Some Tough Questions to Ask Yourself - Part 2

We'll have to sound with once again. Thank you for that hymn. It gives a great honor to Lillian and gives all of us hope.

Well, it's less than eight weeks before the Passover this year, and I would like to continue getting us thinking about the purpose and the meaning of the Spring Holy Days. As we approach every spring season, we should always take a look at what God has done in our lives, what He's presently doing in our lives, and what He yet desires to do in each and every one of us.

Preparing for the Spring Holy Days is a perfect time to reflect on our spiritual condition, to make some needed changes that maybe have been a long time in coming, and even an opportunity if we should choose to reinvent ourselves through that incredible power of the Holy Spirit. Last time, I discussed five difficult or tough questions we can all ask ourselves before the Passover this year. Again, these questions apply only to ourselves.

These questions are not for our spouses, our children, our parents, the person sitting in row 7b. It only applies to ourselves. Someone asked me, how do you come up with these kinds of questions? It's really easy. It is just so easy.

Here's what I do. I've said this before. What I do is I look at my own nearly 50-year journey, and I look at all the things that I struggled with. I just have this silly notion that I'm carnal and that I'm human, and if I struggle with these things, other people do too. That's how I come up with these kinds of tough questions, because I've made the mistakes. I've been there. I've done that. That's how we come up with this. It isn't my intention today.

This is a strong sermon, and it's not my intention today to be mean or nasty. We are entering the Passover, and it is the time of year when we need to look at our hearts and our minds and make some adjustments. It isn't my intention to offend anyone. However, as the handsome prince said to Cinderella, Honey, if the shoe fits, wear it. Let's take a look at number six. We covered the first five in part one of this sermon. Number six, what are my spiritual gifts, and am I using them? What are my spiritual gifts, and am I using them?

You know everyone here has a spiritual gift. Every one of us has a gift that God has given us so that we can use it to serve Jesus Christ. We can give glory to God by serving other people. Every one of us has a spiritual gift. There is no exception. We shouldn't bury or hide our talents or our gifts. There's no greater joy than being an instrument of the Holy Spirit to become a blessing to God's people. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 12 and verse 7 and see where Paul reminds us of this fact.

We have gifts. Do we know what they are? Have we examined them? And are we using them? Now, if you don't know what your gifts are, one thing you might be able to do is say to someone who knows you, Well, what do you think are my gifts? What are my talents? What do you think, honey? What do you think, friend, are the gifts, the spiritual gifts and talents that I've been given?

And then just listen with an open mind and hear them out. And they may not have an answer immediately. That's okay. Give them a week to think about it before they reply to you. But this is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12 and verse 7. But the manifestation of the Spirit, in other words, the way the Spirit manifests itself in each one of us, is given to each one. You see, we all have a manifestation of a special gift.

To each one for the profit of all. It's not so we can glorify ourselves. It's not so we can show off. It's given the profit. Everybody. So they can all bless and be blessed from the gift that we have to one. And he's going to list a number of different gifts. To one is given the word of wisdom. Some people just have a lot of rich wisdom experience from their lifetimes.

Through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge. Through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gift of healings by the same Spirit. To another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, or the ability to encourage by the same Spirit. To another the discerning of Spirit, just sensing what's right and what's wrong, what's creepy and what's okay. To another different kinds of tongues, the ability to speak different languages, the ability to pick up different languages and translate and write or speak languages that are different than their native one.

To another the interpretation of tongues, again translations. But one and the same Spirit works all these things distributing to each one individually as he or God wills. It's God that gives us the power of his Holy Spirit. So it's God that wills that in some way we have discovered and that we're using a gift to share in the church of God and to be a glory to God, to give him glory by how we're using that gift.

Spiritual gifts are humbly demonstrated and they're manifested. They're obvious to others. They're not something we proclaim for ourselves or we declare, I just think that now I'm a computer expert. Or I don't even know how to turn the button of the computer on. So they're not self-proclaimed. They're not declared. They're usually other people recognized and say, hey, do you know you have this gift? We have someone in this congregation. I won't mention his name because I would embarrass him.

And I'll tell you what his spiritual gift is. It is care giver. Now, that's a beautiful word. Care and giver. And for decades, he has demonstrated in his life care for those outside of the church, bringing people that were handicapped to church, members of his own family, his brother, his mom, his wife, other people outside of the church. For decades, he has cared for people who are struggling with chronic illnesses. Many people in different ways over and over again.

