sermonette: Are We Really Committed?

God's Level of Commitment
Mark Schindler
Given 21-Sep-02; Sermon #FT02-03s; 18 minutes

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Nancy and I have been blessed with fine children and beautiful grandchildren. We've had the privilege of being in the church since our oldest son will be 30 this year, was 9 years old. This is our 20th keeping of the Feast of Tabernacles of God's people, but the only ones that you see from our ever expanding family of 11 with us today is Nancy and myself. Our oldest son and his wife and children are still in world like keeping Sunday. He's married to his childhood sweetheart. We met when they were little kids in the church, Worldwide Church of God. His father-in-law is a deacon. He's stuck with the physical organization. It seems to be the social thing to do. It seems to be the thing to do to keep peace in his family. God's a very important part of his life, but not the important part of his life. Our second son is getting married next May to a very lovely girl from a very nice family in the Catholic Church. He too, in conversation, sort of remembers the things he was taught, but is much more concerned with the physical. He's the one who always figures that as long as the sentence is not carried out speedily, he can run as close to the edges as you can get. Without going over, and he will not get hurt. Sometimes he's almost hostile to the church and sees it as limiting himself when he was a kid. Our youngest son is kind of ambivalent to the whole process. He sits around and just watches and waits. He sees God's hand involved in everything around him in the world, but he hasn't a watch and we add to because he's seen too many things around him in the church by we adults that he did not think were right. He saw hypocrisy and ungodly behavior displayed by people within its membership. And so it just kept them standing on the sidelines watching and waiting. Now we get to our daughter. She's probably the most organized and practical one of the bunch. From the time she was in first grade, she knew exactly what she wanted to be in life. She set her mind to it, set her goals, and followed through. She's now a teacher who's dedicated to getting her first graders started in the right road of education and thinking and going on to the rest of their lives. She's married to a really fine man, a very nice family. They've been married a little over a year. They've carefully laid out their plans, as with their wedding, they were very careful in how they laid it out. They've had their home built so as soon as they got back from their honeymoon, they are ready to move in. They have everything laid out just so. They've got a very nice arranged, perfect little life. She doesn't attend the church, but she remembers what she was taught as a little girl and believes that God is working through this church. She sort of keeps the holy days and the Sabbath and has had lengthy discussions with her husband about religion. He seems to be very understanding. As a matter of fact, his family's Catholic, but our daughter and her husband were married by John Reid in a beautiful outdoor ceremony last year. Because she wanted to be married in the sight of God by a minister of God's true church, and her husband agreed. She's told Nancy that she and her husband have agreed that they plan to raise their kids in God's church. She and Nancy have had lengthy discussions about her heading for disaster. As long as she works both ends into the middle, it's making it much more difficult to take the stand in faith that she ultimately will have to do, not to mention how much pain she's going to cause herself and the people around her that she loves. If she finally is able to make that commitment. Brother, I told you about our children this afternoon, because I think each one of us may be secretly or unknowingly harboring within ourselves one of these four attitudes. These attitudes of worldly compromise to keep the peace, running as close as we can to the edge as long as we do not go too far, keeping our eyes focused on each other instead of focused on the Almighty God and what He's doing, comparing ourselves among ourselves and the worst of all. Believing that God will let us fudge on the responsibilities before him, and he will still give us the blessings that he can only give us. If we obey him. Any one of these four attitudes will keep us from total commitment to God. We will find ourselves like Ananias and Sephira, being carried out dead from the body of Christ. But the good news, brethren, and there is good news today. That's why we are gathered here at the Feast of Tabernacles this week. God is ensuring that that will not happen to us if we keep the feast as we should. Turn with me to Deuteronomy 14:22. Pseuteronomy 14. And in verse 22, these are all scriptures that all of you are very familiar with, I'm sure. In verse 22, it says, Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed that the field bringeth forth year by year. You shall eat before the Lord your God in the place which he shall choose to place his name there, the tithe of thy corn of thy wine of thy oil, and the first lings of thy herds and of thy flocks that thou mayest learn to fear the Lord thy God always. Brethren, these two verses do not stand alone. These two verses are part of the end of an instruction from God through Moses that started back in chapter 