The Quest

It was nice to be back. It was nice to be at St. Pete this morning, but I will. I originally had planned a Sabbath sermon, but this time of the year I usually have a sermon that I like to give to help keep us focused on where we've been, where we are, and where we're going. So, with that, I will tell you the title of the sermon is The Quest. The Quest is also the title of a song sung by Robert Goulet many years ago.

Our other ones know it as Dream the Impossible Dream. Now, many of you from the man of La Mancha says, To dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe, to bear with unbearable sorrow, to run where the brave dare not go, to right the unrightable wrong, to be better far than you are, to try when your arms are too weary to reach the unreachable star. This is my quest to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far, to be willing to give when there is no more to give.

Many of you have heard that song. I liked Robert Goulet. I looked on the Internet and found out half people in America sang it, so... But I liked his version. You had a quest lately? Have you had a quest in your lifetime? You know, when you're young and a child, you'll look sometimes at a toy.

I remember growing up and I wanted cotton candy. Now I can't stand to eat the stuff. But we just go somewhere. I see cotton candy. Oh, I just wanted it. I couldn't get it out of my head. Well, have you ever wanted something so much you couldn't think of anything else? I think we all have experienced that. Whether it was a bicycle... My father, when I was about 12, I found a bicycle. It was a three-speed, which was new then, because they didn't have many three-speeds. It was new, and so he offered me a deal that he would pay for half of it and I could work the other half off.

Little did I realize I was going to be digging post holes for the entire summer. That literally probably worked me out to about 10 cents an hour. But at the time, the bike was totally worth it. And as I got older, you dream about a car. Boys do. And you can think of nothing else other than you have to have that car.

Later on, it becomes a young lady. For the young ladies, it becomes a young man, hopefully. And then, you start thinking about other things, like a house. And you think, wow, wouldn't it be great to have a house? So you make that your goal. Then you put a plan together to make that house become a reality. To reach a goal, you must have a plan. Some plans are good, some not so good.

I always like the story of a house with some mice in it. And the mice, seven or eight of them are there. They're barely surviving, starving to death, because there's a cat in the house. And the cat always seems to know when the mice are moving around. And so, any time there's a crumb of food, they start to go out and get it. The cat just jumps in their way, and they have to go back and hide.

So finally, mice all get together. And they come up with a plan, so that they can tell when that cat is coming around. So as a few of them are describing the plan, they say, all we're going to do is we're going to get this bell, and we're going to tie this bell around the cat's neck. And then we can tell any time that the cat is around us, we can hear him coming. And they all look at each other.

This is great, until one little mouse turns around and goes, who's going to put the bell on the cat? And they all look at each other like, not a good plan! Not a good plan! I think all of us have experienced things where we've had goals, and we've had plans. But the goal sounded great, but the plan didn't work out too well. Thankfully, we have a master planner, his name is God.

And he has an all-encompassing, comprehensive plan for you and for me, to make it into the Kingdom of God. The plan is in one short verse, like you turn there, in Matthew 6, verse 33. Matthew 6, in verse 33, many of you know it from the Sermon on the Mount, greatest sermon ever given. Christ was speaking to his followers. That's us. Just almost 2,000 years later. In Matthew 6, verse 33, it says, Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Seek first the Kingdom of God. And most everyone in this room knows what the Kingdom of God is.

How important is it to us? See, it must be, brethren, more than a plan. It has to be more than a goal. It must be our quest. Our quest. Webster's defines a quest as the act of seeking or pursuit of something with passion. Passion. Do we pursue the Kingdom of God and His righteousness with passion? Or is it just...

Okay. See, I do not believe Jesus Christ read this verse. He didn't read it. He said it. But I don't believe He said it by saying, But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. The greatest sermon ever given. I believe this was done with passion. Believed He knew this is what His followers needed to do. To make it into the Kingdom. It must be first in our minds. We saw in a movie, a few years ago. Now he's older. Indiana Jones. And he was a man that had a quest for these archaeological antiquities.

