Getting Ready for Christ's Return

The Sabbath back from the Feast is always an interesting Sabbath. We had a great time with everyone at the Feast. The Feast of Tabernacles is just one of those unique opportunities that only comes around once a year. And no other time during the year do we have the opportunity that we have during the Feast of Tabernacles. I hope, as you all observed it up there in Jekyll Island, Panama City, England, France, wherever you were, that you appreciated what God has called us out to.

When He told us to leave our homes, leave the world behind, leave our jobs behind, leave our dwellings behind, and go to the place where He chooses, it's an opportunity that we couldn't trade for anything in the world. The opportunity to be in front of God for this year, ten days in a row, if you observed or went to every single service.

The opportunity to hear messages ten days in a row. The opportunity to be in each other's presence for ten days in a row is something we can't do the rest of the year. And I hope you all came back with a very peener vision of the Kingdom of God. How nice it was to be with people of like mind, people who were observing God, people led by God's Spirit, hearing His Word every day, enjoying activities with people of like mind. And for you young people who go to camp, maybe just maybe you kind of compared it to camp. I know in Steamboat when I was speaking I was talking about the young people, the opportunity they had every year to go to summer camp.

And they have Christian living classes every single day during that time. They had the opportunity to go out and have fun every single day because God wanted us to learn His way, but He also wanted us to have fun. And that's why He tells us to get away, save our second time, go, buy whatever your heart desires, enjoy that time, that picture of His Kingdom. And so for us adults, this piece of Tabernacles, I don't mean to minimize it, it's kind of like the camp because we don't have the opportunity to be with each other every single day for so many times.

We don't have the opportunity to be in church services and hear God's Word preached. We don't have the opportunity to have all those activities, the group activities that you have at the Feast. So, tremendous and a once-a-year opportunity. And all of you who are there, I hope you appreciate it. And all of you who couldn't go this year, and I know some couldn't, I hope you plan to go next year because you will learn something and you will experience something you cannot possibly experience if you don't go to the Feast. I don't know how you can even really visualize the Kingdom of God if you don't keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

So, if you didn't have an opportunity to go this year, please, please make plans to go in the future. There's a reason God has the Feast of Tabernacles. There's a reason He tells us to go away. You know, I was there in Steamboat on the last day of the Feast and on the eighth-grade day, and I didn't want it to end. I'm sure most of you felt the same way. You just wish they could go on for another several days, if you will. But we all had things that we had to come back to.

And I couldn't help but thinking about how Jesus Christ was when He was on earth. I mean, here He was God, made flesh, come down to earth and live and die, that we might have the opportunity to have eternal life and all the things that He's opened our minds to. But, you know, every year when He was on earth, He kept the Feast of Tabernacles. He kept the Unlivened Bread Festival. He programmed it to Jerusalem those three times in a year, like it tells us in Deuteronomy 16. And I couldn't help but think of the time when He was a young boy, 12 years old. And when His parents were coming back, they wondered where His hate.

And they had to go back and they found Him talking, talking about the Bible and talking back in the temple about those things. Because He didn't want to leave either. And I hope we all had those feelings and wish that we could go on and talk about those things. But, you know, it wasn't God's purpose for us to live apart from the world. Christ said, I don't take them out of the world. I want them to live in the world. And while we appreciate the Feast of Tabernacles and everything we learned from it, there's a lot we learn from living in the world.

And so now we're back at home, we're back at work, we're back at school, we're back in the neighborhood, we're back traveling around communities, we're back listening to news, which I didn't bother listening to while I was gone, which was kind of a pleasant departure. But we're back in the world and we learn that we have a lot of work to do. You know, Jesus Christ, as He was on earth, turn with me over to John 7.

When He was keeping the Feast of Tabernacles, you know, back in those times, the Jews, they kept it in Jerusalem. They had a water-pouring ceremony that they went through every Feast of Tabernacles in Old Testament times. And they would talk about Isaiah 55 and read those scriptures. And of course, they didn't know what the water that Jesus Christ was referring to. But at the end of the Feast, on that last day of the Feast, He stood up. And I'm sure He sensed the emotion of the people as they poured the water the seven times on that seventh day of the Feast.

And He looked around and He saw what they were having to say or saw how they were feeling in John 7, verse 37. He said He stood up on that last day, that great day of the Feast, and cried out, saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. So He touched on that and said, Do you believe? Do you thirst? Do you like what you've experienced here these seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles and then the eighth day to follow? And I would ask the same thing of all of you and everyone listening. Do you thirst more after God's Kingdom? Do you thirst more after His righteousness?

Do you have a greater vision of His Kingdom? Do you pray more earnestly, Thy Kingdom come after having been at the Feast of Tabernacles? Do you see His plan more clearly? Do you see how it will benefit all of mankind more clearly? Do you want Jesus Christ to return more clearly or more sincerely and more deeply? Because that's what He has called us to, to have that vision of His coming Kingdom, to have that vision of what it will be like and to be ready, be ready for the time that He returns.

Let's go back to Matthew 24. Remember Matthew 24, Jesus Christ at the end of the Olivet prophecy after the disciples asked Him, what will be the sign of Your coming? What will be the signs of the end of the age? And He goes through all those things that He talks about in Matthew 24. And at the end, at the end of His discourse there, He says this beginning in verse 42. To His disciples then, to you and me, His disciples now, He says, Watch therefore, for you don't know what hour your Lord is coming, but know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have washed and not allowed his house to be broken into.

