iShare 2016: iShare Every Time

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Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Plenary

Lisa Topete

Y Share, Who Cares?

This morning there was a group of people praying and I thought, wow, the iShare programming team and everyone who's worked so hard together, I think the best thing we have going for us is that we've been praying that God would bless us.

So as I set my timer, so you're not here until noon, I'm just kidding, you won't be here till noon, but every point could be a sermon.

And I said, Lord, how are you gonna fit 4 sermons into 1?

But he's gonna do it in the next 42 minutes, amen?

Amen, how about we start with a word of prayer and then we're gonna get going.

Father in heaven this morning, I bow before you, so humbled, Lord, we're told that Satan works in a special manner to confuse the mind on this point, the point of righteousness by faith.

And in my feeble attempt, I bow like Paul and pray that loving God, I'm not coming to this group of people with excellence of speech or wisdom declaring to them the testimony of God.

For we right here in this room, Lord, are determined to not know anything among us except Jesus Christ and Him crucified right now.

So in weakness, Lord, in fear, and in much trembling, I pray that my speech and my preaching is not with persuasive words of the wisdom of men but in demonstration of the Spirit and of the power of God that the faith of all of us would not rest in any man but in you dear God.

So this morning, the title of the message is, Letter Y, Y Share, Who cares?

And we're told that not 1 in 100, how many?

1 in 100 really understand what salvation is.

That's a problem because right here in this room we probably don't even have 100 people, so that means that none of us really understand what salvation is.

Righteousness by faith, as I've been studying it since March, in a specific manner, trying to say, wow, Lord, if it's only 1 in 100, dear God, help me to be the 1, amen?

When you pray that prayer, friends, the Lord answers.

So we're going to go through 4 basic points to understand this gift of righteousness by faith.

Remember each point could be a sermon, so the first point being who He is, the second point being who we are, the third the call, the fourth the cost, and the final result in the final result of it all.

This story goes that I woke up 1 morning and I was getting onto a plane and I prayed that God would give me an intellectual conversation on the airplane.

I guess I just really wanted to talk with someone and normally I want to take a Benadryl and go to sleep on the plane.

But this morning I prayed that prayer and so I get onto the plane and I'm sitting there and my seat's empty.

And I was like, Lord, I'm not gonna have an intellectual conversation if this seat stays empty.

The plane takes off, I'm in the air, And I was like, well, I think I'll take a nap then.

I'm about to fall asleep, and the flight attendant comes up to me, and she says, young lady, there's a man who he's 7 foot 1, and his knees are cramped.

So this tall guy comes over and he sits down next to me and I look at him and I said, how many tall jokes have you heard?

He paused for a moment and he goes, I think I've heard every single 1, but in his hands was a book, a textbook on logarithms.

And I was like, oh Lord, I don't know if I wanted to talk to someone about logarithms.

I almost didn't even know how to pronounce that word.

So, we're sitting there and we begin to talk and he asks me, Lisa, what do you do?

And I go, what about you, what do you do?

He goes, well, I had my doctorate at 19 And I was like, Lord, what did I get myself into?

So we're sitting there, and I want you guys to get the main point.

This 3 and a half hour conversation that we dove into started with him asking me a simple question.

Lisa, do you think that humanity is digressing or slowly increasing or getting better?

I said, you know, honestly, I just take the human body.

Over so many years, it has definitely just digressed.

It's physically we are not what we used to be.

And I said, now it's my turn to ask you a question.

And I said to him, let's take all the knowledge in the world, and Some of you have heard Elder Finley share this and I thought I've got to try this 1 day.

Let's take all the knowledge in the world, all the knowledge past, present, and future, and if we could put it in this pie chart that I'm doing with my hand right here and we're sitting on the plane and it 100% equals all the knowledge in the world, how much knowledge would you say you have?

And he looks at me and he's like, that's not fair.

And I said, do you want me to answer for you?

