The Best Investment You Can Make This New Year

Well, again, happy Sabbath day. As we begin a new secular year, and it's hard to believe, it's going to be 2017 years ago. We used to have an old elder. Most of you, this name will mean nothing to you because we've had so much growth the last five years. His name was Robley Evans. He'd been around a long time, and he used to say well into his 80s that if I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. So I'm sure we all have days that we feel that way. What happened to the time? Here we are in the cusp of a new year, 2017.

Sadly, as we enter the year 2017, I have to report that the Western world is dramatically becoming more secular and more interested in everything except God.

From our public discourse to social media to our educational institutions to our scientific research, there is little to no discussion about God.

The public acknowledgement and respect for a supreme power that guides and controls the universe is dramatically on the decline. I'll give you a couple of examples of that. Here's an article from December 23rd, it's not that old, from the Times of London. And it says, this was the subtitle, The number of Britons who believe in God has fallen by four percentage points in under two years. A new survey on religious attitudes has found leaving atheism to pull significantly ahead. I'll just quote one paragraph from this article. A Ugov poll, which means nothing to us but is important in Britain, a Ugov poll for the Times found that the number of people professing a belief in God has dropped from 32% in February of 2015 when the question was last asked to 28% today. So it's fallen from 32% to 28% in a very short period of time. It says at the same time, those who say that they don't believe in any God or a higher spiritual power has risen from 33% to 38%, putting atheism ten points ahead of a belief in a deity. Now that's the United Kingdom, that's Great Britain. They got an earlier start on their descend to nowhere, as all of Western Europe did, but trust me, we're not that far behind. As a matter of fact, according to a new study published by Gallup, a term you're probably familiar with, it says 21% of those surveyed said they don't practice a formal religion which is up from 15% in 2008. So in just eight years, 21% to 15%. What a decline. Well, that's the world that we live in today. And you know, I could, and I've written some of these articles for online magazines, I could talk about today, oh, the five great habits to build in 2017. I could tell you about things you should stop doing in the new year, and we could talk about all of those things, but you know what? There is one essential thing that you can do to resist the influence in this society. There is one way to protect your values. There is one way that you can demonstrate your personal example for all the world to see. There is one way that you can say, I choose to continue to respect God. I will love God, and I will serve God with all of my heart and with all of my soul. And nobody, and nothing, no government, no culture, no one in the heavens or no one in hell, will stop me from doing the things that I need to do. What is that? What is the best investment you can make in yourself for the year 2017? I'm not going to talk about habits today. I'm not going to talk about things you could change, things you should stop doing. I'm going to talk about the one best investment you can make in yourself for the year 2017, because if you do that, everything else will fall into place. If you do it with passion, with enthusiasm, with the right heart, with the right attitude, everything else will fall into place. Let's find out what that is in Exodus 20, beginning in verse 8. Exodus 20, verse 8.

It says, remember the Sabbath day. Remember the day that everyone else is going to forget. That's why the word remember is there. Everyone else is going to forget about it, because after all, our culture says, work like a dog until you die. Work, work, work, work, work. And he who dies with the most toys wins. And as I've said before, that's simply not true. He who dies with the most toys has the happiest heirs.

That's all.

Remember the Sabbath day. Keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord, your God. In it you shall do no work. You, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger, who is within your gates. And again, I'm here to tell you that the best investment you can make in your life, the best investment you can make for your family in the year 2017, is to keep consistently, keep passionately, keep enthusiastically God's holy Sabbath. And I'm going to explain in this sermon exactly what I mean by that term keeping the Sabbath.

First of all, I want to explain so there's no confusion what it doesn't mean. It states here that whatever or whosoever is in our authority or control, we shouldn't force them to work. We shouldn't expect them to work. We have to allow them to rest as well. And that includes our children if we own a business, our employees. It includes anyone that would be in some way under our authority or under our control.

Let me ask this question. What about the utilities? Did you walk into a warm building today? You know why you walked into a warm building today? Because we have natural gas. We have natural gas because there are people working on this Sabbath today. Yes, they really are. There's maintenance people there working in the gas company today to provide you with heat to have in this building.

Unless you chose to put a padlock on your mailbox, the post office has people working today who will put mail in your mailbox today on this Sabbath day.

I don't often run out of gas or not have enough gas to get to church, but that has happened before in my life. And I had to go to 7-11 or some quick gas station in order to get gas. There were people who were working there on that day.

