Six Keys to the Kingdom Of God

The title of my sermon today—and I'm so used to having PowerPoints, it's just nice not to have one in Fort Lauderdale and Vero Beach. We have those each week. So we're going to go back to the old days when there wasn't PowerPoint. So the title of my sermon today is Six Keys to the Kingdom of God. Six Keys to the Kingdom of God. I don't know how many keys you have, but typically I have six keys. Key to my house, key to my vehicle, key to the mailbox, key to my home here in Tennessee, even key to my mother's house.

And if you want to borrow my keys, I'll give you the six today that I'll let you borrow, but I'm not giving you these. But all of us use keys to enter somewhere, even to exit sometimes somewhere. And we all understand that we're not going to get where we want to go or enter where we want to enter unless we have the right key. And so I think it's important if we're going to be in the Kingdom of God.

I have six keys. You may also have other keys in addition, but I feel like these are very, very important to me. And with your help, I don't know that you do interactive sermons, Bible studies. I'm looking at Tim, no, not that much. Okay. So maybe some pauses here until I can get an answer, which I know so many of you, so I'm sure I can get at least your thought because I'm asking what you think so that it's not a wrong answer.

Right? If it's what you think and that's what you think, then that's it, right? Chelsea? Yeah. Good. My very first key is 1440. 1440. You know what that means? Anybody? Any thought? With this nice hall and you have no original thoughts? Anybody care to think? Hmm. I had somebody in a congregation say, well, wait a minute.

Isn't that how many people is going to be in the Kingdom? I said, no, that's it. See, you're kind of looking at 144,000. But this is an important key to your entrance, my entrance, into the Kingdom of God. 1440? We all have the same. You have 1440. I have 1440. Chelsea, you have 1440.

That's how many minutes in the day you have. 1440 minutes. We all have the same. So why is that a kingdom or is that a key to the Kingdom of God? Well, let's go. Go with me to Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 3. Everyone knows this. Matter of fact, it was the only song that was ever recorded using the words in the Bible that hit number one.

Anybody remember the bird? Singing turn, turn, turn. The time for everything! You do not want to hear me sing. As you can notice from the sign, I haven't been gone for here 10 years taking art lessons. Okay? So I also didn't take singing lessons. But in Ecclesiastes 3 and verse 1, I said to every time, everything there's season, a time, a time for every purpose under the heaven, a time to be born and a time to die, time to plant, time to pluck, time to kill and a time to heal, time to laugh and a time to cry.

There is time for everything under the sun. Larry, I appreciate your message. One of my favorite scriptures. Think about it. God gives us all the same amount of time each day. One thousand four hundred and forty minutes. What do you do with yours? Because what I do with mine, what you do with yours can readily determine whether you'll be in the kingdom of God. That's why I consider it the first key. What do I do with my time? How much time do I give to God? Enough? Probably not. But we all have to measure that. We're all given the same amount of time.

How many of us always hear, well, I just don't have the time? Well, you have the same time everybody else has. Does God want to know what you do with your time?

Now, a third of those, almost 500 of those, are you sleeping? Maybe some even more. And then if you have a job, you're going to be working? And they take another third, then it leaves you four to five hundred minutes, then you got to eat.

But what do you do with the rest of the time? What do you do with your 320 minutes or so that's left to you? Binge watch! Netflix!

Stay on the internet! Facebook! 320 minutes!

Where does God fit in? I'm not here condemning that. We binge watch. My mother made me binge watch the other night. Don't act like you didn't enjoy it.

I spend a lot of time, part of my job, on the internet, but it's amazing how it can take you off to this area and this area that you never even planned on going there.

But how much time do we really give to God? God doesn't tell us how much time he wants, other than what? 24 hours. The Sabbath, he said, it's holy, it's his, and you are here today because you read that and said, I agree. But during each day of the 1440, how much time do you give him? In study, in prayer, in meditation. Larry, I've been to your house more than a few times. You are blessed that you can go out at night. You can see those stars. Where we live, not so easy. And it's easy to meditate, isn't it? It's easy to think about, what am I that God should be mindful of me? It takes time. Does God want you to take some of your 1440 to meditate on his greatness? His glory? Your relationship with him? We don't have that, but we do have an ocean that Mary and I try to get up before the sun comes up, walk two or three times a week on the beach. And when you look out that ocean, man, you're small. It makes him so big. Is that what he wants from us? You are the ones that work it out with him. I don't judge you. Nobody can judge you. There's only one judge. That'll be Jesus Christ. He knows. We ask everything in his name. So, that 1440, is it that big a key? I think so. I think so, because you will determine tomorrow morning how much time out of the 1440. Will you give him 10% of the day? Study, prayer, meditation.

