Trumpets

All of you here today are having to see my brother and his wife, Diane, my brother here who served as elder as well, and served some of you. And I'm just very happy to see all of you, my brothers and sisters of common faith here in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, which I still consider to be very much home. I still follow the Minnesota Vikings no matter how bad they are. I've never been able to attach myself to anything else, although I don't really watch too much football anyway.

But it certainly is an emotional moment, as I think of you, as I think of those who preceded us in the past 50 years.

You know, so many have come. My parents, Igor and Nina Kubik, who died in the faith, brings back lots of wonderful memories.

Also, think of the many others who finished their course as they await the resurrection picture by this day.

Well, 50 years ago, an invitation was sent out for the start of a new church here in Minneapolis.

I have seen the letter. I have seen it not too many years ago, and I guess it hasn't been found. But one thing that was found was a news report from the Church of God News about the establishment of a new church here in the Twin Cities, which I guess was held at the Knights of Columbus Hall.

I'd like to read just a little short article here.

New church in Minneapolis, 220 attempt. First church in the state of Minnesota.

Brethren in the northern Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Dakota's areas.

I rejoice in thanking God that a new church in Minneapolis, Minnesota has been raised up.

It officially opened on the Feast of Trumpets, 1963, with a smiling attendance of 220.

The offering came to $660.

Mr. Alan Mantoyful, associate pastor of the Chicago-Lagrange churches, accompanied Mr. Sherwin McMichael.

The new minister to Minneapolis for the first service, Mr. McMichael, recently graduated from Ambassador College and ordained a preaching elder in God's work.

He has had experience on baptizing tours during two summers.

He acted as an assistant to Mr. Frank McCready of the Oakland Sacramento area.

Now he will have an even greater responsibility as he steps in to minister to this first church of God in Minnesota.

The nucleus of the church is composed of those who attended the Bible studies, even if it meant driving many, many miles.

Mr. Dean Blackwell began the regular Bible studies in February of 1963, after some previous visiting in the area.

Once or twice a month, the minister would drive up for the Bible study.

Prior to these meetings, a large number of brethren had been making a trip to Chicago for the feast days.

Now a new World Tomorrow broadcast from Duluth reaches many more in this growing region.

Mr. John Bald carried on with the Bible studies and visiting. The labors of God's servants resulted in this church starting.

So let us all rejoice with our brethren and pray for the newest of the churches.

So that was the first announcement.

Well, what I'd like to do here this afternoon, and it's been very, very hard to think of exactly what to say to speak about the meaning of the day, and I felt like our pastor did so well this morning.

Brian Shaw did a fantastic job of explaining a few very, very important points about the meaning of this day, the relationship with God, our unique place among men, our love for God and retaining God in our thoughts.

Actually, I'd like to hear the tape of that, or I'd like to hear the audio of that again, because there was so much good information in it.

But I'd like to give you three parts today, so I'll tell you kind of where I'm going, maybe tell you where I'm at.

First of all, I'd like to go to the past and talk about just the 50 years of memories, which will be brief.

We'll have more of that discussion and slides of events.

I guess there are about 300 pictures collected in a slide presentation that will be shown after church services.

Then I'd like to talk to you about something that's been asked of me many times, and something that I find useful to talk about, and that is the vision of the church.

I've been asked as President of the United Church of God, well, what are you going to do? Where are you going? Where are you taking us?

Where will you lead us in the United Church of God?

I have a few things that I do talk about, I think would be of value to you to understand my thoughts and where I'm going, and where I would like to see us all going as we head towards the Kingdom of God, as we bring Jesus Christ as our King of Kings and Lord of Lords as the living head of His Church into our lives.

Finally, I'd like to talk to you some about the meaning of the day, because this is a day that was very, very special, the beginning of a new year, the crowning of kings.

It's a day that deals with two subjects that people don't socially talk about, religion and politics.

And actually, they're put together here in the Feast of Trumpets.

The return of Jesus Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and also as our High Priest.

It's a very, very special day, a very triumphant day of Jesus Christ's return here to the earth.

But I remember almost like yesterday when Sherwin and Beverly McMichael visited me in 1965, two years after the start of the Church here in Minneapolis.

That's how I found out about the Church. And how did I find out about the Church? Well, I applied to Ambassador College, not knowing that there was a Church.

It was called the Radio Church of God, so I felt, well, I got a radio, there's the Church. And I thought, you know, that's it. They'd never really put together that they would be an actual Church with people.

Although something was very suspicious about the college catalog, which had pictures of large audiences.

And I thought, where are these people meeting? And why are they meeting? What's going on?

But nonetheless, Sherwin McMichael and I had actually been accepted. This was in the summer of 1965.

I graduated from high school in June. I applied to Ambassador College and got accepted.

And then here comes Sherwin McMichael, who represents himself as representative of Ambassador College.

He comes to my home. My parents were on vacation in Canada. And he comes to talk to me, and he says to interview me for college.

I said, well, I'm already accepted. He said, really? That's not supposed to happen that way.

So he says, well, okay. Why don't you come to services? And so I attended the first service.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I do believe in divine providence and how God works things out in each of our journeys.

My parents came home early from vacation. They came home on a Friday afternoon. I was hoping to go to church without them.

Well, they gave me... I told my parents I was going to church. And my dad was very, very upset.

They knew that I was getting the plain truth. They knew that I was really involved with this, with the correspondence course.

I studied the Bible, etc. But to actually go to their church, this was one step too far.

But they said they would go with me. I thought, oh, great. I don't even know where I'm going and what the reaction will be.

So we went to church. Well, we went to the address in South Minneapolis, First Avenue, dressed off of Lake Street, which is not a very good place in town, or at least wasn't at that time.

