The One Thing

Happy Sabbath, everybody! It's nice for my wife, Mary, and I to be back here with you today. Spin this beautiful Sabbath together. One thing that we don't take for granted anymore is sunlight. And every day when the sun comes out at home, we try to actually go out and stand and look at it for the few minutes that it peaks out.

It isn't bad, though, because we don't take it for granted anymore. And the things that rain can grow are certainly dramatic and beautiful. And the lakes, the rivers, the animals, the deer on our property, and various things help us enjoy that area quite a bit. But we do miss you all very much, and we do look forward to these opportunities to get back and see you. My wife and I weren't planning to be here, but when certain hard objects in your mouth start falling out, then you suddenly realize you have to make a trip down to Algedonus. And last-minute trips mean you get to stop here, and we are delighted to be here. Just before starting to give the sermon today, I'll give you a little bit of an update. Some have been interested as to what kind of transpires in our life, and some of the things going on in the work. It's been 42 years, I think, now, serving in the full-time ministry. And that started up in Canada, very close to where we are now. My wife and I visit, I'm a guest speaker at Vancouver and also over on the island at Victoria. And then also, I speak at Cedro Woolley, Washington. I've been asked to coordinate the Victoria Feast site this year, and we're looking forward to everyone coming in. My wife and I have been working really hard on getting that site all set up, and announcements will come out in the feast planner, which deadline is on Monday. We have all these deadlines. It's an incredible time of year. Council meetings are coming up, the Doctrine Committee and some of the projects that we have. We wanted to see if we can get those finalized and presented to the council in February. And then I mentioned the feast sites coming up. We've got a feast directors meeting on Monday and Tuesday this week.

And East Africa is moving along. We've got three feast sites over there. And my wife and I go next month to East Africa. I work for Ministerial and Member Services in the Ministerial Education Program. And I contribute various things to that, working on a curriculum for three different courses for the ministry, which I'll be presenting at the end of this month to the others on the team, including Mr.

Kubik. And then we fly to the UK, where my wife and I will participate in a leadership conference, which has been being developed over a couple of years. They've asked me to come over and contribute to that. So this is actually taking place now at the last part of March. And we will be there on our way over to Kenya. We'll be home two weeks after that and go back to Cincinnati for more meetings than the GCE and council meetings.

And it's kind of been that way. We're home a couple of weeks and gone a couple of weeks. And sometimes we can get to a place just in time to D11 it, because we don't know when we're going to be back. But we're very thankful to be here. We love you all very much. And it's great to see our young people coming along. I know some of you have health problems, various challenges.

We know about that. We pray about that. We're grateful to God, though, that we are here for a higher calling than just having physical bodies that need to be patched up. So I'm going to take a moment here and get some water, and then we'll start into the message. One of the questions that people have asked down through time, you probably have asked it.

I ask it on a fairly regular basis, is this. Will I be in the kingdom of God? In one sense, it's the greatest question to ask because you and I each want to be in the kingdom of God. And another sense, it's almost a silly question to ask. When you consider all that God has done to develop that kingdom, plan for that kingdom, create everything, create us, and put us through this calling right now.

Of course, we might say, we're going to be in that kingdom. But where, you might say, the rubber meets the road is where the one who makes the decision says, out of the ten that represented his church, five were foolish, and they will not be in the kingdom. Yet they were expecting to be in the kingdom. And many who called him Lord, Lord, and did so many things in his name were saying, but wait, but, but, that was my goal. That's what I wanted to do. That's what my life has been about, as it was.

A high expectation. So, what Jesus says in many of his parables and messages, and some of his apostles after that, in their writings, is, be careful, be alert. You know, let's be using our faculties. Let's not be dreaming that we're going to be there automatically, or because of something, or we're going to be grandfathered in, or if we're in the right group, or if we're keeping the Sabbath and the Holy Days, or whatever it is, because those who follow him, and those who consider themselves his, he warns, may be surprised, and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Now, that's not a popular message. Let me tell you, that's not a popular message. And a reason why is it's not positive. It's not upward and onward, and we'll all go singing, you know, into heaven as we rise, which is what humans, down through time, have envisioned. They will go somehow into heaven when they die, and they have some reason for believing they will be in the afterlife. And then people that they don't like, obviously those other people, they won't be in the afterlife. I think we can do that in the church sometimes, too.

