Keeping a Feast Attitude Through Winter

Well, thank you, Art. Happy Sabbath, everyone. I apologize in advance for my voice today. I have determined that I really must stop smoking camels. The hairs, the hairs keep getting stuck in my throat, so, no, I'm not really smoking camels. But I've acquired something my wife mentioned on the Bible study Wednesday night that I sounded kind of froggy. And she's kind of froggy, too, so I guess we're sharing whatever's going around together. So happy Sabbath again to all of you. Most of us have returned from the Feast of Tabernacles that we attended about eight weeks ago. And we came back home excited and invigorated as we do every year at the Feast. But over time, we kind of lose that excitement about God's kingdom and our place in it. And in addition, we're entering a time of year when it can be difficult to maintain the kind of joyful attitude that we experienced at the Feast. The days are shorter. The evenings are longer. The weather has definitely changed. Driving here this morning, I saw the—it was actually very pretty, a blanket of white snow and everything, but driving looking towards the west, which is the direction I come in for a few turns, the sky was such crisp, bright blue in contrast to that white snow. It was actually very, very beautiful. But times are changing. Some banks will soon be celebrating the most sacred day of the year. Yes, you've got a January 10th when their bank credit card invoices will be mailed out. And everybody who bought all kinds of stuff in December will get their invoice, and the majority of them won't pay it in full, and they'll be paying up to 24 percent interest in all this junk that they bought during the month of December. As we look into the future, it will be a long four months before the spring holy days arrive. It can be easy on these short days, long evenings, sometimes looking out day after day, wondering if that fiery ball still exists in the sky because of the thick clouds that hang over Cleveland, a good part of the year. It can easily help us or prod us become melancholy or even discouraged, as even nature itself seems to have gone asleep on us. But what are some of the positive things that we can do this winter? How can we maintain that feast attitude a little longer this year and maybe propel us right into the spring holy days? Well, today I'd like to give you five short points on how to keep that feast attitude alive during these winter months. How to keep the feast attitude alive during these winter months. And here's point number one. Count your blessings instead of sheep.

In other words, focus on what we have, not on what we don't have. In the Old Testament, how many sheep you had was an indication of how wealthy you were. It talks about Abraham and others, individuals in the Old Testament. They had so many sheep. That was a material, physical thing. But what I'm encouraging us to do is rather than looking at materially what we have or don't have and comparing and contrasting, focus only on what we have.

The blessings we have been given, not on what we don't have. Psychologists say it's not unusual for people to get discouraged this time of year. Some say that this time of year, there are more people discouraged during the so-called Christmas season at any time of the year. If you're single or if you have a substance issue, you're struggling, maybe you don't have a job. All you see on television is this theme of happy people and receiving gifts and family and sucking down eggnog together and doing all these happy family things. And there you are all alone. And it can be very discouraging for many people. And this subliminal message from media is that everyone else has these things. You deserve them and you deserve to have them now. We're told, buy, buy, buy now. Why wait? That's what we're encouraged to do. Surrounded by this environment, it's easy to focus on material things. It's easy to focus on our desires instead of focusing on the things that we already have been given.

We may look at the glass of life as half empty rather than half full and forget what this life is really all about. Ephesians chapter one verse three, if you will turn there with me, please. Ephesians chapter one and verse three. Let's see what's really important and what we can all share in together.

Ephesians chapter one and verse three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. Have you ever thought about that? It says that God has already blessed us with not some, not a few, every spiritual blessing. God offers it to us as a gift. Now, if we don't open that gift, then we can't enjoy its benefits. If we don't choose to receive that gift and make it part of our lives, it's as if someone gives you a material gift and you put it in the closet and forget all about it. And that's what many people do. It says he's blessed us with every spiritual blessing, but we have to choose to receive it in the heavenly places in Christ.

Just as he chose us in him, God chose us. Think about how incredible that is. How many billions of people are on this earth? How many billions of people have lived on planet earth since Jesus Christ walked to this earth? And the overwhelming majority lived their lives, died, and have no idea what their purpose was and what this human existence is all about. What's God trying to do with it? But we do. We know our purpose. We know that God chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Having predestined us, meaning planned a long time ago, he predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself. So we are the adopted children of God. What a blessing that is. That's a spiritual blessing. According to the good pleasure of his will. Your calling, no matter what you're struggling with, your calling brings God pleasure. God isn't disgusted with you. He's not ashamed of you. He called you according to the pleasure of his will. He's excited about your life and your existence. Verse 6, to the praise of the glory of his grace by which he has made us accepted. We're not rejects. We're not mistakes in God's eyes. He has made us accepted in the beloved, of course, speaking of Jesus Christ.

