Is Jesus the Center of Your Life?

Welcome back. Well, good afternoon to everyone. I appreciate Bill covering the announcements. I might just mention one thing he didn't mention. I think I've mentioned it here before, but in case I didn't, the dance clan family won the basketball tournament again. So I believe that's, what, three out of four years, and would have won it last year, except there were two injuries.

So we're grateful as long as they stay young. So a couple years from now, they'll probably have to go into training. Also, I see Rebecca Dance's parents here, and I believe I visited her dad. I was the first one to visit him in Hinsale. So, you know, it's been many a year ago. So welcome. We're glad to have both of you here.

I thought I might make just a few comments before speaking, and we hope I speak. As you know, Norm and I have been here for eight years, and this is the longest we've ever been anywhere. Normally, we've been in an area about four and a half years and then moved somewhere else. So we've been very privileged and honored to be here this long.

We've seen the Chattanooga Church over that period of time begin to mature, to grow, especially to grow in love, to grow in unity, and working together. One thing that I've noticed is that our younger generation has grown up, and they're beginning to take some vital positions, responsibilities in the church. Alan, you can correct me on this, but when I look around, I don't think we have any other song leader, our sermonette man, who was here when I first came here, except you.

I don't know of anyone else here in the congregation. Now, we've had one or two move in. We've had, and you can look around, we've done song leading classes, we've done also sermonette classes. And so we brought along a number of men who've been around for a while as far as sermonettes, but you will notice that we have a lot of younger men who are now leading songs.

They have a lot of talent, a lot of ability, bring a lot of enthusiasm, and we're looking to them to step up as the next generation. They're here, some of us are getting older, and so it's going to have to be in the next five years or so that many of them are going to begin to take some major responsibilities and service, helping, and just assisting in the local area. Our longtime members have remained faithful and continue to build on the foundation that they've laid for years.

We have two sets of deacon and deaconesses in the congregation, Ted and Susie Doss, and Ron and Helena Kremler's. And I'd be remiss if I didn't say how much we appreciate all their effort and work. I think many of you know that they do serve and go beyond in serving. They're not the only ones, certainly. But I'd especially like to thank all of you ladies, and I know some of you men, too, who've made it a real effort to bring food on the Sabbath.

And that has certainly added a lot of effort extra dimension to services, to be able to have food here, and so you don't just rush out, you rush to the table. And then you eat, fellowship, and then you leave. So I'd like to thank all of you. And you begin to look around the room. You'll find that responsibilities and duties and opportunities have been divided among anyone, or everyone, I should say. And anyone who wants to serve has the opportunity to do so.

So it's not just one or two people doing it. Everyone has that opportunity. We, as a church, obviously have been tested and tried, and I think God is wanting to see if there's a core among us that He can build on and that we'll be able to work together, march into the future. Many people that I've talked to have come and visited with us on the Sabbath have commented how they felt that our congregation were friendly, and I think that should be an outstanding characteristic that we all continue to work on.

Also, I think it should be that we're a congregation of love and concern for everyone, not just for ourselves. Norm and I got to talking about this this morning. This is the second time and third time that we've moved away from some of you. When I say second, Eva down here, we knew Eva Betcher, we knew her back in the Sarasota-Fort Myers area, and when we moved from there, she was still living in Sarasota, she was an hour still living in that area. Sherri Bennett and her mother, and then we've got almost about to forget your son.

Where is your son? Downstairs? Okay. He's babysitting at this time. But Bradley, likewise, Bradley and my son, I think it was crazy, and we were in a way, used to work sound system in Fort Myers, and they'd go back there, and then these two young people just flipping the switches had a good old time, and they learned how to do that, and so Brad has brought that with him and is still helping with sound here.

This is the third time we'll move away from the Krembluses. We knew them in Chicago in the morning, and so they were also in Fort Myers, and we left there, and here they are in the Chattanooga area. So it's amazing how you bump into people, and there are people everywhere you go that you know. Our original plans were to drive up to Cincinnati tomorrow and to get settled in on Sunday and jump into working on Monday.