We can say, well, in person, therefore they probably won't be in God's kingdom. Better pray for them. But I am doing fine, you know. That is some false reasoning that you and I should not get into. We should actually know whether or not we will be in the kingdom. We should know based on scripture whether we will be in the kingdom or not. Not on some idea, some emotion, or because somebody says, oh, everybody gets in, you know, from some term out of scripture, you know, you're pretty much guaranteed, you're covered, you're under the umbrella, you know.

That's nonsense. That is really nonsense. You and I were created, and God developed this universe, and He sent His Son, and His Son died an excruciating death so that you and I could pursue one thing. One thing. Not 23 things. One thing. And yet, at the same time, that one thing determines whether or not you and I will be in the kingdom or not. I like to take complex things like all these pages in the Bible and all it said and reduce them down.

And you can literally reduce it down to one thing, because Jesus Christ reduced it down to one thing. Now, all the other things are legs, and they're facets of the one thing. But what is the one thing? Are you busily accomplishing the one thing in your life? Or do we get distracted onto other things? Do we find ourselves busy, and our minds are more interested, and our thoughts and words and deeds are more interested on a few other things than the one thing?

And so we don't quite get around to the one thing. I don't know about you, but sometimes we have that one thing. It might be doing your annual taxes. And before you actually get around to doing it, you know, you clean the garage, and you go out, and you do a few other things, and you squash a bunch of ants, as they say, and you leave the elephant or the lion standing there until it's the last minute.

And in fact, Jesus, in some of his parables, talks about that. The people that left the lion that was going to consume them to the last minute, and they were busy with other things. And so they didn't get around to doing the one thing. And so at the last minute, they scurry around, and they try to get it done somehow, and come up with an alternative at least. Now, God is looking for the real deal in you and in me, and I hope he's finding it. It's not an instant deal. It's not a, once you got it, you got it. We'll never do it perfectly.

We'll never be perfect. But we need to show God that that's what we want. And we're pursuing that one thing. We are called to it. God gave us a helper to achieve it. And there's only one alternative to it. You want me to walk through the alternative with you? It's not pretty. The alternative to being in God's kingdom involves things that you and I don't want to think about. And yet, Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul and John, they all write about that with some detail.

And they try to tell you, fear the Lord, literally, and also deeply respect the Lord in his ways, and rejoice in the Lord. And we should be able to not be under some sort of fear, but we should have a reverence and an appreciation and a respect for this opportunity that we have. Those who focus on doing the one thing will hear, well done, my son. Well done, my daughter. Enter into the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. We've been preparing this for you for a long, long, long, long, long time. Long time.

Welcome. What is that one thing? Sometimes we as humans dismiss parts and cherry pick and we'll pick out some of the parts of the one thing. We'll say, it's keeping the Ten Commandments. Pop that Ten Commandments on the wall and go down the list each day. As long as I don't break these things and do the other three, I'm good. I'll be in the kingdom.

You know, the Pharisees did that. They did it very well, very carefully. They were very careful to keep the law, keep the commandments. In fact, people today will call it Pharisaical if you try to keep the commandments in detail carefully like they did.

And yet, that's not Pharisaical at all. That's just keeping the commandments carefully. Like Jesus said, do as the Pharisees teach. Just don't do as they do. It was a heart in the Pharisees that was wrong. It was something missing in the Pharisees. Yes, we're keeping God's laws, His commandments, carefully. That shows a commitment. That shows an obedience. That shows an appreciation for God and godliness. But of and by itself, just keeping the commandments or the law, that doesn't assure one's salvation at all. Because Jesus said, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, you will by no means enter into the kingdom of God.

He's not putting down rightness in God's eyes or according to God's laws. He's not putting down detail. He's putting down hypocrisy and having a different mindset. Sometimes individuals will say, well, you need to very carefully look and examine various observances and when they fall and when they happen. Exact timing of when the Sabbath starts and ends or the Holy Day starts. Set aside the ministry and God's teaching through the ministry and come up with your own and focus on that and figure out what we ought to do on a new moon.

