[Gary Petty] Have you ever said to yourself, "I just can't get it out of my head"? Now, I know we have some Spanish and French translation going on, and I don't know if that translates well into Spanish or French – "I just can't get that out of my head." Of course, what we mean when we say that in English is that I have a thought in my head that I just can't get rid of. I have an obsession. Do you ever get a song stuck in your head, or a scene or maybe something's happened bad to you and it's stuck in your head? You can't get rid of it. You just play it over and over again until we become totally obsessed.  Like I've seen people destroy their lives over obsessions because they just get obsessed – especially with something bad that's happened to them – something negative, somebody did something wrong to them – and they just can never let it go. And that obsession controls their lives. So when we generally think of obsession, we think of something negative. We think of something bad, right? But you know, any great endeavor that's done by human beings is because there's somebody obsessed to get it done. They're obsessed to get it done – it's their obsession. It becomes what I call their magnificent obsession.

That's the title of my sermon – Magnificent Obsession. I didn't make that up. It actually comes from a novel that was written way back in the 1930's. It was made into a movie, probably in the 1950's or so. Rock Hudson played the lead part in it, so that shows you how old that was. Rock Hudson was old when I was a kid, so you know he's …. But it's sort of a melodrama. And the movie was really overacted and overplayed, but it was a bestselling novel. It's a story of a playboy who literally lives a worthless life. He mistreats other people. He doesn't care about anything, because he has money. He seduces women. He gets drunk. He does whatever he wants. He lives this absolutely immoral lifestyle. He's out swimming on the ocean and he drowns, but someone pulls him ashore, and someone is rushed up to this house there on the shore, and there's a man there that has a special respiratory machine. He says, "You take this down there." And they take this machine down there, and hook this man up to it, and he gets air, and gets the water out and he lives. But in doing so, the man who was hooked up to the machine died. So the whole point of the book is that this man has an obsession to become like the man who died for him. And so he finds out the guy was a brain surgeon. Now if that wasn't hard to believe, this is where the story gets really hard to believe. So this playboy takes his money now, and becomes a brain surgeon, and he starts to take over this man's practice. And as he does, he finds out that many of the people, who this man treated, were poor people, and he did it for free. He helped people. He would go visit people that other doctors would not go to. So he takes over this man's life. And then it even gets stranger beyond that, so we won't go there – you know, the man just becomes more and more like this man and he ends up marrying his wife. The whole point of the novel was that this man was worthless, but because of this obsession to become like the man who saved his life, he actually became a very important and very valuable human being, and his entire way of thinking – his entire way of living – changed – from this worthless playboy to a man who gave his life serving others.

Do you have a magnificent obsession in your life? You know where I'm going so far, right? In fact, I'm going to go through a number of scriptures today and we're not going to go through anything you have not read, or heard 100 times. We're not going to go through anything hard today. I'm not going to tear apart – sometimes I like to do that – Hebrew words and Greek words. We're going to look at something very simple today.  Do we have a magnificent obsession? Let's go to Luke 14. I would guess that every person in this room, when you were baptized, someone sat down and read this scripture to you. Everyone I've ever baptized I've read this scripture to and when I was baptized someone read this scripture to me.

Luke 14:25-26  Now great multitudes went with Him…speaking of Jesus Christ…. And He turned and said to them, 26 "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.

You and I have a central relationship in our lives with God as our Father. That's the central relationship of our lives. Jesus Christ points us, all the time, to the Father but you know that you and I have a relationship with Jesus Christ also – a couple of different relationships: He's our brother, but here we're talking about disciple. It's a very important relationship – a disciple.  A disciple lives with a master. When you think about it – this is an eastern idea – but remember this was the middle east in the first century. How strange would it be today to see a man walking along with twelve men walking behind him every place he went? We'd think, "That's a gang," and we'd all be scared and call the police. Right? You know, that wasn't strange in that environment. He was a rabbi and these were His disciples. Disciple doesn't mean student – it means imitator. They imitate the master. They live with the master. They learn to think like the master. They learn to act like the master. They learn to solve problems like the master. They have a very deep personal relationship, not like teacher/student. They are imitators of the master and Jesus Christ said here, "If you're not willing to give up everything to be My disciple, then you can not be my disciple." Look what He says in verse 27.

