Are You Distracted?

There's a passage in Luke where Jesus says some very harsh things, and I want to look at that today as an introduction to what I want to talk about. Luke chapter 13.

And let's pick it up in verse 22.

Speaking here of Jesus, and he went through the cities and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. Then one said to him, Lord, are there few who are saved? So he's traveling all over preaching, and this is a fascinating question. And when we look at his answer, we'll see that there could be a couple different motivations for this. One could be that as a Jew who believed that salvation was through being the seed of Abraham, he could be saying, you mean there's going to be some Gentiles saved? Well, there can't be that many, Kenner. They're not the seed of Abraham. That may be the intent of his question. Or it may be that he's starting to realize that his Judaism was flawed, and he's asking, are there few of us that are going to be saved? So it's hard to tell exactly what the issue is here. But as we see, we're going to see Jesus' answer is to him, to Judaism, and it's an important point for us today that's going to launch into what we're going to talk about. So this is Luke chapter 13, verse 22. Let's pick it up now at the end of verse 23. And he said to them, Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter, and will not be able. Now this is interesting. He makes this a personal answer. That's why I think maybe it's because the man is asking this from a Jewish viewpoint. He says, I'm telling this to you. If the question is, okay, how are Gentiles going to be saved? Are many Gentiles actually going to be saved? Well, I mean, don't they have to become Jewish first? He doesn't talk about the world. He talks about him. I say to you that this is a lot harder than you think. That this is a narrow gate. Literally, it means a narrow door, like on hinges. It's a little door, okay? It's narrow to get through this door. It's a narrow path to get to this door that opens. And I'm telling you that. So he's making a personal response. He then says, when once the master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us, and he will answer and say to you, I do not know you. Where are you from? Now, he says to you. He doesn't talk about who is going to be saved. Well, let me tell you about those who aren't going to be saved. How hard is salvation? Well, let me tell you how hard it is.

So it's a very interesting way he's answering this.

And when you look through it, it seems to be he's saying, you believe you're saved through the fact that you're Abraham's seed. And you should be asking this question about yourself instead of asking it about others.

Then you will begin to say, we ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets. Now, that's interesting because he's now referring to himself as if this man accepted him as the Messiah. Now, you will say, but I was with you. You were here as you walked the streets teaching, I was with you. But he will say, I tell you, I do not know you. Where are you from? Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity. And there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. When you see, not only sorry, weeping and gnashing of teeth, in other words, you are going to receive punishment here because the door is going to be shut, this narrow door to salvation, and you can't get in it. It doesn't open. And then he gives the exact time period when this happens. When you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and yourselves thrust out, when you see yourself thrown out of the kingdom of God, and we know Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the prophets, it's the resurrection. He's referring to his second coming. When you see that second coming, and you see all the great people of God resurrected into the kingdom of God, you will not be allowed into it. This is some of the most frightening statements ever made by Jesus.

They will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down in the kingdom of God. Sit down in this marriage supper. He uses the marriage supper in a number of his parables. And indeed, the last will be first, and the first will be last. It says, this isn't working out the way you thought. That last thing is very interesting. In other words, there are people who may end up in the kingdom, but they are not going to receive what they think they're going to receive.

If we're not humble enough before God to simply accept whatever He gives us in the kingdom, He won't let us in. You know, there's not going to be 10,000 spirit beings rioting after the resurrection, saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, others got a better reward than me. This was wrong, and we've formed a union, and we're going to strike. The first will be last, the last will be first. In other words, we have to recognize some people are going to go into the kingdom not prepared for a great reward.

They're prepared for salvation, but not a great reward. Others, by this implication, and we know that, because we are in the presence of Jesus Christ all the time, we have been called and received God's Holy Spirit. For us to what we call the unpardonable sin, the sin God will not forgive, which is the sin you won't repent of, you can't forgive somebody of something they won't repent of. I had a conversation, I have conversations fairly regularly with people who call me or send me emails from all over the, well, all over the world, have I committed the unpardonable sin?