These are services that are independent of our authority. Whoever they work for expects them to work on Saturday and they willingly comply or otherwise they'd get another job, wouldn't they?

They're not our servants. They are individuals who choose to work on the Sabbath day.

And again, whether it's the post office or one of the many utilities, your internet provider, the electricity you have in your home, the electrical power coming in, the water that comes out of your faucets, there are people working to maintain those systems every Sabbath day.

But they're not under our authority. They don't work for us.

What the Scripture does say here is that this command is for anyone that has responsibility for our homes and responsibility for our employees, that we don't force anyone to work.

That we allow them to keep the Sabbath day just like we do. They are entitled to the rest of the Sabbath as much as we are.

I want to talk about the Sabbath today as much as possible, except obviously for illness, and that's very legitimate not to come to church if you are ill, especially if you have something that might be contagious.

There are family situations. There are sometimes family crises that occur and reasonable reasons we shouldn't or cannot come to the Sabbath, and that's okay.

There may be emergencies that occur. You may get out in the cold Sabbath morning and your car won't start. That's happened to a lot of people before. Their fuel lines froze up. They get out and they've got a flat tire in the driveway, and services start in 30 minutes. So there are very legitimate reasons why we may not be able to come here and observe the Sabbath.

But I want to emphasize why it is so important for us to observe the Sabbath and what God meant when he said observe the Sabbath, because it isn't important what we think of how the Sabbath should be observed. It's really important what God thinks, what his intention was. After all, he made the day. He declared the day. He established the day.

So like everything else we do in our life, we should say, what does God want? So I think that's a very reasonable question. Let's go to Leviticus 23, verse 1, a scripture that many of us are familiar with, but oftentimes we don't understand and appreciate the nuance that it has here about the Sabbath day.

I've had folks say to me, well, the Sabbath means that I just, I keep the Sabbath because I don't work. Well, if I understand and accept your reasoning, then there are millions of retired senior citizens who happen to read their Bibles on Saturday. They must be keeping the Sabbath according to your logic because they're not working and they're reading their Bible and they're resting. Is that really what God intended? Is that really what God has in mind? And the Lord said to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, say to them, the feasts of the Lord, so we know whose ownership they are. They're not our feast, they're God's feast. Which you shall proclaim to be an isolated event. No, home alone. No, it doesn't say that. It says, Which you shall proclaim to be holy, that is set apart, sacred, very special to God, because only he can make something holy. Holy convocations. That's a fancy word for a convention. You know, in my career, I've attended maybe a hundred conventions. I never went to a convention where I was the only one there. I never went to a convention where everyone stayed in their hotel room alone for three days. Isn't it funny that every convention I ever went to, people gathered together to share experiences or to witness the same event? That's why I call it a convention.

He says, These are my feasts. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convention. So again, this mindset that somehow it's just me and God, and we're sitting here alone, and we're going to keep the Sabbath together.

Right? That mindset, that doesn't jive with what the Scriptures tell us. That's not an attitude of what the Scriptures tell us.

These are the feasts of the Lord. Holy convocations, which you shall proclaim at their appointed times. Isn't it interesting that God intended that his covenant people celebrate part of the Sabbath together as an extended family? Who says this? I don't say it. God says it. Who says it's a holy convention? I don't say it. God said it. So please don't shoot the messenger.

Yes, the Sabbath is one day from sunset to sunset. But you know what God is saying here?

He's saying, part of that day it was ordained by God with the expectation that fellow believers would gather in joy, that's why it's called a feast day, and publicly worship the Creator.

Now, I've been around a long time. I've been in God's church since I was 17, and I've heard it all.

Sometimes I've heard it all multiple times. Oh, Mr. Thomas, it's important that I get my nap in. Well, I like to spend the Sabbath with getting extra prayer in. I like to have extra Bible study.

I like to fast on part of the Sabbath. I like to visit my family members.

I like to go to the hospital, and I like to visit the sick, all of which are great, are fine, if that's what you choose to do.

But I would like you to consider the fact that if you spend five hours at church on the Sabbath, five whole hours, you have spent 20% of the Sabbath's time.

So you're going to have to work real hard to convince Mr. Thomas that you don't have that other 80% of the Sabbath time, of the time that's available on the Sabbath day, aside from those five hours, to take a nap, to get extra Bible study in, to get extra prayer in, to visit the family, to go to the hospital and visit someone who's ill, rather than it's a matter of what priorities are.

