Our Spiritual Responsibilities

Shoe maker and Mrs. McKinney and all of you for that special music.

Oh, there is a second glass. That's good. I'm feeling thirsty today.

Well, we've started the new calendar year, and so if you watch TV much, you see it's a time of retrospectives. It seems the news shows especially that everyone's looking back, and it's a time we do that in our personal lives, too. And often, of course, the famous New Year's resolutions. People look at what they want to change, and they make hard commitments. I'm going to do this, and often it gets very specific. Now, that's okay. It's normal at times like this to pause, look at where you've been, look at what's happened, and think about what you planned or expected and how things turned out different and some of what you'd like to see changed. And you think, isn't it amazing how relentless the march of time is? Here it is, 2014. I had to pause yesterday. I wrote out a check to pay our electric bill, so it's the first time I got to write that date. And it actually, in some ways, it's a little easier. I like the round numbers, but you know, many of us never expected to see that date on a calendar. There was a time when most members of the church thought, well, surely Jesus Christ will return by 1975, at least. And we'll be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye, as Paul described. But now it's 40 years later, and we're still waiting.

I think some of you are probably pretty glad we're still waiting. If you were born after 1975, that's not a bad thing. And, of course, think of how much growth we've all had since then. I know I'm a lot different person than I was 40 years ago. That even though we were wrong as a church of when we thought Christ would return, the words that Paul wrote in Romans 13, 11 are more true now than ever. I'm not going to turn there because just a short phrase, but he said, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. In some ways, you almost say, yeah, well, of course. Every moment it's nearer. Every day it's nearer. It's certainly nearer now than it was 40 years ago. And every day that goes by, it gets closer. But that time keeps marching on, so we want to think about that. And that makes this principle that we read in Ephesians 5 ever more important. If you'll turn with me to Ephesians 5 verse 15. Ephesians 5, 15.

Paul says, See that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. So he's concerned with conduct, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. I'm going to put that in a package and focus on that phrase redeeming the time. That's a focus on time going by. Now, literally redeeming means to buy back. Well, we can't buy back time, and we can't relive time that's passed. But I think what Paul was meaning is, make the best use of the time that you have. Use the time that's remaining before Christ returns to be better prepared. Redeem the time. Make good use of it. Don't let it be wasted.

And I think that applies to us, perhaps even more than it did in Paul's time, because in some ways time is more valuable, because it seems to go by so much faster when there's rapid change. And we live in an era of change. So think of that as this time when people make New Year's resolutions. And some people get very detailed. They make a list of things they want to change, but then what happens? By March, the snow is melting, and so did the resolve to make those changes. I've never been one to make resolutions in early January, and probably a lot of you don't, because we realize that God said the New Year starts in the spring, not in the middle of the dead of winter. And so many of us might examine our lives. We are examining our lives around Passover time, and that's when we choose to look at those things and make changes or make commitments. There's other times we might do it, you know, at significant birthdays. Especially if you have a birthday where the new age is going to the end in zero. Those are the times when you take stock, or at least, well, I've got one of those coming up, so it makes me take stock. And sometimes, you know, well, and I guess, yeah, I think of that because my birthday falls in January, so I've been more likely to think about it around my birthday than at New Year's. But, you know, all that aside, you know, how do you want to make those plans? How do you want to try to make changes if you take stock? You know, I think of my days in college where fellows would say, okay, I'm going to make these changes, and they would draw out a very detailed plan, especially for the morning routine. I remember young college students in Booth City planning to get up at 5.15 every morning, and I'm going to pray, and I'm going to study, and fast, and, you know, and sometimes, somewhere in there, I might squeeze in a shower and breakfast, and, you know, getting dressed.

But it doesn't take much distraction or complication to throw a plan on paper off, unless there's some underlying motive. You know, if there's a deep motive that says, okay, I've got certain things I need to get done, and if you have that, you don't need all the details on paper. You've got the broad, broad goal and things you know you need to take care of. And that's what I want to talk about today. Basically, I want to do one of those where you step back and look at what are our broad commitments? What are our responsibilities? And I want to urge all of us, we could call this a mission statement, from this day forward to give attention to the things for which God holds us responsible. And if we're doing that, the little details will fall into place. You know, give attention every day to the things for which we're responsible.

God does hold us accountable to Him in some specific ways, and when we think about that, we have that as our motivation. Things will work together. So I'm not going to propose a schedule or a list of resolutions, but as I said, I want to step back and look at the big picture and paint in broad strokes to remind us of areas of responsibility. And try to put them somewhat in a list of prior or order of priorities. Sometimes, you know, priorities can shift on a momentary basis, but overall, some of these are important. And if we have that, if we have that motivation and that those goals in mind, we'll be redeeming the time. First and foremost, and I've got to... I caught myself this morning. I realized... What was it? One of the last sermons I gave, I said, I came out to seven points. I said, how often you hear a seven-point sermon? I came out with six this time. I probably shouldn't have told you how many there were, because then if I have to cut it off, it doesn't matter. But I hope it's not less spiritual for having six instead of seven. I can make one up. But let's talk about the first and foremost is we're responsible to God to develop character as Christians. We're responsible to God to develop character and to put it to use. When we're baptized, we make a commitment to God. We commit to living his way of life. Some people would say, staying on the straight and narrow, no matter what the challenges or distractions that would come along. But we know we can't really just will that to happen. I'm going to change my life and live by every word of God. The only way we can do it is if we have God's Holy Spirit and if we have his help. And so, you know, we need to draw close to him. And to be honest, we need his Holy Spirit. We need his power to accomplish this. But we're responsible daily for doing the things that it takes to draw on that spirit and to put it into action. So let's remind ourselves that there are some basic spiritual tools God gives us. So I said a lot of the sermon is going to be basic review, but I'm going to pull in a lot of things. But let's think about those things we need. First and foremost, as a Christian, each of us has a responsibility to pray to God. I spoke on that recently. We need to be praying. We need to be communicating with him. And that's a high priority. I think it might have been just a week or so ago. I quoted Matthew 5-6. No, Matthew 6-5. Open by introduction to Jesus giving the model prayer. And he said, when you pray, pray like this. He didn't say if or if you happen to get around to it, but it's when you pray. It's a given that Christians pray regularly. Each of us is responsible for contacting God and asking him to keep that spirit present and active in our minds.

