GYC SE 2009: More

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GYC Southeast

Understanding God's Will

Tim Riesenberger

Session 1: God’s Will - Your Work

Loving Father in heaven, Lord, ultimately, this is about your will, not ours.

And so I ask that I would be hidden and that you would be present.

I ask that I would be silent and you would speak and that I would be hidden behind your cross and only Jesus Christ would be seen.

So the way we're going to arrange this, yeah, I'm great, thank you, is that we're going to talk about 3 things.

And then we're gonna talk about your ministry, how you're going to actually win others to Christ, because that's why we're here, to get a training.

I appreciated Sebastian sharing what he did and saying, we can be educated, but not actually do any good in this world.

What I'd like to share with you first is a real thing that happened to me on the way here that I think perfectly illustrates God's will and how he works day by day.

I was on the airplane coming here to SEYC.

And on the flight, I met an elderly lady sitting next to me.

She was there, and we were kind of talking back and forth.

And she was all of the most Friendly person I've ever seen.

And she asked, well, what are you going to do?

And she, at 85, was very interested in this topic.

Now, she was visiting 1 of her relatives.

And I have sent her an email, gave her directions to Southern, and I hope that she will come and visit, come to church, maybe even come to 1 of the seminars this afternoon.

And as I was talking to her, another guy across the row, in the other aisle of the airplane, overhears that I'm a physician.

And he starts asking me about the health care crisis.

And he wants to know, well, what are you doing?

I think there's 1 chair right there, actually.

So this guy, giving me his contact information to follow up, I have sent both of them emails with invitations.

Is it God's will that we invite people to him?

You sit right back there on the window sill.

I came here to campus, I came a little early.

I wanted to be able to settle in, use your gym a little bit, work out.

And on 1 of my trips, there's a seat right back there, right next to those 2 guys, right on the window cell, is I lost my comb.

And for those of you who know me, when I get up in the morning, my hair is so poofy, it could power a small city in the morning.

I need to dunk my head and then try to comb things down 1 by 1.

Now why in the world would there be no comb?

There's brushes, there's dental floss, there's toothpastes, there's all this stuff.

And then I start to realize why this has happened.

Because I make my way now to the hair salon.

Probably going to spend $5 on some comb, though.

I said, well, I might as well get a haircut from you now.

Before the trip is done, I have a comb, I have a haircut, and I have 2 stylists asking about God's will for their lives.

They even told me up front, well we're not Seventh-day Adventist.

You can always tell when someone's not Adventist because they'll say Adventist.

They'll put the emphasis on the wrong syllable.

They're like, we have to work tomorrow, but tell us.

And so I started to open the principles of God's word with these 2 stylists as they're cutting my hair.

So do you think it was coincidence that I lost my comb?

Was it coincidence that your market didn't have a comb?

Was it coincidence that Tiffany and Tammy were working at that time?

God will unfold his will to you every day.

Are you willing to look at the events of daily life as God directed or just chance?

Keep that in mind as we discover God's will for your job.

So to set a foundation principle, I'm going to give you a scripture that Jesus said to the Sadducees.

Now, Remember to the Pharisees, he accused them of what?

Hypocrisy means saying 1 thing and doing another, right?

But the Sadducees, he did not accuse of that.

Session 2: God’s Will - Your Spouse

Well, as they're setting up, are there any questions from the last seminar or any questions that you might have that you'd like me to address first?

I didn't get a chance to do any question and answer, which I normally like to do during the break.

With insurance, how do you see that with serving God?

With success, does that ever become a challenge?

So the question is, how do you relate to money?

And here's a very simple answer to that question.

Jesus had 2 men that encountered him, the rich young ruler and Zacchaeus.

Now, interestingly enough, what did Jesus say to the rich young ruler that he had to do to be saved?

Give to the poor and you shall have treasure in heaven and come take up the cross and follow me.

Now, Zacchaeus in Luke 19 says to Jesus, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have robbed anyone by false accusation, I restore to him what?

Now did Jesus say, you know what, Zacchaeus, you gotta sell everything?

Because it wasn't his issue, and that Jesus already had what?

With the rich young ruler, he knew that unless he surrendered at all, even to keep back little would have destroyed his soul.