And it was Laidlaw Hall. It was a fine place to park. We parked about two, three blocks away.

And walked up to a big church building on the corner. And tried to open the door. It was locked.

It's not that building. That was the one just down a little bit south of Laidlaw Hall.

But here's this place. It's got people milling around it.

Laidlaw Hall. There are people sitting on the door steps.

And the very first person I met was Mr. Ford, who was sitting there in the steps. And the brown cars.

And we come up to the steps, and I introduced myself. I said, I got accepted to Ambassador College. Oh, thank God! You're going out of this world. God's college and everything.

My parents are incredulous with this reception.

The minister is over an hour late. He drove from Duluth. And he was always late.

Because at that time, there was no I-35. He was always late, for good reason.

And he finally came. And I came up to him and said, guess what? I invited my parents to come to church. He goes, oh no! What did you do that for?

And I said, well, they came home from vacation. They wanted to see church. He looks at me and then he said, I'm going to change my sermon.

It won't matter to me. I don't know what you're speaking about anyway.

So he just gave a sermon about hell.

And he talked about when you're dead, you're dead. He said that about 50 times. I mean, I used to remember that from my very first sermon. It was a good sermon, you know, it was very informative. But, you know, that was the sermon. Then we stayed afterwards and talked to people.

I met Stan Erikson, also who's an elder. And he was on his way as a freshman to college. And he offered me a ride. He says, I'll take you to college with me. Well, that was just the beginning of sorrows for that week with me. So, as it turned out, to make a long story short, my parents, I was 17 years old. They said, you're not going.

I had no money. I mean, everything was working against me. My dad wanted me to go to the University of Minnesota. I had a partial scholarship for the university. They bought a new car so that I could drive to school every day and so forth. And they just did not want me to go to California to an unknown religious school and not become a physicist or mathematician.

My dad said, I wanted to be a mathematician. And even though I was kind of a nerdy, you know, technical person, I did have a lot of feeling and compassion for things dealing with social matters. So, I did not go. And the next time I went to services was actually Christmas Day. December 25, 1965. I took my brother Ollie with me and we went to services at that time. And then I started attending all the time, you know, just all the time.

I always sat up there in the front row, you know, just used to enjoy every bit, every second of the experience of Sabbath services. Then by that middle of the year, my father became more interested and he invited Mr. McMichael to come to our home. They talked till about two o'clock in the morning and my parents were invited to church and the rest is history. So, I just wanted to give you a little bit about my background of how I came into the church. I was very devout in my former faith. I have to say that I was not one who came to discover new things out of the world.

And actually, I did not lead a carousing life. I was very involved in my other church, Orthodox Church, and I had an excellent relationship with our priest, who was a very knowledgeable person and also very, very interactive with young people. And I was the head of our youth group that year. I had talked to him and wanted him to explain a few things to me, particularly about the Sabbath day.

That always bothered me when we would be studying the commandments of God about, keep the Sabbath holy. And at first I said, well, that's got to mean Sunday. He said, no, it's actually Saturday. And then he gave me the standard answers. And I talked to him about that.

I asked him questions about other things that even though our conversations were cordial, and I had many questions, which I felt like I honestly had to ask him, I could never really have an answer that was satisfying to me. And that's how I came along. I listened to the World Tomorrow program. Questions were answered. Biblical truths became apparent and clear, and they came straight from the Bible. I didn't have to have a theological, complex explanation to understand something. I just read it as I saw it in the Bible. This has been my spiritual home for the last 48 years.

And I am very, very thrilled and thank God every day for it. It is here that I have found the true living Jesus Christ, who is the God of my life. He's not an icon. He's the one that lives in my life, who I talk to every day, who directs my step. And I truly believe in divine providence and leading my life and also your life as well. We're all called individually. We all have a purpose. And we're all going somewhere in a very special, unique way that God has called us to. We're not some blob of people.

And I have found a personal God here. It is here that I have learned to pray from my heart and not from a prayer book. As I said, I was not a bad person. Quote, bad person. All of us are evil. But I was not a person that really rejected God. Okay. I was not a person who rejected God, but I read from a prayer book and I read from it religiously in the morning and in the evening.

This is our priest had asked us to. I even wore out an entire prayer book for the turning of the pages. It was a little black book that I read from. I remember the first time that I had to pray extemporaneously. It was hard. It was really hard because everything was done by the book, literally. And here I was praying to God. But I found Him answering my prayers.

And I had real things to ask Him about that were beyond the doxologies and liturgical style in the prayer book. It was here that I learned about living a righteous life of not just knowing to do things or knowing what was right, but actually practicing what was right. I understood the place for God's law in my life.

I learned it here. It is here that I've learned about the grace of God as something which is the very, very goodness of God that I learn from more and more every day. I have found the God of the Bible. I have found the Jesus of Scripture.

And here's where I understood God's will, the kingdom of God and the purpose of mankind and my own unique purpose. And for this, I am very thankful. I knew why I was born and what God had especially for me in mind, as He has for every single one of you. This has been a story of ecstasy on one end, where I have found the truths for which I am unashamed and will continue to cherish. Yet it's through much tribulation that we enter into the kingdom of God, Acts 14, verse 19. To me, the most admired biographical figure, biblically, is the Apostle Paul.

I am going to make an appointment with him in the world tomorrow. I really want to talk to him, because he's probably inspired my life more than anyone outside of Jesus Christ. He's a person of great complexity, both right and left-brained. He was probably the only one that we have record of as having gone through formal training, theologically, and also a person who had great compassion for people, who not only imparted the Gospel, but gave himself to the people.