Now, of course, our talking to God is only one part of the equation. And since I just spoke on that, I'm not going to say much more about prayer except we need to do it. And it can be different at different times. But God talking to us is also vital. We need to be opening our minds to his communication with us. Now, he's not going to call on the phone or send an email, but he does give us his word. And it came up last night, Sue and I were having a conversation and discussing, you know, the questions that could be there of, is this all there is? Did some books get lost or anything like that? And I mentioned that one of the things we think is there's a reason God doesn't speak through prophets nowadays because the Bible is complete. The testimony is sealed up. So everything we need is there. He doesn't have to call a Moses or a Jeremiah and say, go tell these people this. He can just say, study my word and you'll get the message you need.

And with that, it's worth looking at 2 Timothy chapter 2. 2 Timothy 2.15 to remind us of this.

This is what we often call a memory scripture. So if many of you have it memorized and don't need to turn, that's all right. 2 Timothy 2.15 says, be diligent to present yourself approved of God, a worker. What kind of worker? One who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. We need to be workers with God's word. It's a tool for us. Now, it's not necessarily our first occupation for most of us, but it's something we want to daily be using God's word and learning it. If God's word is an expression of his mind, we want to learn his way of thinking.

And I jotted down a number of ways we can use to try to learn God's word. One is we can study the fundamental doctrines, study those doctrines and work to be able to explain them to others or teach them to others. That's going to, as principle, I'll bring up again later. But if you know something well enough to teach someone else, usually you know it. Another thing we can do is work to memorize some scriptures. It's hard to memorize them all, as much as we used to joke about going to Ambassador College and memorizing the Bible. But there are some, when we say memory scriptures, for instance, Matthew 6, 33. For many of you, I hope that brings to mind, seek you first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Or, in a tough time, we might remember Romans 8, 28. All things work together for good to those who love God.

We can focus on making sure we know many of the important biblical people, characters, or events. Who was Hezekiah? Do you know what was important about his life? What about if I made a reference to Abraham bargaining with God? It's good that you have it in your mind. Oh, yeah. God came and had dinner with Abraham and revealed that he was going to wipe out Sodom and Gomorrah, but Abraham was concerned for lots. So he said, well, are you going to wipe them all out? Or are you going to kill them all, even if there are some righteous people? And, as I said, I don't want to study into that. But remind ourselves, we know these big things that are in the Bible. We're familiar with them. Speaking of that, have we memorized the order of the books? And I know there's a jelly song for that. And I still have trouble with that melody, although when I was writing this down, it started coming to me. So maybe it's more melodic than I thought. And, you know, it's not that you go around memorizing. There's not going to be a quiz. But, you know, if a minister is up here giving a sermon, he mentions, let's go to Nahum. How long does it take to find Nahum? I think it's only like a couple pages long. Well, if you think, okay, I know it's in the minor prophets. And Psalms is right in the middle. I skip past that, and I get, oh, there's Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and then Daniel. Now I'm getting to the minor prophets. Hosea, Joel, something, something, something. Then Nahum shows up. See, it's been a while since I've had him memorized, but when you're familiar with the layout of the Bible, it's easier to study it. You know, we want to be studying the Bible regularly in some organized way. And we're responsible to God for that. And if you're one of those people that just doesn't feel like studying, or you don't have a natural liking for it, when you're praying, ask God to give you a love for his word. Ask him to bring it to life. Say, God, please help me to see this more the way you see it so that I want to spend more time. Oh, and by the way, I thought I'd mention it. There's nothing wrong with taking notes in your Bible if it helps. And that's something it, when I was younger, it took me a while to get over that. I was one of those people I was taught a great respect for books. You don't write on your books. And it probably comes back to me being corrected for getting the crayons out with the wrong books when I was little. But when I went to ambassador, it's like, okay, it's good to take notes in your Bible. I was like, really? Is that desecrating something? It's like, no, the pages, the physical pages aren't holy. It's the words and the meaning. And if, you know, writing a note to help you remember the explanation of a scripture next to it is useful to you, then by all means do it. Usually, I find if you do that, then you don't need the note because you remember it, because you wrote it. You're looking at me. You know what I mean.

And of course, we can move on to the next thing. I don't want to spend the whole time talking about Bible study, but God communicates these important ideas through His Word, and we pray and talk to Him about it, but it's also valuable and necessary for us to meditate. Think on these things. Let's read Joshua 1 and verse 8. Joshua 1.8. See, I went right to it because I knew that was right after the Pentateuch. Not to mention, I've read it recently. So, Joshua 1.8. God is talking to Joshua, and He tells him, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it. That is, give it deep, consider it thought. Analyze and think about these things. Think about it. Meditate on it day and night, that you may observe to do all that's written in it, for then you'll make your way prosperous, and you'll have good success. I heard a minister once say that meditation could be likened almost to spiritual digestion, because the Word of God has been compared to food, like, you know, don't live by bread alone, but by every word or the mouth of God. So, if you take it in, then meditating is like your stomach digesting, and like the food, the molecules are broken down and become a part of you. As you meditate on God's Word, the mind of God starts becoming your mind. His way of thinking can become your way of thinking. Or I should be saying, my way of thinking. I haven't been there, done that. I'm in the process of being there, trying to do that. But we want to, you know, think about the knowledge of God, the principles. Think about God's Word, His truth, His plan for mankind. Satan has arranged a lot of ways to distract us. It's hard to make time to meditate, to just sit and think. And I think sometimes I wonder if it wasn't Al Gore, it was Satan who invented the Internet, because, boy, what a distraction that is. I find so much of my work, I sit in front of the computer, and boy, if you open Facebook, you could just get lost and go on and on, seeing what this person is doing and that person, and what pictures. And doing those things aren't wrong. But with all this distraction, we need to make a priority. Remember, we're responsible to God for developing that righteousness.

