[Jeff Richards] We're finally here. It's been a tough couple months, hasn't it? You know, we have put up with our smoke here and thought we had it bad, but then there was the hurricanes and then that horrible shooting in Nevada. This is a terrible world that we're in and how do you come out of that and rejoice? How do you come here and just turn it all off? To some extent, you can't, but we can temper that understanding that knowledge of that world that's out there with the hope that we all share, the hope that gives us peace of mind, that gives us something to get up every day and start again.

You know, we read those scriptures that the kids were reading and, you know, the precious voices and so wonderful to hear them read God's word. I hope we're doing that. I hope we're spending the time looking for those encouraging words and not just focusing on some of the terrible things that are out there because something better is coming. Tonight, I'm going to talk to you about three things that if you put them in their proper place, you could have a wonderful Feast in spite of everything that's going on. And three things, I can remember, three things. Of course, they say, you know, an hour after you hear a message, you've forgotten 90% of it so think, well, what is 10% of three? What are you going to remember? So I decided I'm going to reduce these to their basic elements so that we'll be sure to remember. Instead of three sentences, it'll just be three words, one, two, three. Those will be the points for tonight and if we can put those into perspective and into their proper place, we will have a better Feast than if we don't.

The first one, it's a big word, God. So can write that down. Number one is God, number two, people, and number three, food. Those three things. You write those down and say, "Okay, I'm going to focus on these three thing." And do it in order, focus on God first, you're already halfway home. And as you can imagine, you focus on people second. When you do these three things, you're going to do all right here. I'd like to talk about that today.

You are members of the Church of God. You are here celebrating the Kingdom of God. It's His plan. We've been called to assemble. These days have been set apart, been put here for a purpose. When you read in Leviticus that these are the feasts of the Lord, these are His days. We're not doing this on our own. We're not coming up with these ideas for ourselves. We haven't come up with everything that we do because it just seems like a good idea at the time. God has told us to assemble and how to worship Him and so we're doing this for Him.

And so when you think about being members of the Church of God and thinking about being part of the Kingdom of God, we want to make sure that He is first in our lives, first in our day, first in our family, first in our conversation, in our plans, in our retirements, in our work life. He's just a part of everyday life. As we think about God getting the first of our increase, God should get the first of everything that we have. Everything He's done is for us and for this world and so He needs to be first in our lives if we're going to have the kind of life that is hopeful, joyful and purpose-filled.

Turn over to Micah 4, Micah 4. We'll start in verse 1. Says, "Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; all people shall flow to it." This is a time in the future. “Many nations shall come and say, ‘Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us His ways and we shall walk in His paths.’ For out of Zion the law shall go forth and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." At some point in the future, all of this stuff that is wrong in this world is going to start getting fixed.

When we talk about it, you see it. Some things you can't talk about without getting everybody upset, but the world's a mess and there are no solutions out there. People talk about solutions. God is the only one who has got a plan to fix it. We looked forward to that. We think about that while we're here. We rehearse. We get a foretaste of what that solution is going to be like and we try to envision it. And, you know, when you've got a big family trip coming up, whether it'd be the Feast or whether it'd be some big vacation and you talk about it in advance and you anticipate the different aspects of what you're going to do and all the things that are going to happen, you just get excited about it and you talk about it. That's what this festival is all about. We get together and we talk about our common faith that we all share, that plan that God has to fix all of this.

You may know people that have gone through some of the horrors or some of the difficult times and you got to be there to give them some hope, to show them that you've got some peace of mind that God's got this, that whatever we go through this life is nothing compared to what He's got planned. When we had our speakers' meeting, one of the comments that came up over and over again is that we want to have content that you can put right to use, that you can take and say, "You know what? I'm going to start doing this today. I'm going to start doing this now. Or as soon as I get home, I'm going to start putting that idea into practice." We want practical solutions to the problems in our lives so that we can start to live in that Kingdom each and every day and not just once a year. And so each of the men have been working on different aspects to their messages to make them practical and useful, not just knowledge, but things that you can take and put to use in your lives.

