Being Doers of the Word

It is wonderful to be back home from the feast that we just observed. I know it's been for some of us, we've been back for about 10 days or almost a couple weeks, not quite, but it's getting close to that time. For others, some of us just returned back home this past week, and it was an awesome and amazing feast again, just to partake in God's Holy Day season. It's always an honor and it's always a joy. As some had stayed back and some downloaded sermons and kept it at home and did other things, but it's just an amazing time of the year. I was trying to count up about the number of hours that we had of instruction in Snowshoe, and it ball parked in probably about 17 hours of Bible instruction between the sermonents, the sermons, and the Bible studies. About 17 hours of instruction, of diving into God's Word that we were able to partake in, and I assume it was very similar in the number of hours to wherever you were observing the feast. This is teaching that we were able to directly receive from God. It's a time of renewal, a time of refreshing.

But yet, it doesn't come without its challenges as we return back to our homes. It's easy at times just to return home and to fall back into the swing of life. Fall back into the day-to-day aspects of our life. We go back to our influences around us, which are not always the best, whether it's school or whether work. There's always talk that doesn't align with God's Word that we're exposed to, so there's not necessarily the best influences. We're back into social media, back into the evening news. That's something to say in just itself. We're back into the political season that we find ourselves in. When we got our mail, or after getting back from the feast, I lost track of how many political ads that were in there that I had to just throw in the trash. It's just you've done through them, and you're just like, we're here in a political season. That is for sure. It's also easy to become overwhelmed with life's challenges again upon returning, whether they are the same challenges we had before the feast or whether they're new now. New challenges that we have. I can't help but remember one year after the feast, we were driving home from Snowshoe back in either 09 or 2010. I can't remember what year. And it was a Sunday. Laura and Kelsey had fallen asleep in the back, and so I'm trying to find the Cincinnati Bengals football game on the radio, thinking, well, it'll keep me awake. It might make me sad. I might cry, but it'll keep me awake at least. And I was able to find the game, and so I'm listening to it, and it was fine, and everything was going well until they broke into commercials. They had to pause in the game, and then they would do these news updates, just these 30-second flashes of things going on in the news there in Cincinnati. And all of a sudden, I realize this isn't the millennium. I'm not keeping the feast anymore because I'm back into the world. It's amazing how you go away for eight days, and often don't turn the TV on or you don't watch the news. It's amazing how you separate yourself out, and you're enjoying that environment. You're enjoying the excitement, the fellowship, the messages, God's Word being expounded to us.

And yet, that harsh reminder that we're still not in the millennium. God's kingdom, the return of Jesus Christ, hasn't happened yet. And we go back to—we've got to remember that we go back to our lives. We go back to the society that we're part of. So what is a Christian to do? We really have two options before us. We can come back home. We can transition right back into our normal lives and continue living as if we never went to the feast.

It's an option. It does sit out there as one that we can choose. Or we can take the messages that we heard. We can really consider what was taught to us from God's Word, and then we can allow it to change our lives. What we really have before us is the opportunity to be a doer of the Word. So today, let's explore being a doer of the Word and how it applies as we return home from this year's Feast of Tabernacles.

Let's start out today by opening our Bibles to James 1 and verse 18. And even though this is a message that I'm tying into the Feast, this is a message of life. This is a message of you and me every day applying God's Word to our surroundings and letting God's Word speak to our hearts to be a doer of the Word, to be a partaker in this truth that we have before us.

So while I'm tying it into the Feast, and you'll hear Feast references throughout, this is much bigger than any just tying into the Feast. This is life that you and I have been called to live and the truth of God's Word that we have before us. Here in James chapter 1 and verse 18 is where we'll start out. Here it says, and this is the half-brother of Jesus sharing this account here with us, he says, Of His own will He brought us forth, and this is speaking of God, brought us forth by the Word of truth. Again, of His own will He brought us forth by the Word of truth, that we might be a kind of first-roots of His creatures.

We all have to remember back to think of when we were first being called by God, and this truth that was being given to us, and that we were becoming aware of, and that we were allowing to make an impact in our lives. And this impact has continued for every one of us sitting here as we continue to take in God's Word and allow it to live in our lives. As it relates to the Feast, we went to the Feast of Tabernacles because we're commanded to by God.