Doesn't say that, though. He says he wants 10% of your money. But what about your time? Doesn't say that.

So, every day we get up in the morning, whatever time, even four o'clock in the morning, Janie, did she wake you up, Barry, when she got up at always four o'clock in the morning? But you determine the key. The key to that day of how many minutes you're going to give to your guy. Second, my second key.

MIT. Do you know what MIT represents?

I'm going to have to come back here.

Tim said the University, Massachusetts, what? Institute of Technology. That's a great guess, but it's wrong. MIT. MIT is an acronym for a business phrase that is used so much today. And businesses even want their employees to put it up on a whiteboard. So they walk in every day and find out and write down, what is the MIT? The boss can walk in the office, look up on the board and say, what is the MIT? MIT is in the business lingo, most important thing. The most important thing.

So what is it for you? It's one of the keys, as I call the second key to the kingdom of God, because then again, you go back to key number one.

You set the pattern, the minutes for what you're going to do. So you're going to need that second key. To enter the kingdom of God, what does God say? He gives us one very simple scripture, doesn't He? Matthew 6.33 tells us R-M-I-T, our most important thing. And it says, what? Seek first the kingdom of God and, Larry, righteousness. And all these things will be added to you that were just talked about in the previous verses. M-I-T.

Is it?

Yes. That key. That key because we see how we live. To many people, it is this. It is money, right? It's the most important thing. I get up in the morning. That's going to work. We're going to paycheck home. And haven't we all done it just a little too long? Haven't we all made this perhaps a little too high on the priority list?

We look at the world around us.

How many M-I-Ts? I mean, we'd have God. Oh, a lot say. Oh, my Lord and Savior. You can see them at football games, right? They went in the Super Bowl. Oh, I thank my Lord and Savior. You see them went in an Emmy or Grammy or whatever in their half dress. And they say, I thank my Lord and Christ. You made this possible that I can dress this slutty and still win this award. I mean, you see it. Don't you? They don't say that, but we see it and we go, how does that line up with this?

Brother, what is our M-I-T? And do we mentally have a whiteboard that every day we put up our M-I-T? That we think, what is the most important thing to me? Well, guess what? God wants to see if He's the most important thing. And how we spend the next 141,440 minutes, we'll tell Him. And you know, it tells most people that live around us, most people we work with. How about food? M-I-T? Most important thing, we all like to eat. You can tell I do. I can look around, see you do too.

Look at America! Look at America!

I, of course, oversee our church in Haiti. I've been there four or five times. Food is at the top of their list.

Because one meal a day is all they get to eat, typically. That's pretty important.

But food, you realize in America, 42% of Americans are obese. That means 25, 30, 40 pounds overweight. And that 72% of all adults are considered overweight.

And we're 42% yet. 20 years ago, we were 30%. Is this showing? Maybe, as a lot do with diet, but it's also showing just how important food is to people. How we live demonstrates who our God is.

Do people know your God? They're supposed to. They're supposed to. We read the pages, almost 32,000 verses in this Bible. And we see examples. Gives us examples of people who no question what was the most important thing. And they should inspire us. We come together as a group of gods called out ones here on the Sabbath to not only worship Him, but to be inspired. That we're not doing this alone.

So that is my second key to the kingdom of God. Think about your keys. How many would you have? I have six.

And this one will take us through half as I watch my clunks so you guys don't walk out on me on my last key.

My third key is two hours. Two hours before you think I'm going to say, Tim, you need to study your Bible two hours a day.

Michael, you need to pray two hours a day. I can't say that because the Bible doesn't say that. Bible doesn't tell us how long to pray. It doesn't tell us how long to study. That's part of the 1440 he leaves to us. We're free, moral agents, to choose. However, how much, how little we want to do it. But you know what's interesting about these two hours is a time study was done.

And they found that there were certain hours of the day when people work. Say you're working eight to ten hours, that's typically what people do. And they found in this study, and this was not just a few hundred people, but hundreds of thousands of people, they found that of those eight to ten hours, 40 to 50 percent of all work was done in two hours. They called it peak time.

Why do I bring that out? Because we must realize what our peak time is. Maybe you're a morning person. I am. Obviously, Janie is.

And I'm not going to be able to do that. Maybe you're a morning person. I am. Obviously, Janie is.