And we can grow, we can't overcome as close, as long as we're close to God in prayer, in Bible study, and meditation. But, and you know where I'm leading next, those of you who've heard these sermons about the spiritual tools. Sorry, my mind went blank. You know, there are times on our journey when we get tripped up, or we're having a rough time, we need extra focus, perhaps we need to ask God for extra help. And the times to do that, or one of the best ways to do that, is through fasting. I'll make a mention, or a reference to Luke 5.33. Luke 5.33-35, without turning there, that's the time when some people came up to Jesus and they said, hey, what's going on? You know, we see John and his disciples fast, and the Pharisees fast. What's up with your... and they didn't say, what's up with, although they were speaking Aramaic, they probably said an equivalent, but why don't your disciples fast? Jesus said, well, you can't ask the friends of the bridegroom to fast, you know, basically while they're at the wedding feast, but later I'm going to be gone, is what he said, and then they will fast. It's sort of like that, when you pray, it's a given. There's going to be times when you do fast.

And I get a... well, not a revelation, but just a reminder, fasting isn't easy. When I was younger, I always thought, well, when I get older, it's going to be a lot easier to do.

Maybe for some of you. Now, it didn't necessarily get harder. I think older people just learned to mask it. I remember when I was 12 or 13 years old, I'd be sitting in the kitchen near the end of a fast going, oh, I'm dying. Now I learned to show a little self-control, but sometimes you feel that way. But that's part of why it helps. Fasting humbles us. It helps us to see ourself more the way God sees us. It helps us to put those things in perspective. If we fast because we're in the face of a big trial, or because we feel like we're losing ground spiritually, or to help examine ourselves, that's when we better realize that our strength, that our ability, is not sufficient.

But we better understand that God's strength is sufficient, and that He will provide us that help.

And as I said, those are the basic spiritual tools. Prayer, Bible study, meditation, and fasting.

I've made references to scriptures in the Bible that show these are things God expects Christians to do. Using these spiritual tools is a way to help us fulfill our responsibility to God. As I said, we have a responsibility to develop righteous character.

But there is a little bit more, because we could develop that character and think, well, I'm going to sit at home and just radiate righteousness. But God wants us to put it to use, of course. In some ways, you could call it a means to an end. Using all these is, in some ways, the receiving end, because we're building and growing, but then we have to turn to the giving side. We have to be giving or doing, putting into practice those principles of righteousness. To paraphrase some well-known scriptures, we must live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. We need to do to others as we'd have them do to us. And we need to preach the gospel and make disciples in all the world. I say we, of course, usually that's done as a group effort, and I'll come back around to that again. But knowing the truth of God leads us to want to share it with others. And the main major way we do that is by developing within us the fruits of the Spirit. I'll just read from Galatians 5, 22, and 23, where Paul said, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And he said, there's no law against any of these. These traits are most evident, though, when we're interacting with other people. And some of them can only be seen that way. You can't be gentle or long-suffering just sitting in a room by yourself or kind. You know, they're expressed in our interaction with others. So you could say we're responsible to God for developing righteousness, for putting on the mind of God, but we also partly fulfill that responsibility through those two great commandments. Love God with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. As I was writing this, I thought, well, I could just stop there because actually most of my next points are part of that doing. I think Bill just said, go ahead and stop. No, he didn't. But I'm going to break it down a little bit more. Sorry, I didn't mean to call you out. But a second major thing for which God holds us responsible is to play a major, proper role in our family. And I want to emphasize particularly as a husband and father or as a wife and mother. And that's the area we're doing. The doing part of righteousness is very important. So I'll mention God designed marriage in the family as the best vehicle in which a human being can mature and grow as a person. He made it as a model of the relationship he wants to have with all of us. You know, God is a family, so he made human beings to have families. And marriage is the ideal relationship for adult men and women. Now, that's not to say that there aren't valid reasons for an adult to not be married. Of course, there are. There's lots of reasons. You know, you might not be married yet, or you may have been married and you're not anymore, or it might have just never worked out for a number of, you know, good reasons. But in general, marriage is the ideal. God created us for that. So as an area of responsibility for adults, I want to break it into two main parts there. Number one, as a responsibility for building and maintaining the marriage. Build it up and maintain it. And then number two, if you have them, you're responsible for building your children's lives. Building good lives for them. Now, for those who aren't adults, I'm not meaning to leave you out of this. This is something everyone grows into. And this is it. Young people become adults, but adults never become young people. Sometimes we act very childish, but... So all these things apply to young people when they grow into that position.

But, as I said, you could say we're responsible to God for these things, but this translates a responsibility that we have to our families to do this. And if we apply the fundamental principles, we can have success. Have success in our families, which also brings tremendous happiness. That crossed my mind this morning. I thought, you know, when I got engaged, I don't know how many people told me, this is going to be the happiest thing of your life. There's nothing that makes you happier than a good marriage. And they were right. One thing we need to keep in mind, though, looking at... We need to have perspective of what it is. Marriage is the closest, most intimate of all human relationships. Ideally, your spouse is your best friend. Your closest companion. Next to God's Holy Spirit, a loving mate is the most precious gift you'll ever be given. And physically speaking, your spouse should be the most important person you in the whole world. If we think of that, love your neighbor as yourself, your mate is the closest neighbor you could have. We often don't think of them as neighbors because they don't live next door. They live right next to you. But, you know, they are. So fulfilling the law of God in the letter and spirit applies, first of all, to our mates. Not that it doesn't to everyone else, but it's going to require all the fruit of the spirit. I talked about how gentleness and kindness you have to have other people, but the one you need most in a marriage, of course, is love.

