got to high school, but certainly through grade school, it was every single morning. And here it is now, decades later, and I can't remember what that Pledge of Allegiance is. I can't even really remember the last time I heard anyone say the Pledge of Allegiance. I don't know if they do it bad at school anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if they don't, because there's been controversy about one nation under God. And I'm sure there's groups that would say, we're not going to pledge allegiance to that flag, because we still have loyalties to the country we came from. Much different world than we live in today, than we lived in back in the 60s when we were growing up, when some of these things just happened. But you know the Pledge of Allegiance, every day when we went to school, that was in our mind. We live in a great country. We are loyal to this country.

This is the country we live in, and we didn't realize as kids how great life was. It wasn't until later when you begin to see how the rest of the world lives and begin to travel places and see life in America really is good. The advantages that we have, the blessings that we have, the modern conveniences we have, you know, you just can't argue with. Many of you have been overseas, and I know some of you have lived overseas, and when you come back I've heard more than one person say, there's no place like America. There's no place like America, even some other places are very nice. There's no place like here. But every morning we would say the Pledge of Allegiance.

And that group grew up to, I believe, really know and appreciate their country.

Back in Deuteronomy 6, right? We were in Deuteronomy 10. Let's go back a few chapters here to Deuteronomy 6. And in verse 4, we read verses that we know very well. Deuteronomy 6, verse 4.

Hero Israel, the Eternal our God, the Eternal is One. Well, some translations say that what that verse means is the Eternal and He alone is our God. And it goes on to say, you shall love the Eternal your God with all your heart, all your soul, and with all your strength. The very thing that we're talking about today. The Jews, you know what the Jews call that verse? They call it the Shema. S-H-E-M-A. It's the Hebrew word that derives from the first word in verse 4, they are here.

And do you know what the Jews, even modern Jews, do with that Shema?

Modern Jews, I'm reading here, says, consider the recital of the Shema in both evening and morning to be one of their most sacred duties. One of their most sacred duties.

That when they get up in the morning, they recite that verse to themselves.

Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and with all your strength. Kind of like their pledge of allegiance to God.

And in the evening before they go to bed, they repeat it again. Even modern Jews say that.

Now, what is that to for us if we were to repeat those words to ourselves silently when we woke up in the morning? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul.

Before we go to bed at night, love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul. Do you think that putting those thoughts in our minds, we would begin to see the importance of loving God with all we have? Do you think as we incorporated that into our prayers then and to ask God, show us what it means, change the way we think, show us how to love you with all our heart, all our minds, all our souls, would that make a difference?

It would make a difference. Repeating those words, the psychologists have shown that people who say things out loud, repeat things and consciously do that, that that will often be the guide of their life. As kids, we say the pledge of allegiance to remind us of the country that we lived in. Shouldn't we, as Christians, remind ourselves each morning, love God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul? Before we go to bed, remind ourselves this is what God has called us to. It's a lifelong process. It's something that we must do if we're going to be in the kingdom of God. It's not an option. It's not something that God says, if you can just do 20% of it in the course of your lifetime, I'm happy with it.

There's no percentages. He says, do it with all your heart, all your soul. We can only do that with the Holy Spirit. We can only do that as God leads us to do those things.

So the first point that can help us understand the importance and to love God with all our hearts and all our souls is say it out loud. Say it to yourself. Repeat it every day. Tell God you choose Him every day. You reject the way of the world. You choose Him. And when you say, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, really feel what those words mean. Really feel what they have to say. Really make it be a difference in your life and let that be in your mind every day.

And then let God work with you. And He'll show you and He'll show me how we begin to love God with all our hearts and all our souls so that we truly please Him. Second point, and it plays off of this verse as well. Let me read from a Jewish commentary. This commentary interprets this verse here that we read in verses 4 and 5 as this. Loving God with all the heart, they interpret it as with your heart, not divided about God, a heart not divided between God and the creature.

We'll let you go about saying when we say all our heart and all our soul.

