God's Classroom

Well, over the last several weeks and months, we've talked to many things that are going wrong in the world. Things that are different and so different than they've been all of our lives. We could go down the list and we could talk about things that we've seen that we might have never thought we would see in America. We can talk about censorship and how people can drown out voices that they don't want to hear. Never thought we would see that in America, but it seems to be increasing. We could talk about some of the governmental authority that continues to come about, that looks like it's more for power, and the prelude to an autocratic government that the Bible predicts or foretells will encompass this earth in times going forward.

We hear many things on the news or we read in the news that just seem so foreign to our ears that don't even make sense. Sometimes we wonder how these type of things and these type of ideas can even come out of people's mouths. Yet they are coming out of people's mouths. We learn even behind the scenes many things are happening just quietly and being infused into our lives. One day we might find that we wake up and live in a different world than we think we live in.

One of those areas that seems to be changing a lot is in the education area. If you've been watching the news and if you hear some of the discussion that's going on about what's being taught in school these days, you realize there's something out there that teachers are doing behind the scenes, that teaching things that parents might not know what they're teaching. You probably hear something about a critical race theory that's out there that's being infused into the school systems that teaches people that the country they live in is not a good country, not a good place to live. It teaches them that the history that they've learned and the history of the country may not be what those who create or write this critical race theory is. And so they change times, they change days, they change circumstances, all designed to lead our children in their developing years to a different idea than what you and I have. It's all part of a system that's going awry, all part of a system that's going in a direction that we know when we read the Bible exactly where it's going. We see a society that just moves further and further away from God, further and further away from the morality that any of us grew up, or that was maybe even the norm and not even a good norm two or three years ago, but has descended to a place that is just almost unimaginable. In Jeremiah 2, in verse 7, God talks about a nation like this. He talks about ancient Judah and how they departed from him and what kind of a country or what kind of a nation would do this, especially one that's been so blessed over the years. None of us really appreciate the type of life that we live. America, certainly, it does not appreciate the blessings that's been bestowed upon it. In Jeremiah 2, verse 5, God says, What injustice have your fathers found in me that they've gone far from me? What injustice have your fathers found in me that they have followed idols and have become idolaters?

What did they do? What did I not give them? What did I not provide for them? What is it more that they wanted that they have strayed from me? Verse 7, I brought you into a bountiful country to eat its fruit and its goodness. But when you entered, you defiled my land, and you made my heritage an abomination. The priests didn't say, Where is the eternal? And those who handled the law didn't know me.

The rulers also transgressed against me. The prophets prophesied by false gods, and they walked after things that do not profit. Therefore, God says, I will yet bring the charges against you, and against your children's children, I will bring charges. For pass beyond the coasts of Cyprus and sea, send a caterer and consider diligently, and see if there has ever been such a thing. Has a nation changed its gods, which are not gods?

But my people have changed their glory for what does not profit. Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid. Be very desolate, says the eternal. For my people have committed two evils. They forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and they have hewn for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. God's pronouncement on a country that has been so blessed is pretty clear in those verses. And this country is broken in the many, many ways that we could have probably a sermon once a month for the next ten years if the world was to go on that long about what is going wrong and what is going there and wondering how can people turn from ways that always worked and produced, you know, under the blessing of God, the nation that you and I have enjoyed, and turn it right on its head.

You know, we may look back as we talk about graduation, and we have our seven high school graduates with us here, you know, this afternoon. And you and I, probably when we think of graduation in high school, we probably have some very pleasant thoughts in mind, I would guess. Maybe not right after graduation. We were probably ready to hang up the books and hang up the homework and all those other things.

But when we look back on life and we think about what our schooling was, it really was a time for us to grow and develop and help us to become the people that we were going to become no matter what walk in life we took. We might think back to the times when we first went to school and what it taught us. Yes, we learned reading, we learned writing, we learned arithmetic. Yes, we did the progressive education and learned that if we didn't learn something one year, it was going to come back and haunt us the next year.

We had to build upon that education, knowledge upon knowledge, line upon line, here a little, there a little, to be able to come to the point where we could graduate and get on with life. We learned that every single morning we had to get up at a certain time. The school bus was going to come at a certain time, class was going to come at a certain time, teachers were going to take attendance and you were expected to be at class every single day unless you were sick or had a good excuse for not being there.