Pure spiritual love. Romantic love is great to start out with, and hopefully you do have that. But if it doesn't grow into a more solid love that's not as fleeting as that romantic...

Wasn't it Bambi? They called it Twitter-pated. That's a good word. I don't know if they made that up, but that describes... And that feeling is wonderful, but it doesn't stick around forever. And you've also got to have that friendship, that mature spiritual love. Let's turn to Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians 5, 25. This is a section many of us are familiar with.

And by the way, I know I'm not telling you anything that you haven't heard before or don't know, but as I said, it fits in that framework of our big responsibilities. Ephesians 5 and verse 25. Husbands love your wives. And I commented before, I think... He didn't say wives love your husbands because wives are more likely to naturally doing that. Men need to be told, hey dummy, you love your wives. Just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of the water by the Word, that he might present her to himself a glorious church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives. And by so he means just like that with that much care and attention, with that much devotion. So husbands ought to love their wives, even as their own bodies. For he who loves his wife loves himself. Now love doesn't... that type of love doesn't come naturally to us. And it comes more naturally to some than others. But we also want to remember the ability to express that love doesn't come naturally necessarily. So like anything else worthwhile, showing your love to someone else can take some work. You have to learn how to do it. Along the lines of those things that, as I said, if the Twitter patient, you know, fades over time, just human beings in general, we have difficulty maintaining a sense of appreciation for something over a long period of time. We might be very excited about it early on, but that excitement can fade. The best example I have is of toys. You know, when you got a three-year-old, they get really excited over new toys. But a few days later, you know, that toy that was so exciting, you know, three days ago, might be sitting in the corner. And so when I wrote that, I said, yeah, and I'm just like that, too. You know, when we get older, we have different toys. Some new electronic device might be the coolest thing in the world. And then a couple weeks later, it's just like all the other stuff. And nothing's immune to this, not even our marriage. Through time, it's easy to be careless, you know, towards our mates. You know, we could take them for granted. And we all know that the saying that familiarity breeds contempt. Now, that could happen naturally, but we can't let it.

If it takes time and effort to build a marriage, it takes time and effort and work to maintain it.

And as I said, you know, this sermon, I couldn't... Well, I'm still new to this whole thing. It says, uh, past 10 years, but some of you have lapped me several times in that department. So I'm not going to presume that I'm standing up here teaching you things, but I want to review some some of the basic traits that can help us. But I have learned that maintaining a good marriage takes hard work and sacrifice, and it needs to be based on pure love. Well, as I said, God holds us responsible for doing it, and if we're putting in the effort on those things, that's redeeming the time. You know, that's a good use of that time. So let's look at just a few qualities that can help a man and woman maintain their marriage. These are sort of random, but the first one I had was respect.

Respect is a foundation for any relationship, you know, especially when it's close as marriage. If you don't respect your mate, eventually that relationship will fail. Another important trait is honesty. Some have said marriage is no place for a masquerade, no place for cover-ups. You need to be completely open and honest. You know, one marriage counselor wrote that most serious marriage problems begin when one partner withholds information that the other should have. You know, because deception, when it's learned, can build resentment, and resentment can harden into hostility and drive a wedge between the couple. So I said I copied that down, and I didn't copy down the name. But as I was speaking this morning, I thought of a perfect example, and if Sue's watching and still awake, she said, it's hard when you're watching the sermon on the couch not to fall asleep, but last night it's all, I got to tell you about something, you know, because I knew our next credit card bill was coming. He said, by the way, the time before it lasted, I went down to Pressonsburg. I was exceeding the speed limit a little bit, you know, and the Kentucky Highway Patrol stopped me to remind me that I wasn't supposed to do that. So there's an extra little charge, you know, from where I paid that bill on my credit card. You know, and it wasn't like I was trying to deceive Sue or anything, but you know, you get ashamed. I felt terrible. I was kicking myself because I'm always the one trying to save money, and here I wasted on that. But it occurred, I knew I was going to have to tell her sooner or later. Maybe sooner would have been better.

But what I'm saying, this is an example. You keep something that both of you should know, you know, it could lead to resentment. Fortunately, she didn't beat me up over it.

And then they said, that's one example, you know, got to be open and honest. Also expressive. I mentioned, you know, Paul said, husbands love your wives. We can take that to mean also, make an effort to let your wife know that you love her. Let her know she's the most important person to you. I'm only emphasizing husbands because it doesn't come as naturally to us, but I'm reminded, again, a year or so ago, I discovered that book on the seven love languages. And it's eye-opening to realize that different personality types, people with different minds, perceive love in different ways and express it differently. So I'm not going to rehash all that's in the book, but it's good to think, you know, someone you have a close relationship with might be perceiving your actions or even your words differently than you intend. And in a marriage, it's good. Find out how your mate perceives love, because otherwise, you know, if you don't speak the same language, you need to learn a second language. And as I said, that came out with Sue. I realized, oh, she expresses love in a different way than I do, and that's why she does some of these things. I need to think about that. Let me combine three others that I think fit together. Compassion, tolerance, and sensitivity. We need those in a marriage. Another way of putting that, compassion, tolerance, and sensitivity, I said, or we could just say, learn to put up with each other.