And they're worried about that. They're concerned. And the answer always says, well, if you're that concerned, you haven't. So let's work out what your sin was. Let's work out forgiveness and work out restoring your relationship with God. But these are harsh words, aren't they? In fact, they should make us a little uncomfortable. Now, my purpose today isn't to make you uncomfortable in the sense of, oh, am I losing salvation? That's not the issue. What I do want to talk about today is that you have been called to the wedding supper. You've already called. You've received your invitation. God expects you to be there, and He will take you there, unless you refuse to go.

We're coming up on the Holy Days, where we're going to be commemorating the future events of Christ coming back, Satan being removed, and those who are resurrected being brought into oneness with God, and Christ reigning on the earth for a thousand years, and then the great white throne judgment.

We're going to be looking at all those future events in these Holy Days. And the question we need to ask before the Holy Days, what is happening in your life that's distracting you from the reality of what those Holy Days mean? You know, sometimes we're so excited about the Holy Days. Oh, it's so wonderful. We're all going to get together with everybody. We'll hear some nice sermons. We'll have a nice lunch on Trumpets on atonement.

We'll have services and realize that, hey, the Feast of Tabernacles is around the corner. Sometimes on atonement we zip through as atonement because we don't like fasting, and we're thinking about the Feast of Tabernacles. And then the Feast of Tabernacles is what? Well, we're going to stay in a nice place, and we're going to be in a place, you know, a new place that we haven't been at before, a new feast site. We're going to have nice food. We're going to see some nice sites. Maybe get some new clothes, even. And that's not what this is all about. Those are actually distractions.

Now, coming together and being together is not a distraction. We should look forward to that. But these days are supposed to tell us and help us focus on the reality of what they're all about because the reality isn't the Feast of Trumpets. The reality is that what the Feast of Trumpets is teaching us.

Now, the reality is, I mean, it's a real day that we are commanded to keep. So, I mean, it's not like we cannot keep trumpets. We're commanded. But what is it telling us? What keeps us focused? So, what is keeping you distracted from the reality of the coming Kingdom of God?

We're going to look at a few reasons why we get distracted. Very broad. Break it down a little bit. I'll give you a few things to write down to think about this week, to think about between now and trumpets and now in the Feast of Tabernacles. So, I'm going to give you some things to write down for you to do to think about.

And then we're going to talk about a simple reality of what these days have to do in our lives, to come home from the end of the Feast of Tabernacles and Last Great Day, to come home from that eighth day, and you come home. You have to be refocused. That's what it's supposed to do. So, we have to be prepared for that to happen. First thing is, we get distracted because we really don't understand our calling. None of us initiated our relationship with God. God initiated a relationship with us so that we could become His child. A calling from God in this life, He gave you life. What a gift. A calling from God is the greatest gift He can give you in this life. That's the greatest gift He can give you. He can have left us all in darkness, right? He can have left us all living life just vaguely being some kind of Christian, but not most of us would probably wouldn't even have been Christians. He could have left us there. He didn't. That calling is the greatest gift He can give you because He says, I'm going to prepare you for the return of Jesus Christ. So He gave that to you. Do we truly understand that? Now, there's two sort of ditches people fall into when it comes to our calling. One is, you know, God called me. I really believe in God. I try to, you know, keep the holy days. I keep the Sabbath. I don't steal. I don't lie. I do those things, and I try to honor my parents. And so, you know, my salvation is secure. We should feel secure in God's work of salvation, but if our viewpoint is, I do these things, therefore, ergo equals, my salvation is secure, there were no different than the man who came to Jesus in Luke chapter 13. I'm a Jew. I keep the commandments. Abraham is my father. How do other people get saved? God has to work in us for this to happen. And yes, we have to keep the Sabbath in the holy days, and we can't kill and steal. I mean, you can't be a Christian and do those things, but it is God's work in us. That's what this is about. And we have to stay focused on that, that it is God's work in us. Now, the other ditch is, I'm so weak, I'm so small, I can't make it. Well, that's true, except God's work in us. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 1.