And why? I trust that you probably had this Scripture expounded from Deuteronomy 14, verse 23, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. That was one of those important reminders of why we keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And how do we learn to do this? Well, we dove into God's Word daily. We dove into His Word of truth, as James says here. Continuing on in verse 19, James 1, verse 19, he says, The New Living Translation for verse 21 says, God's Word has been sown in our lives over the many years that we have dived in and we have studied God's Word. And in us keeping each of the Holy Days, God continues to sow His Word and His truth in our lives. As it says here, the New King James version says, The King James says, Looking at the Greek, because often as we do, we look at the original Greek because it shines a deeper meaning on what this word implanted means. The Greek word is infutos, which from Thayer's Greek lexicon means, Implanted by others' instructions, the doctrine implanted by your teachers, as in the case here in James 1, verse 21, This word is a derivative of another Greek word, which is phuo, p-h-u-o, so infutos. So the phuo aspect, the derivative here, from Strong's means originally to puff up or to blow, as in filling a balloon with air. Or for any gardeners out there, if you've had seeds over the years that you have to soak in water first, and then when you do that, you see them swell before you can plant them to help them germinate and things like that. That's what this word phuo means, to puff up or to blow, that is to swell, or to germinate or grow, to sprout, to produce, to spring up. All these words which you now understand, I mean, they're that gardening aspect, that farming aspect of something germinating, something implanted that is growing now within another soil or another substance. This is that word phuo, which we'll get into here in a minute in another passage.

But we took time out during this feast not to seek our own will for our lives, but to follow God's command that we keep and observe His feast of tabernacles. If we journeyed out of the state of Michigan, we prepared along the way. We made sure our cars were ready. We had hotel reservations. We put work up front to make sure that we'd be able to be there and partake in these messages.

If you stayed at home, then you made a plan to download certain messages or to find certain articles to read. But either way, you planned for this special holy day that was coming up. You made your arrangements so that you could partake. As part of that preparation, we prayed that God would bless the feast, that He would inspire the speakers and the messages, that He would feed us in the ways that He knows as His people individually and collectively that we need to be fed. We wanted His involvement so the messages would be inspired and that we'd have that mindset to receive those messages and allow our minds to be receptive of those words. That our minds would be a fertile soil for His implanted Word, as we just read, to take hold and to spring up in our lives. Again, James 1, verse 21, Receive with meekness the implanted Word which is able to save your souls. This Word from God has the power to save our souls. Of course, we need the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, of our Savior, to truly save our lives. But this wonderful, powerful, and living Word that is implanted in our minds and into our hearts has the ability to lead us in a new direction with our life that will save our souls. We turn away from our own ways when we understand this truth. We turn away from the wicked ways of sin when we allow this implanted Word to take hold. And then we follow the Word of God, realizing it's saving power. Again, from James 1, verse 18, it says, And it goes on to say that we might be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures, a special and prized people set apart for what he wants us to do with our lives. This precious Word of God is life-saving, and he has implanted it in us. In Luke chapter 8, we have one of the very common parables of Jesus, the parable of the sower. This is in Luke chapter 8, and we'll be starting today in verse 1.

In this parable here, we have the same root word, phu-o, which again means to beget, or to bring forth, or to produce, to spring up, to grow. We'll see that here in a moment. Again, Luke chapter 8, verse 1, It says, It's important to remember that Christ was always about doing his Father's will and his Father's work. He was always about planting and scattering seed, the Word of God, everywhere that he went.

And we see that captured in this passage, just before he gets to the parable, that he went through the cities and the villages. He was active. He was working. He was scattering that seed, the Word of God, wherever he went. Just as his half-brother described that, of his own will, he brought us forth by the Word of Truth. This is the life and the work that Christ was doing. As we get into the parable, Matthew Henry's commentary says this as an overview of the parable we're about to read. He says in Matthew Henry, The heart of man is as soil to the seed of God's Word.

It is capable of receiving it and bringing forth the fruit of it. But unless that seed be sown in it, it will bring forth nothing valuable. Our care, therefore, must be to bring the seed and the soil together. To what purpose have we the seed in the Scripture if it's not sown? He's saying, so what's the point of having God's Word if we don't allow it a place to grow? You could have a bag of seed and could be sitting on your shelf, but it's doing nothing if it's just in that same bag.