Whether a calendar postponement actually is intact or shouldn't be followed, etc. A lot of people's focus can now go on to these things. They can sort of be empowering. Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread, starting times and dates, etc. I don't trust what God has put out. Let me look at this and I'll make that a career. Is that what the one thing is? Is that why we're here on earth? It's very important for us to do what God says. I'm not minimizing that. But what God says, and once it's clear, means that we carefully obey it.

But even as Paul said, our obedience of God's laws is not what saves us. It's something else. What is the one thing? Some people say, well, it's grace. You're saved by grace through faith. That's not of yourselves. I mean, you don't even need to do much. And they fail to realize that grace is not even a translatable word out of the Bible. Grace came into the English language through the Catholic Church in the 12th century from the Latin gratia through a monk who was trying to convert people in Sweden to the Catholic Liturgy of the Holy Roman Church.

And it was filled with the word gratia, and these individuals had nothing in their language. So he took gratia and a French word and made grace out of it. Check that in your Webster's Dictionary. Now, the biblical word actually, which is caris, not gratia in the Latin, but caris. Caris is quite a different word. And all that sort of followed this concept of gratia through the church and through the splinters that took place down through the Middle Ages and some of the other meanings that word has picked up, can delude one into thinking that you're in some state or you're in some, I don't know, that God has put over you and therefore, you know, he's going to just take care of you no matter what almost, with a little bit of effort on your part, and somehow you're going to be in the kingdom, so just because there's something there.

You know, people ought to do a little more study on things like that. You've got to look at the origin of the word caris, which is translated grace. Caris. Caris in its original meaning in ancient Greece referred to reciprocity system, the reciprocal. You do something, I do something. It had nothing to do with religion.

It was just within society. If you don't do something, I will do something for you, but down in time, I will expect something back. If you look at the word caris in something like theres or strong, you'll find that's a part of it. You'll find that, like in theres, this thing is something that God does with us. He provides his calling, his conversion, his spirit. He works in us. He works in our minds in order to obey him and to develop something. So in the end, he's expecting a fruit back from us, isn't he?

That one thing. He is expecting us to reciprocate to his involvement in our life, to his mentoring, to his teaching. We are supposed to have something back for him that he can harvest. That's what the annual festivals are about. It's a fantastic word.

That word down through time has picked up a few other meanings as well, as I've mentioned. Some are accurate, some are not. But you see, there's more to it, isn't there? So what is that one thing? Are we doing it? Do we have something?

We are saved through this process. Do we have something to present to God? You look at most of the parables that Jesus Christ gave about who will be in the kingdom, and you'll find they've either developed into a sheep with its attributes or not. They have developed into a potential bride with oil or not. See, there's something that comes along with this. They've developed wheat, which is ready for a harvest or not, in the form of tares, a vine with branches filled with grapes for the harvest and trimmed along the way. It's about something that we do with God that we need to be busy about.

Each individual has his own work. We don't have the work. Actually, we do have the work of God, but sometimes we think the work of God is printing something or putting it on TV. Jesus Christ and God the Father have been busy working and still are busy working. You and I are told to work while it is yet day, while we have opportunity. What is that work? What is the ultimate end of that work?

When you look at the ultimate end of the commission to the church, what is that? What is the goal of the commission? People start reading, and they go into all the world, and preach the gospel. Okay, well then we'll do that. I'll probably be in the kingdom because we're part of preaching the gospel. Close the book. Well, that's not what he said, is it? That's step one. That's where you find the people that God is calling. Step two is disciple them.

Make disciples of them. And a disciple of Jesus Christ or a disciple of anyone is a carbon copy. By this, they will know that you are my disciples if you have love, if you have agape love. In other words, I do, and once you do, they'll associate me with you. Therefore, as the church makes disciples, and all of us, in fact, are part of that process, we are all the body of Christ, and our members around the world are interacting with other individuals and helping and encouraging and stimulating that to be disciples of Jesus Christ and children of God the Father.

But there's more. What's the next thing he said? Matthew 28. He said, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded. So we are then to be in the end. What he is looking for is the fruitful harvest. Those who have come to do, those who are producing the fruit. All the rest is just part of the process. But what God is looking for is that which he will harvest and will burn up the rest. The rest will just dissolve and burn away. So, what is my life devoted to?