I'm going to read some scriptures we've read so many times over the years. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 26. I always read this to the people when they come to me and say, why did God call me? Well, I can't give the specifics. I'm not God. I can give you the general answer that applies to all of us. For you know your calling, brethren, that not many according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, and the basings of the world that the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things which are. Man, why, Paul? Stop beating on us! He could have just said, what God called weak. Nah, you're weak. You're not noble. You're despised. Why? He says, that no flesh should glory in his presence.

It is God's work we submit. We have a part to play. That's why he said there will be those who say, I was in your presence. I did certain things, and you'll say, no, I don't know who you are. You're not invited to the married supper. You're not invited to the kingdom. You're not invited to come sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. So, yeah, we have to submit. But as God who does the work, and we can never forget that, we don't get to appear before God someday and say, I knew you were going to save me because I had more wisdom than anybody else. I had more knowledge than anybody else. I had more faith than anybody else. I was smarter than anybody else. I had more righteousness than anybody else. And he's going to say, I don't know who you are.

I don't know who you are. Now, we have to have those things. But when we use those as our measurement, I have these things. I, you know, God builds these things in us. It's a different attitude. It's a totally different approach. These are totally different approaches. They sound the same in some ways, but they're not. Yes. Any righteousness we have is because why? God has built it in me. I have it because of God. Not because I have it.

He says, but of Him you are in Christ who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord. We thank God for everything we have because if He doesn't help develop that in us, we don't bring enough to the table to be saved.

We don't bring enough to this table to say, oh, God, yeah. Oh, man, you're okay. I'll save you right now. Because why? Well, because you have it all already. You have it all together. That's not how this works. We don't understand our calling. And because we don't understand our calling, we don't understand how this plan really works. We understand the mechanics of it. We can explain what trumpets means. We can explain what atonement means. We can explain what these tabernacles means. We can explain the white throne judgment. We can explain the second resurrection. But that knowledge is to motivate us to become, not just know the plan of God, but be part of the plan of God. That's your calling.

That's our calling. That's your calling. That's why we're all here.

And so we become distracted because we're not focused on what we're supposed to be focused on, which is God's calling to you to be developed by him as part of this plan.

A second thing we do, and this is a remarkable capability that all human beings have. Some are better than others, but it's something all of us do. We have the ability to formulate reasons, something that seems very reasonable for not being committed to God. We have reasons that we can come up with to explain why we can't be committed to God or why we can't do something. It comes down to as simple as, but I have to work on the Sabbath, or I won't, you know, I'll lose my job. Or I have to do what the boss asked me to do. I know it's dishonest, but you know, that's the only way to get ahead in this world.

And we can find reasons to explain everything. Think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. You know the story, right, in Daniel chapter 3. They're in Babylon, and Nebuchadnezzar gives an edict that there's at the sound of these trumpets, they all have to bow down in front of this image.

And the trumpet blows, and everybody in Babylon bows down in front of the image, except the few that are obeying God. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are in the government structure, so there's people out to get them. Politics are being played, and pretty soon people go to the king and say, you know, everybody did what you said, the whole city did what you said, except for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They didn't do it. Let's go to Daniel 3 here.

