'The Fixer of the World'

Good morning. Thank you for that special music and for the tremendous blessing. We've had this feast to have this type of special music here with us. I've been sitting on my hands every single day. I don't know about the rest of you guys not to applaud.

It's just been fantastic and the choir and everything has just been great. So I really appreciate that. When my brother-in-law, Glenn, married into our family, I was just an eight-year-old little guy. Our family of six, I have three other siblings, my mom and dad, grew to seven. And since then, our family has grown to 36. So you can see how one adds to two and then you marry more and then you get nephews and nieces and great nephews and nieces, and it's been a tremendous blessing.

And Glenn was a fixer of things. He had a joy, an insight, a talent to fix a lot of variety of things around the house. Cars, as you can see, this is not his exact car, but it's the closest that my little eight-year-old mind could come up with. It is a 66 Mercury Comet. Anybody else have a Mercury Comet? There's one hand, there's a couple hands. So it was the coolest car I'd ever seen at eight years old, right?

And this cool guy was starting to come into our family. I wasn't super thrilled, though, because up to this point, my sister was my second mom. She was 11 years older than me. She took me to my first amusement park. We went to Kings Island. I rode the backwards racer. I had a poncho on, because it was raining and it kept going over my head. Rhonda kept pulling it back. She'd take me to the mall with her, and this new guy was coming into our life that was causing me some heartache.

There were stories of me squeezing myself between them on the couch when he would come over, and I'd put my arm around Rhonda just to let him know where his place was in our family. But Glenn had this tremendous gift and this tremendous talent. He had worked on this car. He had replaced the engine.

He knew how to do things, and he had a joy for fixing things. My dad had never really learned how to do any type of car repairs, and it's not his fault. It's just if you've never been taught, you just don't know how, right? One day Glenn was over at our house. I don't remember this story, but I've heard it shared with me. I don't remember if I was there or not. But my dad was sharing the news.

He was letting everybody know he was going to be taking his car into the shop to get an oil change, or take it into a mechanic to get an oil change. And for the story, Glenn's mouth almost hit the floor because he was thinking, who doesn't change their own oil? That's one of the simplest, easiest things to do in a car. But I was asking my dad here at the feast, I was just making sure I had the story straight, and he goes, yeah, I always took our cars into the mechanic for everything, even oil changes.

He goes, my dad did that when I was growing up, and so that's what I did as well. And one day I remember looking outside the window, and dad and Glenn are outside underneath the car. I remember it because I'd never seen something like that in my life, seeing my dad underneath the car.

And I don't remember exactly what they were fixing. Dad didn't remember either. But it was probably showing him how to change the oil. And as the years went on, Glenn would show my dad other things to do around the house, the other things that he could fix on his own without having to pay someone to come in. And in time, Glenn showed my older brother, Dwayne, how to fix some things on his cars and things.

And in time, he taught me how to fix things in my car as well. I've spent my fair share of time under a car and under a hood and under a car with Glenn. Having someone who can fix things in your life is a tremendous blessing. The amount of money that you can save, the skills you can learn, the things you can apply as you go on with your life and as you have your own family, the things that you can pass on to others.

You can save a lot of money and just give somebody else encouragement that they can take on some of these tasks that maybe others just don't know how to do, right? And it's not anybody's fault, again, that they don't know how. Often, we're just never had an opportunity to learn, to never see.

Glenn could also fix furnaces. I've been there and saw him do that. He replaced one of my water heaters in our house in Cincinnati before we moved to Michigan, so now I've started to learn some of these things as well. He even showed me one time underneath a car how to change the fuel pump. That GM decided the best location was to place it inside the fuel tank. So how do you replace a fuel pump in a fuel tank?

You've got to take the fuel tank off the car, right? That's pretty crazy, and I didn't realize how much fuel weighs, right? How much gas weighs until you try to take the fuel tank off of a car. And thankfully, Glenn was there, right? Because I would have just started undoing bolts, and you guys all know what would have happened then. Glenn put a jack underneath the fuel tank so that it would bear the weight of that fuel tank. He undid the bolts. We lowered it down. He let me drag it across the garage floor, which I'm thinking if something sparks, I'm going to trust him on this one.

Pull out the fuel tank, and then you have access to the fuel pump, and you can take it out, put the new one in, slide it back underneath, jack it back up, and the car is running again. What a blessing to have in our lives, people who can fix things, right? It's at this time of the year that we come together, starting with the Feast of Trumpets, and a lot of our emphasis and a lot of our focus is on the things in this world that need to be fixed.

