GYC SE 2009: More

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GYC Southeast

Plenary Meetings

Sebastien Braxton

One More

So tonight, the title of our message is 1 More.

Mighty God, everlasting Father, We are gathered about your feet in your house to hear your words and not the words of a man.

Father, you know that humanity as you told Adam, Thus thou art, and to thus thou shalt return.

And so, Lord, You know that I am but dust in Your sight, but we know what God can do with dust.

We know what God can do with a contrite heart.

And so it is our prayer, Lord, that this, your manservant, you may make him your mouthpiece, that you may speak through me, that you would give me courage not to diminish 1 word that the Holy Spirit lays upon my heart, and that He would go from heart to heart and from mind to mind, impressing truth upon the soul, that it may have a sanctifying power over our lives.

This is our prayer, and we ask that you'll help this to be our experience.

Turn with me to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 12.

All right, Luke chapter 12 beginning in verse 54.

Anyway, don't let me digress, it's already getting late.

Luke chapter 12, verse 54, the Bible says this, and he said also to the people, When you see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, there cometh a shower, and so it is.

And when you see the south wind blow, ye say there will be heat, and it cometh to pass.

Ye hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky and of the earth, but how is it that ye do not discern this time?

Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?

When thou goest with an adversary to the magistrate, as thou art in the way, give diligence that thou mayest be delivered from him.

Lest he hail thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and the officer cast thee into prison, I tell thee thou shall not depart thence, that means prison, till thou hast paid the very last mite." It has become increasingly noticeable as a very locally itinerant preacher amongst our congregations that as young people we are becoming ignorant or indifferent of prophetic things.

We don't know how to explain the 2300 days, nor do we understand the significance of many world events that pass on the television through CNN.

And it seems that Jesus says, you can discern when it's going to rain, can you not?

Many of you know, right, you step outside your dorm and you just got your hair done, you kind of step, you know it's going to rain or you check your Apple widgets, amen?

And you go to that weather widget and you type in Collegedale, Tennessee and it comes up and it seems as if many times we can go outside and even though the weather channel, which can be wrong, amen, you're like it's not going to rain.

Then you go outside, just got your hair done and lo and behold, There's that raindrop and you feel like the antediluvians outside the ark running to cover your hair.

We also have this thing of picking up on signs.

And so sometimes, you know, where perhaps we see a friend in a relationship and a person starts talking to you about the relationship, you're like, I'm starting to see some signs.

It seems as if the clouds are gathering around your relationship.

It seems as if the clouds are gathering around your life.

And Jesus says oftentimes we are better at discerning these kinds of signs than the signs that teach us what kind of times we are living in.

It seems to me and to the careful eye that the clouds are gathering and that the storm is coming upon this earth.

In case you're not sure about that, you may want to look up an incident where 2 10-year-old children kidnapped a two-year-old child in the United Kingdom, tortured him, and then stabbed him to death.

And you don't think the clouds are gathering.

I was in Africa in Botswana, sitting down at an inn, reading a newspaper, and the lady next to me was doing research on the relationship between AIDS and malaria.

And she knew I was a preacher there at the University of Gabon.

And she said, hey, you're a preacher, you might find this interesting, and there on the cover of the newspaper, Jesus has come back.

A 12-year-old boy named Jesus, and guess what his parents' names are?

Sebastian, Mark, no, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

And I'm looking at the cover of the newspaper And you read it and he says, people will come back and they will say, lo, he is there.

And here I am looking at a newspaper, a 12-year-old boy healing people of AIDS in a village, claiming to be Jesus.

I had to bring that paper back to America, and I sat it on my desk every day to remind myself.

We are disconnected sometimes, and we are not discerning that the clouds are gathering.

Jesus said there would be pestilence, and it seems as if it has become common that foods are sick.

It has become common that tomatoes are taken off the shelf.

All of a sudden you come, there's avian bird flu, mad cow disease.

We look at the fact that street gangs, drug dealing, violent crimes increasing and spreading to suburbs.

There are places in the world where more people have STDs than do not.

The university that I attended, 1 in 4 people had a STD that was incurable and 1 in every 2 had more than 1 sexual partner on campus.

And we don't think the clouds are gathering.

You talk about the ecumenical language and now Protestants are starting to become Catholics.

We are seeing the Reformation in reverse.

People are going back to the ancient religion, back to the mother church so to speak.

Or maybe you didn't witness before the elections the financial crisis.

And because of this financial crisis, I had shared with you a little bit last night a man, I'm sorry, multiple individuals jumping to their death because their portfolios had gone down to 0.

Opening the Wall Street Journal to find out that Ford's stock price is negative.

And on top of all of this, the Pope comes out with a statement calling for a world government to manage this financial crisis.

Ye hypocrites, you can discern when it's going to rain, But you can't discern the times in which we're living.

And so, Jesus goes on to another illustration to make his point again, and he says, when you go in verse 58, with thine adversary to the magistrate, as thou art in the way.

Now, an adversary at those times in the Bible, it was talking about a person who had an accusation.

And they're saying, you owe a debt and you have not paid.