Luke 14:27 & 33 And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple….You know, I've used this example numerous times over the years, but it wasn't until the last probably ten years that I really understood what He was saying. And the reason why is that I've never seen anybody nailed to a cross. So it was just a word to me. Those people knew exactly what that meant, because when a person picked up the big heavy beam to carry it off to the place where they were going to crucify them, how far did they carry it? They carried it until they nailed them to it. There was no sort of half way carrying the cross beam. Now He's making a very important point here. He says that if you pick up Christianity, you carry it until you're nailed to it. You carry it until you die. A magnificent obsession was someone who died for us…

v.33 So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple…There's a relationship we have with God, as our Father, and there's a relationship we have with Jesus Christ. We can't ignore either of them. One is central to our being. The other is central to who we become. Jesus Christ became a human being so that He could show us this is what this is supposed to be like. This is how you're supposed to live and then He died for our sins. And then He said, "Now, become obsessed with imitating me." We're here because of an invitation by God. We're here to celebrate the return of Jesus Christ, but none of us will be there when Jesus Christ returns unless we understand why He came the first time and we understand what we're supposed to be doing right now.

Over the years I've seen many people come to church because they wanted to escape the tribulation. I've seen many people come to church because they believed that the knowledge that we have saved them. They were saved by the knowledge, so we just keep accumulating more knowledge, and that shows how good we are. But you know, that's not what this is all about. This is an obsession – an obsession to become the children of God.

Colossians chapter 3 – an obsession to become the children of God. There is no more important message we have to give than this. This is the gospel. You know, the gospel contains bad news. The good news has no context without bad news. The good news is God is creating a family, and in all this bad news, God's going to create a family. And He's called you to become obsessed with where He's going to take you. That's a day by day obsession. This is something we shouldn't be able to get out of our heads. This is something we shouldn't be able to get out of our heads, because the moment you do, you get in trouble, right? The moment you do – we've all done that – the moment we let this out of our heads, we get in trouble.

Colossians 3:1-10 If then you were raised with Christ,…We're going back to our baptism here. We're going back to the Passover and tying in all the Holy Days together. … If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth….This is the obsession we're supposed to have – the obsession we know where our God is, we know where our Jesus Christ is, we know who we are, and we seek those things every day in our minds, and how we act, and how we talk, and how we think, how we treat other people – whether they're in the church or not – how we conduct our business deals. He says… 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. …You and I died and someone else gave His life so we could wake up – which, of course, the novel, Magnificent Obsession actually had a Christian theme behind it.  The man had somebody die for him. So that became the obsession of his life. 4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory…That's what we observed on the Feast of Trumpets, wasn't it?  Appearing with Him in glory when He returns… 5 Therefore put to death your members…There is no passive Christianity with Paul. I always get a chuckle out of people who say, "Well, Paul did away with the law and he just wants us to sort of feel good about God and about each other. Read Paul's writings! There's nobody that uses verbs like Paul. Here he says, "Kill yourself!" That's an obsessed man! Paul is an obsessed man like few people in the Bible. He's obsessed – you have to be to do the things which God did through him. The first time they stoned me, I'd say, "I'm going home. I survived the stoning. That's all I'm doing." He got up and went back into the village where they had just stoned him. That's obsession folks! But this is the obsession we're supposed to have. He says…5 Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, 7 in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.8 But now you yourselves are to put off all these:…rip them out of us, this is the obsession… anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds,…Now, if we stop there –and I think we do this in the church a lot – we get into the negative so much, we forget the positives. So we become people who hate evil and we don't love virtue. So we become very negative people – "Oh that's bad, that's bad, that's bad, that's bad, that's bad." But what's good?  Well, v.10… 10 and have put on the new man…become the person who died for you… put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him,…

Become this new person. Become obsessed with who we're supposed to be. Every day we are to be obsessed with becoming like Jesus Christ. That's our magnificent obsession. But you know, we can try to do that every day, but if we don't have a goal, we will give up. If you try every day…because every day none of us measure up to Jesus Christ – I mean, we're trying to measure up to something that's impossible. Christianity – what God has given to us – has all kinds of difficulties with it. One of them is, "I want you to measure up to something that you can't do," so He gives us His Spirit. And even with His Spirit, we, once in a while, get there, but we're not there all the time, are we? So we just struggle and struggle. We say, "How does this work?" and we become discouraged. So, there's a goal. There's a goal in this magnificent obsessionto become like Christ, so that at His return, we are resurrected to be children in that family. You'll hear about that throughout the Feast. We'll talk about that on the Last Great Day when we talk about the hope for all of humanity – the reason for created human beings. See, all the Holy Days are all tied together. So what is the goal? If my magnificent obsession is to become Christlike, what is the goal?