We consider and think about the problems that we see in our communities. We think about and see the problems sometimes we even have in our families and in our church congregations. And it's at this time of the year that we reflect on the fixer of the world who is going to come in and lead with a powerful hand and transform this world. It's an amazing time of the year that we're in as we again come here and know that we're celebrating a future time when the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords will return to this earth and establish His kingdom over the world.

He will come with power and might and make sure everyone knows that any effort to battle back against Him will fail. And yet, He will also come and bring with Him a rule of justice and equity this world has never experienced. He will bring balance back into the lives of man and show that there is a right way to live among men and a right way to live with their God. And unlike us and our Fix-It projects today, as Christ begins to fix the world, His solutions will work flawlessly.

I can't help but remember a time that my older brother, Dwayne, was changing the oil on his car in the driveway again. One of those days that he was trying – I don't know how many times he had done it before, but he's eight years older than me. He was changing the oil. And, you know, when you take off the fuel filter, anybody who's done that, there's that gasket that sits on top of the filter. Anyone ever have that gasket get stuck to the engine block? I see some heads nodding. Well, Dwayne did. He never had that happen before and didn't know there was something to look for. So he went ahead and took the new filter that has its gasket on it as well, put it on, screwed it on, replaced the oil, and he thought he had it all set, starts the car, and those two seals did not seal right.

And he drained five quarts of oil out of brand-new oil into our driveway. Anybody else ever done something? Maybe I see a little hit. Yeah, these things happen, right? Unless you realize the risk and the know, like, you got to make sure that gasket is not stuck to the filter. You just don't know what you don't know. But because of what I saw happen with Dwayne, there's not an oil change that goes by that I do, that I don't reach up, touch the engine block, make sure there's no gasket there.

Often, I'll look at the old filter, make sure it's still there. It's those lessons that we learn as we go through. And so even as we sometimes try to fix these items in our lives, our Fix-It projects fail. Our Fix-It projects are not permanent. Christ's solutions will work flawlessly again. He won't forget the importance of checking the gasket from the old filter to make sure it doesn't get stuck on the engine block. He will bring with him solutions that will work for society and the world, and he will show the world the solution to their problems.

Our Lord and Savior will be the fixer of the world. So today, during this Feast of Tabernacles, as we finish up on the seventh day, we will look at and consider the fixer of the world. I put in my notes, you can put in the subtitle, Mr. Fix-It. I like that. All we have to do as we go forward from here and as we've come together, all we have to do is just pick our preferred method of getting today's news, and we begin to down the path of hearing story after story of things that need to be fixed around us.

It's literally story after story. How many times do they have that good news article in the news? It's rare, right? Most of it is this war, that war, this problem, that problem, this corruption, this injustice, this theft, this murder. It's thing after thing, story after story, where greed exists, or where crime is happening, or corruption is uncovered. And then for me, I get to the sports section and I'm like, great, there has to be good news in the sports, right? Because hopefully my hometown has won. And then I turn it on and realize, nope, they lost again. Are they ever going to fix this team so they can win a national championship?

I'm still waiting for my Cincinnati Bengals to win the national championship. And this year has not got started off on a good foot.

But as we explore the news, as we read articles, social media feeds, watch the evening news, we can become so overwhelmed with all the things that need to be fixed that it could cause us to want to run away and hide, right? I've thought about, like, could I go to eastern Washington, or Idaho, or Montana, and find a place to live off of a dusty old road, get some acreage for myself, live off the land, escape the world's problems, right? But then there'd be broken things I'd still have to fix. The broken water pump, right? The broken axe handle. The broken animal harness, all right? You got a harness and they chew through a harness? Our dog does that. She loves to chew through her harness and thinks she's free for about five minutes.

You got a broken window in the house?

Or maybe you step into your bathroom or into your bedroom and you stare into, stare at yourself into a broken mirror because, of course, the mirror has to be broken too, right?

And then you look back at the image of who, what? A broken human being, right? A broken person who has challenges, who has weaknesses, who can't seem to figure out how to fix their life either.

There is no way to escape the brokenness that we have around us in society.

There's no way to escape the brokenness that we have in ourselves.