That happens to be his spiritual gift. He's discovered it. It's manifest. It's obvious to anyone who knows him. And for each and every one of us, we have a certain particular gift. Have we discovered it? Are we using it? Some occupational therapists claim that the average person has 500 to 800 skills.

Yet most people can only identify a few. I'm happy because we're just so humble that we only come up with three or four. But deep in there, inside there, is incredible talent and skill. Romans 12-6. Let's turn there with me if you would. Romans 12-6. Paul wrote to the church in Rome, What kind of gifts are there? Well, first of all, we have DNA, and your DNA will never be duplicated ever again. You are a unique human being, and your DNA is totally unique.

At this time, your spouse may be saying, praise the Lord. But our DNA is unique. Our heartbeats are different. Our EKGs all have a different pattern. There's no two human beings on earth that have the same heart rhythm. Fingerprints are unique.

When God made you, he threw away the mold because there will never be another being created in this universe who is just like you. That's how special you are. There are two differing types of gifts that God can give us. The first one are natural talents that are magnified and expanded beyond our normal ability. It's the combination of the DNA we have and some additional training on top of an inclination to be able to do something well. Let's take a look at Exodus 31 and verse 2, and we'll see an instance when God was instructing Moses to build the tabernacle that he took individuals who were already gifted artisans, and he filled them with the Spirit of God so that their skills and talents were absolutely magnified.

This is a case where natural talents are magnified and expanded beyond our normal ability. Individuals who take their DNA with additional training, this includes people like artists, musicians, craftsmen, teachers, think of Mr. Grandsir and Lass Sabbath about how young he was when he started to play the piano. So it's a combination of the right mixture of DNA and some training, and God's Spirit, and wonderful things can happen. Here's what it says in Exodus.

They're already gifted artisans, and now I have put additional wisdom. I have filled them with the Spirit of God and magnified the natural gifts and abilities that they have that they may make all that I have commanded you. So that's one way that we can manifest the gifts that God gives us. Another, the second, is a complete new capacity beyond our native skills and talents.

It says in the book of Acts in that day of Pentecost, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. They were all filled. It didn't matter whether they knew a language or not. It didn't matter whether they had the DNA or the talent or inclination or not. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages because there were people who were out there in the audience from all kinds of different languages all over the Roman Empire. And that was their opportunity to hear the gospel, the good news.

So that's very important for us to appreciate and understand. We're not given spiritual gifts for our own benefit. We are given them to benefit others in the body of Christ, the Church. I can think. I'll give you an example, a small example. I won't mention his name. He's an elder who speaks in Ohio. He's not in this congregation. But if you speak to him one-on-one, he's like his eyes are down and he gets up at a podium and it's like someone throws a switch.

His speaking is smooth. He doesn't stammer, stutter, use filler words. It's like he comes alive. Talking to him one-on-one, not impressive at all. He has trouble stringing two sentences together. You get him in front of God's people and it's like somebody throws a switch and it's miraculous in how he is transformed in order to serve God's people in that way. Again, I won't mention his name because I wouldn't want to embarrass him. But again, these kind of gifts are new capacities that are beyond our native skills or talents.

God gives us those so that we can benefit everyone in the congregation. That's number six. What are my spiritual gifts? Am I using them? Number seven. Am I truly serving others? Seventh, difficult or tough question. Am I truly serving others? You know, there are three areas of potential service that we are called to. And ideally, we should be serving in all three different areas that they are service towards God, which is certainly most important. Number two, service to the Church of God, brethren, which obviously is very important, but also service to our neighbors and our community.

And oftentimes, we don't think of that. We may not think of that as important or something that God wants us to do. Let's turn to Hebrews 12 and verse 28 together. Hebrews 12 and verse 28.

See what the author of the book of Hebrews teaches us about the importance of serving God. Hebrews 12 and verse 28. The author was inspired, perhaps, Paul. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.

Chapter 13, verse 1. Let brotherly love continue. So, of course, we serve God the Father and Jesus Christ by our obedience. We heard about that in the sermon today, giving them respect, making sure that we are worshipping God as we should, using the power of the Holy Spirit to become more Christ-like in our attitudes and in our actions. Much of what we learn through the Scripture is how to serve God and how to serve His children. Have we thought about how important it is not just to serve God but also to serve His children?

