Let’s look at a scripture. It’s in Psalms 42:4. David said:

Psalms 42:4 – When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me; for I used to go with the multitude; I went with them to the house of God with the joy of praise, and with a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast. A pilgrim feast. So, the three holy days in the fall – Trumpets, Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles. They had to travel to Jerusalem for those. So, this term tells us that one aspect of the Feast pertains to the trip that we take to get to it. It stands for something. 

We’re pilgrims. We’re on a sojourn. We’re trying to get someplace of spiritual significance. And, in ancient times, in a four-mile-an-hour world, feastgoers would leave sometimes after Trumpets to get to Jerusalem in time for the Feast. They were pilgrims, bound for Jerusalem and the Feast of Tabernacles. And for us today, traveling to the Feast expands to include our life’s journey into God’s Kingdom. Even going to the Feast has spiritual significance. 

It turns out that this journey, and while we’re on it, is one of the most astounding and most relevant proofs of God of all the proofs there are. And while we’re traveling God’s road as Christian pilgrims, I think we all know where we’re going – the Kingdom of God. Right? But what is God doing with us while we’re on the way? Well, here’s a spoiler alert for you: He’s not wasting His time. He’s not twiddling His thumbs and waiting for us to get somewhere. He’s working on us while we journey. 

So, on your journey, what has God done with you in this past year? What’s your story? Can you pinpoint anything that God has done in your life? Are these things He’s working on you with? Well, one of the things we’re going to do today is take a look back and see if we can make sense of what God has been trying to accomplish in our lives since last Feast. We’re on a pilgrim festival journey, right? So, you can do that while I explain more about how to do it and give you some things to look for. 

Now, to do this, you can be any age. This is a sermon for everybody who can understand what I’m saying today – even those of you who are younger. And you certainly can understand and think about your past. And, if we’re going to find anything when we look back over this last year, it would be good to know that God, as He works with us, uses a process. And it’s the same for all of us and yet, unique to each one of us. 

So, let’s look at the process that God uses. The first part of the process we call, and God calls, a calling. Now, what is that? Well, a calling is information about God that comes to us. It’s like an invitation. “Would like to come to my party? It’s going to be on Tuesday at 8 pm. The dress is casual. There’s going to be lots of good food, music and snacks. So, let us know if you’re coming by Monday, so we can save a place for you and have enough food for you to eat.” In this analogy, the party is the Kingdom of God and eternal life in God’s family. Many people get the invitation from God through their parents. I got my invitation from God through a man on the radio. But the invitation usually does come through some person, though not always. Sometimes, it comes right out of the Bible. But it’s information about God and His party, usually getting passed to you through other people. So, which way was it for you? Did you learn about God from your family or through others? 

Notice something that Peter said: This is Acts 2 – he’s preaching the very day that they all received the Holy Spirit. Listen to what he says:

Acts 2:39 – For the promise is to you and for your children, and to all those afar off – he’s talking about Gentiles there – as many as the Lord our God calls to Himself. 

So, if a person is a member of the church, it’s because God called them into it. So, this promise is for you and for your children and for all who are afar off. So, there are three categories of called people here: you, children, everybody else. And if God is calling you, He has also extended an invitation to you. And God uses the way that’s best for every, so don’t wish you had been called some other way. God gave you what you needed. His best chance to have you answer the invitation and say you’ll come. 

Okay. So, we learn about God somehow – parents, or men on the radio – like me – or some other way – and we have to decide whether we’re going to go to the party. So, the next phase in God’s plan that He’s working on us with now, as we travel through life toward the Kingdom, is called repentance. Once we’ve received the invitation, we have a decision to make. Will we go to the party or not? And we have time to think about it. But, if we put off deciding too long, it could be too late. 

Monday – the day that we have to RSVP – might come and go before we know it. So, too late to RSVP. If we don’t acknowledge that we’re coming, there’s no place for us there. Responding to the RSVP is the equivalent to being baptized in the analogy. If we want to go to the party, ever since we got that invitation, then we have to communicate to God that we’re committed to attend – that is, we have to go to the effort to tell the party host we intend to come. So, we do that by getting baptized. It’s likely the minister asked you when you were baptized, “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Master and soon coming King?” And, if we do, that means that we’re willing to live by His ways while we’re on our way to the party. So, it’s a commitment to attend God’s party. Being baptized, actually, is a symbol – a action we take to indicate that something has been going on inside us for quite some time, probably. So, it’s not that when we’re baptized something different happens immediately. It’s already been happening. We’ve been coming to the realization that we need to RSVP that we want to be in the Kingdom. So, it’s a commitment, then, to attend the party. And, in reality, a person who repents – and that mean to change – to make a change in the way we live our lives – where we’re walking down the road of life according to our own desires, and that means we have to turn around and walk a different direction, and we’re going to follow God’s ways now. That’s what we’re saying. And so, yeah, we want to gain eternal life. We want to be at that party. 