I don't know how many of you have been following the weather. Hercules has gone through. Ion is right behind it.

And these are storms, in case you don't know. But the latest storm is going to be in the area. And they're talking about maybe four or five inches or more of snow, and then it's going to also have light rain. And then that night, it is going to drop drastically. And it's going to be something like 14 below, and maybe four below is the high. And I think it's going to get below zero. Not below zero, but below zero here also. So that cold spell is coming right across the country. We don't want to be driving in the area, but we want to drive in the area. And we want to drive in the area. And we want to drive in the area and go over some of these hills in Kentucky and slide all the way down the hill. I've done that before, and it's no fun. So we'd like to avoid that. So we're going to play it day by day. We'll be packed up. We'll be ready to go. Instead of taking two cars, we decided to take one so we could be together, and not watching each other as we travel down the road. So we'll hopefully leave sometime this week.

Our plans have changed a little bit. We originally thought, well, maybe we should sell here by a condo or something there. And then we got to thinking about, well, maybe we should own in both places. That didn't seem like a good idea. Consequently, we have decided to move back here once I'm through with ministerial services. So that's going to be somewhere around, hopefully, two to three years. We've got a retirement program where we're beginning to retire the older ministers. I have happened to fall into that. So since I'll be in charge of it, I think I can work something now. See when we can get back here. So that's something we're looking forward to. We hope to be back for the spring holy days and occasionally just come back if we want to. It'll take a few days off. We can just pop down here. When we get to Cincinnati, we want to see what we can rent. Whether it's an apartment, a condo, a house, and we may have to pick up some odd pieces of furniture, but we'll furnish it and then we'll see how things go. I might mention that the last two, two and a half weeks, I've been sick. I've probably been as sick as I've ever been sick. Over the years, I've never had anything approaching this. I just don't get sick. But thank God it's teaching me a lesson. I have a little compassion and mercy on others. I had post-nasal drip, but that's what you want to call it. Then my throat started getting sore and all of this moved down into my chest. Then I started hacking and coughing and spitting, and I've gone through more boxes of tissue than you can shake a stick at. But the last couple of days, I've been doing somewhat better. At least the last three nights, I've been able to sleep. That's when the body heals, when you're able to sleep. So if I get into a coughing jag, I will turn away from the mic. I'll bring my hanky out. I've got two of them. I will cough. I just want to let you know. I made it through services last week in Rome. Norma says I look a lot better this week, so whatever that means. I've got some kickaboo joy juice over here on the end, which is lemon and honey and water. So I'll take a sip of that every once in a while. I've told Alan I'm not going to try to project as far as a speaker's voice. So if I get a little low, he'll try to pick me up. But we'll try to work together on that. I'd like to quote from the editorial out of the latest Good News magazine. This is why Scott Ashley says, after Alexander the Great's death, the Greek kingdom that sprang from his empire were in time swallowed up by the Roman Empire, which absorbed Greek thought, culture, and adopted much of its own ideas. And though the Roman Empire, and through the Roman Empire, many of those ancient Greek ideas became woven into the fabric of Western civilization and thinking. And I'm going to start with the book. Much of our educational system today is based on the philosophy and the approach of the Greeks and how they taught. It says one idea in particular was central to Greek thought and culture. That was man was the center of the universe. You're the center of the universe, I'm the center of the universe, this is basically all it is. And human thought, human capacity, and ideas were the epitome of what was to be respected and admired.

So he went on to ask the question, what do ancient Greek ideas and concepts have to do with our world today? How does that affect us? Very simply, they're the heart of an ongoing war on world view, how we view the world. A battle to determine which values govern our lives and actions. It is a struggle over what will shape our society, civilization, and future. Scott Ashley then went on to talk about when he was a boy, and he had been discussing that. He said those days are long gone, with prayer and Bible readings supported even, funded by the founding fathers in the nation's early years and banned from schools decades ago. One of the first laws passed by the founding fathers was simply to have Bibles in all classes. And many of the Eastern universities actually were biblically driven back at that time. And so I remember being in the 4-H club growing up, and this was in grade school, and they would come around once a month, we'd have a big meeting, everybody in our school was basically in the 4-H club. And if you could memorize a number of verses, they would give you a New Testament. Now, can you imagine that today in school? They give you a New Testament.