And so many times in our modern language you will say always, when we mean most of the time, never when we mean, well, not many times will we do it, and all, which we could take to be the majority of time, we will do that.

So this Jewish commentator says you don't love God with any division in your heart, with anything left for another God, or putting your stock in anything else.

Not doubting God in any way, shape, or form, but fully believing in Him. Not hedging your best, by keeping a foot over here and saying, just in case, just in case this isn't the truth, I don't want to have my foot too far out of the world.

Loving God with all your heart, loving Him alone, serving Him alone. The First Commandment says, there's one God, no other Gods except Him. It should be translated. You know the revolutionary war people? They weren't divided. They didn't have divided minds. They weren't as they were faced with the British soldiers, you know, saying, well, maybe the Britons had some good things here, and maybe we should be thinking about, do we really want to overthrow them completely?

Maybe we should negotiate with them and just see if they'll let us live our ways, and we'll adopt some of their ways and preserve them. They didn't doubt their resolve.

They believed in their cause with all their heart, with all their soul. They were willing to give their lives for that cause. They were willing to die for it. Words that we say, but think about that. Would you die for the cause that you've been called to? They did. The men in World War II were willing to die, and you don't hear any of them. Maybe I've limited in the people I knew from World War II. None of them came back with post-traumatic stress disorder. They believed in what they did, with all their minds and all their souls, and they were willing to do that because they knew it was their calling and their mission in life. It was what they had to do in order to preserve life for their families and everyone else, and they just did it. Not divided minds, not divided hearts, not wishing that they were somewhere else, but loving God and not looking back, or loving their country and not looking back. Revolutionary War heroes, they didn't look back and say, well, under English rule, we did have this and we did have that. Remember the Israelites did that, right? When God called them out and brought them out, how many times did they offend God by saying, ah, back in Egypt, we had onions and we had leeks and all these things that we probably don't eat much of today. But to them it was wonderful, and they kept looking back.

You know, God has called you and me for a purpose. We're people that have our calling as well.

He called us out and He expected us to respond to Him which we did, to repent of our old way of life, which we have, and to follow Him as we are led by His Holy Spirit. And He wants us to be growing in the grace and knowledge of His Son Jesus Christ. He wants us to be becoming more and more like Him, preparing us for the end of the age, preparing us for the kingdom that will come, so that He can give us the positions that He's preparing us for. That's what He wants, and He wants us to give eternal life, wants to give us eternal life, so that we're with Him forever. It's our calling in this life. It's our mission in this life. He's called us and He's given us a tremendous, tremendous opportunity.

The people in World War II, they didn't ask to be born in the ages, to be the ages that they were when that was going to happen, but it was their mission and they did it, and they're called the greatest generation. The people of the Revolutionary War time, they didn't ask to be born during that time.

History came down on them, and it was their time to respond to their calling. Not one of us even knew to ask God to call us. He just began to open our minds. We began to see there's a truth in the Bible. This is truth. This is future. And the world around us is going nowhere, and as we look around us today, going nowhere fast. Well, going somewhere, but not anywhere anyone of us wants to go.

It's our time to respond to the call. It's our time to be ready. It's our time to be ready to support the cause and to let God get us ready with all our hearts and all our minds and all our souls for what He has called us to. We can't have division in our minds. We can't have doubt in our mind. We can't look back and say, Oh, but it was so nice in the world. It was so nice to have those things. I really liked doing that. Let's turn back to Luke 9, verse 62.

Luke 9, verse 62. Christ, as He is calling people back in His time, as He calls people today, He called His disciples. Then He's called us all as disciples today.

It says, No one, have ye put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

You see what those words say? No one looking back, looking over their shoulders, and saying, The world really was a nice place. I think I'll just kind of commit 75% to God, but the 20 or 25%, I really liked the world. No one looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.