And so he would risk life and limb to achieve these antiquities. It was not a plan or goal for him. It was a quest, as it was for William Wilberforce, who was the catalyst for ending slavery in England and a large part of the world. It was not just a goal. It was his quest.

And it cost him a lot. It cost him a great deal of his health. It cost him a great deal of his wealth. Because he believed it was the right thing. And he literally spent most of his life trying to accomplish the abolishing of slavery. Christopher Columbus. It was his quest to find the new land. He risked everything he had, and even to the point, his own life at times, to find the new land. Alexander the Great could never have conquered most of the known world, unless it was his quest.

Something that he did with passion. If you were to decide you wanted to hike Mount Everest next summer. Too late now. It would have to be a quest. It couldn't just be a goal, a plan. Besides taking a quarter to half a million dollars of money to make the trip. It would take months and months of training. Getting yourself in physical condition. But even then, that quest requires such a passion because many people die.

Trying to get to the top of Mount Everest. And mostly get up there and spend about 30 seconds to a minute on top. But to say that you've done it would have to be something that you had passion for. So I want to look at this mantra that I believe Christ gave us in Matthew 6 and verse 33. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. The Greek word for seek is Zettio.

And it actually means in the Greek to desire to seek to worship God. It's a righteous term. It's a righteous word. It's so interesting because you see it there in Matthew 6 and verse 33. But if you go up to verse 32, Christ is talking earlier about the things of the world, the physical things. And he says, but after these things the Gentiles seek, not the same Greek word. The actual Greek word used there is epi-zettio.

E-P-I-Z-E-T-E-O. And it actually means coveting or earnestly striving for physical things. It means to seek or desire, but not after righteous things. So he says, this is what the world does. This is what I want you to do as my followers. To seek after the things of God. The second word, first, easy word, easy for us to understand, comes from the Greek word proton. For all you scientists out there, can understand that. But its actual Greek meaning is the first in time, order or rank, and before anything else.

And it also means chiefly first of all. Chiefly first of all. I'll read here from the NLT. Note section about this verse. And it says in New Living Translation. To seek the kingdom of God above all else. Means to put God first in your life. To fill your thoughts with his desires. To take his character for your pattern. And to serve and obey him and everything. What is really important to you? People, objects, goals, and other desires all compete for priority. Any of these can quickly become important to you if you do not actively choose to give God first place in every area of your life. I laid that out pretty well.

Pretty well. Seek first the kingdom of God. It's interesting there. Seek first the definite article of the. Not a, the. Because it is the kingdom. Not a kingdom. But it's interesting to forge a kingdom, or a nation takes incredible sacrifice. The signers of the Declaration of Independence. Hopefully we all had time to reflect this week at 4th of July. Not only the first, did I look out and see the beautiful moon. But I saw the fireworks. That was put out near our city. Thought about that day of how important it is to us as a nation.

And the sacrifice that was put forth by so many people to make this nation what it is. I think some of them would turn around in the grave today if they saw what it was like. But they believed in freedom. Freedom of religion. Freedom in so many aspects. And giving everybody a brand new start. The signers of the Declaration of Independence believed in divine providence. They believed that God was guiding them. They believed that God would protect them and guide them.

As they forged this nation. Interesting. 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence. Most of them were not even known. Franklin, Jefferson, Hancock, John Adams. Those are names you know. There are many people who are not remembered, did not become famous. But they helped forge. They had a passion. They pursued this kingdom, or building this kingdom and nation. Was zeal. It said five signers were captured by the British and held as POWs.

Traded for British captives later in the war. Twelve of these 56 men had their homes ransacked and burned. John Witherspoon lost his son fighting in the army. Another, Abraham Clark, his two sons were captured. These men, they signed and pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. What kind of men were they? 24 were lawyers and jurists. 11 were merchants. 9 were farmers. And large plantation owners. Men of means. Well-educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty could be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay all of his debts. Thomas McKeene was so handled by the British that he was forced to leave his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him and poverty was his reward.