And our priorities tell others, and our priorities tell God what's really important to us in our lives.

The truth is that we have plenty of time, aside from the five hours that we spend at church, we have plenty of time to do all of those other things, don't we? Really.

Today I'd like to give quickly four reasons to celebrate the Sabbath with your spiritual family, because, again, the Sabbath is a holy convention. We're starting a new secular year. It's called 2017. We'll be writing it in our checks. We'll be writing it in emails and memos and everything that we send out beginning tomorrow. It's a new secular year.

And at a time when the world looks for resolutions, I think we should look at transformations.

I'm not interested in an upgrade in my life. I'm not interested in getting a little better. I'm interested in a transformation occurring in my life, a transformation from being less carnal to a new creature in Christ, fully developing the mind of Jesus Christ. So let's take a look at the four reasons to celebrate the Sabbath with your spiritual family, the best investments that you can make for yourself this year. Number one is to worship. The number one reason that we should keep the Sabbath as a holy convention is to celebrate and joyfully acknowledge God's presence in our lives and His sovereignty over the universe together as God's people.

Psalm 138, verse 1. Psalm 138, verse 1. If you'll turn there with me. Psalm 138, verse 1. I will praise you with my whole heart. Before the gods I will sing praises to you. I will worship toward your holy temple and praise your name for your loving kindness and your truth, for you have magnified your word above all your name. Here it is. Here's what helps us to understand who and what God is, what His value system is, what our life mission is, is right here in His word. And we come here every Sabbath to study this word and to learn from this word. He continues, he says, verse 3. In the day when I cried out, you answered me and made me bold with strength in my soul. All the kings of the earth shall praise you, O Lord, when they hear the words of your mouth. Yes, they shall sing of the ways of the Lord, for great is the glory of the Lord, though the Lord is on high, yet He regards the lowly, but the proud, He knows, from afar. In other words, God looks down on the humble, He knows them, they know Him, but the proud, the arrogant, God knows who they are, but they have no relationship with God. Their arrogance has built a wall, has cut them off from having a right kind of relationship with God. I want you to notice the passion and the enthusiasm that's mentioned here. Do we express that in the way that we worship God here?

You know, we have an opportunity to respond to our opening and our closing prayer. We happen to have a wonderful opening prayer today. Did you sense the passion in that opening prayer? Now it was done. Did we say, Amen? Or did we say, Amen? How did we respond to that?

When it comes time to sing one of the five hymns during services, do we look like statues with maybe our jaws moving? Do we look like constipated Anglo-Saxons when we sing? Or do we have a smile on our face? Are we radiating enthusiasm and joy in the way that we sing hymns to God? You see, those are opportunities for us to worship, to show passion in who and what we are. That's what the great psalmist is talking about here. Let's go to Luke 4 and verse 14. Luke 4 and verse 14. Let's see what Jesus Christ did on the Sabbath day. Let's see what it says He usually did.

As usual, or as one translation, a new century version, as He always did. Let's see what it is. Luke chapter 4 and verse 14. Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, ready to introduce His ministry. And the news of Him went out through all the surrounding region, and He taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all. So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, and as His custom was... I want to just stop right there, because the New Kingdom Dreams version, that's not a good word.

And that's why, in the translation, God's word for today says, as usual, He went to the synagogue. The New Century version says, as He always did, He went to the synagogue. You see, in English, in the 21st century, the word custom to us means something that you can just stop doing. You do it kind of out of habit. You don't do it because there's any authority behind it. You just kind of do it because you've always done it. But the word is far more powerful than this is what Jesus did.

As His custom was, He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day. You know what that is? That was a religious worship service. That's what they did at synagogues. The New Testament Church came out of the synagogue after a period of time, a few decades after Christ died. First, the church worshiped in the synagogues along with the Jews. As a matter of fact, some of our very titles, Deacon, the word Deacon comes from the synagogue.

Elder, the word Elder comes from the synagogue. After a while, we were shown the door at the synagogues because of our insistence on who Jesus Christ was. And the church, the New Testament Church, found it. But as we see here by the example of Jesus Christ, He went to the synagogue. He went to a place to publicly worship with others on the Sabbath day. And He stood up to read.

And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And He reads half of Isaiah's prophecy, and then He stops dead. Here's what He says. And when He had opened the book, a better word is the scroll, actually, He found a place where it was written, verse 18, He stops dead in mid-sentence in the prophecy of Isaiah. He stopped reading in the middle of Isaiah's prophecy, which, by the way, happened to be chapter 61, verse 2.