When you were there in class, you had people that were with you. Some personalities and some of the kids that you were with, you hit it off like that. Others, not so much. Others, not so much. And we learned that there are different types of people, different types of personalities, and some we mesh with and some we don't, but we learned over the years, we have to learn how to get along with everyone. School is a very good socializing environment. School is a very good discipline environment.

We learned structure and what we did for 12 and 13 years of life if we went to kindergarten, even more than that, if we went to preschool, we learned what life is about. Those are things that kept us in good stead. So when we graduated, whether we went to college or whether we wanted to work or whatever else we did, we had that discipline built into us.

We knew that schedules had to be set. We knew that there was a structure in life that needed to be done. We knew that we had to grow in whatever it was. We don't want to enter even a work position and then be there 10 years later, you learn, you grow, you progress. That's what life is about. That's what life is about, and we learned that in the classroom. You know, we learned that school wasn't just confined to six hours a day or seven hours a day.

These teachers had this little habit of giving us homework so that even our own free time that we thought wasn't our free time, we had these assignments that had to get done by the next day. And we learned that school isn't just a matter of just a few hours that were there in the day, but in order to learn what we needed to do and to fulfill the requirements, we had to give some of our, what we might call, our own time, apart from the classroom, to get these things done.

And if we didn't do it, we missed out on a lot. We had to learn what we didn't know. It's very easy when a teacher's writing things on the blackboard and teaching you these things to say, yeah, I get it, yeah, I get it. But when you get home and you have to do these math problems, do these algebra problems, do these geometry work, oh, it becomes a different story at that time.

Maybe I didn't understand that as much as I thought. This is a lot harder when I'm having to do it on my own and figure out life and figure out these problems. There's an awfully lot. There's an awfully lot that school teaches us. And then we had those tests. Those tests that we crammed for, those tests that kind of gave us a mark of how we were doing.

And most of us, I'm sure, looked for those tests because we wanted to get the high grade on it. We wanted to see that mark of achievement on it as we got that paper back or that thesis that we wrote or whatever it was. And then our parents would get that report as well and see how well are we doing in class. And sometimes they were very pleased and other times they were not so pleased because that report card would reflect the effort that we put into it.

And so we learned these things. Maybe you still have dreams about school. And maybe not some pleasant dreams. One of the dreams that I still have as long as I've been out of school and college I can wake up some nights in a cold sweat and think, you know, I've had this one class that I didn't really like and so I took the liberty in college of not going to it.

I didn't really do this, but the dream is, oh, I just skipped a class here and skipped a class there and pretty soon the semester had gone by and here's the final. And it's like, panic city. There's no way I can get this. There's no way I can pass this. And I still wake up in a cold sweat and just really relieve that I'm not back there at that time that I am where I am.

But we have those things because it has an effect on us and that's a good effect on us to panic a little bit and to remember that we have to make ourselves do things and get things done on time. Back at 1 Peter 4.

God tells his church, his people, that he's called out, that he's working with, that he's doing a similar thing with us as he watches us, as he cares for us, as he loves us, as he directs us, as he puts his Holy Spirit in us and encourages us to use it and to grow into who he wants us to become.

1 Peter 4 verse 17, He says, For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God. Now is the time for us to kind of look at us.

Where are we? God look at us. Where are they? They've been in school for a while. They've been in the classroom for a while. They've been following my instructions for a while. I've been training them for a while. What's the progress report? The time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God. And if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who don't obey the gospel of God? Those who know better, those who have been in school, those who are understanding what God says, those who come to class all the time and learn what God says, are they doing it?

Are they applying it in their lives, the life lessons that God gives us? He says in verse 18, Now if the righteous one is scarcely saved, if the righteous one is scarcely saved, isn't that an interesting thing for God to say? Maybe reminds us a little bit of the ten virgins and only five of them scarcely have enough oil in their lamps to enter when the bridegroom comes, the other five don't.

If the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear? Yes, God is looking. It's no secret, no secret that God is looking at us, that God has put you and me in a training program. We've talked about that before. We talk about Hebrews 12, where the word pai Hadea shows up, five times in that chapter alone, where God is preparing us, molding us, developing us, teaching us the things that we need to do, the character that we need, in order to do what He wants.