Because it'd be interesting to ask teenagers and children how they would have responded here, because they're so open to this ability to, well, let me explain. Let me explain. Let me tell you why I had to do what I did, and we just come up with these reasons why we don't have to do what we're supposed to do. Now, sometimes we don't know what we're supposed to do, and God understands that. I mean, you find all the time in the Bible, I mean, how does that mean? Moses goes to God and says, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I don't know. Sometimes we don't know, and we have to wait and have God guide us and direct us, take us through places, and we weather the storms, right? All the times in our lives. I mean, I know every one of you has probably been on your knees at some time before God and said, I have no idea what decision I'm supposed to make here. And you weather the storm. And in those cases, when you make a bad one, God shows you and you learn. And you just, you rely on His guidance. But they knew this one. They knew the answer to this one, right? They knew God said they couldn't do this. So the king says to them, don't you know I can kill you for this? And in verse 16, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. You know, we have, there's no need for us to give you reasons. We have no reason to come up with, here's why we did it, or here's why it was okay, or here's why, well, maybe we, maybe we should have did it a different way. He says, if that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning, firing furnace. And He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, he's able to do this, but they had no idea what God was going to do. That's what's so important here. We know what He did, oh yeah, guys stand up, but that was great, what man, they said, but they didn't know this. They're not standing there casually saying this. You know, they have normal human fear here. Let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up. Now, have you ever thought about how maybe they could have reasoned out of that? The Life Application Bible Commentary, the authors came up with a whole list of good ideas that people could come up with that would have been reasoned out of. They were reasonable so they could disobey God. Here's some of the ones they said, we'll fall down, but that's okay, we won't worship the idol. We'll fall down, we just won't worship the idol. We won't become idol worshipers. We'll just do this one time and then ask God for forgiveness because He'll forgive us. The king has absolute power, so I guess we have to do what he says. Now, they did obey the government and everything except when it came in direct conflict with what God told them to do. So, they were submissive to the government until they told them to do something against God. No, no, we can't do that. God has to come first.

You know the king's been good to us, we only miss one. We're in a foreign land, we have to follow the customs of this land even if we don't believe in them. Now, I can see people saying that today. Easy. Well, I went to their church, and I don't know, they stood up and sat down and stood up and sat down, and the priest came by and gave out these wafers, and I did it because I didn't want to offend anybody. We're not hurting anybody. Nobody's getting hurt by this. Everybody knows we worship the real God. Even he knows it. So, we're not hurting anybody. If we get ourselves killed, he's going to put pagans into our offices and God's people will suffer. That's a good one there. You could... Oh yeah. Wait, wait. He kills us. Who's going to take care of God's people? So, we'll have to do this to fulfill God's will.

One reason I came up with this... If we do this, we really don't believe in the religion, but we accept the religion, and we're showing them love by participating, and that love will draw them to God. I could hear people today saying that all the time. I thought, I could hear people today saying that all the time. I thought, now I'm going to add one to their list here. We're just accepting them as who they are, these pagans. We want them to feel accepted. No, they said, you're not accepted by God. Of course, we know what happened. They were thrown into the fiery furnace and God saved them. See, they clearly understood their calling, which was my first point. But they lived by the laws and principles of the kingdom of God. That's not always easy for us because we don't even know how to apply sometimes. I mean, you spend a lifetime doing this, and there's always this, how does that apply to this? Because you and I don't live in the kingdom of God. And yet here we are trying to apply the laws and principles of the kingdom of God all the time in a way, a kingdom that's not His. We forget that sometimes. We forget. That's why you can't get too involved and too excited and worried over the politics of this nation. It is not God's. This politics isn't God's nation. This government never was ruled over by the God of the Bible. Now, there are certain good things that have happened into this country because the promise is made to Abraham and because the Bible was around and people did the Bible. But you know what? God, this form of government, when Christ comes back, will not exist anymore. The American Constitution will not exist anymore when Christ comes back. It is not His form of government. It just isn't.

So we have to be careful. We have to understand our calling. And we have to understand that you and I will always be wrestling with something. There will be always something in our lives happening because we're living in a world that we're strangers in. And yet we're not strangers. We're part of it. We're in it. We live in it. And yet we're not part of it.

And we can't make up excuses. Now, there is, like I said, there's a time when, you know, I had an example, but it's with someone that may be listening, and I don't want to use that as an example. But I mean, there's times where people just will wrestle with something they don't know what to do. But here, they knew what to do.

And then a third reason we become distracted is because of spiritual drift.

How many times have you been caught in a decision or a sin and given in very lightly, quickly? How many times when afterwards you say, how did I get here? Why did I say that? Actually, that was a lie. Why did I do that? That was a sin. Why did I treat that person that way? I wasn't supposed to do that.

