Six Keys to the Kingdom of God

So the title of my sermon today is Six Keys to the Kingdom of God. Hopefully we all want to be in the kingdom of God. Hopefully it's important enough for us to decide, I want to go that way. I have in my pocket my keys. In fact, I haven't had six keys in a year. Didn't realize it until I was putting in final touches. You have keys, Garrett? How many keys you got in your pocket? Just two? And she's got more than that.

And not so indifferent. Six keys. I have keys to my house, keys to my vehicle, keys to my mailbox, keys to my home in Tennessee, and keys to my mother's house in Tennessee.

But today I don't want to let you borrow my keys, not these keys. I want you to borrow the six keys to the kingdom of God. I will give you today. It's not a full list. You may have others. But I want to give you today six keys, and it's basically just about six words. Very simple. But I think it's so important because that's what we're told in this book, in your book, where we need to be heading to the kingdom of God. It's where we want to end up on our journey. So with that, I want to give you the very first key. And I'm going to write it here. Hopefully you can see. Very first key.

Anybody see that? 1440. 1440. It's your very first key to the kingdom of God. Can you tell me what 1440 means? Anyone? Hey, there we go. He says, mine's working. I love that. Thanks for speaking up. Thought I'd have to wait for Olivia. I never had to wait. When I was in Fort Lauderdale, I never had to wait during an interactive message because I knew Olivia would be there to deliver. I have not said I would scream out. 1440. Anybody? Another? Number of years? It's another one? No? My first key is 1440 because we all have it. We all have 1440. You don't get 1440. You don't get 14,000. You get 1440 minutes every day. We all get the same. 1440 minutes. What do you do with yours?

You get up in the morning and go, what are we going to do with them? No? They usually go like that, don't they? Turn with me to a scripture, if you will. Many of you will know this scripture well. Matter of fact, it's the only scripture in the entire Bible that a number one song in America was written off of these words. Turn with me to Ecclesiastes 3. Remember, I think it was a group called the birds, and they had something called what? Turn, turn, turn. There's a what? Time for everything. Let's read it. Ecclesiastes 3 in verse 1. To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun, a time to born, a time to die, a time to kill, and a time to heal, a time to weep, and a time to laugh. You know what it's telling us? We all have time for what we want to do, for what's even required in life. Think about it. I don't have more than you. And how many times do you hear people say, well, I really don't have the time. You have the same time everybody else does. My wife was gone for a week. And so I had exactly 24 hours to clean up the house before she got married. Now, I had the time to do it every day a little bit, but somebody would have taken my man card. So I had the time I knew. And so I designed that time to get everything clean. But I asked you, you're 1440. What do you do with it? It is a key to the kingdom of God. You want to do nothing, guess what you're going to get? Nothing. 1440. 1440 is how many minutes? And think about that. How much do you sleep? How long do you sleep? 4 to 500 minutes? A third of your 1440? Many people do. Because that's gone. And then if you have to work, how many more of those? How about 10 hours? 600 of them gone. Then you have to eat. Then you have to do various things. How much is left? Do you even keep track? But here's the biggest question.

How much of that do you give together? 30. 30 minutes? That's all you get, God? I'll give you 15 minutes of prayer and 15 minutes of reading about it. It's a key to the kingdom of God. Where do we want to be? What side of the ledger do we want to be on when God looks at our minutes? Do we want to be on wasted or profitable? Where does He fit? How much time? How many of those minutes? Can we give Him 60 minutes a day? Can we give Him 120, which is what? Less than 10 percent? Do you know what He doesn't do? And this is amazing. This is beautiful. He doesn't tell us how to spin. He doesn't tell you how to divide Him. He tells you what you should do. But He doesn't say, you got to give me. You know, because your boss, how many of you work for people, your boss is going to say, give me a good eight hours. We have a church service here. You come and worship God. Come and fellowship. You also rest from your work. That's part of your time. 1440. It's left up to you. You are the boss. God said, I give you 1440. What are you going to do with it? How good of an accountant will you be? Can you account for the minutes in your days? Or do you say what many people say, I don't know where the day went to? Guilty? Been there, done that? Where did the time go? So, I have given you the very first key, 1440, to the kingdom of God. You don't think it's important? Go waste your time. Put God way down here. Way, way down here. And guess where he will put you in the kingdom? Because the scriptures keep talking about raising you up. It's something for us to think about.