Learn to cheerfully put up with one another's flaws and shortcomings. You know, the person you're married to might have different likes and dislikes than you. They don't always match perfectly, but we need to appreciate our mate for what he or she is, not for what we wish we could make him or her into. Because many young couples have learned, oh, you can't change the person into someone else after you're married. And it's also good to remember, society creates these false images.

False visual images. It's interesting now, it's a trend, I think, for it. You see a magazine cover, you know, of some beautiful woman, and then they show the original photo where, oh, she looked really 10 pounds heavier in the original photo, and they used photoshopped. But it's not just visual images. You can see relationships portrayed in fiction where, oh, they do this and they do that, you know, and everybody, you know, goes down to Acapulco for a vacation and rents jet skis, and you have this wonderful thing. And, like, one of the things I've noticed on a lot of TV programs is no one ever goes to the bathroom. Well, and it makes sense. Why would a rider waste time screen time on that? But, as I said, you can get this visual idea of what a relationship should be that's not real. We need to accept reality and be happy for it. And my next point was commitment.

In marriage, you know, God described it as a man leaves his mother or father and cleaves to his wife. You stick together. You're joined as one. Now, we need to adopt that determination that we're going to resolve whatever problem might come out. You know, not have the attitude that's common in this world. I said, well, it's getting tough, so I'm out of here. You know, our society no longer... it's funny, they promote tolerance for everything, but not tolerance for any suffering of pain in a marriage. Instead, they say, you know, be selfish. Take care of yourself. But the responsibility that comes with marriage is be committed. Work it out. Commitment is shown through loyalty. Loyalty is one of the main attributes of godly love, and that will preserve a person in many areas of life, especially in a marriage. I heard a minister say once that whatever you're not loyal to, you'll probably eventually be separated from. That could apply to your marriage, it could apply to your church, your friends, your job. If you don't... if you're not committed to it, you could be separated from it. That loyalty produces strength in relationships, but disloyalty makes weak relationships. And I said, if whatever you are not loyal to, you'll probably be separated from whatever you truly actively love, you'll not separate from. That's why we want people to love the church, to love god's truth, to love the family of god, so you won't separate and be isolated. And as I said, I could go on and on with different traits. I can't sort of put them down randomly, but I want to include one more. As I said, these are just things to help us to remember how to fulfill our responsibility. And the last one is thankfulness. It's good for us to have that genuine appreciation for the husband or wife that sits next to us, the one that's putting up with us. Make every effort, you know, to do everything that's required. And of course, also be thankful to god, not just your mate. I made a note. Proverbs 19-14 is where it says, a prudent wife is from the Lord. And I've a demonstration in my life that that's true.

So our first responsibility is to god, to develop and build righteousness, you know, through prayer, fasting, meditation, Bible study. And the first person who should benefit from all that should be our spouse. But there is a second part of that responsibility in family. It's funny, every time I go through these notes, and oh, I almost forgot about this. I got so caught up. But we have a responsibility, again, to the rest of the family to build our children's lives. That's, of course, assuming you have children. And at some point, your responsibility lessens as they become adults. But it's a primary responsibility, and it's not an easy job. And it occurs to me when you think how awesome a responsibility it is, and how little training we get to do it, you know, it's amazing that our kids work out as well as they do. But we see a lot of it, especially in God's Church, of children turning out very well. So how do we build their lives? I mean, that's a pretty broad term. I'll put it by building their minds, by building them up mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, by providing for their needs spiritually, physically, and emotionally. We can turn to 1 Timothy 5 and verse 8.

We often read this in regard only to physical things, and that is implied there. And it may probably pause first meaning. 1 Timothy 5 and verse 8, If anyone does not provide for his own, especially those of his household, he's denied the faith, is worse than an unbeliever. Now that providing for his own is primarily providing physical sustenance. But I don't think it's a stretch to say, for our children, we need to be providing for them mentally. We need to be providing emotional sustenance and guiding.

Now that's the case. I said, if I'm a novice in the marriage department, I'm certainly so in the child-rearing department. I know many of you have lapped me on that as well, too. So I'm not going to say a whole lot, but I'll just propose some simple things that as parents we should be doing. One is leading our children. And I say primarily leading by example. Live our lives right there beside them. Being an example of what they should do and what they should be.

And then a second one is to love our children. And I mean love in a way and actively laying down your life for them. Now usually that doesn't mean pushing them out in front of a speeding truck and you get run over. I mean it could mean that, but I mean laying down your life and the fact of giving your time, giving up all your energy that's needed, putting their wants ahead of your own, putting his wants ahead of my own, I should say.

But of course love is also often expressed in proper discipline when it's needed. It's not an act of love to never correct a child. I'd say it's the opposite. Hopefully, sometimes that could involve spanking or withholding privileges. Say we had an episode this last week where Connor wasn't allowed to play in the sink for several days because he got a hold of the bottle of dish detergent. And it's amazing. If you dump a whole bottle of dish detergent in the sink, you'll get a lot of bubbles. And it's hard to get them all out of stuff. You know, and I was ready. I thought, well no, spanking, you know, he didn't mean to do that. But I'm going to teach him you're not playing in the sink for a few days because of what you did. And that's stuck in his memory. Hopefully, though, a lot of times that correction will be positive encouragement, you know, much more than negative. And it can include expressions of love and physical touch. That reminded me of the... I heard on the radio a couple weeks ago, harkening back to these experiments that were done, I think, in the 1930s with monkeys, of raising them in isolation with no soft physical touch. You know, I don't think they did it with humans, but the experiment showed that children need touch. They need to be cuddled and held and all that and kissed. And that's a good thing to do for them. Last thing I'll mention is we need to teach our children. I mentioned by example before, but we need to communicate. Let's turn to Deuteronomy 11. Read a well-known, well-cited scripture, Deuteronomy 11.18, because we want to communicate with them to help shape their minds.