We recall that Jesus said in Mark 12, verse 30, And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. Then He continues. He says, And the second is like it. It's this. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

There is no other commandment greater than these. So, you know, just like we can't serve God by avoiding Him, we also can't serve each other or our neighbors by avoiding them. We can't have a relationship with God and avoid Him. We can't say, Well, Father, you're not doing any prayer or study or anything. We can't say, Well, Father, I don't talk to you. I don't listen to you. I don't like your relatives. But I want you to know that I love you. We can't say that. We have to have a relationship with God and not avoid Him.

And we have a relationship by connecting with Him. We have a relationship with each other by connecting with each other. I'm sure most of us understand our need to serve God. And that's great. We also have a need to serve in God's church. And that is also something that God expects of us. But I want to take this hard question one step further. What are we doing to serve in our communities? Now, perhaps in a small way. I understand time restraints. I have two jobs. So I understand the pressures and time limitations.

Believe me, I do understand that. But in some small way, are we connected to our community using our interests and our skills? What are we doing to serve those who are not in the church? Let's go to Matthew 5 and verse 14 and see what Jesus said about us being a light before men. Plural, meaning everyone, not just people in our own home or people in our own church congregation.

Matthew 5 and verse 14. Jesus said, and you are the light of the world, a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. If you're up there sitting on a hill, if you're sitting on the pinnacle, everyone should be able to notice you. People build cities on a hill so that from miles and miles and miles away, travelers can say, there's the city! There's where I want to head towards. Nor do they put a light on a lamp and put it under a basket. Why would you do that? Light a lamp and then put a basket on it so the light can't shine anywhere. That doesn't even make sense.

But on a lamp stand, when you light something, have you noticed that most of the lights in your home are either in the ceiling or they're sitting on a lamp stand of something? Because the light is brighter if it's higher. If we had lights and they all laid on the floor, they wouldn't show much brightness at eye level, would they?

And it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. And obviously the context here is our neighbors, all before men.

You know, a lawyer sarcastically asked Jesus once, well, who's my neighbor? And Jesus had to remind him through the story of the parable of the Good Samaritan that your neighbor is someone who may be very different than you are. Religiously, culturally, ethnically. That person's also your neighbor is what Jesus taught that man through the parable. So I want to ask this question. Are we being exclusive, standoffish?

Are we doing nothing in our communities or neighborhoods? Because if we are, how could we possibly be a light? Why should people take us seriously? Or respect us if we show them by our actions that we don't respect or care for them? How can we love our neighbors as ourselves if we're invisible and they don't know we exist? We can only be a light if we're there, if we're present in some way. In some way, some little way, Jesus encourages us to be a light to the world. And again, depending on our time constraints and what we're able to do and what our skill levels are and so on, that's a personal choice.

But I'm here to remind all of us that that's something that God wants us to do. And we can serve in our communities, just like we serve here in the local congregation. Some of you are very good at organization. Some of you are good at maintenance. You work well with your hands. You just do things to maintain the building or the equipment or whatever here. And you do a great job. Some have financial savvy. They're really good with QuickBooks. They're good with spreadsheets. Others of you are encouraging. Some of you, your talents are hospitality. You're very hospitable, kind people.

A lot of people have a lot of people at your homes. And that's wonderful. Some of you are good at cooking, cleaning, making crafts, transportation, taking people from here to there. All of these are ways that we can serve, not just in our local congregation, which is good, but also in our local communities. All right, let's take a look at the difficult question number eight. What new goals do I need to make this year? We've talked about goals before and having a personal mission statement.

The bottom line is that people without goals lack a sense of purpose. There are those who wander aimlessly through life because they don't have any goals. Setting a goal is the first step towards spiritual growth. And the first step to realize that is to make sure that we write our goal down. You know, Habakkuk said in chapter two and verse two, he said, Write the vision and make it plain on tablets that he who reads it may run.

Habakkuk was saying, if you envision something, write it down because you'll forget it. You won't be reminded of it, so write it down and then you can act on it. It's there in front of you. It's like a covenant you've made with yourself, and you will be able to act on it. Now, in part one, I mentioned our priority goal in life is to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and that's certainly true.

