GYC 2017: Arise

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Knees, Keys, and Please!

Pavel Goia

1. To Know Christ

This message was presented at the GYC 2017 conference, Arise, in Phoenix, Arizona.

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Those that are in the very back, make sure that you can hear me, okay?

If I talk too fast, wave, I'm not going to see your hand anyway, so it Doesn't matter.

As before we start, let's have a prayer together.

Father, in humbleness, we come in your presence.

I want to thank you so much for the privilege to be with you, to serve for Jesus Christ.

Father, we pray right now that you fill this place with your spirit.

And in Jesus' merit, you touch every heart and transform us.

We pray that it may be for your glory, and we pray that we may be all fixing our eyes on you.

I don't feel good to get up there because I walk a lot, and I'm afraid I'm going to fall.

But if you don't see me, I cannot help you.

We will have some time for questions and answers, but probably not right now.

Hopefully, we'll have some slides, too, but I never get to them for some reason.

And so let's see how the Holy Spirit leads.

If you don't hear me, there is nothing I can do except either that you move forward.

And I don't know if somebody can turn the mic louder.

But there are some seats here in the front, not too many.

I will do my best, but I cannot talk louder than this.

I just was in Philippines, and the plane was defective.

It took about 52 hours instead of 18 to get back home.

The plane took off, and as soon as we took off, the pilot said, sorry, the door didn't close properly.

He said we cannot pressurize the cabin, so we cannot go higher than 12, 000 because we will have no oxygen, and we cannot go back down because we are too heavy.

So we had to fly around Manila at very low altitude for a long time.

Nobody could go to the bathroom, by the way.

And then we landed back after a few hours, and we stayed 1 hour on the runway, and then we stayed 6 hours at the gate in a room closed with glass walls, and They didn't let us go to the bathroom because they had us leave our stuff on the plane because it was gonna be a half-an-hour quick fix.

And so we could not go to the bathroom because we would need our passports and tickets to get back in.

And we could not go on the plane because they were fixing the plane.

And then we got in 5 hours to Tokyo, and everybody lost all the connections.

And then after several hours, they flew us to Honolulu, and we stayed 10 hours and 15 minutes for the next connection in Honolulu and so on and so forth.

And I got home 2 days later and stayed home 1 day and a half, left to Dubai.

They, some of them, pastors from, I don't know, Pakistan or Afghanistan or some of them are in danger of always losing their life or freedom.

Some of them came and started to cry and say to thank me.

They said, we are listening to the sermons when we are in trials and gives us strength.

It was very humbling experience to know that God can use you.

And then after meeting with the pastor, extremely good experience, a lot of stories.

To baptize a person in that area, it's a greater miracle than baptize a thousand here.

It's just dangerous to even talk to somebody.

And then from Dubai, I got home, stayed home 2 days and came here.

And my wife is happy when I don't have a voice.

So I'm blessed to be here with you guys, but I cannot talk louder than this.

That drink was the best of my life, if you remember.

Can it be sometimes that we think, because we are Adventists, what is really good is God's people.

And we think because we have the right doctrines, what they are wonderful, they are from the Bible.

Can it be that gives us a false sense of security?

And while we know that we are sinners, we still feel good because we keep Sabbath and eat tofu.

I mean, tofu is wonderful if it has the right ingredients around, but don't get me wrong.

I'm not acting against Tofu or Sabbath, God forbid.

It's just, can it give us a false sense of security like the 10 virgins?

You go to sleep, and you sleep because you know that you are in the right Direction.

Instead of working hard, Because we are not called for a comfortable life.

We are not called to be blessed or to be saved.

Jesus didn't come to be served or to be saved.

He came to serve, and he called you and me to serve.

2. Encountering God

This message was presented at the GYC 2017 conference, ARISE, in Phoenix, Arizona.

And so, Questions and answers are better than sermons because they address your specific need.

And so I think we should give more time to questions and answers and less time to preaching.

Should we start with questions or start with the talk and then stop early?

So, People think that even if they try to serve, they have no success.