Deuteronomy 11.18, Therefore, lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul. Bind them as a sign on your hand, and they'll be frontlets before your eyes. And then he says, You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in the house and when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. We want to do that. It's funny, we use this as an example of what we try to do at summer camp, but it's just, you know, at summer camp, of course, because the counselors sleep with them, they rise up, go here and there, but parents are doing that with their kids all the time. So you look for those teachable moments to teach them. And I appreciate one of the things Sue's been doing with Connor, you know, because you're always teaching kids when they're that age, but he recently talked about taking something that wasn't his, and Sue made a point of telling them that that's breaking one of the commandments. It's funny introducing that idea that there are commandments from God, and they're special. You don't break those commandments. You know, stealing is breaking a commandment. When we think about all that God's Word teaches, a parent, you could say, simply has a responsibility to equip their children with the basic values and life skills that they need to be able to deal with life. You know, equip them with a serious understanding and respect for God's law and God's Word. Equip them with a working knowledge of human nature and its weaknesses, yet on an ability to work with people, you know, to understand that people are flawed but still be able to get along with them. We need to equip our children with self-control and self-discipline and equip them with a good work ethic. And as they get older, some type of marketable skill. I mentioned a lot of times we, you know, have to delegate that to professional educators or trainers, but we want to make sure our kids, you know, can support themselves in the future. We won't always be able to do it. And as I said, you know, sometime in a sermon recently, I think, make sure our kids know how to do stuff so they can take care of us later on.

And I've often said, I wish I'd learned more physical skills. I thought, I want Connor to get a college education, but I'd also like him to learn how to weld or drive a bulldozer or something like that. I think right now he'd much prefer the bulldozer to reading books. As I said, these are some broad categories, you know, things we should do to build a life for our children. And there could be variation a lot in different cases, but what does not vary is the personal responsibility. As I said, God gives us a responsibility, and so if we think of that every day, it'll shape what we choose to do with our time.

We want to give attention to these things for which God holds us responsible. And I mentioned building that righteous character and building our families. Those are two of the biggest ones. Of course, I should mention also with our children, we want to protect them. We want to put the right things in their mind and try to protect them from the wrong things, because there's a lot of that out there. And a lot of things can slip by without us even knowing, especially as technology progresses. You know, there's ways for kids to get at stuff, or the stuff seems to come looking for them. And, you know, as I was writing this, I thought, it's interesting how kids have a way of passing on things from sort of generation to generation. Older kids tell younger kids and just bypass the parents. You know, they're out there in the playground or streets, and the younger kids learn things from the older kids. If the parents aren't listening, it's amazing. You know, your boy comes in and says something, and you say, where did you get that? I mean, it's coming in. So we want to strive to make sure we're paying attention so that we're their first and best teachers to help build up those lives. And, of course, one of the ways we do that is working together or doing things together. That's one of the things I love most about the Feast of Tabernacles, the fact that we usually have to travel some ways. Because I've got these brilliant memories as a kid of making those side trips or stops as you're traveling somewhere. I think I was 13 or 14 when we were going to Virginia for the feast, and we visited Monticello, or is it Monticello? It's Thomas Jefferson's house. But it was neat doing it with my mother and my sister and experiencing those things. Or when you're at the feast, doing stuff as a family that you can't always do. And some of it's just amazing seeing the mountains for the first time. Or walking out on the beach. Sue and I have been looking forward to that. We want to take Connor to a beach site so we can see the ocean for the first time, but all of us together as a family. Now, if we build up our kids, when they're ready to leave our, you know, they won't leave our families, but they'll leave our homes, and hopefully they'll take with them a lot more than the few possessions they own. Because, you know, they don't own much, but if they take all these things in their mind, they'll be well equipped. Okay, I started moving on, and then I backtracked. But let's look at some of the other responsibilities we have, you know, to God, and that transfer to other people. The next one I want to mention is we have a responsibility to be an active part of God's church. You know, we're members of the body of Christ, and we've been given a tremendous gift, this wondrous blessing, but being in the church has a responsibility.

Now, I won't elaborate on this nearly as much as I have some of the other areas, because these are things we do talk about fairly often. But we have a responsibility to love other members of the church. As active members, we need to love the members of the body of Christ. We should do it purely, you know, with a motive of giving rather than getting. And Peter said that very well in 1 Peter 1 and verse 22. 1 Peter 1, 22.

Since you've purified your soul as in obeying the truth through the Spirit, in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart. So love one another with a pure heart. To meet this responsibility, a Christian should consider, you know, other members of the church and say, what can I give this person? You know, it might be a person that needs encouragement when they're feeling down. Can you give the words that they need? It might be companionship when a person is lonely or when they need a friend. In James 1, 27 says, pure and undefiled religion is to visit the orphans and widows in their affliction, you know, as well as to keep yourself unspotted from the world.

Romans 12, 10. I want to turn there. Romans 12, 10. So another thing we could do is give companionship. This is more than just coming and visiting, you know, the orphans or widows, but it's good to build friendships within the church because we need those relationships. Romans 12, 10 says, be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love and honor, giving preference to one another. It harkens back a memory when I was, I think, 12 or 13. One of the greatest blessings of my youth was when a family moved into the area that was in the church and they had teenage boys right about my age and they lived, they moved into the area only a mile away. So, you know, I'd known guys at church, but we'd see each other only once a week on the Sabbath, but it was just so neat to have guys in the church that were close enough to hang out and do things with, to build real friendships. Those friendships matter. Of course, back then we didn't have Facebook or texting or any of that. You can stretch a friendship over a bigger distance these days, but building the friendship counts. Another thing we can do for each other is service. Drop down to verse 13. It says, distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. You know, sometimes we need to serve one another's physical needs, if people have that. I'm reminded of James chapter 2, where he's talking about faith, and he says, you know, if you see someone in need, if they're lacking in clothing or they're hungry, and you say, oh, be warmed and filled, and you go on your way and don't give them the stuff they need, that's, you know, not helping a whole lot. That's faith without works. And so we want to, you know, give to each other as needed. And of course, to be a good Christian and loving each other means you don't take advantage of that and take from people when, you know, they can't afford it or take things you don't need. But I want to turn aside from that and look to a different part of our responsibility as part of the church is to be a part of, to help, to promote, to do whatever it takes to preach the gospel. That's a commission to the church, and that's us. We are the church. Now, I mentioned earlier, it's kind of takes some teamwork to do that. But, you know, we can be a part. We aren't all going to produce TV or radio programs. We won't all launch our own website or print a magazine, but we could support those who are in that role. We can support them through prayer.