And yes, we all have been given certain physical blessings right now. And those physical blessings among us are all different. Some of us are blessed with good health. Others sound like froggy, right? Some of us are blessed with a good job or a comfortable retirement.

Some are blessed with a close-type family who do lots of things together. Some live in a comfortable home. Some are able to enjoy, find food and drink. So we're all physically blessed in different ways. However, what the scripture tells us is there are spiritual blessings we can all share. Now we're all equal in the opportunity of receiving those blessings. Remember, I want to highlight verse 3, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. All we have to do is accept it and open the gift.

We are now God's little children, but someday we'll inherit the universe because God wants to share everything he has with us. So don't look at what you lack in your life, materially or spiritually. Focus on what you already have. And if you feel that there are some spiritual blessings that you haven't received yet, tell God, I'm ready to accept your gift. I want that gift in my life. We can all share now in the joy of happiness, there is nothing holding us back. To be joyful is a choice.

It's a byproduct of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. We can all have peace of mind. That's a choice. We have to accept that from God and say, no matter what happens to me, life or death, hell or high water, I can live at peace because I know that my future is secure and I know what God has planned for my life. We can all enjoy the spiritual blessing of sensing our purpose and mission. We can all share in those things. So again, don't look at what you lack. Focus on the many rich and wonderful blessings you already have. All right, number two. Number two is greatly serve others, but don't forget your own needs as well.

You know, Jesus said in Matthew chapter 22 and verse 39, he said, love your neighbor as yourself. So, you know, if we despise ourselves, if we don't take care of ourselves, it shouldn't surprise us that we don't like our neighbor. Jesus said you should love yourself in the right way. Love yourself and taking care of yourself, taking care of your health, getting enough sleep at night.

Talk about some physical things. First, eating good food. Lots of things we already know, making sure we're drinking enough liquids. All of those things that we know today are important. And then spiritually speaking, make sure we're connecting with God through prayer and Bible study and meditation. Occasionally fasting. We have these particular needs. Let's go to Matthew chapter 14 and verse 21. Matthew chapter 14 and verse 21. One of the myths of Jesus is that he was this incredibly gregarious individual. And all he did was walk among the fields in the villages and look for people to take care of themselves.

And all he did was walk among the fields in the villages and look for people to talk to. And that's not true. Certainly he had a powerful and productive ministry. But he also took time for himself.

What we might call downtime. That was very important to Jesus, just like it should be important to you and I. Matthew chapter 14 and verse 21. Now those who had eaten were about 5,000 men. And we won't go into the miracle of feeding 5,000 individuals beside women and children. Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side while he sent the multitudes away.

And when he had come, when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up in the mountain by himself to pray. And when evening came, he was there alone. You see, he needed his private time. He needed time to connect with himself and his own feelings and his own challenges as well as connecting with his great father. In John chapter 6 and verse 15, it says, Jesus departed again to a mountain by himself alone.

For many of us, life requires some personal space to keep things in balance and to have an equal liberty in our life. Why is this so important? By the way, it's the same reason God gave us the gift of the Sabbath. Many of us are caught up in the daily rat race for survival. There are bills to be paid, dozens of things to do, responsibilities to perform, places to go. Some of us are caregivers or we have hectic demanding jobs. Some of us travel a fair amount. Some have active children in our homes. Some are going through college or vocational school.

They have educational needs. Many of us are involved in our jobs, our family, and our community and our church at the same time. There isn't enough time to do all the things that we want to do and we desire. And it's easy, become so wrapped up in the need to meet these perceived obligations as well as the cares of this world and the worries and anxiety that go with how am I going to save enough for my kids to go to college and how am I going to do this and how am I going to save for retirement?

How am I going to do this? How am I going to do this? So many demands in our hearts and in our minds. We can have a tendency to neglect ourselves physically, spiritually, and emotionally. And a lot of times we do. And again, that's one reason God made the Sabbath. He knew that people who are motivated, unless he stopped them, would work, work, work, work because that's the way many of us are wired to do.

