The Journey of a Lifetime

The following message is presented by John Elliott, a minister in the Eudahia Church of God.

The Bible speaks of the life we have been given as a journey. Think of a journey. It's not stationary. It's not sitting still. Each individual called to the New Covenant is offered a lifetime journey. A journey with God, a journey with Jesus Christ. We are shown a path, a way, a way of life. We are invited to come with Jesus Christ. We are to come to the Father. The Bible tells us to follow, to walk, to sojourn, and to enter. So in this journey that we have, we are given an opportunity. Individually, a calling. Individually, a sealing with God's Holy Spirit. But collectively, this puts us in a body of light minds and people pursuing the same destination.

However, each of us has a responsibility for the steps that we take in this journey. This journey has two possible destinations, Jesus tells us. You can journey down a difficult path to a narrow door, which most people, he said, won't find. Or you can journey down a different path that's wide to a destination that will be a different destination than what you and I desire. One direction takes us in what he tells us is to life. And it's life more abundantly. God's way is blessed. God is part of it. If he's directing our life, it's going to be accomplishing things that are good. They're going to work out for good. At the end of that life is eternal life. It's all good. The other direction is what Jesus talks about being dead or a way of death. It's sort of dying. It's sort of misery. It's sorrow and crying. And the end of that eventually is eternal death. So you and I have a responsibility to choose the path and then to stay on that path.

I would like today to take a look at four phases that church members go through on this path. Now these phases we all go through. Don't look at somebody else and say, oh yeah, that person, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Look at me, yourself, to say, let me examine these four phases. And what can we learn from them? We all do them at various times to varying degrees. The purpose of the sermon is for us to recognize which of the phases is or are the best. And to choose those phases and to try to avoid the ones that aren't so good. We'll begin with the learning and accepting phase. The learning and accepting phase is a joyous time for various relationships.

It's a person who is called, invited. A person who comes to see and understand, to learn about. This might be learning about another person. Oh, look at that person. Somebody who could be a friend. It could be a way of life that's different and looks really good.

It could be joining mentally with others in an endeavor and say, that endeavor will be great. So the learning and accepting phase is to see something that is attractive. As a child, we might see somebody we might end up calling a BFF. You're my BFF. My best friend forever. You are my best friend forever. And I'm attaching myself to you in this course as a friend. And we're never going to separate. And just to show you, if you're a girl, I'll give you a necklace with half a heart and a certain shape. And I'll take the other half and we'll wear this and we'll be best friends forever. Maybe two people of the opposite sex say, you and me, I think we're getting along well here. And I think we'll be maybe dating a little more and then maybe we'll devote ourselves to each other. We'll become engaged. And we're going to be together forever. Maybe that'll go to marriage and, wow, now you're going to be my special spouse forever. And those are happy times, great futures, lots of blessings.

And then we hear Jesus Christ wants to marry us and he wants us to go through a commitment with him that says, you'll be my wife and I will be betrothed to you and we will go through the future forever together and share all things. Yes, great. We devote ourselves to that covenant through baptism. These are all good things. I know at times our young people come to our youth camps. And if you haven't spent time at a youth camp, one of the young camps or one of the older camps, the kids come out of their school, they come away from their friends, they come away from the world.

And for seven days, typically, they will be in a camp where they're focused and learning God's way and then experiencing God's way and they'll get in what we call the zone of living God's way and it's beautiful. And at the end of the camp, they say, we're never going to leave this path, never going to leave this way.

We're staying the rest of the year. We'll see you all here next year. So everybody's lined out in the learning and the acceptance phase. And this is very good. It leads to nice relationships. Everything is positive. It's like Adam. When Adam was created, he was created outside the Garden of Eden. And he came to know life and then God brought him into the Garden of Eden, which was a paradise. He had a wonderful place and he had a wonderful God, his very BFF, best friends forever. And they hung out together in the garden.

And God showed him everything he'd made in the animal kingdom and brought it up close and personal so that Adam could actually name it. So they had this great relationship. All these things take off so well. In Proverbs 6 and verse 23, it says, For the commandment is a lamp and the law a light. God's way is good. One of my favorite proofs of God's existence is that God's way works. It just works. It cuts through all the other arguments. There is no argument that says God's way isn't beneficial, it's not good, it doesn't work in every situation.

God's way works and it's wonderful and we're committed to that. Now, in Genesis 2, we see something take place that brings us to the second phase. This is the drifting phase. We all do it. It happens to everybody. Don't be looking at somebody else here. We go through the drifting phase. We were all committed there. We're all walking the walk. We're all having the relationships. We're all on board. We're loving this. But something happens. Enter a new friend. You know, as those kids go home from camp and go back into school, there's somebody here. A little different viewpoint, a little different that. Maybe a neighbor kid, maybe a schoolmate.