But what? I'm actually, I don't need an alarm clock most of the time. I just wake up and I get up because I'm a morning person. My wife is kind of the opposite. She's trying to be more like me. She gets up. She's not the most chipper in the world, but neither am I at nine o'clock at night. Because some of her best time is in the evening. She's more wide awake. I say, I'm going to bed. She says, I got to finish this. So there we are different. There is no right or wrong. But what are you and of your best time? Two hours. How much of that is given to God?

I find it better for me to do my study. My prayer in the morning because I'm a morning person. Because I know when I've gotten calls and had to get out of bed and go annoy somebody or get up staying, you know, that feels, and you in two in the morning go to the hospital and then you're just thrown off for the rest of your day. And then you have to go, okay, let me go in. And it's just with me, it doesn't feel right. Things don't seem right after that. Because I realize I'm my best in the morning. They found through this study that the best times of production was between 9 and 11. That's what this two hours was about. Now maybe not everybody does that. But as a whole, this group that they studied, they found that most work got done. Forty-five percent of the work got done between 9 and 11.

So what do we do? Am I saying you need two hours of God? I can't say that because the Bible doesn't say that. When I'm saying, are we going to give God of the 1440, the MIT, are we going to give him the best or the worst? It's your decision. But let's look at a man who did. Inspired me. I'd like you to go with me to the book of Psalm. The book of Psalm.

Psalm 5. Psalm 5. This is, of course, David. Who was a passionate man.

Let's go to chapter 5, verse 1. It says, What does it say? Pray. He's going to pray. When? My voice you shall hear in the morning, O Lord. In the morning I will direct it to you. I will look up. This is when David was at his best. You can read other chapters where he was not at his best. Like walking around on the top of his building in the evening. But in the morning, this was his best time. I read from the amplified verse just because it gives me. It gives you just a little bit more. Amplified. Psalm 5, verse 1. Listen to my words, O Lord. Give heed to my sign and groan. Hear the sound of my cry, my king, my God. For to you do I pray. In the morning you hear my voice, O Lord. In the morning I prepare a prayer, a sacrifice for you. And watch and wait for you to speak to my heart.

Brethren, we have the opportunity.

To look at these examples because we know from Scripture. I don't want to turn there. There's too many to turn to. We know who's going to be in the kingdom of God. He has a key. His position is already set. And that's David.

He will be in the kingdom of God. That's not a question. My question is, will I be in the kingdom of God? We must ask that question. Do I give God the leftovers? Or do I try to give Him the best of the 1440? Of the two hours?

Only you can answer that question.

Finally, my fourth, down through my fourth.

You might find this very interesting. I did when I read the article.

My fourth kingdom, key. Here's the word notebook. Notebook. You got one? You have one? Why is it important? Well, I'll tell you now that a man wrote an article, and the article is about to be published into a book. And in the article, he quoted different books, Millionaire Next Door, very success manuals. But this individual wanted to find out the billionaires of this world. And now there's quite a few billionaires. And so this writer, which he was known, called and tried to make appointments, or got appointments with some of the richest men in the entire world. Billionaires! And you would know their names. I'll wait because the book might come out.

But he went and interviewed. He said, I just need 30 minutes of your time. I want to ask you about what makes you successful, what keeps you successful.

What advice would you give to the average person? And the most amazing part is he listed all these, he interviewed all these billionaires, and he came down to various things. They were of discipline. They all started early in the morning. They had various things that was in common. But to them, when they had to list some of the things that were most important, the thing they brought out was they all carried with them a notebook, a notepad. I have one, a very small one, a little pen. I have another one that's back there. I almost brought that I had in my vehicle. I have it sitting there. Because they wrote, or they told this individual, he wrote about it, that the thoughts that would come through their minds had to be written down. And they realized when something big was happening, they wrote it down. If they had a thought, they wrote it down. They had this incredible idea. They wrote it down. Because they realized if they did not do it, they would think the next day, how many of us haven't done that? Oh, what was that great idea I was going to do? And most of them got it because they had a list of things to do in a day. Your day calendar, many of you will probably have, and I mine write it out and check off those things as you get them done every day. Well, they had that, but they realized that, wow, this, man, if I don't write this down.