And a lot of times when we ask that question, how did I get here? It's because we have drifted away from God. And now what we're doing is we're sort of in the consequences of drifting away from God. The more we drift from God, the more vulnerable we become to sin and making bad decisions. But drift is something that happens so naturally. There's so many things going on. And it's usually a slow drift. It's a slow drift. It's like you don't come to Sabbath services one week because you were tired. I mean, if you're sick, then you don't come. But you were just tired. So you stayed home. And then a couple weeks later, you said, I'm tired again. And then you don't even know it until like three months later, you realize, you know, I've only been going to church once a month. And I don't want to go today. Why? What's wrong with me? That's the drift. It's going, you know, having a drink with your coworkers after work as you drive home and you get together and you have a drink. It's okay. We just went into this little pub and we all had a beer. We went home. And then someone a couple of days later says, let's do it again. And you do it again. And a few days later, and pretty soon, you reach a point where you're not home one night when you should be. Why? Well, because four nights a week, five nights a week, you're stopping and having a drink with your friends. And it's gotten to be two drinks. And it's gotten to be three drinks. And suddenly you weren't home with your wife and your children to have dinner with them. The slow drift. The first time wasn't anything wrong. It's the slow drift. It's the slow drift that's so scary, because we don't know what's happening until we're suffering the consequences of it.

I don't know how many times I've sat with somebody who's committed adultery. And they'll say, I don't know how I got here. I did. I don't know. I don't understand how I got where I am. And I don't understand any of it.

Let's go back when it started. And many times, it's a year before that it started. And they drifted from God. They drifted from their marriage. And here they are a year later in a disaster. Here are some ways that we get caught up in spiritual drift. I want you to write these down. We are constantly busy with uncontrolled schedules. We're constantly caught in schedules that keep us running so much that we don't think about the kingdom of God. We don't think about God the way we should. We don't study our Bibles. We're not praying. You're fasting once a year at Atonement. When we're fasting one year at the Day of Atonement, we're in spiritual drift already. We don't even know. We're just drifting. Just drifting. Like a boat that's slowly drifting out away from the shore until you sort of wake up out of your, you know, you fell asleep and you wake up and you look around and say, I have no idea where the shore is and I have no idea where I am. And look, there's dorsal fins swimming around my little boat out here. We just drift.

Being controlled by entertainment. That's so easy. I have to fight. Everyone wants to fight. Sometimes I'm so tired and brain dead, I'll be sitting and I'll turn on the television and I'll turn on YouTube to watch some news report from Ukraine and Kim will come in like 20 minutes later and say, what are you watching? I don't know. I'm just brain dead, right? I'm drifting. What's coming up? I don't know. I was watching Ukraine. Well, this isn't Ukraine. I have no idea what this is. We drift. We drift.

Screen time. It's not wrong to watch a movie. It's not wrong to play a video game. I'm saying when it controls our time so that we're not doing our priorities, we're drifting and drift is scary. Becoming distressed and anxious about the chaotic world we live in. I'm back to that political statement. You're not going to change the political world that we live in. I'll be talking about this on trumpets. I'm going to talk about this on trumpets. We're going to talk about not just the seven trumpets, which we usually do. I want to talk about what's happening in our world today in relationship to those things that are going to happen. To put it in perspective. We drift when we begin to live on the edge of sinful behavior in order to relieve stress. A little bit of drug abuse. A few extra drinks. I'm not drunk, and you're doing it more. And more and more. You're drifting.

And you don't want to wake up out the middle of the ocean and have no idea. And you're asking God, show me a way home because I have no idea where the shore is. Now he'll come save you, but it's not going to be pleasant.

And then a last one. It's in 1 Timothy 6. And then I'm going to talk about some good stuff. I want to talk about how these are the things that keep us unfocused. And that's one reason God gives us the Holy Days. It is to focus us in on what He's doing. Because we live in pretty chaotic lives, and all of us have our sins, and all of us have our wrong decisions we make. And we live with everybody else's wrong decisions and everybody else's sins. And sometimes in all that chaos, we lose the focus. The focus brings us back to God. 1 Timothy 6. Verse 6. Now godliness with contentment is great gain.