The second key I would like to give you is another word. As you can tell, I did not waste hours and minutes at art school.

Okay. M-I-T. Does anybody know what that stands for? Massachusetts Institute of Technology. You're so wrong. That was close. That's the educated answer. I'm an uneducated man. Okay. Because this didn't come from anybody. It keeps following me. I'm a simple man. You don't believe me? Ask with that woman sitting in the middle who has had to endure 37 years, and I don't know how many minutes you can probably tell you, with this man. M-I-T. That's the most famous. It's a school. But it's interesting because business, whatever line of business you were in, and I was in one before I got in ministry, I also read various books when you run a company or corporation, and they had this phrase that is so important that I claimed it for myself. M-I-T. You'll hear it often, and it's so important to us. It stands for most important thing. Most important thing. It's the second key to the kingdom of God. What is first? What is the most important thing? And they found it so important in corporations to bring it down to their employees to say, okay, can you get me this report today? Can you get that? Okay, can you do this? Can you do that? And then they'd be like, well, uh, uh, uh, uh, and then go, well, what about at the end of the day? Well, I got this other thing done. No! They would have a board like this in so many offices that they brought in, and they would put on their M-I-T, and they would write just one thing. That is the one thing that was most important to every single person in that company and in that corporation. It's the most important thing for you that day. What is it? Can we define that? Because God does. And you know where I'm hip. 1.1 scripture. How about Matthew 6 and verse 33? Matthew 6 and verse 33 says, seek me what? First the kingdom of God and his righteousness. That is M-I-T for us. If you want to be in the kingdom, that must be the most important thing every day when you get up. Because you don't know that it's not your, it may be your last. Don't you want to go out of this world however that may be with M-I-T on your mind? Most important thing.

Seek first the kingdom of God. Not hard. We all know the scripture. The hard part is what? What, Joseph? Doing it. Doing it. And it's a daily thing. Just like this. So when you go from this and you go there, a key. A key to the kingdom of God. You do these things. You're going to have a key. You're going to be able to enter the kingdom of God. These are the keys. You can't get in this building without the right key. You're not going to get into the kingdom of God unless you have the keys. That's why I feel like this message is so important. It's important to me because this is what I have to do every day. I have a thing on my desk of my day planner, my yearly planner, and I have to look down here. I have to do this and this and this and this. But what is the most important thing? Because I've got to make this call to this person. I have to go visit here. I have to go check the warehouse here. I have to do this. But what I have is usually a little star or mark by one of those things. And that thing is the MIT. The most important thing is your Bible study. I need it. Otherwise, I'm going to get up in front of a bunch of people like you and go, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh-huh. No. Bible study is important. But also, prayer is important, isn't it? Prayer is so important because when we pray, we do what? We talk to God. When we read His Word, He talks to us.

How important is that? See, because I need to hear from somebody smarter than me. Of course, in our house, that's usually Mary, but I need to hear that God is talking to me. So the MIT, most important stuff, because that's what happens. Look at this. I need to take it. The MIT, most important thing in this world is what? I need to ask some more people. Oh, it's important. Now, if I had a bucket of $20 bills, and I can say, I'm going to share all of this with you at the end of services, and then I take it, I throw this bucket right up into the air, and it goes all over the floor.

How many of those do you think you'll be looking at for this? You're going to be going, uh, yeah, wow. Whoa. This is what the world is confronted by. Because this, if you make this the MIT, you will, you know, in all reality, you'll get rich. Because if this is most important, you don't care what you have to do to get it. You won't care who you have to cheat. You won't care when you have to work what you will have to do. This is it. Right?

Hopefully, we've all moved past, and we have a better understanding of MIT. What the most important thing to us? Because, hey, besides this, what is the most important thing to Americans? Anybody?

For Edom? But you know what's obvious? Food? Food? Right? Well, is 42% of all adults in America, according to the last last sermon done last year, 42% of Americans are overweight. Oh, excuse me. I messed up. They're obese. 72% of Americans are overweight. 42% is people obese. We like what?

