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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Wes Peppers

The Adventist Atheist

Father, we thank you so much for the opportunity to visit together with you, the Almighty, the God of heaven, creator of heaven and earth, the maker of all things, both that breathe and both that are inanimate throughout the earth and throughout the universe.

And Lord, all things have come from Your hand.

You have such wonderful and magnificent thoughts towards us.

You have given everything that You could possibly pour out of Your heart, Your mind, Your soul for our redemption.

And Lord, how often, Lord, we don't think of these things.

But I pray today That our hearts would be bonded to Yours by a perfect love, a divine love, an agape love.

That our hearts, Lord, would be bound to each other.

That we would know and sense Your presence among us.

That You would open up to us the things of eternity, the things of truth, the things of Your Word.

And I ask, dear Father, that Your presence be in this room, but not in the room, Lord, only, but in our hearts this morning.

May we reflect upon the sacredness and the beauty of your character.

The depths of your love and Lord your desire for us to become just like you in character.

May our hearts this morning find sweet peace and surrender to Your will for our lives.

May we recognize, Lord, today our calling that You have called us unto, to be a godly and sacred people.

And so this morning, Lord, may our hearts be lifted unto heaven as we elevate your Son, Christ, and as we honor your name.

May our worship, O Lord, be acceptable in your sight this morning because Christ is in our midst, because His righteousness would dwell upon our hearts.

And Father, today, may you convict us of any sin that we might be experiencing today.

May we forsake it and abandon it, that we might have the purity and the spotless character of our Savior Christ in glory.

And Lord, today we pray that the Holy Spirit would come upon us and would speak to us loudly and clearly and specifically and directly.

And Lord, we put ourselves in Your hand this hour.

This is the climax of Your week, the worship hour in which Your people come together to meet with You.

So, oh Lord, meet with us just now as our plea, as our prayer, as our expectation, because You have promised it to us.

And we thank You and we come in Jesus' name.

I want to invite you, you can turn in your Bibles, to the book of Luke, the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 12.

It's the only Gospel, I think, that speaks of this parable, But it's a very powerful parable.

I want to tell you a story as we begin this message, as we begin this study this morning.

I won't tell you which verses yet because I don't want you to read and not listen.

You'll be reading and you'll say, what's he going to say?

You know, as John asked, Peter asked the question, is it I?

But we baptized a young man last year, 1 of those young adults I told you about.

And this guy just came walking off the streets and the Lord had just transformed his life.

He had learned about the Sabbath from another young lady in a couple of towns over that he had been speaking to and had become friends with.

He was a former veteran and his life many years ago was, he was addicted to drugs and alcohol and many, many things.

But this guy's life has been utterly transformed and it blows me away just how dedicated he is to the Lord.

He spends hours each day doing Bible study.

He spends hours each day studying with his 2 sons.

They're both actually preparing for baptism next month as well.

And he spends hours and his whole life has been transformed and God has truly blessed him.

And we had the dental clinic a couple of months ago And he was there volunteering all day from beginning to end.

And he went around, we had little stations set up.

I don't know if you've heard of biblestudyoffer.com, but Michigan has launched this website, and we're doing all kinds of advertising where people can go all over the state of Michigan to this website and sign up for free Bible studies.

And so we had our little booths and our banners set up for BibleStudyOffer.com.

We were encouraging people to come and sign up for Bible studies.

So he took some cards and he was going around to all the people waiting, and he was talking to them about doing Bible studies and how Bible study had changed his own life.

And so in the course of a few hours, he signed up about 14 people for Bible studies.

And he himself had only been baptized a few months before.

So he opened, he started his own painting business.

And the Lord has really blessed him and his business is prospering.

And just a few days ago, actually I think it was Friday, I was sitting in the airport.

He called me and he said, I wasn't sure what to do.

He says, but God did something miraculous for me.

He said, and he says it's just a small thing.

He says, but it's really changed my life and my perspective on my business and how I should give my business to the glory of God.

Well, before I tell you that, he had hired another young man in our church that we had just baptized last year.

And he said that this guy, This guy is kind of a simple-minded guy.

He's not, he doesn't have a lot of talents, but he's very earnest, very sincere young man.

And we love this guy because he loves the Lord.

And so he hired this young man to do painting with him.

And he says, you know, the first couple of jobs, he says, I wasn't sure he was going to make it.

He says that his talents weren't that great.

He said, but every day we would pray and we would ask God to bless our work and help us to be efficient and help us to be a witness to the people that we're serving." And he says, you know, within 2 weeks, this guy's painting skills have gone through the roof.

And he says, and he says, I was worried about him.

He says, but now he said, I just gave him a raise last week.

And he says, so this lady, this elderly lady calls me and he says she wanted me to come and paint her house or her kitchen.

And He says that she had heard that I was an, these are the words he used, he says she had heard that I was an honest, fair priced, good worker.

And he says, so I went to her house and I looked at her kitchen, he says it was the worst kitchen I've ever seen.

And he says the whole house reeked something terrible.

And he says, I really didn't want to paint her kitchen.

He says, so I told her $700, which was significantly higher than it was worth.

And he says, she says, well, I can't really do that.

Like, that's not even close to barely covering my costs.

You know, He says, I would need at least like 3 or 500 to even make anything.

And so he laughed and he said that the Lord rebuked him and said, look, all that I've done for you, Are you not going to use the blessings I've given you to bless someone else?

He says, and I told her I would do the kitchen for free.

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