What is my main focus on? I'd like you to write down, if you're writing notes, write down this. Write down the one thing that you are on earth to do. I'll give you a second. Write down. What is the one thing that you are here on earth to do? Sometimes we get involved in various aspects of life, and God has created this life to be quite complex. When he put Adam and Eve in the garden, he said, dress and keep it. Wow! My wife and I live in a near rainforest, and the things grow, and you can trim them and dress and keep them today.

But you come back next week, and you get to do that again. Dressing and keeping the body, if you stop and think about dressing and keeping your body. Today, it's as simple as maybe going to the store and buying something. But down through time, that meant growing the plants that can be made into thread, that then can be loomed or woven into clothing, that without sewing machines, you would somehow then make into garments that don't last very long.

You know, raiment and clothing is quite an exhausting thing. If you think about food, again, today it's like, well, just go to the store and buy some food. Well, it's not been that way for very long. Normally, food is a very seasonal thing and only grows at various times of the year. It has to be sought, it has to be hunted and gathered and planted, it has to be cultivated, it has to be eventually harvested.

And then what do you do with food? Well, you have to find ways to preserve it for the seasons of the year in which it doesn't grow. What about your family, your relationships? What about your work? See, all of these things begin to crowd our lives, don't they? And they take up a lot of life. And Jesus said in Matthew 6, don't be worried about those three things.

Don't be worried about them unduly. God knows you need them. But there's something else that you and I need to be busy doing. Today we're going to search out the work that God has assigned for your life and mine. And we're going to find whether or not in this lifetime you and I are accomplishing it. The title of the sermon today is, The One Thing. The One Thing. Without knowing what the One Thing is, we can be pursuing all kinds of things. And like Jesus said, you know, they're going to come up with the resurrection, and some are going to say, Whoa!

I'm surprised! I wasn't devoted to the One Thing. And others will say, here we go. Right on time, right on target. They understood. You actually are the most complex thing in the universe. So don't think for a moment that you might be able to grasp or consider or come up with a philosophy that's not quite there. I'm able to do that. I think everybody is. But we have God and we have His Word. And we want to take our thoughts and recognize they are lower than God's.

And we are to convert, we're to change, we're to repent, and we're to go with what God says. We have also a link to God. We have this incredible opportunity. When the first century was closing, we see that the church was in a precarious state. Now, wouldn't we think that in the 21st century, the church would be in a precarious state? When you think about it, one is with Christ and the apostles, and the other is 2,000 years later in the end times and all the crazy stuff that goes on. Would we have dreamed that the church would be just torn apart, softened, people caving, going off to various ideas?

The Gnostics came in, the Judaism came in, various concepts of Christianity mixed with the Pharisaic system. Then you have those who just simply thought you could do anything like they did at Corinth. They brought in worldly society into the church. And by the end, you start to see Peter, James, Jude, John, and Jesus Himself in Revelation 2 and 3 describing a church that was in peril, spiritual peril. But in many ways, thought it was just fine. As the lessons there in Revelation 3 go, we can think we're just fine.

They had strayed from doing God's assigned task. To one church, he said, repent and do the first works. Look at those words in the Greek. First can mean primary. Repent and do the primary things. Are we doing the primary, the one thing? Or have we gotten off onto other tangents, you see? As he says there to the church, he said, you know, in Ephesus, you're doing this. You're essentially doing what we do as a church today in all of these outreaches in the busyness. But he says, you forgot to do the main thing. And we could be spewed out of his mouth if we do that.

Let's take a look at James 4, verse 1. When you think about how Roman society got where it was after Babylon, Greece, Medo-Persia, Medo-Persia, Greece, and then Rome, and then the chaos that was Rome for hundreds of years, we come down to the time of Christ. We see Rome in Jerusalem.

That is one of the provinces that Herod was assigned by Rome to kind of control. He had a garrison there at the Temple Mount. Rome was really an interesting, huge, grappling empire that was gobbling up new territories and bringing those people in, and it couldn't maintain that long term. It couldn't maintain it at all. In James 4, what we read here is a similar church. Where do wars come from among you? Rome, the Heraly, the Ostrogoths, various invasions that were taking place and repelling or going out and conquering other lands, sweeping over to what is modern-day Spain and Gaul, coming down on North Africa and the battles that were fought there before and after Christ.