You know, tell me it hadn't been some of your most important things at times. Yeah.

This environment shapes us, rather. And yet, God tells us what? He wants us to help shape the environment, the street, the city, the county, the country that we live in. That's why He says, you are the light of the world. A city set upon a hill cannot be hidden. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify Stambron. Is that what it says? No. Glorify God. This is why it's so important to God. The MIT.

Are you? Are you there yet? To where your mantra is? Matthew 6, 33. Only you can answer that. My next... We have two keys. My next key... I gotta hear what you're gonna say about this one. Thank you.

Anybody see that? Two each heart and two each two hours. Two hours. Anybody know what two hours is? Yeah. I'm gonna sleep I guess. That's what she gives. Pretty good, Olivia.

Anybody else? Two hours. A key to the kingdom of God. And I'll let you all go. Can everybody do that now? Ah. That's not the amount of time of my son. Okay. So you can all feel good. That's not it. I'm not speaking for two hours. Okay. But it is a key to the kingdom of God. I go back to a study that was done.

By companies across the world. And not, I'm not talking about a few hundred thousand people. I'm talking a few million people. And they did time study. Hello. What was interesting is if there was an eight-hour day, which I don't know about any of you. I've never had eight-hour jobs. It's usually more than that, whoever. Gotcha. But of the eight hours was there. They found in this study that 40 to 50 percent of all work accomplished during that day was in a two-hour period of time. What does that tell you? I wish for a waste of time. It also told them there was a peak time because the time happened to fit within certain hours of that day.

And it wasn't in the afternoon. They found that 40 to 50 percent of all work was accomplished between the hours of 9 30 and 11 30 or 10 and 12. Isn't that interesting? They found that their peak working was in the morning. At 8 am. Not in the afternoon. Now that doesn't fit everyone. I'm one that I usually wake up at 5 5 30. I hadn't even know where I'm going.

I've always done that. Other people, my wife, she can stay up to 11 midnight working on something while I'm snoring away. But they found that when they first got there, they took care of a few things on their desk or on the but all of a sudden all the work got accomplished between these two hours because it was almost as if the person wasn't watching the clock. They just went back everything and did it. And everything the rest of the day for them went better because they got all of it done.

They got the majority of the work done. What should that tell us? Go with me because I'm not going to tell you. I'm going to let an incredible man tell you. Let's go back with me to Psalm 5 and verse 3. I'm going to let David tell you. And the reason it is a key to the kingdom of God. Psalm 5 verse 3. Psalm 5 verse 3. He says, My voice talking to God, my voice you shall hear in the morning, O Lord.

In the morning I will direct it to you and I will look up. I will look up. David is telling us we need to make the main thing, the main thing, the first thing in the morning. How did you let the house because you've always let or something happened or Olivia was kept up all night? You know, and so all of a sudden you leave the house and you and you don't get the prayer in.

You don't get the study. You don't get your... God doesn't get any of this at the first of day and then what happens? Ever been that way? You kind of feel like you're walking out spiritually naked. And most of the time the day doesn't go very well, does it? So David is trying to tell people, get it done.

Get started with God first. Not second or how about leftover? Yes, I've done this before. Got called and I had to... 4.30am I had to go over a mile, two or three hours away. Had to go to hospital. The woman was dying. I had to be with her husband. Had to be with her. We had to take her off life support. Had to be there with the family.

It was a... ...day. Terrible day for me. Because her husband couldn't do it. And he said, you're going to have to tell the doctors to take the life support off. I can't do it, but I want you to do it. They didn't teach me that in preacher school. Nobody in Cincinnati said you're going to do this. My first year in the ministry. But you know what was so important to me to help me through the day is I had to drive home that night.

Late night. Been up for 18-20 hours. Had to go to the morgue and make all those arrangements and everything that seemed good. Because I had to drive two, two and a half hours. I spent almost that entire time from 4.30 in the morning when I left to 6.30-7 when I got there in prayer to God on my way over. Not ideal time. I prayed many times in cars.