But aside from that, what's our second goal? Third goal, fourth goal, fifth goal in life? For example, developing a natural gift or skill or a talent to serve others may be a worthy goal. If you're saying, well, I have no goals, well, maybe developing a talent so that you can give glory to God would be a great second goal in your life. Let's go to Philippians 3 and verse 3. Paul uses the word goal here, and in context he's talking about the first goal, seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness. But I love the fervency that he has, the dogmatic fervency that he has in these verses here in Philippians chapter 3.

He says, He says, He said, I'm still on the journey. I'm still growing. I haven't arrived at perfection. I haven't taken hold of it. I'm still working towards it. He says, but one thing I do, forgetting those things that are behind, in other words, he says, I let go of the past. Now, let's see, did Paul have a past more than you or I that he should let go of?

Because it could have held him back his whole life. He had more of a reason to feel like a degraded human being than anybody in this room. He personally persecuted Christians. He arrested Christians and separated parents from their children. He was, if not directly involved, complicit in the murder of believers of Jesus Christ, and he had to live with that haunting reality for the rest of his life.

Yet, in spite of that mistake, he realized the power of repentance, and he said, forgetting those things that are behind, he learned the ability to let things go and to move on, reaching forward to those things which are ahead. He looked forward. He didn't look past. He didn't look behind him. I press, I just love that word, I press towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore, let us, as many as our mature, have this mind. If you want to be mature, if you want to be a mature Christian, here's the mind. Let go of the past. Repent. Let go of the past and move forward.

In a positive, enthusiastic way, use the Spirit of God to be going forward, and grabbing that prize of the upward call of God. It's not carnal. It's not on this earth. It's not focusing on earthly things and problems and issues. It's an upward call in Christ Jesus. So, brethren, we've had lots of previous sermons on goal setting and a spiritual mission statement, so I'm not going to talk about this much further, except to say, do we have written goals? Have we written our goals down?

Are we reaching forward towards them? Or do we continue to live in vague someday dreams that somehow will never happen? As I've said before, someday I'm going to do this, and someday I'm going to do that, and someday you're going to run out of days. If you don't write it down, and if you don't make it a goal, and if you don't break it down step by step, so that you can do a little bit of something every day, and if you do a little bit of something on that goal every day, eventually you will complete that goal.

Do we have a plan for life, or are we simply floating like a jellyfish in the ocean, aimless, without any real direction, and allowing just time and chance to take us in any direction that it chooses for us? Paul had many goals in his lifetime. He had a goal of organizing the gathering of fruit for famine relief in Jerusalem. We read about that in a couple of different letters that he wrote. After his first missionary journey, he had a goal of revisiting every congregation he originally founded. That was a goal, just like you might have a goal to go to the ten largest Major League Ballparks in the United States.

His was to go back and visit every congregation he had ever founded. He had a goal of trying to get to Jerusalem a number of times in the Book of Acts. We could be there in the Holy Days in fellowship and rejoice in the Holy Days with old friends at the Jerusalem congregation.

That was a goal that he had. He had a goal of traveling to Spain before he died. So he had lots of goals, aside from that overall goal of seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness. He had lots and lots of personal goals, things that he wanted to do.

Did he write them down? Let's see, are they written somewhere for us to read? Have we read about them? Sure we have, because he wrote them down. That's how important they were. So what new goals are you ready to establish and complete this year?

Here's number nine, and this may be the most difficult, tough question that I have today.

Am I acting like wheat or a tare? Am I acting like wheat or a tare? I like to grow cone flowers. It's called echinacea. By the way, the roots are an herb, and a lot of people take them to reduce inflammation. They're from the prairie of the United States. They're hardy, rugged. They don't require much water. They grow incredibly well. The last five, ten years or so, they've been hybridizing that old-fashioned purple cone flower into all kinds of beautiful, bright colors, multi-color shapes. They've hybridized them to look absolutely beautiful. In a flower bed that I have in the front of my porch are a big clump of cone flowers that I grow. Mixed in within those cornflowers is an opportunistic look-alike weed. It really has me frustrated, because when they're small, I can't tell the difference. I've had times where I think that's that pull-it-out, aww, it's a cone flower root.