Let's go back to Leviticus 23 and look at some of the instructions that were given to these people who came out of Egypt – the Israelites.

Leviticus 23:39-43 Also on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of the Lord for seven days; on the first day there shall be a sabbath-rest, and on the eighth day a sabbath-rest….So, here we are on the first day of this Feast keeping the Sabbath rest…. 40 And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. 41 You shall keep it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month. 42 You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths,…now notice v.43… 43 that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.'"

Generation after generation, it was supposed to happen this way. Unfortunately, in the history of both Israel and Judah, you don't find this happening really that often. These people were to come together at this time and children would say, "So why do we do this?" They would sit children down and tell them, "Let me tell you why we do this. And one of the reasons why is because we are to remember we live in the promised land. We live in the land that God gave to us. But there were people – your forefathers – who weren't born in this land. There were people – our forefathers – who had to go to this land. So let me tell you the stories – the stories of the wilderness, the stories of when they didn't obey God, and the stories when they fought among themselves, and the stories when they sinned, and the stories where God did great things through them, and opened the Red Sea, and He fed them with manna. Let me tell you the stories about the people who had to go to the promised land." They were already there and they were told that when they kept these days they were to be reminded of the people who had to go. They were to be reminded that they were brought there through the miracles of God, that that land was given to them by God. And though they're inheritors of this promised land, there was a price to be paid by people to get there. And those stories became the stories of legend – of Moses and Aaron - they became the stories that they would tell – and Miriam, who got all the women together and wrote a song. And they would sing those songs and they would be reminded that there were people that had to travel to get here.

Hebrews 11 was read last night. I'm going to read a few verses that Mr. Martin read last night. He and I were talking about obsessions a little bit before the Feast started, and he said, "Ah, this is so….. ", he's worried about everything right.  When you run a Feast site, you become obsessed. And I told him, "Don't worry about it. Halfway through the Feast, you'll realize that nothing that can happen can measure up to what you've made up in your mind, because you just envision the worst happening throughout the Feast." Hebrews 11 – this was read. The writer is talking about Abraham and Sarah, other of the great people of the Old Testament – the people of God.

Hebrews 11:13-16  These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth….Every person that has followed God through history has to recognize something – they weren't in the promised land. They were the people on the way. They're the people on the journey to the promised land. The promised land became their obsession. When you and I forget the goal of this, we will stop living it. We will turn from God. We'll let go of His hand. You see, you and I will get there as long as we hold on the hand of God. That's a promise. You can go to God and claim that promise. You hold onto His hand, but when we lose sight of the goal, we let go of His hand – where are we? Where are we? One thing I really appreciated about last night, in the sermon, was the reminder that we are here because of God. We're not here because of us. We're here because God invited us. We're here because God gave us the knowledge. We're here because God opened…we're afraid to use the word grace, but the bottom line is, that we're here because of the grace of God. Because you and I didn't make this up. I couldn't make up God's way. It's too good. It's too great. Either He gives it to us or we never get it, right? Who gave us the Ten Commandments? Did you make them up? I didn't make them up. You wouldn't want to live under my ten commandments. The law itself is by the grace of God. He either gave it to us or He doesn't. God gave this to us. That's what's so horrible about giving it up. …  14 For those who say such things…these pilgrims… declare plainly that they seek a homeland. 15 And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return….If you want bad enough to go back, you'll try to go back…. 16 But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

You know, what I find the most amazing statement in those few verses – because those are powerful verses – is that God is not ashamed to be their God. Is God ashamed to be our God? When He looks down on the church, sometimes I think He is. He says look at them just like ancient Israel wandering around in the wilderness – right? – on the way to the promised land. There were times He looked down on them and said, "Moses, stand aside. I'll just kill ‘em all and start over with you." There are times God looks down on us and He says, "How am I going to get these kids where they're supposed to go?" But, He never gives up on us. And I hope there are times He looks at us and He's not ashamed to be our God either. Look at verse 33, He goes on and talks about all these people, and in the middle of a sentence here, He says – talking about all these people who followed God in this faith chapter:

Hebrews 11:33-40 … who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. 35 Women received their dead raised to life again….Yes, I like that part. I can become obsessed with that. Give me my sword – you know – raise people from the dead. This is the stuff of legends. But, you know, we have to read on, because this journey isn't always easy. It never has been. It never has been. He says, in the middle of verse 35: Others were tortured…. Wait a minute! We started on this journey. We're obsessed to go to the Kingdom. We're obsessed to becoming Christlike. And you're telling me part of this might involve torture? Where do I turn in my card and start another journey someplace else? ...not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. 36 Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented…. Well, nobody told me that! You know, when I was baptized, they said, "Are you willing to give up mother, father, brother, sister, your own life also to be my disciple?" "Yes, Lord! Well no one said I could be stoned or sawn in two or tempted or wander around in sheep skins! I'm not even sure what a sheep skin is! No one told me that." 38  …of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise…. Abraham was promised the Kingdom and he didn't receive it. Do you realize he was promised a huge piece of land? At the end of his life, he has to barter to get a cave to bury his wife in on the land that God gave him, because he didn't own a piece of it in his lifetime. David didn't receive the Kingdom. He was king over a kingdom, but he didn't receive what God had promised him. Paul and Peter…we think of Sarah and Mary and Martha, and we think of all the men and women of the Bible, and none of them received the promise – not one. They journeyed with their magnificent obsession, but here's why they haven't received it… 40 God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

Now that was written to the first century Christians and applies just as much to the people in this room. The resurrection hasn't taken place, because God isn't finished with the first part of creating His family. When He's finished, guess who's coming back? When He's finished with the people that He has ready to be changed – who have become Christlike – then Jesus Christ is coming back. In fact, we may be the great variable right now in all of prophecy. We may be the great variable. Maybe there's just not enough. We're just not ready enough yet. But you know, the time is going to run out. This doesn't go on forever and we have to be ready because Abraham and Sarah and Barnabus, they're all waiting. They're all asleep waiting for the resurrection so they can finish their journey.

 

You know, there's another event in history that has been called an obsession. Back in the 1820's or 30's people on the east coast started to realize that they wanted some more land and everybody was afraid of anything west of Ohio.  So they decided there was a promised land. They heard about a promised land – a place that was so beautiful, so perfect that it was unbelievable. It was called Oregon. And so they decided by the thousands – and it ended up being by the tens of thousands – that they had to go there. And it became an obsession. For about thirty years, tens of thousands of people decided to go across the prairie. They didn't understand the distance. They didn't understand what was there. They read  little guidebooks of what it was supposed to be like, but they had a vision of what it was supposed to be like. When you and I, in this attempt, and with God's help, we can be successful in becoming like Jesus Christ. We also are on this journey, aren't we? We're on a journey. We are wanderers and pilgrims. We are here on a temporary journey, but part of the temporariness of why we're here is to remind us not only of the future, but of who we are right now. We are the people in the wilderness. We're the wanderers. That's what it is to be a Christian, but see sometimes you didn't realize that, did you? There are lots of things you didn't realize when you thought you signed that contract to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Yeah, but you didn't mean really, completely a disciple of Jesus Christ.

They had no idea what it meant to go Oregon – none whatsoever – and so they sold everything they had. Oh they read little books, in fact there were books on how to go to Oregon that became best sellers at that time. And it told you everything you needed.  Let's see, you would need a good wagon. They told you what kind of wagon to buy, how many oxen and horses you would need, and everything you would need to go with you. You would have to have anvils, and shovels, and equipment, and beds, and everything you would need. And so people sold everything they had. They sold the farm in Vermont. They sold it – everything. And they bought wagons, and oxen, and some horses, and they put everything in that wagon they could carry – their dressers, their clothes. Everything else they got rid of. Now if you've seen Conestoga wagons, they're not real big. But you put everything that was yours in it – everything that was important. You'd go buy a gun, if you didn't have one, because you knew you were going to need it. Didn't know how to shoot the thing, but you'd better have one because all the guide books said you'd better have some guns. So, you'd buy yourself a muzzle loader, because that's what they had then in the 1830's and 40's, and you'd figure out how to use it. Fortunately, most people from around here would have known how to use a gun, because they weren't too far from being the frontier. So, they would load up and they would say, "We're all going there." You can imagine sitting around with the candlelight, reading the book – the whole family gathered around saying, "We gotta do this. We can do this. Our land's played out, we have to go. We live in Virginia and the soil's become so rocky we just have to go on," because the topsoil had been used off in some places. "We must move on. Well, where are we going to go? We're going to go to this promised land."