He stops in the middle of verse 2. Because at His first coming, He preached exactly what He said His role was here, the favorable year of the Lord and the things that He would do. But what He doesn't complete is the other half of verse 2, in chapter 61, which is the day of the vengeance of our God, because that's reserved for His second coming.

He was announcing, introducing His ministry, the ministry that He had during the first time that He walked on earth, Jesus being the God of the Old Testament, knew that His original intent was for all believers to assemble and worship as a spiritual family, the same God who said that these are my feast and that the Sabbath is a holy convention, when He later came to earth and walked as a human being, sure enough, went to the synagogue, as He usually did on the Sabbath day.

That shouldn't shock any of us, should it? Absolutely not. He wanted to set the right example for you to follow, for me to follow, as He did in all things in His life. That's number one, one of the four reasons to worship. Very important reason. And you know what? If you go to Sabbath services, and the sermonette's kind of flat, and the sermon is so bad that it stank in breadworms like old manna, if nothing else, you at least came to do the most important thing there is to do in the Sabbath, and that is to worship your Creator God, and to thank Him for all of the blessings and the wonderful gifts that you've been given in your life, including your calling.

So again, that's number one to worship. Number two, to be taught the Word of God. While we're in the book of Luke, let's go to chapter six. To be taught, or to learn, the Word of God. Jesus is going to set an example of teaching. To be honest with you, the synagogues were there to learn. As a matter of fact, for most synagogues, and there was no one law for all synagogues. Some synagogues allowed females, some synagogues did not allow females, some allowed Gentiles, some did not allow Gentiles. So there was no one, quote, you know, the rule book.

The Idiot's Guide to Synagogue Services. There was no rule book on what you do during synagogue service. But most of them had a period of time where after they opened up the scroll and they read... Remember now, we're talking about a time when most people were illiterate. We're talking about a time when even if you had a good job, you could not afford handwritten scrolls at home to read the Bible. So it was a big deal for you to go to the synagogue or later on the church of God and have someone open up that scroll to you and read to you from the prophet Isaiah like Jesus did in his synagogue at Nazareth.

That was exciting because you didn't get to do that all week. And then after they did that portion, the ruler, the elder, the synagogue would sometimes ask, is there anyone who would like to give a little mini sermon today? A little mini sermonette. Sometimes, as we'll see later on, if visitors came in, he'd ask the visitor if they'd like to speak.

So there was a little bit of preaching, extended discussion of the Bible in the synagogue service. That's how people learned. That's how they were taught about God's Word. All right, Luke 6, verse 6. Now, what happened on another Sabbath... Here he goes again. What is it with Jesus, the Sabbath in his synagogues? Huh? What happened on another Sabbath? Also, that he entered a synagogue and taught.

And a man was there whose right hand was withered, so the scribes and the Pharisees watched him closely, whether he would heal on the Sabbath that they might find an accusation against him. So Jesus was looking for the opportunity to teach others at this moment the right balance on the Sabbath. Can I take a minute and just tell you a life observation that I have? In our dining room is a grandfather clock, and it's got a big pendulum.

And the pendulum, if you've ever watched a pendulum swing, it's usually swinging to the right or to the left. And only momentarily is it ever in the center, which I liken to balance. As a matter of fact, the momentary period of a pendulum when it's in the center, it's usually in the process of swinging to the left dramatically or swinging to the right dramatically.

Have you ever considered that that's basically, as anything involved with human beings, whether it's our politics or our government or religious matters, how life usually is? It's usually the process of ideas and thoughts swinging from one end of the pendulum to the other. And I'll give you an example of this. Jewish culture, before they went into captivity, about 585 B.C., was very loose, very liberal.

We might call that the pendulum swinging to the left. They disobeyed God. They rejected the prophets. They didn't care about God. They worshipped idols. And the end result of that, of that pendulum swinging far to the left, is they went into captivity, didn't they? Well, when they were in captivity, they said, you know, this isn't fun. And eventually, when Cyrus decreed that some Jews could go back to the Jerusalem, they said, all right, we're going to go back to Jerusalem, and we're going to be sure that no one is ever allowed to sin so bad that we end up going in captivity again.