For any of you who speak, Larry, all you who speak, how many times you go, why, that'd be a great message. Wait till I get home. What happens? What was that thing that I was going to talk about? Oh, God inspires some incredible thought. He inspires some verse that He wants you to dig down. You're driving. And all of a sudden, this is like, wow, really? And God gives you the understanding that you've never had about a verse before. And you're like, oh, I'm going to explore them. It's that important. Branson, a Virginaire, a billionaire, this writer, because he, Virginaire, he's got money scattered all over the place. And so he got an appointment with him. I just need 30 minutes of your time. Branson said, okay, show up with me. Get here in the morning and you can hang with me. I'll give you 30 minutes, but I can't stop what I'm doing. He said, fine. He got there. Branson didn't give him 30 minutes. Didn't give him an hour. He gave him a whole day. Just hang with me. And he followed him as he was doing all his work. And he kept pulling out his little notebook. And he would write things down. He said, how important is it? He said, I would not have half of everything I have without this notebook. All these ideas I would come, I would write them down. He said, half of my company, half of my wealth, is because I had great ideas at certain times and I made them work because I wrote them down.

It was a very inspiring story. Then he said, I don't go anywhere without my notebook.

As a matter of fact, he gave six of the top 10 billionaires all to mention the notebook. It was that important to them because the mind is an incredible thing. And it's an embarrassing thing to waste. God works with us.

Why is this so important? Go with me to Deuteronomy.

It's an important thing because God thought it was important. Deuteronomy 17. Here we have God's instruction to when they would have a king over Israel. And this is what the king must do.

17, verse 18, New King James. He said, Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book from the one before the priests and the Levites. And it 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 and observe all the words of the law and these statutes. And his heart may not be lifted up above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandments to the right or to the left. And he may prolong his days of his kingdom, he and his children, in the midst of Israel. Write it down. He said, Well, I'm not a speaker. I'm not a pastor.

What does this book say we're going to be? If we make it to his kingdom, we're not going to be a cheerleader. It says you will be kings and priests.

You don't think that book is important? You don't think what God has given you now? What he's putting, writing in your hearts and in your minds? And when he writes it in your minds, it's not important enough to write it down. If you study this book every day, you have to be inspired.

It is our destiny to be a king, to be a ruler, to be a priest. This is a key to the kingdom. And having a notebook is not only good for me, it's good for all of us. The fifth key to the kingdom.

Is the word you may not know? Some of you heard it.

And it is the word dopamine. Dopamine. I know people in the health field will probably know it. Dopamine. Does anybody know what dopamine is? Ah, very good, just feel good. Chemical. A feel-good chemical. It's a chemical that's released in every one of our brains. And it's called the pleasure chemical. Because when you enjoy doing something, and you want to do it again, and you want to do it again, this dopamine is released in your brain. And it actually made ruts and tracks in the neural pathways so that you want to do that again. They've only been able to find a way to duplicate it.

With that feeling you get from the drug cocaine. It's like cocaine released in your body. You just feel like you can walk on water. I had a friend of mine. Never took drugs. But he decided to try cocaine because his boss gave it to him one time. And he was a great athlete. He knew that feeling of winning and playing. And his boss said, no, I don't want to do it. Oh, now you need to. And he did. And he said, that's the last time and only time. Because he said, I'd never felt a feeling like that before in my life. He said, I felt like I could have walked on water. I could have jumped off a 50-foot bridge and lived. He says, a feeling like I'd never had an athletics. It's just, it's just a great thing. The only problem with cocaine, it's addictive. So you got to have more. And you got to have more to where it finally takes over you. And I've experienced that down in Florida. In my circuits, people who got addicted to cocaine. Half of the city of Miami, you see the skyscrapers were built with cocaine money. Surprised how many of my members when I first got there had been in jail because of cocaine. Everybody was doing it. Because it felt so good! Well, dopamine, it is also addictive because it's a chemical released in your brain for pleasure. So whatever you find that you love to do, you love to eat, keep going and that'll be released when you're so happy when you eat. You play sports. Whatever is a great pleasure, you want to do it. And that chemical is released.

God put that in our brains. But people are addicted to drugs, they're addicted to sex, they're addicted to pornography. And I went through some classes on that and on the internet and these pathways would get where people enjoy pornography. They just had to have it. I've worked with a few guys. And it's all part of this chemical release because whatever you find pleasure in. So why would God put something like that in us? Because He wants us to be passionate. He wants us to become addicted to Him, to His way. He put that in so we can read the Word. We can get excited about this. As a matter of fact, let's go to Philippians.

