We Are Pilgrims

Greetings and happy feast from Panama City Beach, Florida, to more than 65 festival sites around the world. In North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, and to the many people who are watching this at home, also those who are watching it by delayed video, who are not able to get it immediately here live because of time, the time zone. We wish you a happy feast. I certainly did appreciate the music. As Dr. Ward said, the music has a lot to do with our spirit, with our feelings.

I sort of was tapping. After he said that, I started tapping my feet at the last hymn, and the music now was very, very beautiful, very inspiring, and put us into the proper mood. I also want to thank all the people around the world that have been sharing their photographs on hashtag UCGFOT. I really enjoyed seeing the pictures, especially on Instagram, and also as well on Facebook and Twitter, and have enjoyed seeing the places where we've been to in Europe and Africa and other places around the world. So please keep them coming. It's been very, very enjoyable to share our experiences. Also thank all of you here who have shared photographs with people around the world to share the joy, to share the spirit of the Feast of Tabernacles.

One of the intrinsic features of the Feast of Tabernacles is travel. It's a trip. It's a journey. It's a voyage. We look forward to it. I'm certain that your being here at the Feast in Panama City Beach was something that you had planned for some time.

It wasn't something that just came up at the last minute. You planned this trip. You saved for this trip. And now you're here enjoying it. It's a happy time. We look forward to it. It's a time of sharing. It's a time of learning. It's a time of rejoicing. It's a time of family togetherness. We have enjoyed being with our son, daughter-in-law, and also our four grandchildren. We are all staying in one place and have just thoroughly appreciated in enjoying having this time together. It's a time to be with friends, people we haven't seen in a long time.

It's a time for fun and recreation as well. It certainly is a total experience, total experience of being able to do it all together. The Feast of Tabernacles is described also as commemorating a journey, is being on the move. We take a look at a few stock scriptures that we use for the Feast of Tabernacles, Leviticus 23, for example. The Feast of Tabernacles is something which is a journey and a trip. In fact, it's the only one of the Holy Days that's specifically designated to be a festival to be observed on the move, as designated to be on the road. Leviticus 23 and verse 40, you shall rejoice before the Lord, your God, for seven days.

Here we are in day six of that seven days, plus the one day, the eighth day. Verse 41, you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths, in temporary dwellings, for seven days. None of the other Holy Days have that designation.

All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord, your God. So actually, this is a celebration. It's a celebration of a relocation of the entire nation of Israel from Egypt to places onward. The Feast of Tabernacles is kept on the road in temporary dwelling places, and something that we do today.

Deuteronomy 14, 22, another stock passage that we use for the Feast of Tabernacles. You shall eat before the Lord your God in the place, in the destination. In other words, it's somewhere away from where you start. It's the place that you go to where he chooses to make his name abide. It could have been Jerusalem, could have been other locations. The Church has decided a number of locations around the world, over 65 locations, where God has placed his name.

We'll eat the tithe of your grain and your new wine and your oil, of the firstborn of your herds and your flocks, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. There's a purpose for us getting together. There are certain very important lessons for us to learn. But again, if the journey, again focusing here on the fact that it's a trip, it's a journey, there's travel involved. If the journey is too long for you so that you're not able to carry the tithe, or if the place where the Lord your God chooses to put his name is too far from you.

Still, you have to go to these places. Here's what you do if you can't take all the stock in hand, the animals, whatever. When the Lord your God has blessed you, then you shall exchange it for money. Take the money in your hand and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses. So this journey has purpose, and we'll see that it has spiritual significance that is typified by the physical travel. Now God describes our life.

Describes our life, our existence, is also being a journey, our spiritual journey.

It is something which is just like the feast. You go from point A to points B, C, D, wherever.

Our life is much the same way.

Our life is also to be dynamic in motion. It's going from someplace we are to some place where God wants us to be, and we learn certain lessons in that process. Hebrews 11, verse 13. Hebrews 11, verse 13 describes this experience.