To me, he was a perfection of ministry. I've tried to get as many videos as I could that tell the autobiography or the biography of the Apostle Paul. I've kind of given up on the last one. The Apostle Paul looked like Willie Nelson. No, that's really hurting my view of him.

But here's what happened when the Apostle Paul was in Asia Minor. Acts 14 verse 19. Then Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there, and having persuaded the multitudes, they worked the crowds and they pitted the people against the Apostle Paul and the people that he was with. They stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city. This is just one of many instances where something very bad happened to Paul. They dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. None of us have gone through any kind of trial like that. The most severe trial we've gone through is some offense and hurt and internet smear, whatever, you know, but not being stoned like this. However, verse 20, when the disciples gathered around him, he rose up and went into the city. He didn't give up. He didn't run. He didn't run back to Jerusalem and say, I'm out of here. I'm not going to work this thing anymore. He rose up and went into the city, and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derby. That's where the two of them were still working together. Verse 21, when they had preached the gospel to that city, this is after his stoning, and here he's back working. Again, he didn't give up. He continued to pursue the job that he had. He didn't say, this is too much pressure. I don't know if this is what I should be doing. He preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples. They returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith. This word, exhort and encourage, are used synonymously throughout the book of Acts. The Apostle Paul, a big part of his job in going and visiting, was to see how the brethren are doing, to encourage them to stay with it, stay with the truth, continue in the faith. And here's what he said, We must, through many tribulations, enter the kingdom of God. It's not going to be easy. Being baptized, as I tell people, is not the beginning of a protected life of immunity. It's a life where you're going to be equipped to handle what's going to be thrown at you, internally, externally. Who knows what will happen even a week or two from now. And we have all kinds of things cooking around the world that we just don't know what's going to happen. And we have to be ready for them, and continue in the faith. There is no other alternative. And when they had appointed, verse 23, elders in every church, I look at passages like this and say, how did they do this so quickly? And here they went into these areas. They obviously went to the synagogues first, because that's where they could get the scrolls and read from Isaiah and talk about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But it seems like after a short period of time, we don't know if it's weeks or even months, they ordained appointed elders in every church and prayed with fasting. They commended them to the Lord, in whom they had believed. So we see here the Apostle Paul continuing a work in spite of persecution, hardship, and not just people writing mean articles about him, but stoning him and actually thinking that he's dead, he's done. And here he is, comes back and does his job some more. We've had the Apostle Paul has had persecution from without.

We've also had disappointment from within. I could talk to you about the Apostle Paul's disenchantment with people that came in, stirred the church up, introduced false doctrine, and damaged churches intensely, to the point where some churches were greatly diminished, even before the end of the first century. The churches grew exponentially, then churches receded. We have churches like the Jerusalem Church, which was a big bang, you know, on the first day of Pentecost, where 3,000 people were baptized, and another couple of thousand were baptized a day or two later.

And then by the time that the Apostle Paul goes there, there have been people that kind of lost interest, neglected their salvation, and he had to really get after them for that. And there were people also introducing false doctrine, people with pride, people wanting to buy office. All kinds of things were happening, and that's part of what we have to endure. I want to commend all of you who have continued to live up to a beautiful way of life that's been given to us.

Christianity is a way, the way, it's a way of life, and I commend you for living up to that way. I commend you for supporting one another and not letting each other down. Now, we live in a time when people would betray one another, but I commend you for holding one another up. There are many reasons to quit.

Many, many reasons. It's usually people's things. You know, one thing that I have seen, one common denominator after being in the church for nearly half a century, God has never let me down. People have let me down many, many times. All kinds of people. And I have worked with the people at the very top. I have worked with people at all levels in the church. I know the character, I've seen the character, and so forth, and I have seen people at every level let us down. But God has never let me down. God has never let me down personally, and He has never abandoned or rejected His church, even when people thought, or thought that they could discontinue our church.

I commend you who have stayed the course. He that endures to the end will be saved. We read in Matthew chapter 24. And I commend those who are committed to the truth of God. Today is a Jubilee. A Jubilee is a 50-year special celebration. What is so special about 50 years? For one thing, it only happened once in a lifetime. Now, the 50-year Jubilee, and I don't understand all the economics of it.

That's not my forte. I think that someday we'll understand more about land, property laws, etc., as they are applied biblically. But in the 50 years, all lands would revert back to owners from the previous 50 years. So one thing is that basically land in Israel, even though it was bought and sold, was in effect leased for 50 years or less. But there was a period that was once in a lifetime when you could get it all back. It was like a one time where you've made a mess of your life. You have just squandered your family wealth and so forth, but you could get another chance at it.

You could get another chance by having lands revert to you in the Jubilee year. You can read about Jubilees in anything from Bible commentaries to even Wikipedia for all things. Fifty years is also an achievement of anniversaries, of being very special, golden. Not many people have a 75 year anniversary, but many people do have a 50 year wedding anniversary. There are 50 days between the days of love and bread, the Sabbath in between, the day of Pentecost, very special time of completeness, 50 being 7 times 7 plus 1. Not much into numerology, but certainly there is significance there. It's very special. And I really am very happy to be able to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Church here in Minneapolis.

But let me talk to you now in part 2 of where we are right now, because this is a question that's asked of me, and I am more than happy to talk about it. Because people have asked me, well, now that you've become the President of the United Church of God, where do you stand on certain things?

What is your, well, heaven, and the word platform because they're never campaigned. Believe me, I never campaigned for this particular position. Although, for three years I did work with Dennis Luker very closely, and we worked together where every day we had at least three or four interactions and a lot of contact. And I have learned a great deal from his mentorship. Probably the greatest thing I learned from him was a total redoing of the way I pray to God.