Because you can't tell. You can only tell when they get so big, the cone flower is bloom, big bloom. And the other thing that looks a lot like the cone flower has silly-looking little blooms like a half-inch wide, just pathetic. It's obviously not a cone flower, even though the leaves look the same. Let's go to Matthew 13, verse 24 with that background and see how Jesus taught his disciples a parable here. Regarding wheat and something that just looks like wheat. Matthew 13, verse 24.

Another parable he put forth to them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while the men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares? And he said to them, An enemy has done this. The servants said to him, Do you want us then to go and gather them up?

But he said, No. Lest while you gather up the tares, you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. And at the time of the harvest, I will say to my reapers, First gather together the tares, and bind them in the bundles, And burn them and gather the wheat into my barn.

He's of course talking about Judgment Day. What he's basically telling his servants is, It's not for you to judge. Leave them alone. I will make that decision at the right time. The word tare here comes from a Greek word, Dizanion, which means, rye grass or false grain.

So it was very close. It was a rye grass that grew, and unless you looked really closely, until they got big enough, you couldn't tell genuine wheat from the rye grass or the false grain. I want you to notice closely this parable. In the Church of God, are those whom God has culled, and they're wheat, and they take their culling very seriously, they want to do the hard work of becoming Christ-like, and it's the hardest thing that you'll ever get to do in your life, is change our thoughts and our attitudes, and reinvent who and what we are through the incredible power of the Holy Spirit.

It's hard. Now, among them are others who look like Christians on the outside, but unless you examine them very closely, usually over a period of time, they are different. These are the tears, and they have a different agenda, and their agenda might be power, it might be they have their own gospel they want to talk to everyone about, they may look at religion as a hobby, they may be a member of the New Truth of the Month Club, and they're constantly showing up with something new to talk about, because they think they're smarter than everyone else.

They may want to gain a following of their own, they may look at the Church as a social club or a supper club, and as time goes on, the difference becomes more obvious. I want you to notice that the landowner doesn't want the servants making the decision on who the terrors are, only Jesus Christ has the discernment to know who are the real terrors from the wheat. There are some very powerful lessons for us to learn from this parable. The owner states you might uproot the wheat, so leave them alone until the harvest time, and I will give instructions then. And here are some powerful lessons we can pull out of this parable.

Why does God allow terrors in the Church of God? Have you ever thought about that? It's the same reason he allowed Judas Iscariot among the original twelve disciples. John said in chapter 12 and verse 6 that all along they knew Judas was a thief. He was taking money out of the money bag. Now can you imagine the discussion of the other disciples before Jesus is betrayed? Why doesn't Jesus do something about him? If he really were God, he would intervene and he would take care of this problem. But Jesus didn't do that, did he? The answer is it was meant to be a test for the wheat.

The presence of Judas Iscariot was meant to be a test for the other disciples. They test the wheat's patience, and they test the wheat's faith, and like building muscle, resisting their agenda makes the wheat stronger, and it makes it better. So that's why God allows tares in his church. Now why does the landowner tell the servants not to immediately pull out the tares? Well, because sometimes wheat looks very much like a tare. In other words, sometimes the faithful are acting like tares. I'm going to tell you something very frank. There have been times in my journey, nearly 50 years, when I acted like a tare.

But thankfully, Jesus Christ decided that he'll make that final judgment and that he'll give us time to grow and change. We all go through some dark times in our Christian walk, and we may not at times have our act together. What Jesus says to the servants here is, give them time. Don't be too hasty. Give them time.

Allow me to judge them when I return. Jesus says they may just be acting like tares. Their behavior may be poor, but I still love them, and I'm working with them. Yes, they may be quenching the spirit, and Paul told us in 1 Thessalonians 5, not to quench the spirit. Jesus says they may be grieving the Holy Spirit. Paul told us in Ephesians 4, not to grieve the Holy Spirit. But I haven't given up on them yet.

Don't you judge them. Let them grow. Let them remain with everyone else, because you might be surprised. I'll make that judgment on Judgment Day, is what Jesus says. So again, here's my tough question. Am I acting like wheat, or have I been acting like a tear?

In this building, we have a social hall. It's in that other room over there. We are very pleased to have the social hall, so that parents with small children can go in there. During services, if their children get a little rowdy, they can go and take their children in there, and still have the benefit of both watching and hearing services. We felt that's very important. We also have a number of people with health issues, and they have back or other issues. They may have a really bad day, and they're able to leave the worship hall, and go out into the social hall, and watch services, and listen to services while they walk around, while perhaps struggling with some pain.