It was all about war and might. And yet, here we see in the church, where do wars and fights come from among you? How did the New Testament church come to this point? He's talking here about desires for pleasure. In verse 2, lust, murder, mentally, coveting, cannot obtain, fight in war. Verse 3, asking amiss to spend on your pleasures.

In verse 4, adulterers and adulterers, this is not the Jesus Christ that we are to be the bride of. We are off with a different mindset here with a different suitor, Satan the Devil.

Do you know that friendship with the cosmos, the society, the world is enmity with God? Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. When we boil it down, we begin to see here, God is about one thing, and those who are not going to be in the kingdom of God are about self. That's right there, self. And this is in the church. And he's saying right here, you're an enemy of God if you're about the self. You know, over in 2 Timothy chapter 3 verses 1 through 7, let's look at this for a moment, not as, oh, big bad world out there. Let's look at it just as the mindset that is so prevalent. 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 1, but know this, that in the last days, dangerous or perilous times will come. Oh, should we worry then? Well, we might want to worry because it might be me, it might be you, and it might be dangerous that we're going to be in the lake of fire because men will be lovers of themselves. How much does that apply to us? Have we taken on this mindset of the selfish Satan? Lovers of money, boasters, proud blasphemers. Are we really just sort of basking in the church but having this kind of mindset, but we're here on Saturday, so we're good, check that one off, keep the Holy Days, check that one off, retie, check that one off. I don't eat pork most of the time, unless it's on those really delicious foods that we just kind of turn our eye to.

We can kind of say, I'm okay, but proud blasphemers, disobedient, unthankful, and holy, unloving, unforgiving, slanders, without self-control, I mean, in a way, that's you and me because that's our nature. And sometimes we get the tongue going or we get feelings going about somebody and we invent things about other people and we just maybe daydream how bad somebody is that we don't like. Those are things that God hates. He really, really hates them. So are you going to be in the kingdom? Am I going to be in the kingdom? Not on autopilot. Okay? We won't be there without a daily dose of repentance of the things we're thinking about, the things that perhaps we're saying. And that's why Jesus gave us the model prayer outline. To repent every day and to focus on God, His righteousness, His kingdom. To focus on His word and putting it in our mind every day. And focus on repentance and forgiveness for all, conditional on our own forgiveness. Yeah, this is very, very uncertain as to whether I will be in the kingdom. It depends a lot on what I'm doing and what my primary focus is. If I'm doing the one thing or if I'm neglecting that one thing and busily doing other things. When you think of religion, and some people are just all amazed about religion, all this goody sounding stuff. And it's so warm and fuzzy and fluffy. And after a while you can read enough books and you can hear enough songs and you can hear enough talk. And you just think, oh, we're all going to heaven. I mean, the kingdom. But it all just kind of flows together and it feels really, really good, doesn't it? To stop and ask yourself, who is Jesus Christ going to fight when He returns? Who is trying to kill Him on His return? Can you identify what group that is? I mean, come on. You and I need to realize, as Jesus said in the model prayer outline, that we need daily deliverance from the evil one. And He comes at us through every avenue, every thing that seems logical to us. And it's a fight. Paul called it wrestling. It's called a fight. It's called a war. You know, it's a daily thing within ourselves. And those who overcome, those who win that fight, in other words, will produce something for the kingdom of God. Terrible times are coming. And we'd better know what that one thing is. Notice in Daniel 12 and verse 1, Daniel 12 and verse 1, I know I'm not trying to scare you. And this is not for effect. This is going to happen. It doesn't matter if anybody reminds you about it or not. This is going to happen.

At that time, Daniel 12 and verse 1, Michael shall stand up, that great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people. And there will be a time of trouble since there never was, since there was a nation even to that time. So what's ahead between now and us in the kingdom isn't what we're having right now. It's going to shake. It's going to tear apart. It's going to test and try all those who dwell on the earth. We'd better know what the one thing is. We'd better be riveted to it. We'd better be doing it no matter what. Otherwise, we'll simply be swept out of the way. And at that time, your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book.

In verse 3, And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, And those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars, forever and ever. They will take on the attributes of a God-family member, so bright that it would kill some human to look at her. They'll be light. They'll be bright.