Focus shifts to a new person. Maybe for a young adult, it's somebody in the workplace or somebody you meet somewhere. Somebody steps into your life. Maybe for others, it's some shift of something that comes along. For Adam, he was joined by another human being. He had this singular walk with God and God created another human being and brought that human being to him. Now, forget the fact that they're male and female. This isn't about male and female. But you had God and Adam, and then you had another diversion to a human being.

In 1 Timothy 2, verse 13, when we see Paul explain this, he said, For Adam was formed first, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived. Adam knew the course. He's like you and me. We know the course. We're committed to the course. But the woman being deceived fell into transgression. Adam should have stayed the course and eaten the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and avoided sin, avoided disobeying God. Even though someone else was enticing him, encouraging him, he was not deceived.

He made a choice to step off the path, to somehow compromise. To be tempted to... that sounds kind of good. David was close to God. Remember David when he was young? God and David had a great relationship. He was out in the back 40, you might say, and he was with the wild animals, and he could handle lions and take honey, and you could do all these things and protect the sheep.

And when it came to standing with God and having that close, confident relationship with God, taking out Goliath was no problem as a young person. David was on point. God had him anointed as the king of Israel. I mean, everything is just clicking with David. It's working well. He married the king's daughter, Michael. He moves into the palace. Things are going well. And even when Saul began to attack him and persecute him, God was with him and defended him. It was a great time.

Then David got distracted. David got distracted.

At some point, he let his eyes linger somewhere they shouldn't have lingered. And he ended up formulating a mental lust for someone that was his best friend's wife.

And that lust had consequences. All actions have consequences. It says in Proverbs 6 and verse 27, Can a man hug fire against his chest? Can you just take a burning bunch of coals and wood and just hug it and not have your clothes burned?

Can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be seared?

Sometimes we think that we can walk this walk, take a diversion, drift some, have a little of that with the path that we're going on, combine the two, and get away with it.

Can we drop off the path for, say, a night's fun, for a momentary diversion into darkness?

No. There's a human phenomenon called a party.

Party. Let me define this for you real quick.

Party, the word party, comes from the French word partir. It means to divide, to separate.

So if you're going to go to a party, what you're really going to do is you're going to step off the path.

You're going to divide, you're going to break apart what you're doing.

Now, party, by its own definition, what do you do at a party? Well, parties are things that you don't normally do.

You get silly, you talk, you dress funny, whatever that is. You go to a party and you dress for the party, and maybe you play some party games you never play.

Maybe you drink things that you don't normally drink, or amounts that you don't normally drink. You say things and do things, and dance on tables, or whatever people do at parties.

And people look at each other through all of this lens of doing what they do, and they see people through a different lens, and they kind of let down at a party, and they'll call you a party pooper if you maintain your path, and you don't sort of go off in a different direction.

Proverbs 6, verse 25, speaks to wandering thoughts, wandering actions, things that divert, that go off the path.

Do not lust after her beauty in your heart, neither let her allure you with her eyelids.

Remember that point you were on, the relationship you had? Remember that BFF you had? Don't be looking sideways here. No little private secret, something little innocent, out of the way, out of sight, out of others' minds, you see?

Stay on the path. Going on, it says, For by means of a wanton person, a person who is not on the path, a man is reduced to a crust of bread, and adulterers will prey on his precious life.

When we stray into that stuff, where has that BFF relationship gone? Where has the engagement gone? Where has the marriage gone? Where has the walk with Jesus Christ gone to? I'll tell you where it's gone to. Adam and Eve are in the bushes. They're hiding from God. David and Bathsheba are up in the palace, where they shouldn't be, because he's got a wife there. Michael. Judas is standing around. He's got pieces of silver that he doesn't even want.

He detests them. He hates them all of a sudden. The church of Laodicea has gotten itself to a place where Christ might have to vomit her out of his mouth, because she doesn't fit in the body.

In verse 12 of Proverbs 6, it said, A worthless person, a wicked man, walks with a perverse mouth.

Verse 15, Therefore his calamity will come suddenly. Suddenly he shall be broken without remedy. You can't drift off the path and not have consequences. None of us can't. It doesn't matter what your name is, or how old you are, or your status, or anything else.

The result of all diversions from the path is estrangement.