I worked on that, I got my New Testament, and you got that, and that was something I own, you're part of the Bible. And when I went to high school, every morning we had a Bible reading, and then there was a prayer. And these were normally done by students, you know, who were chosen to do so. And there was hardly a day that went by that we didn't have something of that nature. That's just something that has fallen by the wayside today.

This isn't their place, as God goes on, children are indoctrinated with secular humanism. The same old Greek idea that man is the center of the universe, and that we are our own authority, for determining what is right, a lie that goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Remember the devil told Eve, and Adam, well, you know, you won't die. And so, the Bible they made a decision based upon what they saw. They could smell the sea and hear, not on what God said. You might remember back in 1 John 2 16, it says, Love not the world, or the things in the world. It goes on to talk about what the world is like. The lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes. And then it mentions the pride of life. Now, the pride of life is exactly what we're talking about here. You look up the definition here, and I went back and this morning looked up in West Word study. It means an insolent and vain assurance in one's own resources, in oneself, or in the stability of earthly things, which issue in a contempt of divine law. So, the earthly, your intellect, what you know, not the divine law of God, not God's revelation. The vain glory of life is the vain glory which belongs to the present life. Thayer defines this as an insolent and empty assurance which trusts in its own power and resources and shamefully despises and violates divine law and human right. Now, we know, I hope you know, that our world view must be based upon the Bible, upon the Scriptures, not on human intellect, not on our minds, not on Greek philosophy, not on humanism, not on secularism. What must, then, if that's true, our world view be based upon? I said the Bible, but what else? Because the Bible reveals something very fundamental, which we're going to get into today. I'll answer that question by opposing another one. What is meant by the expression that God should be the center of our life, that God should be the center of our life, or the core of our existence? The center or core. The word center means the focus, the focal point, single-minded, heart, hub, nucleus, foundation, or mainstay. Core means basically the same thing, essential, main, central, primary.

The central or most important part of something. Now, many times we talk about the central or the central point. Now, many times we talk about the core of the earth, and we know that there is a core in the earth. There are various layers or cores that are built around that. And without that, we'd not have the stability, the gravity that helps this earth to function properly. We talk about an apple core, which means you get to the center of the apple, and you've eaten the apple, and in the middle is the core. And I look very appetizing, but without that, without the seeds there, after a while you don't have any more apples. So the core is something that is a focal point, essential, that what you're doing is built around. We want to see today why it is important to have God as the center of our existence. Let's go over to 1 Corinthians 3, verse 10. 1 Corinthians, chapter 3, and verse 10. Notice, according to the grace of God, which was given to me, that as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. So the foundation on which everything we do is built is Jesus Christ. He's the center. He's the core. He's the foundation. Our spiritual lives must be built on Him. If it's not built on Him, what are we building it on? Ask yourself, or answer that. If you're not building on Christ, what is it that you're building on? Matthew 10, verse 35, you'll notice Christ clarified this. Matthew, chapter 10, verse 35, He said, I have come to set a man against the cross of the cross of the cross, against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's enemies will be those of his own household. He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy.