Please don't neglect your prayer life at the Feast. Sometimes the diet kind of gets thrown out the window, then next goes sleep, then your sanity. Don't neglect your prayer. You know, Mr. Kubik says, "Every day, pick up your Bible, read some pages," and we had a interactive study in our local areas here and it was really interesting to see some of the wisdom coming from our older members. And they said, "If I read the Word of God today, I will have a good day. If I don't read the Word of God today, I will not have as good a day." It's just they know going in, even if it's not something they're studying, "I'm just going to open it up and I'm going to read. I'm going to find something and I'm just going to read. I'm going to connect and the day is going to go better." Don't neglect that in all the activity here at the Feast.

The second theme to the Feast that I'd like to talk about today is people. God's festivals have one aim, to bring His people together for a grand purpose, and we are part of a grand purpose. We keep the Feast to prepare for what is to come. The purpose of God's Kingdom is not just the reward of those who accept the Father's invitation. You know, a lot of people in religion today of different denominations out there, they talk about their personal connection and what they are looking forward to in their life. We're not here for us. I mean, we're getting a lot out of it, but what we are here is for everyone who is not here. We are here for everyone who is not because ultimately, God's plan is for everyone and they don't see it. They're out there driving on the roads, they're not paying attention to us.

Once upon a time when we had those little diamonds stickers, remember those, when we used to drive to the Feast and you start counting them and you'd see all those F.T. stickers and you'd count how many people there were? You made a dent in the town back then. Today, I doubt many people saw the sign on the convention center out front. Us being here is not going to change their life tomorrow, but us being here will change their life one day. It will make a difference in their life, they just don't know it yet. And it's important that we're here. We've answered an invitation. He's got big plans. Do you appreciate that information that you hold? Does it get you just a little bit giddy when you think every time you see something wrong out there, it's going to get fixed? It's just a matter of time and you're going to get to watch it get fixed and be a part of fixing it and making people's lives better.

We're going to start serving those people that lived through the Great Tribulation, brokenhearted people whose lives at that point, will be in ruin and will start to pick them up and put them back together. And at first, there will just be those needs that people will have: food, shelter, comfort. But then we can start teaching them and showing them a better way to live and start to build a new society, a new world. There won't be any need for 911. Think about that. You'll be 911. They'll call and we'll answer. It's so vastly different than what we had. I remember a sermon, Mr. Mike Iiams gave a number of years ago here. We brought the phone book up and started tearing out pages. If I'm taking your sermon again, I'm sorry, but he started tearing out pages of the phone book. He says, "Well, we won't need this in the Kingdom. We won't need this in the Kingdom." When you start thinking about it, there's just so many changes that are going to happen. It's actually kind of hard to think about what's going to get left. What are we going to keep? What is worthy to keep? I don't know.

Turn over to 2 Timothy. Let's read some encouragement from the apostle Paul. Remember at this point, Paul is giving them encouragement from prison. I mean, that man was a giant, you know, intellectually, spiritually, he just was an amazing man. He's in jail and he's giving encouragement. He's trying to prepare Timothy for this massive job ahead of him to preach the gospel and look after God's people. In 2 Timothy 1, 2 Timothy 1, we'll read verses 8 through 11, "Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me as prisoners, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God” “share with me with the sufferings." It wasn't doom and gloom. He says, "Yeah, we'll go through this together. It won't be so bad when we're doing this as brothers, as members of God's family."

Verse 9, "who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time command,” this has been in the works from before the earth. Christ was crucified before the foundation of the earth. This plan has been worked out. He's been anticipating this plan for a very long time, not just since the days that Jesus Christ walked the earth. They've been working out the details of how everything is going to fall into place. Have you thought about where you're going to fit into that? Have you ever asked yourself, "Why did God call me? What has He got for me to do?" I hope so. You can always ask Him. It's amazing how He will let us know. Sometimes, when He tells you what He wants you to do, you get that Moses moment, "No, not me, not me. Pick somebody else." We don't get to choose why we were called and we don't get to choose what He wants us to do. You just have to decide, do you want to be a part of it?

Generally, when you ask somebody to do something and you believe they can do it, you see that they have the ability and you encourage them and finally they get up and do it, they're glad afterwards. Sometimes we get it wrong, sometimes we encourage somebody to something that just isn't right for them, but that's not God. God doesn't make those mistakes sometimes like we do. So if God's got some plan for you and it seems really scary, it's time to start warming up to it. It's time to start looking at what you've got ahead of you saying, "I'm all in. Put me in, coach. I'm ready to play." So how do you put these things into practice at the Feast? You know, if we're going to be trying to deal with thousands, millions, billions, who knows the number that we're going to be given to deal with, it's a good time to start getting to know people. It's a good time to get to meet people.