And he forced us to take, get off the merry-go-round one day a week, step back, reflect on his kingdom, fellowship with people of life mind, worship him, rest, and take a Sabbath. That's exactly what God wanted to do. So I want to encourage you to remember to occasionally stop and practice some self-care.

That's a phrase that's only become popular like the last five years. We tend to create these buzzwords in our culture, right? And the recent one is self-care, meaning take care of yourself. Some of us are so wrapped up into doing things for other people that we're not taking care of ourselves.

So practice self-care. Spend time on your favorite hobby. Get your mind off of your cares and worries. Maybe try to learn something new. Talk to an old friend. Make a new friend. And please take care of your health. As a pastor, I buried too many people because they waited too long to go to the doctor.

They didn't take care of themselves. Put it off, put it off, put it off. And by the time they did go to the doctor, it was either going to be a major surgery, major complication, or sometimes terminal, leading to death. Number three, may God grant me patience, and I mean now. We live in an instant society. It touts instant everything, instant coffee, instant breakfast, instant credit, instant communication by texting, instant salvation. Well, if you said that prayer, we believe you were born again. And Jesus is in your heart. And between your adulterous affairs and stealing and robbing and coveting and all of the things that you do on a daily basis, you're now saved because you said this prayer.

In the instant salvation, that's what our culture offers today to many, many people. Our cultural emphasis breeds impatience in all of us because everything's instant in this world. Life is stressful enough in an attitude or an impatient attitude, even aggravates our stress in our trials more and more. Our own impatience causes a lot of unnecessary worry and grief and anger. Sometimes we worry about something happening that never happens. We waste all that time thinking of the worst-case scenario, and it never even happens. I've seen many people make wrong, serious decisions because they were too impatient to wait another hour or another day or another week for something to happen, maybe something they were praying about.

Remember Saul in 1 Samuel 13? Samuel told Saul to wait for seven days in Gilgal for Samuel to arrive to make an offering. He was authorized to make an offering. Saul was not authorized. He wasn't a Levite. He was a Benjamite. He wasn't authorized to make an offering. In seven days, come and go. No Samuel. Samuel shows up yet, not there. So what's Saul doing? Impatient Saul, he just can't wait another hour, another minute, and he goes and does an offering.

And that was really the straw that broke the camel's back. He was doing things that only applied to an ordained priest of God because he was impatient. And then he changed history. No one hears of the great dynasty of Saul today. We all know the dynasty of David and his descendants.

No one ever hears of the great dynasty of Saul because it doesn't exist. His impatience caused him the kingship and caused him the ability to serve his people. Let's go to Luke chapter 21 and verse 12. Luke chapter 21 and verse 12. Jesus says here, Luke 21, 12, but before all these things, they will lay hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons. Now, this particularly happened immediately after the death of Jesus, the Jewish community in Jerusalem, and what the Jewish believers suffered and experienced.

At that time, Jesus had predicted it. And sure enough, history shows that it happened, and it may happen again at these end times. You will be brought before kings and rulers for our namesake, but it will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony. Therefore, settle in your hearts not to meditate beforehand in what you will answer, for I give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist.

You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. And you will be hated for all my namesake. But a hair of your head, but not a hair of your head, shall be lost. You will have eternal life, even if you are persecuted, even if you suffer physical death. You're going to be resurrected, a spirit being a child of God, living for eternity. And then Jesus says a very powerful, remarkable phrase, because it's easy to be impatient when we're under persecution. It's easy to want God to intervene now, to take away this problem now, to take away this trial now. But Jesus says, by your patience, possess your souls. This verse in the translation of God's word for today is, by your endurance, you will save your life. You're hanging in there to the end, being patient, being consistent, being persistent in spite of the persecution or the trials that you're experiencing. This is from a Greek word, houp omenae, and it means hopeful endurance, remaining constant, patience, and a patient continuance. It says in Proverbs 16 and verse 32, he who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirits, he who tamps down their impatience, when they want something to happen now, he who becomes a master over their own emotions and rules his spirit is more mighty than he who takes a city, someone who literally with an army conquers a city, because you've done something far greater. You've learned to conquer yourself, your own self will, your own selfishness. It's very powerful. So again, number two is may God grant me patience, and I mean now.