Hebrews 11 is what I call a parade of the faithful. It's the people that are designated as having been faithful all through time, going back to the very beginnings of mankind, all the way to the time that the Apostle Paul speaks of.

Talks about the faithful. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and on the faithful.

He said, these all died in the faith, not having received the promises, not having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed or admitted and proclaimed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

What we're doing is proclaiming and manifesting and confessing, if you will, that we as faithful are strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Pilgrims on the earth.

I'd like to talk about being a pilgrim. What do you think of when you think of what a pilgrim is? Well, our initial reaction might be to a Puritan pilgrim with a felt hat, dark outfit, white ruff, white cuffs, and so forth. Maybe a picture of one with a turkey and a pumpkin and first Thanksgiving.

Those are images that we may have of what a pilgrim is of someone who had sailed over on the Mayflower in 1620 coming to the United States. These were the first pilgrims. But the definition of the term pilgrim is, a person who journeys to a sacred place for religious reasons. Let me say that again. A person who journeys to a sacred place for religious reasons. There are two biblical designations for people of faith. The overwhelming one that is used for people of faith is the term disciple. We've been talking a lot about discipleship in our training of ministry and in sermons in the last couple of years. In this whole process of the development of our ministry, the development of the future, and the development of our church, making disciples, this is very important. We've defined what a disciple is, and we're in the process of making disciples. We're to be one and to make one. That term is used over 300 times in the Bible. And these are people whose lives are apprenticed to our master, Jesus Christ. We're in a growing, learning relationship with him. A disciple is a learner. All of us are disciples, not in the academic sense only of a schoolroom, but at the work site of our craftsman and master, Jesus Christ, to become like him. Discipleship. But the other term that is used for Christians, or actually, as I mentioned, the term Christian, which is actually used very little, which is actually used very little, and wasn't even first used by those who were Christians.

It was used by people in Antioch when they saw these people coming and preaching and doing different things, evangelizing and saying, who are these people? They must be Christians. That's a good name for them. Christians. They're talking about Christ. So it wasn't a term necessarily given by Christians. Only Peter one time mentions that term Christian, which of course is valid, but it's more an identifier. It is something which labels us. But a disciple really describes us, describes what one is. But a pilgrim also tells us, and that term is parapydymos, a Greek word, means people who spend their lives going someplace, going to God, and whose path for getting there is the way, the way of life. People on the go, people who are traveling there. These are people who realize that this world is only a temporary home as they set out for their father's house.

In ancient Israel, there were a number of pilgrimages as people traveled to Jerusalem, in particular, for annual feast days. There were more than just one pilgrimage of the feast. The one for the feast was the one that was specified and designated. But, as we very well know, Jesus Christ, when he was a young lad, 12 years old, was on a pilgrimage with his parents from Nazareth down to Jerusalem. A hundred miles, they walked that distance. They walked that distance to the feast of the Passover. I'm not sure if the whole nation did. I doubt that it did. It wasn't like the Feast of Tabernacles, universal. But this journey with a crowd of people from Nazareth traveled to Jerusalem. And, as you know the story in Luke chapter 2, the parents, after the Passover, after the Days of Unleavened Bread, headed back, walked back to Nazareth, and after a couple of days, noted that their son wasn't with them. They thought that he was with all the other pre-teens or teenagers. And they discovered that he was not. And so they headed back to Jerusalem, and they found him there among the scholars in the temple. But the family was on a pilgrimage. They were down in Jerusalem. Pentecost was another time of year for pilgrimages. When the Church of God was established on the day of Pentecost, there were a lot of people assembled there. What were they doing there? They were on the pilgrimage. That was a time of year, one of the times of the year, where they came together. And that was an opportunity to preach Christianity, to preach the Word, to preach the sermon that the Apostle Peter did to people who were assembled for the day of Pentecost, which had now been fully come. But the Feast of Tabernacles is the only festival pilgrimage that is biblically specified. It's interesting that while they traveled, there were certain songs that they sang. They were called the Pilgrim Songs.