Landl, or soldiers, looted the properties of Ellery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Haywood, Rutledge, Middleton. And not just because they signed the Declaration of Independence, but because they actually had possessions that the armies could steal, could take and make their own.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemies jailed his wife. Later she died. John Hart had his fields in Grismill laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves. His wife died October of 1776. He died in 1779, as so many men did. The ages of these men were anywhere from the youngest at 27 years of age up to 70. Philip Livingston sold and lost most of the properties to support the war effort. He died suddenly in 1778 before the war was even over, before he knew he was going to win. Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild-eyed, rebel-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more, standing tall, straight and unwavering. They pledged for the support of this declaration with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence. We mutually pledge each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. Many men and women, other than the 56, risk everything they had for the freedom they were looking for and the establishment of this great country. Sometimes that's forgotten. Sometimes we have to think what has been put forth from us.

What about the Kingdom of God? Are we willing to sacrifice? Many in here have, and we will continue to sacrifice. But the only way the Kingdom of God will become a quest is when we pursue it with passion. 1947, 1848, and 1849 were years of extreme violence, pain and bloodshed for the new nation of Israel. To build a kingdom is challenging. It's interesting here, as you look back on those years, that when the nation of Israel was put together, they were originally outnumbered 13 to 1. Now, they're outnumbered 51 by the Arab states.

When they were just together after they had just signed the pact with the United Nations, making them a country, within hours of signing it, seven Arab countries attacked Israel, led by Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Trying to stamp them out, not allow this nation to take place. Much blood was shed by the leaders. Men, women, and children who were fighting with everything they had to hold their nation together. As, sadly to say, they still have to do today. Because, territory-wise, they're outnumbered, land mass, 650 to 1.

The GDP of the Arab nations are 11 times that of Israel. But yet, you look back, and the average Arab citizen grosses $3,700 a year, and Israel over $18,000. Divine Providence, they believe in it. They know it.

You know, it's interesting. I looked up, read an article on the 10 greatest kingdoms ever forged. And the very first at the list was the Ottoman Empire, which I wouldn't have expected. It lasted from 1299 to 1923. And one of the interesting things is it listed these 10 kingdoms. They all had in common. As this kingdoms or nations were forged, the first one was much blood. Pain. And what they had in common was there was order, and there was law.

Just like the kingdom of God. That is being forged now, on this planet, in this church, at this time.

Leaders are being trained.

The leaders in the kingdom of God are being taught.

They will have to endure much. You think, well, all the people in the past followed God. Read the Fox's Book of Martyrs, and you see how much blood was actually shed. By followers of Jesus Christ and those followers of God's truth.

Seek first the kingdom of God.

And, second part, is righteousness. Is being righteous our quest?

Is it? Are we seeking God's righteousness daily?

We can sometimes visualize the kingdom of God, can't we? We can visualize that kingdom. By the Feast of Tabernacles. By reading the Book of Isaiah.

But is it our passion?

Psalm 145, verse 13. Psalm 145, verse 13. It says, Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations. This kingdom that is yet to come to this earth.

It's talked about so much through the Bible. Peter talks about it in one of his last books, if we can go to 2 Peter. 2 Peter 1, verse 10 through 11. It says, Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never stumble. For so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Is the kingdom your quest? Do you seek it? Do you have the passion for God's kingdom that these men and women had for forging the United States of America, or for the country that became Israel? Do we have that same vision? Do we have that same zeal? See, God is training His future priests, kings, Revelation 1, verse 6.

What a quest! What a quest He's laid out before us! What a kingdom!

Is it important to us?

So how about this righteousness part? It's easy. We all remember Siki, 1st Kingdom of God. We can all kind of get excited about that. And like, oh yes, go to the feast and we see these sermonettes and sermons painting these beautiful pictures of what it will be like, the lamb and the lion and the various things that Isaiah lays out for us. And it's easy to say, yes, I want that. And as you're leaving the Feast of Tabernacles, you want to go back so you can get another picture of the next year. Well, what about righteousness?