If it's not some place where it'd be grown. We can have God's Word on our laps. We could be sitting here forever. But if the seed never makes it to fertile soil within our hearts, it's missing something. It's not the fullness of what God would want. Matthew Henry goes on to say, and to what purpose have we the soil in our own hearts if not be sown with that seed? So he's saying on the flip side, if we're made in the image of God, if we have the blessings of life, if He's given us a mind unlike any other creature to partake in our own existence, but also to partake in His Word, how sad would it be if we just went on with life and never allowed this Word to be planted in our minds to find that fertile soil of our life?

So Matthew Henry is saying it takes both parts, and what a blessing it is in our lives. Looking at the parable in Luke 8, verse 4 now, It says, And when a great multitude had gathered, and they had come to Him from every city, He spoke by a parable. A sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed, some fell by the wayside, and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it.

Some fell on rock, and as soon as it sprang up, which is that word, fuo, it began to grow, it withered away because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it.

But others fell on good ground, sprang up, again began to grow, and yielded a crop a hundredfold. It's a great yield on a crop, a hundredfold. When he had said these things, he cried, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Then his disciples asked him, saying, What does this parable mean? And he said to you, it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God.

But to the rest, it is given in parables. That scene they may not see in hearing, they may not understand. Christ is saying that this aspect of teaching with parables allowed some to receive his word because they were receiving the calling from God. God was drawing them and allowing them to have their minds open to see this truth that was being revealed by Christ. And that is you and me sitting here today. That's why we're here, is because we have those eyes to see. And he goes on in verse 11, Now the parable is this, the seed is the word of God.

So now he's explaining it in more common to understand vernacular here. He's saying, The seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are the ones who hear, and the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.

So these are people who refuse to believe God's messages. They read the Bible. They know what it says, but they don't decide to follow it. They fall into the lies of Satan that says, No, this isn't really what Scripture means. Now, it says this, but this is how we really apply it to our lives. These are messages that Satan is spreading out, these false truths. And then some, this is all that they know to do, is to follow this. Continuing on with the explanation in verse 13, he goes, But the ones on the rocks are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy. And these have no root, who believe for a while, and in time of temptation they fall away. Of course, these are people who believe the gospel message, but they never get around to doing anything with it in their life. They never allow that amazing transformation to happen within them, because they read it and they say, This is great. I've always wondered about the Sabbath, or the understanding of the Holy Days. But then they decide that it's not for me. It's not going to change my life. It's not what I want to be part of anymore. Going on in verse 14, these are all the hard aspects, these first three groups. But we can think of people like this, but we're going to get to an exciting one. Not just for me and you, but for anybody who's willing to let the seed be planted into their lives. Continuing to verse 14, he said, Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with the cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. The worries of life, materialism, money, people, all of these can take priority over a person's life. And if not kept in a proper balance, can crowd out God's truth and draw people away from God. The cares of the world, the physical aspects that we have in front of us, seeking a good job or seeking money, seeking wealth, can draw us away from God if we're not careful. And it can choke out his seed growing within us. And so this is another aspect of the seed that just didn't turn into the crop that God wanted. But again, in verse 15, we have the explanation of me and you. And also, anybody listening to this message, anybody who's listening and diving into God's Word, this is what they have in front of them. This is for everyone. Verse 15, But the ones that fell on the good ground, remember that fertile soil of our mind, the ones that fell on that good ground are those who, having heard the Word with a noble and good heart, they want to seek. They want to let this power transform them from inside. Anybody who wants that to happen in their lives, who God is drawing and God is calling, anybody who's been sitting here today, it says, These who keep it and bear fruit with patience, having heard the Word with a noble and good heart, kept it and bear fruit with patience. The New Living Translation for verse 15 said, And the seeds that fell on the good soil represent honest, good-hearted people who hear God's Word, cling to it, and patiently produce a huge harvest.