So we're going to create an oral law, and we're going to create all these rules and laws so that people can't sin, and so that we never go into captivity again. So that's exactly what happened. And by the time Jesus Christ was there, they had created man-made rules, like the oral law, that made God's law, including the Sabbath observance, a burden. You know what had happened? The pendulum had swung too far to the right. And Jesus was coming to provide balance, to pull that pendulum more towards the center, and he got a lot of resistance for that.

Verse 8. But he knew their thoughts, because they were judging him. How dare him heal on the Sabbath day? Just think how stupid this is. Even Jewish law said that if you had a donkey that stumbled into a ditch, on the Sabbath day, out of compassion and mercy, rather than having that animal moan and lay there in pain, all Sabbath, that you could pull that animal out of the ditch. You were allowed to do that in the Sabbath, because that was considered compassion towards the animal.

Yet, this man has an opportunity to be healed. He's been struggling with a withered hand his entire lifetime. He says, but he knew their thoughts, and said to the man who had withered hand, to rise and stand here. And he arose and stood, and Jesus said to them, I will ask you one thing, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good, or to do evil, to save life, or to destroy it?

Of course, they all know the answer. It's the right thing to do, and the Sabbath is good, and to save life. Because that's what mercy is. That's what compassion is. And when he looked around and saw them all, and he's not hearing too many answers from the peanut gallery at this point, he said to the man, stretch out your hand, and he did so, and his hand was restored as whole as the other, but they were filled with rage, disgust with one another, what they might do to Jesus.

So A, I want you to notice that Jesus Christ is once again attending synagogue service to worship publicly on the Sabbath day. He happens to think that 20% of the time in the Sabbath is a pretty good investment. Have you ever heard of the Pareto Principle called the 80-20 Rule? That principle says that 80% of what you achieve in life is a result of 20% of your efforts. Well, I'm here to tell you that on the Sabbath day, that 20% of your efforts, that is coming the Sabbath service, is making that effort and being near that 20% of your efforts will be the greatest investment you can make in that day. And yes, if you want to take a nap, if you want to visit family members, if you want to visit someone who's sick, if you want extra Bible study and if you want extra prayer in, you can do that too, because there's time to do those things.

So again, I want you to notice how Jesus desired the culture of the synagogue to be one of teaching and learning. He gave them what we might call a learning moment. They didn't go over too well, but he gave them a learning moment here. Many of the synagogue, as I mentioned earlier, had a time allowed for respected individuals to read and to expound from the Scriptures. All right, let's now go to the book of Acts. Take a look at the book of Acts.

Let's see what it says here about the early church, the day of Pentecost. See what they did. Chapter 2 in verse 41 says, "...then those who gladly received his word were baptized," speaking of Peter's famous sermon, "...and that day about three thousand souls were added to them, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine." So what are they doing? They're learning. They're continuing to reinforce what Jesus Christ taught his apostles, that the apostles were teaching them. So they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and in fellowship and in the breaking of bread, which means sharing a meal together, and in prayers.

Then fear, and again another poor translation from the New King James, God has not given us the spirit of fear. A better translation is awe, deep reverence and respect for God and what he was doing among them. "...then awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles." I want you to notice how the early church was a learning and sharing environment. The apostles continued to teach the same doctrines as taught by Jesus Christ. They reinforced them in their sermons, in their messages. That's learning. That's hearing. That's teaching.

And they were excited. They were in awe to learn more about God. How about us, brethren? How about us? I want you to notice that they're spending time with one another beyond worship and teaching.

They're having fellowship. It says they're breaking bread. They're sharing meals together, just like we attempt virtually every Sabbath. They have a little something in there to snack on so that it enhances our fellowship and it enhances our ability to spend some extra time with one another. We call that fellowship. And we'll emphasize that more in the next point. Let's now go to 2 Timothy 3 and verse 14. 2 Timothy 3 and verse 14. What Paul says here should be the heart and core of any Sabbath worship service.

And that is that the heart and core should be from the Word of God. There should be Scriptures. There should be explanation of Scriptures. There should be the reading of God's Word publicly for us to all study and read together. 2 Timothy 3 and verse 14. Paul is writing to a young evangelist named Timothy who was going through some personal challenges at this point in his life. I won't go into what they were because that would take me off of context.