Do we get excited about righteousness?

How do we picture righteousness? What is righteousness? God's righteousness. Can you define it?

Because He's talking about His righteousness, not ours, not Mr. Saminos, not Mr. Frigate, not Sue Weber.

But what if we did? But what if you did? Can you picture that? If you just had to follow after somebody here? And so you could just look at a person, man or woman, and you go, well, I'm doing pretty good. I'm about like them, so I don't have to raise my level.

Would it be true righteousness? No.

Too many people have followed a man and his righteousness. The book says don't do that. Even Paul said what? Follow me as I follow Christ.

We have the book. We need to read the book. You can't follow me. You can't follow Chug Zee, Gordon Hanaway, Braden Veller. If you look for perfect righteousness, they will let you down. I will let you down. That's my wife. She knows. I strive, but this is where I need to look at. I need to look at Jesus Christ. Some have even looked to their husbands or wives instead of looking at the book, instead of looking at Jesus Christ, the only perfect human who ever lived, who gave us that example of how to deal with conflict.

God's righteousness, what is it? This book says we have to seek it, pursue it, desire it.

I guess if we do that, we'd better know what it is, shouldn't we? Psalm 1, verse 6. Psalm 1, verse 6 says, But the Lord knows the way of the righteous. Is that you? Is that me? Would you classify yourself as righteous? In the Scriptures, the word in the New Testament for holy is haggioth. And the word there is used to describe the brethren in church as saints. The word righteousness, because it says, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. It's actually, the Greek word is dikaios, dikaios, which by implication is not corrupt. Holy, just, Strong actually defines it as the character or quality of being, just or right. I like trying to be right most of the time, don't you? Sometimes I think I'm right when I'm not right. And when that happens, I have to repent for not being right, because if I'm not right, I'm wrong. And knowing the difference is what makes us a better Christian. It's interesting, Webster's defines it as righteousness is upright, honest, virtuous, purity of heart. In quotations, pure, pure, which pure is, the Greek word is katharis, which means to refine, refined. What's God doing now? He's refining us. What should we be doing? We should want to be refined, made better, made pure, made more holy. What's interesting there, katharis, is actually, Greek is a military word. And it describes a military order by best of the group. Military order by best of the group. And because of the military at that time, they would have a group of men. Well, you might think of it as in Israel. David had his army, the Israeli army. He had that Israeli army, but then over here, he had his mighty men, didn't he? He had that personal guard that was around him. Today, we have the Navy. And you have all the men of the Navy, and they serve, and they do great things. But then, to refine that group, to take the best of the best, that's what it takes to be a Navy SEAL. Refined. We have an elite group of the best of the best. This is what God has called us to be.

And to do that, it must be our passion. We must have zeal to do that. So, this righteousness, how do we get it? Let's turn over to 2 Timothy.

2 Timothy 3. Verse 16. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. I shall greet Jesus as God breathed. All Scripture is God breathed out of his mouth. That's why it's holy. It's perfect. It's pure.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction. And, and, for instruction in righteousness. For instruction in righteousness. So, how can we become more righteous? The Word. How do we know if we're righteous? The Word. How do we become more righteous? The Word. It's powerful.

Do you know what Christ gave us in three and a half years of his life? Record it. A little more than that, but most of the, most of the, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John covers it three and a half years.

He gave us three and a half years of examples of a flesh and blood human practicing godly righteousness. That's why it's so important to read it. Christ's interaction with people in this, in these four books, teaches how we should interact with people. Because, hey, if we could go up into the mountains, we could have an island by ourselves somewhere, we'd probably do pretty well. We could probably go, oh, not a whole lot of problems here. But most of us can't do that, and God doesn't want us to.

Because most of our problems come from dealing with people. Family, friends, workers, co-workers, and then those people on the street.