12. Turn with me back a couple of chapters. To Deuteronomy 12. And in verse one, These are the statutes and judgments which you shall observe to do in the land which the Lord God of thy fathers gives thee to possess it. All the days that you live upon the earth, you shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which you shall possess serve their gods upon the high mountains and upon the hills under every green tree, and you shall overthrow their altars. Break their pillars, burn their groves with fire, and you shall hew down the graven images of their gods and destroy the names of them out of their place. You shall not do so unto your God, but unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto the habitation shall you seek. And there shall you come, and there shall you bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices and your tithes, your heave offerings of your hand, your vows, your free will offerings, the first things of your herds and of your flocks, and there shall you eat before the Lord your God, and you show rejoice in all that you put your hand unto you and your household when the Lord your God has blessed you. You shall not do after all these things we do here this day. Every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes, for you are not as come yet into the rest of the inheritance which the Lord your God gives you. We are come here with our 2nd tithe brethren. To the place where God has put His name, because we are utterly destroying the altars and groves and false gods within ourselves. We should be carefully inventorying this week every aspect of our lives over the past year to see if we are as committed to God as He is to us in blessing us. Do we reverence God above all other gods, or are we still holding something back? No other God is responsible for our blessings throughout this past year. Only the great God who sent you to this feast this week. This is a time for examination, the time for us to look at ourselves. We need to be asking ourselves throughout this feast of Tabernacles, are we still holding back from a total 100% commitment? Have I compromised with the world to make peace? Am I running as close to the edge as I can without going over? Am I focusing on others rather than on God? And am I expecting to be blessed without 100% commitment? Brethren, this is our time to become totally, completely committed to God, to count our blessings and see if our commitment even comes close to matching his. Turn with me to Leviticus 23. Some other scriptures you're very familiar with. Leviticus 23. In verse 39. In verse 39, it says, also on the 15th day of the 7th month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep a feast unto the Lord 7 days. On the 1st day today, shall be a Sabbath, and on the 8th day shall be a Sabbath. And you shall take to take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and boughs of thick trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God 7 days, and you shall keep it a feast unto the Lord 7 days in the year. It shall be a statute for you forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it. In the 7th month you shall dwell in booths 7 days. All that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths. When I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord thy God. And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the feasts of the Lord. God separates us, brethren, from this world to keep his feast so that we can recount what he has done. We can recount his commitment to us and his commitment to his purpose. This is the time for us to recount the journey that's both before us and behind us and our part in God's plan. Our commitment must be of faith, and faith only grows by seeing God's hand in everything. We look back at Israel and the wildernesses we are instructed to do, and we see. God's great hand, and we are supposed to learn by their mistakes. We were not there. We did not get to see the Red Sea parted. We did not get to see the water from the rock, but you know what, brethren, neither did most of them. I'd like you to consider something. There were millions of Wilserlis wandering through the wilderness. Do you think that every one of them personally witnessed the Red Sea being split or personally witnessed the collapse of the Red Sea on their enemies as God swallowed them up? Do you think they saw the water come out of the rock, each and every one of them? Do you think they saw Cora and his family and all those who rebelled against God destroyed by the great power of God's hand? I do not think it happened that way, brethren. It happened with them just like it's happening with us. They had to repeat it to each other. They had to repeat the miracles of blessing and cursings that happened within their sight so that the others could believe and have faith. They missed the boat. We need to be doing, we need to be repeating to each other the miracles that are happening in our lives, both for good and for bad. Brethren, we are here to do the same thing. We need to be accounting to each other over this week, both the good and the difficult things that have happened in our lives over the past year. We also need to be recounting God's wonderful plan and His purpose as we've seen it. expounded to us through His word. Christ told Thomas in John 20:29, Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are they which have not seen and yet believe. Those