But he's trying to encourage him. He's trying to stir up this young man who's struggling with some problems. And he says this, but you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them. He learned them through Paul, but Paul ultimately was teaching God's Word. Verse 15. And that from childhood you have known the holy Scriptures which were able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

Timothy went to church as a young child because his mom took him. His dad was a Gentile unbeliever. His mom took him. His grandma took him to church. And that's why he was in the position that he is today because he had the opportunity to learn God's way of life. Verse 16. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine. So why do we come here? What do we learn when we come to a Sabbath service?

We certainly come to worship. So when we come to learn, when we come to be taught, and let me assure you that I learned from all of you, and I learned things from you, brethren, all the time. Things that you say, sometimes things that you do, but I am constantly learning from your example and from the things that you say and do.

So we're all learning. This is a learning environment, a teaching environment, for each and every one of us. And why do we do it? What do we learn? Well, let's see here. It says, All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine. We reinforce doctrine. We talk about why we don't observe Christmas, as we have pretty thoroughly the last month. We talk about why we keep the Holy Days, as each Holy Day comes upon us, and why they're important. We talk about why we keep the Ten Commandments, right? Why we do certain things that are part of God's value system, why we don't do other things that are a rejection of God's laws.

So that's part of what we do. For reproof. You know, if this is truth and it's valid, I should not fear to examine it over and over again. I should not fear to reprove it. Because if it's truth, it stands on its own. No matter how many times we examine it and look at it, if it's truth, it's truth. So we don't need to just cover it once and say, All right, we talked about the Ten Commandments once. Now we can get that off our calendar for the next five years.

No, we don't do that. We reproof things over and over again. Repetition is actually the key to learning. When you were a young child, they taught you to alphabet. The teacher didn't say, All right, I'm going to show you once and only once. This is the letter A. Got it? Okay, good. Now B looks like no. That's not the way that we learned the alphabet. That teacher had us obnoxiously writing A, A, A, A, probably a hundred times in two or three pieces of paper until, you know what, we knew how to write the letter.

We dreamed about the letter A. We cried thinking about the letter A. Because that's what repetition is all about. That's how we learn. For correction, sometimes it falls upon the role of the pastor to give a sermon that is corrective, that maybe challenges us a little bit.

My daughter, Kelly, told me many years ago, she said, Dad, when you preach, if you don't upset at least one person, you're not doing your job. But part of the reason we come here to learn and be taught is the correctness of error. If our personal life, that pendulum, is swinging too far to the left or swinging too far to the right, we need someone to pull us back into the fold. Someone to give us a little bit of correction, a swift boot. We know where, sometimes.

For instruction in righteousness to know how to be righteous, to know the right way to live. We call those Christian living sermons and messages. In instruction is righteousness, is how we can develop more of the mind of Christ and live a life that is pleasing to God and conforms to who and what God's value system is. And why do we do all these things? Why is that part of our worship service? That the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. So the hard and core of Sabbath worship instruction should be from this, should be from the Word of God.

It shouldn't be. I see some of these televangelists on TV, and some of them are very gifted and charismatic. But most of them get up there and talk at you for 30 minutes and maybe refer to a couple of stryphs. Sometimes they do it so seldom, they actually put the Scripture on the TV screen because the televangelist blows through that verse so quickly and builds 20 minutes of discussion about one verse.

Rather than digging into what the Word of God tells us. So we want to make sure that the hard and core of our services is on this book and what this book says. This is our teacher's manual given to us by the Master Teacher. We could also say, this is our owner's manual. Your automobile came with an owner's manual so you could get the most out of your car, maintain it, and get the best value out of your car.

This is our owner's manual so we can get the best value out of our lives. The owner, our creator, gave us his book for our growth and our benefit. So again, our services should be centered on Biblical teachings, not opinions, preferences, agendas, or the doctrines of men. Number three, the third reason is to fellowship, and that is so very important. Hebrews chapter 10, if you'll turn there with me, Hebrews chapter 10.