And I said, well, you read books on logarithms, so I'm thinking that you might have a little more than the average person.

I said, 2% of all the knowledge that has ever existed and there's hundreds of books being published by professionals in their field every single day?

He goes, no, because knowledge is constantly increasing.

This is someone who has their doctorate in mathematics and logician.

And I said, of all the knowledge in the world, do you have .005%?

And I looked at him and I said, the reason why I'm asking you that question is, you've told me, and this was a long conversation, that you don't believe in a God.

And I said, in that other 99 point exponential 9%, is it possible that there might, is there a small chance that there might exist a God who's much different than you think he is?

And he said, honestly, there is a chance.

Since there's a chance, I said, I'm gonna propose to you that not taking any emotion into it, but the God of Christianity is the God that's most often blamed for the hurt in the world.

No people are really shaking their fist at other gods made from wood and stone.

But a lot of the anger is directed at the God of Christianity, and that's just looking at it without a lot of emotion.

So he is quiet with me, and then I said, but let me tell you something.

Even if you don't believe in the Bible, Even if you just read it, I want you to know that the remedy proposed in the Bible for humanity will blow your mind.

And he got really quiet, and I was like, ask the remedy, ask the remedy.

But I'm not gonna be, I'm like trying to play cool.

I was like, okay, so I'm sitting in the seat.

I'm like, ask the remedy, ask the remedy.

And then he's like, it's silent for a little bit longer.

I said, oh friend, are you sure you want to know?

I want you to know friends that in the Garden of Eden, think of Adam.

When he fresh stepped out of perfection, right?

He steps out of perfection into imperfection.

Eric Walsh

The Prayer Shift

We'll get right into this because I know I stand between now and lunch, so I'll move right along.

A scripture reading was taken from Psalm 77.

Psalm 77 and verse 11, just 1 verse, we'll get deeper into it in the message.

But Psalm 77, 11, the scripture says, I will remember the works of the Lord.

Surely I will remember thy wonders of old.

Our message this Sabbath is entitled, the prayer shift.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to share your word and to look into your truths.

Lord, I ask that you make me just a nail upon the wall, a rusty, sorry nail, Lord.

But I ask, Father, that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ upon that nail.

Let Eric Walsh not be seen or heard today, Father.

Instead, let us hear a word from the throne room of grace.

It is our prayer in Jesus's precious and holy name.

The children of Israel had escaped Egypt.

10 great plagues had fallen, the tenth plague being the lost of a firstborn child.

Pharaoh finally threw his hands up and allowed the children of Israel to leave, and they left jubilant and rejoicing as they were able to get out into the wilderness to worship their God.

Each plague was a battle against a specific Egyptian God, the tenth being a battle really to question Pharaoh's own claims of divinity.

When Pharaoh really had a chance to sit back and look around and realize that his laborers had left, that his divinity had been challenged, and some of his advisors got a chance to speak to him.

Pharaoh decided that he was going to mount up 600 chariots and some of his best soldiers, and he was going to go after the slaves who had escaped.

They began to march into the wilderness and the hoofs of the horses began to pound.

And while this is going on, God had led the children of Israel over a mountain pass down into a secluded beach area that left them in a position where in front of them was nothing but the Red Sea.

Behind them was the mountain range and the narrow passes that they had to take to get to this beachfront location.

They were literally sitting between a rock and the deep blue sea.

They were still rejoicing, and those stragglers in the back began to look behind them.

God had set them up in a very special way so that there was a pillar of fire at night and a cloud by day, and they were marching and following the way that God was leading them, and everything seemed perfectly good.

Until someone looked behind them, someone with good visual acuity could see far into the distance and the scripture says in Exodus 14 and verse 10, the Bible says, and when Pharaoh drew nigh, The children of Israel lift up their eyes and behold the Egyptians marched after them and they were sore afraid and the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord.