He set the goal for us. Hopefully we've all embraced that goal that He set for us, to be in His kingdom. If we need a reminder on what God is preparing us for, why we're here, it's not to become high school graduates.

That's a step along the way. That's one step along the way. It's not to become just successful in what we do in our careers. But what God has in mind for us, the program we have, the ultimate goal, is here in Revelation 1. Begin in verse 5. Jesus Christ, breaking into the middle sentence here, Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first born from the dead, the ruler over the kings of the earth, to Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

That's the goal, kings and priests. That's why God called you and me. That's why we sit here in class every week. That's why we keep in contact with God and do our homework and at home do His will because He's called us to be kings and priests. We've talked about that before. We can go back and see a man who became king and what his attitude was as he was in that preparation period for king, like king or priest, like you and I are.

If we go back to 1 Samuel, or 1 Kings, I'm sorry. 1 Kings 3. I'm going to look at verses 3 through 12. 1 Kings 3. We have Solomon. David has died. David has said Solomon will be the one to succeed him as king. There's been challenges to him. God has overthrown all those challenges, and here stands Solomon. Here stands Solomon, ready to be king. And he recognizes what a tremendous, tremendous responsibility it is to be king.

Same calling that God has for you and me. In verse 3 of 1 Kings 3, it says Solomon loved the eternal. Solomon loved God. He walked in the statues of his father David. But he wasn't perfect. He did sacrifice and burn incense at the high places. And as we go through our lives, God shows us those imperfections in our character and our attitudes that need to be weeded out.

Verse 4, the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place. Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. And at Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, Ask, what shall I give you? And Solomon said, You have shown great mercy to your servant David, my father, because he walked before you in truth, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with you.

You have continued this great kindness for him, and you've given him a son to sit on his throne as it is this day. Now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king instead of my father David. But I am a little child. I don't know how to come out, to go out or come in. And your servants is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people too numerous to be numbered or counted.

Therefore, give to your servant an understanding heart to judge your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to judge this great people of yours. That speech, that request from the heart that Solomon gave, tells us that greatly pleased the Lord.

There's an attitude that we would be well to emulate and to cultivate into our lives and make sure that that same attitude is coming from our hearts. Did Solomon ask for riches? Did he ask for people to bow down to him? Did he ask for anything about himself? No, his request was simply, how can I best serve your people? Show me how to best serve your people. You've put me in this position. You've trained me. You brought me up. I saw my father David as he did.

What can I do to serve you? What can I do to serve them? Equip me that I will be what they need me to be. I wonder when we think about being kings and priests and what God is preparing for us. Do those thoughts cross our mind? As we sit in class and as we go through life that God has called us to, do we think and is it in our minds God teach us to be able to serve your people the way you want them served?

Is that our motivating force? Is that the love that we have? Or do we just think about kings and priests? Yes, I'm looking forward to that time when I'll be in authority and I can tell this one to do that and that one to do this. And they all kind of look at me and I've got this position that everyone looks up to. That isn't the attitude Solomon had at all. Now, as he went on in life and he allowed the riches of the world, as God gave him those things to corrupt his mind and pervert his mind, he went another way, but he had the right attitude.

The right attitude that you and I need to have as we go through life. As God looks at us, as God trains us, as he works with us every single day of our lives between now and in the past, as we were baptized and God put his Holy Spirit in us, every single day of our lives to become who he wants us to become.

Because who will be in his kingdom are not the kings and priests that we want to be, but who over the course of their life become who he wants to be. People that will be able to serve the people that they're then in the way that he wants them served. That's our job. That's what we're here to learn.

That's where families come in. That's where congregations come in. That's where learning to be with each other comes in. That's where classrooms come in, but we learn that our entire life is a classroom. Not just the classroom time between, you know, if we're in school, between 9 and 3, or between, you know, 2.30 and 4.30 on Saturday afternoons.

But we learn that our classroom in our life is all about that, what God is preparing us for. So we could contemplate that a little bit. And today I want to talk about God's classroom.

You know, because just like life and the preparation for life doesn't take place just at the times that we're in elementary school and on site at the high school campus or at the college campus that we choose to go to or on the work, the work that we plan to do and that we would work in, it's our entire life.