We are not worthy to be a Christian if we love anything more than Jesus Christ. He is the very core of our being, He and the Father. I'm not leaving God out of a picture when I'm talking about this. They are the foundation. So we need to realize that He should become the focal point of our lives, primary or essentially the part of our lives. And you stop to answer the question, which we've all asked ourselves in the past, and I think also, you know, I ask myself this and remind myself all the time, why was I born? Why am I here? What's the purpose of my life? What am I supposed to be doing? Why has God called me? All humans were created with the potential to become a member of the family of God and the kingdom of God. So how do we achieve that? How do we make it into God's family? It is not achieved, by being selfish or self-centered, as the Greek philosophy was taught. A self-centered person, if you look it up, is one who becomes self-absorbed. He's self-centered, self-concerned, self-interested, self-involved, selfish, self-serving. You notice one word that keeps popping up there? About the word self. He's thinking about himself all the time. Right along with that goes egotism, an exaggerated sense of one's own importance, self-importance, conceit, narcissism, and love of one's self. So the word self pops up in all of these all the time. Society today in the Western world basically revolves around the self, the Western nations.

Self-pleasure, self-satisfaction, building up the egos of our children. Parents are taught today that you want to discourage your children, so they may go out and play a sport, but in so doing, they may not be doing anything. They might not even be trying. But you come along and say, great game, pat him on the back, you're doing great. Well, you don't deliberately try to discourage them, but what about saying, well, I think we can work on a few things here to help you improve. That type of thing. That just doesn't seem to be the mindset today.

Child, many times, has taught that he is the greatest, and people grow up with, this is my possessions, my job, my home, my rights, and then you can put my and go out with a big long list. The mind that is focused on the self is self-absorbed, and how many people's lives really evolve around God, and how many have just as much concern for others as they do for themselves. Today we have a totally different way of communicating. Remember back how you communicate? You talk to somebody. Well, today, we have a very different way of communicating. We text. We tweet. We do Facebook. We do this. We do that. And people say, well, I'm communicating with all kinds of people, but what's missing? The human relationship.

The one-on-one. And so we have a society where people become so absorbed in that type of thing that they will overlook what's vital and important. Let me ask you the question, why is it vital that God is the center of your life, of my life? Why is that absolutely vital? What does it mean anyway? A lot of times we throw slogans around, ideas around.

What does that mean? Why is the world's view superior to the self-centered worldview that has the emphasis on the self? Well, let's go back to Matthew 7. And you begin to realize in verse 21 to start with, Matthew 7, 21, that there is a focus, a change that takes place when God calls you into His Church. Remember when you first understood the truth?

Those of you who did not grow up in a family, but just simply one day you were walking around out there and you heard the World Tomorrow broadcast, you read the Plain Truth magazine, saw a booklet or an article, and something opened in your mind. And you began to think and to see things differently. All at once your whole perspective changed because now you became absolutely, almost addicted, hungry, searching for the truth. What is right? Study, pray, ordering booklets and so on so that you could grow. Let's notice here in Matthew 7, 21, Matthew 7, 21, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me, Lord, and that day, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, done many wonders in your name, we've attended church, we've served, we've done this, we've done that. And then I will declare to them I never knew you, depart from me you who practice lawlessness. You who practice lawlessness. Now God's law can be summarized in the word love. So what is lawlessness? It's the opposite. It's not showing the love that we should be. It's disobedience. It's either by neglect or whatever reason, we just simply don't do what we know we should do. So God's law can be summarized by the word love. And as, well let's go on here in verse 24. The reason why I read that is because if you go through this chapter, you'll find every little bit of it leads right up to the very end here.

Verse 24, therefore, in other words, understanding what we just read, therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine, so you hear it, you read the Bible, and does them. And then you hear it, I will liken him to a wise man who builds his house on the rock. The rains descended, the floods came, the winds blew, the beat on the house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. Notice, it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them. In other words, it's lawlessness. It does not do them.