And these were the Psalms of Ascent, or the Psalms of Degrees, Psalms 120 to 134. These were road songs that calmed the anxiousness of travel, distance, that emboldened their faith, encouraged them, and gave them guidance as they sang these songs of Ascent. Why were they called the songs of Ascent in this pilgrimage? Because they were going up to Jerusalem.

Almost every direction, from every direction to Jerusalem, is going up, whether it's from the north, from Nazareth, whether it's from the south, certainly through the wilderness of Judea and the Dead Sea, or from the sea to the west, the Mediterranean, from sea level to Jerusalem, which is 2,500 feet. It's not that high, but nonetheless it's high, up 2,500 feet above sea level. You have to go up. Those of you who have gone to Jerusalem, you know that when you land in Tel Aviv, it's quite a road kind of going up to Jerusalem, and there's a climate change. And then also from the east, from the land of Ammon, that was also going up to Jerusalem. I had the privilege of having one of the most memorable vistas of my life, about 13 years ago, standing on Mount Nebo. It really was moving. Coming up from Petra in the south, and just south of Ammon, there's a road off to the west to the top of Mount Nebo, which is not that high. Nonetheless, it's there. And from the vista that you have from Mount Nebo, you see exactly what Moses saw in his last days of life, as described in Deuteronomy 34. You see the Jordan River Valley. You see the Dead Sea. You see all the way up to Dan, just the way it's described in Daniel in Deuteronomy 34.

And they say that at night you can see the lights of Jerusalem. It's an amazing vista. That was going up to Jerusalem. A very well-known book was written after the Old King James translation was made in 1611, but a book that has been very, very popular, and one of the most popular books of all time, has been a book called The Pilgrim's Progress, written by John Bunyan, a Puritan minister. It's been translated in over 200 languages, and it's very easily available. I get it for 99 cents on Kindle, and some of the older translations even have it translated from Old King James-type English into more modern English. But it's a story about a pilgrimage.

It's an allegorical tale that was published in 1678, and it's the story of Bunyan's own conversion.

It was an intense life-and-death struggle in his Christian pilgrimage.

The book recounts a dream of trials and adventures of a person called Christian. That's the main character. There's part two which his wife called Christiana.

He goes and leaves the city of destruction in his allegory headed for the celestial city.

And in this book, in this story, he tries to rid himself of a terrible work burden, the weight of his sins, which he feels after reading the Bible.

And his journey takes him through dangers and distractions of despondency, vanity, doubting. The story is an anguished struggle towards salvation, but he has characters in it depicting hope, wisdom, and other qualities.

Part two, which was written six years later, is about Christiana, like I mentioned, where it's more relaxed and more humorous.

And he has interesting characters called Great Heart, Much Afraid, Mr. Ready to Halt, etc. And there's a hymn that he wrote, the only one ascribed to him.

To be a pilgrim, it's called. It's also called He Who Would Valiant Be.

It's the only hymn ascribed to him. I was discussing my sermon with Dr. Ward at the last ministerial or the last Council of Elders Conference, and you've got to hear the song, He Who Would Valiant Be? He says, listen to it on YouTube. Certainly, if you go there, you can find it. It has a beautiful kind of Irish sound to it. Several versions are available on YouTube. Anyway, let's go back to our journey. God has called us into a journey to be pilgrims, and this couldn't be more succinctly stated, tying together the meaning of the Feast of Tabernacles to our life's journey, making this a relevant teaching opportunity.

Historically, the life of the faithful has been one of a meaningful journey, going somewhere, whether it be a nation, whether it be a person, or even a church. We're not static. We're not just living day after day after day, not knowing where we're going. We are going somewhere. We're moving. We're on the move as a church. One of our well-noted booklets that we have, that we've had almost from day one of the United Church of God, is The Road to Eternal Life. It's not a state. It's a road to eternal life. It's actually our booklet about baptism, and we are thinking about changing the name of it to All About Water Baptism, and somehow holding the Road to Eternal Life designation with it.