Therefore, you also be ready, for you don't know what hour your Lord is coming. Or you don't know the Aslan of Man is coming at an hour you don't expect. I went back up to verse 42. Be ready, He said. You don't know when. You don't know what's going to befall. At the feast I gave a sermon entitled, Are You Ready? Today I want to talk about getting ready for the return of Jesus Christ. Because as we're back here now, looking to the rest of our lives, the time between now and the Feast of Passover when we begin the Holy Day season again, we need to be getting ready for Jesus Christ's return.

The time has long passed to sit back and think, I'm okay, you're okay. It's time to get serious about what God has called us to, and to look at ourselves and to be getting ready for the time.

So we're not caught asleep. So we're not caught unaware when that time comes. Because God has called us. He's been telling us for years and years, get ready, and now we should get ready. I hope, as I said, that you have a vision of the Kingdom. I hope you pray more for God's Kingdom to come. I hope you see it more clearly and understand His plan more clearly.

And if you have that hope, then there's something we need to be doing. Go back to 1 John. 1 John 3. 1 John 3 and verse 1. Behold, the Apostle John writes, behold what matter of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God. It's an amazing thing that God has called us to. I don't think we fully comprehend what it means to be called children of God, but that's what He calls us.

Therefore, the world doesn't know us because it didn't know Him. What He preached, what He stood for, the way He lived. All the people of His time just wanted Him dead. And so we live in a way different than the world around us. Verse 2, beloved, and now we are children of God, and it hasn't yet been revealed what we shall be. But we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

Everyone – verse 3 – who has this hope in Christ purifies Himself just as He is pure. So if you have that hope in you, the hope for the Kingdom, the hope to be like Christ, the hope to be there when He returns, not to be caught asleep, but to be ready for whatever He has prepared for you and me, then we have work to do. We need to be making choices. We need to be doing things to do exactly what Christ through John said – purify ourselves. Now, it's not us who purify ourselves. We have to make choices, but it's God who purifies us.

His Holy Spirit in us cleanses, purges, helps us to see things more clearly. We are washed by the water of His Word as we learn it and as we live it and as we live by every word of this book that's there sitting in your lap. But everyone who has this hope purifies Himself. He just doesn't sit back and wait.

There's work to do, and every single one in this room – me, most included – has a lot of work to do. A lot of work to do before we can say we've purified ourselves before Christ. Before we can say we're ready. Not one person in this room today can say we're ready. We might say we're mentally ready, but we have some work to do before we get ready. You know over in Revelation 2 and 3, when John is talking about the seven churches, over and over again it says, To him who overcomes, to him who overcomes, will I grant to sit with me in my throne?

To him who overcomes will I sit? Will I put him on the throne? To him who overcomes, over and over to the seven churches? God has work for you and me to do. We have to overcome. We can't just get comfortable with ourselves. We can't just keep doing the things that we need, that we have gotten used to doing. We've got to let God grow us. We've got to let God correct us. We've got to let God develop us into who he wants us to become. No other way. We simply have to do what he wants us to do.

Today I want to talk about a few things, maybe in a different way than we might normally think, but for the last ten days, or for the ten days that we were together on the Sabbath, and the opening night service, and in the eight days of the feast, there were things that we did every day. We opened the Bible every day, right? I mean, you're sitting in services. We opened the Bible. We read from the Bible. We teach from the Bible.

Hopefully we studied on our own. Hopefully we prayed. We opened every service. We closed every service with prayer. We did a lot of things that we did every single day during that time. I hope that continues. I hope that continues. But you know, as we went to the feast, we learned some things about God.

We learned some things about His plan. I think we learned some things about ourselves, too. You know, as we were on our way home, I thought about our feast, and it was very good. I can't say I wouldn't change anything. Everything went very well. But I had to think about it and assess it a little bit. I found myself thinking, I wish we had done that.

I don't mean I wish we had gone and seen this site or anything like that. Oh, I wish we had done that. If we had done that, it would have been a better feast. It would have been a more spiritual feast. If we had just done that a little more than we did. We could have probably done without that and understood the feast a little bit more. Sometimes we assess ourselves and look at things because we want, and God expects, that we're growing. We're improving. That the things that we may not see one year, we see the next year, and we take action.

Because as we purify ourselves and as we let God grow ourselves, we don't just do the same thing over and over again. We look and we grow, and we make things better. We make things more in accordance with the way He would want us to be. Yesterday I was working on the Feast Coordinators report. Every Feast Coordinator has to put together a report of everything that went on the feast, not detail of everything that went on. There's many functions, as you know, that go into putting on a feast of tabernacles.

I was with some of our department heads, and I was getting some reports from them of, this worked very well, but this didn't work very well. As I worked with them, I told them, there are things. Most everything went well here, but there's always room for improvement, and there are some areas we just need to address.

Then we put it into a report, send it into the home office. The Coordinator of the next year can go back and look at that report and say, these are the things that worked well at Jekyll. These are the things that worked well at Steamboat, but these are the things that could have stood some improvement. We look at those things from year to year and see what went right, what didn't go right. We try to eliminate some of the negatives on it, and it can take some time to do, but it's a valuable experience. As you look at the feast from a perspective like that, you see things in a different way. You see how everyone responded. You see how everyone was served. You look at the messages that were there. You look at the sound system. You look at the stage. You look at the auditorium. You look at everything and how the people were served to make the feast run smoothly, and it's a valuable experience. By the same token, I think each of us, as we've been through the feast, can look and see how did our feast go. Did we do everything that we should have? If we ask ourselves some questions, did we have the feast that we should have that propelled us forward the way that God would want us to propel forward? I mean, after the feast, do you feel like you had a spiritual feast, or do you feel like you had a physical vacation? You know, God says, go, enjoy, do these things, buy what you want, enjoy food, enjoy the company with people? If you're feeling a little empty, maybe you had more of a physical feast than a spiritual feast. Maybe you want to look and see, well, for next year, I don't want to just do all the physical activities, but I want to make sure that I get what God wants me to, because there's a reason He has me at the feast. Not just to enjoy the physical activities, those are great, but so that we grow and so that we stretch and so that we become more what He wants us to become. Do you feel closer to God after having been at the feast of Tabernacles?