You live in Miami or South Florida, you better pray every day in a car. Why David? Why Joseph? Joseph was a taxi driver one time. Now you're still alive? I don't know. But this is what got me through. Is I had two hours with God. I had time and that's all I did was talk to him on one of the days I needed it most. Which then reminded me, I'm going to start out my day.

That is going to be my most important two hours. And I typically make it. It is a habit of mine that I spend an hour in prayer and an hour in Bible study in the morning. And Mary knows I've got my office door closed. This is where I'm at. I got this from David. And his name was last name, wasn't Taylor. Okay, I got this from him. So I want to be, I want to make those two hours and accomplish. Because see, I understand, just like the study did, that once the people spent the two hours in the morning, they got so much stuff done, they enjoyed the rest of the day, they actually accomplished more because they weren't under the under pressure. They weren't under the gun. They had this done and they felt good about it. How much better for us if we can make the first two hours the best hours. It doesn't fit for everybody, but for most of us, we can make it happen. And we will see the results.

You're halfway there to the kingdom of God. You have three keys. You just have six locks. You got three blocks. So make it to the kingdom of God. And I think these are very important. Let's go to the fourth key.

Somebody see what that is? Notebook. Notebook. Notebook. Are you taking notes right now? Yes. All of you? Don't lie to me. He knows.

My wife forgot a notebook today. We came up so she had to borrow. She gave me. Hold it up, Mary, for everybody. Nobody turn around and look at my beautiful wife.

That's a little bitty notebook. She had to borrow my notebook from my vehicle. I took out before we came here. This is a notebook that I've had for... goes all the way back seven years. And I keep it in my truck. And it's right there. There are some addresses here. I don't even know those people anymore. But I still have a few pages. But there are references to words. Are we there yet? The sermon I gave. This is the creation of the sermon. I was stopped waiting on somebody and I looked and thought, were there yet? Gave a sermon on it. As a kid going to Indiana, I was there yet. That was a note. Another sermon here. Day of Christ's return. I bring this out because this is my notebook. I usually have one on my desk, usually. And I also have one in my vehicle since I spend a lot of time there. And I have a pen. And if I'm just sitting or thought comes through to me, I write it down. I've had scriptures come to me and I write it down. You know what I found out? If I didn't write it down, on the next day, I'm going, you know, I had this great idea. What happened to it? Have you ever had that? So it's not just me and it's totally followed.

So I realized how important this was that I would write things down because I feel like God is talking to me. That's why I talk to him now. I've read the Bible. So all of a sudden, some pops in your head right here. It does! Tom, it does, doesn't it? And I want to be there because I want to write that down. I want something to inspire me. And it was amazing as I can look back here. And this was four years ago. It's even longer than I could have at least seven apples in 2012, ten years ago. Longer than seven years. My notes of what I would do exactly everything at that time. Now, you're not a minister? What's that got to do with you? Ah, why do you ask?

A guy won't give his name. He decided to do an article for a business magazine. And the article turned into a book. And when he was with the article he was writing, he decided he wanted to know what billionaires had in common. Okay? Not millionaires! There's too many of those. But this was anyone who was worth 900 million to 100 billion at the time. Oh yes, the big people you see on he went and got an interview with him.