But we know that our spiritual life in the church here is going from point A to points where God wants us to end up. Mankind has been on several journeys, biblically and historically.

The first major trip with God was Noah. Actually, the first pilgrimage was a cruise.

Abraham was asked to get out of here from Mesopotamia and head for the land of Canaan.

But he was asked to move. You can't be here. You can't stay here. I have a purpose for you to go down and get out of this area of Babylon and its godlessness and its paganism. I want you to go to the new land, the promised land. Then we have Jacob's migration to Egypt. That was initiated by Joseph, his son. We have Moses' expulsion into the desert for 40 years. It was a trip that he took, which he thought was the end of everything good for him.

I find this trip to be very interesting because Moses was very, very high up in Egyptian government. And after he had fallen out of favor, he was banished. He was banished to the wilderness of Shur. His life was over. His name was stricken from monuments in Egypt. He thought it was it.

He walked to the wilderness of Shur, got married, had wife Zipporah. He thought it was all over. But God had a plan for him. After 40 years, he says, go back to Egypt. I've got a third 40 years for you to do a very, very important mission, another important journey, which then became Israel's migration exodus out of Egypt. And actually, we are commemorating at the Feast of Tabernacles this exodus of leaving one way from the land of Egypt to an area, to the promised land, to the kingdom of God, spiritually, where God wants us to end up. We also have the captivity of Israel. They were taken captive, never to have returned back to Palestine. Then we had a captivity of Judah and Benjamin to return. Also, another journey that we still have yet in the future, the journey for the church, where the church will flee to a place of safety. That will be another journey, which is not the point of my sermon. I'm just saying that God has various journeys and pilgrimages for us individually, as a church, as a nation, but also one for all of us individually and personally. David is a person, King David, and the Psalms, and all those who had written the Psalms, that wrote about an introspection of one's life as going from point A to point B.

I'd like you to turn to Psalm chapter 90. Psalm chapter 90. These passages in Psalms and other places have made a deep impression upon me as we walk through life, because all of us here are on a journey. You came here literally as a captive audience now, because you know that there's something to learn about spiritual principles that will make you the kind of person that God wants you to be. You're here for a purpose. You're here not just to kind of sit through the lecture, the sermon, whatever, so you can get out and do other stuff. You're here primarily to learn some extremely important eternal values principles. And that's what we're doing here today. And here's what David or this is the Psalm of Moses, what it says. Psalm 90 and verse 12.

So teach us to number our days. Teach us to take stock of our life. Help us to number our days. Let's figure out the total of how many days we have that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Do you ever number your days? Now, how old are you? You may be in your 20s, but be a teenager, listening to this and taking stock of what I'm saying, saying, I have 70 times 365 days left in my life. You might be age 60 and see lesser number of days. You may be at ages higher, and you're calculating, God helped me to number my days. Do I have 10 years left? If I have 10 years left, I've got 300,650 days to finish my journey. Or I have five years. I have 1800 mornings and wake up to live on this earth. And so the psalmist is saying, teach me to total my days, number my days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Return, O Lord. How long? And have compassion on your servants. Satisfy us with your mercy that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

Help us to be able to do those things and have the wisdom so that we can really rejoice and be happy with the days that we have. We want our pilgrimage to be positive. The years in which we have seen evil. Let your work appear to your servants and your glory to their children. Let the beauty of the Lord, our God, be upon us and establish the work of our hands for us. Yes, establish the work of our hands. So it's asking God to guide us, direct us in the years, in the number of days that we have. So I ask you, where are you now? Where are we now in our personal journey? Do you know where you're going? And are we even aware that we're on a trip and a journey that this Feast of Tabernacles is depicting? What is your timeline?

What are some of the milestones that you have passed? And what are some of the milestones you look to?

