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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Jasper Ivan Iturriaga

A Soldier or a Colonist?

Heavenly Father, we thank you for giving us an opportunity this Sabbath.

We thank you for the opportunity in which we can study your word.

I pray, Father, you please take away all the distractions in our hearts and mind that our hearts would be focused into your word, into your presence.

I pray also, Father, that you please give us that blood of Jesus, that we may be worthy to face you this very Sabbath and to study your word.

And may you help us, Lord, to see the beautiful plans that you have for us and for your church, in Christ's name, amen.

When I was in my room studying, I was contemplating and I realized that I will not be following the sermon that I have given pastor.

And so I have changed the sermon completely and I've entitled the sermon, A Soldier or a Colonist.

Yeah, because I wanted to put my Bibles in this 1.

If you have your Bibles with you, please raise it up high if you could see 1.

We are living in a generation where people don't really appreciate the Bible.

And so when you go to the church, especially young people, they don't go and bring their Bibles anymore.

So I'm happy that we are living in a church and we are in a church that still appreciates the Bible.

I remember a story from a friend of mine.

He was in a non-SDA church, I won't name the church, but he went there, they're non-Adventist, and so he went to attend a funeral of his friend.

Story was told that he came into the front, and while he was there listening to the sermon what the pastor was preaching, he was observing the church, he realized that he was the only 1 who brought his Bible with him.

And so while he was listening to the pastor up in front, the pastor was coding somewhere in Psalms 24 verse 27.

And so maybe he heard it wrong, maybe it's Psalms 27, 24 and so he opened his Bible and Psalms 27, 24 and there's no Psalms 27, 24.

And he looked back into the church and he realized that all the people were saying amen to what the preacher said.

And so he asked himself, how many of us in the church are sometimes saying amen to things that sometimes are not in the Bible.

So I pray today as we study the Word, I hope you'd follow with me to open the Word and see if the preacher is preaching the words that is written in the Word of God.

Open your Bibles to the book of 2 Timothy.

2 Timothy 2, if you have your Bibles with you.

Let me give you a little background of 2 Timothy 2.

2 Timothy is the last letter of Paul to the young Timothy.

Now, there was, according to the story, was a fire burning in the south part of Rome.

And Nero, during that time, since he burned that part, according to some historians, he wants the people not to blame him for the fire, but to blame the Christians.

Story was told that he got a hold of a man named Paul, put him in prison, and put him into a dungeon.

The story was told that Paul was given a chance to write his letters to his family, but he chose to write his letter to the young Timothy.

If you are in the last point of your life, final point of your life, and you know you're gonna die, and you're given an opportunity to write your final words to someone, would that be the most important words?

That probably the most important words you ever give to that person.

And Paul is giving his serious advice to the young Timothy.

You see, Paul is passing the baton to the young Timothy, and he's telling the young Timothy, I'm passing this to you.

You will move forward the work that God has entrusted me to do.

I know I'm the point of my last part of my life, and I'm giving this opportunity for you to pass on this ministry.

Thus, he's given this counsel to the young Timothy.

Second Timothy, chapter 2, beginning at Verse 1, thou therefore my son, the Bible said, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

And the things that thou hast heard me among many witness, same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also.

Now look at verse 3, the Bible said, thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

No man that wars entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who had chosen him to be a soldier.

Today our focus of the study will be that, those only few verses.

The Bible tells us, my dear friends, that Paul is giving this counsel to young Timothy of how to be a good soldier.

Homogi here would say, I wanna be a good soldier.

And let's see what Paul thinks about this, and let's expand the words of Paul and see what lessons we can get out of his words.

The Bible said, Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier.

Those are the advice of Paul to John Timothy.

I've asked you if you want to be a good soldier of God and most of you raised your hands.

In other words, if you want to be soldier, I realized if you wanted to be a soldier of God, you need first to answer the call.

Someone cannot become a soldier if they have not answered a call.

So the question that we need to ask this morning as we move forward is, have you answered a call of God to be a soldier?

Have you answered that call or is the phone still ringing?

How many years have we become Seventh-day Adventists and many years of God convicting us to answer that call?

You know many people in this in our church, not just in this church many people in our church today profess to be the movement.

But when the call comes in, they flinch and say, Lord, here I am, Lord.

Is that what's happening to the church currently?

We wanted to profess to be soldiers, but when a call comes in to do something for God, we flinch and, Lord, send someone else.

You can pick him, but please don't pick me.

So the question is, have you answered a call from God?

Many of us, you know, in the world today, many people wants to wear the uniform of the military.

But when a call to go to war, many people don't want to go to war.

They just want to be part of the uniform.

Many people wanted to be part of this church, but when the call comes to go to battle, we flinch and we say no.

But my dear friends, we are called to engage in battle.

A soldier is someone who is not just wearing a uniform, someone who is engaged in battle.

That means if you are not engaged in battle, No matter what you say yourself and professing you're a soldier, you're not a soldier.

Because a soldier is someone who is engaged in battle.

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A Soldier or a Colonist?

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