[Darris McNeely] I have a question for you this morning as we begin, a very simple question. You can write down the answer on your page, or just keep a mental note, or you can just ignore the question. But I don't want you to ignore the question, please engage, participate, nod, stand up, walk out, whatever signals your involvement here. Here's the question. Are you in the true Church of God? Are you in the true Church of God?

I know we got out of our cars here his morning, we turned and came down to this side of the parking lot. Rather than to all the other music was going, and to the other… our congregation having their service here this morning. We know where we are to go. We know where we are to assemble. We know why we are here. But as we are here, are you in the true church of God? Yes, no, or I guess I'll give you a third option, you don't know. You could put that one down as well.

Why would you say yes? Why would you say no? The why behind your answer is as important as the answer you may have formulated already in your mind. We'll come back to that question. But let's talk about the day of Pentecost for a moment. This is a festival of God as I said. It kind of falls right in the center of everything. We've had two Holy Days before. We will have four more after this. But it's kind of in the center in one sense. It looks back where this festival begins, actually, the count towards it begins during the Days of Unleavened Bread. And as my son was bringing out his message yesterday, we really can't get here without going through the Days of Unleavened Bread.

Then we point then toward the greater fall harvest of the Holy Days as they are pictured by Trumpets, Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles, and the Eighth Day. In Leviticus 23, we find where all of the Holy Days were mentioned, and we find the reference to this particular day, which gives us even the symbolism that is important. Let's just read this one. Verse 15, it begins, "You shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed."

This is the Sabbath that falls within the Days of Unleavened Bread, and the count begins from the morning after that Sabbath and we count seven weeks, 49 days. And then we count the 50th day which is today after the seventh Sabbath, the seventh complete week. And then we are to “offer a new grain offering to the Lord. You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves and two-tenths of an ephah. And they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven. They are the firstfruits to the Lord."

Two loaves of bread that are called firstfruits as an offering that was to have been made under the system of the priesthood, and the tabernacle as they came to this day. It came as it was designed at the end of an early harvest that began with that wave sheaf offering, nothing technically could be harvested until that wave sheaf offering was made before God.

And then there's a small early harvest which comes to completion about this time with the day of Pentecost. And the grain from that harvest makes up these two loaves that are important in their symbolism for the nation of Israel, and then for the New Testament church. And so we've come to this point as we are gathered here. It gives us, as I said, the name or the symbolism of firstfruits here within this. Firstfruits are very, very important. There's a lot that is mentioned throughout Scripture, the Old Testament especially, and the New Testament regarding the firstfruits.

We can look at several scriptures just to quickly be reminded of just how important this was. First of all, under the Old Testament system that God gave to Israel, He said that the firstfruits of the harvest of everything belonged to Him. They were the firstfruits of the land. In Exodus 23:19, it says, "The first of the firstfruits of your land you will bring to the house of the Lord your God." And these would be the firstfruits of grain, of wine, and of the oil: the basic commodities of the life of that time and still quite important to us today. We've become a foodie generation.

And as we know if we go to Jungle Jim's or Trader Joes, or some other type of, you know, upscale market, all kinds of oils, and wines, and grains, and foods that are touted to be the finest are available for us to buy. Should we choose to put out the extra money to make us feel good and whatever it might be, and it may not be any better than Aldi’s. But we feel good about ourselves if we do that, right?

But it's the basic stuff of life, and God says “The first of that comes to Me. The first of the firstfruits comes to Me." So they belong to God, number one. Number two, they were to be the best. They were to be the best. And the firstfruits, again, would be the best. Again, going back, if you know anything about olive oil, they say the first pressing of the olive oil is what is the finest. And if you can afford that, you want to buy a bottle of first press. It's better than anything else that comes. And that makes sense. As the harvest of fruit or grain or other fruits come in, the first is going to be the finest of the season. But God says the firstfruits were the best of the best. And he said, "You bring that best to Me."

In Numbers 18:12, we're very close by, we can read that, Numbers 18:12. He said, "All the best of the oil, all the best of the new wine and the grain, their firstfruits which they offer to the Lord, I have given them to you." I may have turned a little bit quicker than some of you got there. I'm not like Mr. Britt. I didn't cheat by having it open there. But the best, the firstfruits were the best of these matters.