If you're looking back, if you're looking over your shoulder and saying, I'll give 51% to God, but the other 49% I'm going to say in the world, because it just doesn't look that bad. Now, He doesn't expect us to not work in the world. We do go out to work. We do serve our employers. God does bless us. I'm not saying anything about that, but our heart is with God. No one looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. We can say the same thing in marriage.

No one looking back after they get married at former loves or love interests is fit for the marriage they are. When you marry, you commit to that person for life. You don't go back into it, and after 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 15 years say, you know what? When I dated so-and-so back then, I sure wanted to know what she is doing now. It was really kind of nice that I had with her. She probably didn't have the problems I'm dealing with every day. You're not fit for that marriage. When you commit, you commit. You don't look back. You make a covenant with God just as we did when we were baptized. You don't look back. You keep looking forward, and you let Him guide. You let Him direct, and you be well aware of what He's called us to. All your heart and all your mind and all your soul. James 1, James 1, and verse 5.

Read a few more verses here than pertain to just this topic I'm on right now, but all these verses in the Bible have meaning to us. James 1, verse 5.

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it'll be given to him. If you lack it, ask for it. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting.

For he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.

If you're going to ask God for faith, believe He's going to give it.

If you're going to ask God to heal, believe He can heal. If you're going to ask God for anything, believe in Him and believe He can do it. Don't do it as a checklist of three and four things.

Do it because you believe in Him and you have faith in Him.

We talked about this a little bit last week. Verse 6. Well, let me read verse 6 again.

Let him ask in faith with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.

God wants all our heart, all our minds, all our souls, all our faith. He wants us to believe in Him and trust in Him. Don't let that man suppose he'll receive anything from the Lord. He's a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. But we don't want that to define us, do we?

God gives us the spirit of power and love and a sound mind. Not an unstable way, not one that's looking back and trying to figure out, well, the wind is blowing this way today, so I'll go this direction, but maybe if I look over in this way a week later, that's where I should go. Believe in Him with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul. That's what God's looking for. That's what we need to grow toward. That's one of the requirements of the kingdom of God. So the second point is, don't doubt, and don't be a double-minded man.

Third point. Again, I'm going to, well, let me turn to Proverbs 29 verse 18.

Give you the point right off the bat here. Proverbs 29 and verse 18.

I've got the New King James up here. Some of you have the King James Version, which is a much better translation of this verse. The New King James says, where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint. The King James Version much better says, this is, where there is no vision, the people perish. When there is no vision, the people perish. When they don't know where they're going, they'll never get there. When they don't have a purpose that they're marching toward or gold that they're pointing toward, they will fall by the wayside. Again, we can look at America today and ask, where's the vision? Where's the vision? What is it that America is going to be? It's become a clouded vision. No longer do we know exactly what America stands for. But back in the Revolutionary War days and back in World War II, the vision of America was crystal clear. We knew exactly what America stood for. It's good for freedom and liberty. It's good for people being able to achieve their potential, to work hard and to be able to have the things that they earned. People were willing to fight for that way of life. People were willing to die for that way of life.