Okay, so what’s next after that? Well, no one can go to the party unless they’re sin free. God doesn’t like sin. He’s alienated by it. He doesn’t invite people that He doesn’t think are ready to be in His Kingdom and His family. So, the problem is, we’ve all committed lots of sins. So, we need to be justified, because we are all sinners. So, there’s another term in the Bible for that, and that’s called justification. That’s when we’re washed clean and never have to worry about our sins again. Justification. We’re now under the blanket of God’s grace – saved from our sins, protected by God. Our sins are not charged against us ever again. So, can a person be forgiven if they have not been baptized? Well, it says that children of converted parents are “holy” – set apart for God’s purpose. Jesus also said, “If you believe, you’ll be saved.” So, baptism – if taken the way God means it – is a public sign of something that’s been going on in us for some time – quite often, from childhood. So, it’s not something to fret about. God doesn’t think like we, sometimes, think. If we’re a child of people who are members of the church, we’re in full status. 

But what then? What comes next after justification and being cleaned of our sins? Well, pilgrim travelers – to go back to our analogy here – travel through life, don’t they? They’re on a road to God’s Kingdom party. What does that look like? Do we just muddle down the road until we stumble into God’s Kingdom at the resurrection? Well, that’s what some of us are hoping to do, but that’s not what God wants. No. What is God doing with us while we travel through life? There’s a term for it. It’s called sanctification. Now, that means He’s making us sanctified, or clean – holy. He’s perfecting us. He’s changing us into something like Himself. There are two aspects to this term. One aspect is a sudden perfecting at the resurrection when they finally arrive at the party. It’s by fiat – a miracle. Our bodies change in an instant at the last trumpet to immortal beings, perfect in body and mind with God’s nature completely. Let’s look a little bit about that in 1 Corinthians 15:42:

1 Corinthians 15:42-44 – So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable –we’re born and we’re physical – what is raised is imperishable – when we’re resurrected, we’re going to be imperishable. We won’t die. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. So, we were born human and subject to Satan the devil and his influence on us in the world. And when we’re resurrected into God’s Kingdom – when we arrive at the party – we’re raised in glory. We’ll be eternal. And we will be without weakness. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body – no longer thinking physically, but thinking spiritually with a spiritual body. So that is pictured by the Feast of Trumpets at Christ’s return when the entire church, through all ages, is resurrected to eternal life at the seventh trumpet. 

So, this part includes the millennial reign of Christ on the earth, and that’s been called God’s rest. So, at this point the trip is over. We have arrived. Let the party begin. Right? And all the people who are going to live in the millennium under, who are still physical, they’re still traveling, but for those of us that God called in this age, and have endured to the end, we will be resurrected and we’ll be in the party. We’ll be at the party at that point. 

Now, the second aspect of sanctification is the one that we’re working on today. Here’s the definition of it: Sanctification is the ongoing supernatural work of God to rescue justified sinners from sin and to conform them to the image of His Son – Christlike and empowered to do good works. Got it? So, there’s a process that’s ongoing. It’s not all going to happen at the resurrection for us – perfection – but He’s perfecting us now. He’s doing a supernatural work in each one of us. You know, it’s been said, “Every Christian is a miracle.” Well, that’s why. God is changing us from natural to spiritual and from mortal to immortal. And He’s changing our character in the way that we think about things. He’s going to rescue people who have sinned and who are justified and conform them to the image of His Son – Christlike and empowered to do good works. That’s what’s going on now. 

It says in the Bible that the angels couldn’t understand what was going on until the church came and they started realizing how God is starting to perfect people, even before the resurrection. I saw an amazing documentary about Billy Graham not too long ago. I don’t believe this quote was in it, but it is a very important quote that he has made. He said, “Being a Christian is more than just an instantaneous conversion. It’s a daily process whereby you grow to be more and more like Christ.” That quote is on the front page of the LifeResource website, because our website is dedicated to sanctification. That’s one of the things it’s about. Because in a sanctifying environment, that helps children – to become more Christlike and to build faith with Christ. So, as a youth advocacy ministry, we have to focus a lot on the whole church becoming perfected or sanctified. And we have a place on our site where anyone can go and find support and tools to draw closer to God – to get in step with His plan for us and to grow spiritually to be more like Christ. 