Philippians 4. Many of you know this, but I want to put that in this perspective about dopamine. Because it's not a bad thing, it's a good thing. We have to learn to control it. And what are you doing with your 1440? Because you see, this is a kingdom of God. This is a key to that kingdom. Are you passionate about what you do? Or do you just... Do you read the Bible, or do you study it? There's a big difference. How many times I've told Mary I walk back in, and I've been in my office, and I said, you know, I just read four chapters, and I don't know what in the world I just read. Because my mind was somewhere else, but I was reading the Bible.

Remember the song, Oh, How I Love Thy Law? It is ever with me. This is what God... This is a David. David got juice. David was a man that had dopamine, had to channel it. We all see the good and the bad. So what releases a dopamine chemical in your brain? Because it is released in almost all of ours. Hmm? We need to know, don't we? Because God says here in Philippians 4 and verse 8, He says, Finally, finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are a good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. Set your mind on these things. Another translation has. God wants us to be excited about the book, about what's in here.

And if we go to Him and ask Him, fire me up, and you read these things and realize, this is a key to the kingdom of God. If I can't be passionate about His Word, about this way of life, face it. Would you, if you were God, would you want you in His, your kingdom? If you don't find it, I mean, how many of us, we've all worked with people who show up and say, well, how's it going down? It's okay. All right, did you have a good day yesterday? Well, it was okay. But then you've worked with those people. Yeah, man, I had a great weekend. Yes, it's going to be a great day. You like working with people who are positive about where you're working or otherwise, quit. So God wants us all in, because that's the kind of people, beings that will be in the kingdom of God. And He's got to live with you forever. I know sometimes I've worked with people, and it's only been a few years, and it feels like it's forever. Why? Because they're not excited about their job. They're not excited about life. God wants us excited about this life, our calling now and His Word. Set your mind on these things. So He can release that dopamine in your brain to where you're going. I've got to finish that. I've got to finish that chapter. I've got to finish that book. I've got to finish this. Last one for all you time watchers. The last key, sixth key, may seem strange to you, too. It's the word myopic. Myopic. Are you myopic? Look it up. Actually, it means nearsighted. Are you? I am. I had Lacey many years ago, but I can see a lot better. It's close, far, and the older I get, the worse my eyesight gets.

But it can also, if you look up the word, it can also mean shortsightedness. You can only see this close. Are you myopic? Some people in our opinions are very shortsighted, aren't they? I never liked that guy anyway. I knew she wasn't really who we thought she'd be. Really? Is that what he's talking about? Is that what I'm talking about? No. Myopic is not a bad thing.

Myopic is when you can only see something, and you just can't get it out of your head. But with technology today, it doesn't allow us to be myopic as much as we probably need to be. Why? Because there's stuff everywhere. We get on there, and we just want to see this and see this, and it just takes us over here. And so it's hard for us to focus. But yet, God wants us to focus. He really does. On him and his word. It ties back to the MIT. It ties back to the 1440. It's not bad to be myopic as long as it's the right thing.

For us husbands, it's good to be myopic. And our wives, not everybody else. But yeah, what does the world show you today? The world shows men billboards, internet. Ah, look at this one! Look at her. Oh, look at this. Look at this.

God tells us what we need to be and how we need to get there, where we're going, and how we're going to get there. So do you see how being myopic can be another key to the kingdom of God. To let us in. Let's go back. Last scripture here. Let's go to Psalm.

Psalm chapter 1. Psalm chapter 1.

Verse 1, Blessed is a man who walks, not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of the sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. Why doesn't he do it? Because he's myopic. He knows that's not where he needs to be.

Blessed is a man who doesn't do that. But his delight, is that your delight? Is this your delight? But his delight is in the law of the Lord. Don't we sing a song like that? I believe so.

And in his law, he, she, meditates on it day and night. We're myopic.

So do you want to go? You want to be in the kingdom of God? You may have some other keys. If you do, email them to me. I'd like to hear. These are my keys. My six keys. You can borrow those keys. Because we're all on this airplane together, going to the kingdom of God.

And we may get there sooner than we think.

Will you be ready? Because it is that important to God. 7.89 billion people in the world.

And he's called you.

Do we really want to be there? Is it the most important thing? Then, brethren, let us examine our 1,440 that we're all given. Let us have some passion. Let us get excited and not just say, seek the kingdom, but be like David. Be like those people who are going to make sure they've got keys to enter the kingdom of God. The greatest gift, the most incredible gift I have not seen nor heard nor entered the heart of man, the things that God has planned for those who love him, the kingdom of God.

Let's enter together.