And the way I pray to my living Master and sovereign, Jesus Christ, who rules in my life. This is not just fluffery and puffery. This is the real, what I am saying, me. Not that it matters that it's me, it should be anyone. I look to Jesus Christ to direct my life and my steps, where I have seen up us against the wall the numbered aspects of life.

And in a sense, I look upon having challenges before us that are probably as big as any challenge that we've had, except that we live in a time of peace, not in a time of conflict, not in a time of controversy.

I look upon this as an opportunity right now to maximize the direction and work of Jesus Christ in this church, in our lives, in fulfilling our mission in preaching the gospel into all the world. So what is our vision? Well, number one, can you tell me what the vision of the church is? No, from what we have published. Well, the vision of the church is bringing many sons to glory, sons and daughters to glory.

As a churchwide effort, we added the clause as a churchwide effort two years ago now, or a year and a half ago at our last general conference of elders. As a general church effort, we are working towards bringing many sons to glory, as God is doing. Our mission is to preach the gospel and to care for those disciples whom God has called.

People have asked me, what is your basic philosophy of life? I try to make it very, very simple. Number one, I love God, and I love my fellow man. I consider that to be just vital. I really do. There are some that love mankind, but don't really like people. Well, I love people. I like working with people. I have worked with poor people. I have worked with destitute people. I have worked with rich people. I have worked with all kinds of people. I love the truth of God. I look upon that as something that was granted to me to understand biblical truths.

Not as some hidden knowledge that's coded, but something that's very, very plain, and something that nobody will take away from me. Well, what can we do to contribute to the well-being of the church in all aspects? Well, I'll tell you one thing. There is one prayer that I pray almost every day. You probably should pray every day. Number one is I ask God to help me to be humble. Not to get into myself, or think of myself as being anything more than what I am. I can be here today and gone tomorrow.

I realize that. The next thing I do pray for is for wisdom. I have many decisions to make every day, and it's very easy to give an impulsive decision and just say, Well, yeah, let's do it that way. I'm tired. I don't want to hear it anymore. Whatever. I say that, but I don't give a final decision. You know, as to have wisdom in the things that I say. And again, also, I don't have a special vision. That is, something that I conjured up after going off on a retreat for a year, and have written some book about my great vision. Actually, something that I read after I became president, that I said to myself, This is it.

This is the vision. This is what my vision ought to be. And the best thing about it is that it's not my vision. It's already been recorded by my favorite person, the Apostle Paul. As I read Colossians chapter 1, and that's where I'd like you to return. I'd like you to follow along in Colossians 1. I'll be reading mostly here in the New International Version. Excuse me if that bothers anyone. But there are some words there that I feel are more accurate than the New King James Version. Mainly in the word servant for minister. Not that minister is wrong, but the Apostle Paul stressed the point that he was a servant.

That he truly was a servant of Almighty God. The term minister conjures up a person of rank, a position which I did not want to focus on. I'd like to read the first chapter of Colossians, because this is, if you were to say, what is the vision that you have for the church, this is what I believe is a very, very good vision for the church. And the best part about it is I can't brag about it. I don't own it. I'm an administrator of it. Colossians 1. Paul writes, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God and Timothy, our brother, to the holy and faithful brothers in Christ in Colossae.

Grace and peace to you from God our Father. Every single book that Paul writes, whether it be to a church or to an individual, he begins it with grace and peace, grace and peace, and ends most of them with that same phrase. I don't believe that it was just a pleasantry of just, how do you do? Or, you know, just, we have words that we use loosely.

When he said, grace and peace be to you, it had meaning. And you know something? There's nothing more than we need right now. In our midst, then God's grace and God's peace. I tell our council of elders, and by the way, I have a very good relationship with them. I was on our church's board council for 15 years, 15 consecutive years, more years than anybody else in consecutive time span. So I know the ropes, I know how a body of 12 people think, and even though I'm not around the council, I relate to them. I know what it is to work in the kind of conditions that they work in, and being one of 12, and all the discussions that have to take place to reach resolution.

So I'm very well aware of that. And I talk to them very openly about these things, and communicate in a friendly way with them. I do believe that right now, we are in a time of peace that's been unprecedented in our church. Who knows what's going to happen around the corner? I'm sure the devil is looking for new ways to try to get at us. I'm not naive, believe me, I'm not naive. But, I also know that we do live in a time when everybody wants peace.

And we want to be able to accomplish something. And I tell our ministry, I tell our membership, that we must be able to resolve our issues and problems. We must have them resolved in Christ. Jesus Christ, who is our peace, and the one who reconciled us to Him, which we're going to actually be celebrating Him at the abtonement of being at one with God, is the last act, so to speak, before the Kingdom of God.

Learn to get along, learn to reconcile, learn to put aside differences. I just wrote my last Good News blog this morning, which was published, and it's about that. It's about the importance of restoring relationships. Some relationships, in human terms, we cannot restore in this lifetime. We just can't. We want to. We yearn for it. We cry about it. We're frustrated about it, but it's not going to happen. But you know what Jesus Christ, that doesn't matter to Him.

He will restore His relationship with us, because whether Him was not impossible, and He is our peace. So, I want to live in a period of peace. At the home office, I said, I'm going to put amber alert lights in the hallways. Anything is just getting really testy, you know? We have amber alert, amber alert, you know? Let's get this resolved now.

And I have gone to people and said, look, we can't afford this thing. You know, we can't afford a trip to talk about it. I don't want long, you know, reports. I don't want to have your story. He said, she said stuff to listen to forever. Let's get this resolved, these Christians, very, very quickly. I'm kind of going to be known as one that I really want to see some results for what we are doing. We are in a time of peace, and we want to make sure that we keep it that way. That's very, very important.

