Deepen and strengthen your relationship with Jesus. 

Hartland Summer Campmeeting 2017: Abiding in Christ

<p>Deepen and strengthen your relationship with Jesus. </p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hartland Institute of Health and Education

Randy Skeete

Abiding in Christ- Part 1

Most gracious and loving Father, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning, the end, the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning star.

Let thy words that bread from heaven, the true matter, be placed in your son's heart.

Let him speak your words, not his thoughts, nothing of his own.

Touch the hearers that they will hear what the Spirit of the Lord is saying to the church.

Our title for this afternoon is our theme.

If you read the book of John, whether John's Gospel or John's Epistles, 1 of the themes of the writing of John or the writings of John is this business of being in Christ and Christ in us.

And while it sounds mystical, it is an absolute reality that we must abide in Christ and Christ must abide in us.

Without that, there is no hope of growth and obviously no hope of salvation.

For the member of the church, you may be a church member and that's fine, but not a candidate for the kingdom of God if Christ does not abide in us.

And so this afternoon what I want to do is to present to you by God's grace how Christ abides in us and how many of us who are faithful members of the church are not connected with Christ.

Not because we are murderers and whatever else thieves, but because there's something that's missing in our lives.

By now you must realize that the book of Genesis is my favorite book, and my favorite text is verse 1 of Genesis 1.

In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

We read from verse 1 of Genesis 1, our subject abiding in Christ.

Easy text to find, if you have it say amen.

In the beginning, say it with me, God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Verse 3, and God said, let there be light and there was light.

You read verse 3 again, and God said, that is God's Word, that is God's command.

The Word of God, I'll use the word word today, I said command earlier, both are fine.

The Word of God, notice what the Word of God did.

Verse 2 says, and the earth was without form and void.

This is, the Hebrew there without form and void is used to describe the world during the thousand years when nothing exists except the devil and everything is in chaos.

Same words used by Jeremiah, I believe, to describe this chaotic condition when all the earth is in ruins and we're in heaven a thousand years.

What brought order and life to this confusion and chaos?

For instance, I ask him, why did you build us the way you built us?

Why is it animals are like this but we're like that?

Why 2 lungs, not 1 broad 1 covering the entire posterior surface of the thorax, I guess?

The reason why I ask God these questions, Ellen White writes in Child Guidance, page 45, paragraph 3, the whole natural world is designed to be an interpreter of the things of God.

And at the top of the natural world we stand, are you following me, we are the crowning act of God's creation.

The whole natural world is designed to be an interpreter of the things of God.

Another question I ask, and I believe I've gotten the answer, why did Moses keep saying, and God said, and God said, and God said?

Moses could have written, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth by speaking everything into existence, the light, the firmament, the grass, the trees.

He could have said that, it would have been accurate.

But the Holy Ghost, because all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, The Holy Ghost led him to keep repeating, and God said, and God said, and God said.

There are several lessons, but the central lesson of Genesis 1 is the power of God's Word.

Not necessarily what was made on what day, but the power of God's Word.

By the Word, inanimate objects were made, sun, moon, stars.

By the Word, vegetation, a form of life was made.

This reveals to us several things about the word and I will ask you what those things are.

Listen again to Genesis 1 3, and God said, let there be light and there was light.

What does that tell you about God's Word?

What else does it tell you about God's Word?

And God said, let thee be light, and it was light.

Now chapter 1 of Genesis is describing what?

And God, say it again, the Word of God is, it has creative power.

It can bring into existence what did not formerly exist.

Let me see if you answer this question correctly.

And God said, let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing and beasts of the earth after his kind and it was so.

The Word of God gives life And the reason why the Word of God gives life is because the Word of God has life.

Every time God releases a word, that word travels with the life of God in it.

So when the centurion said to Jesus, Lord I am not worthy that thou should come under my roof.

But speak the word only and my servant shall be healed.

Now the word healed occurs in verse 7 and in verse 8.

In verse 7 of Matthew 8 the Bible says, Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him.

Abiding in Christ- Part 1

Transcript

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