In Psalm 119, I'll just quote very quickly here. Don't turn to this one necessarily. Psalm 39 is what I really want you to turn to. But verse 84 of Psalm 119, how many are the days of your servant? How many are the days of your servant? You know, I've been asking that in prayer.

God, how many days do I have this year to fulfill your will or the number of years in my lifetime in the scope and context of the church? How many are the days of your servant? Psalm 39. Lord, make me to know my end. Psalm 39 and verse 4. Make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am?

David is asking here for perspective, for context to his life. Indeed, you have made my days as handbreaths, and my age is nothing before you. Certainly, every man at his best state is but vapor. So, no matter how macho we are, or how proud we become, or what we accomplish, or how many pretty pictures we take, or whatever we accomplish, or how we trade on the stock market, it's all nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. It's all vapor. Our age, as we age, we know we're nothing. Our bodies are nothing. And David asks, let me know how frail I am. Help me to understand myself in context with you and your greatness in fearing you. Surely, every man walks about like a shadow. Surely, they busy themselves in vain. He heaps up riches and does not know who will gather them. Oh, yes, we can do so much. We can have properties. We can watch TV shows about the incredibly rich people and think, wow, that's fantastic. They can't take it with them. They can't do anything with those things.

King Tut, when he was buried, had so much buried there in that tomb. What would he think right now to know that his body is being shown in museums all around the world? What a horrible thought. What if you do that, you know, a thousand years from now, that you would just be paraded around as somebody who was famous and here he is, here's his shell.

And now, Lord, verse 7, what do I wait for? My hope is in you. Deliver me from all my transgressions. Do not make me the reproach of the foolish. David sought perspective and context to his life.

He was continually learning to fear the Lord. I hope that we count our days and count our days in a sense of we're traveling to a particular goal of meeting our maker and creator. Proverbs 19 and verse 20, verse 19 and verse 20, here, which relates to the Feast of Tabernacles in fearing God. Proverbs 19, listen to the counsel and receive instruction that you may be wise in your latter days. There are many plans in a man's heart. Nevertheless, the Lord's counsel, that will stand. Now, you know, the first day when I spoke, spoke about, thy kingdom come.

What's the next thing that we pray for after thy kingdom come? Thy will be done.

You know, do we ask to coordinate our life, our journey with God, our travels, where we're going, what we're thinking, where we want to be with God?

Are we aligning our plans with God's plans? Do we understand his will? And what is, you know, his will? Verse 22, what is desired in a man is kindness, and a poor man is better than a liar.

The fear of the Lord leads to life. And isn't that what we're taught? Isn't that what we're here for, to learn the fear of the Lord, the deep respect of God, the fear of the Lord, which we read in Deuteronomy 1423.

And he who has it will abide in his satisfaction. He will not be visited with evil.

So we're on a journey. We're in temporary dwellings, however you want to call it, whether it be condo, Edgewater condo, or whether it be in Zambia, where our people have just made their little huts, or whether it be in tents in different places, our people in temporary dwellings all celebrate the temporariness of this life, and also celebrating, commemorating, being on a journey going somewhere, like Israel, which dwelt in booths in temporary dwellings while they were on the earth. How are you equipped for this travel? Have you considered the cost?

Do we know where we are and where we're going?

Do we see milestones along the way? Again, our life is not some static monument. It's dynamic. It's a flux. It's a movement. It's moving, not only in direction, but in time and growth.

So when you take a trip, what did you do in planning for the Feast of Tabernacles?

You figured out, first of all, how much money you've got, what the cost of the trip would be. Some of you chose this place because you had just the right amount of money for here. You like this place. It fit your budget with the plan that God has for saving the 10 percent, the second tithe, and you came here. Some years you've got a little bit more. You can go to Italy.

You can go to Hong Kong. You can go to other places in the world. But nonetheless, you count the cost of your trip.