Now within this system, God said of His nation Israel, they are a firstfruit. In Jeremiah 2, God calls it the nation that he called, and chose, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And He had called out of Egypt to make a nation of His own, a special and holy people. He makes a statement about them in Jeremiah 2, beginning in verse 1. He says to the Prophet, verse 2. "Go and cry in the hearing of Jerusalem, saying, 'Thus says the Lord: I remember you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothal, when you went after Me in the wilderness in a land not sown. Israel’” verse 3, “'was holiness to the Lord, the firstfruits of His increase. All that devour him will offend; disaster will come upon them,' says the Lord."

In the midst of this prophecy about their idolatries, God reminded them of really who they were and the essence of their life. They were the firstfruits, and so the firstfruits belonged to God. They were to be the best. They were given to the priesthood and the Levite's for their use. But there was a spiritual meaning behind that and as God applied it to the nation, they were the firstfruits. They had a very, very special place in His plan, and in His purpose above all the nations for that moment and that time.

And we don't need to, you know, get into all the details, Israel, by their D.N.A. was not any better than any other nation or people, that wasn't it. It was only because of their being chosen by God, and that they couldn't even take credit for. That was done because their father, Abraham, had proven himself faithful to God and the promises there. And God shows Abram, for His reason above any others in Mesopotamia at that moment, and Abram went, it said, and he obeyed. And because of the faithfulness and the promises, then it passed on to the generations, and Israel was chosen for a unique role.

Again, not because they were special, they were not to get puffed up by it, but they were firstfruits. Now that is what this part of it tells us. As we come into our time and our place in the story of God's plan, we come to the Church and we know that, and can understand, that we, in the Church, are firstfruits as well. That firstfruit designation that was upon Israel has passed to the Church. In Romans 8, Mr. Creech was, in part, earlier part of the chapter. Let's read another section of it here in Romans 8.

As Paul understood very well what Israel was to God historically and in that part of the plan, he brings that now into his description of those who are led by the Spirit and are part of the Church in verse 23. Not only that, he says, "but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body." And so as he speaks to the Church and gives us spiritual instruction, we find that the Church, those who have the Spirit of God. Those who are led by that Spirit are then designated as firstfruits.

And in James 1:18, this is given as well. James 1:18 where he says, "Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of God… by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures." And so, here in two spots, two places, we find God, how he describes those who are his, just as Israel was his for a time and a place, so are those who are led by the Spirit of God are firstfruits as well.

The Spirit connection is very important. In Acts 2, we know that it was on the day of Pentecost that the Church was gathered as Christ had instructed them to wait in Jerusalem. "Be there on the day of Pentecost you will be imbued with powers," as he said. "And as they were gathered together," Acts 2 tells us, all of the signs of fire and wind, and the tongues and the exuberance came upon them, they spoke in languages and the church began. This group of people then met their calling and their destiny at that moment on the day of Pentecost, and the story then begins.

And so when we look at firstfruits, when we look at this connection to the day of Pentecost, when we look at its connection to Israel, and to the body of God's people, the elect, we see something. We see that there is a group of firstfruits that God has always been working with. And those firstfruits are his. Firstfruits are special. They are best not because of their inherent abilities, D.N.A. or whatever, but because of their designation and their purpose to which God has called them. And he was working with Israel, and he is working with a group of people today.

And so the question comes down to us, are we a part of that group? Are you a part of that group? Are you a part of the firstfruit? Are we a firstfruit? The question to consider today. Another question is, what exactly is God doing? What is God doing? So we go about our lives and, again, I was just struck as I turned off of 275 and came North here this morning, of how many different church buildings we passed by. I saw people pulling in, some pulling in to one… more pulling into one I noticed and another one that was on my left-hand side, it's parking lot was almost empty. I don't know why but just differences there.

And then we pulled into our parking lot and we got… as we have been here before we know that there's another congregation, a group of people with our facility here. And then we come into ours and we wonder what is being done? What is God doing? Why are we here? And who are we? God is preparing something. He is actually preparing to restore His rule to this earth. And the fullness of His Kingdom will be brought to this earth through the appearance of Jesus Christ. We're told that in Acts 3, well-known verse to us. Acts, the third chapter, as Peter give us his second sermon that is at least recorded here in the book of Acts, very similar to the one he gives in chapter 2.