There's just no way to escape the fact that we live in a broken world that on just about every level needs to be fixed. And we come again together this special week of the year, recognizing that we look forward to the day when the fixer of the world will return to this earth and bring with him the healing that is so desperately needed. There's just so much that needs to be fixed. Marriage problems, family issues, an unjust system of rules and regulations that benefit the rich but keep their thumb on the poor. Health issues from bad food and pollution in our environment. And again, this just scratches the surface of all the things that need to be fixed.

And because of the pains that many experience, some have turned to and found solace in things that are not healthy alternatives to ease their pain and their hurt. Often people will turn to drugs, alcohol, relationships, shopping, eating, fill in the blank, hoping that these things will fix their problem or their pain, but these things never ever fix an underlying problem. Again, these are the things that upon Jesus's return he will begin to fix in the lives of humanity. And we're not the only ones who have eyes to see the problems that exist around us. Many others have tried to fix the problems we have just listed, but so many of mankind's fixes, we got to put in quotes, right, are short-sighted, and others are made out of greed or selfish motivation. You heard this one? We're going to fix the economy. We're going to fix healthcare. And if you're from Michigan, we're going to fix the roads. I'm not joking. These roads in Michigan, if anybody has driven through Michigan, at the Ohio-Indiana border, there's a climate change that happened, or the Ohio-Michigan border, there's something right along that line that just changes the way the roads fall apart in Michigan.

I don't know what it is. Our governor actually ran on this platform. This was a major component. This is how bad our roads are. This was a major component of her that she ran on when she ran for governor. You know what? They're still not fixed. But as mankind tries to fix these global issues, these huge pie-in-the-sky, these grand problems that we have around us, how often is the overall cause of the problem addressed? How often is the solution put in place that benefits a specific group only to disenfranchise another group of people?

Proverbs 14 verse 12 says, there's a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. Mankind, we have the solutions and the answers to all of our problems, don't we?

No, we don't. We try. We think through things. We think we can wrap this up, put a bow on it, and this will fix the problem, but we continue to fall short.

Often our fixes are incomplete. It's like putting a band-aid on an open wound.

Just not enough. It's not complete. Prior to Adam and Eve being created, though, God created a plan that would take care of any of the problems that would arise in the world around us.

Let's open our Bibles to 1 Peter 1 and verse 18.

1 Peter 1 1 verse 18 Peter shares, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver and gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ. As a lamb without blemish and without spot, verse 20, he indeed was foreordained before the foundations of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.

God knew that creating mankind with the ability to think for ourselves would create a situation where we would need to be fixed and saved. God gave us free moral agency. But the question for us today, what have we done with that moral agency? What have we done with it? All we have to do is look outside these walls and to see what we've done, what mankind has done with this free moral agency that God gave us. Thus, he knew we would need a Savior. The Scripture, everyone did what was right in their own eyes. I couldn't help but think of that as I was preparing this sermon, because that's another one of those passages we see. That's what we see around us today, that everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes. In the future, all will have access to God and to learn His ways. All will have the opportunity to be healed and to be set free, to have their eyes open, to the only source of truth, to understand their value individually before their God. Turn with me to Isaiah 58 in verse 1. We're going to spend a lot of time for the remainder of the sermon here in a few chapters of Isaiah 58. We often turn, and we have so far this feast, turn to Isaiah, to the book of Isaiah, to review a lot of prophecy, a lot of the future good news that Christ not only spoke of, but that we have recorded for us to give us encouragement and hope for the future that God is planning to bring and will bring to this earth. And here in Isaiah 58 in verse 1, I'd like to focus on maybe these next few chapters a little bit. Verse 1, he says, cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, make noise, announce what's happening. Tell my people their transgression in the house of Jacob their sins. The Lord was telling Isaiah to let them know that they're not doing everything they're supposed to be doing. Isaiah often directed his message towards Judah and to Jerusalem, because they were not fulfilling the expectation that God had for his people. The next few verses, which we'll skip, but I'll paraphrase, they were acting like they were doing the right thing. They were acting pious. They were acting humble. They were acting like they were praising their God. They were acting like they were fasting for the right reasons, but they weren't. There were problems with the way that they were worshiping their God, and there were major problems in the way that they were following their God. But then God says in verse 6, is this not the fast that I have chosen, because their fasting was incomplete? He says, this is the fast that he has chosen, to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor, who are cast out when you see the naked, that you cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh? Then your light shall break forth like the morning, your healing shall spread forth speedily, and your righteousness shall go before you. The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer you, and he will say, here I am.