I read a book years ago called The Oregon Trail, the Voyage of Discovery by Dan Murphy. Now what's interesting about this book is that he has all kinds of excerpts from diaries of people who took this trip. This one was by Lydia Rudd and she wrote a very detailed diary. First day – left Missouri for a long journey across the wild, uncultivated plains, uninhabited except by the red man. As we left the river bottom and ascended the bluffs, the view from them was handsome. With good courage and not one sigh of regret I mounted my pony, and in going two miles the scene changed from bright sunshine to drenching showers of rain. Oh yeah, it rains and you know when you're in a wagon and it gets wet….have you ever been in a tent when it gets wet enough? Or you're on a horse or you're walking behind these wagons and it rains it gets uncomfortable but on they went. You know in their wagons they had to take everything they would need there – school books think about it. You'd have your Bible, you'd have to have your school books, you'd have to have a butter churn, your furniture – the furniture that had been passed on to you from your Grandmother to your Mother to you, so you would pack it. You would have to – these are the things you'd have to have – the absolute necessities of life and off they went. It was six months. Six months is nothing when you're going to the promised land, right?

Do you remember when you were first called? Remember sitting around the table with your family and reading Which Day is the Christian Sabbath, and saying, "Wow, this is right!" Remember the first time you opened parts of the Bible and understood it, and you said, "All my life I didn't know what that meant. I know what it means now." Remember that? Remember deciding, "I have to go on this journey?" Remember how exciting it was? Remember, you didn't care what the price – you were going to sell everything you had to go to the Feast of Tabernacles if you had to. How many of us came back from their first Feast of Tabernacles and lost their jobs? I remember having a job where I was hired, and I told them about the Feast of Tabernacles and the Sabbath, and I was fired – all happened in three minutes. Quickest job I ever had. But it didn't matter. We were prepared to lose a job over the Sabbath. We were prepared to go on and we knew that we were not going to keep Christmas, and our family won't like it for a while, but we're prepared for that. Remember that? We thought we were prepared for everything, because we were so excited. And we packed our wagon, and it was pretty low, but it was packed, and off we were going. Remember that? For some of us that was a long time ago. The journey was never supposed to go this long. You have to carry your cross. Ok, what's that – twenty or thirty feet?  "Uh, carry a cross – that doesn't mean anything until they nail it to us. That's not in there, is it?"

So, we started this journey and here we are all these years later. We still have our guidebook and it's still telling us how to be on this journey, but we didn't expect it to be this bad. They got out a couple weeks across the plains and people started to go crazy, because there was nothing to see for miles and miles and some people couldn't take the plains. Those wagons were so heavy that every time they went over a rock or stump, the axle would break. When I was a kid everybody used to say, "Boy he's stumped" when somebody couldn't remember something. People would say, "I'm really stumped about that." Do you know where that came from? It's when your axle broke on a stump. You are now stumped and everybody had to stop and help you because the whole wagon train couldn't move on unless they helped each other. These were independent people, and they didn't necessarily like helping each other, but they found out, as time went on, they had to have each other. You couldn't make it without each other. And it rained and they came to rivers and then – how do you cross a river in a wagon? People drowned. They never expected that. Watching some family being swept down the river and they all died – nobody expected that. Catherine Sager in 1844 wrote this in her diary. The hem of my dress caught on an axle handle participating me under the wheels both of which passed over me before father could stop the oxen. He picked me up, glanced at my limb dangling in the air as he ran and with a broken voice he exclaimed, "My dear child, your leg is broken to pieces". They cut Catherine's leg off and they went on. There was no way to save that. There's no doctor with them. They had no idea that when you stopped and drank stagnant water, you would get cholera. And they started to die of cholera. Certain wagon trains, measles epidemics would go through, and they didn't have immunity, and sometimes whole families would die, or a husband would die, or a child would die from measles. Sometimes they ran out of water. One diary said: We passed a new grave today – a man from Ohio. We also met a man who was going back who had buried his wife this morning. She died from the effects of measles. We have come ten miles since we camped on a small stream yesterday. Wood and water is plentiful….