But he comes down in verse 21 of chapter 3 as he speaks of Jesus Christ who had been among them, and known by his works, it was preached to them. In verse 21, he says, "whom heaven must receive until the times of the restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all of His prophets since the world began.” God is in the business of preparing to restore to this earth His rule, His presence, the fullness of His Kingdom. And through every age of mankind, God has been preparing a people to work His will on this earth. That's what He has been doing. That is what Scripture tells us.

A beautiful passage is found back in Ephesians 1. Ephesians, the first chapter, I guess if I had one chapter that somebody asked, "What's your favorite part of the Bible?" if you can have that, or whatever, I've gravitated toward Ephesians, the first chapter, through the years, for a number of reasons. But if we look at verse 9, as it begins to extol the work of the Father and of Jesus Christ, as Paul brings it out here. He says in verse 9, "having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth  — in Him."

If I can just summarize what is around these two verses in greater detail, but seemed to be compacted in some of the most informative two verses of all in the Bible. There is a mystery of God's will that Paul is bringing out to the people. And that God has purposed in Himself to, in the fullness of times, gather together in one all things in Christ, all things in heaven and our own earth, in Christ. It is being gathered together. There's an ingathering if you want to use that term. There's a bringing together for a purpose. God is doing something. He has always been doing something from the very beginning.

Human life, the very planet on which this life exists, and all of the universe to best of our astronomical knowledge, even to this day, is the only spot in the universe, at least the observable universe for us humans, where the conditions for life as we know it can exist. Forget all the other questions and the what ifs and this and that, yes, I know. But for our intents and purposes and who we are, and what we understand and what the Bible tells us, this is it. This is the place where life has been planted.

And that has been put here for a purpose. And the Scriptures tell us what that purpose is. And we have faith, and we believe that, that God is bringing together all things in Christ in heaven and earth. And He has been working at that from the time that Adam and Eve took the first breath of life as sentient human beings on this planet, and that is being done. And here we are, and we ask ourselves, "Are we part of the Church of God?” We ask ourselves, "Why are we here?" And we think about that. God has always been preparing a people.

In Hebrews 11, the faith chapter, Paul takes us back to the time of Noah in verse 7, Hebrews 11:7. And he says of Noah that “By faith Noah… prepared an ark for the saving of his household,” we’re told later that 8 people. Noah prepared the ark because God told him to. So through Noah, God prepared that ark at that point in the story. There was an ark that was prepared. Something was done to prepare to save a people.

Also in Hebrews 11, it says that “He has prepared a city for them." Speaking of a heavenly Jerusalem. He has prepared a city. He prepared of an ark through Noah. He has prepared a place, a city, for them. In Hebrews 11:39-40, he said, "God has provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.” Speaking of all of the people who were enumerated in chapter 11. That they will not be made perfect, they will not achieve their salvation, their glory, apart from us.

And in a sense, that's true because we'll all get there at that same point in time, in the moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the sounding of the last trump. We'll be there when Abraham's there, and will rise together as Thessalonians tells us. But the point is, God has provided again. He provided something. He has always provided. He has always been preparing.

In Luke 1:17, and speaking of John the Baptist and his ministry before Christ's ministry, Luke 1:17. It says God was in the process of making “ready a people prepared for the Lord.” John the Baptist prepared for Christ. Christ came and did His work. But in the process of it all, Luke 1:17 tells us that a people were being made ready, prepared for the Lord. God has always been preparing something for a particular phase of His work.

And ultimately as again back in Ephesians 1 tells us to bring all things together in Him, in Christ through that work of Christ gathering all things. And again, keep that in mind as we think about the firstfruits and the plan of God. In John 14… John the 14th chapter as Jesus kept the Passover with His disciples the evening before His death… John 14, He said, "In My Father's house," in verse 2, "are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." Even as He left them physically, through His death, resurrection, then, ultimately, His final ascension, He said, "I'm going to prepare a place for you."

Through Noah God prepared an ark, He's prepared a city, He prepared for the ministry of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ to prepare a people. He's preparing for that people today that work of preparation has been going on throughout the whole plan of God. This is what the Scripture tells us. And that's very important today. As He has been doing from the beginning, He's preparing a people as the firstfruits of His salvation. That's what He's doing. Which means as we look at the scriptures on this, we've just touched the surface on it in an overview, what it means is this. There's a group. There is a group of people at any given point in time as God begun His work from the beginning to this very moment in 2018. There's been always a people, a group, an elect, a bride, if you will, in preparation. There has always been a group of firstfruits set apart and given to God for a special purpose, the best through God's design and through God's purpose.