And so, that person is going and you're imagining to yourself, You're walking in the way and as the person's just walking in the way and all of a sudden the person turns and they see somebody they owe money.

You're on campus coming from the CAF, you owed somebody some money, you saw her running after you and you decided to duck the other way.

And he says, what's going to happen is that person, while they're on their way to the judge, that's how they handled debts back at those times.

Earlier in the chapter, a man raised his hand and interrupted Jesus' speech and said, Lord, can you tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me?

And Jesus said, man, who made me a judge and a divider over you?

So you understand that a judge was a person that settled disputes, settled accusations and debts to be paid, where rights were given to the right individuals.

And here we find, he says, agree with your adversary.

You are in debt to someone, make sure you pay, because when you're in the way, don't wait till you get to the judge.

And friends, it seems right now we are on our way.

And it makes me wonder, did you know who woke you up this morning?

It is Enough

The title of our message this morning is, It is Enough.

For my consecration message tonight at 530, I'm going to be sharing the rest of my testimony.

But essentially from there, I'll explain the rest of how the Lord pretty much brought me in and some of my experiences as I have made a decision to follow Christ, been in jail and all kind of other crazy stories, so if you're interested in knowing how Jesus can save a person who was serving the devil, then you'll be here at 5.30 tonight.

And I can share with you 1 last time how the Lord has brought me to where I am today.

Mighty God, everlasting Father, We are grateful for the gift of life.

We come before you with no other argument but our great need.

And you told the apostle Peter, when He answered to you that you were the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

You said that flesh and blood have not revealed this unto you, but my Father which is in heaven.

And so, Father, we understand that as we approach the Word of God, which is able to make us wise unto salvation, We cannot understand spiritual things without the Spirit of God.

That we need you, Lord, to open thou our eyes, that you might reveal unto us the truth as it is in Jesus, and that that truth, when it comes, it would have a sanctifying power over our lives.

And so this morning, we ask 1 more time, you would use this man, which is but dust in your sight, and breathe upon me breath of God, and fill me with life anew.

We ask these things so that you would be glorified, so that Jesus can be seen, and so that your people can be blessed and changed to fulfill the purpose that you have for their lives.

I have found in just some of my opportunities to serve in secular environments for ministry that 1 of the questions that seems to emerge on secular campuses, out in secular environments in the workplace, is this idea of how does a person come to the decision to have faith in God or His Word?

And so, I remember talking to a young lady who was atheist from China at the University of Michigan.

And she said, you know, this whole concept of God is very interesting to me.

And so as You're talking about God like he's right here.

You talk about Jesus as if you were just visiting with him in the morning.

He doesn't leave sticky notes on your desk.

And so she said, you know, if I was sleeping here in my dorm room and all of a sudden I saw a bright light appear in my window and this beautifully ebullient figure full of light and glory came and said, Christina, I am Jesus, the 1 that Sebastian's been talking to you about.

And she said, maybe then I would consider that to be sufficient evidence.

I would say, okay, it's enough and I will believe in God.

And I looked and I said, Christina, let me ask you a question.

Are you telling me, are you telling me that if this figure happened, if this presence came into your room in your dorm and you're like, oh, now I know that he exists because I've seen him, are you telling me that you believe everything you see?

She said, no, I don't believe everything I see.

So how do I know that when that figure appears to you, all of a sudden next morning you're like, you know, I ate pizza really late.

You know, I had a little too much ice cream at the freshman cafeteria.

So maybe, you know, I'm having visions and dreams and I was hypoglycemic.

All these other excuses and so as I began to explain to her that faith rests upon evidence, not demonstration.

I don't believe in Jesus because I have seen him.

I believe because there is evidence that is compelling that Jesus does exist.

When you go to a court of law, you know what they say, right?

That you can be proved to be innocent beyond a reasonable doubt.

Even in the court of law, they say this man has been found guilty and you can prove.

And in America, God be praised, we are innocent till proven guilty.

And they have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

They said you have to prove this beyond a reasonable doubt.

And There are many people who doubt God, who doubt the Word of God as being inspired, who doubt the truth, not because there is no room for doubt, but because they doubt it beyond a reasonable doubt.

The way that they are doubting is not reasonable.

Even in our everyday lives, we make all kinds of decisions based upon evidence.

For a student who was considering enrolling at Southern Adventist University, when they came and visited the beautiful plush campus.

They were gathering evidence as to why they should come.

And sometimes, the evidence may lead in a direction that when we come, we find that it's not the way that we were hoping it would be.

So because it says it is Southern Adventist University, my assumption as a parent, my assumption as a student, based upon the evidence in the name, based upon the evidence that they have to go to chapel or they have to go to convocation credits or Vespers, that this is a campus that is heavily spiritual.

But that student comes and they may not find that to be so everywhere on campus.

And you say, well, I thought this was an Adventist university.

I thought that I would find these kind of things here.

And for you, you decided that the fact that it's an Adventist university, the fact that you have to go to Vespers, the fact that there's convocation credit in chapel, that was enough evidence for you.

Even in relationships, we do the same thing.

Say well, the person is externally pleasing to my sight.

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One More

49m

More Answers

53m

It is Enough

47m

Ever More

1h

Sound Doctrine