And notice what he says in these next. Notice these action statements here. So we just went through it, and we see that this is how God says, if you'll do these things, if you'll let people go free, if you'll give them a break, if you'll lift this burden off of them, and these are instructions for us among ourselves, and to be lights of the community around us. Notice what he says here again in the middle, verse 9. If you take away the yoke from your myths, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of wickedness, if you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noon day.

In these last couple verses, he said the phrase, if you, is used a few times, and the phrase, is this, or is it not, used a few more times. God is saying, if people would only act differently, then the blessings would come to them personally, and to everyone else around them as well.

When we look around the group that we're part of here today, we're just a small handful of the people that are in our communities, aren't we? When we consider the people who we fellowship with on the Sabbath and keep the Holy Days, the people we keep our potlucks with, and that we cherish our time together with, we're just a fraction of society. But I'm sure if we left this room and we talked to some people about what God would give them if they would change their ways, the doors God would open if they could see the error in their path, I think many would be receptive to the passage that we just read. They would like to be free from the oppression. They would like the injustice to go away. They would like there to be peace in their homes. They would like there to be peace in their country and in their world.

I think they would be receptive to God's Word, but I think the question they would have and the part that they're unable to answer for themselves today and therefore often stop looking is, how do we do these things? How do I fix myself? How can I fix the world effectively? And God's response would be to them and someday in a way that they'll be able to grasp and understand, hang on and I'll show you. Can you wait for that day? The day that God will tell everybody who is struggling, who has been stuck, who has been downcast, been oppressed. I'll show you a way out. I'll show you a better way. Why? Because He is the fixer. Let's continue in Isaiah 59 and verse 1.

And notice how God is described here. Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor is His ear heavy that it cannot hear. This is one of my... I love the imagery used here in this passage because we can visualize somebody who can't do something with their hands. They don't have long enough arms to reach a spark plug on the back side of a six-cylinder engine. That's me.

I've gotten my hands stuck in an engine a couple times, and thankful being able to wiggle myself back out. Because why? My arm's too short. I needed somebody with longer arms that could reach. God is saying that He will not be limited with short arms and unable to fix the world.

I often think when I read this, I think of the little kid that we've all had in our homes or we've had in our congregations. Maybe you've been out at someone's house or you've been out of park and there's a slope and the little kid starts running down the hill and your eyes get big because we know what's about to happen. Their little legs are not going to be able to keep moving as fast enough. And so some of us try to go catch them. We reach out and we just barely miss from catching them. And they fall and they get skinned hands and skinned knees and the tears come.

Our hand was shortened. We couldn't just save that little life, that little legs just couldn't keep up.

God's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, nor is his ear heavy that it cannot hear.

But notice, your iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear.

And as we continue reading verse 3, consider if these scriptures describe a lot of what we see around us in society today. Verse 3, for your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perversities. No one calls for justice, nor does any plead for the truth. They trust in empty words and they speak lies. They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity. Verse 7, their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Wasting and destruction are in their path. The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their ways.

They have made themselves crooked paths. Whoever takes that way shall not know peace.

Therefore, justice is far from us, nor does righteousness overtake us. We look for light, but there is darkness. For brightness, but we walk in blackness. We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we have no eyes. We stumble at noonday, as at twilight, and we are as dead men in desolate places. We all growl like bears and moan sadly like doves. We look for justice, but there is none. For salvation, but it's far from us. For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us. For our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them. In transgressing and lying against the Lord and departing from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart, words of falsehood.

Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands afar off. For truth is fallen in the streets, and equity cannot enter. So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.

Did God look into the future and see our society today? He knows mankind's path. He knows our waking and our sleeping. He knows when we get up in the morning, when we put our head on a pillow. He knows the way that evil has been part of our society and part of mankind's history. And he knows we often beat to the beat of our own drums, seeking after our pleasure, after our pride, after our greed, selfishness. We could go on and on with all the adjectives. He knows us so well. And to read through this passage and to consider where we're at today as a society, we could plug this in. I could go out on the street corner and start reading the same passage that we just read, and they were like, did you watch the evening news tonight? Is that where you got all of that information from?

This is just one of those many lists and scriptures that details the issues that have always existed in the hearts of mankind and which all need to be fixed.

And as we continue reading here in Isaiah 59, we see that God will become the fixer.