We're going to do this tomorrow, but can I see a show of hands for everybody that's come from… this is not their assigned site? Just those people. That's a lot of hands of people who just don't know everybody here. These are people that have come from outside of the area into this area. How about making it easy on them? Instead of just seeing the people that you always see all the time, look for somebody to say, "I don't recognize this person. They're not from this area," and make a point to say “Hi.” Now, some people have a really easy time getting to know other people and they just out there saying hello and meeting new people and it's just very easy for them and other people, they have a hard time and there's a way you can tell if somebody wants to meet someone but they're too shy to do so.

Do you know how you tell? Come to church early, they'll be sitting in their seat. You say, "Well, how do you know they want to meet somebody?" Because they came to church early. They came to church early. They don't know anyone, but they'd like to. Find somebody like that, you'll find them. Introduce yourself, get to know a new family member. They'll be glad you did and then so will you.

You know, we're going to go to restaurants, we're going to go to different activities, we're going to be out in the community. We are going to be representing not just the Church, not just this site, but we're representing our Dad. We're representing the family name. Every one of us is a representative of the family of God and it's our time to shine. So they will get orders wrong, they will mess up our room sometimes, they will have problems with rental cars, with air flights, losing luggage, there's a whole host of things that can and will go wrong in your life. How you deal with it reflects the family name that you're representing. So I just asked you to think about that. Can you handle adversity with joy? What we're going through is nothing compared to what some of the people around the world are dealing with. There's no trial here that can be as bad as what other people are going through, and so think about that. You're representing the family of God.

Turn over to 2 Corinthians 5, 2 Corinthians 5. 2 Corinthians 5, we're going to read verses 18 through 21, "Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation,” this isn't just a preamble. That is the plan of God right there. You've been called to be a part of that first and then we're supposed to take that to the world and it starts with your next-door neighbor and goes to the people you work with, the people who are at school. When you read passages about "People will see your good works and praise your Father in heaven," that means we're supposed to have a difference in people's lives. They shouldn't wonder if we are religious-type people. They should expect it. They should see a standard in us that they just don't see in anybody else.

Verse 19, “that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” We haven't had our sins held against us to the point where we've been disqualified. God has said, "Nope, I'm not cutting them off because of that." Christ's sacrifice covered that for us and we have been reconciled to God and now we're supposed to take that, that idea of reconciliation and take it to everybody that we meet. “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us:” think about that, ambassadors that God is pleading through us. That means first contact with somebody might just happen through you, whether they're supposed to be called or maybe God is just giving them an answer through you. We don't know, but it's an awesome responsibility.

“We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.” You can't reconcile others if you're not. You can't represent something that you're not. You have to be a work before you can do a work as you've heard before, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” That's why we are here, to do His work. When Christ says, "I work and My Father works," that's our work. That's our line too. We should be saying, "I work because my Father works," and we've got stuff to do. As a representative of that Kingdom and members of that same family, we want to get to know one another and we want to represent that family well. It's just something you might not think of it in that terms before, but we represent His brand, His name, His mission, His plan, and people are counting, you know, on God to intervene in their lives in so many ways.

What if God chose you to be that intervention? What if God chose you to deliver that message? You don't want to say, "Not me, get somebody else." Somebody asks you a question about your belief, you don't want to say, "You should talk to my minister. I'm afraid to answer your question." Show them the hope that's in you. Spread the joy that you have. Be willing to be a little bit vulnerable and show people that you've got joy for what you believe, that you really, really believe it. It's the things that really count in life. When God puts us up to do some job and He expects us to deliver a message, to deliver encouragement, to answer a question, to be there to help somebody who's in need, whatever that is, and it is something that's so important in our lives.