Do you feel like you know Him a little bit better? Do you feel like you know the plan, or understand His plan a little bit better? Do you see the wisdom in why He had people leave their homes, leave their jobs, pack up and go away to a place that He chooses and spend eight days there with Him? Did you hear anything in the messages that you heard? I thought, you know what, I need to look into that a little bit more. Maybe I need to look at myself a little bit more based on that and what I saw in the Bible through that message. Or maybe I didn't understand everything He said, so I need to go back and I need to look at those scriptures and understand. Because if there wasn't even one question, not even one question or thing that you could mark down and say, I learned that or I need to look in that more, I would say maybe you didn't get everything out of the feast that you should have when you went. There's a reason that God has us go. You know, Jesus Christ says that He is preparing us to be kings and priests. Kings and priests.

What He says in Revelation 1.6, that's what He says in Revelation 5.10, He's got things that He wants us to do. And there's things that we have to do, not just at the Feast of Tabernacles, but every single day of the year. We can build on what we experience at the feast. We can build on what we learned.

We can build on even the... I hate to use the word, but I'll use word mistakes or maybe things that we didn't do that we should have at the feast and think, you know what, I got to build that into my character. I see that in the Bible. God wants me to be more like this or more like that. And if I'm going to be more like Christ, I need to look at those areas. I'm going to talk about Bible study.

For a bit, but I'm not going to talk about Bible study the way we always talk about Bible study. We all know God expects us to be looking into the Bible daily. 2 Timothy 2.15, we need to rightly be... or be rightly dividing the word of truth. We have to learn from the Bible. We have to do what the Bible says. You can't do what God says if you don't know what's in it. But I want to look at another aspect of Bible study and self-analysis and what God has called us to by looking at some of the things that maybe we've overlooked. And I think maybe we do as a church overlook it more than we did in the past as society has changed. Let's go back to Revelation 1. Revelation 1.

You see a thread here through the Bible when God opens people's minds, when He gives messages, when He gives visions of what He wanted them to do. Maybe just maybe He wants us to pay a little bit more attention to this as well. Revelation 1. Verse 10. John, who was given the vision, says, I was in the spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice as a trumpet, saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. And what you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia. And He lists all the seven churches.

What you see, John, I want you to see it. I want you to write it down. I want you to record it.

I want you to have it there for all of the churches to see.

Let's go back to Habakkuk, one of the minor prophets here in the Old Testament after Micah and Nahum. Micah and Nahum, Habakkuk.

In Habakkuk, God gives him a vision. He says in chapter 1, I'm going to work a work in your time, Habakkuk, because you're not even going to believe what goes on. And then he describes to him what is going on or what will happen. Habakkuk has some questions about what God has said. And in chapter 2, verse 1, Habakkuk writes, he says, I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart and watch to see what God will say to me. That's an aspect of prayer, right? Bible study prayer. I'm not going to talk about prayer today. We know we need to do that. Habakkuk has some questions to God.

We know sometimes when we pray to God, we get the answer instantaneously. Sometimes when you pray to God and you're asking the question, the thought comes into your mind and you know immediately what the answer is. Other times it doesn't come. You keep asking and you keep asking, and eventually God will lead you to what that answer is. But here's Habakkuk saying, I'm going to stand my watch. I'm going to watch to see what God will say to me. But the question is that I've asked him about that prophecy. Now, what I will answer, how will I respond when I'm corrected?

There's a lot in that verse. I'll wait for God and, hey, if he corrects me, if he says my attitude was wrong, if he says my attitude and asking those things wasn't what it should be, then I shouldn't question God, how will I react? Will I just simply repent? Will I understand my lesson?

Then, it says in verse 2, the eternal answer to me instead, write the vision, write the vision, Habakkuk, and make it plain on tablets that he may run who reads it. I've given you this vision, Habakkuk. It's for you to understand. I want you to write it down. I want you to write it down so that he who reads it also knows and can run with it.

Go back a little further in the Old Testament. Back to Jeremiah. Jeremiah 36. We know that Jeremiah for 40 years prophesied to the kingdom of Judah. He told them things they didn't want to hear.

He kept telling them what was going to happen if they didn't turn back to God.

For 40 years they didn't listen, but he was all over that kingdom telling them that.

But it wasn't enough to just tell them. In chapter 36 of Jeremiah 2, it says, Take the scroll of a book and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel, against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah even to this day. Hey, Jeremiah, everything I told you, write it down.

Write it down. Maybe they didn't listen to you, but maybe when they read it, maybe when they see it, Israel will turn back. Maybe when they read it, Judah will turn back.

Write it down. Verse 18. So Baruch, after he went and he read the book to the men that were there, and they asked him questions about, Where did you get this? Where did these words come from?

Baruch answered them. He proclaimed with his mouth all these words to me, and I wrote them with ink in the book. I wrote them down. I wrote them down.

Let's go back even further in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 6.

Next week we'll have the blessing of little children.

Deuteronomy 6. God has his admonitions to family on teaching his way of life.