God will become the fixer. Same verse, Isaiah 59, verse 15, but let's pick up in the second half of the verse. Then the Lord saw it. He saw everything. He saw it all. He saw everything broken. And it displeased him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man and wandered. That word wandered can mean appalled or to be stunned. God wondered that there was no intercessor. He was stunned that there was nobody who could fix this or push back. Therefore, his own arm, God's own arm, brought salvation for him and his own righteousness. It sustained him. For he put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head, and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing and was clad with a zeal as a cloak, symbolically putting on the armor of God that Paul speaks of in Ephesians chapter 6. And this brings us back again to the symbolism of this feast of trumpets that we observed two weeks ago. Jesus Christ is prophesied to return to this earth again, and yet this time rule with a mighty hand. Continuing in Isaiah 59 verse 18, according to their deeds, accordingly he will repay fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies, the coastlands he will fully repay. So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up the standard against him. We know that the nations are not going to be pleased when our Lord and Savior returns. They're going to battle. They're going to fight back. They're not going to want to just submit themselves to their new king. Verse 20, the Redeemer will come to Zion, and those who turn from transgressions in Jacob says the Lord. As for me says the Lord, this is my covenant with them, my spirit that is upon you, and my words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants says the Lord from this time and forevermore. That sounds like a fix to me. That sounds like a fix that is so desperately needed that if we walked out these doors again and we started talking to our communities about these issues that are going on, the problems that we have around us, they'd say, I want a fix. I just don't know how. Christ is going to return with His authority and His power and His might, and He will become the fixer of the world. The next passage we'll read is one also read by Jesus Christ in Luke chapter 4, but here in Isaiah 61 and verse 1, Christ said that these words were being fulfilled as they were hearing them share these words in the synagogue, but this is where He read it from. Isaiah 61 and verse 1, the Spirit of the Lord, God, is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor.

He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives in the opening of the prisons to those who are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord in the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.

This is why Jesus came into the world and brought with Him the gospel, the good news of the coming kingdom of God. He came to bring hope and healing to mankind that the world would receive through a Savior. And if you remember anything from today's message, I encourage everyone to remember this, because I get it. There's been weeks that's gone by. I gave the sermon a week ago, and I can't remember what my own subject was, so I get it if you don't remember all the aspects of the sermon, but if you don't remember anything else, please, I invite you to remember this. Right now, today, you are being invited to assist in fixing the world.

Every one of you, from the little kids on a blanket, to our most senior of seniors, you are being and have been invited to help fix the world.

Anybody excited about that? I am. We have been blessed this feast with tremendous sermons that have kind of built one on top of the other. They've been very practical messages. Every year, we get together as speakers for the feast site, and we kind of go over our messages prior to the site, just to make sure we're kind of iron sharpening iron with one another, and also to see if like two people are speaking on the exact same topic. But one of the things, like midway through, I started getting excited for this feast because I started picking up that there was a theme coming through in the messages that were being that God had inspired all these individual men spread out through the United States to start working on. It seemed very practical to me. Very, like we can go home, we can start applying it right now today, we can take it with us back home, we can tell our brothers and sisters about some of these aspects that really touched us. And these messages have, like, I've been scared every single day this feast because I know I speak on Friday, and I was praying over this message, and I'm like, the speaker starts to go down a path, and I'm like, no, no, no, stop! That's my message on Friday! And then they would veer off a little bit, and I'm like, whoof!

Mr. Kinsell really scared me yesterday because I'm thinking if he, if I have to come up with a new message now, I've got less than 24 hours. I mean, God performs miracles, He can make it happen. But that's the beauty that I've seen in this feast this year, and I'm so encouraged by that these messages have been practical about how we have the opportunity now to be learning how we can grow and understand more about ourselves, overcome with God's help the issues that we're still battling, to grow in how what it means to be a priest and a king, how to serve with a basin and a towel, so that we can help Christ fix this world.

Obviously, we recognize that you and I can't fix the problems we see around us today, right now, in at least any real meaningful, any real or meaningful way. But rather, God has invited us to begin His training program to teach us, to lead us, to give us the tools that someday we'll be able to use as we join Him in fixing the world's problem.

When my brother-in-law, Glenn, came into our family, we weren't a family a fixer of things.

Couldn't fix our car, couldn't do an oil change. But every single one of us now know how to do these things. We now know how to fix different elements of our house. Am I a pro? Nope. I know just enough to get me in trouble quite a few times. But I can now do a lot of things that I could have never envisioned ever doing prior to in my life.

Because somebody came alongside, gave me the tools, gave me the encouragement, said, you've got this.