If the economic issues that every expert is claiming is going to happen, they have different degrees of what's going to happen, happens, then there's a good chance over the next few years, all of us are going to be living, we may not be living in absolute poverty, it just depends on how fast things happen. But we're going to be living with, what, less than what we've had. That's just reality. We're going to be living with less than what we had.

And so, we've got to remember this. Or we will drift. We will drift. Remember the good old days. Well, what good old days? I mean, we've had a lot of good days. You've had a lot of good days in life. We've had a lot of bad days. You and I have lived as the most wealthy people in the history of the world, as far as a nation. These are the good old days. They weren't the kingdom of God.

The better days are out here. They're in front of us. The kingdom of God is in front of us. He says, God did this with content in his great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it's certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing with these shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and to many foolish and harmful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.

The more we concentrate— it's not wrong to be successful. It's not wrong to have good things. It's not wrong to have a nice house, a nice car. As I was working on this last night, I just stopped and I thought about what my parents had. And my parents would be shocked at what they considered the amount of wealth I had. I mean, a brick house.

A car nicer than the one I ever had.

I don't have to worry whether dad shoots a deer so I can have food and eat meat this winter. That's the way we lived.

I've shot a deer in years, and I have all the meat I can eat. I'm not going to be able to eat. We can get so caught up in that that needing new stuff or more stuff just becomes a distraction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. For which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. This is going to be a distraction. It's going to get probably more intense in the next years. That we're going to have to realize that we're not going to have what we used to have in some ways. And that doesn't mean life is bad. As long as we're focused on the right things, and we'll enjoy what we do have.

So how do we combat, then, these three things? Not really accepting the purpose of God's calling. Formulating reasons for not being committed to God's call. Formulating reasons to fit in. To always compromise.

And we can come up with all kinds of reasons for that. And then experiencing this spiritual drift that comes to living in a physical world. Because we're not supposed to give up all physical things. We're supposed to enjoy this life, for one thing, as much as we can. But this can't be the focus. Okay. Remember where you live. There's the answer. I remember I live. I live in Tennessee, which is a whole lot better than California. I was in a regional pastors meeting this week, and one of the ministers from California said, I'm having trouble this Holy Day. And he has five churches. I mean, he's got people. He said, almost all of the younger people have left California in the last two years. He said, for the Holy Days, I don't have four speakers to have two services.

He said, so I have a sermon at Offertory, a sermon, and in the afternoon, I just have a short sermon. One of the older guys gets up and gives sort of a split sermon. He said, because all my young people have left.

Where do we live? I only mentioned that because I would rather live in Tennessee. Where do you live? My first answer is Tennessee. Great place, right?

But where do we really live?

We really live in the kingdom of God. That's where we really live.

That has to be our focal point. Philippians chapter 3. These scriptures will probably be read sometime during the feast. So you're going to hear them again. Philippians 3 verse 20. All these other things, these are important. They're good. We live physical lives. God isn't against physical lives, by the way. He doesn't want us to be aesthetics, you know, eat nothing but bread and water and live on a bed of rocks. Okay, that's not what God wants for us. He wants us. He gave us physical lives. But we don't live in the kingdom of God around us, but you and I live in the kingdom of God. Philippians 3 verse 20. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body, that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able to subdue all things to Himself.

So there's our citizenship. So where do we live? Well, our citizenship is there. Now, we're good citizens here, but just like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, our good citizenship has a priority. We're good citizens here, as long as it never compromises our citizenship in heaven.

There's where the struggle comes. Where is that line sometimes? There's always stresses of where is that line.

But the discussion of the priority can never end. It always has to be discussed. We always have to think about that and pray about that. Hebrews 11. Hebrews chapter 11. The faith chapter with all these people who obeyed God. And of course, what's interesting is, many of these people in Scripture, God also records their failures. He wants us to see... We struggle through this.