The author of Hebrews, which most likely was Paul, I believe, says this, says this, Are we coming here each and every Sabbath? Are we holding fast the confession of our faith? Are we beginning to waver? Oh, I don't think I'm going to go to services today. Wow, I've got an illness. Look at that hangnail. Yeah, I better not go to church. Oh, I'm tired. Well, you know, after services you can go home and take a nap. You can use that other 80% of your Sabbath day to take a nap if you're that tired. So are we holding fast to the confession of our hope without waver, without looking for excuses, without creating excuses in our minds why we're not doing what we should do? Verse 25, So as time goes by, and we know that the return of Jesus Christ is closer, our passion and our enthusiasm to attend Sabbath services should increase, not waver, not decrease. It says to stir up—one of the reasons, he says, that Sabbath services should occur is to stir up love and good works. You know, in order for me as a member of this congregation to do that for you, you know, I have to be here. If I'm at home, I cannot stir up good works for you. I can't stir love. I can't encourage you. I can't inspire you. I can't motivate you if I'm not here. And you can't do that for me if you're not here. You have to be here to do that for others. We gather together each Sabbath to inspire, to encourage, to motivate one another. This is part of the brotherly love that we show for one another. And we can't do it if we're not here. I'm going to read verse 24 from the translation of God's Word for today. We must also consider how to encourage each other to show love and do good things. And I want you to understand that this is not an attempt by Mr. Thomas to make you feel guilty to come to Sabbath services. If you think that you do not know Greg Thomas well, I don't deal on guilt. If anyone of us has to be guilty to doing anything in life, we're doing it against our will. Even if we do it, it's not going to benefit us. We have to make a voluntary choice that God has called me. One of God's commands are to come and worship Him. I love God, and I'm going to go to Sabbath services with a joyful heart, and I'm going to worship and praise God and be part of His congregation. That all has to be done voluntarily. I don't do any of this. I don't say any of these things in order to guilt anyone. Because, again, if you do anything in life out of guilt, it does you no benefit whatsoever. Let's go to Romans 12 and verse 9.

Paul writes to the Roman congregation, Imagine how hard it would have been being a Christian congregation in the seat, the capital of the pagan Roman Empire. He says, Would love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good? Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor of giving preference to one another, not lagging in diligence. Are we diligent enough to get to Sabbath services consistently? Not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit. We fervent about coming here and worshiping God and fellowshipping with our brothers and sisters, who we, in many cases, haven't seen all week.

Serving the Lord, do we realize that when you serve someone else, you're serving God? Jesus said, when you do something to the least of one of these, you've done it to me. So when you show a random act of kindness to someone sitting out here today, you've done that to Jesus Christ himself. That's his perspective. That's what he thinks about it. We call that serving the Lord. Rejoicing in hope. I can't give you hope if I'm not here.

You can't give me hope. You can't encourage and strengthen me if you're not here or the person sitting next to you. Patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints. You've got to be there to do that. Given to hospitality. Again, I just want to emphasize that we have to be present, and we have to be active in the congregation to be able to do these things that Paul says that we should do. And that is, of course, I want to emphasize again, being kind, being affectionate to one another.

That's what he calls that brotherly love. That's his definition of it. Giving preference to one another will have no conflicts if you give respect and dignity and esteem to everyone in this building. There won't be any conflicts. Conflicts only occur when someone thinks they're smarter than another person, someone thinks they're superior to another person. That's when conflicts begin to appear in a congregation, or in our culture, in society, for that matter. When you mutually esteem one another and respect one another and have affection for one another, you're not going to have any personal conflict.

Let's take a look now at number four. The fourth reason to celebrate the Sabbath with your spiritual family is to come to an environment that provides order and harmony and structure. Order, harmony, and structure. Let's take a look at what happens when the pendulum swings too far to the left.

We'll go to 1 Corinthians chapter 14. We'll just have one example from this. 1 Corinthians chapter 14 and verse 23. Paul understood the importance of Sabbath services being balanced. He knew that pendulum swings to the left, it swings to the right. It's rarely in the middle.

And he knew the importance of services being orderly in a place, an environment of peace and love. And when we walk through one of the doors in this building, this should be our sanctuary. It should be the one place that we come from a chaotic world in which we're usually running around helter-skelter in our careers and in all the demands put upon us all week.

It should be the one safe zone that we come in that provides security and stability and order. And there was a problem in Corinth because, frankly, Sabbath services had become a free-for-all. And he's going to give an example of that. 1 Corinthians chapter 14 and verse 23. He says, And it kind of maybe sounds a little bit related to Slovak in some way. But this person can't understand what Bob Boyner or what Mr.

Housen is saying. He comes up here and Mr. Thomas is preaching in Welsh. What's that person going to think? The person's going to think, these people are weird. Yes, there's a spirit that resides in here, but it's not this kind of spirit I was looking for. I don't know if you've ever seen... It's to me, I find it kind of frightening. If you've ever seen a YouTube video of a religious practice from snake handlers in Appalachia, it's a scary environment.