Success is not measured in how many people you take to church or baptize.

Jesus, according to that measurement, that criteria, never saved anybody.

He never baptized anybody, never took anybody to church.

We measure success based on our pride and based on our criteria.

Success is measured in relationship with God and people.

You should not be concerned with results.

Fruits don't worry about producing, trees don't worry about producing fruits.

You just need to worry about relationship, and God will take care of the fruits.

And so when people say to me, I cannot give a Bible study, I don't know how to do it, they Say, I'm selfish and proud.

Because if they say, I don't know how to do it, there are only 2 options.

Either they are too busy with self, job, whatever, Satan would give it to you to keep you in bondage, or they are afraid they will not succeed.

If you lose or succeed just keep serving and leave it up to God.

Oh what would people say if I don't preach right?

Keep serving and let what people say and the results up to God.

And so, moreover, people don't respond as they hear it first time.

When you see them responding, that's after the second or third or fourth time, average.

They say, they do, Barna and all those that do research, that after a third time, like onion, people are like onion.

You plant onion, and it gives you something that has many seeds.

You plant the seeds, and it gives you small onions, And you plant small onions, and third year, you get real onion.

You do evangelism, people hear it and do nothing.

And then they get some Bible studies and they do nothing and you think you failed.

But if you do evangelism as a lifestyle, not as an event, you Keep doing it regardless if they respond or not, because you don't do it for results.

You keep breathing and you keep preaching.

So if you want them to have a chance, you need to keep working with them.

You want to change a church, you go, nobody changes, you get discouraged, give up.

You need to keep doing it regardless, because after about 4 years and a half, 5 years, average, Barna says, a church would change.

It's not your business when the master comes.

And so I had somebody come to me and say, that works in a middle society neighborhood, but where I live, there are only millionaires.

In fact, many times those people are more miserable than somebody in Cuba.

I was in Cuba and the lady brought 2 evangelists.

You heard the story if you listened to my sermons.

You threaten them, you kill them, you have a gun.

150 kids, 170, 180, 1 night close to 200 kids.

What do you do to bring so many kids to church?

And she says, it's not about what you do.

And they said, well, it's not about who I am, it's about who I have.

3. One With God’s Purpose

Let's take 2 questions and then we start.

After you pray for about 15 minutes, you kind of run out of things to say.

After you pray 15 minutes, you run out of things to say.

Misconceptions in our habitual prayer, routine prayer.

Prayer, let's see, prayer, it's a dialogue.

Number 2, still within the first misconception.

Point A, number 1, prayer, it's a dialogue.

Number 3 is the opening of the heart to God as to a friend.

Now, when we pray, because we pray the same thing every day, when we finish what we usually say we are out of words.

If I would do that with my wife and say the same words every day, she would not be very happy and neither would I.

But if you talk to God and listen, I hate to say, but this is not his or his or her or whatever problem.

We all, I catch myself often doing that, we all suffer of that.

But if prayer instead of being the same prayer, kind of the same ideas, the same words, the same request every day, if prayer becomes the opening of the heart, where you have an open, honest, relevant discussion and you express all your feelings and thoughts.

Sometimes we try to protect God from our feelings.

God doesn't need protection and God knows your feelings.

And the words are respectful but not very nice.

Prayer is when you express all your feelings.

If you are open and honest and talk to God about what you go through, about how you feel.

However, you don't spend a lot of time to focus on the negatives.

And you switch to focusing on God instead of focusing on feelings.

But you just need to have an open, honest conversation.

I don't remember anybody that has a good friendship that would tell their friend always the same thing.

And they talk about anything and everything.

When you pray, If you also listen, not only talk, it changes a little the picture.

We never listen in society and in prayer.

People talk to you, you talk to them, and meanwhile, instead of being listening, they are either thinking somewhere or thinking how to answer.

And before you finish, they start to answer.

And they have no clue what you go through.

Because people don't really listen and make sure that they got what you said, regardless if you are right or wrong, they try to tell you what they think.

