GYC 2025: Seeing the Invisible

GYC Conference 2024: Wherever He Goes

Plenary Sessions

GYC Conference 2023: But If Not

Plenary

Andrew Park

Allison Toktogulova

Kelsey Unruh

Ted N.C. Wilson

Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Interview with the Wilsons

This morning we have a very special programming element that we really wanted to have before Elder Wilson and Mrs.

We have the privilege of interviewing both of them just to get to know them as human beings as they reflect on a life of ministry, asking questions about that, and also asking questions about any advice that they may have for us as young people.

We know this is a privilege and we are expecting to have a blessing.

So why don't we have a word of prayer and we want to utilize as much time as we can to ask all the questions we were able to.

Father in heaven, we thank you for the ministry of Elder Wilson and Mrs.

And as we go into our interview time, we invite the presence of Christ.

We desire for the Holy Spirit to be abiding among us.

And Father, we have a longing to have direction in our lives and you have placed those of experience in our midst that we may receive counsel and direction as we walk the Christian pathway.

So please bless our time and we pray this in Jesus name, amen.

I remember as an attendee the impact of seeing church leadership at GYC, just walking the halls.

And I think it makes a big impact for all of us here.

I wanted to know how many GYCs have you guys attended?

I think I have been at least at 3 if not 4.

Nancy, I'm not quite sure, not that many, but.

Do you remember which years you attended?

I can't remember exactly, but I know 1 specifically was in Baltimore, because that's very close to where we live.

I think I remember seeing you in Phoenix.

And I remember seeing you in Houston in 2016.

Well, you have better memories than we do.

So next question, this is a controversial question in Adventism Today.

How do you order your, how do you layer your haystack?

Nancy is the real cook, so she can at least give her view on that.

Well, I don't think it's very unusual, but we do chips, beans, lettuce, tomatoes, olives, onions, And we add a little extra thing.

I roast sunflower seeds and put nutritional yeast flakes with them and put that on top with some Italian dressing that I make.

And do you crush your chips or do you leave them whole?

Andrew is not a chip crusher, That's what we learned.

It says, if your 20-year-old self were sitting in the audience, what would you tell him or her?

If your 20-year-old self was sitting in the audience.

You know, at 20 years old you have your life before you and It's 1 of those periods of time where everything seems possible.

And the devil is also pulling you in certain directions, so you have to really make a concerted effort to focus on what God wants you to do.

And if you're 20 years old, 18, 19, 21, whatever it is, this is a time when really the Lord is helping to direct you for your entire life.

I think if you are in attendance at GYC, this is 1 of the best things you can do to make sure that the compass is set on Christ and on what He wants you to accomplish.

So your being here in Orlando at this GYC has helped you, whether you recognize it or not, to really get a bearing on what it is God wants you to do.

And slowly He adds certain things into your life to reveal to you what His plan is for you.

Don't just push ahead with everything you think you ought to do.

I had my whole life planned when I was 20.

Asheville, North Carolina, it's a beautiful area.

I was going to get my education, and whoever I married would move back to Asheville with me and I would live there the rest of my life.

I come from a very close family, but the bottom line was I always wanted to do God's will.

I just figured that would be his will, But I would like to tell all of you 20-year-olds and younger and older that you're missing out on an incredible life if you don't let God lead.

I remember we had just gotten married and Ted knew how close I was to my family.

Application, I mean, and I was writing thank yous.

But I will tell you, if the bottom line is that you know you're only happy doing God's will, He will give you the heart to do it.

Yeah, it took about 5 years, so be patient.

And then circumstances happened, and Nancy was much more willing to accept the fact, yeah, let's think about mission service.

I think it actually happened before that, but that 1 fell through.

But anyway, Another thing, I never thought I'd marry a minister, and it was actually when he was past, he pastored a year before we got married, and it took me a month or 2, and I thought, Oh, I have to be a certain way.

And I had been working and I was very adventurous.

And it dawned on me 1 day, the Lord just wanted me to love these people.

And when we left that church, I just cried and cried.

But God can change your heart, and He knows you better than you know yourself.

And I'm very adventurous, I love people, and I realized God gave, He directed our lives just the right way.

Joshua Ahn

Stephen Lee

Thomas Mayhew

Junior Vertus

Anna Wood

ECOM Sabbath School

So this morning, we are going to study the Bible a little bit together.

So GYC, it started not as this big movement of thousands of people, but it actually started as several young people coming together with a desire to get into the Word of God more and to study it as friends with the deep desire to know more of God and to know more about His Word.

And so of course we as the leadership team, this is something that we love to do not just as the leadership team of GYC but we do it as friends.

Right, yesterday I told you a little bit about some of the things that we like, and as we are sharing about those things, we also love to get into the word of God together, and we would love to invite you to do that with us this morning.

And so, just wanna make a quick note and a caveat before.

We do have some wonderful pastors up here.

I am a humble high school teacher, and I don't have a PhD in the Bible or theology or the chemical composition of manna in the book of Exodus or anything like that.

But I do believe that the Holy Spirit can still teach me.

And I believe the Holy Spirit can teach all of us.