There has always been, from Acts 2 when the Church began, there has always been a church, always. So many scriptures point to this, this foundational truth that is pictured by this festival, this Feast of Firstfruits. In Matthew 13, Jesus made one of the most enigmatic statements that He could make, that we really can never forget, the parable of the sower in the seed in Matthew 13, which tells us so much about what God is doing in terms of the calling and why some hear and others don't, why some respond and others don't.

And He says in Matthew 13, and He gave a parable, the disciples said to Him, "Why are you speaking in such vague language? Didn't you take speech 101? Didn't you go through spokesman's club?" Be crystal clear, we're taught there. And He said in verse 11, "To some, it is given the opportunity to know the things of the kingdom of God. To some, and to others not. That's why I spoke in parables. " And to understand it is very, very important. Christ did not intend that all would understand his teaching. And we know there were just a very few that were there when the day of Pentecost came and the church started.

The church began to multiply in that period of time, but it never became large. And it became persecuted, and it then began to decline in terms of numbers and after we… you know, at certain points it just kind of nearly disappears from at least the written records that we have. Christ promised that He would always be with the Church, has always stood true and has never faded. There's always been that group of people.

In 1 Timothy 3:15, the apostle Paul describes that church as the pillar and the ground of the truth, the pillar and the ground of the truth. That is so important. That is so vital. And so the firstfruits, the people that God has been calling… You know, I've been in the ministry 45 years and I have known a lot of people in the service of the ministry, and it has been a blessing.

I was thinking about that as I prepared this message. I have to say that I've known a lot of firstfruits, I have been able to minister to and serve and get to know a lot of firstfruits through the years. And it's a remarkable, remarkable thing as I was thinking about this and looking back over them. My mind conjured up an individual, a man that came into the Church before I ever left my home in Missouri and went off to Ambassador College. He was the brother of one of our next-door neighbors. And in those years were just so tickled to death to, you know, not only get a new person out of my hometown where I grew up, we were the only ones and here was another one coming into the Church and it was the brother of our next-door neighbor.

He came over because she knew that we were part of this church, and they came over and we met him, got to talking, came to church. He got baptized, and a few weeks after he got baptized, he got cancer and within a year he died. And I've always wondered about this gentleman. You know, why? Just came in the Church, got cancer and then he died. Through the years, I always kind of thought about him. I think that man found the pearl of great price. He became a firstfruit. As God was working with him at that time, he came to a point where he was fully ripe, spiritually, in a very short period of time. I know that because God doesn't make mistakes on those matters.

My early years in the ministry in North Carolina, we had a visit request from a lady and we found her in an old mill town. In North Carolina, they had old mill towns. In West Virginia, they were called mining towns, towns owned by the company, or by the mine company. This lady was living in a rundown mill town type house, barely had running water in there. And she was a widow, and she could barely see but she'd seen enough to read and to want to be a part of the Church. We found her, and one of the first things we did was to get her out of that wretched place she was living in.

No family, nobody else taking care of her. We got her into a nice government subsidized type apartment. And that woman expressed so much gratitude for what the Church and the members did for her to lift her standard of living when she had no family. It was a perfect illustration of the Scripture that God places us all in families. And I'd moved out of the area and lost track of her. She's long since died. I'm sure she died in the faith. But I know that that woman learned gratitude, and that may have been maybe the one singular feature of her life that God in His working with her wanted her to come to and to learn. And she was very, very thankful for some of the basic things, as well as for the truth of God.

I read the Scripture that the pillar in the ground of the truth. That's what the Church is, the Church of the living God, it says. Where is it? Who is it, if I can put it that way? And as I asked you at the beginning, are you a part of the one true Church? So what was your answer? Yes, no, don't know. To the question, are you in the true Church of God? You know, we used to have a pretty simple answer for that, the church I grew up in. “Yes, and it's this church!” Or what we were saying was, “It's this organization is the true Church of God and I'm in it, and it's the one and only original, not to be duplicated Church of God.”

Then it got complicated. I remember when it dawned on me I was pastoring, and a situation arose with an individual and I had to ask the person to stay home for a while. There was cause. After a few weeks, I called the individual because I was concerned and wanted to restore him and hope that he had, you know, come to himself. And I met with him and I said, "How are you doing?" And he said, "I'm doing fine. I've been going across town to this other group, this other church over here, part of the Church of God." And that's when I realized it's not your Father's Church anymore. Things had changed. Things had changed with all the different organizations there.