Deuteronomy 6 and verse 6. This series here could be taken figuratively.

Many of the Jews took it literally, what God said in these verses. Deuteronomy 6 verse 6. These words which I command you today shall be in your heart. They will define you. They will dictate how you respond, how you react, how you act, how you think, what you do. You shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. God will be part of your family. What God does, who he is, his command, that will be part of your everyday conversation. You will bind them as a sign on your hand. They'll guide what you do. And they shall be as frontless between your eyes. They will guide you and they will direct you. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. And many Jews do that. They have that written right on their doorposts, the Ten Commandments, because they want to see those and they want to be remembered, or they want to remember what those are.

Many of us have a plaque of the Ten Commandments in our house, right? Why do we have it there? We want to remember who we are, the guidelines that God has called us to, what we do, who we are, what we live by. Writing. Writing things down. You know, it's kind of becoming a lost art.

I remember back when I was in college. You know, we had to take notes all the time. If you didn't take notes, you were lost in college. Now, professors, it wasn't like high school where you could just go back and they would review everything that you did for the semester. You could go back and read the book again. You had to hear and listen to every word that was said and take notes. And at the time that finally came, you go back and look at those notes and you realize, wow, there's a lot I've forgotten. I'm glad I took those notes. If you missed something one day, you had to find the notes from someone. Otherwise, you were kind of left out in the dark on some of those things. Without those notes, without those notes, we wouldn't have gotten, or I wouldn't have gotten the full picture of what that class was about. I wouldn't have been able to pass the test on what was going on. Because science shows, and psychology shows, that within one hour after you hear things, within one hour after you hear things, you're going to lose 62% of it. You won't remember five-eighths of what you hear within one hour. And so, psychology, you could go on the internet and find out, people will say, if you want to remember something, if you want to learn something, write it down. Write it down. Take notes. Write something down. It helps remember, and it helps in a number of ways that we'll see. I want to look at one more series of verses here in Deuteronomy. Because we've read all those things where God told various people, and I could go through a lot more, where He said, I'm giving you the vision. You've said these things, but write them down. But in Deuteronomy 17, God gives specific instructions to those who would become kings in His kingdom.

And He's talking about the physical kings back then. Same instructions He would tell you and me, as Jesus Christ would tell us we're being prepared to be kings and priests in His kingdom.

Deuteronomy 17, picking that up in verse 18, after He talks about some of the physical things and material things, trust in God, He says this, and it will be, when the king sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book from the one before the priests, the Levites. Write for himself. Yeah, as a king, He certainly could have told the scribes, you know what, I want a copy of this. I want a copy that I have in my house. You copy it for me, and when you're done, give it to me. God didn't say, just have a copy in your house. He said, you write it down, kings. You write down every word, and you keep it with you day and night. You look at it, you study it, you let it help you govern, you help it, you let it be there to guide you and to keep you humble in who you are. You write for yourself a copy of this law in a book from the one before the priests, the Levites. It will be with Him, and He will read it all the days of His life, that He may learn to fear the eternal His God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes. Write it down. When you read it and write it, when you take notes, you tend to remember things a bit a little bit longer, and God knew that. He built that into all of us. Write it down, He said to the kings and priests. Write it down, read it, verse 20, that His heart may not be lifted above His brethren, that He may not turn aside from the commandments of the right or to the left, and that He may prolong His days in His kingdom, He and His children, in the midst of Israel. Write it down. You know, when we study, or when we hear sermons, or when we do assessments of things, like having been to a feast of Tabernacles, and we look back at the time that we were there, the eight, nine, ten days, and we have thoughts, and we think, you know what, next year we need to do this. We need to do this. We need to do more of this and maybe less of this. You know when next year comes for the Feast of Tabernacles? You're probably not going to remember what you thought a year ago, but if you write it down and you put it in a place where you go back and review it, like feast coordinators are supposed to do when they look at last year's report, you'll remember and think, ah, that's right. This year, I need to do this. This year, we need to do more of this if we're going to have a feast that makes us have a greater vision of God's Kingdom. If we're going to have a greater appreciation for why God takes us out of the world to a place where He puts His name.

If we do all those things, let me give you some benefits of writing things down. Because as we study, as we pray, as we think, you know, I've come to learn and remember what I used to know, but sometimes you've got to write things down. You know, when we do the Bible reading program, Debbie and I will read out loud to each other, and we'll talk about the verses, and sometimes we'll talk about something that we didn't really see in those verses before. And I'll think to myself, I need to go back and study that later, or you know what, we may need to talk about that in a sermon. And if I don't write it down, and I think about it a day or two later, I think, where was that verse? Where was that verse? What were we thinking? What were we talking about at that time? But if I stop and write down, you know, XX verse chapter and verse, and the thoughts, boy, it brings the conversation right back. I understand where we were again. Sometimes when you're sleeping in the middle of the night when you get up, God puts thoughts into your mind.

You ever had that happen to you? There's something that you realize and you think, oh, that's, that's, I need, I need to remember that. And I'm training myself. When I get up in the morning, I think, what was it that I thought about? Or I get up at that time, if I'm getting up at that time, and write it down. Because invariably, if I don't, a day goes by and I think, what was it? What was it that I was thinking about that seemed to be kind of something that I needed to know or think about? When you pray, the same thing happens.

Thoughts come into your mind. God opens your minds and you think, I need to know that. I need to remember it. And we write it down. Sometimes you hear things in services about prayer requests that I know I'll tell people, I'll pray for you.