If you mess it up, it's okay in this present physical world, right? Because you can usually fix it again. But what we're going to be given, the tools we're going to be given by Christ that we're developing today, and the direction He will give us today, is to give us the tools we're going to give us, the direction He will give us in His kingdom, to go forth and to help solve these issues that we see around us. We will have the perfect knowledge, the perfect plan, the perfect playbook. There will be nothing that we will not be able to accomplish through His plan and His ability that He will give us. That should, I mean, we should be running out these doors excited, run around the building, come back, sit back down. We should have so much energy in zeal right now. Because this is what we've talked about all feast. This is what we see in Scripture. This is what fills our hearts to the brim that we go home on a high with when we leave here, knowing that this is our future as we continue to finish our race to the end.

This day, again, pictures and shows a time when our Lord and Savior will return to the earth and establish a new kingdom and begin His rule on this planet. And with Him, He will bring His helpers, His assistants, who will serve alongside Him and begin to fix the world. Don't ever lose sight of this important fact and the reason that God has called you into His family right now. It's a joy to be one of our camp directors and to be able to share this message of hope to all of our kids, all of our teens, every single summer that we do camp. To tell them that the promise is real, that God has called you today, not tomorrow, not later in the future, not when you're ready. Too bad. So sad. You've been called today. You can't escape this one. God has already made promises about it. You're being called. But then to tell them that He's going to do everything He can to get you to that finish line if we will be a willing participant. To see the look in these kids' eyes, to tell them that someday as a pastor, I hope to retire. I hope to retire. I really do. And I need some of them. And for any of our teen men and our teen women in the congregation, we need pastors, and we need pastors' wives. We need deacons, and we need deaconesses. We need new pillars, because the pillars that have been holding these walls up for many, many decades have grown tired at times, and they have taken their sleep in the graves, waiting for their Lord and Savior to return.

And we need the next wave to continue to go forward, continue developing these tools, to continue to add humility to your lives, to continue to build your faith and your God, so that you can be the next pillars, and that we can continue to serve alongside until our Savior returns. Don't ever lose sight of this important fact, and the reason God has called you to His family right now. Let's look at Romans 8 and verse 18. Hold your finger here if you have, still have Isaiah. We're coming back, but let's look at Romans 8 and verse 18.

We recognize life is hard. I didn't... it's no news to anybody here. We have difficulties at times. We have hurts. We have pains. We have physical health issues. We have job losses. We go through a lot being this physical creation. There's a lot of lessons to be learned by being physical.

Paul speaks of this here in Romans 8 verse 18. He says, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy, though, to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. Notice that it's a future revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility. Some translations say, of vanity, recognizing that we live this physical life. We have our own pools of our own nature that try to pull us backwards. For the creation was subjected to futility or vanity, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope. Paul is saying that through our eyes and our logic, our knowledge, that we can recognize and see that this real life that you and I are living today lacks a lot. It's not real life, right? We are products of our own nature. We are each desperately need to be fixed. We recognize this. We see it in ourselves. This is why you and I have a hope of a better time to come when we will be made perfect as spirit beings. And these physical flaws that we have, these physical weaknesses of the flesh will be put away. Christ will return and deliver from us the limits of this physical mind and body that has control often and impacts our lives today.

This is what Paul's talking about here in Romans 8, continuing on. Verse 21, he says, because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. This is our future. This is our potential. He says, we know that the whole world, the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.

Not only that, but we also who have the first fruits of His Spirit. That's all of us here.

Even we ourselves, grown within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.

Let's go back to Isaiah 61 and verse 3 again.

Again, please don't lose sight of the reason for your calling and the opportunity that God is presenting to us today. This tremendous opportunity to come alongside Christ and to be fixers of the world. Speaking of God's saints, the first fruits resurrected when Jesus returns. Isaiah 61 verse 3 says this of us. Now remember just prior, let me look back just prior in Isaiah the beginning of verse 1, it says, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He anointed me to preach the tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty. That passage we just read. Notice what He continues to say in the middle of verse 3. That they, the saints, may be called trees of righteousness. That we could be called the planting of the Lord. That He may be glorified. Notice how it continues in verse 4 to describe you and me. And they shall rebuild the old ruins. They shall raise up the former desolations and they shall repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations. Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks and the sons of the foreigners shall be your plowmen and your vine dressers. But you shall be named the priests of the Lord. They shall call you the servants of our God and you shall eat the riches of the Gentiles and in the glory you shall boast. Indeed, your shame, indeed, excuse me, instead of your shame, you shall have double honor. And instead of confusion, they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore, in their land, they shall possess double everlasting joy shall be theirs. For I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery for burnt offerings. I will direct their work in truth and will make them an everlasting covenant.