At times we're all there. At times we'll do something and then we'll say, Ooh, now I feel guilty about that. I don't feel like I can talk to God about that, so we don't pray. And you go, a day without praying, and you think, Oh, tomorrow I've gone now. With a day without praying, I really feel bad and guilty, so I really can't pray today. So I'll go another day, and that's three times as bad as it was the first day. And, you know, next thing you're in the bush, hiding from God. You know what I'm saying? It's just estrangement takes place whenever we divert from the path. And so then we come to phase three, the recovery and restoration phase. The recovery and restoration phase. Jesus gives us an example of this recovery and restoration phase in Luke chapter 15 and verse 11. Luke chapter 15 and verse 11. And this is a good phase. This is an important phase. Anytime we stray from the path, God wants this to happen for all those who have drifted, strayed, you know, just knock it out of your head that you're separated from God and jump on your knees and repent and be fully restored. So here we find in Luke 15 beginning in verse 11, a certain man had two sons, and the younger of them, the more fun one, by the way, being the youngest son I know, the more happy-go-lucky, the one who wants to have good times, you know, the younger of the son said, in verse 12, Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me. Give me the money. Give me my inheritance. Give me all that section of my inheritance that falls to me. So Father divided to him his livelihood. Now, the livelihood, of course, was to set him up for life, set him up for marriage, set him up for home, set him up for a career, as it were, within the community in the broader sense to where he becomes respectable, responsible, and all the lines whereby a life-way works within society is established. He's all set up for that. But this young son pulls out of all that, cuts all of his ties, burns all of his bridges, and heads south, where it's warm. There's beaches, maybe. So after not many days, the younger son gathered all together and journeyed to a far country.

And there he wasted his possessions with prodigal living. When he had spent it all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. So it's all gone. This famine, he's in want of something to eat. So back at that time, what you could do is, if you couldn't survive, you could go to somebody who lived life properly, could take care of himself and his workers, and you could either hire on or you could become an indentured servant, a slave to that person. He'd provide you a place to eat, a place to live, and food to eat.

So the prodigal son here, verse 15, went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed the swine. Ugh, this guy's fallen a long, long way. He's out there with the pigs. I don't know if you know about pigs, but they smell so bad. And he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods of the swiney, but no one gave him anything.

He got some food, but he wasn't treated like he was as family. No one gave him anything. When he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's servants, like I'm this man's servant, how many of my father's servants have bread enough to spare, and I perish with hunger? I will arise and go to my father. So he comes to himself. We have a father in heaven, and sometimes if we drift and get separated, it's important for us to come to the restoration phase and to recover from where we are. It's very, very important that we do that.

In verse 20, he arose, came to his father, when he was still a great way off. His father saw him. He had compassion. He ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said, Father, I have sinned. I have sinned, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

Look how far I've fallen by straying. I'm out of the family. But the father said to his servants, Bring out the best robe, put it on him, put a ring on his hands, sandals on his feet, bring him the fatted calf. Verse 24, For my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost, and now he's found. A joyous welcome back, all the way to the family, with the robe, with the ring, with the sandals. That's a wonderful thing. And you and I have the opportunity for this restitution with God, the recovery, a restoration.

Just think of when we're off track, how good it is to get back. If you think of maybe a time in your life when your body was working really, really well, and you just were really at the peak of fitness, and then over time you divert from the things that keep you in the peak of fitness. We all do this. And at some point you say, you know what?

I really want to go back. I really want to go back. But if you stop and you said, if I only drank pure, clean water, it's the only thing that I drank, pure, clean water, maybe with a slice of fruit in it or something for flavor, how would my body change? If I only ate just natural, fresh food that God made, the way he made it, very close to that, and I ate it in moderation, how would my body change? Now if you ask this question, if I only lived and thought and did what the Bible says, that's it.

For all the other thoughts, all the other concepts, all the other things, but just did what is right in God's eyes, as the Bible says, how would the body of the temple of God's Holy Spirit change?

See, we all can do that recovery, can we? We all can move in a positive direction when we want to. So the life-improving conclusion would be return to the fitness type of living, and likewise, if we change our minds to process only godly things, we would return to the right path, the right way of living. We would be restored in the paths of righteousness, as the Bible says.

God offers us a true bread, a tree of life. It says in 2 Timothy 3, verse 16, All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for right teaching, for doctrine, for reproof. That is reproving us for being where we were, for correction, for correcting us for being off track, for instruction in what is right, righteousness. So the Word of God will help us with the restoration phase and help us get back on track.

