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Restoration Ministry

Restoration 2005: To The Point

Randy Skeete

What I Like About Mohammad

The Real Truth About Sin

Can God Feel My Pain?

James Kyle

Clean, but Empty

A Dean’s Letter from God

How to Live Without Fear

The Science of the Resurrection

World’s Greatest Crime Part 1

World’s Greatest Crime Part 2

Research Suggests. So Does God.

How to Read Your Boyfriend’s Mind

How Safe is Safe Sex?

Lose Weight, Find Life

Are You Right or Righteous?

The Horror of Horoscopes

What and Where is the Kingdom of God?

Are There Degrees in Heaven?

All or Nothing

Phil Mills

Bible Study Hour

A Better Life Is Here

Question and Answer Session

God Used It. It Worked. You Try It.

The Bible says, and God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night.

Let them be for signs and for seasons and days and years and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth and it was so in that verse in that passage we have 2 very very fundamental concepts expressed 1 is existence and the other 1 is purpose and God said let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven that is existence God is bringing something into existence and then he says to divide the day from the night That is the purpose why they were brought into existence.

Now the purpose logically precedes the existence.

In other words God has something in mind and it exists in his mind with all the fine and precise details as it subsequently exists when it takes on physical form and shape and its three-dimensionality.

God needed a form, a source of light for the heavens and the sun and the moon and the stars were here before they were there so that when God said let there be lights there was nothing haphazard about the appearance of the light the light was already here and the source the form of that light was already done here and then God by the spoken word gave expression to what was up here the purpose was formed I want these bodies to give light and then he gave existence to the Sun the moon and the stars so when God saw that it was good what God saw was that what was here is precisely what appeared out here.

He does nothing just for the sake of doing it.

As I've said so many times, He's a God of purpose.

God who goes from cause to effect those are the principles he has placed in the universe and God does not high-handedly violate his own principles in Genesis chapter 1 verse 26 the Bible says and God said let us make man in our image after our likeness.

Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Now here again we have purpose and we have existence and I hope you're following me.

Let us make man, that's existence, in our image, that's the purpose.

This means if we go back to the Sun, Moon and Stars, they do 1 thing in a context of God's plan for creation and that is to do what?

That's the major function of the sun, the moon, the stars, they give light.

They also manage the division of the seasons, let them be for days and for years, for seasons, so they do that.

When God came to the creation of man, he was also very precise about the purpose for mankind.

And the purpose is wrapped up in a very few words, 3 words, in our image.

We have no other purpose for being on this earth.

No other purpose, I should say that originates with God now God's people find all kinds of purposes that God did not have in mind but God's purpose from But God's purpose from creation until now is that we would reflect his image.

God's image is what Moses saw when God hid him in the rock.

Merciful, long suffering, gracious, plenteous in mercy, not pardoning the guilty, forgiving the penitent.

That is God's image, along with creativity, a sense of order.

Progress, development to a particular goal, the image of God.

Now that purpose was in God's mind before Adam and Eve were made you see the purpose has to be established it's clear then God said having the purpose clear in his mind this is why I want them to exist then God gave them life why?

To carry out the purpose and no other reason.

We breathe, we live from God's perspective for 1 reason only.

That is to reflect the image of God in all that we do.

Adam in working in the garden to dress it and keep it was to reflect the image of God.

Of course God also gave him dominion which is also a reflection of God because God has ultimate dominion over the entire universe and David tells us in 2nd Samuel 23 verse 4 he that ruleth over men must be just ruling in the fear of God He that hath dominion must be just, exercising that dominion in the fear of God, being always conscious.

If I'm a supervisor over you in the department of pediatrics, I must exercise that supervisory responsibility with the consciousness that I have a supervisor in the department of eternity and I'm answerable to him with the invention with the introduction of sin 1 of the greatest curses people can have is to have power over other people but when God gave Adam dominion Adam was unfallen and Adam was supposed to exercise that dominion the way God himself would do it.

Because an image, its purpose is to reflect and to bring to mind a higher, a perfect original.

This also means, and if I may say this, it's some embarrassment to all of us, we exist for no purpose that comes from us.

We exist for no purpose that is of our invention.

All that we are supposed to do and be must be traced back to Genesis 1 26 and 27.

That's the reason why God gave us existence?