Someone says they never struggle. I worry.

I worry. This is a struggle all the time. What does God want? What are we supposed to do? What Scripture applies here? What Scripture applies there? Right?

He was 11. Verse 8. By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place where he would receive an inheritance. He was told, leave this city where your citizenship is, and I want you to go to this other place.

There was no way Abraham at that time could have understood what that kind of journey would entail. To leave the Tigris-Euphrates River and go to what is now basically around Jerusalem.

In fact, it took him years to get there. So, he left his citizenship, and he now was going to inherit something else.

And he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith, he dwelled in the land of promise, as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. He got to the Promised Land, the place where God said, this is yours. Stand here as far as you can look, this is yours. And in his lifetime, he never owned a piece of it. In fact, he had to—you talk about humbling— he had to negotiate with someone to buy a cave where he could bury Sarah. And it was his land, given to him by Almighty God. And yet, somebody else had the title to it. And he had to go negotiate with that person to buy a piece of property where he could bury his wife. And yet, it was his land, God, to give it to him. All his whole life, he never owned the land God said he would give to him. The place that God said he would give it to him. Never owned it. But it says, for he waited— he waited for the city, which has foundations who build her and make her is God. He said, I belong to a different place. You and I, these holy days, focus us in on, we belong in a different place.

Our values are—what we live by is different than this. There's a lot of things that, over the years, over the centuries, the Church of God, the people of God have had to deal with. I've been working on another book for the last few years. It takes me forever to write a book because it's my hobby in my spare time. But I've been studying the history of the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. And what people would have had to suffer through to not be a Catholic in Europe in the Middle Ages. It's a tough time. It's a tough time.

So why did they do that? Why did people still not just give in? Because they looked for something else. They belonged someplace else. They were good citizens. They were good people. There were people, other people, that have liked.

But they didn't belong there. Part of them, they always knew, was looking for something else, just like Abraham. By faith, Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed. And she bore a child when she was past the age because she judged him faithful who had promised. She wondered. She laughed at one point, right? Surely this can't be. You can't mean this. Abraham struggled. We know that twice he lied. Twice he lied because he was afraid what was going to happen to him. And yet, God kept developing in him what he needed to have because of what we're going to look at in a minute here. Therefore, from one man and from him as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky of the multitude, innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. These all died in faith, all the people in this chapter, not having received the promise, promises, because there's more than one, but having seen them afar off, they were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims of the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.

This really isn't our home. It isn't a physical way. I mean, I don't know, I've lived here long enough now. I really enjoy when I'm about two miles from my house and I turn down that one little country lane. I'm headed towards my house and I always tell Kim, we're home. And she'll smile and say, yeah, this is home. And it may be the home for the rest of our life unless God says, no, I'm moving you someplace else.

Part of me says, I really hope this is home. But I don't know.

I don't know. We seek a homeland. We 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. But now they desire a better that is a heavenly country. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them, a heavenly country, the kingdom of God. That, that is what the Holy Days reminds us of. You and I are temporary dwellers in a country that we're not mindful of. Sometimes I think there's a lot of dangers that the church has faced. I mentioned that. But one of the dangers I think we face today sometimes is we Americanize the church. We've made it such a product of American society that we've Americanized the church.

Now, there's not anything wrong with certain things. Like, we sit in the hall like this. We sing songs. I mean, very much our our our Sabbath service would be normal 50 years ago in any Protestant church. I'm not saying that's wrong. I'm just saying it is American.

I've had someone approach me and say, we shouldn't have guitars in church. So why? Well, it's just Dr. Connie Music. God approved.

I said, have you ever heard Jewish singing at like a Passover service?

For one thing, there's no harmony. It's sort of a Gregorian chant. And if you look at, and they think that's very similar to the music that David would have had, he did that with like a little harp. Can you imagine a Gregorian chant with a little harp playing, a tambourine, and a drum? And a trumpet blasting every once in a while, because that's how it describes the music.