It's our entire life that matters. It's our entire life that we're building, not just one little piece of it. And so for us, one little piece of what God has us do is the specific instruction that He gives us. And just like in class and in school, He gives us some things that He wants us to do. There is some specific teaching time that He gives us, just like it is in a classroom. And I want to talk about some of those things today. Some of the things that we talked about as I began to talk about that you may remember from the times that you went in school are the same things that God works with us in as He prepares us and as we're here in this training program, this program that has a specific goal in mind that encompasses not just what we know up here, but a whole lot of what goes on in here.

In our heart, in our service, in our dedication to God and to each other.

So as God develops classrooms, He determines how the education is going to be. Back in Ephesians 4 and verse 11. Ephesians 4 and verse 11. Just like the school board, just like the principal, whatever it is, God is the one who sets up how things are going to be administered. Verse 11 of Ephesians 4. He Himself gave some to the apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. They're there. They work with us. Why are they there? To equip the saints for the work of ministry. The work of service. Better translation, be of service. They are there to equip the saints for the work of service, for the building up of the body of Christ. Learn how to serve, learn how to love one another, learn how to build each other up, be of strength for each other, build the temple that God wants to build in each of us, build the temple that He's building in this church and other churches, and then collectively His whole body around the world.

What's the goal? We all come to the unity, verse 13, of the faith, to the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man. One who God says, yes, I want Him in my kingdom. Yes, He will serve the people well. Yes, He will serve me well for eternity. He's shown that. He's developed it. I see the character as He's gone through life of what He will do.

So we all come to the unity of the faith, the knowledge of the Son, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, who God said, well done. Well done. This is my Son in whom I am well pleased. Those words that we should be about God's calling and about His life, that one day He would say that to us. That we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine. We don't do that anymore. That's why we're in class, to learn what the truth is, to march forward with the truth, and not be tricked by this thing or that thing or whatever we read on the Internet or that someone says. We haven't been paying attention to our school materials. We haven't been taking attention to our book of doctrine. If we can get carried away by this and that and every such thing, part of education is learning the truth and sticking to it. And not allowing yourself to say, this little person or this little voice is going to take me astray.

No longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men. While we hear some clever words as we watch the news today, we see some tricks being played on our lives and on what this word means and that word means and how people can change the meaning of things to fit what they want while we sit back and scratch our heads and think, how did they do that? Why are they doing that?

Don't be deceived by every wind of doctrine. Don't be deceived by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. You know the truth. You know the plan of God. You know what he's going to do. That's what we're here to learn and to be solid in him. But speak the truth in love and grow up in all things to him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, the whole class, the class in Orlando, the class in Jacksonville, and then the collective class around the world of God who God is calling, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effect of working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself, for the building up of itself in love. Mother God gives us our class plan. He gives us our school plan there. That's what we're doing. Some of us have been in school for 20, 30, 40, 50 years. Others have been in school for a lot less than that. We work with each other. We bear with one another. We're all here in the same thing. We're all headed toward the same goal.

God is working with us one by one, certainly, but as a body, certainly. So what does he do? How does he structure his education?

Well, like we learned when we were growing up, you know, maybe it's changed in a bit today with COVID and the advent of online classes and everything we see around us, but traditionally, there's a place you go to school. If you live in this area, this is where you go to school. You don't just hop schools here, there, and wherever. This is where we live. This is the school I go to.

Likewise, God gives us a place to go to school. And here in Orlando, it happens to be right here in this building when we come to class. We've been in this building for 11 or 12 years. It's kind of like home. When we come here each week, it's kind of like going to school. We know that we're coming here. We know that God has prepared something for you and me as he teaches us, and we come here to learn.

We come here to listen to what he has to say and to take it to heart and apply it to our lives. But here's where he would want us to be. This is the classroom. This is where he expects us to be. He commands assemblies on the Sabbath, come together, be there in class, just like your teacher would say, This is the class hours. Be there unless you're sick or you've got a good reason for not being there. And we adhere to what they said and did it.