It would be like a foolish man who builds his house on the sand. The rains descended, the floods came, the winds blew, the beat on the house, and it fell, and great was its fall. The rock is a foundation that if we build on it, we will be able to stand, endure, overcome. So we need to build our lives on the rock, Jesus Christ. There are only two foundations mentioned here. One is the rock, that's Christ, his way. The other refers to sand. So, you know, one can stand up to rain, weather, tornadoes, hurricanes, freezing weather, because it's on a rock. The other will stand only a little while. And then the foundation begins to be eroded, it will collapse, and it will not endure. So, brother, one of the first things you promised that you would do when you were baptized, Luke 14, 26, you said, that when you were baptized, that you would put God first above everything, that you would build your life on the rock. And the question is, have we been carrying that out? Is that something that we are doing? If Jesus Christ is the core of our lives, then our lives will revolve around him, his example, his teaching, and his values. There are important reasons for God being the center of our lives. Do you understand what they are? Most of us have never stopped to think about it. How will our lives reflect that he is the center of our core? If God comes down or God looks at us, he sees what we are doing, what we are thinking, how does he know? What is it that we are doing that shows him that he is the center? What will God be looking for in our lives that will demonstrate this to him? And what should we be doing? Let's take a look at those. I have a list, and I think what this does is takes the core and begins to break it down, or if you want to say add layers, just like an onion. You keep adding layers and layers, and you are building. It will give you an idea of whether you are building your life or building your life, or building your life. Do you want to say something about your life on Christ, on the rock, on the core? Or not? The first thing I would like to address are priorities. Priorities. When Christ is the center of our lives, guess what? It forces us to focus on him and his way every day, every week, every month, every year, our whole lifetime. It encompasses everything. What is our priority in life? Is it simply work, jobs, advancement, money, nice car, nice home? What do we set our heart on? What do we do to impress other people? What should be our priority? Matthew 6, 33. We are all familiar with many of these scriptures. Matthew 6, 33. We are told, seek you first. You know the word first means seek you first. You know the word first means first. It doesn't mean second, third, fourth. It means first. Seek you first, the kingdom of God and his righteousness, to do what is right. And then God will take care of the physical. So, what is our first priority? Well, when you were baptized, you said number one. God is number one in my life. That's it. He's the one I look to, I will follow. I'm going to follow him forever, actually for all eternity. So, if you say, okay, I understand that God is supposed to be first, who would you put second? Who comes second in your life?

What if you're married? It should be your mate. There should not be any other human being on the face of the earth that is more important to you, especially a woman, than your mate. I'm speaking from the perspective of a man as far as a wife might be concerned, her and her husband. And so, we are to put our mate first. Now, when I say first, I mean after Christ, but as far as the physical realm. What about our families? I've seen an upside down situation develop in the Western world, especially where children and family become before the mate. And so therefore, they receive all the attention, and the mate doesn't. But our family is certainly right up there. And if the husband and wife are working together as a unit, working together to serve God, then the family will rise to the top.

Now, the next two, one could flip-flop one way or the other. And that is the church and our work. Now, for some of us, the church is our work. But that's not true of most people.

But the church is our family spiritually. We put our physical family, God has given us the responsibility of looking after them, taking care of them, loving them, providing for them. There are just so many scriptures in the Bible. It tells a man how to treat his wife, how to treat his family. And then, you know, same thing is true when it comes to the church. Jesus Christ was willing to die for the church, and he has established, you know, her as the bride. But we are human. We do have to work. And when I say priorities here, that doesn't mean, well, I've been too busy this week trying to pray, trying to please my wife, looking after the children, serving the church. I don't have time to work. That's a bunch of baloney. You have an obligation to work and to take care of your family. And so all I'm saying is that you need to sit down in your life and ask yourselves, what are my priorities? Where am I in life? Because it may vary a little bit. I look around the room, not everybody here is married. You know, not everybody has a job either. So we begin to look at what can we do? How can we serve? So if God is the center of our life, then our priorities will be based on what he teaches is most important. And we know that God comes first. Look at 1426 after 633, as we've already referred to. God is number one. And then we are to then look after our wife, family, and take care of them, provide for them, and be involved within the church. So all of these require balance. But the reason why we're here is because the Bible is the one that shows us what our priorities should be. Too often today, people set their priorities based upon what they want. And so maybe what they want is money. That's it. And so that's your priority. And everything revolves around that.