But he continues on, But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book until the time of the end. Okay, so he's going to seal this up. Looking down to verse 7, we'll see here three and a half years take place. But notice, it'll be for a time, times, and half a time, this great tribulation, when the power of the holy people has been completely shattered, then all these things shall be finished.

Jesus tells us, I don't want you to be ignorant, brethren, like Paul said. He says, I'm telling you beforehand so that you know, in Matthew 24, about the end time, that these things, as is brought out here in Daniel, these things are not going to be difficult when Satan pulls out all the punches against those who would be the fruit of the kingdom, the harvest, the end time harvest that God is going to send the angels in to reap the harvest, to bring us up, to be so bright and so powerful, we'll be higher than the angels, higher than Satan, higher than the demons. They don't like that.

Satan, the demons, went after Jesus Christ when he was on earth, and we won't be any different. So let's be serious. Let's be respectful about this. Now let's find the answer to our question about what is the one thing. Jesus tells us what the one thing is. It's at front and center in Matthew 22. Let's begin in verse 40.

Matthew 22, in verse 40. It's not that it's a mystery, but sometimes we don't give it the focus, the priority.

We don't make it that first thing, the priority of our day and of our life.

He starts in verse 40, on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. So all that was written at that time, he's boiled down to two things, hasn't he? We've got it down to two so far. Can it go down any further? Well, actually, he does that for us as well. Let's start in verse 37.

Verse 37, Jesus said unto him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. Your soul is your living, breathing, thinking body. You don't have a soul, you are a soul.

Now, here he says that we are to love. The word there is agape. There's nothing special about the word agape. It's just a Greek word. It means love.

And yet, you and I, and those who are students of the Bible, can see the use of that term in Scripture, quite often speaks of God. God so agape the world. Jesus Christ's agape. The love that you and I are to have as a byproduct of their mind, their Holy Spirit.

That is called agape. And we know that God is on a plane that is so pure and righteous and holy that it transcends anything you or I could ever be. But he's described like that. So even though the word agape is a common Greek word, and was in that day, it is certainly proper to use it in the context of a higher mindset. But as John said in 1 John, God is agape.

So it's fine and it's good to think that God has a mindset that is all His. And then he tells us, we need to agape Him in verse 37. In verse 39, you shall agape your neighbor as yourself. And that is the one thing. Develop that godly mindset of love for all. That's the one thing. And it's not just a deed, it's not a feeling, it's not, oh, I love you, man. As long as you're on my team. No, it is what God really and the God family could have their nature described as. It is not the nature of wrath being something God will burn up.

Children of wrath means that which will be consumed or burned up is one way of looking at that. Because the wrath of God is coming and that is the final destruction. It is the children of agape. How do we get there? Did you automatically get there? Did you get there by attending this church? Did you get there by keeping the law or the Sabbath? Did you get that nature that the child of the Father, the brother of the Messiah, did you get that nature at baptism?

Did you suddenly come up out of the water? Got it! I didn't. I've been struggling with that for almost sixty-five years. Still am. The point is sometimes I've struggled harder with it than at other times. Sometimes I've given myself more of a pass, an assumption. Oh, I'll be there. I'm good enough. This is good enough. Or compared to somebody else. I feel a little better today. But in reality, am I? You can ask the question, am I focused on developing that fruit of agape nature of God? See, everything else in the scripture contributes to that, but is not that of and by itself. They all are part of what the God family does. But what the God family is, is first and foremost agape.

And that's why the commandments are there. They support agape. They defend against non-agape taking place, as they were. What has my focus been on? You might write this down. If you can be honest with yourself, I'd be honest with myself. What has my focus been on? You know how busy this life is? You know how many things come up and the mind is on, etc., etc. And we obviously only have so much time to just focus on study, but there's a lot of time to apply agape during the day. What has my mind?

What's been my prime focus until now? Write it down. Compare it to the one thing. Meditate on that. Check your heart. Listen to your words. Out of the heart, the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And if we listen to ourselves, how much self do we hear?

Do we hear a lot of I and me and I and I and me and me and me? Do we hear anger? Can you be angry without it being about yourself or an extension of yourself? Have you been offended? Can you be offended if you have an agape nature without it being about me?