Their descendants shall be known among the Gentiles and their offspring among the people.

All who see them shall acknowledge them that they are the posterity. That word can also mean a sowing or a seed or offspring. That they are the offspring whom the Lord has blessed.

What an amazing description of what God has for his people. This is how we will be used.

And we don't, we're not doing what we're doing today just so we can receive a double portion and so we can be able to be, what we can get out of it. That's not the humble aspects that we have heard about this feast. That's not the basin and the towel that has been our focus. But God is saying that there is going to be abundance even for us. That we will have our hearts full. We'll be able to do amazing things and that others will look and say, wow, those people know their God.

Look what they're able to do. Look at the power in which they're able to fix things.

Look what their God has enabled them to be able to do.

And yes, I know that there's some people that I'll probably have to look at face to face someday that saw me as Mike Phelps in the flesh. I don't know how God is going to soothe their hearts because I'm not perfect, right? I've heard people, I've said things that I wish I could take back.

I haven't been that perfect, shining example in the flesh.

But God says He will use us to help heal everyone and to fix the problems. So we can learn from these lessons that we go through today. We can learn from the hurts that we have caused. We can learn from the times we stubbed our toe against the rock and got tired of doing it. And said, God, help me. Fix me from the inside out because I can't figure this one out on my own.

And then He'll say, nah, you can't, but I can. Come alongside. I'll help you work through these solutions so that you can now be the shining example of how God's way works.

In the millennium, as we have the opportunity to fix the world.

Going on in verse 10, He says, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robes of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with jewels. For as the earth brings forth its bud, as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations. In many of our lives, we've had those we knew we could lean on and help us fix the broken things around us. My brother-in-law, Glenn, was one of those pretty cool guys to know and to have around in your life. We all need these types of people in our lives today, the person who can fix the plumbing, who can fix our car, who can fix our house, who can fix the things that break down. Are we allowing God to fix us right now? Are we allowing Him to transform our lives right now the way that He wants them to be transformed? Or am I living my own life my own way, creating my own form of righteousness? The truth is we just can't do this on our own. One of the things that God revealed to me very early in ministry, and I'm very thankful for it, is that, Mike, you can't fix a single, another person. You can't fix another member of our family. You can't even fix yourself, He revealed to me, and that's just the truth of this. Because none of us can fix ourselves. I can't fix you. We've tried to fix our spouses, haven't we? How'd that go for you? I'm still paying for that one. We can't fix a single human being because we can't fix ourselves. We need God to come into our hearts, and we need Him to fix us from the inside out. As a pastor, that's what I try to do. I try to guide people to His truth. I try to be of support, to let them know they're not alone, to offer encouragement and support, and to say, God can fix this in your life if you will open your heart up to Him to be fixed. But I can't fix you. I can't even fix myself. It's just the truth of the matter. Are we allowing God to fix us right now? We've heard message after message since we've been here about that aspect. Are we overcoming? Are we opening our hearts to let God fix those weaknesses that we know exist? Those struggles we have, those blind spots, we want to just push off to the side, not to really address right now. These fall holy days are so carefully woven together and closely built upon one another. It's hard not to share a message at this time of the year that doesn't have touch points to other symbolism of the amazing other holy days that we've been able to enjoy together, from the Feast of Trumpets to the Day of Atonement to the Feast of Tabernacles and ultimately tomorrow to the eighth day. As we close, let's turn to Malachi 4 in verse 1.

Malachi, it's the last book in the Old Testament. If you need any guidance, Malachi 4.

And it's the last, actually, chapter in the Old Testament, too. Malachi 4 and verse 1.

For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly, will be stubble, and the day which is coming shall burn them up. It's like that field, that dried-out field of stubble and the flames come through and just leave nothing, says the Lord of Hosts, that will leave them neither root nor branch. But to you who fear my name, the Son of Righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings, and you shall go out and grow fat like stall-fed calves.

Notice that the Son of Righteousness, S-U-N, of righteousness, and I can't help but think of the imagery used of the Son representing the healing that will come forth. We know this is speaking of Christ, but I find it interesting, the use of the word Son, because so many times the Son has so much healing properties to us. It's a joy to be able, like we have today, and when we were out the other day, to have the Son around us, the warmth that comes from the Son, the joy, how it makes, lifts our spirits. There wasn't a few years back in 2014, I had the opportunity to go on our United Challenger program in Challenger West in Wyoming. Just this is one of our views that we had.