So if you want to stop and think about it, if God is the core, then you have to think center of our life. Then what he teaches, what he says, will determine what our priorities are. Because the priorities are listed there. And many of us have thought about this over the years. And we go over those. So when God looks down, what does he say about us? Does he say that we have the proper priorities? Are we looking first to him? Okay, a second point that if God is the core of our life is found over here in 2 Timothy 1.7. 2 Timothy Chapter 1, verse 7. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but he has given us a power, but a power and of love and of a sound mind. So God, through his spirit, gives us power, love and a sound mind. Now, where does the spiritual power come from that we need to overcome, to grow, to understand the Scriptures, to serve one another out of a right attitude that comes through the Holy Spirit? And that Holy Spirit gives us the power. It's our connection.

It's like God is a wonderful generator, if you want to use that. He's a wonderful generator, if you want to use that. He's a wonderful generator. He's a wonderful generator. He's a wonderful generator. And when we receive the Holy Spirit at baptism through the laying on of hands, we plug into God. And depending on how close we say to God that God will give us the power that we need. Faith is our motivator. If we're going to be motivated to do anything, faith is our motivator. Obedience is faith translated into action. And a lack of action is dead faith. I covered this here recently. A dead body cannot work or accomplish anything.

We were having a funeral today, and there were a casket down here in a dead body. You could go talk to the body as long as you wanted to. Say, well, would you mind getting out and sweeping the floor, or would you bring in some water, or would you do this? No, the body's dead. A dead body cannot work or accomplish anything. And dead faith is a lack of action, lack of obedience, or lack of service. It's just an area where we tend to fall short.

So where do we go to obtain the strength, the power, the courage, and the power to overcome?

Have you ever gotten to the point where you were struggling with a test and a trial and it just seemed to be overwhelming you and you don't know what to do, and you go to God and you tell God, please, you stir your spirit up in me, energize me, because there is a scripture that says this, draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you. So if you draw nigh to God, he'll be close to you. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

So we go to God to obtain that strength, and what cuts us off from it is our own disobedience, our own lack of faithfulness and obedience. But God is the focus of our lives. We will go to him in prayer and study to give us the spiritual power that we need to overcome, to grow, to meet tests, to live by what God says. Because sometimes when God tells us to do something, it's not the easiest thing in the world. And how many of you remember the first Christmas where you didn't keep Christmas and all your family thought you had gone off the deep end? Maybe you had children at home and they were crying and they were upset. The school, the teachers knew everybody is down on you. And you needed help. You needed strength. You go to God. And this is what God wants us to learn. That if Christ is the sinner of our life, then whenever we need help, whenever we need a strength, we go to Him. He's the one who supplies it. He's the one who gives it. Okay, let's move on here. What about our world view? I touched on this to start with, Scott Ashley's article. How do we view the world and the events taking place in the world and in politics? I know there are a lot of things going on right now that you could just crit your teeth over, be upset over because of the, you know, some of the shenanigans that are being pulled. But what I've seen over the last adrift, over the last several decades, is that members want to become more involved in politics. They get out and vote, get behind a candidate, do something. We're going to change, you know, this society up.

We're going to get somebody in there who will do something. I don't care what party he belongs to. He's not going to solve the problems. Remember Romans 3? The way of peace they know not. Mankind does not know the way to peace. He does not know the way to follow God. He does not know the way to follow God. In John 1836, certain scriptures that we need to keep going back to. I found recently that there are a number that I've gone back to, and whenever I'm faced with something, I go back and I quote that again. Verse 36, Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world, out of this society, this cosmos, this age, however you want to express it, this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight.

See, I'd give you all swords. We'd go out here and we'd organize an army against the Romans and we would fight. And I'll set up my kingdom. But that was not the time. Now, how do we know when the time is? It's obviously not right now, because Christ hasn't backed yet. We realize that there's going to come a time when Jesus Christ returns to the earth. There's going to be the resurrection of the dead. Christ is going to return. Every eye will see Him. He'll circle the earth. And He will come back to Jerusalem. And those who are resurrected or caught up alive will be made immortal, will assist Him in ruling over the nations. So He said, look, my kingdom's not of this world. He says, my servants would fight, so I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now my kingdom is not from here.