who believe can only believe if someone tells them about God's marvelous work, and that's what your service is to each other, brother. You know, when we are getting ready to come to the Feast of Tabernacles this year, people would say to me, where are you going on your vacation? I'd respond, of course, to peka. What's in Topeka? Was the common response and you know people in God's church are even thinking Tapia. But you know, brethren, John Reitenbaugh made a very wise decision a number of years ago. Get God's people out of the hustle and bustle. Get them away where they belong, separated from the world, where God can be the center of this week and not the activities. Numbers 28 and 29 list the sacrifices that are supposed to be offered these weeks, this week, and for God's feasts and sacrifices that are offered in the Feast of Tabernacles are more than all the other holy days combined. These are the sacrifices we offer from the blessings that God has given us, and then we share, eating them together. God has blessed us beyond measure and tells us to eat, drink, and rejoice, but with purpose, brethren, and that purpose is to spend the time together recounting our personal blessings and problems, one to the other, sharing personal time and experiences with God and each other and bolstering our faith and total commitment to God's purpose. Does this mean we can't even go to the Walmart? Well, it does if you go with Nancy Ni because we get lost all the time, but That's of course not. That's not what that means. But remember why we are here. We're here to share and remember all that God has done and we owe him more than we could ever even begin to repay. The only thing he's looking for is our hearts and our commitment. Remember throughout the feast that we need to be living Isaiah 66. Where is the house you build for me? And where is the place of my rest? For all those things as my hand made and all those things have been, sayeth the Lord. But to this man will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at my word. That's what we are supposed to be doing this week, brethren, trembling at God's word. Brother, as we go through this precious time God has given to us, the Feast of Tabernacles, meticulously examining and renewing or maybe even initiating our 100% commitment to God, we've got to be careful about it and not to miss the boat. This is a feast of words, brethren. This is a feast of sermons of sermons, of songs of praise, of speaking and listening to each other and listening to the great God, giving us our marching orders and putting us in our place in our, in our positions around the Tabernacle as we march out. For his plan and purpose. We must be committed to this 100%, or we will die. Brethren, finally, turn with me back to the Book of Numbers. And numbers, the 6th chapter. Number 6 This book, the book of Numbers itself starts out with a census. God takes the senses of all those that He has separated from the Egypt and from the world. It's a setting apart those people that have been set apart specifically for his service. It goes on to set up the organization of those people as they are set around the tabernacle of God in the wilderness and their opportunities of service before the great God. In chapter 5, it goes on to speak specifically of how to keep the clean from contamination. Hollow things are set aside and specific relationships between husbands and wives are discussed. Then in chapter 6, it recounts curiously, it recounts before it goes into these last verses I want to talk about. It recounts the duties and responsibilities of the Nazarites, people who had been set apart for a specific purpose for periods of time. To keep a vow before God. The whole of these 1st 6 chapters have to do with being set apart and numbered for specific responsibilities and how carefully detailed these responsibilities are to be. At the end of number 6 though, is something very important that I want you to see. At the end of the setting apart from the world and the handing out of the responsibilities and commitments before the Lord, God has the priests pronounce a blessing on the people. He is committed to Himself. Brethren, the very last thing that will be done at this piece of Tabernacles. On the Last Great Day before the final prayer is this blessing that we are going to read in Numbers 22. God commanded this to be ministered by the Levites to his people, and on the very last day of the feast, The choir is going to stand before you in the place of a minister ministering this blessing unto you. As it is being sung, I want you to remember what you thought about during the feast. And remember that this is God's commitment to His people that have been set apart of all those on the face of the earth. Please make sure that you've examined yourself carefully over these days and use this time wisely to become totally committed to our separation from this evil world and committed to the great God and are worthy of this blessing which God will pass on to you. In verse 22. And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying, on this wise you shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace, and they shall put my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them. Brethren, use this time wisely. Many of us out there are suffering and sick and in need of this blessing. Make sure that at the end of the feast that God can place this blessing upon you.