But these books, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and I have the New King James version here. It's actually, those four books are 147 pages. 147 pages, about the size of an average paperback book that you can read, that you may pick up and read a couple of nights by your bed. I used to do that, now I try to spend reading this 147 pages, or parts of it, at night. Because it's going to tell me, and it has told me, and it will continue to tell me, because it is the living Word, how to handle living in this world. And so many of those examples are so laid out for us, so well. Because it's the only time that God has walked, talked, and lived with mankind. God in the flesh, in these pages. And He dealt with negative people. Wouldn't it be great if everyone was positive? Oh man, that'd be great.

It's not that way. It wasn't that way in Christ. I might like to turn to a couple of examples. Because this is really the only place, the one book on how to practice true, Godly righteousness. Put into practice for us by Jesus Christ, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But go to Luke, we will. Just touch on a couple of these things. And we see how Christ handled situations. And we can take those same things and say, well, you know, how did He do it? Maybe I can learn a lesson. In Luke 20, verse 1, He said, Now it happened on one of those days, as He, Jesus Christ, taught the people in the temple, and preached the gospel, that the chief priests and the scribes, together with the elders, confronted Him. Negative people. And spoke to Him, saying, Tell us, by what authority are you doing these things? Or who is He who gave you this authority?

It's nothing new for Christ. This is by the time we get to Luke 20. He's at the end of His ministry. He has put up with this for three and a half years. Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, everybody just, every day, no matter where He'd go, they would follow Him around.

Trying to stump Him, make fun of Him, mock Him.

And He had to deal with it.

Here He is in verse 3. He answered and said to them, I will also ask you one thing, and answer me. The baptism of John. Was it from heaven or from men? And they reason among themselves, saying, If we say from heaven, He will say, Well, then why did you not believe Him? But if we say from men, all the people will stone us, for they are persuaded that John was a prophet. So they answered that they did not know where it was from. Jesus said, Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.

What an incredible way to handle it. When somebody is wanting to start a conflict and ask you a question, He answered a question with a question.

It saves us a lot of problems sometimes. Especially when He knew they didn't want the answer.

They didn't want to hear the true answer. And so many people that you run across, so many family members and so forth, they may ask you a biblical question, but they really don't want the answer so many times, do they?

Luke 22.

Here we have an example in verse 24. Here are some friends. Friends can cause conflicts, can't they? People in the church can cause conflicts, can't they? This is how Christ handled it. He said, But there was also rivalry among them, His disciples, as to which of them should be considered the greatest. And He said to them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called benefactors, but not so among you. On the contrary, He's correcting them. See how you've been acting?

This is not how you're to act.

He who is greatest among you let him be as a younger, and he who governs as he who serves. For who is greater, he who sits at the table, or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at the table, yet I am among you as the one who serves? Here's an example. He serves. He serves.

But those who have been with me in trials, and I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as my Father bestowed one upon me, that you may eat and drink a table in my kingdom, and sit on the thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. So even when He had to correct them, and put them in their place, He told them why, and then He told them the reward for following.

So Christ was so positive, such a positive person, that He always found a good way to turn things.

And not only was He positive, He was so kind. I'd like to go back to Matthew 8.

Matthew 8. Here's a story as He was coming down after giving the Sermon on the Mount, in chapter 8 of Matthew, in verse 1. It says, When He had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed Him. And behold, a leper came and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean. Then Jesus put out His hand and touched Him, saying, I am willing, be cleansed. And immediately His leprosy was cleansed. And people will read right over that sometimes, but here, if you know the leper, and you know that He was destined to die as His fingers, nose, ears were rotting off from this terrible disease, it was a death sentence. He had no hope. Lepers were not allowed to even come into contact with any people because it could be spread. They couldn't take a bath because they could pollute the water. So they would go for however long they lasted, maybe a year or two years.

And it was their skin and their pieces of their bodies were rotting off.

Smelled just like dead animals.

Imagine. And so here this leper comes and knows this is the only chance. And it says, a leper came and worshipped him, which if you read the Scripture, you realize that what the leper did was fall down on his knees in front. Christ, He couldn't touch me. He had to be away because cities actually hired young people or poor people wherever there were lepers because there were lepers in certain cities. And they would actually hire them to go in front of them and say, Unclean! Unclean is coming this way! People would look back at them and not even want to be near them because the smell was just horrendous.