My kingdom is not of this world, of this time. You see, God has a plan. He has a master plan, blueprint. He's been following that blueprint from the very beginning. And He's going to follow it. He knows where He's going. And so you and I need to do the same thing. We need to look at what is God's plan? When is God going to set up His kingdom? When is Christ going to take over the governments of this world? Let's notice back in John 14, 6, John 14, 6. Jesus said to him, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. So we realize that Jesus Christ is the one who is the way.

We follow His way of life, His pattern, His example. And you might remember in the book of Acts, actually, as I mentioned many times, that Christianity is a way, God's way of life.

The truth, John 17, 17, thy word is truth. And so Jesus said, I am the way, I am the truth. What I've said, what I've spoke, what I've inspired throughout the whole Bible, that's truth. So if you want to know what to base your life on, you don't base it on philosophies in this world. Look up the truth in the Bible, in the Scriptures. You will then see the way to go. And guess what? That will lead to eternal life. So He is the way, the truth, and the life. For any nation to succeed, it must be based on God and His word.

When a people depart from that standard, they bring destruction on themselves, and we are very much in that mode right now. Go back to the book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel 9. Ezekiel 9. Christ came down to Jerusalem, to the temple. There's going to come time when God is going to send an angel or his angelic beings to his modern temple today, especially his church. See what's going on. Verse 4, the Lord said to him, to this one angelic being, He said, go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the forage of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations of the city.

And then to the others, he said, in my hearing, go after them. Kill and do not let your eyes spare, nor have pity. Brother, do we sigh and cry for what's going on? Do we keep up?

Do we watch world news? Do we watch the trends that are going on? Do we basically know the basic outline of prophecy? Why do we keep the Holy Days every year? Because they outline how God is carrying out his plan. And so we get an idea, an overall direction. So God is looking for those who sigh and cry for the sins, the evils that are going on, and that should be us. If Christ is the core of our lives, then how we view politics, this world system, man's attempt to bring about peace, world news, will all be viewed from the perspective of prophecy, some overall direction and principles of the Bible. I can look and I can see in the Bible what transpires before Christ comes back. But God says it's going to happen to the nations of Israel. And so we've got to be awake and aware to all of that. So our world view and how we view this world society around us will be based upon God, on Christ. Now what about relationships? I mean, we could go through dozens of things here, but I'm just trying to hit some of the high points. God is the center of our life and He affects the priorities of our relationship and the quality of our relationship.

What are our relationships built on? Well, let's notice Matthew 22. I won't read this, but verse 36, Matthew 22, 36, and we're to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, might, and we're to love our neighbor as ourselves. So if God is the core, He comes first in our lives. And our existence and purpose depends upon Him. And it is absolutely vital that we maintain a right relationship with God on a daily basis. And we go to God in prayer that we study, that God is able to feed our minds, that we're able to study the Word of God. I went through some priorities we have. When it comes to marriage and our mate, we're one flesh. And as I said, there's no other woman that a man should be closer to or vice versa, our children. So how do we treat our spirit and our faith?

We're a spiritual family. Here we sit as a body, you know, a spiritual body, the church.

Our relationships are all built on spiritual laws, on God's commandments. Spiritual principles are spiritual. And unless you are motivated by God, His Spirit, or have God's Spirit, you're not going to understand them or base your relationships on them. The Bible tells us how to treat our mate, our families, we are our children, how to work for our employer.

And yet today I find many, many members who simply, when it comes to your understanding this, don't think that the principles in the Bible, as an example about child rearing, are accurate. Are the principles in the Bible concerning a woman submitting to her husband? That's not accurate. Those are our archaic, out of date. We live in an advanced age. We've moved beyond those things. And what happens is that we begin to be influenced and swallowed up by the society around us. And then it begins to be the core. It begins to be the one that we base what we're doing on. So if Christ and the Father are the core, then our relationships are going to be based on what they say, their law and their spirit. What about our values?

