Sermonette: Are We Really Committed?

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

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Nancy and I have been blessed with fine children and beautiful grandchildren. We have had the privilege of being in the church since our oldest son (who 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 Worldwide keeping Sunday. He is married to his childhood sweetheart. They met when they were little kids in Worldwide Church of God. His father-in-law is a deacon. He is 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 is 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 is the one who always figures that so long as the sentence is not carried out speedily, he can run as close to the edges as he can get without going over, and he will not get hurt. Sometimes he is 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 has a watch-and-wait attitude because he has seen too many things around him in the church by the adults that he did not think were right. He saw hypocrisy and ungodly behavior displayed by people in its membership. And so it just kept him standing on the sidelines watching and waiting.

Now we get to our daughter. She is 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 is now a teacher who is dedicated to getting her first graders started on the right road of education and thinking and going on to the rest of their lives.

She is married to a really fine man, from a very nice family. They have been married a little over a year. They have carefully laid out their plans. With their wedding they were very careful in how they laid it out. They have 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 have got a very nice arranged, perfect little life.

She does not 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 is 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 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 will make it much more difficult to take the stand in faith that she ultimately will have to do, not to mention how much pain she is going to cause herself and the people around her that she loves if she finally is able to make that commitment.

Brethren, 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 is 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 Sapphira, being carried out dead from the Body of Christ.

But the good news, and there is good news today, and that is 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.

Deuteronomy 14:22-23 “You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year. And you shall eat before the LORD your God, in the place where He chooses to make His name abide, 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.”

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. So, turn with me back a couple of chapters to Deuteronomy 12.

Deuteronomy 12:1-9 "These are the statutes and judgments which you shall be careful to observe in the land which the LORD God of your fathers is giving you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations which you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. And you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and burn their wooden images with fire; you shall cut down the carved images of their gods and destroy their names from that place. You shall not worship the LORD your God with such things. But you shall seek the place where the LORD your God chooses, out of all your tribes, to put His name for His dwelling place; and there you shall go. There you shall take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, your vowed offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. And there you shall eat before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which you have put your hand, you and your households, in which the LORD your God has blessed you. You shall not at all do as we are doing here today—every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes—for as yet you have not come to the rest and the inheritance which the LORD your God is giving you.”

We come here with our second tithe 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?

• 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.

Leviticus 23:39-44 “Also on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of the LORD for seven days; on the first day there shall be a Sabbath-rest, and on the eighth day a Sabbath-rest. And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days. 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 for seven days. 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 Moses declared to the children of Israel the feasts of the LORD.

God separates us 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 is both before us and behind us—our part in God's plan. Our commitment must be of faith; faith only grows by seeing God's hand in everything.

We look back at Israel in the wildernesses as we are instructed to do, and we see God's great hand [involved with Israel]. We are supposed to learn from 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 would like you to consider something. There were millions of Israelites 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 Korah 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 is happening with us. They had to repeat it to each other. They had to repeat the miracles of blessing and cursings that happened in their sight so that the others could believe and have faith. They missed the boat. We need to be repeating to each other the miracles that are happening in our lives, both for good and for bad.

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 have heard it expounded to us through His Word.

Christ told Thomas in,

John 20:29 Jesus said to him, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

Those who believe can only believe if someone tells them about God's marvelous work, and that is what your service is to each other, brethren.

You know, when we were getting ready to come to the Feast of Tabernacles this year, people would say to me, “Where are you going on your vacation?” I would respond, of course, “Topeka!” “What’s in Topeka?” was the common response. And people in God's church are even thinking, “Topeka?”

But you know, John Ritenbaugh 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 are 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 this week for God's feasts. The 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, 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 cannot even go to Walmart? Well, it does if you go with Nancy and me because we get lost all the time. But that is not what that means.

Remember why we are here. We are 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 is looking for is our hearts and our commitment.

Remember throughout the Feast that we need to be living Isaiah 66.

Isaiah 66:1-2 Where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of My rest? For all those things My hand has made, and all those things exist," says the LORD. “But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word.”

That is what we are supposed to be doing this week, brethren: trembling at God's Word.

As we go through this precious time God has given to us at the Feast of Tabernacles, meticulously examining and renewing or maybe even initiating our 100% commitment to God, we have got to be careful about it, and not to miss the boat. This is a Feast of words, brethren. This is a feast of sermonettes, 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 positions around the Tabernacle as we march out for His plan and purpose. We must be committed to this 100%, or we will die.

Turn with me back to the book of Numbers, the 6th chapter.

The book of Numbers starts out with a census. God takes the census of all those that He has separated from Egypt and from the world. It is a setting apart of those people 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.

Then in chapter 5, it speaks specifically of how to keep the camp clean from contamination. Hallowed things are set aside, and specific relationships between husbands and wives are discussed.

Then in chapter 6, it recounts curiously, (before it goes into these last verses I want to talk about) the duties and responsibilities of the Nazarites, people who had set themselves apart for a specific purpose for periods of time; to keep a vow before God.

The whole of these first 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 Numbers 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 committed to Himself.

Brethren, the very last thing that will be done at this Feast of Tabernacles, on the Last Great Day before the final prayer, is this blessing that we are going to read in Numbers 6:22. God commanded this to be ministered by the Levites to His people. 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 have 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:

Numbers 6:22-27 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: "Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, 'This is the way you shall bless the children of Israel. Say to them:

"The LORD bless you and keep you.

The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.

The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

So they shall put My name on 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!

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