The diaries, after a while, become interesting, because the long sentences disappear. They become very short sentences – "so and so got sick today." "So and so's wagon broke down today." "So and so died today." "So and so got angry with so and so and shot him." They started fighting among themselves. And at this point, people started to go back. Now, they're a couple of months into this and they're starting to go back. The problem is that there was nothing to go back to. They had sold everything. They had nothing to go home to. Not only that, but as they headed back, they couldn't survive. You could survive as long as the hundred and fifty of you stayed together, but you couldn't survive by yourself. The massive Indian attacks on wagon trains, that all the movies showed, actually didn't happen very often. Why would you risk that many of you getting killed? But one wagon? You didn't last long at all, or you ran out of water, or you ran out of food. But people started back.

How many times have you been tempted to start back? How many times have you known people who went back into the world? The journey's just too hard. This is just too hard. How many times have people just begun to believe that being like Jesus Christ and going to the Kingdom is not worth the price? It's not worth the price. The promised land isn't worth that much. "I mean, I gave up a job. I didn't know I'd give up 3 jobs. I didn't know I'd maybe have to give up my husband. I didn't know that some of the greatest trials I'd have in life were caused by other Christians who were treating me badly." I've come to the conclusion that, if you've been at this Christianity stuff long enough, your greatest danger, after a while, isn't just over breaking the Ten Commandments. It's being abused by other Christians and becoming so offended that you become bitter. That's the great danger we face. It's what we do to each other that's the great danger after a while. And you know what they started doing? They started shooting each other. They had fights, they were out in the wilderness, and there was nothing of what they thought this would be like. This wasn't what they thought about when they sat around the table and read the guidebook. And sometime, in this journey, it's not like you thought it would be, is it? When you sat around and read the Bible, and said, "Look, there's a Feast of Tabernacles! And there's more than one tithe! There's no immortal soul," and you went and told your boss, and he thought you were crazy. You didn't know, did you?

Luke chapter 9 – I couldn't have given this sermon forty years ago. Most people weren't at this long enough for this sermon to make any sense. Think about it. Some of you have been around for a long time. When I was a kid I didn't hear sermons like this, because we hadn't been at it long enough. "Don't worry about it, we're almost there. Don't go to the doctor. We're almost there." We had no idea that we were still forty years out.

Luke 9:57-62  Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, "Lord, I will follow You wherever You go. I want to go on this journey. I want to be just like you. I'll be your disciple. I want to follow God. I believe in God." Now remember, when they come to Jesus Christ and say things like this, they already believe in God the Father. They now have accepted something dramatically different than anybody else in Judaism at the time. They're accepting that this man IS the Messiah – the Son of God. "I want to be just like you. I want to go on this journey." And He looked at him….58 And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. Do you realize what this journey means? You're going to be out of step with society for the rest of your life. You're going to be out of step with Judaism for the rest of your life. You have no idea what you're committing to here." 59 Then He said to another, "Follow Me." But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." 60 Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God." It's not like his father had died. If his father had just died, he'd be home mourning. They had to bury people very quickly in that climate at that time period. What he's saying is, "Let me go back, get my things in order, wait until my Dad dies, and then, you know, I can be free, and I can do this." He says, "No, when you're called, you do it now." "Go preach the gospel" – that's part of the command that we're given – to go preach this, to go tell people about God's forgiveness, and God's greatness, and what it is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

If anything, in the church, we've been very good about keeping the Law, but there are times we've not been very good at keeping the Law the way Jesus Christ says to do it. That's what we forget sometimes. The Sermon on the Mount tells us how to keep the Ten Commandments. It says the Messiah will come and magnify the Law, so that's exactly what He did. He says, "You've heard it is wrong to kill. I'm telling you it's wrong to hate. You know, hatred is the reason murder takes place. So you want to deal with the letter of the law?" He says, "Yeah, let's also deal with the spirit of the law. Let's deal with the reasons why we do these sins." He magnified this whole thing. He didn't do away with the law. He did the opposite. We're not just to keep the letter of the law. We're to do this the way that our Master shows us how, as we act as disciples.

Well, they kept going. I want to read the next two verses…61 And another also said, "Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house." 62 But Jesus said to him, "No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." We can't get out in the middle of this journey and go back. There's nothing to go back to. And you must remember that at times. There is nothing to go back to. You sold it all. You gave it all away and here we are. And some people won't understand that. One of the most encouraging passages in the Bible is in Hebrews 10. Paul's writing to these people encouraging them.