And when Paul writes to any of the churches, whether it be Colossae here or Ephesians, or whether he writes to Timothy or Titus, grace and peace be to you. For that matter, the Apostle Peter writes in the same way. The word grace is also a very, very big word. It's not just, you know, unfortunately in the English language, the word grace has lost so much of its salt because it has been either abused, misused, misinterpreted, and misdefined. Actually, in traveling to Ukraine and working with the Sabbatarians, the word grace comes up quite often there.

It's blood of the dites in Russian. It says it all, just the word itself. It's already got meaning built into two words, the giving of good. What God wants to do with the word grace is to give us good. All the good things that God wants us to have, all the good things that are possible, God wants us to have. And that's what it means here.

Grace, may God's goodness, may all the things that God has in store for you, from your daily needs to solving daily problems, or protecting you from the evil one, or giving you eternal life. That's all part of grace. God's law is a part of grace. It's one of God's greatest gifts. God is giving us everything, all good things. That's His grace. The kingdom of God is God's grace. It's a far bigger subject than what we have had.

We have pitted that word against other definitions. We've pitted it against law. We have pitted it against concepts. We have said, do you want law, or do you want grace? Confusing people. Oh, I don't know. Do you want a car with a transmission, or do you want one with an engine? You know, the type of things. Well, I don't know. I'm confused. Anyway, verse 3. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, when we pray for you. And you know something? I pray for our churches, and I pray for our people. I pray for the people I work with. And you know, one thing that's been very, very, probably a big shock to me more than anything in the last three months is that when I go to work, you know, I want to go and see Denny. I want to talk to him. I want to go to his office. Now, there's two times that I have actually walked past the office and went to my old office. I thought, oh, I'm not there anymore. You know, I'm in the President's office. There's nobody really for me to talk to. Well, I do talk to a lot of people. But, you know, I thank God for all the people that work for us, that we work together, and I thank God for their work. The Apostle Paul prayed for the people. He prayed for the churches. He always thought about the Ephesians daily, remembering them. And you know, I have to do that. I must do that. That is an obligation. That's part of what I envision is something that is very vital for me to do, to pray for people. There's been nobody like Denny Luker who prayed for people. You know, his wife told me that their carpet in the office at their house had these worn-out spots in it from his feet, you know, from his toes. They actually wore holes in the carpet.

You know, it puts me to shame. My carpet is pretty clean. You know, he really prayed to God. And when we had insurmountable difficulties, insurmountable, humanly impossible to deal with because we didn't know what was coming at us, we would kneel down at the coffee table and pray. And God delivered us every single time. Not 75% of the time, not 90% of the time, every single time.

And the power of prayer is where I have learned. And I know that this church will move with prayer. It's not just a nice attribute, a nice value, but it's something which is absolutely vital. You see that subject covered in being associated with every single man and woman of God.

Because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints, the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you. He said, you know why he thanked God? Because of the hope that's from heaven has given them the faith and love. These three elements have been put together. And this church was really on track. Are we on track this way? Are we filled with hope and love for the brethren, with the hope that's given to us in heaven, and our faith and love that's demonstrated by us?

That your pastor can say thank God for the people in the Twin Cities. Thank God for their conversion. Thank God for their genuineness. Then, he says in verse 6, All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it. One word that I am not ashamed to use, I want this church to grow. And I'm talking to our managers and saying, what are you doing to help this church grow? Or what are you doing that's keeping our church from growing? I talk to media this way.

I'm talking to finance. I'm talking to our pastors. I'm taking a look as to how we're doing our church services. Not that we're going to have anything different, believe me. Not going to be waving our hands or doing anything like that here. But I think that we're going to take a look as to how we appear to the world. The way we appear on the web, on our local websites. We're going to improve the way that people experience a church service, the moment that they walk in to the appearance of the church bulletin, to what the song leader says, to what the opening prayer is, to what the content of our sermonettes and sermons are, to even where we place our announcements.

So that what people see in our media, which is outstanding, to what we have in Beyond Today and what we have with The Good News magazine, then begins to match up. And people don't have to see some come down after seeing perhaps a slicker-looking media production and then having a group of 18, 20, 25 people who just talk to themselves and really have no real nice appearance and perhaps a slipshod sermon. We're going to improve the way we look. We're going to like the way we look. We're going to appear to the world in a way to service them in climbing up the ladder of involvement.

We used to, when I worked in Pasadena, talked about the ladder of involvement as people heard, let's say, the television broadcast or received a Plain Truth magazine or whatever. After a year, they said, well, they offered these booklets, study aids, whatever. Well, let's go look at that. Hey, they're interesting. They get a little braver. They send for their Bible study course. They get a little bit braver and they call for a minister. You know, okay, what if the minister doesn't get back to them?

What if the minister sounds like he doesn't care? What if the minister sounds like he's really not leveling with them? As they climb this ladder of involvement, there's a rung that's missing or broken. And they can't get past, they can't get up higher to become involved because there's no rung there or it's broken. So we have what I call in our office, Operation Broken Rung or Missing Rung. We're trying to make certain that the process is systematic from the time that people come to what we are and what we offer and what our vision is and what they see is in it for them, that it meets their expectations and that they buy into it and say, this is what I really want, this answers my questions.

I wonder more about these people. And we want to be able to be very honest in how we express ourselves on the web. We are a church of 25 or we are a small church or dedicating our life to Jesus Christ, who, you know, how long we're going to put it, we want to have a friendly picture of the pastor and his wife, a front welcoming people come into the church. We don't want people coming to our local websites that reads, last updated June 20, 2007.