And our existence, how we use it, must be a perfect match with God's purpose so that God could see that it is what?

Having said that, when God looks at our lives today and what we have chosen to do with them, can God say, very good?

We have to shake his head and say, that's not what I had in mind for that son of mine.

He has gone the way of the world and has drifted from my original design.

When Jesus was on this earth, He never lost sight of the purpose that brought Him.

People were always trying to get Him to go to the right or to the left, do 1 thing or the other, and Christ was stabilized by the consciousness of his purpose.

So man spoke to him in Luke chapter 12 verse 13, Master, 1 of the company said to him, Master, speak to my brother that he divide the inheritance with me.

And he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?

That I don't care if your brother is selfish?

Christ is saying, my purpose is not to settle inheritance issues.

And we need to be very clear what our purposes are or we will be pulled in a thousand different directions to please people.

By God's conviction and the witness of other people, My purpose in life is to do what I do.

You offer me the presidency of the General Conference and I would tell you no thanks and I've told God the only way I would accept an administrative position in any organization is to use my influence to make sure that the entire structure under my administration aligns itself with God's purpose for Seventh-day Adventists.

My purpose is to stand right where I'm standing.

And I will not let anyone offer me anything that deflects me from the path of the purpose God has made known to me.

We all have the same common purpose in the sense we reflect the image of God but God requires that reflection in different paths for different people.

For you it may be medical work, for someone else it may be architecture, for someone else a primary school teacher.

The vital question isn't whether it's doctor, dentist, lawyer.

The vital question is have I taken into my soul The reality originating from heaven that I am on this earth not for any purpose of my own but for God's.

When that is in me, then God can direct me in the path along which I must reflect His image.

So God has given to every 1 of us life to carry out an individualized purpose.

Take 2 ministers and God has purposes that are different 1 from the other even though they're both preaching his purposes are different God has an individualized approach to his creatures let me repeat God has given each 1 of us a life to carry out a purpose now.

The most important thing to us must be the preservation, the integrity of that purpose in our lives.

Having said that, take the preacher, the evangelist.

It should be our desire to carry out that purpose as long as we possibly can.

Until the ultimate goal, which is everything brought back under God's control in the person of Jesus Christ until that comes to be our desire should be Lord give me life that I may work and work and work as someone said I'm sorry I don't have I only have 1 life to give for my country we must be sorry we have just 1 life to give for God but if God says I'll give you 70 years to carry out my purpose then in the interest of that purpose that God chose should we not protect the quality of our lives does not the purpose of God benefit more if I'm healthy than if I'm always sick.

God has something for me to do I repeat tediously he hasn't this is the path for endesky and I am on it but I can't get very far because I'm always sick.

And sickness is a violation of the laws that God has put in place that we may remain in prime condition to carry out his purpose.

And so God's purpose for me suffers because I am sickly and I am sickly because of my sin or someone else's sin or both.

My desire for health must not be so I can live a long time to see my children grow up.

That cannot be my primary reason for wanting to be healthy.

My primary reason for good health cannot be so I can work hard and accumulate among efforts of money.

My primary motivation must be I preserve my health for 2 fundamental reasons because if I'm healthy I can do God's work well and a healthy body is a part is also a reflection of the character of Jesus Christ and I said Jesus was never sick Matthew 8 17 after He healed those who had been demon possessed, that it might be fulfilled, Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.

The Gospel deals with disease of the body as it deals with disease of the soul.

I'll ask you 1 of my regular questions and don't answer me.

Is it the smog in what I think someone told me is called the basin of Los Angeles?

Is it the absence of clean water to drink?

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Series

Restoration 2005: To The Point

God Used It. It Worked. You Try It.

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

The Parables

The Two Sons

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Pacific Union ASI Plenary Meeting, Part 2

53m

All the World Marveled

Preparing For the Last Temptation

45m

Revelation's Final Warning

My Body His Glory

47m

Discerning the Time

52m

The Sanctuary

04 The Sanctuary Power of the Tabernacle

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Summoned to Court

57m

Elijah: Part 1 - Where Is Your Fire?

49m

Jed Lee - Creation

Creation: How Did Jehovah Create?

1h 14m

American Politics and Adventism

27m

Obedience vs Sacrifice

41m

Sound Doctrine