Now, sanctification in the resurrection – that part of it – happens instantly. But the part we’re talking about now – where you grow to be more and more like Christ every day – that’s a process, isn’t it? It’s something that God does, not you, not me. We get to yield to it, but we don’t run the program. We don’t decide what we’re going to work on today. If we do, it’s because God put it in our minds. That’s God’s job. It’s what He does. And it happens as we pilgrims walk around the road of life on our way into His Kingdom. And that journey – I’m repeating it again – that we take to go to the Feast pictures that walk that we walk. As it happens, like with our forefathers when they came out of Egypt, we have to go through the desert sometimes to get there, where it’s seriously hot and dry, and the road is hard to find, and no water. And then there are always the snakes. Right? So, sometimes life is hard for us. And that’s by design. Once in a while we get to walk by cool mountain streams in our life, but most of the time, life is hard. But there’s even more to it. If we know God is changing us, we, in our gratitude for Christ’s sacrifice for us, will want to get in step with the process and start taking an active part in it. 

What has happened to you in the past year that makes you a bit more like Jesus Christ? How can you take part in a process if you’re not even aware that it’s happening or don’t understand what’s going on? Is there anything you’ve been trying to change about yourself? Maybe, if we live our lives like we know that’s what God is doing with us, we might be able to put our finger on something. And, when we do that, something awesome starts to happen to us. 

As I speak these things, I’m not thinking that most people won’t be able to find anything. I think most of us will absolutely know something is going on there. And something awesome starts to happen for us when we’re aware that it is. We become more sure that we are God’s, and God is ours. “He’s working on me! He’s working on me. He’s changing me. He’s putting the pressure on me. I’m not a lost cause.” God’s working with us and in us is the best kind of proof of God, because it’s in us – not proof to anybody else, but it’s a personal thing between us and God. 

Now, I’m not talking about being happy that you’ve been selected to make the coffee at church, or even to be a minister and preach, or be ordained, or to hold any responsibilities in the congregation. I’m talking about being able to see our own sins more clearly – to be less self-righteous, less judgmental, more respectful and inclusive of those who are younger or older – or anybody who is not quite like we are – more willing to delay our plans to help someone in crisis, more empathic, more considerate, more patient, more generous, more lowly in heart, more gentle, more mellow, slower to get angry, more loving, and, at the same time, stronger and able to stand up for God and His way. You know what we’re talking about here – the fruits of the Spirit – God in us. 

So, where are you in God’s process? Even if you realize that you have some weaknesses, that’s God at work too. You used to think you were okay. Now, not so much. 

So, what’s next, then? Well, most of us are in the sanctification stage. God’s working on us. But notice what it says in Romans 12:1:

Romans 12:1 – I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

See, we don’t offer sacrifices of animals or grain or things like that to God. We offer ourselves. We’re a living sacrifice. “Here I am, God. Do with me what You will.” What does that mean – present your bodies a living sacrifice? Well, it can be as simple as getting up in the morning and saying, “Here I am, God. Teach me how You’d like me to be today.” That’s presenting yourself to God for change, if you really mean it, and then look for what He’s going to do.

Let’s say your boss ridicules you in front of your team at work, or that mean girl at school rolls her eyes at you and makes fun of you again. Do we secretly wish we could strangle them in our sleep? Or, do we pray for them and try to do good to them, like Jesus did? You know, one of the things He did with His enemies was avoid them. So, I’m not saying you have to stand there and be a target constantly, or deliberately make of yourself a target. “I’m going to go the mean girl today just so she can roll her eyes at me.” No, Jesus tried to stay away from the people that He had difficulty with, but when confronted, He treated them in a godly way. 

What kind of prayer could we pray about the girl who rolls her eyes at us? Well, we could pray the rabbi’s prayer from The Fiddler on the Roof – that God bless and keep the mean girl far away from us. 

Notice what Paul says next: 

V-2 – Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind – do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. If the mean girl who always rolls her eyes at us comes by, we don’t have to think about her the way we always thought. We can try to be helpful and turn away her wrath. As Paul said, “Heap coals of fire upon her head” by treating her nicely when she treats us meanly. Notice also here that God calls His work a renewal – putting us back where we used to be – like childhood trust and belief that we had when we were younger. Recreating us the way we used to be – the way we were born to be – receptacles of the Holy Spirit – godly children for His family. God is doing His work of transformation in each one of us. But, as the scripture shows, we get to play a part in that transformation. He even did this with Jesus as a human. When He went to the wedding at Cana, His mother came to Him and said, “They have no wine.” He knew what she was saying. And He responded, “Woman, what does this have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.” To which His mother, Mary, turned to the servants and said, “Do whatever He tells you.” So, there was somebody in the room that knew what had to happen, but it wasn’t Jesus at that point.