Second Thessalonians 3 and verse 1, I think I cited this last week in my sermon. Second Thessalonians 3, 1, 1, and 2, and 3, and 4, and 5. And Paul said, finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord may run swiftly, not just pray for us that we'll be healthy and happy, but pray for us so the word of the Lord runs swiftly. And then I think he's talking about preaching the gospel. They were traveling around teaching people. And we pray for those who are in front of a microphone, or who are sitting at a keyboard writing articles. We support the gospel through financial support. First Corinthians 9, 14. First Corinthians 9 and verse 14.

Paul is making a point that, although he did work with his own hands to support himself, he did so by choice. God's plan is different. First Corinthians 9, 14 says, even so, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel. Well, they can only do that if somebody is providing the means to do so. Now, we do it largely through tithes. We believe the tithe belongs to God, and he's allocated it to the church. A number of us don't have a titheable income, but we make offerings when we're able. And that's good. We support through our prayers, through tithes. And, as I said, if you're like the widow who only has two mites, God, you know, he doesn't need our money, but he wants us to learn by giving it.

So those two mites are more valuable than the wealth put in by the wealthy. Sorry, I visited that and then didn't finish. Let's move on to the next one, though. We also support and participate in preaching the gospel through words and actions. Through words and actions. We'll turn to Matthew 5, verse 14. We'll see that.

I said, you don't have to produce a TV program. You don't have to put a soapbox out in the park and get up and start preaching to people. Although I've been tempted to do that just to see what would happen, but it's not in my personality. I don't see me doing that. But this is part of the sermon on the Mount. Christ said, you are the light of the world. A city set on a hill can't be hidden. No, they don't put light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand. And it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. Many of us preach the gospel. There's an old poem that said, I'd rather see a sermon than hear it any day. A lot of people will learn about God's way of life by watching what you do if you're living it, much more than you talking to them. Of course, the other side of that, 1 Peter 3 15, actually I'll just read it to you. 1 Peter 3 15 is where he reminds us to always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you a reason of the hope that's in you. Some people might see your light shining and then want to know more and ask, why are you doing this? Or why don't you do that? Where are your Christmas lights?

Or what did you get for your kids? Things like that. And you might have, oh, you don't celebrate Christmas? Why not? And I've talked before, you don't have to give them, you know, a 30-minute speech. You might just give a brief answer, but they might want to know more, and then you can give more. Remember when I talked about learning God's way, I said being able to explain the fundamental doctrines is a way for us to learn it, and you might be called on to do that. You know, be ready to explain some of these basic things that someone might ask, and that's our way of fulfilling our responsibility to God and to His Church, ready to be an active member.

With that, I want to turn to a less religious-sounding responsibility, but it is one that God gives us, and that is striving to be a good employee. A good employee. God holds you responsible when you work for someone, even if that someone is yourself, to do good work, to be hardworking and loyal. I do want to read Colossians in this regard. Colossians 3 and verse 22.

Colossians 3, 22. And if you're jotting it down, you might note that Ephesians 6 verses 5 through 7 says almost the exact same thing, but I chose to read it from Colossians. Bond servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men. Now, sometimes we get sidetracked right off the bat and say, well, that's the bond servants, that's the slaves. We're not slaves, we don't have slavery. But the principle could apply to employees just as well. And I'd say perhaps more so, because we voluntarily accept a job. A slave doesn't have any choice who owns him, and they, you know, a slave would get really bad things to do often. But if you're an employee, you know, Paul is saying, do what you do to the best of your ability as though you're working for God. That's the principle. Act like God is your boss. Jesus Christ gave you that order. You know, so do the best you can. Romans 12, 11 says not to lack diligence. I'm just making a reference there. And there are a number of Proverbs that discuss the value of diligence. Proverbs 22, 24 says, a man who's diligent in his business will stand before kings, not before mean men. Now, mean, he means plain or low people, but you want to avoid the mean people, too. Now, what does diligence mean? I would define it as always making a strong, serious effort to do well on the job, and always being loyal. If you accept a job for a company, be loyal to them for as long as you're there, a company or a person. And let's think of another aspect of that. You know, while we're on the job, we have an opportunity to learn and develop. You know, we'll face trials and challenges we might never expect that will help us to grow in character, according to God's Word. But let's also think that, in a sense, God is recruiting people for jobs. Right now, you could say He's recruiting for people to be in His Kingdom and His family and hold special positions. And if He's looking at us, wouldn't He do what any employer would do and say, well, I want to look at His past work record. You know, how did He do for the last person He worked for? You know, if you were slovenly and not very loyal and did poor work, God might not want to put you in a very responsible position in His Kingdom. Now, that's just an analogy, and I could come up with various analogies, but I think it's worthwhile saying God wants us to do for our employer as though we would do for Him, as long as what they're asking us to do fits within God's Word. Obviously, if your employer asks you to go over and knock over a liquor store tomorrow night, I don't think that fits in the job description for most of us.