No matter how many miracles had just been done, no matter how powerful God had been in moving the children of Israel out of bondage and into freedom, they were still afraid when they saw Pharaoh.

It is often difficult to shake your old master.

And then they cried to the Lord, but then they turned their attention to Moses.

And they say to Moses in verse 11, because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness?

Wherefore have you dealt with us thus, to carry us forth out of Egypt?

There were plenty of places to bury us in Egypt.

We would have been better off had we stayed there.

Verse 12, they say, is this not the word that we did tell you in Egypt?

Saying, let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians, for it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness." The children of Israel had a powerful slave mentality, And they would rather be slaves than to be free if freedom came with any cost.

They would rather stay in bondage than to go free if there was going to be any trouble in acquiring their freedom.

And 1 of the things that began to grip Israel, that began to hold the entire nation it seemed, was all of a sudden doubt began to spread through the congregation, through the people.

They began to fear and worry and fret, and all of a sudden what was just a few hours earlier a jubilant celebration now turned to disgust, fear, and ultimately disgrace.

It is 1 of the devil's most potent weapons.

The ability to get you to question God and to question his benevolence.

In fact, there are 3 aspects to doubt that I want to share with you, 3 aspects to doubt, 3 things that doubt does to a congregation or to a group of people.

First of all, I want to say that doubt itself can be contagious.

That when 1 member, 1 person in the pew begins to doubt God and begins to then share that doubt and to express that doubt that if you're not careful doubt like a virus will spread in those with weak spiritual immune systems.

Doubt fills a void and you begin to clamor against God as the children of Israel do.

Your doubt becomes a way to try and counteract your fear and so You begin to doubt God and it can become addicting so that you keep going back to doubt every time you have a challenge.

But for our purposes today, the third aspect of doubt is important, that doubt is also amnestic, which means Doubt causes you to forget things.

When you begin to doubt God, 1 of the things that happens is you begin to only remember the troubles and you forget the victories.

You seem to only remember the tribulation and you forget all of the deliverance.

When you begin to doubt you forget all of God's blessings and you begin to only remember those things you view as curses.

Doubt causes you to see the past differently and by causing you to see the past differently and by causing you to see the past differently it can often cause you to not be able to properly see the future God has for you.

Moses says to the people, don't fear, fear you not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord which we will show you today.

For the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you shall see them again no more forever.

This is it, Moses says, this is God's last stand.

And then he says in verse 14 something profound.

He says that the Lord shall fight for you.

In trial, 1 of the most difficult things to do is to stop and let God fight for you.

Because we often want to fight for ourselves.

We want to defend our own name and our own honor.

You've got to stand still and let him do it.

And you've got to learn to hold your peace.

So I'm gonna jump to Psalm 77 where our scripture reading comes from.

You can turn there if you have your Bible.

Psalm 77, because the children of Israel are in trouble.

They're trapped between the Red Sea and they're trapped within a mountain enclosure.

The Egyptians are riding high and hard behind them and It seems as if there's absolutely no way out of the mess that they are in.

In Psalm 77, 1 of the principal psalmist and musicians in Israel, a man named Asaph begins to tell of his trouble.

You see, I've been through some troubles and I've learned that there is power in the book of Psalms.

I have learned that the great medicine for persecution is in the book of the Psalms.

And if you study the Psalms, you learn that it not only prophesies of Christ's persecution, it gives you the kind of the roadmap of what to follow in times of difficulty, trial, and tribulation.

Asaph jumps in and he ties it back in to the story of the children of Israel trapped where they're trapped.

It says, I cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice, and he gave ear unto me.

No 1 knows how he got into this trouble or what his trouble was, and I'm glad the Bible doesn't specify because it allows Psalm 77 to be the bomb when you have a trial.

Verse 2 says, in the day of my trouble I sought the Lord.

He says my sore ran in the night and it ceased not.

The pain of the heartbreak, the pressure of the difficulty, it would not stop on me at night.