Hebrews 10:32-39  But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated…. Remember the days when you woke up to this – when God opened your mind? God gave us this incredible gift – He opened our minds. … you endured a great struggle with sufferings… But you know, we look back on those times, and we don't remember those sufferings very much. When I came into the church, most people were rather poor, especially compared to now. We don't remember that. He says: 33 partly while you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated…. He said, "You went through some sufferings because you left the world, and then you went through some sufferings because of the people now God expected you to fellowship with." We have to suffer with each other – it literally means that. We suffer with each other. To become the family of God means that we haveto realize that the person next to me has value. That person has value as the child of God even if that person gets on my nerves, because getting on my nerves isn't the issue, is it? It's who this person is in the eyes of God. Paul says: 34 for you had compassion on me  in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven. 35 Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward…. Don't give up now. Don't give up now. Sometimes, because of the trials the church has gone through, and our environment for the last twenty years, this is a point where we can give up. This is a time when our greatest danger is just giving up. And Paul tells these people, "Don't give up your confidence. It's God who called you. It's God who gave you the guidebook. It's God who sent you out on the journey. And it's God who said the promised land is there and I will take you there. He is going to do this so, along the way, you become like my Son." We don't get the promised land unless we become like Jesus Christ. And somehow, we thought we were going to become like Jesus Christ in what – a week? two weeks? "I'll get baptized and I'll be like my Savior." 36 For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise…. Ah, we receive the promise after we do the will of God. There are a whole lot of people who have come before us, that have done the will of God, who are still waiting for the next last step of the journey – a whole lot of them. They're the ones of legends we talk about. They're the ones I talk about when I talk about people I knew twenty, thirty and forty years ago. Now they didn't see themselves as legends. What did they see themselves as? Poor people who lost jobs over the Sabbath, who had to struggle with their smoking problem, who had to overcome alcoholism, who had marriage problems for twenty years. That's how they saw themselves. But they stayed on that journey. 37 "For yet a little while, AndHewho is coming will come and will not tarry. 38 Now thejust shall live by faith. He quotes here from one of the minor prophets: But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him." 39 But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul. We are told that we can't go back. And all through it tells us – here in Hebrews there are two other places – that says, "If you go back, you can lose the promised land." We can't go back, because God is going to get us where He says He is.

A few months in to the journey those people were no longer greenhorns. They knew all kinds of things. They knew how to fix axles. They knew how to take care of oxen and take care of their horses. They knew how to fix food that they never knew they would fix. What they really learned to was how to cook food with buffalo chips. Now that had to change the flavor, but that's what they did. You know, there's no wood on parts of the prairie, but there was plenty of buffalo all over the place. They'd never seen those before either. They had learned all kinds of skills. They weren't the same people that had left Ohio, New York or Vermont. They weren't those same people anymore. They were different people three or four months into that journey. They were finally pioneers.

There is a point in this journey where you became a Christian. This became your way of life. You understood it. God's Spirit was working with you. But you know what? When they reached that point, they also reached something else – the Rocky Mountains. Nothing had prepared them for the Rocky Mountains.

I'm going to read from the book I mentioned – from the actual author – just taking from all the things he had studied in all these diaries, here's how he described that time: "Somewhere, pulling through the heavy sand, the realization came that the Oregon Trail would demand its full measure. The promise of the new life at the end of the trail demanded payment with the old. One could not simultaneously live in Iowa and Oregon." Just like you and I can't simultaneously live in the world and in the Kingdom of God.  We try, don't we?  "They were far into their journey before the realized what that actually meant, because they were still taking Iowa with them. They had a wagon full of Iowa. They had a wagon full of South Carolina. They had a wagon full of it and they'd already pulled it four months across the prairies. Many, of course, hoped that the sacrifice need not be complete. Perhaps just a little of the old life could be taken along for comfort in the new – a treasured claw foot table, a family picture, some luxury from the old to help in starting the new. But now the tilt of the land was rising. Animals and men were tired with bone weariness that one night's sleep could not cure and the wagons were heavy. Objects hauled from homesteads in the Midwest began to be cast off along the trail." One diary puts it this way in 1849, "The abandonment destruction of property is extraordinary. True, a great deal of it is heavy, cumber…and useless articles - a diving bell." Who knows why this guy wanted to take a diving bell? Probably from Massachusetts – lived on the coast, right? He said "I'm going to need this in Oregon". Took a diving bell with him – a diving bell. "…heavy anvils" – you'd need an anvil – "iron and steel forges, bellows and lead, provisions, bacons and great piles – many cords of it – good meat, bags of beans, salt, chess, tools, buckets, stoves, trunks, chains, dressers, clothing, pictures of your grandparents" – they started to throw it out. You can't take it with you. It's not wrong to have those things, but understand there is a point where you and I are carrying with us things that will not be accepted in the Kingdom of God. We have our wagons full. He goes on and says, "It was frustrating. There were possessions – tons of possessions –   scattered and some even neatly stacked along the trail, free for the picking. Everyone knew that they might need some of this later, but they could no more drag these things to Oregon than the people who had discarded them." You know one of the reasons why they didn't have a lot of Indian attacks is because they figured out, just wait long enough. There reached a point where there were miles and miles and miles of everything you could want just discarded – buckets, and clothes, and food by the mounds. So, they just waited and the people started throwing it out themselves. You didn't have to take anything. And the wagons got lighter and lighter. How much useless spiritual and emotional baggage are you carrying to the Kingdom? How much? How much hatred are you still carrying around, how much hurt are you still carrying around? How much sin are you still carrying around, because I can tell you, this will be no more use to you than a diving bell in the Kingdom of God.