Okay, that was point number three. Now point number four, never forget for even one second who calls you his friend. As I've mentioned many times, Jesus Christ shed his own blood so that we could all belong to him. He purchased us, and yes, we are his servants, his slaves, we are his ambassadors. But do you realize that Jesus views us in an additional way? He does not look upon us in a demeaning way. Some people like to emphasize that they're servants and slaves, that Jesus Christ and so on, and that's fine. Indeed we are. But we oftentimes overlook what Jesus called his disciples, and it certainly applies for you and I here in this 21st century. John chapter 15 and verse 13. Jesus didn't look at his disciples as carnal and human, as weak as they were, as mere supplicants, as nobodies, as the lowest of slaves. That's not how we looked at them. John chapter 15 and verse 13. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down his life for his friends. And you are my friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants. No longer my coach is going to refer you as a slave, a house slave, a dimwit, a nobody, a loser.

For a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends. Just think about the Old Testament, how powerful it was when God called Abraham his friend. That means a relationship. That means the potential for a one-on-one, intimate and close relationship. And that's again what Jesus Christ offers us as a gift, as one of those spiritual blessings I talked about earlier, if we're willing to choose to accept it and open up that gift. But I have called you friends for all things that I have heard from my father, I have made known to you, have shared, I've openly communicated to you everything the father has revealed to me. Verse 16. You did not choose me, but I chose you. Again, getting back to our first point, we are chosen, a chosen people. We're not a mistake. We're not an accident. But I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit. This is our calling. This is part of what we're supposed to do after we made that commitment at baptism, live the rest of our lives, changing and growing, becoming less carnal, more like the mind of Christ, and what's the byproduct of that? We bear fruit. We change. We start to think like Jesus Christ. More importantly, we start to act like Jesus Christ. We become sacrificial. We become caring for other people. That you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain for whatever you ask the father in my name he may give you. So we are God's children and he constantly shows us mercy and grace. God gives us his favor and friendship because he loves us. To maintain any friendship, you have to be willing to invest time with someone else. That's true of a physical friendship or it's true of a spiritual friendship with God. You have to invest that time or that friendship slowly fades away and diminishes over a period of time. When we study his word, we listen to him and we continue building that bond with Jesus Christ and with the Father. When we study his word, we listen to him and continue again building that bond. When we pray, we communicate with Jesus Christ and build the bond of friendship with him. When we meditate on spiritual things, we have a little bit of a give and take session as our mind thinks about something and then analyzes it. Maybe we go back a little bit thinking about it. We have that give and take through meditation that helps God's spirit to give us the ability to sort out some difficult things in life. But let's never forget just how powerful and wonderful it is that Jesus Christ calls us his friend. Not just slaves, but calls us his friend. All right, the fifth point. The fifth point is to take a clue from the serenity of winter time. Take a clue from the serenity of winter time. God created the earth and designed the seasons. They exist because God designed them. They don't exist over all parts of the earth. Only those of us in the northern hemisphere are blessed with all four seasons. Some of us believe winters are a lot like mosquitoes. Why, God? Why? But nonetheless, they have a purpose. Every weather season has a purpose and it completes a cycle in a similar way. Our lives have seasons, right? If you look at our from birth to our death, our life also has seasons.

Rather than resenting winter time and its physical limitations, take a clue from what it teaches us. We'll go to a scripture here, Psalm chapter 74 and verse 15. A prayer, praise to God, Psalm chapter 74 verse 15.