You know, in the Old Testament, the place of education was a temple. That's where they went. They would be there every Sabbath. They would be there through the week. It was the place that they went. To pray, to talk, to discuss, to learn, to hear things. In the New Testament, it wasn't the temple so much. Those in Jerusalem would go to the temple, we see from time to time. But as the New Testament church began, as it began to develop in the churches in Asia Minor and around there, where there aren't temples and synagogues that they could go to, it was from house to house.

But there were designated places that people met. In Romans 16, in verse 5, we find in Paul's greeting a similar thing that he says in his other epistles. As he wraps up his letters to the various churches, he will often say, Greet this person, greet that person, they've served me well. And often he will reference the church that's meeting in their house. Revelation—not Revelation—Romans 16. In verse 5, he says, Likewise, greet the church that is in their—in verse 3, Priscilla and Aquila's— greet the churches in their house.

Well, that's where they gather each week. That's where they meet. Just like you and I come to the place that God has designated for us to be, they go to their place. You find the first thing at the end of the book of Corinthians, 1 Corinthians. Same thing at the end of the book of Colossians. The church would meet in various houses, but there was a designated place for people to come and convene. Nowadays in school, with the advent of COVID and even online classes, our children might not go to a designated place every day, or if they're in homeschooling, every day.

But they should have a designated place that they go to. They should have a designated place that is school, because there is much we learn when there is structure and a place to go and a place for learning. And without that, there's something missing. Today it might be online. You still have classes. As we read some of the things about the graduates here, I think Zoom has become a very popular online class, right?

So teachers will say, at XX Hour, you tune on to the Zoom Room, and that's where I'm going to be. That's where our lesson is today. A designated place to be. And so, as God has brought us through this recent time, we have another place that we meet lately over the last year. Not just here, but we have a Zoom Room.

We have a Zoom Room where God is teaching. We have a Zoom Room where God is expounding His Word in a different way than we hear at Savva Services. At Savva Services, you have topical sermons. They tie the Bible together. They'll talk about a topic. But on Bible Studies, you have an in-depth look into each book that you're working with. Something that you don't get at church. Something that God would want us to do, because we find as we look at a book and how it progresses, as God wrote it, we find there's many, many things in those verses that are there.

Things that we would never learn just by coming to church and listening to sermons week after week. We need to do it. God commands we do it. But He also provides other opportunities, learning opportunities for us as well. Zoom Bible Studies is one of them. Frankly, I never saw it coming. I never saw a time when we would ever have a weekly Bible study. But lo and behold, we do.

And I'm heartened that most people in the two congregations here tune in, and it's hardly a week that goes by. They don't even get a request from someone else from the outside that wants to join. That's good. That's good. We should look at that as part of our classroom opportunity, part of our learning time, part of where God wants us to be. You know what He says in Hebrews 10 and 24 and verses 24 and 25? Don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together. I've said this many times. It isn't just Sabbath services. It's other opportunities that we have, because any time we're with each other, it's a learning opportunity. When we have potlucks and we get together for a meal, that's very good. It's an opportunity for us to learn, get to know each other, bond a little bit. We read in Acts 2 about the New Testament church as they came together. They continued in the apostles' teaching. They looked into the Bible. They prayed to God. They broke bread from house to house. They got to know each other, because God is interested that we're one family after all. We are His children. And as brothers and sisters, He would expect us to know each other, to pray for each other, to help each other.

So there is a place. There's places that we could be, as God teaches us in the settings and in the rooms that He asks us to be in. Every class, you have a textbook. At the beginning of the year, the teacher says, here's the textbook for this year. If you're in college, go out and buy it. If you're a parent, you know this is what you have to pay to have the book. The book for your children. This is the textbook for God's class. This is it, right? This is God's textbook, and it is everything we ever need to know. And He expects us to learn it and to study it and to pass the tests as they come our way of what this book teaches us.

I'm going to turn to a verse in 2 Timothy 3 that you all know, but I can't talk about God's textbook without reading 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17. If we believe the Bible, verses 16 and 17, and we believe that God authored the Bible, no matter who the physical author is, we can't get around this verse.

And we have to believe it. Verse 16, all. Again, when God says all, He means all. Every word in it. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine. Doctrine is those foundational bedrock things that hold you and I up. The foundation of what our lives are. The things that we believe. Those core values. Those core things that drive us and define us.