Seed was scattered this year at the feast by God and by His messengers, but we must do our part to allow the seed to germinate and then to grow in our lives. To truly hear God's message, we must believe that this truth is intended for us. So the messages, the Word that you're diving into, that you read, you have to believe that's intended for you, not for somebody else, but for you, and then to begin implementing these messages and the decisions that we make in our life and let it to work and lead our lives. This is what we prayed for when we asked for God's inspiration over the messages. This is what we wanted for our lives. And if we take these messages to heart, then we will begin to bear fruit. We will live a changed life. It takes time to fully bear fruit. It takes a lifetime of choosing the right path. It takes every day seeking, every day desiring to draw closer to God. It truly takes a lifetime. That's why it says here, to produce a produce, or to produce patiently, let me just read it, and patiently produce a huge harvest, or as it says in the New King James, and to bear fruit with patience. We don't just wake up one day and you scatter the seed and you go out to pick the tomatoes the next day. I've wanted that so many times. I wanted that miracle to happen overnight, right? I never prayed for it. But how awesome would that be? You set the seed one day and the next day, boom, there's a tomato. Instant broccoli, potatoes, whatever you need is there the next day. But it takes time. It takes that plant to actually grow with no produce on it. Beautiful green leaves growing. You look at the corn in the farmer's fields, not so much now, but mid-summer. The corn wasn't there, it was not mature, but big beautiful green leaves growing.

It takes time. It takes patience to work with seed and to allow it to work. And we've got to be patient in our own lives as we allow God to work in our lives. As it says in verse 15, to bear fruit with patience. We must remember that. But we must keep keeping the Sabbath. We must keep observing the Holy Days. We must keep reading God's Word because all of that is like that fertilizer to allow it to continue to grow. Allow us to continue to change and to develop into the creature and into the person that God wants us to be. And to allow it to work powerfully in our lives. You and I, we have had that recharging of swords. That refueling that we often talk about when we go away to the feast or when we take eight days at home and listen to messages every day in those eight days. We can't help but if you've focused in and you've given yourself to those messages to come back feeling full with a recharge, with that energy, it's kind of like that gas tank. I've had some money issues before where you pull into the gas station, you put a couple dollars worth of gas in the tank. I'm sure I'm not the only one that's done that. And it gets you a little bit down the road, but before you know it, you're back in the gas station putting some more gas in. You're not really getting very far in your trip, are you, because you're always back at the gas station. A couple more dollars here, a couple more dollars here.

But when you have the ability to fully fill up that tank and you fill it to the top and then you can go wherever you want, you have the potential to drive hundreds of miles. And that's what you and I have done. We have gone to where we had our tank fully filled at the feast. That potential of going amazing places with God's help is in each one of us. It's a joy that we should have. We didn't just get a couple dollars worth of gas. We were able to get a full refilling and we have this journey ahead of us where God wants us to go. That's why it's time right now to do something with what we have been given by God. If we have really received this word and our lives are that fertile ground, then the Apostle Peter says what will happen next in our lives. Let's look at 1 Peter 2 and verse 1.

1 Peter 2 and verse 1.

1 Peter 2 and verse 1.

It's an encouraging passage we have here. Not just coming back from the feast, but any time we allow God's word to work within our lives. Any time that we'll yield our will to His, change happens. And he says here in 1 Peter, the Apostle Peter says in 1 Peter 2 and verse 1, Therefore, laying aside all these things that we're laying aside because of this word that is growing within us. He says, Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, all hypocrisy, all evil, or all envy, and all evil speaking.

All these things that none of us want in our lives, none of us are saying that we're trying to draw close to these things. But he says in verse 2, As newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby. Have you ever seen a baby eat a ton of food, but then not grow?

It doesn't work that way. You see these babies that grow tremendously. They get these growing spurts where they can't stop eating, and all of a sudden, parents know they're going to have to buy more clothes soon. Because they're going to be growing out, because they're eating so much that they're going through a growing spurt, and they're just eating everything that they can. It's the same thing as he's saying here.

As desire, as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. If we lay aside the sins and unrighteousness in our lives, and if we take in the true and the pure word of God, then we will grow. We will grow. Again, from Thayer's Greek lexicon, this word for grow means to grow and increase or to become greater. To grow as in plants. To grow as in infants. To grow as in a multitude of people. To grow, and this is the important one, of inward Christian growth.

Now, the challenge is that we're not perfect in the way that we handle our lives. You and I, at times, fall short in our full ability to apply God's word. But we must work at it. We must try. Why is it that we try? Why is it that we're willing to work at this? The knowledge that you and I have in our minds and God's Spirit dwelling in us sets us apart from society around us. We've been chosen and set apart from the world by God Himself.