When I did a lot of baptismal counseling, and I have been in the pastoral ministry since 1969, more than 49 years. I've not been in that now the last several years, working in more administrative matters. But when I counseled people for baptism, I really honed in on Luke 14. One reason I did that is because my mentor did that, and he really impressed upon me. It made a lot of sense to me about that particular passage. When people came to Jesus Christ saying, I want to be your disciple. I want to be part of your movement. What does it take to be a disciple? And Jesus Christ responded and said, well, there's a couple things that you have to do in order to be a disciple of mine. First of all, you've got to put me ahead of every other relationship, every other relationship in this life. You've got to love me more than your mother and father, than your wife and children.

That's what you've got to do first. Oh, okay. If you get that down, then we go to step two.

He who does bear his cross has to bear his cross unless you can bear your cross. You cannot follow me. You have to be realistic about the fact that the journey, the trip of being a disciple is not at times going to be an easy trip. Those of you who've been around here, I look upon ourselves as survivors over the years, know that it's not been an easy trip.

It's been up and down, but you've had to bear that cross as the apostle did, Paul did. But in verse 29, verse 28 of Luke chapter 14, there's one more thing here that's mentioned as far as taking this trip to be with Christ, to be his disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it, lest after he has laid the foundation he is not able to finish it, and all begin to mock him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. I'm using this passage in relation to taking the trip that we're taking. Do you have enough money? Have you counted the cost of what this trip is going to cost you?

When I counsel people for baptism, one of the big questions I ask them is part of all these questions in Luke chapter 14 was, can you afford it? Can you really afford? Have you counted the cost of this trip? And they say, well, what is the cost? I said, the cost is your life. Unless you're willing to give your life, that's the cost. Whatever you think of your life as being, that is the cost of being a pilgrim, to being a disciple of Jesus Christ. Are you committed to that?

Can you afford to take the complete trip?

The trip begins with coming out of the world.

You know, we come out of somewhere, we've come out of the world.

Second Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 17. This is a very important aspect of being a pilgrim.

And we're not like the world. We're special people.

Yesterday, I had one of the tram drivers stop me on the bridge across the highway here and said, are you the president of the United Church of God? Somebody must have pointed me out.

I said, yes, I am. He stopped the cart. He said, I want to tell you that I have never seen a group of people like this. I've worked here for five years, just like this group here. We've had people in here for spring breaks. We've had people here in the summer and winter. But there is no group of people who treat each other, who have a spirit that your people have. He said, I would like to take five minutes at the end of one of the services to talk to you about that. I'm not sure if we can do that. I don't know who he is. Believe me, I don't want to get involved in that matter. But anyway, he was so thankful for the example that we set with the way we look, the way we treat each other, the way we dress, our whole demeanor. That made me feel so satisfied and so thankful. I thank God. I said, thank you for the fruits that we have from the things that we teach, that someone can say something like that unsolicited. He wanted my card. I got my card out and I wrote my personal email on there as well.

He said, I've been here for five years and I've never seen anything quite like this. To meet, indicates these are people you who are coming out of the world and coming out of the world's attitudes. Be separate, verse 17 of 2 Corinthians 6. Says the Lord, do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I'll be a father to you. We lead a transformed life. Colossians chapter 4 and verse 6. Colossians 4 and chapter 4 and verse 5. Walk in wisdom towards those who are outside, like we did towards the people in our community. Walk in wisdom towards those who are outside, redeeming the time. That means to buy back, make the most of our time. Now, so many people in this lifetime have too much time, spend too much time in front of TVs. There's amazing statistics of how many hours people spend in front of their screen or the telephone or video games. Grown men that spend hours and hours with silly video games. What are we doing with our time? What are we doing with our time as far as relationships are concerned, as far as reading, as far as putting the right things into my mind? Do we do what it says in Romans chapter 12? As part of our pilgrimage, Romans chapter 12, I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. Like I said, the cost of being a disciple, the cost of this pilgrimage is your life, wholly acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. One thing, as I said, is that we have a journey where we do have to bear our cross, and we do have to enter a narrow gate. Our journey, our pilgrimage, can have setbacks.