It's profitable for doctrine. It's profitable for reproof. Now, sometimes we have to go back and prove again things that we maybe haven't proved for a while when we get challenged. It's profitable for that. Go back. You can prove anything we teach from the Bible.

You know, as we go through the Bible studies and some of the sermons, we go right to the Bible. That's how the Church of God teaches. From the Bible. That's the basis. It's profitable for correction.

We need correction. We all need correction sometimes. It's not a pleasant thing. But if we resist it or we reject it, we're rejecting God.

It's profitable for correction, for instruction, in righteousness. Why did God give it to us? So that the man of God may be complete. Complete.

Everything he needs. Everything he needs. Thoroughly equipped. Thoroughly equipped for every good work.

That's the textbook in your lamp. That's the textbook that we live by. That's the textbook that we are learning and delving into and should take every opportunity to learn more about it. As God leads us. Because he expects us, as Christ said, to live by every word. Every word of his. Hebrews 4, verse 12. Hebrews 4 and verse 12.

Talks about the Word of God. It says the Word of God is living.

It's not just this ancient book that we put up on a shelf and think, oh, it's a nice collection of stories like the world would want us to think. It's living. It's powerful. If we unleash its power with God's Holy Spirit that leads us, guides us, leads us into understanding, motivates us, gives us a zeal to do what it says. It's living. It's powerful. It's sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit. What textbook did you ever have in school that would pierce the division of soul and spirit? That makes us look into ourselves. It gives us the ammunition to go forward, to kill the old self, to bury the old self, to bury the old ways, and to eat of that unleavened bread and develop those things of God that lead us to more thoroughly serving each other, serving the people that God would have us serve. Piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, it's the discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

It's a powerful book. Powerful book. We would do well to have our heads in it, and every time we have an opportunity to do our daily study, but also the other classroom opportunities that God gives us as well.

You know, like any good school, every school has a library, right? Every school has got this other collection of books. If you want to study more on something, you can go to the library, you can check out this book. It's got encyclopedias. Now all those are online, but back in the day, you could go there. It's always kind of interesting, in a way exciting, to get those books and to study more into something that you found particularly interesting. God gives us a library today, too.

You know, we have a whole cadre of booklets that the church produces that are all biblically based. Every single thing you read in it ties it back to the Bible. It's not anyone's opinion, not anyone's idea of how we should do it. It's what God's doing us, just putting it in language, but we have that whole library.

We have a library here of CDs and DVDs. You have the internet. Last time I was up at the home office, they said now we're up to 30,000 sermons. Can you imagine? 30,000 sermons that are on ucg.org. That's an awfully lot of library material.

Here locally, we have the YouTube that's got sermons. I checked back. I didn't even remember when we began our YouTube webcast. It goes all the way back to 2014.

You can go back and scroll through topics. If you don't know something, listen to that. There's all sorts of ancillary activities and materials that we have.

They're all there if we're looking for it, if we're interested in it.

We've got the place that God would have us be. We've got the textbook that we have us to be. What about the time? What about the set time and place?

Schools meet Monday through Friday, correct? I guess they still meet Monday through Friday.

God's classroom, he says, is the Sabbath.

Leviticus 23 says, here's a commanded assembly, the Sabbath, and here's the seven annual Sabbath. This is where I want you to be at that time. Classes in session at that time be there.

It's just one day a week, but it's packed into it, and there's a whole 24 hours of that day that God expects us to dedicate to Him. After all, He is the one who provides life. He is the one who makes it all possible. Without Him, we are all hopeless, futile. Our lives are absolutely meaningless without Him.

So He gives us those times to do that. We have other times that we can be together with God as well. Those other times that, you know, you know, you get emails about them, you know what the time is, and that we, like good students, should be where He wants us to be.

And if we aren't, well, then we'll answer to Him. Just like we would answer to our teacher when we may not be ready for a test, may not be ready for an exam.

I don't know how many teachers listen to the excuses, but God doesn't listen to excuses. He looks at the heart, and He looks to see what have we done with what we've been given to make use of everything that He gives us.

He gives us plenty. He gives us plenty if we look around.