Those are very important, and we are pleased to provide that as an opportunity to worship. But if we don't fall into those categories, the social hall is not intended to be the worship hall. There's a reason we use the term worship hall, and that is the hall that we're all in here, in which we believe time is very sacred between the two amens.

We ask God's presence to come in here and be with this congregation on the Sabbath day. And being in the social hall, when we shouldn't be in the social hall, or being on the telephone, is not an alternative to being in the worship hall. Last week, my beloved wife, the pastor's wife I might add, asked someone to please come in here to participate in Sabbath worship services when things were going on. And she was told, is so-and-so there?

And my wife said yes. She says, then I won't go in there. Really? In all due respect, if any of us feel that way about another brother or sister in Christ, in all due respect, what are you doing here? Why do you even come here? What part of basic preschool Christianity don't we get? We teach our five-year-old YEP members higher values than that. This isn't a social club where we come to meet our friends and drink coffee and put on a good show on the outside. This is the living church of Jesus Christ.

We come here first and foremost to worship God between Amen and Amen as a congregation, as God's people. And yes, there are legitimate reasons for people to be in the social hall, but brethren, we are here to worship God. Let's go to John 13 and verse 35, and I want to fill in the blank of this scripture. This is a very important scripture. We'll read it on Passover.

John 13 and verse 35. Jesus, in what's called his final discourse, we would call it some of his final comments before he's going to be arrested and he's going to be tried and crucified the next day. So obviously, this is important. This is on his mind because these are some of the final things he wants to leave with his beloved disciples before he has to face something very, very terrible. John 13 and verse 35.

We'll fill in the blank here. By this, all will know that you are my disciples. All will know that you're my wheat. If you have, now is the answer coffee? Coffee's good. I like coffee as much as anyone else. I really do. That's not the answer. Chit-chat? Chit-chat's great. It's a way to bond and fellowship. Nothing wrong with chit-chat. In the right perspective and the right priority, but that's not the answer.

Snacks? I'll make it a little more difficult. How about if you keep the Sabbath or Holy Days, if you avoid pork, if you send tides, if you fast? Could that be the answer? No, of course not, because the Pharisees did all these things far more meticulously and rigorously than we do, and Jesus condemned many of them. So none of those are the answer. He said, this is the one and the only way that all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. So again, a tough question I would like to ask is, am I acting like wheat?

Or presently, maybe this past year, have I been acting more like a tear, and it's time to straighten up and fly right? It's time to get with the program and understand and appreciate what the real purpose of worshiping God is on the Sabbath day. All right, number 10, our final difficult question. Final difficult question today. Do I deeply appreciate God's love for me and His grace? Do I deeply appreciate God's love for me and His grace? Matthew 18, verse 21, if you'll turn there with me.

Matthew 18, verse 21. Then Peter came to Him and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times? Now, that may sound biblical, but the reason Peter's asking this is the common philosophy of rabbis of the day was three times. You need to forgive your brother three times, and then you're home free. That was the teaching of the rabbis. And Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. So you see here that Jesus had a different view than the rabbis of His day. Why did He give this answer? You know why He gives this answer? Because this is how many times God has and will forgive us upon repentance. In other words, it's immeasurable, and every day of our life as we do something stupid, say something we shouldn't have said, thought something we shouldn't have thought, looked at something we shouldn't have looked at, and we go to God and we say, God, I'm sorry. I need to clean up my act. I repent, and I need to do better. God says, I love you. That's fine. Someone paid the price for you. And how many times will God do that? It's immeasurable. We worship a God of second chances. Do we deeply appreciate the love that God has for us and the abundance of His grace in our lives? All that God asks of us, here's the catch. There had to be a catch. All that God asks of us, and this is the core of what this scripture was about, is that we give the same courtesy to others as He mercifully gives to us. That's the catch. Do we realize and appreciate all that God has done for us because of His great love? Are we just taking it for granted? And not taking Sabbath services seriously by being in this hall is a way that we show that we have grown just really lax and we don't take seriously the opportunity to go to God and worship with our brothers and sisters together and sing praises to our God. We are loving Father and to give Him all honor and glory. Have we begun to take it for granted? Are we squandering the precious opportunity to allow the power of the Holy Spirit to transform our hearts and our minds? John 3, verse 16, that you'll see at any major football stadium, says, That's how much God loves us. He gave up the most precious thing that He owned, in His mind, everything He owned, which was the love of His Son. Let's go to our final Scripture, Matthew 13, verse 44. Our final Scripture today, again, I'm asking a difficult question, do I deeply appreciate God's love for me and His incredible grace? Jesus is going to liken the kingdom of heaven. Do a couple of things here. Matthew 13, verse 44. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid. He wanted to make sure that He didn't forget. It was so precious, He didn't forget where it was. He didn't want to expose it to someone stealing it, so He hid it, so He would know exactly where it was when He found it. And for joy over it, He goes and He sells all that He has, and He buys the fields.