Plus, you could even, as one commentary says, you could actually walk through the cities and see where fingers had actually fallen off. Or they had rotted off. This poor man. I don't know how long he'd had it. Sometimes it would last up to seven years, which would be terrible because you would slowly just rot until you died.

How long he'd had it? I don't know.

But one thing while he did have it, his family, he could not touch them. They could not come near them. He could never hold his wife if he had a wife, his children if he had children.

And then Christ did this incredible thing.

Verse 3, it says, Christ didn't have to put out his hand. Christ had the power. He could have just said, you're healed, as he did many times.

And he'd have been healed.

Look at what he did. Look at the kind and compassionate, compassionate he had on the man and he reached and touched him. Can you imagine that man? Not been touched by a human being in all that time?

Christ set some incredible examples for us. I even look back and think upon the example in John 2, where he turns the water into wine, the very first miracle he had. And if you read that and read that story there, you realize that this is Jesus Christ's first public miracle that we know of recorded. Well, what's interesting there, he didn't want to do it.

He didn't want to perform this, maybe because he wanted something else to be done.

But he went and did it because his mother asked him to do it.

Sometimes we're asked to do something we don't really want to do. I see this example by Christ.

We must live a righteous life in order to have eternal life. You get nothing else. It's what I get from this book. We must live a righteous life in order to have eternal life. It's that important. It should be that important. Do we want it? I hope so. You know, there's a story in Genesis 32. The story of Jacob wrestling with God. The implication is that he wrestles all night.

He said he wouldn't let God go until he blessed him. Now, it's interesting because God had the power to send him to the sun if he wanted to. But he didn't. He wrestled with him.

And it's interesting because it wrestled so well, even when he threw his hip out of joint. I do not believe he just went and played with him that night. I think he gave Jacob everything that Jacob could handle.

And Jacob stayed in there.

Because he said in verse 28, For you have struggled with God and men, and have prevailed.

There's something about that God loves a fighter. He loves a tenacious grappler. One who will hang on and not let go. One who will fight fights.

When it comes to fighting Satan. Because what does it say in the Scripture? We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but what? Against principalities, we wrestle against Satan.

And we have to, as it says, endure to the end.

You look at those examples through the Scriptures of men, a story like David.

He was passionate. He was a fighter.

A 15 to 16, 17 year old kid going out and fighting a nine foot giant.

And why do you say he did it? Because I've already killed a bear. I've already killed a lion. Who is this uncircumcised Philistine? He defied the armies of the living God.

I think he didn't have a zeal at his young age.

Then I look at Joshua at the end of the story. He's 110 years old, and what does he say? As for me and my house, we shall follow God.

He endured! 110 years! We sometimes wonder, man, can I endure another year?

I always liked this. I saw it when I was growing up. I was a kid. It was a movie. In the 60s, I think. It might have been the end of the 50s, 60s. It starred Paul Newman and George Kennedy. Cool Hand Luke. Anybody remember seeing that movie? Cool Hand Luke.

I think George Kennedy actually won an Oscar for it.

But I always have to remember that scene in it, because I always think, God kind of wants us to have that kind of heart that he saw in Jacob, that he saw in so many of his people who endured all these trials and problems. Because in it, George Kennedy, they're all in prison. They're on work crews. They're in prison, and they're going to be there a long time. And George Kennedy is this big guy, and he's kind of the boss of the yard of all the prisoners. And this young whippersnapper called Cool Hand Luke, Paul Newman, comes in there.