I have a list of dreadful deeds. We have distractions on this journey. Oh, let's see. Let's kind of stop here. I want to get off here for a while. I'm distracted. There are dangers.

Disinterest settles in. Direction change. Drawing back. Detours, disasters. Divorce.

Disillusionment. Despondency, distress, doubt, destruction. Death, disenchantment, dysfunction, debt, disappointment. Drinking, drugs, demotions. All these dreadful deeds can come along and hinder our trip. If you want notes to my sermon to get all these D's, you can go to Twitter.

God helps us through these setbacks, and even these setbacks can transform us if we don't stop the journey and stay close to God, because this trip that we're on has purpose, has a cost, a star, just like it did for Moses. Moses had a great first run of 40 years. He had kind of a bad 40 years, thinking that that was the end, and he came out with another final 40 years, fulfilling a very, very special purpose that he had in life. The Apostle Paul is one who really had an amazing journey in his life, and he described it that way. Philippians 4.

Philippians 4, verse 11. Paul, kind of recounting things towards the end of his life, I speak in not that I speak in regard to need. I have learned in whatever state I am to be content. I know how to be abased. I know how to abound. Everywhere, and in all things, I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Again, I take a look at my life at the decades that have gone by.

In July, I visited the Sioux Falls Church, where I started 49 years ago when they were celebrating their 50th anniversary. And as I saw those people, many of them are gone. Many have died.

Some of the people, though, who were there were the sons and daughters and the grandsons and daughters, in some cases grandsons who were leaders in the churches in Sioux Falls and in Rapid City. It was very emotional for me. I wept when I came up there to speak to those people, because it seems like the whole life had just gone through when I started at age 21 as a ministerial trainee and coming to the present and seeing this journey and what it has done and who survived and who made it. It really was emotional. It was really emotional.

We are pilgrims on this earth. We are headed to a particular place. We're on a journey for a spiritual purpose. I thought through my ministry, family, trials in the church.

I have learned in my life on this journey, which I am still on, that God shows us the way through any given situation. I've stared up a cliff as leader in the church many times in the last five years, saying, God, how will we get through this? We need manpower. We need this. We need this approach. We need this material. We need to have this kind of impact. I pray that all the time. We've had manpower issues. We need to repopulate. We need to restock. You should see the leadership of the church. How will we do it? But God always directs us and helps us through this.

He helps us through it. I look at the life of the Apostle Paul, and when he had to go through, whenever I read what Paul went through, I say, our life is nothing. Our life is nothing.

We are really riding high. We've had no trials. But the Apostle Paul is one who wrote about the things, and he said he had finished a race. The Apostle Paul said the following in 2 Timothy 4 in verse 6. At the end of his ride, at the end of his pilgrimage, for I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight. Can we say that we have fought the good fight, or do we just kind of drift from one day to another? I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.

Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, not only to me but also to others who have loved his appearing.

Brethren, around the world, we are all pilgrims, perhaps on several different levels of pilgrimage. As a church, in your church, or as an individual, you're on a trip. It's a trip that God knows that you have. As we meet together, we strengthen each other on this journey. We sing the songs of ascent and praising God as we head towards Jerusalem, as we head towards the kingdom of God with joy. Along this pilgrimage, we meet many others who are traveling the same route.

We make good friends. We encourage one another. We learn from one another. That's why it's important for us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as Paul writes in Hebrews 10.25.

Our paths together intersect. We study the map of our journey together, which is the Word of God.

We learn the way. In fact, Christianity, one of the terminology, one of the terms used for it, was called the way, the road, the direction, as it's called in the book of Acts in a number of places.

As we run into difficulties, we seek help to find the way around to get back on the path.

We are seeking a permanent homeland, the kingdom of God. May God be with all of us on this very impactful journey. It's a wonderful ride. Let's all end up at the same place, the kingdom of God. Grace and peace to you from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.