A few of you were with me. I'll call you out by name and embarrass you a little bit. Amber and Darren Hinky was there with me, and so was Keith Lippincott. That's where we met for the first time, out in this amazing wilderness to take on this adventure. We were encouraged to bring a journal, and so I wanted to do it justice. If I'm going to go and do this, I think I was 37 years old. I was a little bit older than the young adult age that they encouraged to go, but they let me come anyway, and it was a joy to be there. But I want to read you a passage from my journal entry, because the fuel with us, and I can speak for it myself, it was cold at night. Anybody been backpacking up in a high elevation range? It gets cold at night. We had rain come through. We had the clothing and things, but you know how it is. It's like you get to that point where you're kind of tired of the miserableness, tired of being wet, tired of having to put back on sometimes wet socks, things like that. And so in my journal entry from Friday, so this is about day four, day five of our trip. I'll share with you from my journal entry, and keep this in mind with this son of righteousness aspect. I wrote, today started out beautiful but cold again, probably high 30s last night. I was warm enough to sleep, but not warm enough to be comfortable. I think the cold and wetness is weighing on me. It thunder stormed again this evening, which was Friday evening.

I told someone if I had been camping and had my car, I'd just be throwing my stuff in the back and driving home. Several laughed, nodded, and said they'd do the same. That was Friday night, and here's God's Sabbath coming, God's peacefulness coming up on us. We pray for that peace, we pray for that rest, we pray for the son of righteousness to be in our hearts and our minds, and here's my Sabbath entry that morning. Slept well! I think I finally figured out what to wear and stay comfortable. Smart wool socks, cotton pants, a wool shirt, fleece, hat, sleeping bag liner, and sleeping bag. That was not an exaggeration. It took me about five days to finally figure out the right combination, where I felt warm. I'm not sure when I got to bed, approximately 10 to 10 30, but I slept until 6 30! Smiley face! Don't know why I continue to get up early, but I do. A really nice morning so far. It's 9 15 a.m. I decided to sit by the wake and clean up a bit. I washed my hands well, which doesn't happen often in the backcountry. Washed my face and neck, shaved, readressed some scrapes and cuts and rope burns, and got dressed. Funny how good it feels to have a smooth face. I was also able to get in a really good prayer session with God. The sun is peeking over my back shoulder right now. A welcome sight to see. I hope it stays out for a bit, and that's a photo from that day that was just played up. You could see on the mountain side, the rays are starting to hit the other side. They haven't got to where I'm at down lower yet because the sun is still coming up, but the sun is peeking over my back shoulder right now. It's a welcome sight to see. I hope it stays. And then my next journal entry, 10, 12, so about an hour later, ah, God is so good. This is the warmest I have felt since we started hiking. The sun is wonderful. Being here, you really start to appreciate things in a different way. And this is when, as I was sitting by the shore of that lake and I was having this time of getting cleaned up, this talk with God, this just introspective time, the sun started hitting my back. And I could feel that warmth. I could feel the healing that it was bringing into my heart, into my emotions, into my just enthusiasm again. It was coming back to life. The misery of the cold didn't feel as cold anymore. The misery of the rain was a bright, sunny day. And that warmth, again, I can't help but think of the sun of righteousness that will come to this entire planet. A planet desperately waiting for the renewal, for the healing, for the help, for the fix. Imagine that. And I highlighted things I appreciate today on that Sabbath. The sun. Showers in modern restrooms. Warm food. Hugs from Laura. Queen clothes. Dry weather. And a house. It's amazing if anybody's been on Challenger, how introspective you become and how you suddenly start to appreciate so many of the little things in our lives.

Have you ever felt and sat outside and felt the warmth of the sun hitting your face or your chest?

It's unlike any other feeling that exists, to have that raise, that heat, and the way that it can just start your day off on a great foot. The warmth that begins to feel you from what feels like deep inside. This is the comfort healing Jesus will bring with him to a world that has been separated from God. We know how good it feels to have God's encouragement and His comfort, and we will help bring this comfort to the world. Our Lord and Savior will return to this earth, this time, though, with might and with power, to humble the mighty in strength and mind.

But He will also come with compassion and healing and help for a broken world.

So today, we wait for the return of our Lord and Savior. We wait for this time when we will be invited to help, and we wait for the time when the whole world will be fixed.