I don't want those to be just empty words. So I write them down. So I really do, do what I say I'm going to do and not just give empty words on those things. And we all need to do that. We all need to be kind of in school because we're in training to be kings and priests. We're in training for what God wants us to do. Let me give you some of the benefits here. One is that when you write something down, it clarifies your thoughts and feelings.

I know what I was thinking about when I did this. You know, sometimes, you know, it happened more when I was back in the workplace. And I would get irritated by something that happened or that someone did or whatever. And I kind of just wanted to tell them what I thought. And it was more than just telling them politely what I thought. So I learned that it's very cathartic to write things down. And so I would write, I would, you know, I'll sit and I'll write all my feelings down about it and think with the intent, or at least the original intent, you send that letter to the person so they could read it and see everything I thought.

But, you know, as I did that, I began to see it wasn't all their fault. It began to clarify my thoughts as I would write these things down and think, ah, I think I understand now what they were talking about. Oh, I see where my fault is in that. I'm not doing that. It helps clarify what you're thinking.

And sometimes we want and we need to do that. We need to take the time and not just react impulsively to something or just top off at the mouth. But take the time to write it out. And you'll be surprised how your thoughts can become more clearer and you can understand the whole process of what is going on there.

Another thing that writing things down. I guess I'm talking about journalizing things as well as writing notes to yourself and assessments of things. You get to know yourself better. You really do get to know yourself better. You know the founding fathers, I'm amazed at how many records there are of things that they wrote. And they did that because they wanted to go back and they wanted to know what was happening. And that they don't do so much of that anymore. But it helps you to know yourself better and sometimes writing down like after the feast, this is what I need to do.

You know, I learned a lot about myself at the feast and this incident. I need to write that down so I remember. I remember what it is. Writing things down helps us to be accountable. You know, we live in a world that doesn't want to be accountable for anything, really. No one wants to stand by anything they said. We need to be accountable for what we are called to. We are being to be accountable for what we've done, what we've thought, for what God has opened our minds to.

And it motivates us. You go back and you look at your notes and you think, oh yeah, I have just totally forgotten about that. I need to go back and I need to get that done. But if it's not recorded anywhere, chances are it just sort of disappears and not until the next time it comes up. And then the cycle just repeats itself and no one moves forward.

Because God wants us to be moving forward. He doesn't call us to be or to remain in the status quo. He calls us to be moving forward, purifying ourselves, getting ourselves ready. Writing it down sets goals. You can tell it on any goal-setting website. They're going to tell you, write down your goals. Don't just think about them. Write them down. Write them down. Look at them. I need to overcome this. I need to work on that. I need to do this.

This is what we're going to do this Sabbath or next week or whatever. This is what we're going to do. These are the plans that we have. And this is what we're going to do in this area, this area. Write them down. James 1. James 1.

Christ's brother, James, here in the first chapter. Pick it up in verse 21.

James 1.21. Set the tone because, you know what, we're here to purify ourselves, right? To let God purify us as His Spirit leads us and guides us. He says in verse 24, Therefore, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness. Get rid of it. That's not what God is looking for. It has to be removed from our lives. All of us have those things that God has to put out or that we have to make choices to put out and use God's Spirit to make it happen. Therefore, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted Word which is able to save your souls. Let God put His Word in your heart. Let God put His Word in your mind. Be led and guided by it. Verse 22. Be doers of the Word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves.

It's great to know the Bible. It's great to be able to answer all the trivia questions on the Bible. It's great to be able to be given chapter and verse and be able to recite it. Great to do those things. If you're not doing what the Bible says, in essence, you're wasting your time. The doers of the Word. Make sure you are living what God has called you to do. Not just hearing it. Don't just come here every week and hear the sermons and the sermonettes. Don't just read the articles. Just don't do the Bible study and then let it go out of your mind or just memorize it. Do it.

Do it is what God is saying. If you're not, you're deceiving yourselves. For if anyone, verse 23, is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. Ah, that happens to us sometimes, doesn't it? I think of those things. I see something in myself. I don't want to be that way anymore. But then I don't write it down and I don't think about it again. Life happens. All these little schedule things happen. And I forget about that. Don't, when you see something in the Bible, when God shows you, you need to be different. You need to be more like this or less like that. Write it down. Make it a goal. You don't have to publish it. We're not going to bring in and collect it here at church. Write it down for yourself that you think, I need to be thinking about those things. When that thought comes into my mind, or this, this, and it arises, I don't react that way anymore. When this happens, I don't respond that way anymore. I become more like Christ by consciously thinking about what I'm doing and how I'm doing it and what I'm doing that I become more like Him and letting His Holy Spirit direct and guide us as we get ready. Verse 25, but he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.

That's what God is looking for. He wants to see what choices we make. Will we be moving forward? Will we be doing the things that He says? Because, you know, God, like I said, didn't call us to be the way we were when we were called. It's great that we responded to Him. It's great that we repented. It's great that we were baptized. But that's just the beginning. The rest of our lives are spent yielding to Him and letting Him weed out the faults, weed out the weaknesses, teaching us to put Him first in all things and letting Him purify us as we make choices. You know, back when I worked outside the church, we always, I won't say always, we had a lot of seminars and things that management was sent to. And some of them were very good, some of them were worthless, but some of them were very good. And I remember I took notes for some of those things, and I still have some of those notes. But there are marks of successful people, people that move from employee to manager to director to vice president to president. Successful people who move forward. So you know what? God has called us to move forward. He calls us. He expects us to repent. He expects us to be member. He expects us to grow in faith, grow in obedience, grow in works, because, as you heard, works come through faith. He expects us to develop over time. And eventually, when Christ returns, if we've done, and if we followed what He has called us to, we'll be ready to be kings and priests. Be ready to do what He wants us to do. So let me give you some pointers here, or some things that you can look at about what successful people do. And I recorded some of these for you in your bulletin. So if you have your bulletin, take those out, and I'll help you save you some time writing down some notes as we go through some of these. I looked through some of the business manuals, some of the success journals. I finally came up with one that I thought capitalized very well, the characteristics of people who have moved and who keep moving forward in their careers and what they do, that we can look at our Christian lives as well. You'll see that on the inside page there, the inside page there, under characteristics of people who want to move forward successfully. It's you and me. We all want to move forward. If we want the kingdom, if we want what God has called us to, we want to move forward. Let's look at some of these points.