Are we joyful over what we've been given? That we radiate joy from our lives? How many times have we discussed that in sermons? That powerful fruit, the second one listed immediately after love, the fruit of the Spirit, love joy. Does that radiate from our hearts and from our minds? Again, verse 45, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, and when He had found just one pearl of great price, that's the truth of God, the calling He had been given, the opportunity to receive God's Holy Spirit. He went and sold all that He had, and He bought it. That's how valuable and how precious that one pearl was to Him. Is the truth of God that precious to us? Is God's way of life still that precious to us? Or are we coasting? Are we floating again like a jellyfish in the ocean, purposeless? Have we gotten off track, not focusing on God, focusing too much on food and social things and not really on what it's all about?

Do we still have joy over discovering the truth of God, or are we as excited about having a relationship with God as we once were? Well, if not, there's a solution to all of these tough questions. That solution is called repentance, and it comes from a Greek word metanoia. That Greek word simply means to decide to reverse. That's what it means in its raw Greek form, to decide to do a reversal. That means we're walking this way, and we realize that, boy, I'm doing some things that hurt me, strain my relationship with God, hurts my loved ones, you know what? I'm going to turn around, I'm going to stop doing this, and I'm going to turn around, and I'm going to walk toward the light instead of keep walking away from the light. I'm going to repent. I am going to go in a different direction. That's what that Greek word means. Now, after these two sermons that we've been given, if you feel like you've not made time alone with God a priority, and we covered that in the first sermon, you can choose to repent, and you can make a change in your life. That's what this season is all about. God, in His majesty, decided to rehearse the Passover every year for us. Or we'd forget. Other religions, they don't keep the Passover. They don't understand the Holy Days and how leaven represents taking sin out of our lives. They don't even think about those things. If, over time, you've acquired bad habits that need to be broken, you can choose. You can make that decision to repent, and you can change your life. If you realize you need to stop making the same mistakes over and over again, if you're tired of being like the movie Groundhog Day and making the same mistakes over and over again, you want to break that cycle, you can choose to repent and make a change in your life. If you realize there are areas that you need to grow spiritually, that you've been neglecting, not focusing on, ignoring, you can choose to repent and make a change in your life. If you've not been using your gifts to serve others, if you've been hiding your gift, then you can choose to repent and make a change in your life. If you've not been living with purpose, have no goals, just kind of floating, allowing time and chance to make all the decisions for you in life, you don't like the places, time and chance has taken you, you can choose to repent. And you can choose to make a change in your life. If you say, you know, in the past year I've been acting like a terror instead of wheat, I haven't been focusing on the right things, I've been thinking about and focusing on all the wrong things, you can choose to repent, you can make a change in your life. If you're not deeply appreciating the love of God's grace and you've taken that for granted, maybe your worship or observance or attendance on his Sabbath day to come here and worship him has been a little lax, isn't what it should have been.

You can choose to repent and make a change in your life. Now, I know that some of these have been hard questions and statements and some of them may have made us uncomfortable today. They're not topics I usually like to discuss. People who know me know that I don't like to talk about difficult things like this. But there are times when these kinds of discussions need to happen and need to be said. As the Passover approaches this year, it's the right time to have the kind of discussion that we've had, the last couple of sermons we've had together. The bottom line is, is we need to appreciate our calling. We need to love God. We need to love each and every person in this building. We need to treat them with dignity and kindness. We need to serve them. And we need to take the calling that God has given us and grow into the beautiful and abundant wheat that God wants all of us to develop into.