He says in fact, even when he tried to be comforted, it says my soul refused to be comforted.

Verse 3 he says, I remembered God and I was troubled.

I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed.

Asaph is in such trouble and maybe some of you have been in trouble like this.

Maybe you've been in the kind of difficulty, the kind of grief, heartbreak.

Maybe life has thrown so many bad things at you that you get to a place where you remember God but remembering him only causes you to feel even more troubled.

Nelson Ernst

You Must Prophesy Again

I was raised through the cold-portering system, and I'm going to talk a little bit about that tonight.

I have something that I want to share with you by way of announcements.

And this is something I'm really, really excited about, really excited about in terms of glow.

How many of you guys have ever tried to pass out literature or glow tracks when it's raining outside.

We're working with the press right now to make waterproof glow tracks.

Some of you are thinking, are you serious?

We're going to make waterproof glow tracks.

If you live in a place where there's snow, now you can put glow tracks out in the public and you don't have to worry about them getting soggy from that melting snow, right?

Next time you're snorkeling or scuba diving, you can put some glow tracks right in your swimsuit and pass them out underwater if you bump into somebody.

I'm waiting for the day, the day will come when I am going to get a voicemail of somebody calling in to request Bible studies because they found a glow track handed to them by somebody who was scuba diving underwater.

Hopefully we'll have those out in the next few months.

And we're also working on a whole line, Well, should I say this?

It hasn't been voted yet, but it's likely to be voted.

And if it is voted, then we will work on a whole line of children's glow tracks, which you can pass out to little kids.

Now, don't put that on social media because we have competitors out there and they might want to make the same thing.

So anyway, all right, let's have a word of prayer 1 more time and ask the Lord to be with us.

Father in heaven, thank you so much that we can be together to iShare.

It's our last evening together before we split, we part ways.

And we pray, Lord, that you would speak to us just 1 more time.

And as a ripple effect of our time together tonight, we pray that hundreds of thousands of people would hear the 3 angels' messages, amen.

The title of tonight's message is You Must Prophesy Again.

And I have to admit to you that my presentation has changed from that title, but I think the title is still relevant because you guys have been prophesying this summer, door to door, telling people about the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation, and the mission is not done.

And that's what we're going to talk about a little bit tonight, how we can continue to spread the 3 angels' messages.

But to start with, I'd like to show you 3 interesting men that I was doing some research on recently.

First person, you might have heard of this guy.

This man was born in 1705, and He was enamored with numbers.

He was a mathematician, actually a mathematical genius.

At 1 time in his life, he actually walked 1, 000 acres.

He walked over it, and then he calculated its square area to square inches just by walking over it.

And then he took the square inches of that 1, 000 acre area and he broke it down to hairs breadths in his mind.

The breadth of a hair, accounting 48 hairs per side of the square inch.

He also took a number and he doubled it 139 times in his mind.

How many times did you just successfully double that number?

This guy doubled it 139 times in his mind.

And he came up with a number that was that long.

And then later, he multiplied that number by itself.

Next person, Kim Ung-Yong, Korean brother.

The average IQ is 90 to 110, just for reference sake.

By the time he was 6 months old, he spoke Korean fluently.

By the time he was 3, he was a guest physics student at Hanyang University.

By the time he was 5, he was solving differential equations on the TV programs.

And by the time he was 16, he voluntarily left working for NASA.

Anybody ever seen this guy or heard of him?

This guy, when he was born, he was so debilitated that the doctor told his parents that they ought to put him in some kind of ward and just forget about him.

But his parents kept him, they raised him.

To his dying day, he couldn't button his shirt.

His dad has to help him to do such things like that, help him to walk.

His head was so big that it actually took several years for him to be able to hold up his head on his own power.

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Series

Plenary

The Prayer Shift

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

Y Share, Who Cares?

45m

The Prayer Shift

47m

You Must Prophesy Again

1h

Sound Doctrine