They have conflict. So instead of working it out and so forth, they just, in the yard, they have boxing gloves. So whenever anyone calls anybody out, they have to get in their yard, and they just box. Of course, George Kennedy is huge. Big guy, strong. And so he just decides he's tired of this young whippersnapper, not falling into line like everybody should. So he calls him out and puts the gloves on. And it becomes obvious after the first few minutes, George Kennedy is going to beat him to death. So finally, he's beating on him and beating on him, and he's knocked him down two or three times. And when he turns around, Luke is getting back up. Paul Newman is dragging himself up. So finally, he's hit him so many times, he said, just stay down. And he gets back up. And I know, he gets back up. He's actually coming back and swinging at him with everything he's got. To where finally at the end, George Kennedy is so impressed by him that he will not quit. No matter what happens, that he finally just picks him up and puts him on his shoulder and takes him and goes in and takes care of him. I think God looks at us and wants to see that kind of perseverance. He's called us, and a lot of times we can't figure out why he called us. There's a whole lot smarter, better looking people than us.

I think he's called a lot of us because he knows what's in here. He knows that we have fighters out here. And we may not be the best and the brightest and the smartest and most intelligent. But he's got people who have heart, who can endure to the end, who can have that perseverance, who have that zeal, have that passion, that they will make the kingdom of God and His righteousness their quest. And they will be there with him.

The quest laid out before us in Matthew 6 and verse 13 takes a different kind of person. Because some of us, health-wise, money-wise, relationship-wise, every way you can think of, we've been knocked down quite a few times.

But you know, if you're sitting here today, you got up! You got up. You didn't quit. There's going to be some few bad days ahead.

But there was in the founding of this nation. Found a very intriguing story that was told to me, actually, when I was in high school. And it wasn't my history teacher. Well, he studied a lot in history about George Washington and the battles that he had, taking this ragtag army against the largest and greatest army machine the world had ever known in the British Empire. As a matter of fact, they said that's one of the reasons that the British did not win, is they didn't think there was even going to be a fight. It shouldn't have been even a fight. They forgot, or they didn't know. Divine Providence was there. Plus, God had called some people for that nation to form this nation that had heart.

And one of the stories involved the army of the United States of America, the first one. Ragtag group of men were not trained. They were farmers. They were men that knew how to make whiskey. They were just every type of man.

But they weren't fighters, but they had heart. So Washington, whatever generals and men that had military training worked with these men, and would take them on these battles and they would fight. They were outnumbered, outmanned, out-machined.

And for so many years, this fight went on. They didn't win a battle. Washington didn't hardly win a battle. They would have to retreat and go sail here until they could fight a little bit more. Because the United States that was forming then didn't have any money. They didn't have much weapons. They didn't have much of anything as they were fighting for this country. But they were willing to give what they had. And it's so sad because even the stories of before Valley Forge, that as the men were walking, the soldiers, the young men, the farmers, the poor people, had their little muskets.

And they had rag-tag uniforms that didn't even look like uniforms most of the time, compared to the beautiful army that Britain had put out there. And they were so poor that they, a lot of times, had to scrounge the woods for food. Because it's hard to get food to them as they were running and fighting.

So they were not very strong.

And they didn't have shoes. A lot of them just had one pair of shoes, whatever they came in with. And they would wear them out running and going up and down the mountains and the side of streams and everything, to where when it came to Valley Forge they realized they were being trailed at one time. And so many of the men had lost their shoes, and so they actually had to tie cloth around the bottom of their feet.

And not only was it cold, but they had to tie it because the feet were getting so bloody from walking all the distance that they were able to be tracked by the blood. So they had to tie these things on the bottom of their feet. And they got there and stayed in that cold, fighting, whenever the word came.

Can you imagine? They had to have perseverance. They had to have heart. To continue to believe that this was something that God was wanting them to do. And you can imagine if they've gone through all this, they've gone through all these trials, all this pain and agony.

And then, in August the 3rd, 1776, Washington addressed his troops. And in the note that was read to the men in the Army, said this from General Washington, The General is sorry to be informed that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing, a vice hitherto little known to our American Army, is growing into fashion. He hopes that the officers will, by example, as well as influence, endeavor to check it, and that they and the men will reflect that we can little hope of the blessing of heaven on our Army if we insult it by our impiety and folly. Added to this that it is a vice so mean and low without any temptation that every man of sense and character detests and despises it. Signed, George Washington.