You hear all the time politicians talking about, we believe in values. We believe in family values. We believe in whatever. Well, when they say family values, you ask them, what's a family? Well, a family can be two men, two women, or they can go on and list any number of things. What does the Bible say? It's a family. What does the Bible say about the Church of God? That our fundamental beliefs and morals must be based upon the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Scriptures. Why do we have the fundamental beliefs of the Church? These are fundamental doctrines and teachings that unless somebody can really show that there's an error, that they are there. That's what we build upon. So, we know our values. Many in the Church, again, think that culture changes triumph over clear teaching of the Scriptures. What are our views on child rearing, military service, killing another human being, voting, certain dating practices that we see are commonly accepted today? What are our values based upon? Now, what I've given you so far is if God looks down at us and he says, okay, is this person putting me in the center of his life? Is Christ there? And he begins to look at these various elements. Can he say, yes, this person's really trying. They're doing. But is he looking and saying, well, I don't know. So how do we evaluate ourselves how we're doing? Well, take these points and go back and ask yourself, how do I measure up? What am I doing? Am I doing these things? Now, one other thing here, and that is what I would consider to serve one another. We have been called, and one of the core values of the Scriptures is teaching us the importance of service and that God's government is going to be totally based on a different philosophy, different approach.

They're going to be based on the rulership of this world. The governance of this world is based upon power, authority, control. It's not based upon service. It's not based upon the grace of God, the love of God, the mercy of God. Matthew 2023, Jesus Christ showed them that He came as a servant. Now, you stop and think. Here is the second member of the God family, existed for all eternity, was a spirit being at all power. God created all things through Him. He was sustaining them. And then God said, look, I want you, they actually agreed to do this, but you're going to come to the earth, grow up, as God in the flesh, and you're going to die for the sins of mankind. What kind of attitude, what kind of direction did it take for Him to do that? It's something I think most of us would have trouble comprehending. Jesus Christ came as a servant with humility and service, and He explained what it meant to be great. So God's government, God's way of life is going to be based upon service, giving to others, serving others. And then we come down to something I've already mentioned, and it sort of summarizes everything, and that's what I would call commitment. I mentioned to you earlier, Luke 14, 26, that we are committed to God, we submit, obey, serve, and we've been called to do that for eternity. What we're doing now is not just for this life, and it's not just for the morning, but for all eternity. God is preparing sons and daughters that He can trust, that He knows that they are committed to Him. How does God know that we will do this? How does He know that we will be faithful? It takes time and experience with God, and being put to the test.

And when we're put to the test, that we pass the test. Genesis 22, 12, we covered this recently with Abraham. Notice chapter 22 and verse 12. God told him to take Isaac out, all three months. Isaac was the most important thing in his life. They had waited 25 years for his son. Now, look at Hebrews chapter 11, or it's either that or Acts 7 tells us that he believed that God could resurrect him. So he knew if he did what God said, that God's promise was sure that he could be the one who could be the one who could be the one who believed that it was certain, and therefore he would fulfill it. But notice what God said to him. He said, Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him.

For now I know, now I know, that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. Now, if God had to bring Abraham to the East High Potests, and he's the father of the faithful, what about us? When will God be able to say to us, Now I know, put your name down. Now I know you fear God, that he's the most important thing in your whole life. In Genesis 26.5, you don't have to turn over there, you'll find a summary of why God gave these friends. Now, I know, God gave them the same things that they did in Genesis. You don't have to turn over there. You'll find a summary of why God gave these promises and blessings to Abraham, because he obeyed my words, he kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. So it's a summary of God, why he gave these promises and blessings to Abraham and his descendants. From God's perspective, there's got to come a time that he will be able to say the following about you and about me. Now I know that I am the most important being in your whole life. Now I know you will always put me first.

Now I know that you will follow me for all that I have in your life. Now I know that I am eternity. Now I know.