It doesn't matter if you are right or wrong.

They first need to understand where you are, what you go through.

Make sure that they got the question or the statement, and then give an opinion or try to help Or at least say, hey, I feel for you, I'll pray for you.

We always talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.

Prayer is a dialogue all over the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

I have 4 pages of Bible verses and another about 10 pages of paragraphs in my briefcase where he talks about listening to God, hearing his voice, understanding his will, knowing his plan, listening.

In the morning, Isaiah chapter 5, he awakes what?

He awakes my ear to Listen as a disciple listens.

And then people jump from the tak, tak, tak, tak, tak, tak, extreme to the Oriental meditation stupidity.

Oh, if you focus on the middle eye, you must be crazy, I don't have a middle eye.

If you focus on nothing and empty your brain, you brainwash yourself and you can be hypnotized and anybody can do whatever to you.

God called you to think, not to empty your brain.

Day and night I meditate, but it gives you the object of the meditation.

Elenoid says contemplate, reflect, meditate On God, his law, his word, his sacrifice, his last week of life.

4. Now Is the Time

Somebody came to me and asked me, Which 1 of the titles was this sermon?

That was the intention, but I didn't preach any of those sermons.

And I am debating right now to keep telling more stories or preach a sermon.

And so I was in, anybody from Kentucky here?

And so I was in a specific church in that area.

And so good church, good people, good church, nevertheless, things not happening because where there is no vision, people perish.

We need to understand the depth of those words where there is no vision people perish.

If you don't know where you go, you will not get there.

People do church surviving from week to week.

The church doesn't get together to pray and plan and have a direction, a vision.

And the Bible says that we should have a clear vision.

And when you pray, God gives you the plan.

If you go to God with a good plan and pray, it will not happen unless the plan came from God.

Therefore, we have long board meetings and pray 5 minutes and talk 3 hours, and we never grow and accomplish anything and have no success.

Because we should pray 3 hours and talk 5 minutes.

And so The church didn't have too many baptisms for the last 70 years or so.

I looked in the conference books and the average of baptisms that was 2, 3 baptisms a year was mostly their own children.

Basically somebody's born and somebody dies and they stay there and they don't grow and they don't go down.

Specific to our churches, they are in coma.

And so good people, smart, loving God, nevertheless, nothing happening.

So I asked them, I said, first board meeting, I said, What do you do for outreach, evangelism or whatever?

And 1 of the board most important people said to me, we don't believe in evangelism.

1 of them told me, you know, board meeting should not go over 9 o'clock.

And so what do you do in a church that has 3 groups that they fight each other?

1 group extremely liberal, extremely, extremely liberal.

And 1 group not believing in the Holy Spirit and in Trinity.

And they fight each other and the church is down to 100, 90 to 100 attendance.

You cannot just go and tell them what to do because they will not listen.

In fact, 1 of the elders told me, you pastors come and tell us what to do and as soon as you get a better call, you move and you don't care for us.

1 of them came to me, put his finger in my chest and said, I don't trust you pastors.

It would be a mistake to tell them how or what to do.

And if you try to manipulate, you'll not get anywhere.

And if you try to force it to start a war, it doesn't make any sense.

I don't fast more than 4 hours, but I fast continually, I eat every 4 hours.

In fact, she fasts twice a year, 2 to 3 weeks, literally, only water.

And she feels, I have energy, my memory is back.

I say, if I did it for 1 day, I would be shaking all over, you know.

Anyway, so we prayed 2 hours every morning, and she fasted every Wednesday.

We doubled the prayer from 2 hours a morning to 4 hours a morning.

And instead of praying from 5 to 7, we prayed from 3 a.m.

It takes a bunch of commitment and sacrifice.

And then I dedicate it 1 day a week, every Monday.

I would go to church, lock myself inside the church and pray the whole day from morning to night in the church over every pew.

And we said, if God doesn't answer after 3 months, we are going to double again and go from 4 hours, we are going to go to 8 hours.

And we'll keep praying until God tells us what is the plan.