Has God ever put you in a situation where you had to do the right thing or totally bomb out, and that’s how you learned what the right thing was? Yeah. Right. Every day. Notice what happens when we present ourselves to be made like Christ. Because we’re trying to be more like Christ, God’s law is no longer a restriction. It’s a light. It’s a guide. And sometimes, it’s a really good thing to do – that we enjoy doing.

Difficulties caused by others or ourselves are no longer disasters. They are tests God is giving us to make us more like Him. Or, it’s like running a car through the carwash to get scrubbed up with a lot of hard bristles. Losses we experience in life are no longer tragedies. They are exercises to develop spiritual strength – to learn that God won’t leave us alone, that He’ll be with us. If we know that going in – if we know this is what God is doing with us as we travel to His Kingdom – we are more likely to be like Christ, who went with God in His life instead of like Paul before God called him. And you’ll remember that Jesus, from heaven, said to Paul from heaven, as he was on his way to persecute Christians, “Saul, Saul, why do you always have to do it the hard way? Go where I’m leading you and you’ll have a much easier time of it.” 

So, once we get used to the idea that God is working on us, and we go with it, there’s something else that happens. And that is know that God has a number of tools that He uses to perfect us in His work of sanctification. He’s like a potter using a wheel, or a stone cutter, or a hammer, or a chisel – different tools for different jobs. What are His tools? Well, one of those things is the Holy Spirit. We know that God, by His Spirit, comes to live in us and we know that means we can understand spiritual things. And something else as well: It says, “God with us, the hope of glory.” That’s in Colossians 1:27. 

Colossians 1:27 – To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 

So, the Holy Spirit, causing Christ to be in us – or, Christ, by His Spirit, is in us. So, that’s one tool – He uses the Holy Spirit. The next tool that He uses is the truth, as opposed to lies. The truth will set you free. Notice in John 8:31:

John 8:31-32 – So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples – if you abide in My word – and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” – not just in doctrine, but in every aspect of life, from religion to culture to politics to ourselves. God tells us He desires truth in the inward parts – no self-deception – or the deception of other, for that matter. 

So, denying self-deception and facing up to our sins, our own weaknesses, our social clumsiness, the mistakes we make, it’s freeing and it’s life changing. And we would not know to do that, except for God’s effort in our lives. The devil, who is the father of lies, would be our father instead of God. The question is: Who are we going to listen to? Well, the truth then, is one of the things that God uses to perfect us. 

What next? Let’s go to Ephesians 4:12. I’m going to read this in the King James. 

Ephesians 4:12-13 – For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. 

So, the church is a huge tool that God uses to perfect us. He says it’s for the perfecting of the saints – for our sanctification, as well as for the work of ministry and for teaching the church. The church is sort of sand paper for the soul. It grinds the rough edges off as we rub up against each other in daily contact in social situations. 

I was talking to someone in the ministry years ago. He was talking about a member in his congregation, whom I happened to know. He mentioned that he was somebody that couldn’t get along with anybody. People were okay with him until they got to know him. He was just sort of an irritating, difficult person. Over the years, both of us have noticed that he’s not that way so much anymore.  He’s been rubbed smooth by the brethren. Also, he was a trial that God used for some of the brethren, who aren’t so rough either.

So, the church is a great tool. Of course, if we don’t attend it – we don’t submit ourselves for smoothing – it’s not going to do us any good, is it? 

Here’s another one: Look at Psalms 19:7:

Psalms 19:7 – The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. So, God’s law is something that converts us. It sanctifies us. It changes us. 

What else can we look at? Well, one of the laws in God’s law is the Sabbath – a memorial of who made us. We’re God’s creation. He always loves us and knows what we need more than we do. And we learn that from keeping the Sabbath. Our orientation is toward God who made us, not toward what we think, not self-worship. 

Another one is the annual sabbaths – God’s revelation to us of what He’s doing in the world and with us. I mean, how awesome is that? 

Okay, so that’s a pretty good list, but did anybody notice I’ve left one out? Probably the most obvious of all? Yeah, the Bible. I left that out, because everybody already knows the Bible is one of God’s tools that God uses to transform us. So, read your Bible. Participate in the process. 

So, this is one of those days – the Feast of Trumpets – it’s a festival about the party that we have been invited to, and it signifies getting there and the trip we make to the party – which is this life – of training and molding by God. So, I hope today that you’ve found some things God is working with you on. I hope you all have a safe trip the festival, and good festival as well, and a good life as God leads you toward His Kingdom.