Last night we heard about letting it go for these eight days, but this should be a practice, so we can go home and start letting it go every day – becoming more like Jesus Christ every day –  because in the end, we don't get to take all this stuff in. You know, what they showed up in Oregon with? Themselves. That's it. And they were new people when they got there. They could do things they could never dream of doing when they left New York. They were new people – smarter, tougher, better. And in the end, we don't drag all this stuff in. God doesn't want us to have all that stuff. So they learned to cross rivers, and climb mountains, and cook with buffalo chips. And you and I learn how to follow God in the hard times and the good times. And we learn how to have love, and joy, and peace, longsuffering, mercy and faith – all the fruits of the Spirit in the good times and the bad times. It isn't a bad life, but it's not an easy life. It's a whole lot better than the life you left behind, I can guarantee you that.

So here we are on this journey. At the end of this book he summed it up in a couple paragraphs. He said, "The textbooks are right. The Oregon Trail was that explosion which leapfrogged for the United States to the west coast in the 1980's, and in the end, stretched the United States across the continent. But the textbooks miss the one thing that was the most important to the tired, sometimes grumpy, worried immigrant urging his oxen along the Platt River. It was the going. It was the experience of giving everything to gain everything. It was the first time you picked up a buffalo chip, or forded a river with frightening water up to your hips, or bird buried a neighbor, or saw the view on top of a hill. It was the going to Oregon." We did not know – when God called us to the journey – we did not know what it meant to become like Jesus Christ. We thought we'd just keep some Holy Days, right? Just give up Christmas – that's all I have to do to become like Jesus Christ. I'll give up Christmas and Easter and I'll keep the Holy Days. There are many people who keep the Sabbath and Holy Days and are not moving towards any more than that. Becoming like Jesus Christ…. I mean, you have to do those – that's the first couple months of the journey. It's the Rocky Mountains where it gets tough – where you have to dump everything. We weren't prepared for that. We're becoming tougher people through it – smarter people – hopefully, more mature people. We weren't prepared to find out that some of our friends, who were in the church over the years, would go back. We weren't prepared to find out that we might have to bury a child, or husband, or a brother in the faith, were we? We weren't prepared to find out that some of our friends would die. We weren't prepared to find out that sometimes we'd just sit around and beat the tar out of each other. We weren't prepared for that either. We weren't prepared to find out that at the core of who we are had to be changed – that when he talked about being like Christ, it means everything! We weren't prepared to understand that what it really meant was to gain everything. We had to lose everything, but you're still here today. You're still here.

There'll come a time when God's Kingdom is on this earth and everybody there, in that Kingdom – well, during that millennial part of the Kingdom – everybody there will have been born in the promised land, just like there was a time when everybody in Oregon had been born in Oregon, or everybody in Israel had been born in Israel. And just like in Leviticus, there'll come a time when people will sit around their tables during the Feast of Tabernacles, and they'll say – the children – "Hey Grandpa, tell us what it was like before." You've endured so much. You have so much yet to endure – more than some of us realize, but that time will be amazing. They will keep the Feast, just like the children of Israel did, and people will repeat the stories of the legends. They didn't think they were legends. They just were people going to Oregon. And they will talk about the legends.

Don't just be here to celebrate the Kingdom – that's part of why we're here – and then think about somehow life is gloomy and meaningless and hard. It's not. It's not. Just remember, it's not just about the Kingdom, it's about the going. It's about the going.