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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Dennis Smith

Abiding in Christ

Good to be with you here in Southern California.

I think most of you may know I come here from New Haven, Connecticut.

It's part of Southern New England Conference.

Our colors are starting to come out there a little bit in the trees.

That's always a beautiful time of the year.

And I bring you greetings from your sister church in New Haven.

Before I went there 8 years ago, I wasn't sure where New Haven was, but I did hear about Yale University.

But it's good to be with you here and to share with you the passion that the Lord has put on my heart.

And I so much appreciate the, what do you call it, title or name, whatever the group here, Advent Hope.

When you look at the world today, we need something to hope in, right?

And as I said last evening, I do believe beyond any question Jesus is coming soon.

And he's letting this stuff happen to show you how quickly things can change.

Because when the final things come down it's going to be fast and we'd better be ready and that's why he's trying to warn us I think, say look, you know, get your house in order, whatever that involves, get your house in order and be ready.

I began speaking last evening on the baptism of the Holy Spirit and what's so important with that subject to me that's foundational to what I'm sharing with you is that it is through the baptism of the Holy Spirit that Jesus lives in us and those that are ready to meet Jesus that's an important experience that they must have because in 1st John 3 2 and this is really more or less the theme of this weekend 1st John 3 2 beloved now are we the sons of God and it does not yet appear what we shall be but we do know this that when when He shall appear, we shall be like Him.

Those that are ready to meet Jesus will be like Jesus, For we shall see him as he is.

Those that are ready to meet Jesus, they are going to have to stand in his presence and all of his glory and not be consumed, right?

Well, the Bible tells us those that are not with Christ, they're destroyed by the brightness of His coming.

So that generation has to be different than any other generation that walked this earth and I believe that God is calling that generation to existence today.

And when you look at the word here, the Greek word for like, it's the word homoios which means just like.

And hopefully as I share the message today, the reason John could say that is that It is Jesus who is being manifest in the life of those who are ready to meet Him.

That's why He could say they'll be just like Jesus.

So what I want to share with you this morning is the how for that to happen.

You know, if I were to tell you, well, you've got to have the character of Christ and you've got to be just like Jesus, and we've heard those for many years, but if I do not share with you how, I haven't done you a whole lot of good.

Because if anything, I might have put more guilt on you and more frustration on you, because you wouldn't be here today if you didn't want to be like Jesus.

And so we need not only a message of warning, He's coming, and you better get ready, we also need a message of how to get ready.

And that's what this is all about this morning.

Now I've been a Christian for over 40 years, and I know the struggles and the frustrations that can happen in our life, and the sadness when we are not having the experience that we really want to have with the Lord.

And our life is sort of an up and down when it comes to obeying God.

We want to obey Him, but we seem to have that struggle, and discouragement can take over.

And you know, there are texts that hold the standard very high.

And if 1 thing I want you to realize today, the standard that God gives us is impossible for you and me to attain.

And I want you to get the message today, you can't do it.

We've been trying for a long time, but we can't.

Well, you got a message here is in Romans chapter 6, verse 6.

He says here that, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that we henceforth should not serve sin.

The Bible tells us that we should not be serving sin in our life.

Then verse 11, likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Let not sin therefore reign in your moral body.

Scripture after scripture holds the standard high.

But I want you to know today, we serve not only a sin-pardoning Savior, we serve a sin-delivering Savior.

And the pardoning aspect is, of course, justification.

When you accept Jesus as your Savior, you are forgiven.

You ask in faith to be forgiven, He forgives you, and you are covered with His righteousness.

You are free from the guilt and the penalty of sin.

God looks at you as though you'd never sinned.

What I want to especially emphasize today is sanctification.

Justification is the imputed righteousness of Christ.

Sanctification is the imparted righteousness of Christ.

And then when we read statements in the Spirit of Prophecy, she doesn't lower the standard.

Here's 1 that struck me many years ago, Manuscript 161, 1897.

He who has not sufficient faith in Christ to believe that he can keep him from sinning has not the faith that will give him an entrance into the kingdom of God.

That's a pretty strong statement, isn't it?

She also said here in Desire of Ages 123, the prince of this world comes, Jesus said, and he has nothing in me.

There was nothing in him that responded to Satan's sophistry.

He did not consent to sin, not even in thought did he yield to temptation, so it may be with us." That's a high standard.

But what I want you to know, The good news of the gospel is what God asks you to do, He will do for you.

You see, if we don't understand these things, we will work hard, work, work, work, work, and we can fall into legalism, we can fall into perfectionism.

And then After we find out that doesn't work, we may drift over to nominal Christianity, where we basically give up on trying to do all that stuff and just say, well, I just got to wait until the Lord comes.

Well, as I read to you, 1 John says, you better not wait until He comes to get changed, because Those that are ready to meet Jesus will have been changed.

So Christians often struggle day by day, month by month, year by year, but never really obtaining the victory that we'd like to have, that we know God wants us to have and we are tempted to question I'm sure you've heard the voice of the enemy.

You aren't even a Christian You might as well give it up Look at how you have let your God down and look at how many times you've done it.

It is the very evidence that you are a Christian is the struggle.

Because before you were a Christian, you probably could care less about some of that stuff.

It didn't bother you if you did this, that, or the other thing.

Maybe you did some things because it was socially acceptable, or some things because you didn't want to get in trouble with your peers, whatever the case is.

But when you became a Christian, it started bothering you deep within your heart.

Now you may not have learned, and this is a process by the way, don't get discouraged if you don't find yourself right where you want to be immediately.

But we've got to enter into that process.

We've got to understand the principles of that process.

We've got to understand the weapons of our warfare.

And when we understand those things, we can grow into that process and God will begin manifesting Himself more and more in our life.

Now, I'm sure every Christian is quite out as Paul, all wretched men that I am, who's going to deliver me from this body of sin?

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Abiding in Christ

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