And it was okay then. So I mean, I'm not saying we should Jewish, Jewish-fy our music. I'm just saying we're all products of our environment, and we have to be careful sometimes. We don't overly think that our culture is the most righteous culture in terms of the church, but we can do that. By the way, I have no problem with guitars in church. Now, Jimi Hendrix is a little... Okay. I'm thinking... I forget how old I am. How many don't know who Jimi Hendrix is?

Oh, okay. Yeah.

You know, you don't know he is? Oh, that's okay. 1960s hard rock. So you're okay. Don't go look up Jimi Hendrix.

Although I used to listen to him in the 1960s, but we won't go there. When we talk about living in another country, that applies to everything. I don't just talk about politics, you know, we're, man, alive. We live in insane politics. I look at the political parties in the United States, and I look at both of them, and I think, how does a country get this bizarrely stupid? I don't get it, but it is.

But it is to apply to everything. Our family lives, how we treat people as employer or employee, the way we treat our neighbors, how we act in school, who are making God the center of our life instead of ourselves, which is the hardest thing we have to do. Our willingness to give and serve to others with no personal gain at all. We just do it because we want to. The application of God's wisdom into the, in just to the everyday problems we have. Sometimes we can understand certain things about righteousness, but have no wisdom in simple decisions. And yet, that's part of God's way too, is learning how to make simple decisions and solving life's problems to reflect the fact that we are children of God every day, so journeying on this earth.

That's who we are. That's what you've been called to be. You say, well, that's awfully big, and I don't know how to do that. Well, it's God's work. Remember, none of us were called because we brought so much to the table. We were called so God could say, look what I do. That's what we read in 1st Corinthians. No flesh or glory, but only God's glory. We are supposed to be. We are supposed to be the proof of what God can do. You know, I pray all the time. I've learned this over the years because of just things I've done that I think I should have done that. I ask God all the time, please today, don't let me do anything to bring shame on you or shame on Jesus Christ.

I don't ever want to, but you know we do, don't we? We do. In a few weeks, God's going to refocus all of us. It's already started. You felt it the other day when you got up in the morning and the temperature was a little bit colder, right?

God's already started to refocus us on what we're supposed to be focused on. And that's why these holy days are so important. That's why the Feast of Trumpets in the Day of Atonement, the Feast of Tabernacles, and at eighth day are all so important. God says, you know, oh, we're to obey Him. We do it because we obey Him. But why does God do it? God isn't just saying, do this because I want you to do it because I want to show you I'm God. No, everything God does is He creates it for us. It's for us to be refocused. And when we keep these holy days, between now and then, pray about it, think about it. Ask God to help you deal with the three things we talked about today, to renew your enthusiasm for the purpose of His calling. We've drifted a lot in the last few years as we've watched society collapse around us. Well, the whole world is collapsing around us. And the whole church is drifted too. We've drifted in our personal lives. We need to have a renewed enthusiasm for our calling. We need to be convicted whenever we're formulating reasons to not be committed, which we will do. And we need to stop our spiritual drift. We need to stop our spiritual drift and be humble before God, which of course is, as I mentioned before, and I'm going to keep pounding that drum. One of the greatest things facing us today, problems inside the church, is our arrogance. It's our arrogance. And so we have to keep asking God to keep us focused where we should be in humility before Him.

So this Holy Day season, let's pray to God that this be something special. You know, we have this cliché. This was the best feast ever. After a while, I'm not sure what that means because, well, I don't know, I can think of 30 feasts that were the best ever. So, you know, and I'm not putting it down anyway, I'm just saying, let's focus on this one for one thing. God, help me, help us, help your people as a whole, not just us, everybody, to refocus in on Him, on Jesus Christ, and refocus on these future events that are going to happen. The Day of the Lord, the return of Jesus Christ, the resurrection, the millennial reign, the second resurrection, the great white throne judgment, and God bringing our homeland, right, our heavenly homeland, He brings it here so that we can live with Him.