You know, there's, you know, the obvious things, the Sabbath services, Bible studies, Holy Days, potlucks, the activities. Now, sometimes people will ask, why do we have activities that's a piece of tabernacles? Shouldn't we just be being in church? I think no, because you know what? God, it's a life that God is giving us. It's good for us to have activities and get to know each other as well, to have the time to spend each other with each other and enjoy each other's company. And to do things, it's all part of God's life. He isn't just a God who wants us to sit and do one thing and one thing only. It's a full, complete, exciting life He's called us to, beyond anything that we could ever, ever, you know, imagine in this life.

Well, along the way, we have those tests that we talked about. We have those tests that we talked about that are there every so often in every class you ever took. And just like that, God gives us tests. Maybe they're not the paper and pen type tests, multiple choice tests, but there are tests along the way. And you know what those tests are, what those trials are. As they come our way, how do we look at them?

Have we progressed, or we can pass that test? Or do we keep making the same mistake over and over again, and in God's eyes fail? When something comes our way, do we build the faith that that's what the test is for? To build the faith in Him? To build the trust in Him?

To, as we talked about in Acts 4, to look at the opportunities that He's given us to be witnesses or whatever it is, whatever situation He puts us in, because He knows exactly what's going on in our lives.

Do we pass those tests? You know, He'll give us... God's very merciful, very kind, very patient. He'll keep giving us the same test over and over and over again.

Give us every opportunity to learn how to pass it and to get by it.

Whatever that test may be, whether it's finances, whether it's health, whether it's relationship building, whether it's putting relationships back together, reconciliation, forgiveness, whatever it is, whether it's the sins that are there, God will give us the test, because what He gives us tests for is not to see us fail, but to give us the opportunity to succeed and to have our minds changed and transformed into what He would do so that we do that going forward.

That's the way that we... that's the way that we overcome. That's the way that we overcome. That's the way we build the character. That's how God knows that if He gives us eternal life, which He wants to give us, that we will do those things forever and ever and ever. He's not going to give us eternal life if He has any doubts about where our minds are.

If He wonders, are they here to serve my people and me? Are they here to obey me? If there's doubts in His mind because we haven't shown Him by our choices, our actions, by the tests that we endure and the tests that we pass, that He can't really rely on us, that we really haven't learned the lessons that He's put before us and given us the opportunity to do, I dare say He's not going to give us eternal life. Why would He? He's looking to build a perfect family. He's looking to build a perfect group of people that will work with Him, work with Jesus Christ as His bride, that will do His will forever, that won't be tossed about by every wind of doctrine, that won't believe the trickery of men that turn Scriptures upside down, that say, good is evil and evil is good. Something that we so increasingly see in the world around us today, as everything has a new twist on it. Every word has a new meaning. Everything that was ever is twisted and turned in a world we live in. If we fall prey to those things, why would God trust us and put other lives in our hands for people to teach us? That's what we're here to learn. Now is the time to learn it. Now is the time to do it. He gives us tests and He gives us opportunities. Opportunities to practice. Every day that we go home, it's an opportunity to practice. Every time we go to work, it's an opportunity to practice. Every time we feel down and out and depressed and don't know what to do, we have an opportunity to turn to God. We have an opportunity to say, I can't let this happen to me anymore. I can't keep doing the same thing over and over again. I know this attitude isn't of God. I know this is not what He wants me to be. He didn't call me to be downtrodden. He called me to be joyful. I am joyful when I am doing His will, when I am learning His will, when I am applying His will, when I've got His Holy Spirit leading and guiding me, when I'm in concert with Him, when I have a relationship with Him, when He and I are walking hand in hand. And you know exactly when those times are. When life is so good, even if something doesn't go exactly the physical way that you want.

And other times, and other times, when we feel distant from God, we can stop and we can think, what have we done? What have we done? Have we kept in contact? Have we gone to school? Have we done the things that God says? Or have we just kind of done our own things and been lulled to sleep by the things in the world around us?

He gives us the opportunities to grow. Let's look at James 1, verse 22.

Another one of those Hallmark verses. You probably know exactly where I'm turning, but it's a very basic verse.

Basic, basic. But it means we have to do it. We have to do it. We can't just know it.

You know, in school, you can get by by just knowing things. Right? I remember classes that I wasn't really that thrilled about. I would memorize what I needed to learn. I would be able to get the grade. I knew what to do. But then I promptly forgot what I learned because it just never meant anything to me going forward.