All about me? What is it that you see when you do a self-examination? And we should examine ourselves every day so that we can pray, God, forgive me and help me. Give me a new start today, a new opportunity. A fabulous thing about God is you get a refresh. And anytime it says in 1 John 1, whenever we say that we were at fault, we confess our faults, He is just and righteous and eager, really, to forgive us our faults. So we can forget about those.

If you think you're carrying along some faults and feel guilty, well, you need a little deeper faith. Because when you have been baptized and when you, therefore, repent and say, I'm sorry, God, take this Jesus Christ on you, put it on the stake with you, let it die with you and your blood, cleanse it, then it's gone. There might be some effects that last, and that's true. We should take responsibility for those. But we should not take a bunch of guilt and haul that around, nor lay that on anyone else. And that's an important part of that model prayer outline. Forgive us as in the same way that we forgive others. Or don't forgive me in the same way that I don't forgive others. You say it either way.

In Matthew 6, we go back a little ways, we bump into this chapter about the things of life. And there's nothing wrong in life to say, you know, I embroidered this, I made this, I cooked this. Your clothing, your food, those things that we go about in life.

But Jesus says in verse 25, do not worry about your life. What you eat, what you drink, what you put on your body, what you put on. There's life. He says, it's not life, eternal life, more than food and clothing, and even this life. It's not about those things. Let's drop down to the one we're real familiar with. Verse 32, He says, For after all these things the Gentiles seek, or those who don't have God's Holy Spirit, those who are not in the calling to be the firstfruits, bride of Christ, they're seeking after those things.

They're putting a priority on them. They're putting out magazines about them, food magazines, fashion magazines, you know. All these things that people get into those things. But He says here, seek first priority. Seek the kingdom of God. How can you seek the kingdom of God? The only way you can seek the kingdom of God is with His righteousness. What is His righteousness? Agape. Right according to God is righteousness, and that is love. Jesus Christ summarized the Bible and righteousness as love.

That agape mindset. We need to seek the agape mindset within the context of the God family, is what He's saying. That is the kingdom. That is the family. That is the realm, as it were, of God. God and His children. It's interesting, really, that the book of James, in many ways, tells us to get our minds off of that. Consider when James wrote the book and what was going on at the times there, and people were going through all of these things that he talks about. Many things, just tearing apart the church and people's lives.

And throughout the book, he also talks about getting our mind off yourself. Getting self out, forgetting self. Right after we read there in chapter 4 about warring, then he goes down and says, Look, have you been blessed?

Hmm? Oh, I've been blessed! Now it's all about me. I've got to tell you about my blessings. I'll show you my blessings. He says, You've been blessed. Sing a song. Great. Get over it. Move. You sick? Oh, yes, I'm sick. It's all about me. It's about my sickness. I've devoted my life here to getting better.

I'm telling everybody, and every time you talk to me, it's about how sick I am. He says, Get anointed. Move on. Is your life torn apart by some relationship? Relationships can tear you up in the gut. They can rip your life apart. They can develop sort of a network, as it were, of either positive or negative things about people.

It can take over a part of your life if you're not careful. What does he say? Pray for one another that you may be healed. That your relationship can be stitched together. Pray for one another. But he says, Confess your faults one to another. That's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to get over that. Get that out of our life. Go say, Hey, I'm sorry. I did this. I was wrong. Let's do the reset in our life, in our relationship. And guess what? You're now healed. You can go back and do things productive again.

Those are very, very good words for us. As we see the end time approaching, we need to be children of our Father. Let's look in chapter 10, verse 19 of Hebrews. Hebrews 10, verse 19. I hope you will add to this message. Do your own study on this. Consider the Scriptures along this line. Pull out the priority, the first things, as it were. Make that what God wants you to make it, because He wants the fruit.

He wants the harvest. That's what He's looking for. The farmer waits for the harvest. He has waited for, well, you can count the number of years since the foundation of the world.

Try to, anyway. Hebrews 10, verse 19. He talks about here in verse 17, their sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more. Then, in verse 21, we skip forward just a little bit and we see we have a high priest over the house of God. What are we to do? We are to draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. You and I should be absolutely certain that we will be in the kingdom of God for reasons, for the right reason. That we are in this process, and let's consider one another in order to stir up agape and good works. That's what we're to be encouraging is the development of fruit. In the pastoral role, in the ministry, we encourage that and we build on the foundation of Jesus Christ with gold, silver, and precious stones.