Why did he do that? Because he knew. He knew that those men, when the war was won, he knew the war was going to be won, he knew God was forming a country, and he knew that these men would be the next leaders of that new world, of that country. He knew that they needed to be above the base instincts of man. They needed to be raised up to be the leaders of this great nation. What about us when we hear something from the Pope, when we read something that is kind of working to correct us? Do we sometimes go, well, I'm already dealing with this. Do we sometimes forget that we are the future leaders? We are the kings and priests of the coming Kingdom of God, and we will have practiced his righteousness from now on through eternity. That's why we study the Bible. It is a handbook that will be used forever. And General Washington wanted his men to be the best they can be, and that's what this book is all about. It wants us to be the best that we can be. In the coming weeks, you're going to have a bad day. You're going to have a bad month. You may even have a bad year. What lessons will you take from it? Will it knock you down? Or will you be like who and Luke? You're going to get up and fight again. You're going to be like David. You're going to be like Jacob. I'm going to hang on. In the 1990s, there was a saying in professional football, and it talked about the certain man. And a real bad day was actually called a Nate Newton day. Nate Newton. Anybody heard of Nate Newton? Yes, a few. He was a Dallas Cowboys football player from the 90s. As a matter of fact, he won three Super Bowls. The interesting thing about him, he was a 400-pound giant of a man who played on the offensive line in front of Troy Aikman, in front of Emmett Smith. And the interesting thing about Nate Newton is he came into the league weighing 330 pounds, which was a big man. And everybody thought he would eat his way out of the league because he loved to eat. And he got up to a little over 400 pounds. But the interesting part was he only got stronger, and he never got slower. He had the same speed at 400 pounds that he had at 330 pounds. But he was so strong, he's such a massive man, that no one man on the defensive line could take him on. Because he would just throw him down like a child. And he got to where they had to double and triple team Nate Newton.

Because otherwise, he just pushed the line back.

He was that good. He was that powerful, that strong. What became known as Nate Newton Day in the NFL, because I actually read this from different parts for players, I actually heard one on the radio talking about it, is he played against Nate Newton. He was a Hall of Fame player on defense. And he was great. He was one of the best. But he said, with Nate Newton, I knew I was going to do everything I could, and I was still going to be beaten. I was going to be laying down on the ground more than I was standing up. No matter what I did, he was going to beat on me and throw me to the ground and push me out of the way, and Emmett Smith was going to come right behind me. And he said, even when there's two of us, we would end up down on the ground with Nate Newton on top of us.

And he said, that's when it became known in the NFL as Nate Newton Day, because it was coming and there wasn't anything you could do about it. Just put in your time, endure that day, because Monday you weren't going to be able to get out of bed, but the next Sunday there was not going to be a Nate Newton out there. And so they would all know it was Nate Newton Day.

And brethren, you're going to have some Nate Newton days, where things are going to beat up on you, they're going to knock you down, they're going to sit on you, they're going to make you wish, boy, I just want this day to end. The important thing is, get up. Get up. Just like those players said you had to do.

You know, we're going to battle things physically and spiritually. Satan's going to throw what he can at us. The world's going to throw what they can at us. But we need to endure. Jacob held on. He held on for the blessings of God. He asked, I want those blessings. How much more has God promised us if we will hold on and endure to the end? If we will hold on to His ways? I want to go back as we wrap up now. Matthew 6. Matthew 6, where we started. Verse 33. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And all these things shall be added to you. All these things shall be added to you. What things? All things. Revelation 21.7 says, and you will inherit all things. Everything God has. He owns it all. He has it all. This world, this universe, the next universe, He has it all. And He wants to give it to His children. It says, you will inherit all things.

But first, must seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Brethren, the kingdom of God and His righteousness must be our quest. We must, like Jesus Christ said, the zeal for God's house has eaten me up. Our quest. Our quest. We must pursue it with passion.

We must pursue it with passion.