And I should have known it by that time because, at that point in time, I'd already been disfellowshipped from the church that I grew up in thinking that I was a part of the one original, bona fide, true original, never to be forgotten Church of God. And they disfellowshipped me because I was just teaching the Sabbath, and the Holy Days and wanted to be here on the day of Pentecost like you. But that's when I realized that things were a little bit different.

Let me tell you another story. I was pastoring and I had a couple in my congregation. At that particular point in time, they were in their fourth different Church of God organization. Knowing them as I did then and do now, they felt that they, I'm sure, that as they were in each one of these groups that they were in the one true Church. Because they were in the Church, therefore, the Church they was in was the one true Church, if you can follow the logic. Have you ever had that logic yourself? "Well, the one I'm in, that's the one true Church," right? "And because I'm in it, it's the one true Church."

And today they're in their fifth different organization and they're happy and they're content and that's fine. But they'd only left one of those organizations over doctrine. The other three times that they had left an organization was over issues of personality or family or just confusion. But that's the way things are today in some cases. How does this fit in with the question that I ask you? I said that we used to have a simple answer. It really is still very simple. The answer is still very simple today.

There is one Church. There is only one true Church of God. The one true Church of God is a spiritual organism. The Church defined in Scripture is that body of believers who are led by the Holy Spirit. This is what we say. This is what we have said for 23 years as we defined our fundamental beliefs. The true Church of God is a spiritual organism. It's a spiritual body. It's a body of believers that are being led by the Holy Spirit. And that's pretty simple scripturally. It can be a bit challenging or difficult at times as we human beings get in the way, right? But it's true.

And in Revelation 19:7, we are told something profound that every time we read it, we should kind of pause and ask ourselves a question. Revelation 19:7, it says, "Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready… the marriage of the Lamb has come, and the wife has made herself ready." We had a big wedding yesterday over in England.

All right, unless you had your head in the sand, you have known that was going on. And it was beautiful and pageant and only as the British monarchy can do it, did they do it. But there's a bigger one coming and right now it says here the Bride has made herself ready which means that it's being done today. That's what that verse tells me every time I read it, is yes, there will be a marriage as defined here and there's a lot of details we just don't know about it. I know I've talked to some people who think they've got every detail of the marriage supper worked out, and I'm sorry, but let's find out when we get there, okay? And then we'll know.

What this verse tells me is that the Bride is being put together right now. The Church is being prepared as a bride for the marriage supper. Then that leads always… and I say, “Darris, there's one question for you to ask yourself is this. Are you a part of that preparation? Or are you not?” It's kind of these binary questions, yes or no, on or off, either you are or you're not. Either you're a part of the Bride that is being prepared for this event or you're not.

Now all the scriptures that I've read, gleaned through, and that you have as well, told us that the firstfruits are those people who are being prepared. Just as God has been preparing all along through the ages through an ark, through a ministry of John the Baptist and Christ, a city in the future, God has always been preparing to bring everything together, all things in heaven and earth together in Him, in Christ. We're either part of it or we're not. That's the question.

And as we sit here today, on the Feast of Pentecost, God the Father and Jesus Christ is making this happen. That is a surety that we can hang our hats on and take it to the bank. The Scripture is true. There is a Church, the spiritual Body of Jesus Christ. That Church is not divided by schism, sectarian strife, or doctrinal confusion. That Church has Jesus Christ as the living head. And the living Jesus Christ stands in the midst of that Body, directing it, molding it, and shaping it to His image. Christ is the head of that Church. Christ is preparing the people.

And Christ knows His works. He knows exactly what He's doing. And He's searching the minds and the hearts. And Christ is knocking on the door of those who seek to keep Him out of their life, saying that "If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him and he with Me." And all of this is being done by the resurrected Jesus Christ by the good pleasure of the will of the Father, who is gathering all things in heaven and earth in Christ. That's being done. This is what the Scriptures tell us.