Just as we prepared to leave at the end of September this year, we stood out among our peers. Some of you had to get letters or asks for letters so that you could take to your employer, you could take to your teachers, to explain that this is a legit reason we're leaving in September after putting our kids in school for, what, two weeks, I think it was?

And then had to draw them out for what the school looks at as, oh, you must be going on vacation, you're going to Florida. No, it's not a vacation. It's a feast of tabernacles. Let me show you why we're pulling our kids out. Or you took a letter into your employer. Some had employers that didn't want to let them off. And so we had to work at it. We stood out from among our peers at work, at school, our neighbors, who can't figure out why we're packing everybody up in September when we had all summer to go on a trip.

And you're asking them, hey, keep an eye on the house. We're going to be gone. Well, where are you going? Everything okay? Well, we explain at that point. We stand out. We stood out apart in our locations, wherever we were at, keeping the feast. You went to a restaurant. You stood out. You went to different places. Hopefully for the good reasons. We stood out where we went. As Mr. Kubik mentioned in not only the letter this past week, but on the video, he had people, somebody from Edgewater Beach there in Ford at the resort, come up and said, all right, I hear you're the president of the church.

And he wanted to thank him and let him know how these people are different, how you and I are different. We must be that way all the time. We do stand out in good ways. God knows that you and I stand out from the world around us, and the world does not know us because of that. They don't understand us. They don't understand why at the end of this month we don't dress our kids up in costumes like ghosts and go around asking for candy. They don't understand. They don't understand why we don't hand out the candy at this time of the year.

They don't understand why at the end of December we don't celebrate Christ's birth. They don't understand. It doesn't make sense to them. They just don't understand us. And Jesus Christ, in his last prayer before his death, prayed this in John 17 and verse 14, in referencing his disciples and in turn referencing us. He prays a special prayer for them here in John 17 and verse 14. John 17 and verse 14, here Christ says, He repeats it twice. And then he says in verse 17, Sanctify them by your truth. Set them apart. Make them holy by your truth.

Your word is truth. Because of the truth that we have in our hearts of God's holy word, we are set apart from the world. While we were at the Feast of Tabernacles, we were set apart from the world, observing his holy days and coming before his presence. His presence wasn't in the other places. His presence wasn't at the football stadiums or the baseball diamonds. His presence wasn't at our schools, wasn't at our workplaces. His presence was where we were observing his Feast of Tabernacles at. That's why you and I were away from all these other events. We are away from all these other things of maybe normal life.

Because we were going before God's presence as he commanded us to do. This truth that we hold in our hearts does cause us to stand out from the world. This truth puts us on a separate path of life from others around us. And what a blessed path that we are on. Is it fun to stand out and to be different? Truth be told, it's not fun. None of us desire to just stand out.

Our nature tells us to blend in with the crowd, to appear like everyone else around us. Because this will bring us comfort and appearing to be normal. That's what our human nature tells us. But in a world led by Satan and his influence, blending in with society brings pain, brings hurt, and brings sorrow because society is not on a godly path.

So we have a choice. Stick out because we're different and receive God's blessings. Or blend in with everyone else and suffer the consequences that society is going through today. These are the two options that are truly laid before us. Going back to Luke 8, Jesus follows up this parable of the sower with another passage. It helps us better understand our purpose.

Again, Luke 8 and verse 16.

This is immediately following the parable of the sower. Christ dives into another subject, but is tightly and closely tied to being that soil, being that seed that will receive and then bear fruit. He says in Luke 8 and verse 16, No one has lit a lamp, covers it with a vessel, or covers it with a bowl, or puts it under a bed, but sets it on a lampstand, that those who enter may see the light, for nothing is secret that will not be revealed nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light.

Therefore, take heed, or pay attention to, how you hear. Pay attention to how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given, whomever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.

Verse 18 from the New Living Translation says, So pay attention to how you hear. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given.

Isn't that what you and I want? To those who pay attention to this Word of God that we have in front of us, more will be given.

But for those who are not listening, even what they think they understand will be taken away from them.

This last part of the verse should cause us to pause.

None of us would purchase a lamp from the store, bring it home in the box, take that box and put it in the basement and then never take the lamp out and use it, would we?

I mean, that's a waste of money. It's a waste of the purchase of that lamp. Why do that? And just take it, bring it home, and not use it for its intended purpose.

