ASI 2016: Called. Chosen. Committed.

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Plenary

Steve Dickman

Called. Chosen. Committed

Derek Morris

Praying the Radical Prayer

ASI Members in Action

Danielle Harrison

Sexual Purity: Lost & Found

John Shin

Great is Thy Faithfulness: My Journey Into Medicine

Natasha Dysinger

Jesus Mingled with People

John Bradshaw

Committed

Unfinished Business: A Conversation with Our World Church Leaders

Daniel Jackson

Daily Spiritual Living

I was watching on the monitor and I actually started to laugh.

I said, that young lady shouldn't have all that talent.

God has given special gifts to our young people and praise God we must do all that we can to help them dream, to let them dream, and then to empower them and then get out of the way.

I tell people I am never concerned about the church when I am around groups of our dedicated young people.

I'm never concerned about the future of the church.

I never start a message anymore without doing 2 things, but I'm adding 1 thing tonight.

I always do a confession, and then a profession, and tonight an affirmation.

I am not saying this to you to demonstrate any kind of humility.

Without the grace of a gracious God, I would be on a never-ending spiral downward spiritually.

And just in case you hadn't noticed you're just like me.

The profession In the Seventh-day Adventist Church there is only 1 true North and his name is Jesus.

Let Jesus be the center of all that we preach, of all that we teach.

If we teach the Sabbath and Jesus is not in the center of the Sabbath, we ought to quit preaching the Sabbath until we can put Jesus in the center.

If we are preaching the 3 angels messages, we must put Jesus in the center.

If we can't see that Jesus, These things I've written to you, he said, it was Jesus, is Jesus who is the center of the book.

If you can't preach the 3 angels messages without Jesus being in the center, quit preaching the 3 angels' messages until Jesus can be put in the center.

If you are teaching the health message, then please, you know, He is the water of life.

He is the center and the substance of our hope.

And I thank ASI for what they have done this week.

I have great appreciation for Steve Dickman and of course for Kyle who works around our office and he came to me and said, I hope you don't mind that I called you my boss today, and Elder Bryant was standing with us.

Kyle is an Israelite and whom there is no guile.

Praise God that we have young people who can assume responsibility.

I want to go back to a sentence that I quoted this afternoon, but that Elder Bradshaw quoted this morning, because I believe for Christians living in the last gasp of time, that it is important that you and I glean a fundamental understanding from the Bible and the spirit of prophecy as to how we ought to be, how we ought to witness, how we ought to have every member involved.

You see, if every member is involved and we don't have the ingredient that I want to share with you tonight, we could have every member involved for the next 300 years.

The church is the repository, and I'm going to botch this up a little bit, I've got it written down, but I'll just do it.

The church is the repository of the riches of the grace of Christ.

Through the church, we'll eventually be made manifest even to principalities and powers in the heavenly places, the final and the full display of the love of God.

I want to tell you, friends, if you want to talk standards, this is the standard.

Jesus said, by this will all men know that you are my disciples, in that you have loved 1 for the other.

The final and the full display of the love of God.

It is a demonstration in the – not just in the words, but in the lives.

Now I want to ask you a question, and I want you to respond, for those of you who understand the question.

And I want to do this for you just before you fall asleep.

Would all the ministers in this room please stand up?

All the ministers in this room, please stand up.

And for those of you who have accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and you didn't stand up, you need to go back and read the Bible, 1 Peter chapter 2 verses 4 through 9, and recognize the reality that the superficial distinction that has been imposed on the scripture that is identifying clergy and laity does not exist in the Bible.

I was a pastor for 25 years before I apostatized and became an administrator.

The role of the pastor Remind me folks from Paul's letter to the Ephesians, the role of the pastor is to train who?

When you accept Jesus as your personal Savior, you just signed on to be a minister of the most high God.

Paul says, don't you know that you yourselves are living stones being built together into a spiritual house to offer sacrifices acceptable unto God.

There is no such thing as a Christian who does not serve.

I did something unique 1 time as a pastor.

I was having a baptism, and I went to my head deacon, and he had 2 beautiful wing chairs in his living room and I said to him, hey, would you bring your wing chairs to church on Sabbath with you?

I said, because I want to interview the candidates for baptism And I want to sit in 1 chair and I want them to sit in the other chair and I want to ask them in front of the church, why are you going to be baptized today?

What made you make a life commitment to the church.

She, I asked her the question, why in the world are you becoming a Seventh-day Adventist?

She had some background, but she told this story.

She said, at first I would just bring my children to Sabbath school, then I'd get lost, and then at the end of Sabbath school I would come pick them up and take them home.

But every single Sabbath there was a man at the door who greeted me so warmly, who was so kind and gracious to me that I decided that I needed what he had.

Now let me tell you this, this brother never ever spoke publicly, Didn't give Bible studies, didn't preach, but he had an attitude of gratitude that just emanated from him.

He was the kind of deacon that would clean under the carpet because there must not be dirt in the Lord's house.

You see, I believe that Jesus is coming soon.

The time has come for us, for you and for me, all Seventh-day Adventists, to intensify our beliefs so that we can serve God and bring glory to Him and to His name.

In all that we do, whether it is a family relationship, a school matter, a hospital, wherever we are in the workplace, we must consistently be bringing glory to God.

I want to look at this with you and I want to reference a Bible passage tonight, Philippians chapter 4 verses 6 and 7.

You might say, well this is a rather odd passage, but it reads like this, be anxious for nothing but in everything by your prayer and supplication with thanksgiving make your let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." What do people see in you and me as they watch us?

Is our silent life testimony so powerful and compelling that those watching us would make a lifetime commitment to Jesus because of what they saw?

You see, we are preoccupied in the North American division with the dream of reaching every community in this land.

Our homes, our schools, our business places, our churches, everything we have must be dedicated to the furtherance of God's cause on this planet.

We have a dream that every single member of the church in North America will read the Scriptures, will be impressed by the Holy Spirit, and will become involved in God's great evangelistic thrust on this earth before Jesus comes.

However, let me say that if we do not personally demonstrate our connection with Jesus, then all other systems fail.

Allow me to share a very powerful statement with you.

As a matter of fact, for those of you who want to engage in soul-winning activities, I have a key for you tonight, a very powerful key, and it comes from the book Christ Object Lessons, pages 299 and 300, and this is what it says, we are to show the world and all the heavenly intelligences that we appreciate the wonderful love of God for fallen humanity, and that we are expecting larger and yet larger blessings from His infinite fullness." Then she goes on, far more than we do.

We need to speak of the precious chapters of our experiences.

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Series

Plenary

Daily Spiritual Living

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Other Teachings in Series

Called. Chosen. Committed

2h 6m

Praying the Radical Prayer

1h 20m

ASI Members in Action

1h 58m

Sexual Purity: Lost & Found

1h 16m

Great is Thy Faithfulness: My Journey Into Medicine

2h 25m

Jesus Mingled with People

1h 28m

Committed

1h 58m

Unfinished Business: A Conversation with Our World Church Leaders

1h 52m

Daily Spiritual Living

58m

Sound Doctrine