Again, the question is, are we part of what God is preparing today? Yes or no? Are you? Are you a part of that? And what God is doing? It's very simple. As I've said, it's still a very simple question with a very direct answer from Scripture for us to understand. So how do we conduct ourselves then in that Church? Well, 1 Corinthians 2 makes a statement as Paul wrote to the church there. 1 Corinthians 1, I'm sorry. If you go to chapter 2, you're not too far from chapter 1. 1 Corinthians 1:26, Paul says, "For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called." Not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble are called.

I know every time I look at that and apply it to myself, he got that right. In my case, he got that right. So we can't take credit for anything that we have and not know about the plan of God, our calling, and the wonderful gift of His Spirit, and the beauty of the Holy Days, and the plan of God that they tell us. We can't take credit for having ferreted that out, fished it out of the Scriptures by our own wisdom, intellect and ability to read Greek or Hebrew or understand the ancient scrolls or some secret texts that, you know, nobody else can understand.

It's purely by God's grace. And he goes on to tell us that God's chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the mighty. And that describes the firstfruits. It describes whether it was Israel of the Old Testament or the Church in the New Testament. They were foolish back then and the Church from time to time can be foolish as well. We can miss the mark here and there and we need the grace of God to forgive us. But it is a calling as a firstfruit, holy to God by His grace. A group of people who are to be called, who are called, who have been chosen by God's grace and mercy, not because of, again, their abilities, but then we are to be faithful.

And God has a group in Scripture called firstfruits and they are His. And if we have the Spirit of God, then we are part of that group. And the beauty of God's plan is that He knows exactly why He has called each one of us now. He knows why He's called you, and you, and you, and you, every one of us. And everyone that we have known in our past, He knows exactly, because God has called from every age of man, people whom He called and chose by His will and purpose because He knew what He was putting together.

And He's called people from every age who can relate to every part of what has been the human experience on this earth: people who have lived with pain, with loss, with joy, people who've lived with hope, people who died young, people who died old after a full life, people who died in peace in their sleep, and people who died in pain, people who ultimately came to know the essence of life, the purpose of life, and who died in faith.

As I was preparing this I thought… you know, I've got a file in my file cabinet folder that is a record as best I've been able to keep it through 45 years of almost every funeral that I've done. I've kept either the notes of the person that I spoke the words over their grave or the little record that you get, you know, when you go into a funeral home to pay your respects there's always a little record there. But many of them will provide a more detailed record. They call it a clergy record. And I always took those and just tucked them inside my Bible and brought them home and put them into a file. And that file has gotten big through the years.

And I pulled it out last night to look at it because those people represent firstfruits, people that I've worked with and knew in many, many cases. And I started pulling out some of them and found one here from a gentleman, one of the finest men I ever knew in my life, lived in Indianapolis, Indiana, big family. He knew who he was, and the faith that he was called to live. And one of the things that he did before he died, he was a collector of things. That's a fancy word for hoarder. But he collected a lot of things. One of the things he collected was… he had a collection of every Alley Oop cartoon that had ever appeared in the Indianapolis paper. Alley Oop was a cartoon figure for those of us that are fully mature and aged, back in years. Some of you know who I'm talking about.

And he just loved Alley Oop and he kept them all. And he realized a few weeks before he died that there was one missing. So he had his oldest son taking downtown to the Indianapolis Star Newspaper, so that he could go through the microfiche. That's what we had even then 22 years ago. And he printed a copy of the one that he knew was missing, brought it back home and put it into his album. So that he completed that. I remember speaking at his funeral, and I said, Gordon finished his race and he wanted everything complete, even to the last Alley Oop cartoon.

I think God knows exactly the moment when it is right for us to go to sleep, and to be ready for that next moment of glory. He knows exactly. When we don't, and when we may not even think we are or our loved one or whatever, but God knows. I found another obituary of a gentleman, an elder, one of the finest elder's I've ever served with.

As I thought about him, I thought he knew what Israel should do in their time. He was counted as one of the founding elders of the United Church of God 23 years ago. Outside of my father and my father-in-law, my wife's dad, a handful of people whose esteem I highly, highly valued in life. You know, there's some people that you don't want to disappoint them. This was one elder who's esteem meant more… as much as only a handful of people to me in my life.

He knew what to do when Israel needed to move, the Israel of God, the Church. And when he died, I was able to do his funeral and talk about his life, another firstfruit sealed and ready for that time. I pulled out any number of them here. There was one that I found that I had… I remember it in my earliest years in the ministry. I was still a neophyte, in many ways. And we had a young man who was wanting to go to Ambassador College, and he'd been working to save his money to go to Ambassador College that was his big dream, and his big goal. And he was working one day, and I won't go into all the details, but he got shot. He got killed instantly because of a family quarrel that he kind of stepped into as a land surveyor and property rights.