You and I wouldn't do that. That would be wasteful. It would be useless.

We each should pause and evaluate if the Words of God are alive and living in our hearts and our minds, so that our actions reflect the Words of Truth that we are hearing.

If these actions are not present, then what is hiding this light from coming out of our lives?

And what do you need to do in order for this light to come forth?

Again, I'd like to read this point. We each should pause and evaluate if the Words of God are alive and living in our hearts and our minds, so that our actions reflect the Words of Truth that we are hearing.

If these actions are not present, then what is hiding this light from coming out? What do you need to do in order for this light to come forth?

I don't have the answers for you for these questions. I have to take these questions in a poem to my own life. I have to evaluate, is there God's light coming forth from me?

And if there's not, why not?

We have each been given the Word of God over the past Feast of Tabernacles, reminding us of what God will do in the future, but also what He is doing in our lives today.

We must make sure that we don't reject the Words we receive at the Feast due to the cares of the world choking them out, or because we lack follow-through to remember them.

We must listen and we must respond. But if we were only there to listen casually, if we were there to just take in the sermons, we were there and present. We heard. We might even have taken some notes.

But if we were only there to listen casually, then the Words we heard will evaporate as the dew does in the morning sun.

It's there, then quickly, it's gone. Never to be seen again. Never to be seen in the form that it was on that particular day.

These Words that we heard must be applied and they must be allowed to take root.

So what will be our response to the Word of God that we have received while we're at the Feast? Where do we go from here? Let's turn back to James 1 and pick up the passage that we previously read.

And we'll pick it up in verse 22. So this is James 1 and verse 22.

As I said, this aspect isn't just tied to the messages we heard from the Feast. It's applied to God's Word today in every one of our lives.

Anyone listening and hearing this message, it applies to you because this is a powerful word that we have in front of us.

Yeah, the Feast we came back, we had that hopefully refueling of sorts. We were able to dive in God's Word for eight solid days.

But this word is powerful and James gets to it again here in James 1 verse 22. He says, But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.

We each went to the Feast and we listened to messages at home. In doing so, we heard many words shared with us. We had God's Word expounded and explained to us.

We must not approach what we just experienced as a glance in the mirror, just a brief window of time where we looked into God's Word and then moved on with our life.

If so, then none of what we did while we were at the Feast really matters, to be completely honest.

If that's all it was in each of our lives, and I'm talking to myself too, was a glance at God's Word, and that's all it is for me or for you, then it really didn't matter.

We went to the Feast because of the importance of why God called us to his holy day was missed.

Does a glance in the mirror in the morning as you're running out to take the kids to school?

That quick glance just to make sure you're not going to horribly offend somebody if they happen to see you in a car next to you?

Does that quick glance really change a lot? It really doesn't. It's that quick glance. You didn't really examine yourself to really see how you look in the morning before running out the door.

But what about when you have a date night with your wife or your husband? Do you spend a little bit more time in front of that same mirror?

Why is that? Because it's important. It's important to you. It's important to the other person you're with.

What about if you were invited to a formal dinner with somebody of importance in the state or in this nation or in another country?

You're invited to a formal dinner and you're going to get to sit at the head table with that person.

Would you spend a little bit more time maybe in front of that same mirror really examining?

Or would it be that quick glance as you run out the door again?

Why would you spend more time because of the importance of the person you're spending that time with?

Again, what should be our approach towards the words that we have expounded on us, whether it's at the Sabbath here or whether it was at the feast?

Just a casual glance at them because that's all we do? Then those words will be forgotten. It's just the nature of it.

If it's just a casual glance, then those words will be forgotten.

But if we put weight into the importance of God's Word, as we would a date night with our spouse or dinner with a foreign leader, then how big of a difference?

How big of a change would that make in your life?

We would spend more time examining those words. We consider the depth of God's Holy Word if we carried it with that same level of importance.

None of us want to be forgetters. That's not you and that's not me. None of us want to be forgetters.

We want to let God's Word and all that we heard at the feast live and thrive within our hearts and our minds.

We want to live the words that we were taught. So, quickly, how do we do this?

This isn't any type of earth-shattering message. I'm going to give you some new points that you've never heard before.