And again, we may not see that so much on this side of the ocean, but unfortunately we see something happening in the world today where there is a vision. And it's an awful vision. And it's apart from God, but again you can see the tides of the world changing. Because there is a group, a couple of them out there, that have a very clear vision of where they're going. A very well defined vision. One that has taken the world by storm over the last few weeks, and one that took them by storm even this week as they continue to wreak havoc on the Middle East. Let me read you a few excerpts here from the British press on this group ISIS that has just recently renamed themselves as the Islamic State, no longer limiting themselves to Iraq and Syria. And last week they declared themselves as a caliphate. Now we've talked about caliphes here in church before. You remember we had the map up there during the Arab Spring of what would happen as this could happen as the turmoil would spread across the Middle East. And talked about what the caliphate was that the Islamic religion would like to see happen again. And we of course had al-Qaeda on the forefront of terror in the world. And they do make their mark on society every now and then, and they do have a splash. Certainly 9-11 was the splash heard around the world with the trade towers or the twin towers in New York City. But this new group is different than al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda would make the noise here and there, but this group has a mission. This group has a vision of what they're doing. Let me read from the British pressure. It says, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria announced Sunday the establishment of the Muslim caliphate and declared that this leader was Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the current head of ISIS. The declaration made official what many observers had expected, a claim that ISIS is itself a nation-state that stretches wherever Muslims live and not just an insurgent group battling governments in Iraq and Syria. The proclamation was freighted with historic significance, coming one day after the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, which ended with the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. It was that result that led to the redrawing of borders in the Middle East, including the one between Syria and Iraq that the Islamic State now says no longer exists. One analyst called the announcement the most significant development for Islamist extremists since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States. The impact of this announcement will be global, as al-Qaeda affiliates and independent jihadist groups must now definitively choose to support and join the Islamic State or to oppose it, said Charles Lister, who follows the shihadi of developments for the Brookings Institute. The Islamic State's announcement made it clear that it would perceive any group that failed to pledge allegiance and enemy of Islam. And in other things that were released last week that were not at all heavily reported, not at all reported really in the United States, you see that they had a strategic plan in mind. They have a vision of what is going to happen to states that will become part of this caliphate. The last time it existed was before the end of World War I. And they named nations like Egypt and Libya in a strategic plan.

An analyst who has looked at it has said, you know, while this has taken the world by storm, what's happened in Iraq, no one saw it coming. It was meticulously planned. The group has a vision of where they are going, and they had this planned out very, very well. And to date, no one has been able to stand in their way. They are already proclaiming. Therefore, the people that are following them, they've proclaimed the caliphate is back. The caliphate is back. That's where we're going. Something al-Qaeda never did. They just wreaked terror on people. But this group does that, but they have a vision in their minds. Let me go on. Professor Peter Newman from the International Center for the Study of Radicalism at King's College in London said the significance of today's announcement should not be underestimated. It's a declaration of war, not only against the West and all the countries that are currently fighting ISIS, but also against al-Qaeda. ISIS now sees themselves as the legitimate leaders of the movement, and they expect everyone to fall in line.

For ideological jihadists, the caliphate is the ultimate aim, and ISIS in their eyes have come closer to realizing that vision than anyone else. On that basis, ISIS leaders believe they deserve everyone's allegiance. The article concludes, they must think their dream of creating the caliphate is finally coming true, and is coming true faster and more dramatically than even they expected. They believe it with all their hearts, with all their souls. They're willing to die for it, but they've got a vision. And the people that are following them while it's for a very, very wrong reason, and by no stretch of the imagination should anyone say, I'm supporting it, look what they've done with a strong vision of where they're going, what state they want to create. They don't want to create it for peace. They want to create a state that can challenge other states. They want to bring down the West. They want to bring down the English-speaking powers. They want Islam to take over the world. Make no mistake about that. It's not for peace, it's for havoc that they're creating the state. But their vision is motivating them. In the same area, we have a Russian president who also has a vision of recreating an empire that disappeared 20 years ago, 23 years ago, and re-establishing it.

And he's kind of on the backtrack right now, waiting his time.

Do we have a vision of what God has called us to?

The Islamic State doesn't have the answers to the world's problems.

The Soviet Union or a renewed Soviet Union doesn't have the answers to the world's problems.

America doesn't, England doesn't, no one has the answers to the world's problems.