A deranged man stepped out from behind a bush. He was the last one in the line of surveyors and he got the bullet. And it just rocked our congregation 18, 19 years old, his whole lifetime ahead of him. And I still have the handwritten notes from comments that I made at his funeral. He was baptized. He sleeps until that time. God knows why he's called each one of us from the ages of human experience. And what he's doing with us, and what qualities that he knows that are ours to perfect, if you will, through His Spirit, to be placed in that place that Christ said He's preparing for each one of us.

And He's preparing people from every age. And as I said, people will be able to understand as they come up in resurrection, that period of the Great White Throne and all of these firstfruits that have been called from every age who have lived through different experiences, and those who died in pain will be able to identify with others who died in pain. Those who died young will be able to identify with the young as well. And those who died by tragedy in a shooting, like our young man did, will be able to identify in his age with an 18 or 19-year-old high school kid who today or next week, unfortunately, or next year will lose their life and not graduate because of evil that might walk into their school or someplace where they just happen to be.

God has prepared for every conceivable need to comfort, to console, to provide someone who will be there when those people come up in the resurrection. There will be someone who has gone through something similar and has perfected in their own life, those particular qualities by the Spirit of God as a firstfruit. And they will be able to take that person by the hand and say, "This is the way. Let's walk in it. Let's walk in this way. Let me show you. I understand. My life was cut short too.” “We lost our child," or "We died in this particular way in war," and they will know because God and His perfect plan, has provided for that.

And so as we read the Scripture, do you see your calling? We have a calling to fulfill. Every morning brings an opportunity for each one of us to take that calling deeper into our life. And we need to be sure and ask God for the ability to use the time of our life for these things, the Kingdom today. It is a moment of time that God has placed us in.

Last year, I encouraged you to tend to the relationships that we have. I was able to speak again on the Feast of Pentecost last year. I mentioned that we needed to tend to our relationships with those that we love, those that we know. That thought is still in my mind today, a year later, and I hope that it is in yours. I wanted to bring it back to our attention because I realize even more so after the past 12 months, just how deeply God is working. God is building a fellowship of the heart. He's building a fellowship of the heart.

Sometimes I think that that may be the hallmark feature for us all to come up to in faith at this time, maybe a unique role as firstfruits. Christ did say that "By this, all men shall know you are My disciples if you have loved one for another." I know that love only can begin in the heart and manifest itself, but we do need to tend to our relationships and learn to understand and to love one another.

A few months ago, Debbie and I decided that we needed to tend to our relationships that we've had through the years. As I say, we've had a number of them, and each one of these still represents people who are still in the faith, still in the Church and others that are going about their way, perhaps not a part of the Church but having been touched by the Church and by the life of their parents. And I say again today, God’s not done with us. He has placed us in each other's lives, and we have to continue to work in that way.

We decided that we needed to tend to the relationships. And so we've decided to make the opportunity and not pass an opportunity to contact someone and drive out of our way if we're heading somewhere and have lunch with somebody that we may have known from 35, 40 years ago, or to make a phone call. And do what we can to sit down and say, "How are you doing?" because we don't know if we'll ever get that opportunity again.

And no matter where we are in age, or in our life, don't take for granted those opportunities to tell your best friend that you love them, to tell your mate, your children, to give them that hug. Don't lose any opportunities to make contact, make the time, go out of your way, spend the money to make it happen. Spend the time of your life and don't say, "Well, we'll do it next time," or, "We'll do it on the next trip," or, "I'll get to that later." No, do it now.

Go have a meal, make an extra trip. Don't worry about the money, and don't worry about the time. The time is the most important thing. Tend to those relationships. God is creating a fellowship of the heart and that is an important matter for the firstfruits and the calling that we've all been given. We are part of the true Church of God if we are led by God's Spirit and if that Spirit is creating that love, and that care, and that concern, and those tightly knit bonds of fellowship within our lives.

Live like you believe you're a part of the true Church of God. And let that understanding transform your life. And let it be the reason that you get out of bed every morning. And seize that opportunity, and let the power of Christ's life in you cause you to live a life of faith and a life of confidence as a firstfruit.