But let's consider maybe another approach to it because often we look at these messages, and I said we had 17 hours of inspired teaching from God's Word. Sometimes we come back and we want to dive in to all 17 hours of those again.

And if that's what you do, great, do it. But sometimes people get overwhelmed with looking at the sheer magnitude of their notes or listening to sermon after sermon again. Again, if that's what works for you, by all means, I've listened to sermons already.

But you don't have to do it necessarily in a way. Remember back to some of those messages you heard.

Do you remember point four of one message that when you heard it, it hit you to your heart? Point four.

Maybe you'll never forget point four. But you have an opportunity now to maybe dive into point four in a way that maybe the speaker couldn't.

To examine that from maybe a little bit more personal, reflective way of how that can help change your life.

Maybe there was a scripture that somebody maybe breezed through kind of quickly, but when you read it, it jumped out to you.

And you maybe put a little asterisk next to it in your notes. Sometimes I'll do that as a point to come back to.

I want to come back to the scripture. And so this provides an opportunity for you to come back to that asterisk, come back to that scripture, and then dive into it more than maybe the speaker had an opportunity to in that sermon.

By all means, if you're one that loves to go over to sermons again and compare your notes and fill in the gaps, by all means do that. There's nothing wrong. But if that seems overwhelming, find those small ways that you can relive the feast.

Find those small ways that you can relive in a personal Bible study, God's Word, a scripture, a point, something that you can draw out, that you can help to relive your feast, to bring these words that were inspired and that you prayed for back to life. It's a powerful way that we can continue to study, continue to keep that mindset in the forefront of our mind.

Sometimes, I know for me, go to the feast with a different mindset. I want to not be this way or I want to do this differently these eight days.

And if you kept something in the forefront of your mind during the feast, bring it back.

Because maybe sometimes you get home and then all of a sudden you're back into work. You're back into home mode. You're back into, I've got to mow the yard. And what was forefront on your mind at the feast suddenly starts to drift away.

We have that opportunity, if that was something you did, to bring it back. Put it back up in the forefront of your mind again.

To continue allowing God's Word to live and to transform us on the inside.

There's a passage that I think ties into Romans 12 and verse 1. Romans 12 and verse 1 that we could look at and compare as we consider this aspect of allowing God's Word to continue to live within us.

Romans 12 and verse 1. Here the Apostle Paul says, I love that word reasonable here because he could have just said that is your service or your fair service or your...

Try to do it when you can in life service. But he says, this isn't going above and beyond. This isn't like the most extreme service.

He says, your reasonable service to present your life as a living sacrifice is your reasonable service.

And verse 2, and he says, This is exactly what you and I did at the feast. We renewed our minds by taking in the inspired messages of God.

So therefore we must continue to take it in again and again and again and allow God's Word to transform our minds.

To continue that renewing that we started at the feast, to allow it to continue to go.

And as Paul stated, this is our reasonable service.

This is that reasonable service that we are to do because God has done so much for us in our lives.

He's opened our mind to so much and shown us so much of his truth.

So as we wrap up here with our final scripture, let's turn to Psalm 119, verse 101.

Psalm 119, verse 101.

Psalm 119, verse 101.

Consider this passage and then these words here.

As we looked at today, God's Word, the power within it, the impact it makes on our lives, the way that we allow it to transform our lives, this word, this implanted word that we have inside of our hearts and inside of our minds.

Consider that as we start off here in Psalm 119, verse 101.

Here it says, I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I may keep your word.

I have not departed from your judgments, for you yourself have taught me, how sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.

Through your precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

God's word that we have before us is wonderful, it's powerful, and it's alive.

His word, His truth should change us and it should lead us.

We are in a transition phase of the year where we come back home from the Feast of Tabernacles and we get back into our normal home life, we get back into our normal school life, we get back into our normal work that we do, we get back into the normal day of day things, caring for loved ones, raising our children, we get back into our normal day to day life.

We can transition right back to where we were before the Feast, right back into everything as it was before we left, as if we never even went to the Feast. We can transition right back in, right back into the same things we were doing before, same aspects, same thought processes, or we can take the messages we heard and the truth that we were taught and we can let it live in our hearts.

If we do this, then God's word will be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

Let us be doers of the word. Let us be active in our study of these messages and let us allow God's perfect and holy word to live and to work powerfully in our lives.