And our third theme of the Feast that we want to think about, just simply food. It's called a Feast for a reason and it is interesting, isn't it? That God's worship system is built around the idea of something we all really like to do. That means a lot to us and not just eating, but in the way that food represents rejoicing, looking forward to eating certain things. You know, in ancient times, there were certain things that you just wouldn't eat during the rest of the year. Certain foods were just too valuable and there was certain times a year that they could afford certain things and to do certain things. And we live in a fairly affluent society and everybody's got a cell phone, everybody's got a ringtone. You know, you just think about that, 7 billion people, 7 billion different ringtones out there so that everybody can know who's calling them. And it's very different world you know, when you think about what it would have been like to say, "Well, it's bread and water, it's vegetables, it's whatever it is, it's grain, it's all we can afford," and then you get to a Holy Day and then wow, you get to experience life.

And we live in a world where you kind of get to anytime you want, instant, fast, available. And so what do we do with the Feast? Make it special, really make it special. Not just get that wonderful steak that you been looking and thinking about, but it's the people that you share it with around the table, the people you go and you eat with. You know, we get busy here and you're at one activity or you're on the way to another activity and say, "We're just going to stop and get something to eat," and eating becomes the habit that we're already in, you know? “I'm doing this. I have to do that. I just got to stop somewhere and get something to eat so we can get onto our busy, busy day.” Try to make those the minimum, the rare times, make our meals with one another an event, to sit and talk, to stop and to just rejoice that we're here together.

And whether you're eating $1.49 chicken nuggets or a big fat juicy steak, make it an event. Make it a time where you say, "You know what? We're just going to talk. We're going to talk about our day, what we're going to be doing," and if you get a chance, and someone says, “I wonder if we should invite somebody along with us," whether you can afford to take them out, that’s… that might be a wonderful thing if you can, if you're in the ability to do so, that'd be great, but if not, just invite somebody along and just say, "I'd like to share meal with you."

God's Holy Days have this wonderful component. Turn over to Deuteronomy 12. You know, it's not all about the drudgery of praising God, focusing on the rituals that you have to do, sacrificing all of these things that… some of those things that those people used to do were quite difficult to do. I mean, I am so fortunate to be a minister today and not a priest back then. I've slaughtered one sheep in my life and it didn't go well. I mean, I'm really glad that I have the job that I have and not what they went through. But even with all the toughness that they had and when you read through the Bible, Deuteronomy 12:12-15, "And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male and your female servants, and the Levite who is within your gates,” invite them all in, have a good time, “since he has no portion nor inheritance with you. Take heed to yourself that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see;” remember, you're not in this for you. Do it as the way God prescribed, worship Him the way He wants you to do so.

Verse 14, "but in the place which the Lord chooses, in one of your tribes, there shall… you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command. However, you may slaughter and eat within… eat meat within your gates, whatever your heart desires,” you know, they didn't understand anything about some of the things that our heart's desires today. You know you tell… Moses says, "What do you want for the Feast this year? I want a PlayStation 2." I don't know, are we up seven now? I don't know. But they don't understand that. To them, just to have the kind of food and fellowship together, that was it. That was the best. You know, we have such wonderful things that we can partake in and do and to see and to be a part of, but God's worship system is about having a good time in the right way, worshiping Him with joy, with peace, with righteous rejoicing.

It's what He has designed. His worship system is fun. It's something we look forward to and He designed it for this very purpose, to bring people together, to have a good time, but in the right way. When we're here to rejoice, to not go just anywhere we feel like going, but where God puts His name, to do what God chooses for us to do, we have a really, really wonderful time doing so.

Remember the economy of the Feast system back in the Old Testament. You know, if you had a wonderful harvest that year, God had really blessed you, you had a wonderful, wonderful celebration. If you had a tough year, for whatever reason, you might just be happy you got there. We have some of that now. Some of you have blessings beyond your comprehension. Others are just glad to be here and they're just happy to be able to partake in the Feast together. Not everybody has the same blessings, not everybody has the same situation, but we all have the same joy and we can share in that together what everybody has. And the economy of the Feast is about bringing what we have together, how God has blessed us, what we all want and hope and what we all think about and bring them together as a collective unit and just share them with one another.

It's a wonderful opportunity that we have here. So even though we rejoice at the Feast, we never want to lose sight of what these days really picture to give us a foretaste of the coming Kingdom of God, to put God first, to put people second, and then to worship God and rejoice in that order. Whereas we keep the Feast, let's remember these three themes of the Feast that will help us to have a wonderful time, a memorable time and if we remember these in order, God, people, and then food.