Psalm 74, 15. You broke open the fountain and the flood. You dried up mighty rivers. The day is yours and the night also is yours. You have prepared a light and the sun. You have set all the borders of the earth. You have made summer and winter. So God created this cycle, a life cycle, seasonal cycle that includes winter. And after a summer of growth and the colorful change of fall, the earth and our part of the world is now peaceful. And it's serene and it's meditative. It's a time to think a little bit more about our lives and think about ourselves. Again, the evenings are longer and rather wasting the evening watching Bugs Bunny reruns on some TV show. Our evenings would be better spent if we do a few things that I'll be recommending in a few minutes. But I want you to think about something maybe you have never thought of before. Actually, below the frost line, we now know through studies of the earth and the study of plants, people who study plants, that some plants continue to have their roots grow all winter. So they're not totally dormant. Yeah, on the outside, anything from the frost line up, it's dead, right? It's all browned out. It looks like it died. But underneath, where the snow and the frost won't freeze it, many plants still have roots that are growing all winter long. Those plants are now preparing for a new burst of growth next spring. Though their environment seems to be less active, what we see on the outside is that that plant is dead. But underneath the ground, from all the sunshine and nourishment that it had last summer, it built up and stored a lot of energy, and now they're expanding their roots underground and preparing for another season of growth. Is that what we're doing? Or are we vegetating? Are we allowing ourselves to become couch potatoes? Or do we realize the potential that we have? I want to encourage you to make this natural cycle of winter productive. And here's some of the things that we can do. Just give you something to think about. Now that the evenings are longer, and there's not a whole lot that we can do outside, maybe except shovel snow, some of the things we can do is read more. Get that book that you've always wanted to read. It'll expand your vocabulary. Reading will take you to new worlds that you've never explored or understood before. Spend some additional time with loved ones. Begin to make plans on what you want to do next spring and next summer. If you want good things to happen, you have to make plans. It's true of anything in life. You can't live life by knee-jerk.

And sadly, too many people, even in the Church of God, live their lives by knee-jerk, rather than making a plan to get from point A to point B and breaking it down into steps that's going to get them to where they need to go. So make a plan on what you want to do next spring and next summer. Work on something totally new to you. Find something that you might have an interest in and devour it and learn a totally new skill or a level of knowledge or maybe some software or maybe even a new piece of hardware. If you're into Android, as much as I hate to say this, but we must support the beast power, get an Apple product.

All kidding aside, think of something brand new that you can do in these long winter evenings. Write a book you've always wanted to make a biography of your life so that your great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, should Jesus not return, can find out what you were all about, can learn about who you were and what was important to you in your life. Call an old friend and strike up a new friendship. Maybe it's someone who was a victim of our previous church splits that Mr. Gebrehr had talked about today. That doesn't make them a bad person. If you were once very close to them, give them a call. How are you doing? I haven't thought about you in 20 years. Just how are you doing? We have an example. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson became political enemies and they got to the point where they literally hated one another. They did everything they could to hurt one another, to thwart one another's political possibilities. But when they grew old, a mutual friend started with John Adams, write a little letter to Thomas Jefferson. You know, I don't think we should die until we've gotten to know each other a little better. And they began a friendship merely by writing letters. They never saw each other as old men. By writing letters back and forth, and thankfully all of those letters are preserved today. They rekindled an old friendship. Think about doing something different. Maybe serving at a local food bank or shelter half a day a week. Ask to serve in a new way in our congregation. Maybe something that you've never done before. Try it out. Try something out new. If you know a little about the internet, get a used laptop computer and learn. If you know nothing about the internet, that's okay. Get yourself a used laptop. You can get a cheap 10-inch Amazon tablet. Use one for about $20. And explore the world. You can go to McDonald's, order yourself a cup of coffee, and sit there for two hours on free internet and learn how to operate a tablet. Set up an email account and enter the 20th century. And then after that, we'll get you into the 21st century. That's possible if we're willing to do it. So in conclusion, during the next few months, I hope you will remember these points. And don't forget the importance of camaraderie and fellowship with the brethren each and every Sabbath.

And I encourage you, if you have any respect for the nearly 14 years that I served you as your pastor, all I ask, here's the greatest thank you you can give me. If you think I did anything of value the last 14 years, is to give Mr. and Mrs. Boucher the same level of courtesy and kindness and dignity that you gave to myself and BJ.

That's all I ask. And if you do, God will bless this congregation and take it to a whole new level, because that's exactly what God wants to do. God certainly intended his Sabbath to be a day of refreshment and a day of joy. And we need each other. And we can encourage each other to remain positive through the next few months about what God is doing for us.

And in us. And in our lives. So let's try to maintain that feast attitude in the enthusiasm that we had when we came home from the feast. And remember what that was like? And let's try to carry that on all winter long. And if we do that, just think what a difference it'll make in our lives and in our congregation. May God richly bless all of you. And I wish you wonderful Sabbath.