What kind of a message does that send? But something that's current, updated, the pastor's blogging, we have ladies in the church who are writing blogs, responses and so forth. It's not that hard once you get into it. And if you're going to want any millennials or exers, you're going to have to talk to them in those terms. You can't just have corporate sounding things that are, you know, sterile. People just go over their head. I'm finding that in my office, in our office, I work with a very strong group of millennials who think differently. They push me and I love it.

In fact, I talk, I kid with them that I'm a boomer in a, no, I'm a millennial in a boomer body. Because I really do like what they do. And I like the technology they use. And I really wish I could be, you know, a millennial. But they do things way differently. They think in terms of 140 character tweets. They think in Pinterest, you know, things where they can export scriptures by showing pictures of flowers, you know, whatever. They do all kinds of things. We have Mitch Moss, the editor of our United News.

His wife is a professional photographer. She loves taking pictures of a lot of plant life. You know, beautiful photography of pictures. And she pins them, you know, on Pinterest. And she includes the scripture. Well, people look at the flower. In 1600, 2000, people look at the flower. But what they get is a scripture, too, with it. And with a link back to the United Church of God. There's just different ways that they think.

And different ways in which they market their thoughts. And people sometimes say, well, millennials, you know, don't have values. Or millennials are this, or millennials are that. And one thing in my office, I said, I don't want excuses.

I don't want to hear excuses. I'm tired of excuses. You know, the Apostle Paul said, you know, the Romans, you just can't get anywhere with them. Also, I can't fax anything back to Jerusalem. How am I going to get anything done? No. No. They had their problems. But they were able to get the Gospel. They were able to do what they did with the technology they had, and with the mindset that they had. The Apostle Paul rolled into Athens, talked to the Greeks. Didn't get very far with them. But what did he do? Did he beat a dead horse? No. He went across the bay to where there were many people called in Corinth, and then established a church there.

We want to be flexible. We want to respond. And one thing I tell our people, no excuses. Otherwise, we're just blaming God. Well, God isn't calling people. Also, what does that mean? We're not going to work? We're going to wait for Him to do something? We're going to just sail by the coast of Greece and see who can jump into the ocean, you know, into the sea, and swim to our boat?

They tried different things. And the Apostle Paul was successful in Philippi. He was successful in Thessalonica. He was super successful in Berea. And as he went down, there was a lot of ecstatic churches established that I'm sure brought a lot of joy to him. I don't believe our time is any different. We just have to learn how to make it work.

And I believe that we can.

So, all over the world, this Gospel is bearing fruit and growing.

That's the way we need to be thinking. Just as it has been among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth. Okay, we've got ministers here who are teaching the right thing. People are comprehending what they're teaching. There are results coming in, and the churches are growing. Can we do that? Yes, we can. I'm going to be like Obama. Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Maybe not.

Verse 7, you learned it from Epophorus, our dear fellow servant, who is faithful minister of Christ. This is here a revelation of the fact that there's another minister working. We don't really know too much about him, but his name is Epophorus. And that's where Paul heard about the collagions. He gives them high marks for being a growing church, an intelligent church, a church that had God's grace.

For this reason...

Okay, let's see. Who is our fellow servant? Who? In verse 8. And who also told us of your love in the spirit.

It's amazing, the Apostle Paul was a person that was never afraid to use the word love. It's one thing I really appreciated and miss from Denny Luker. He told me twice a day he loved me, man to man. Of course, I'm not the only one he told that to. He really did love the people he worked with. He said, I love working with you. I love working with you. I love working with you.

I mean, that was... He was never afraid to express a lot of feeling, a lot of affection for the people he worked with. And he had everybody in the palm of his hand. What he did for three years was to build a stability and to build a base from which we can build. Because I want to keep that base, but I want to move forward with some of the initiatives that we had.

For this reason, verse 9, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Slow down and read that. I mean, you can read this. To me, this is my whole vision. I'm asking God, please help our people to understand more knowledge and also to have spiritual wisdom in being able to apply it. And have understanding of how it works. And we pray this, verse 10, in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God. Being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might, that you may have great endurance, patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. My grammar checker has rejected this sentence too long. That's the way Paul wrote, but he has a lot in there. He says that you can have endurance and go on and enter into the kingdom of light. The Apostle Paul compressed a lot of thoughts into his sentence.

For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Always brought them back to Jesus Christ and the nexus of the relationships that leads to all relationships. Redemption to the forgiveness of sins that leads us to the kingdom of God.

He goes on to talk about Jesus Christ. Now, the book of Ephesians and the book of Colossians have certain very marked similarities. The book of Ephesians is about the body of Christ and the book of Colossians is about the head of the body, which is Jesus Christ, and the living head of that body.

He is the image, talking about Christ, of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Here he is writing to a Gentile congregation about this Jesus Christ who was crucified a number of years before this as the Creator, as the sustainer of things seen and unseen. Also, of all power, of all kingdoms, of everything. Whether thrones or powers, or rulers or authorities, all things were created by him and for him. Verse 17, He is before all things, and in him all things hold together, or by him all things consist, I believe, in the old King James. He is the one who is the sustainer of everything there is, this whole universe. Pretty powerful, pretty central about who Jesus Christ is and his power and his sovereignty, his omissions, and his relevance and presence in our lives. What this church, what we all need more is Jesus Christ directly in our lives, working in our lives, Christ in us, where we act like him, think like him and react like him.

And he is the head of the body, verse 18, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. I remember one time a person, a delegation from another denomination was visiting our campus in Pasadena. And the person who was directing them and giving them a tour was asked, who is the head of your church?