Other classes, I would dig right in and it became part of me. That even today, I know exactly what to do. It builds your life. It becomes you. That's what God's way is supposed to be. Not something we just kind of learned to repeat back when someone says, do you know what this scripture says? And you say, yes, I do. That's good. That's right.

But if it isn't sinking into our hearts, if it isn't sinking into our minds, if it isn't defining or becoming the definition of who we are because we can see it in the way that we live our lives, the way we think, the way we act, the way we interact with each other, then it isn't doing what God wants us to. Verse 22, James 1.

To be doers of the Word and not hearers only.

Have to do it. That's the homework. You hear it. You've got to do it. Be doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

We are so good at self-deceit. I can repeat, I memorized the entire Psalm 119. Aren't I special?

Unless you're applying it. Oh, well, it's nice that you know that.

Be doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he's 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.

It had no effect on him. God will show us what we need to do. He'll show us where we need to go.

He'll show us what needs to be changed. We have to be willing to do it.

When we feel those feelings of resistance come up, I realize, oh, that's that carnal mind that's still in me yet.

That resists what God says. I don't want to do what he says. And he'll probably excuse, that's just me.

No, that's the stuff that gets wiped away. That's the stuff that we no longer do. That's the stuff that we buried at baptism, that we keep burying as God works with us to more and more bury old self and develop the new self.

He who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, that's living it, and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.

You know, that would also include counseling.

You know, we read before, in talking to the graduates, about, lean not on your own understanding.

Too many times, people will lean on their own understanding.

And then they get themselves in situations, and when you talk to them, it's gone in a way that you should have talked to someone.

You should have had. When we go to school, if we don't get the algebra problem, if we don't get the geometry problem, if calculus is causing us a problem, and we just kind of go through the entire semester and never ask a question and think, oh, I can fake this and I can fake that and this is how I think it can happen, or if it's a history test or analysis of literature, whatever the class is, we've wasted that opportunity.

God gives us the opportunity. He says, seek counsel. Don't be afraid to do it. No one is looking down on anyone. We're all here to help each other.

Don't lean on your own understanding. If you lean on your own understanding, you will choose the wrong way. That's just what happens.

We need sometimes that course correction that only comes from the Word of God. We need that course correction that only can come when we talk to someone in the church.

It doesn't have to be the minister, but get someone else involved. If you're having problems, if you're struggling, talk about it with someone. Don't lean on your own understanding.

You will choose the wrong way if you do. Almost all the time. Almost all the time, not all the time. Seek it.

That's an opportunity, an option that God gives us, just like school will say. If you need a tutor, ask for it. If you need someone to help you with that homework, ask for it. Same thing for us.

There will come a time when there will be a final exam. A final exam before Christ returns.

There will be a couple reactions to the time when Jesus Christ returns. Some will be ready, as we learn in some of the parables in Matthew 25, talking about the virgins.

Some will be ready, and they'll enter in with Him. In Matthew 25, it tells us that God will say to those who are ready, who have prepared themselves, who have gone to class, who have learned the things, who have given their lives to God and learned what He wanted them to learn, Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter in to the kingdom prepared for you.

That's what we all want to hear. That's what we all want each other to hear in this room and around the world of those who God calls. But there's also another group. Another group that harkens back to that nightmare that I was talking about, that bad dream.

That when the time comes, when the time comes and the door is closed and they're left out, and they realize I've wasted all this time.

I wasted the greatest calling and the greatest purpose that could ever have been given to any human being ever.

I wasted it. I didn't use it. And when the Bible uses the phrase, weeping and gnashing of teeth seven times, in the book of Matthew alone describing those people, that's a nightmare that isn't going to be easily awakened from.

And you think, oh, I'm glad it was just a dream. It'll be reality. No one wants that dream. No one knows when the final exam is.

No one knows when Jesus Christ is coming. Even if we live until the time of Jesus Christ's return, we don't know when the time is.

I could die tomorrow. My final exam is then. God will look and say, what was he like at the time his life ended?

We don't know. We don't know how much time. We don't know how much time that God has.

But none of us should waste the time. No one of us should waste the opportunities that God gives us. We should be using every opportunity God gives us to learn, to grow, and to study in the classroom that he has given us.