You know, first one, people who want to move forward don't just dwell in their comfort zone.

You know what their comfort zone is? Things that we like doing, the things that we feel comfortable with. We're not stretching. We're not taking ourselves beyond what we normally do. Because if you're in the workplace and you just do what you're comfortable in doing and you don't really want to learn anything new. If you don't want to stretch yourself beyond what you're doing right now, you don't have to worry about being promoted. You won't be. People who are successful and who move forward get out of their comfort zone. And as Christians, God wants us to get out of our comfort zone. We all have it. We all think, oh, I'm here at services every week. Oh, I pay my ties. Oh, I go to every holy day. That's a comfort zone for us. But God is looking for more than just that. It's good that we do that. We must do it. But He's looking for us to grow. He's looking for people who will yield, people who will let Him develop, people who are on the road toward becoming member, etc., etc., etc., and Ephesians 4, 2 king and priest reigning with Christ are reeling under Him when He returns and sets up His kingdom on earth.

You know, back long ago, the pastor that we had asked me once, asked me if I would give a sermonette.

And everything in me wanted to say no. And I argued with him and gave him every good reason why there was no reason for me to give a sermonette because I never saw myself in that role. Never wanted to do it. Never aspired to that. Didn't like any of it. He didn't take no for an answer.

And they put me out of my comfort zone. I didn't sleep for a few nights before that Sabbath. But what I saw was God do what I couldn't do. And you know the same thing for you. We've got to get out of our comfort zones. We can't just be doing the same thing over and over and over. God expects growth. Moses didn't see anything. He didn't see himself leading Israel out of Egypt. God said, get out of your comfort zone, Moses. Rely on me and I'll see that you're there. And He would say that to every single one sitting in this room. He would say it to me. You look at the prophets of the Old Testament. You think Jeremiah was in his comfort zone all those 40 years when he was talking to the people of Judah? No! He didn't like what he had to say to the people of Judah. Even times that he would tell God, really? Do I need to tell them that? They already don't like me.

God said, Jeremiah, it's your job. Do it! And Jeremiah did it very well. So we have to get out of our comfort zones if we want to grow and if we want to be getting ready for what God has called us to. Number two there on your list. They don't do things without first learning.

Now, this seems very basic, doesn't it? Me, they don't just jump into a task and just do it and make a mess of it and then think, oh, I need to go back and look at the instruction manual.

I won't speak for any of the men in this congregation. I've done that so many times in putting toys and other things together that I think, wow, I thought I knew how to do this. It looks so simple. Now I've got to go back and look at the instruction manual and hope no one is noticing what I'm doing. You have to first learn what you're doing. If you're going to do it right, don't just jump in. Go back. You know, if we're having trouble in our lives, the Bible is there to give instruction in righteousness. 2 Timothy 3, 16 says it's profitable for correction, for doctrine, for instruction in righteousness. It teaches us what to do. We need to learn it, then we need to do it. We have financial hardships, go back. Look at what the Bible says. It gives us the key to financial well-being. Marital problems, go back and look and see what the Bible says. Implement it. Don't just know it to repeat it. Do it. Get out of your comfort zone. Do what the Bible said. If we're having other problems, self-problems, go back and look at what God said to do. He gives us the answers. We just have to learn to do it. And people who are successful and who move forward, they learn what they need to do.

And then they do it. They follow the instructions. They look and they learn, and they make sure that they are following what is the right script to move forward.

Another one we can look at. Number three there. They don't fear asking for advice.

You know, when we're afraid to ask for help in anything, what is it really? It's just pride, right? I don't want to admit that I don't know how to do this. I don't want to admit I don't know how to fix this problem. I don't want to admit that we're having this problem in our family, and I just don't want to admit that to anyone. That isn't what God has called us to. He didn't call us to be secret people. He's not fooled when we cover something up. He's looking for us to become like Him. And every single one of us has problems that have to be addressed. Some of them very, very difficult. You know, when we don't ask for advice, when we don't even ask God for though for advice, we're never going to overcome those problems. Of ourselves, we can't do anything just as Jesus Christ said. We have to ask Him, and we have to go back, and we have to ask advice of people. Let's look at a couple scriptures in Proverbs. Proverbs 11.

Proverbs 11. Verse 14.

Where there is no counsel. When no one is telling the people what to do, and they're not asking any questions. Where there is no counsel, the people fall. None of us want to fall. We want to grow.

We want to get past these things. We want to overcome these things. We want to become pure as He is pure. We want to be getting ready for the return of Jesus Christ. But in the multitude of counselors, there is safety. Ask. Don't be embarrassed. No one's going to condemn you. No one's going to look down on you. God has put us in a body because He wants us to grow individually. He wants us to grow collectively. Over in Proverbs 15. Verse 22. Without counsel, plans go awry. They fall apart. I think I know how to do this. I think I'm going to do it my own way. Whoops. None of it worked the way I thought. If I had just asked some advice, if I had just asked of someone who might know, that could have steered me in the right direction. But again, it says in the multitude of counselors, they are established.