They didn't know at that time. He said, this person said, Jesus Christ. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know that. Who really runs things here? He said, Jesus Christ. No, no, no, no, no, who really is the head of the board, whatever? He said Jesus Christ. He was just trying to make the point that we really were attempting to look to Jesus Christ, looking to Jesus Christ as the head of the church. Whether we all did it or not is another question. But I look today to Jesus Christ as the one who directs, intervenes, saves, and does all things in his church. I really believe it. I tell people, I have been trained for three years to think that way, and I'm not going to stop right now. We begin all of our management meetings Tuesday morning at 10 o'clock on our knees and ask God for direction, ask God for intervention, ask God to show us the best way to do things. And while there are things that we propose, God disposes. He does it his way. We still have to work hard. We have to work very hard writing proposals and writing things and planning and so forth, which we're constantly doing. But it's God who opens doors, who redirects us, and shows us a better way at times. And that is very humbling, because we're not doing the work. We're being his agents in fulfilling a very, very important and vital role in the work of the church today. Verse 19, for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him. Jesus Christ was fully God. He was not just a created being. He was fully God. He was existent from before time. He came as a human being to fulfill a very important sacrifice. The Apostle Paul is showing the greatness, fullness, supremacy, and awesomeness, omniscience of Jesus Christ.

And through him, verse 20, to reconcile to him all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Once again, the subject of peace comes up. Again, not just a nice platitude about, let's live in peace, peace on earth, goodwill towards men. You know, they would go on killing each other. There's going to come a time when true redemption in Jesus Christ is going to also show us how to reconcile and how to make things right with one another. One of our sessions in our area conferences for ministers is learning to be peacemakers. I've changed the title of that session from conflict resolution to peacemakers, creating environments for peace. Of what to do when certain tight situations come up. How to be able to talk things through instead of talking to others and making things worse. It's possible. It really is possible. We can do it. Yes, we can. With God's help.

Whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Verse 21. Once you were alienated from God, or at one time, you were alienated from God, and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. That's writing to the general audience in church. At one time you were really just not connected at all. You were Gentiles. You were sinners. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight. Without blemish and free from accusation. If you continue in your faith, established and firmed, not moved from the hope held out in the Gospel.

The one thing that all of us need to be praying, God, you got us through so far. So far up the ladder. Help us to continue. Help us to stay with it. Help us not lose it, as some have. This is the Gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under Heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. That's why I wanted to use the NIV. Paul was a servant of that Gospel. He put himself under the authority of the Gospel and said, I am a facilitator.

I am one who wants to make it work. That good news about Jesus Christ, about his life, about reconciliation, about the Kingdom of God. All of the aspects of what the Gospel is. He wanted to be a servant.

And we had, just now, a Labor Day weekend leadership training workshop, which was the best one I have ever attended. And we worked out an agenda, pardon me, a list of classes. I felt like one of the most useful ones had to do with Christ-centered servant leadership, which we brought back, roaring back, in all its words. The Matthew 20, Christ, who is greatest among you, let him be your servant. The Gentiles are the ones that want to lord it over others. They're the ones who want a hierarchy to oppress. Servant leadership, Christ-servant leadership, is the giving of your life for your friends. And how do we know we're Christians? How do others know that we're Christians? We are willing to give our life for someone else. Then we are known as Christians. Verse 24, There is some secret knowledge which Paul had in a special scroll delivered to him. No, it's right here. It's all right here. This is knowledge that's been hidden, but it's been knowledge that's been abused, twisted, misconstrued, and in every way tried to be what it really ought to be. I'm so thankful to God. I thank God every day for the truth, that the things relating to the kingdom of God, and His law, and my relationship with Him, and His working in my life, is the truth. And I'm not going to apologize for it. I'm going to say, God, thank you. Help me to even learn more about you and how you work and how you work in my life. To them, verse 27, God is chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Could it be that the real mystery, the missing link, is Christ in us, then who opens our mind through His Holy Spirit to understand all the fullness, who can help us to make right decisions, who can keep us from falling, from failing, and from making it to the goal, to enduring to the end?

I sometimes wonder, what happened to a lot of people that have just fallen off the edge? For people that were misled, people who have been deceived. What happened? What were they thinking? What are you thinking? We proclaim Him, verse 28, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. The Apostle Paul says, this is my vision. I want to present the people that I work with, mature and perfect in Christ. I want the fruits of my work, of my preaching, of my pastorship, of my service to the people, to where I can say, God, here are, here's the fruit, here's the result. I have encouraged, I have walked with these people, and I have helped them. To this end, verse 29, I labor, struggling with all His energy, which so powerfully works in me. You know, I read this. It was actually on a bike trip with my son, Michael, and we stayed overnight in a motel in the Miami River Trail in Ohio, and I was just reading this on my Kindle, actually. I said, you know, this says it's so much better than I could possibly ever dream of putting down a statement of vision, of what I would like to see, what the elements of that vision are, and what I would like to see is the fruit of that vision. So I thought I would at least tell you a little bit about that part. We are coming to the end of our time, but I wanted to go to part three, which I'll make short. And that has to do with the fact that we now look to the future and the meaning of this Feast of Trumpets and what it's all about. Again, I said there are two subjects that you don't want to start talking about to just a new group of people, you know, in social conversation, religion and politics. But this Feast of Trumpets is all about the Feast... is about religion and politics. Jesus Christ will return in Revelation 9, verses 11-16.