And I believe that as we are studying together, we can see the invisible in what we are studying this morning.

And so, you've had a little bit of a preview of what we're gonna study.

You've seen it actually behind us right here.

And we are going to look specifically this morning at the story of the burning bush.

And so we're gonna be looking at Exodus chapter 3.

So I invite you to turn with me in your Bibles or flip there in your phones to Exodus chapter 3.

And as you turn there I'm going to give a little bit of a rundown of Exodus chapter 1 and 2.

I'm sure most of you already kind of have an idea of what happens but there's this guy his name is Moses but before Moses there are these people called the children of Israel and the children of Israel historically were the people of God and they are in captivity in the land of Egypt And so there's this promise that was made a long time ago that God would surely visit his people and raise up a deliverer and Moses parents know this and so does some other people and at this point in time the Pharaoh is trying to slim down the population of the Hebrews and so Moses parents in faith decide to hide Moses in the basket.

Moses has an adventure through the water and eventually lands at the doorstep of the Pharaoh's daughter who adopts him.

And eventually we see this progression of Moses becoming a leader within the land of Egypt.

And so he thinks in his mind, I'm going to now deliver my people from the land of Egypt.

He goes and he makes an action, kill somebody to protect somebody else, And that action is not, essentially it doesn't turn out the way that he wants it to turn out.

And so now he's on the run, Pharaoh's mad at him, the other people are mad at him, and he finds himself in Midian, and that's where we find ourselves in chapter 3.

So that was a quick spark notes version, a rundown of chapters 1 and 2.

I encourage you to read it for yourself if you want some more context from it as well.

But we are now gonna start reading in chapter 3, and we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna read 1 verse at a time starting in chapter 1.

The executive committee doesn't know where I'm gonna stop them, So we're just gonna read until we reach a point and I will let you guys know when.

So we'll start with Andrew over here, starting in verse 1, and we'll just read 1 verse at a time.

Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, And he led the flock to the backside of the desert and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.

And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire, out of the midst of a bush, and he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.

Then Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush doesn't burn.

So when the Lord saw that, he turned aside to look.

God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses.

I was so excited that I forgot that we need to pray before we read the Bible.

I was too excited to get into the Bible, but we need to invite the Holy Spirit.

Heavenly Father God, we thank you so much for giving us this time that we can read your word.

Lord, we want you to be here in this moment.

And so, Father, as we read your word and as we read the pages here, may it not just be pages and words in a book, but Lord, may it be the living word of God that has power to change lives and does not come back to you void.

May it bear much fruit in our lives and in our hearts.

And Father, may the soil of our hearts be prepared to receive the seed of your word.

Please teach us about Moses, teach us about the burning bush, teach us about what all these things that are seemingly confusing mean.

And Father, may it not be me teaching, or us teaching, or us sharing just our own thoughts but Lord may it be you speaking through us and to us and teaching us through your Holy Spirit please be with here be with us here help us to fill your presence we praise thank you so much We pray all these things in Jesus name.

Then he said, do not draw near this place.

Take off your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.

Moreover he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.

And the Lord said, I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.

So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.

Now therefore behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me.

And I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppressed them.

Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

I know they don't really look excited, but trust me, we're all super excited.

And we're going to stop there and look at the first 10 verses together.

And, you know, I have a bunch of questions, but you know what, is it okay guys if I just leave it open?

Can I just like ask you guys, what do you guys see in the first 10 verses?

The first thing that jumps out to me is that this is happening on Mount Horeb, which later in the Bible we see with Elijah and also Mount Sinai.

The mount, which is Mount Horeb, which is Mount Sinai, and that mountain actually comes back a little bit later.

So I do have a point that I saw, but I can't get ahead of myself.

I'm the 1 who set the thing, so I gotta stay within 10%.

So thank you for bringing that up, Kelsey.

I guess a point that I can bring up is this great call that Moses is getting.

And I guess what this speaks for me, and I think for any young person here, is the calling that God has for your life.

It may not come after a worship service per se.

It may not even come in the midst of a Bible study.

It may come in the midst of you just doing simple, ordinary things in life.

And I can go so much further, but for now I'll just throw that in there as discussion.

I was going to say, I know that you have so many other things that you could say with that, and I just want to kind of play off of that a little bit.

You know, it's not only that he wasn't in like a very, you know, well he was in a holy place but it's not necessarily that he was in a temple.

In fact, Moses thought that he was supposed to be the deliverer and when he was in Egypt or should I say the University of Egypt and a graduate from there and in the best position that he could be in.

I mean, when you're thinking to deliver a people, I would rather take a top graduate than a guy who is tending sheep in the middle of nowhere, you know?

And so I think that's so encouraging to me too, where in this sense, Moses thinks that he's ready, but obviously he was not at that time.

And Moses comes, or God comes and visits him when he is tending sheep, when he is seemingly in a very normal, kind of unprepared position.

And we'll see a little bit more of how this plays out as we continue reading as well.

I love that, Josh, because when people look at us and in these positions, they only see the position and the title, and they say that, oh, wow, they're up there on the stage and doing all these things.

But I remember back in the day of my first GYC at Baltimore, I was just sitting in 1 of these seats and looking up.