If you are looking at the world realistically through eyes that are in the Church and with God's Holy Spirit, or eyes that are just in the world, if you're looking at things you realize the world is on a collision course with absolute catastrophe, there are no answers out there. There is nothing the world or anyone in it can do to keep the world from colliding with the destiny that it's written for itself. It just isn't going to happen. The only answer to the world, the only answer to man's survival, is Jesus Christ's return. The only answer. And the Bible says that it is going to happen just as sure as you and I are going to sit here. And the Bible tells the prophecies exactly what the world is going to be like at the time of his return. Mankind will be ready to blow itself off the face of the earth. But he will return and save mankind from that. He will establish a government that will bring in peace, joy, everything the world has ever wanted. That's what he's called you and me to. That's the people. That's what our vision has to be. We have to believe it with all our hearts and all our minds. We have to see that world. We have to see that God is looking to us to yield to him. It won't be us who does it. It will be him who does it through us as we yield to him. He's given us a calling. And if we're going to be in this kingdom, we have to have the vision of what he is working toward. Not just a nebulous vision of something that's out there, but a vision of where God is taking us and what he wants us to know about it. How do we hone that vision? How do we hone that vision? The way we can read the Bible. We can intensify our study. We can ask God to hone the vision and to let us see what he is going to bring to this earth and how good it will be for everyone. We can meditate on it. What did David do?

When he laid in his bed every night, he meditated on God's law day and night.

And he knew what kind of world it would be if people would just all live by God's laws.

He saw it. He felt it. He tasted it. And he wanted it to happen. Do we see it? Do we feel it? Do we taste it? Do we know it's the right answer? The people of the revolution did. The people of World War II did. The people over in ISIS believe it with all their hearts and with all their souls.

Do we believe what we've been called to with all our whole heart and all our souls?

Ask God to hone that vision. Study the Bible and see the clear message that he'll reveal if we study it and ask him to do it. And we ask him, as James said, with faith, not doubting, but trusting in him.

Okay, fourth point. Let me ask a question. What are you willing to give for that vision to be achieved?

What are you willing to give for that vision that you believe with all your heart and with all your soul to be achieved? Patrick Henry said, give me liberty or give me death? He was willing to give his life. Many of the revolution gave their lives for that cause. In World War II, many died for the cause. There's an old saying that says, no pain, no gain.

Nothing in life that's worth attaining comes without a little bit or at least a little bit of sacrifice. What is it that you would be willing to sacrifice? Let's go back to Matthew 19.

A well-known story there about the young rich man who comes to see Christ. And he wants eternal life. The same thing that God has called us to. The same reason we're sitting here today. The same reason we pray to God, follow him and follow his way and allow his Holy Spirit to lead us. In chapter 19, verse 16 of Matthew, it says, Behold, one came and said to him, Good Teacher, what good things shall I do that I may have eternal life? And then Christ tells him, you've got to live this way of life. You have to follow these commandments. And the young man says in verse 20, I've done all those things. I've lived that way of life. What do I still lack? In verse 21, Christ said to him, if you want to be perfect, if you want eternal life, go sell what you have and give it to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come, follow me. He couldn't do it. He couldn't sacrifice his things for that vision. Eternal life was a nice thing to say, but he didn't really have a vision on it. He really wasn't committed to it because he wasn't even willing to give up things to achieve it. He wasn't willing to sacrifice anything. And he wasn't always sorrowful because he realized, it's not that important to me that I'm going to give up to what I have. What are we willing to give up?

Matthew 6, 21 says, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Would that be what it was? If God one day told you, give up, empty your bank accounts, would you do it?

Over in Matthew 16, back a couple of chapters, in verse 25. Let's start with verse 24, pick it up at the beginning of the section there.

Christ said to His disciples, His disciples then and to His disciples today, if anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself. It means you've got to give up something that you like. Let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.

For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life or my stake will find it.

Is your stock and is all your hope and is all your vision in today's world?

Do you really believe that there's not anything that could sink the world as we know it? Do you believe it'll go on forever and that somehow, magically, governments, men will come up with the answers and the world will just simply continue the way it has been forever and ever and ever?

Or do you believe that Jesus Christ will return and whatever He has planned for us is so far superior to this world that it doesn't even make sense to put any stock in this world?

Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it. But he who loses his life for my psyche will find it. He'll find eternity. Would you? I have to ask myself the same question.

Would I be willing to sacrifice my life when the time came? I hope all the answers would be yes, but when we stop and think about it, and again, one of those things that we really think about, would we do it? Would we do it? Let's turn back to Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11, verse 13.