He has a name written that no one knew except himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood. And his name is called the Word of God. And then in verse 16, and he has on his robe, on his thigh, a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Church and state will be combined. Excuse me. Church and state will be combined. The reason that church and state have been separated is because they've been so abused. Because there has been a bizarre relationship between church and state over the years. In fact, the book of Revelation has the most bizarre ending of church and state with the great whore representing a false church riding on the beast, having control of a beast that finally has to self-collapse on itself. Church and state have never been friends of one another. They've used each other for convenience. Ultimately, God's government and God's rule will be Jesus Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Jesus Christ is also our High Priest. We really refer to him in both ways in our prayers. As one who is coming to rule this world in all the prophecies in Daniel and Revelation, but also from the book of Hebrews, chapter 3 being one of the passages.

Chapter 3 of Hebrews, verse 1, Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to him, who appointed him. Seeing then, verse 14, that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who could not sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. So we have a Christ portrayed that we worship, as Christ in us through his Spirit, as a Christ who is King and a Christ who is a High Priest.

A High Priest is one who takes the sacrifices needed, makes the sacrifices needed to approve us to God, to intercede, to be our lawyer, our advocate, before God, to cleanse us, to make us right with him. And then in the kingdom of God, we become part of that family and also rule with him in the kingdom of God. That's very, very beautiful.

The Holy Days. Final thought. I have traveled to Ukraine probably 15-20 times. And I have worked with Sabbatarians going back to 1991. And I would talk to them about our common beliefs. We had many common beliefs. In fact, pretty much down the line. Sabbaths, what happens after death, nature of God, right there, use of the cross, you name it, Roman holidays. They have the same reasons, the same theology, and so forth. But one area where we really had a problem was the Holy Days. And I could never budge from that point, starting in 1991. And usually it takes quite a few iterations and discussions and late-night talks to really get to, what's this all about? And I found out that the reason that they were resisting the Holy Days, because they resisted the Holy Days, they just would not have anything to do with the Holy Days. Most of them. Some would. But then they would say, look, the ones that are giving the Holy Days, look at those people. They're wearing beards, wearing dark clothes, they've got long sideburns, and of all things they're circumcised. Horrors.

I said, oh, okay, I get it. Yeah, that could be not good. They said, we don't want Jesus to be relegated to be a carpenter. He is our Lord and Master. And those that oftentimes adopted the Holy Days went back into Judaism. Well, in 2006, I was in Hoost. And this was just the Sabbath after Pentecost in the States. And I gave my sermon about Pentecost and spoke about the fact that it was a Holy Day and about why we keep it. The fact that the New Testament church was established on Pentecost, no question about that. It couldn't possibly have been a Sabbath day, of all things church started on Sunday. And I said that this day is all about Jesus Christ's church being established. Well, the pastor of the church in Hoost there said, you know, I had never really thought about it that way. I had never seen so much emphasis placed upon Jesus Christ being so much a part of these Holy Days. Because they would go back to the sixth of Sivan, they would go back to their, you know, they go to the synagogues there around. Because there were so few reference materials, they would just read, read, read all this stuff about the Holy Days. And they would all take them back to Judaism. And he said, we just didn't really see that right from Acts 2 and 3 and 4, we can get all this information that was so helpful. I said, that's just the beginning. And I talked to them, look, you observe the weekly Sabbath as one of the feasts of the Lord. Okay? Yep, yep, we do it. You keep the Passover as by the feasts of the Lord. Yeah, yeah, we sure do. So, well, why don't you keep the rest of them? Because 23, you draw a line, kind of some artificial line after Passover and just reject the others. But after showing them that just as much as Christ is part of the Passover for us, we don't keep the Old Testament Passover. We don't. We don't keep the Old Testament Passover. There's no lamb or, you know, the way that they did it. We don't do it that way at all. Herbs, everything. We don't. We keep the New Testament Passover. We keep it with the symbols of Christ's body and blood. They understood that. I said, well, let's take a look at the other Holy Days. Let's take a look at the Feast of Trumpets. Okay, we're delving on to something really dangerous now. I said, that is the time when Jesus Christ returns. It's not some old harvest festival or some nondescript festival in the Old Testament or some civil holiday of the Jews. And I said, we don't keep Rosh Hashanah. Some people send me a Rosh Hashanah cards. I think that's cute, maybe. But we don't keep Rosh Hashanah. We keep the Feast of Trumpets. We don't keep Yom Kippur. We keep the Day of Atonement. These are Christian days that were observed by the New Testament Christian Church. And now we have more and more of the Sabbatarians adopting the Holy Days. And particularly in Portland, where we have about 3,000 or 4,000 Sabbath keepers that now are saying, this is fantastic information. This is a revelation to us. It shows that sometimes when a mind is biased against a point, it just won't budge until there's an enlightenment of some sort that takes place. But we're able to communicate much more easily now when we have shown them that we are not rejecting Christ. We're not relegating Him to being a carpenter. We're elevating Him. And we're showing the power of Christ with the Passover leading all the way to His Kingdom and beyond. So that's a beautiful aspect of this day to remember that we are keeping a very important Christian observation of keeping a day that is dedicated to the return of Jesus Christ. At the last trumpet, which will sound, and all the dead in Jesus Christ will be brought back to life. What a glorious and wonderful truth.

While we grieve at the loss of those who have preceded us, we all grieve. I still miss my parents, and I'll be missing people as they die. We have a good friend who died in Cincinnati this last week, going to his funeral on Monday, that these people will be brought back and this day celebrates that great event. And we don't grieve as others who have no hope. We have hope. We have knowledge. And we have assuredness of that. Well, I have really enjoyed being with you today. It's just nice to see the crowd here. I'm looking forward to the slides that will be shown. I've enjoyed the conversations that we have had and will be having for the rest of this evening. We love you very much, and we look forward to visiting you for the rest of this evening.

Thank you.