And he wanted to see, he said, all I need, 15 minutes is your time. So, and most of them gave him 10 minutes of their time. And he wanted to find out what makes you successful, what brought you here, what are the decisions you make, all these, you know, like five or six questions. And so he put all this information together from the Bill Gates, from the Warren Buffetts. Elon Musk wasn't that big back then. Bezos was, but Musk wasn't out there. But Richard Branson, does anybody know who Richard Branson is? Virgin Airlines of finance, face, and records, and everything else. This guy went there and viewed him and said, I need 15 minutes. And he said, if you'll follow me around today, I'll let you have a whole day. Just keep up. So, at the end of the day, he goes, I don't know how they got this. But one of the things that this guy found in common, 75% of all billionaires have one thing, not that they're rich, not that they're driven, not to think, have control over this. It was a notebook. They all kept a notebook with them during that day. And Richard Branson had his with him when they spent the day with him. He would pull it out, write something down, put it back in, and everything at the end of the day. He goes, tell me about the notebook. And he said, I noticed others had notebooks. And he said, I realized I would not be where I am today if I didn't write down the inspiring moments that are in my life every single day. These thoughts, half of my businesses were from a line, a thought that I didn't, I had one day and looked back many days later and said, that's a good business. Half of Branson's wealth, he said, is right here. From writing it down, when moments of inspiration, how much less are we? Are we called to be billionaires? No! We're called big zillionaires in the kingdom of God! We're going to inherit the entire world! The entire universe is a method translation, Pussit. What do we need to write down every day that keeps us focused on what? The MIT. They keep us focused on what's so important. Go with me, if you will, to Deuteronomy 17. Deuteronomy 17. I'm watching the clock so you can be sure. I'm not going to keep you over. Deuteronomy 17. Deuteronomy 17 verse 18. Okay, here is what the king is supposed to do. God gave this instruction. Verse 18, also it shall be when he, the king, sits on his throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in the book from the ones before the priest, the Levites. And he shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord, his God, and be careful to observe all the words of the law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandments of his right or to the left, that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel. He wanted the king to write down what? The MIT! This, that was their notebook! They weren't just like, okay, I wrote it down. Good. Never have to look at it again. No! They were to look at it. They were to read it. They were required to read it once a year. Well, tell me the good kings didn't keep it and refer to it often.

What a wonderful instruction for us. Not only from the physical monetary giants of today, but of the ones that God called the spiritual giants in the past. Notebook. You might be, you might look back and go, wow, am I ever glad I wrote that down. Matter of fact, I got frustrated this week. Mary was gone. Not just because she was gone. Frustrated because I was thinking about something. I was working on a sermon. I was going through this thing and I, so I went to bed and I usually have reading stuff right by my bed. And so I'm reading this thing and all of a sudden I have this, I turn on, I have this thought. And I turn the light out and man, I just have this incredible thought that I felt like God put in my mind. And you know what I said? First thing in the morning, I'm all right, they're down. I am still trying to find that thought. So one of the things that I've decided to do, I'm going to have one of these sitting by my bed. I ask Him to empower me. I ask Him to instruct me. I ask Him to guide me. I ask through the Spirit to reveal things. And then I'm going, okay. To me, it's a kingdom. It's a key to the kingdom. It's an entrance to the kingdom. As I give you the next to last, hopefully you know. So, right stand, we end right here at three o'clock, right? At three o'clock on the money. You're not precise? Oh no. Man, you were so excited until watching.

Yeah. Ask that woman if I'm excited, after 37 years. Okay, here's the fifth key.

That's a key. The fifth key. The word is dopamine. I'm not a drug dealer, even though I live in South Florida. I know where you get a bad rap for it. But does anybody know what dopamine is? Yes, ma'am. Oh, she does? Yes, ma'am. Can you tell us what dopamine is? It's a neurotransmitter. Oh, very good. We've been reading WebMD.com. Did you write that? Because it said dopamine is a type of neurotransmitter.

So, you know what dopamine is? It's a neurotransmitter. It's actually a chemical released in the brain. That helps you to understand and have this intense feeling of reward. Like when you do something that you love to do, this chemical is released that translates to the brain. You feel good! Matter of fact, it's a chemical that can only relate to, for you to understand how it truly acts, is cocaine. Go, Kenny! A friend of mine I grew up with, and he went and did everything you can imagine, and he became a great basketball player. He played sports. He was a gift. He was a gift. How was he doing so many ways? Tell him I'm quitting here pretty soon. I won't have to cry much longer.

And so he told me, he said, well, I got this job and the stock, selling stocks. And he said, my boss came in after we closed this deal. And he said, hey, I want to reward you. Here's a line of cocaine. He says, I don't do drugs. Now he drank, but he said, no, I don't do it. And he said, I got just not. And he said, I knew that. But he said, I did it. And he said, I felt such a high. Then he said, he said, I know I scored 50 points in a basketball game. And I knew what that felt like. And I'd done these incredible things. And I was just, he said, this blew them all out of the water. It was, I was so high. It just made me feel like I could walk and destroy anything. And he said, that's when I realized I could never do this again. Because I want more. And he never did. See, this dopamine is like that. And we, you find that people, they want that intense feeling. And it's released from the brain. And it even goes down the neural pathways and digs a ditch, per se, even. And because you want it more, it's just like sex addiction. You want more and more. And they find that this, it feels like this dopamine is released. And they want that feeling again. They've even found it to be shopping. People like to shop, spend money. It makes them feel good. They want to do it again. And that's why some of these, even smelling cookies.