Chapter 24.

24. Verse 6. For by wise counsel you will wage your own war. And we are all at war, aren't we?

We are at war with our own thoughts. We are at war with our own nature. We are at war with the world around us. We are at war with Satan, all of whom and all of which would like to lead us away from what God has called us to. And it could be a tough, tough fight sometimes. We don't remember and we learn to rely on God and ask Him for His power and His Holy Spirit that gives us the power to move forward, to grow, to overcome. Wise counsel, you will wage your own war. And in a multitude of counselors, there is safety. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid to ask for help. No one is going to look down on you. No one is going to condemn you. We are all here to help each other and to pray for each other. Because as much as we may want to be in the Kingdom, I hope even more we pray that each other is in the Kingdom. That we want to see everyone in this room and everyone in Jacksonville and everyone in Ocala and everyone in the churches of God around the world be in the Kingdom. And that's where our prayer should be. James, James 5. James 5, verse 16. Confess. Often we read verse 14 that talks about people being sick and being anointed and elders praying over them. We combine that in with 14, 15, and 16, which is fine. But let's just look at verse 16. Confess your trespasses. I don't want to see after church that everyone is going around saying everything you've done. Okay? I'm just like, you know here. Do this in balance. You know what I'm talking about here? Confess your trespasses to one another. Look for help when you need the help.

That's why God puts us in a body. That's why He has us all here. And that's why He's there to answer prayers. And sometimes, sometimes He wants to see us work with each other. He wants to see us work with each other. Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. You know, He's talking about spiritual healing there. Every single one of us in this room needs spiritual healing. Every single one of us is not perfect. Not one of us is there yet. Not one of us is ready. If Jesus Christ said, it's now, what side of those ten virgins will we be on? The foolish virgins? Or will we be on the wise virgins who let that oil continue to burn in their lamps?

Spiritual healing. Confess your trespasses. Pray for one another that you may be healed because God wants us spiritually healthy. He wants a spiritually healthy church. A temple that He will return to.

Go on to the next point. They don't lie to themselves. They don't pat themselves on the back. Successful people who are moving forward and saying, you know what? That's all I need to know.

I know. I know the script. That's all I need to know. No. I mean, we just read James 1.22. It says, Be doers of the Word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves. Don't deceive yourself. Just because you know it, that's good enough. You have to do it. You have to live it. You have to implement it.

There won't be any excuses when Jesus Christ returns and says, well, why didn't you do it? If you knew it, do it. I put you in these situations. I looked to you to grow and to develop. I looked for you to do the things that I called you to do and to be examples of my way of life.

And He gives us the ability to do that through His Holy Spirit. He gives us the power.

He gives us the instruction in His Word. We have to do it. We have to become like He wants us to become. Don't lie. Don't lie to yourself. Don't deceive yourselves. Number five. Kind of goes along with number three there. They don't hesitate to ask for feedback. And you know, feedback is one of those things that is nice to have sometimes. Sometimes you do a project and if no one says anything, you think, well, did it turn out? Boss? The way you wanted it to turn out? Or did you say nothing because it didn't turn out the way you wanted it to turn out? You know, if you do some things and if you talk with people and you're looking to overcome something in your life or if there's something you're working on, ask for feedback. Ask for it. Did I do this right?

Do you see a difference? Or am I the same person today that I was two years ago?

You know, sometimes I ask my wife that. Sometimes I don't like the answer she gives. But I realize, you know what? The answer is, yeah, you're about the same as you were two, three years ago. I know there's work to do. There's work to do. Shouldn't run away from it.

Shouldn't bury our head. Shouldn't bury our heads and think everything else seems like it's going okay. God isn't looking for 90% or 95%. He's looking for 100% commitment.

Number six there. Don't let the past. Don't let the past dictate the future.

You know, sometimes we can get ourselves into trouble because there is a problem in our lives and we fail. And we, time and time again, you know, when the situation comes up, we end up doing the same thing. And there are some sins that are really, really tough to overcome. We can't do it without God's Holy Spirit. We can't let the past dictate the future. If we look to self, we will always fail. If we think we have the power within, we will always fail.

But if we learn to rely on God, if we learn to look to Him, if we give it to Him and say, I can't do this on my own. I can't become the way you want me to become on my own.

When we give that to Him, He has the Spirit. He gives us the Spirit that gives us the strength to do that. And there's a very valuable lesson in learning and letting God teach us to rely on Him. We all need to do that more. And as we're getting ready for the return of Jesus Christ to be ready, as He says, we need to learn to rely on more on Him. And don't let the past, don't give up and look and see what you've been doing that's wrong. And then go back and do what God wants you to do.

Propel forward using His Spirit. And in number seven, there's more than this. These just happen to be the seven that I picked out. They don't hang around negative people or tolerate negativity.

You know, we could all dwell in negativity, right? Let's turn back to 1 Corinthians 15.