Those cannot be burned by fire. That endures. In other words, that's what we should be there for the sheep of God, is to developing and encouraging those to make it to the first resurrection, where it says, fire or the second death will not affect them. And not to build with wood, hay, and stubble. To have members who are simply about something else, and when the fire comes, they will not stand.

If we look down to verse 36, For you have need of endurance, and yes, there are times ahead, there's times now, we need endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, and what's God's will? God's will is that none would perish, but all would come to repentance. That you may receive the promise, for a little while, and he who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith, but if anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the life.

We need to have not some fear, well, we need to fear the fire. We need to fear doing wrong, but that God didn't call us to fear perfect love. If we are perfect in agape love, it casts out that fear, but it brings deep respect and reverence. The word fear can also have that meaning, so it's a good thing. Let's go to 2 Peter 3, verses 9-11. 2 Peter 3, verse 9, as we begin to conclude. Let's go to verse 8. Finally, all of you be of one mind. And what is that mind? It's God's mind.

Having compassion for one another. Agape as brothers. Be tender-hearted. Be courteous.

Verse 10, for he who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, his lips from speaking guile. Let him turn away from evil and do good. When the Bible talks about doing good, it's talking about the result of living with agape love as your mindset. That's what comes out. Do good, especially to those of the household of faith. Let him turn away from evil. Seek peace. Pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayers. You and I, brethren, have this marvelous opportunity to be called now, to be given the mentorship through the Spirit of God, God living in us to develop a godly mindset. Are we doing that? Am I doing that? How much do you treasure that one thing? Think about that. You're going to be tested in all kinds of situations until this life wraps up. Notice in Galatians 6, verse 7, God is deadly serious about this. It's not some little thing with him that anybody can come in and just say a word or two, or have a good feeling, or give an alm to the poor. He's very, very serious. In Galatians 6, verse 7, the Apostle Paul brings this out. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. We're not going to mock God. We're not going to say, Oh, I know you told me this and you told me that, but really, really, we don't have to do that. Whatever a man sows, that will he also reap. If he sows to his flesh, if you sow to the human mindset, and you put a syrupy religion on it, you're going to reap corruption. The word corruption means the rotting process, the stinky rotting going back to dirt process. But he who sows to the spirit will, of the spirit, reap everlasting life. Sowing to the spirit, the agape mindset of God, reaps everlasting life. First question, am I going to be in the kingdom? Answer, am I sowing to the flesh, or am I sowing to the spirit of God? And by then, by that, we can get our answer. So verse 10, Therefore, as we have opportunity, as an outgoing product, a fruit of having God, his spirit, his mindset growing in us, let us do good. Once again, that is not what it sounds like. Do good. That spiritual expression, extension, work that love does. And do that to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith. So in conclusion, God created this tremendous universe, and we are placed here as the most complex thing within the universe.

And within that busy, intricate environment, he has given us something even higher. And that is his Holy Spirit, a part of his mindset, an opportunity to taste, to sample, and then to grow by it and develop, to overcome and get rid of what we are, what we've been, and struggle with that until the day we die. We'll never do it. We can't claim that we're going to earn it, or we're going to somehow do it ourselves. But we can say that, like the word carise, there is a reciprocity in that what God does, he expects in return. When Jesus, in a parable, said, a man went to a far country and he called his servants and he gave them each a Mina. That's about 6,000 US dollars today. He gave each one a Mina and said, do business till I come. And when he came back, he expected a return on that. One had ten times and he said, good, well done. One had five times more, well done. One said, I didn't give a return, you know, I didn't have anything. And he took that away and you know what happened to the individual. So let's understand that we are here, we're involved with God in developing fruit, in developing holy, righteous character. It's holy because it's God's. It's righteous because it's right according to God. And it's character because it's something we have begun to do to the point it's become us. It's who we are. We have become a Gape to a certain degree. And the result we find in Revelation chapter 21 and verse 7, a most encouraging scripture. It's simple, it's direct. It says, He who overcomes shall inherit all things and I will be his God and he will be my son. The reason that you can have total confidence that you will be in the kingdom of God is because you are doing that one thing.