And I'm full. I can't eat anymore. But I smell cookies. So, and I relate that to growing up. And that was the greatest happiness. And so all of a sudden, this dopamine is released. And I eat the cookies. Ah, ah, ah, I'm a cookie monster. This is dopamine. Well, you know what they found out? And you can attest to this, that it can be bad, but it can also be good. It can release that chemical when you do something that is fantastic. When it's when you do something great, when you do something... You have people who, oh, they don't care about money. They don't care. They love helping people. And because why? They found that some of the greatest joy is able to help, being able to help someone. And that dopamine is released in their brain, and they want to help more because that's what it's about. Makes me wonder if Christ didn't have dopamine. Released in him when he was able to heal what? A few people, hundreds, thousands, and a king of you.

So why do I bring this out? Go with me to Philippians 4 and verse 8. Philippians 4 and verse 8. Because I want you to have dopamine released for the good things. It's a natural chemical. God put in there. It's a reward. It's a reward. For us, it's like Pavlov's dog. Okay. Philippians 4 and verse 8 from the New King James Version said, Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things appear, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue, if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. God is wanting us to, by studying His Word and staying in contact with Him, and the previous four keys that were in it, He's wanting us to have this dopamine released when it is about Him. And you can't tell me that He will not release it. You can't meditate on these things. Whatever things are good, whatever things appear noble. Because it says in verse 9, The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you. Are you a peaceful person? Yes, you're going to find out. Because those people who are peaceful, they love peace. Don't you love peace in your life? Can you tell me that dopamine isn't released when you have peace? That is so good. Finally, I have four minutes.

Last one. Last key. We'll get Nurse Ratched there in case she knows what this is.

Myopic. I know what myopic is. Nearsidings. Nearsidings. Very good. In the Greek, where this comes from, are the reference of it that we read in the New Testament. It meant short-sightedness. I am nearsighted. I had LASIK surgery many years ago, but before that, I had to wear glasses. I had to get contacts.

So I then had LASIK surgery. But here's the thing. Myopic. Why is it a key to the kingdom? Because sometimes we can be what? Myopic. We can be nearsighted. I would just see very little. We get tunnel vision. We can be so nearsighted that you can't see the distance. How could that be good? How could that be a kingdom thing? How could that be a key to the kingdom? Brother, here is the key, the last key to the kingdom. When it comes to God, keep Him near and be nearsighted. Keep Him near. And you don't have to look all over this world for the beauty in life. You don't have to find something else to feel the whole that is there in every individual, because God wants to feel that whole that's in every one of us. I am married to this woman. I don't need to. Whoa, that's a good one. I don't need that. It's me that has to put the guard up. I need to be sure, because God said, I'm giving her to you and you to her. I'm not giving you the woman down at Sir Ball. Okay? When it comes to understanding, if we keep God close, we know what He thinks, how He thinks, and what He wants us to do. And He is a rewarder. He wants to be close.

And that is how we need to be my object. He's first. He's right there. But give Him a time. One last scripture. Let's go back to the book of Psalm. Remember, let's go to the first one. Psalm 1. This helps us to see. Psalm 1, verse 1. We have a song about this in our Psalm books. It says, All right. Dave and Nice.

Let us be my object. Let us be my object. So, people may say, well, oh, you poor religious people, you don't understand. You narrow-minded people. You don't understand as a woman's body. She needs to do what she wants to do. No, I don't have to. I don't have to.

So, brethren, I hope that you can accept my six keys to the kingdom of God. Because you're not getting my keys.

And it's been so good to be with you. I hope this can benefit you because it definitely benefits me. And so, if you get bored up here or you get tired, come down to South Florida. I'd like to steal a couple that you stole away from me. Thank you very much, and I look forward to meeting you afterwards. And Stan, I'm on time.