Different

As we mark the close of this year and also the opening of another, there is no other place I would rather be than right here in Orlando with you.

I am a pastor living in Michigan with my amazing family.

I'm also the president of GYC and I want to warmly welcome you to the 2025 conference this year.

Also to everyone who's viewing online, want to welcome you.

We're blessed that you're here with us today.

In this building, we have people from all over the world.

I know that some of you drove many hours to be here tonight in this convention center, and some of you flew some very long flights across oceans to be here.

Thank you for taking the time to go through the application process of obtaining a visa if you needed to.

I say this every year, but you have been prayed for, our speakers have been prayed for, they've been praying for you, and as our executive committee has been pleading for the Holy Spirit to have ownership of this place, I am fully confident that the next 4 days that we spend together is going to be filled with the light of Christ's presence.

We have every reason to believe that Jesus is already here And I'm excited to be in the presence of God.

Before we begin with tonight's message, I also have another quick announcement that we make every year as well.

And that is that this is a really big convention center.

We have a lot of people and Because of that, if you hear a song or a message or words that you resonate with during our time together, I invite you to say a hearty amen.

When we use amen in place of clapping, it helps us to have a focused worship experience during our time together.

Okay, I think all the preliminaries are done.

So let's have a word of prayer as we open up this convention with the keynote address.

Father in heaven, Lord, you know that the message I have is not in my hands.

I need you to have leadership in this place.

I invite the Holy Spirit, please use me as your instrument for the work of the gospel.

12 years ago, I came to this exact convention center for the first time.

I was 19 years old, I was a freshman in college, and I was here because my cousin Judy invited me to the 2013 GYC conference.

If you're here at the 2013 conference, just raise your hand.

Okay, so just a couple here from the 2013 conference.

I hadn't heard of it before and sadly even though I was at GYC I didn't make it to many of the main meetings because I wasn't in a good place spiritually.

Now even though I wasn't in a good place, I did end up going to 1 of the testimony plenaries where I heard a man named Lawami speaking.

He was sharing his story of how God took him from being a drug dealer to a servant of the Lord.

As he was sharing his story, I was totally captivated and at a distinct point in his testimony, he said, I was driving to a certain destination with a pound of cocaine and 2 pounds of marijuana, this was at a time when marijuana was illegal, in my trunk and as I was driving, a cop pulled me over.

He had my undivided attention because God took a man like that, worked a miracle in his life, and years later, put him on a stage to share the things that the Lord did for him to bring him out of darkness into Christ's marvelous light.

As I look back on that conference, even though I came to Orlando, focused on myself, seeing the world around me through my human perception and insecurities, through GYC in 2013 and many other influences that God was setting in motion, Jesus was in process of helping me to see through a different kind of eyes.

This evening, what kind of eyes do you have?

We're reading our theme passage for this year in Hebrews chapter 11 starting in verse 24.

And the Bible says Hebrews 11 24, by faith Moses when he became of age refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the to the reward.

By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is, what's that last word G-Y-C?

A man named Moses came to a point in his life where he had to choose his path.

Am I going to live the life that people only dream of?

Or will I live a life of suffering for the Master?

But the Bible tells us that Moses opted in for the life that probably none of the social media influencers you currently follow would take.

Now tell me, why would Moses throw his life away?

Why doesn't he use the platform of status that he's been blessed with?

Shouldn't he use his opportunities for God?

Verse 27 says, by faith he endured as seeing him who is invisible.

That means that Moses saw something that no 1 else in his social circle saw.

He had a clear vision of the invisible God.

GYC is a movement of young people at the end of this world that are wholly and entirely consumed, that are relentless in their pursuit of true vision.

I hope you brought your Bible with you tonight.

Phone Bibles do the job, but there's only 1 option in the physical Bible, if you know what I mean.

If you didn't bring 1 tonight, I warmly invite you to bring 1 tomorrow.

We're looking at 1 Kings chapter 17, verse 1.

Okay, the Bible says, And Elijah the Tishbite of the inhabitants of Gilead said to Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel lives before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years except at my word." Elijah was a man who lived during a time of overwhelming darkness.

He lived in a time when the Christians of his day were openly living in sin and in this era of compromise and immorality, Elijah was a man of destiny.

You see, when people turn away from God to pursue a life of darkness, God will do everything in his power to bring them back.

He'll even send warnings to bring us to repentance.

By the way, maybe you've experienced that before.

But if these things don't work, God will have no choice but to resort to speaking through judgment.

That's the place where the nation of Israel found themselves in Elijah's day.

They were persistent in unbelief, coming even to the point where they were attributing the blessings of God to the power of false gods.

So it's in this context that Elijah had a calling on his life.

Presenter

Andrew Park

11 Teachings

Recent

Interview with the Wilsons

48m

ECOM Sabbath School

58m

Different

1h 32m

Most Listened

Disciples Indeed

1h 40m

One Life

1h 21m

The Deception of Knowledge

1h 3m

Series

Series

Plenary Sessions

3 more

7 parts

Series

Plenary

8 more

8 parts

Series

Young Professionals

4 more

3 parts

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