In James 4, verse 8, it says, Draw near to God. So we're off over here. We need to now change course, to draw near to God. Sometimes when you're in a boat and you're on a certain course, you'll get bounced by every wave, knock the bow a little bit, and change your course.

Even though you haven't changed the tiller or the steering or anything else, the wind or the currents will bump that. It'll bump it. It'll bump it. And after a while, you'll find you need to draw near to the course that you've established. So we have to draw near to God. So what he's saying here is, come back. Come back.

Cleanse your hands. You sinners. Purify your hearts. You double-minded. We're all sinners. We're all double-minded at times. We need to come back. Draw near to God. That's the recovery phase. Now, let's consider something.

What if we avoided the need for a restoration and recovery phase?

Consider this. When you want to regain something that's lost, it's difficult. Rehabilitation, whether it's from substance, various substances, various lifestyles, fitness, lack of fitness. All of these things require a huge investment in recovering the original position. And you can never fully get back there. You can never fully get back there. You can get back, but you'll be like David. You'll be like David. He's returned to God, but there are consequences. It's like the old vehicle. You return it into service, but it's never like the one that sat inside well-maintained. It's in pristine condition. And so it is. If we could avoid leaving in the first place just to get back to where we were, that would be good. Imagine if sometimes we want to recover our health. You need to join a club. Yes, the dreaded fitness club. And you go do a bunch of stuff you really don't want to do, picking up and pulling and hurting yourself and sweating. You go through all the outfits and expenses and materials and planning and effort. You watch scales and you deny yourself and you eat a whole bunch of stuff you really detest. Just to get back to where you once hopefully were. Doing wrong and then repenting was never God's intent. Say that again. Doing wrong and then repenting is not God's intent. It's not what he desires. Psalm 40 and verse 6 says, Sacrifice and offering you did not desire. So as David sees his sin and yes, he's striving to come back from it, that's not what God wanted. He didn't want him to take off in the first place. He didn't want him to drift so that he could be restored. When you look at the Exodus of Israel coming out of Egypt, you have to go all the way to the 20th chapter of Exodus before you ever find sacrificing on an altar. It wasn't God's plan for Israel to do a lot of sacrificing. It says in Jeremiah 7 and verse 22, God says, For I did not speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. It was not on God's lips. Rather, verse 23, But this is what I commanded them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all my ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you. That's what God wants. Get on the path with him. Stay on the path with him, that it can be well with us. Let's go to Psalm 51 and look at it through a little different lens. This is the chapter where David repents. Psalm 51, just looking in the first verse, Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba. So this is the recovery phase. And it's a beautiful psalm that teaches how to repent, how to restore our relationship with God. But what if David had turned his gaze? When he stood on his balcony, and he looked across, and he saw Bathsheba, what if he had simply looked away, and maybe looked at Michael, and prayed to God, and thanked him for the kingdom, and for the wars that were being won under this woman's husband's leadership? We wouldn't have Psalm 51. In Psalm 51, David wouldn't say, Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. It's not what God wanted to do. He's there for us when we do, but it's not what God wanted. We just heard him say, it's not what he wants.

In verse 7, Purge me with hyssop. David wouldn't have to be purged with hyssop. He wouldn't have to be washed to be whiter than snow. Verse 8, Make me hear the joy and gladness, that the bones you have broken may rejoice. He wouldn't have had the broken bones metaphorically.

You know, you talk about broken bones. When a bone gets broken, it can be restored. It's very painful. You go through a restoration process. If it's shattered, then there are some pins. There's a lot of recovery, and you go through exercises. It's never quite the same. People with previously broken bones can feel it. Sometimes if there's a weather change, it'll hurt. Maybe at a certain time in life, they'll get arthritis or something in there. It kind of hangs with you a little bit. What if his bones hadn't been broken in the first place? That's why safety is so important. Safety is more important than the first aid kit hanging on the wall. Safety is so very, very important to prevent injury in the first place.

He says in verse 12, restore me to the joy of your salvation. I once had the joy of your salvation. Now restore me to it. Verse 14, here's a hard one, deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed. David had to live with that one. He had to remember that one. He had to feel guilt when he remembered his whole life, what he had done. And when the psalm was sung, what if he didn't have to remember? What if he just turned his gaze in the first place? So we come to the choice phase, phase four, the choice phase. And this is what God wants for us. Remain on the right course. I know it's simple. It's not over simple, though, because God gives us the tools. He gives us the power. He gives us his spirit. He gives us the little warning when a straying idea comes up for us to choose what's right, and he wants us to choose what's right. To develop a character to always make the choice. And that's what character is.