You've got people jumping around. They look like they're on electric pogo sticks. I don't even know how a normal human being does some of those actions. Then they take the little box out and it's a big thrill passing around this rattlesnake to people in the congregation who are kissing it on its little lips and doing all kinds of things. All the time, uttering some type of gibberish that is unintelligible to any human language, hopping up and down like a pogo stick.

Now, the feeling I get from that, I watch that, and I say that's creepy, is what Paul was saying is happening in Corinth when a visitor shows up and you've got all these isolated people doing their own thing and speaking in their own languages.

But he says, here's a contrast. He says in verse 24, But if all, instead of that, if all in the service is prophecy, now what he means by prophecy is not simply foretelling the future. That's part of prophecy. But in the New Testament, prophecy is considered an inspirational statement from God. It's not limited to just saying something is going to happen in advance of it. It's an inspired preaching from God. And Paul is saying, but if someone walks in and instead of everyone speaking in tongues, people have inspired preaching.

He continues, and an unbeliever, an uninformed person comes. He is convinced by all. He is convicted by all. He says, that's inspiring. That message is motivating. I want to take action on that. I've been convicted. It makes logical sense. It's from the Word of God. It is obviously true. I want to do something about it. He says, he is convicted by all. He is convinced by all. And thus, the secrets of his heart are revealed, and so falling down on his face, repenting, being humbled by the awe that he's seen in that room, falling down on his face, he will worship God and report that God is truly among you.

So Paul says, so instead of emphasizing all these speaking in tongues, which comes across to a visitor as a bunch of mad people, if you have a service in which you have biblically oriented, God-inspired messages for people, then they'll be convicted. Then they'll catch the spirit, the right kind of positive spirit. Then they'll understand and be inspired and want to take action in their lives. He says in verse 26, how is it then, brethren, whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm.

Some guy shows up, yeah, I want to read my favorite psalm today. One has a teaching. I'm going to give you the new doctrine of the week. One has a tongue. I'm going to give you some language, and I'll bet no one here can interpret what I'm saying, because only I'm special enough to know what it really means. And someone has a revelation. I had a dream.

I had a vision. Let me tell everybody about it. One has an interpretation. Paul says, this is a circus. This isn't a church environment. This isn't stability. Let all things be done for edification. He says it's not about you. It's not about shining a light on yourself. I have a revelation. I have a psalm. I have a dream. I have this. He says the idea is to build up everyone, to edify the flock, not for people to put a spotlight on themselves.

What's Paul saying here in a nutshell? He's saying, Sabbath services should not be a free-for-all. It should not be a three-ring circus. It should be a structured environment of respect, respect towards God in the way that we worship. And dignity. It should have an order about it. It should have an emphasis on God. It should be centered about who and what He is. On edifying the entire congregation, not highlighting individual contributions. And again, why is this so important?

Because for many of us, the one sanctuary we have all week, being as harassed and busy and so on that we are, the one place that we should be able to come to and not hear debate and not hear contention and not have people trying to push their own agenda, that one place should be here in God's church on the Sabbath day. And it should be reflected that stability and structure and organization should be reflected in our Sabbath worship practices and our fellowship. And dropping down to verse 40, he says again, let all things be done decently and in order. And that's important. So, brethren, in a confusing, ungodly world that is in a free fall from God's grace, how can we be immune to the negative influences of this world during 2017?

If we want to get out of being pulled in the Satan's world, what is the one thing that we can do that will force us, at least one day a week, to say, you know what? Yeah, you know, I haven't been getting prayer in like I should.

Maybe I haven't been studying the Bible like I should. I didn't even talk to any members this week, and one of them is my wife. Whatever your situation may be, the one thing that you can do to reboot is to start that ignition, get in that car, and come to church on God's holy Sabbath day.

You know, prayer every day is very important, but it's not one of the Ten Commandments. Bible study every day is very, very important, and what a gift we have to live in this age where we have 5,000 translations to choose from. But it's not one of the Ten Commandments.

The reboot that we can make each and every week, if we're going astray, no matter what's been going on, to get that pendulum back to the center is to turn the key to that ignition. Put that thing in drive and get to church, and come and worship with people like mine, and celebrate God's Sabbath with them. We can together do God's will, and we indeed can and will come together each and every Sabbath day to worship, to learn, to be taught, to fellowship with one another, and to experience an environment of peace and order and harmony. Have a great Sabbath day.