Right here in the middle of the resurrection chapter, God puts in a thought that at one time just doesn't, you know, maybe doesn't seem like it fits within everybody who wanted to remind us. In 1 Corinthians 15 verse 33, He says, don't be deceived, don't fool yourselves, don't think that this is okay, evil company corrupts good habits. So successful people who are moving forward, they're not going to dwell in negativity. They don't want to be around people who have nothing but negative things to say, because when we hear nothing but negative, it pulls us down, it drags us down. It doesn't propel us forward, it holds us back. We find ourselves going into that same negative attitude. Oh, if my boss had done it this way, oh, if he had done it that way, oh, look at that, if they had used this word instead of this word, and if I had written that article, wouldn't it be so much better? Don't dwell in that. Look at what God has done. Look at what He is doing. Don't dwell in negativity, and don't hang around negative people. None of us in this room should be negative. What God has called us to, we should be very positive, and we should be very hopeful, and we should be looking to God. Now, that doesn't mean that there's never a time to point out if something's wrong. If I ever say something wrong in the sermon or something you don't understand, I want you to come forward. I'm not saying that at all. That's not negativity. That's understanding and making sure that we all are saying the things that God wants us to. But don't be around people who are just always, always negative. That's some of the things that we can look at if we're going to become the Christians that God wants us to be. And as we were at the feast for all those days in a row, we studied, we prayed, I hope we begin to write down some of the things that God opens our minds to understand. Those are some of those things that we need to do. Some of those things that at the feast we might look at and say, next year I need to do better. And before we go to the feast next year, pull that out and think, you know what? This is how we're going to handle that this year. There's one more thing that I want to talk about that is vitally important to us getting ready for what God has us to do. And it's something that you and I practiced for 10 days in a row at the feast this year. For 10 days in a row, we studied together, we were in services together, we were in each other's company together. And I hope you enjoyed each other's company. I hope that it was great to be there with your brethren every single service at the feast. I hope it was great to go to those group activities and be with them to dance the family day, whatever it was that they did at your feast site, and to enjoy that time with them. It should have inspired you. You should have come back thinking, I want to be around God's people all the time. It was so much fun, just like you young people, when you come back from camp. You want to be there. You want to continue being there, right? That's how we should feel as well. We were there with each other for every single day of the feast. There's a reason God takes us out of the world. There's a reason that God says, leave your homes and go to the place that I have chosen to put my name and be there for the eight days of that feast. And then this year happened to be the Sabbath before that.

He wanted us to get to know each other and to work together as a family and to experience something we can't experience the rest of the year. And that's what being with each other all days of that feast. There's a reason that God says in Hebrews 10, 24, and 25, don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together, as is the manner of some. Don't forsake it. It's important. It's something He built into our lives. It's something He built into our training. Not something I came up with or you came up with or some minister in the past. God said it.

Don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together. We learn a lot about each other. We learn a lot about ourselves. We learn a lot about God when we're with each other.

1 John 1. Now what He's doing with each other and when we work together to build and let Him build the temple in us and when we understand each other and when we do the things and all the parts fit perfectly together to produce what God wants us to produce. 1 John 1, verse 7. John, Apostle John, if we walk in the light, as Christ is in the light, and that's what we're here to do, right? Here's what He's called us to. That's what we said we will do. We'll repent. We're baptized. We're walking in the light. If we walk in the light, as Christ is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. We have fellowship with one another.

And the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin.

Don't forsake it, as is the manner of some. It's not okay. It's not okay if you can be at services to sit home and think, I'll listen on the webcast. I'll listen to a DVD. You're missing something. You're not letting God train you the way that He wants to train you.

He didn't say it was okay, and I know there are situations and I know there are sicknesses and I know there are people who can't come to church. I understand all that. But if you can, I can't understand how anyone could read the Bible, know the Bible, have this hope in Him, and say, it's okay for me not to be there today. Sorry, maybe someone will have to explain that to me. I don't see it. I don't see it in the pages of the Bible. He is working with a body. And when He returns, we're working with a group of people, and we learn a lot about working with each other.

We learn a lot about ourselves when we work with each other.

That will be very valuable when He returns. Let me read you a story here. I pulled this off the, I guess, the Internet several years ago. I have no idea who the author was. I don't think the author was even listed at that time. But let me just read the story, because I think it illustrates this point very good or very well. The story says, the story is told of a man who quit coming to church.

He figured he could be just as faithful, worshiping God on his own, as maybe some have thought. I could listen to a DVD. I could read the Bible at home. I could do all these things on my own. A few weeks went by, and the minister came to visit. It was a cold and blustery day. They sat in the living room by the fireplace and made small talk. Then the minister took the fire tongs, picked up a glowing ember, and placed it to one side of the hearth. You get the picture. Logs pick up one ember, set it aside. The two men watched without saying a word. In no time, that lone ember began to cool.

A few minutes later, the minister picked up the dead ember with his fingers and pushed it back into the fire. Immediately, it sparked back to life. Without a word, the minister put on his coat and started to leave. The man looked at him and said, that was one of your best sermons. I'll see you in church next week. So, any time you think that it's okay, or that it was God's will to not be where He wants you to be, remember that.

You know, back, I'm not going to take the time to read Revelation 3 about Laodicea.

Laodicean churches is one who thinks they have everything. They pat themselves on the back and they think, I don't need to grow anymore. I have everything I need. I come to church each week. I pay my tithe. They go to every holy day. I can recite large portions of the Bible.

When God says you don't even know who you are, you're not on fire. God wants people who are on fire. In every single one of us, there is to be an ever-burning fire that doesn't go out.

A zeal that should be there as a result of having been at the Feast of Tabernacles. That fire should have been rekindled. It should be burning bright in all of us.

Our challenge is don't let that fire go out. Go back and keep doing what you were trained to do. Be getting ready for the return of Jesus Christ. Do the things you learned. Do some of the things that we talked about today. Just make sure you are getting ready. So when Christ returns, we are ready.