Now, let's consider briefly a couple other areas of responsibility. I wouldn't say they're lower priority, but they might come up in different ways. But one of them, we're responsible to be good neighbors and citizens. Responsible to God, but that makes us also responsible to our neighbors, the people around us. God might have called us out of the world spiritually, but He didn't physically. We live right here. Most of us don't live in West Portsmouth. We live somewhere, and we've got neighbors. We live among a lot of people with whom God is not working, not in the same way He is us, but He holds us responsible to love them, love your neighbor as yourself, not to think we're superior, not look down on them as inferior in some way. And part of how we do that is setting that godly example. Do unto others as you would have them do to you. Let's turn to Romans 12. I believe I've cited this scripture recently, too. Romans 12 and verse 18.

If it's possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Get along with people as much as you can. And that also includes government, law enforcement. Let's drop down to chapter 13. Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Nobody gets into a position of authority without God having allowed it. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. That sounds to me like we have a responsibility to God to be law-abiding citizens. Again, as long as the law doesn't violate God's law. But I'll add one more thing. Just living by the law of the land and not hurting people still could fall short sometimes. If you'll flip over a few pages to Galatians, Galatians 6 verse 10 reminds us of something else. When I was in Ambassador College, we had a student organization called Outreach, and it existed just basically as a labor pool to be available to go do work projects as they were needed. And we did primarily for members of the church, but it wasn't limited to that. And our motto was this scripture, Galatians 6, 10, is therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all. Now, especially to those who are of the household of faith. So, yeah, we generally have more opportunity and more knowledge of the need within God's church. He says, as we have opportunity, do good to all. It's good. You see someone that has that need, and you have the opportunity? Do good. Don't just not do harm, but try to be a good citizen, a good neighbor, showing love. I'll mention one last area, and that is we have a responsibility to take good care of the things that God gives us. Our physical stuff. We all have stuff, and we believe in private property. You know, I don't think God was a communist.

So, we have the things that are ours, and you could say, well, it's mine. I can do what I want. I don't have to, you know, keep it clean or put away or anything, but in another sense, it's worth noting that everything we have, even our own bodies, really belong to God.

I'll make reference to a couple of scriptures without turning there. Haggai 2, verse 8 is where God said, the silver is mine. The gold is mine. These dollar bills in my wallet God is saying, well, those are really mine. Psalm 50 is where God said, every beast of the forest is mine. The cattle on a thousand hills, for the world is mine.

Not mine, but God's speaking. The world is God's in its fullness. So I said, when it comes down to it, anything we have, he's just letting us borrow for a while. But it belongs to God, so it's a responsibility to us to take good care of it. Not waste it, or break it up, or anything like that. Now, different things require different types of care. But this was evident from the very beginning. God created Adam in his image, and he planted this garden.

He put Adam in there, said, dress it and keep it. Now, he told him, you can eat the food and all that, but he gave him a job. Take care of this. And as I said, a garden needs taken care of in different ways. The weeds need to be pulled out. The plants need to be nourished. Our tools might need to be cleaned and oiled every now and then. And I'm bad at that. Actually, a lot of my tools are well oiled, but not cleaned. Because I've once or twice actually spilled something over my toolbox.

They're not rusting. But I guess that's my admission, that I don't necessarily always fulfill this to the best of my ability. I need to do a little better and taking good care of things. Stuff that needs cleaned, clean it. Stuff that needs to be well operated or well maintained. Or, if something needs to be disposed of. That crossed my mind while I was speaking this morning. You know, good to keep our clothes clean and in good repair, but they wear out and eventually proper responsibility means get rid of it.

Sue's helped me a lot in that regard. But either the type, I'd keep stuff around forever and finally she'd get rid of that stuff. Throw that away. So I'll leave, I'd say, enough said on that. But looking back to where I started today, I'll say it again. This time of year, as we turn the calendar and we have a new digit there, many people make these New Year's resolutions. And a lot of plans that for people don't always accomplish a lot. But if there's a deep motivation with the right obligations, the right responsibilities in mind, we will give attention to the things that matter.

And I think real growth and change will come when we do meet our responsibilities and we're aware of where that responsibility is. You know, hopefully the scriptures we read today help you to see that God holds us responsible in certain areas. And if we feel our motivation for those things is weakening, we can keep in mind a couple of scriptures.

I'll cite these. Matthew 25 verse 21, after at the end of one parable, Christ said the Master would come back and say, well done, good and faithful servant. You were faithful over a few things. And I can say our responsibilities that we have in this life are small and few compared to what awaits us in God's kingdom. But we have to be responsible over the few things first. And he says, then I'll make you what I said, you were faithful over a few things, I'll make you ruler over many.

You know, enter the joy of your Lord. And likewise, at the end of another parable in Luke, Luke 12 43, is when Christ wrapped up saying, blessed is that servant whom his Master finds so doing when he comes. Whether Christ comes back tomorrow or in a couple years or 300 years, he wants his servants to be meeting their responsibilities, making the best use of their time. Redeem your time by spending it on the things that you're responsible for.

God wants people that are devoted to him and to his people. People who love their neighbors, love their mates and their children. You know, God wants us to be like him in love and develop that character as we're meeting our responsibilities will develop into the people that we will be for eternity. Now, as I said, we could organize this all in a different way, but let me sum it up. We work to accept and fulfill our responsibilities to God as a Christian, growing in righteousness, to our family as a husband and father or a wife and mother or one who will be to the church as an active member, responsibility to an employer as a diligent worker, responsibility to the world as a Christian neighbor, and even responsibility to our property as one who cares for the physical things that are given to us. God is looking at how we live now, and if we're meeting our responsibilities, then we can say, yes, we are redeeming the time.