The righteous will inherit the kingdom. That's who God wants. So he wants us to be right, and right is on the right course. In 2 Timothy 3, verse 13, the Apostle Paul is encouraging young Timothy, another young man, a person who probably is wanting to enjoy life. Some of what Paul writes to Timothy in 1 and 2 Timothy can be interpreted as, Timothy, you're drifting a bit. You know, Timothy, you need to pick it up here. He says, evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. That's what's going to happen around you. Don't be drawn off to that. Rather, verse 14, but you must continue the things which you have learned and been assured of. See, God wants us to continue the things that we've learned. Those things back in the first phase that we learned, the learning phase, the acceptance phase, continue in that. Avoid the drift phase. Avoid the recovery phase. Just stay on the right course. Verse 15, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. So we can ask the question, what's the smartest, easiest, simplest way to stay fit? Well, kind of answered it, didn't it? Stay fit. Stay with the things that make a person fit. That's the smartest, easiest way. It works on so many different levels. Because if you get into all that diet science and everything, you'll see your body's trying to drag you this way and drag you back that way and blah, blah, blah. But if a person were to just stay the course from childhood spiritually and stay on a fairly fit line, we could be spiritually fit. That's what Paul is advocating. Avoid unfit behaviors. You know, the Canadian and American Heart Association, Cancer Association, Medical Association, each one says avoid. They'll use the word avoid. And it speaks of all the things that lead to unfitness. Avoid them. And what does God tell us? Avoid. Avoid. Stay away from the things that would take us off to a course whereby we would have to recover from.

I think it's probably a thousand times easier to maintain what your goal is rather than to recapture a goal. For instance, very simply, you could take a canoe out from your campsite into a river. It's kind of fun. Paddle around, see some ducks, blah, blah, blah. And as long as you sort of stay in the proximity of your campsite going up the river against the current, you're fine. But if at some point you say, huh, I think I'll see what it's like downriver. I'll just float down here for a while. Oh, this is fun. This is easy. This is more pleasant. No rowing involved. No paddling. New things to see. Later that evening, you say, hmm, I really need to get back to the campsite.

How hard is it to row up a river to get back to your campsite? Especially when the speed of paddling probably matches that of the river going downstream. Now you've got to really work out to the point where maybe you can't even do that.

It's a thousand times easier, and that's not a scientific formula, by the way, to maintain a goal than to recover a goal. You ever see a house that's abandoned, the windows are broken out, it's got grass growing out the roof tiles, and maybe a tree growing out the side, and you say, hmm, well, I can't afford to live, I can't afford to buy a nice house in this area, but I can afford that. You know how hard it would be to recover that house back to a livable house with all the dampness and the damage and the critters and the bugs and the decay and...

It would be much easier just to have painted it years and years ago and kept the windows intact than to try to go recover it.

This lesson is brought to us by Jesus in Luke chapter 15 and verse 29. Let's go back to the parable of the prodigal son and look at the other brother.

Luke chapter 15 verse 29. It's a wonderful thing when somebody comes back, and believe me, we all come back, okay?

Look at me if you want an example. We all do things and we come back, and that's great.

But what if we didn't have to come back all the time? That's the point here. What if we stayed on the path? In Luke chapter 15 verse 29.

My inheritance. I have my family. I have the respect of the community. I have my job, my career intact, my future, my children are growing up.

I have everything here, and yet you never gave me a young goat.

The only thing this person is complaining about is more attention from his father. He would just like a little more attention, please.

Pretty good place to be in life. A very, very good place to be in life.

You know, in verse 31, the father said to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.

What a great place to begin life and continue life.

When God calls us, he brings us, we should continue from that place with God, with that relationship, and avoid any diversions away from that path, with that relationship with God.

And the same with our spouses, the same with our obligations to friendship.

We shouldn't let our eyes and our selfishness wander from those things.

We should stay the course and reap the rewards, the blessings of loving and serving, and being part of family, the family of God.

In conclusion, we have all that's necessary to stay on course, as I mentioned.

In 2 Corinthians 10, in verse 4, we'll conclude with the Scripture, For the weapons of our warfare, because we have defensive weapons that God gives us, to help us defend against temptation, against deceit, against the wiles of the devil, and against sinful thoughts and nature that would well up from within. These weapons of our warfare are not physical, but mighty in God, for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

That's what we need to do. Develop that character where every thought is brought captive into obedience of the way of following Jesus Christ, following God the Father, being part of that family.

And when we do that, then, brethren, we truly are on the journey of a lifetime.

Thank you.