There were men who lived before us, as we know, who God gave the same vision to, the same calling to. They lived in more difficult times than we've lived in here in the United States. And Hebrews 11, 13 says, these all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, they were assured of them. They embraced them. They confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. They embraced it. It was thousands of years away for some of these people, but they embraced them. They were assured they had absolute faith in God, and they confessed, I'm here on this earth, but this isn't the ultimate of what my existence is.

This wasn't what I was born for. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland, and truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. If they had wanted to look back and said, hey, it was so much better in Egypt, it was so much better in America, it was so much better in Jerusalem, they would have had an opportunity to return. But now they desire a better that is a heavenly country. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He's prepared a city for them.

Isn't that an interesting word that God uses? They chose Him with all their hearts and all their minds. They were willing to give to Him and to embrace, assure, and die with that promise.

And God's not ashamed of them. If they hadn't been mindful of that country they came, they could have turned and gone back. But they didn't doubt, they didn't wave, or they just kept marching forward. And God's not ashamed to be called their God. Will God be ashamed to be called our God? Will we be a deserter? Will the lore of this world take us apart from the vision and the calling that God has given us? You know the young man, Bo Burgdahl, who was recently released, looked at what's happened to him. And as the world looks at him and says he was a deserter, look at the shame that's brought on him. Look at the shame that that's brought on his family.

Would we be a deserter? Would we turn on God? Would we say, you know, I just want to go back to the way it was before. That's not what God has called us to. He's called us to have a clear vision of where we're going with all our hearts and all our souls.

Now, in verse 35, same chapter here.

Verse 35, others were tortured.

Talking of the people, the men of this chapter, others were tortured, not accepting deliverance that they may obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in tune. They were tempted.

They were slain with a sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of who the world was not worthy. They were willing to live that way because they believed with all their hearts and all their souls. And they were committed with all their hearts and all their souls. And they weren't looking back, saying, you know, life could be a lot easier if I just wasn't living this way of life. They were committed. And they didn't look back.

All their hearts and all their souls. And the world wasn't worthy of them, God says. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in bends and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, didn't receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

Us, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Us, too God, has called. Us, too God, is looking to mold into the people and the good soldiers for His coming kingdom that He wants us to be.

God, who gives us His Spirit and puts His very nature in us, that we can become like Him, that we can have the strength if we believe in Him with all our hearts and all our souls to withstand anything that comes our way. The men of the revolution did it for a cause that was temporary in the history of the earth. The people of World War II did it for a cause that was temporary in the history of the earth. We do it for a cause that is eternal, that will come to earth and be the way forever and ever and ever, and that will benefit all mankind. Let's go back to 2 Timothy 1.

2 Timothy 1, verse 7.

This verse is a pretty good summary of what we've been talking about here today.

There are these series of verses that we'll read. Verse 7.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Therefore, Paul writes, Don't be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, which share with me the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with the holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Let's start down to verse 12. For this reason, he says, I suffer these things. Paul was willing to sacrifice for his calling. I suffer these things, nevertheless I'm not ashamed. For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed to him until that day.

I am not afraid of the fact that I have been in the power of God, but I am in the power of Jesus Christ.

Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me, Paul writes, in faith and love, which are in Jesus Christ. Hold fast to them. Let them be your guide. Trust in the power of Jesus Christ. Let him hone the vision. Ask him to hone the vision. Repeat to him daily and consciously that you choose him that he is the Lord. Repeat and mean it when you say, thy will be done.

Thy kingdom come. And don't just let them be words that just fall off of our tongue like so many other words. Learn to love him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Let's conclude back in Luke 10.

Luke 10 verse 25.

We read these verses last week, and talking about the second part of what the lawyer answered to Christ here. Let's read it today with the focus on what we're talking about today.

Luke 10 verse 25.

He knew what the answer was. It's a requirement for eternal life. Love God with all your heart and all your soul. And Christ said to him words that he would say to us. You have answered rightly.

You know this. Do this, and you will live.