We're told in Desire of Ages that Jesus presented the only requirements that would save his soul.

The only requirements that would save his soul.

And now with Zacchaeus, right, Jesus knew that he already had Zacchaeus' heart.

So he didn't have to surrender all of it.

So as long as God has your heart, you could still be a wealthy man.

Zacchaeus was still wealthy, probably after he gave away half.

I think I told you guys already, I don't work just for the sake of making a bunch of money, because I only work 8 to 10 days a month.

And the reason I do that is I dedicate a week to do things just like this.

To go to Zambia and do medical mission work.

To do a series of health lectures in Sacramento.

Those are just some of the things that I have coming up.

And that is because our lives are not just our jobs, right?

They're also our spouse and our ministry.

Now I want to say, First of all, this is actually my favorite of the 3 topics.

Because I have an entire seminar on relationships that's actually 6 hours.

And if you want all the quotes and all the stuff, the studies, the Bible, Spirit of Prophecy text, just email me at doctim at gmail, d-o-c-t-i-m at gmail and I'll send you everything because this is just a 1 hour and what I'll be focusing in on is the things that we brought up in the last seminar, they apply to this as well.

But the 1 thing I want to 0 in on is when it is dangerous to pray about it.

Here's kind of a thought process of where advice can harm you.

Many people are going to give you advice.

And for myself, I can tell you up front, I usually get about 3 people saying, oh, you're single, Tim?

That happens like usually 3 times in different places that I go.

But the reason why it's dangerous is that people are biased.

Biased means they are thinking about who?

Themselves or the person they're recommending, and not necessarily you.

You know, Sean Bush was 1 of my professors at Loma Linda, and he has a short in Venom ER.

In fact, I recorded a section of a Gila monster bite that actually caused a person to have a heart attack.

And I remember 1 of his sayings being absolutely brilliant.

He's a guy from Texas who's got this accent.

He says, Tim, when you're a doc, people are going to tell you to do the wrong thing.

But you've got to do the right thing, because you're the patient advocate.

But they're going to tell you to do the wrong thing.

And I thought, come on, no physician's going to tell you to do the wrong thing.

But then I had a little baby, 27 days old, with a fever.

And what we're supposed to do as doctors is that at that young age, they can have anything.

Meningitis, pneumonia, sepsis in the blood.

They can be dead in hours and look fine on initial presentation.

So I had my resident that was working with me, which is a physician in training, right?

He's like, you mean draw blood, give antibiotics, do a spinal tap and admit the child?

So he calls up the pediatrician to accept the patient.

And the pediatrician says, oh, why don't you just do some lab tests?

Session 3: God’s Will - Your Mission

Loving Father in heaven, Lord, we just want to thank you and praise you just for the privilege of being your co-workers because you could perform the plan of salvation yourself without our help.

We're told you could even make the rocks cry out.

But you use sinful, erring, weak human beings, of which I am chief, Lord.

You know that I have no business being up here, but you have called me, so I'm here, Lord.

So I pray that You would use me in spite of myself, my weak and Christ-like self, and may Jesus Christ be not only seen and heard, but felt throughout our lives and to the lives of others.

Thanks for that amen, Robbie, I appreciate that.

Now you remember, we discussed that whatever our vocation, our calling in life, what is our first consideration?

Win souls for Christ, Whatever one's calling in life, his first interest should be to win souls for Christ.

He may not be able to speak to congregations, but he can work for individuals.

To them he can communicate the instruction received from the Lord.

Ministry does not consist alone in preaching.

Those minister who relieve the sick and suffering, helping the needy, speaking words of comfort to the desponding of those little faith, teaching the ignorant also, right?

Nigh and afar off, our souls weighed down by a sense of guilt.

It is not hardship, toil, or poverty that degrades humanity, but guilt, wrongdoing.

Christ would have his servants minister to sin sick souls.

Now, Matthew 13, 23 says that the seed that fell on good ground is who?

The 1 who receives the word and understands it and bears what?

They're counted though, they're numbered.

But I think what's very intriguing is the parable of the talents uses what numbers?

125, and they multiply them to 1, 4, and 10.

But notice here, how many do we bring forth?

Some of you could win 60 souls to Christ.

Some of you maybe thousands or hundreds of thousands.

I believe there's a reason those numbers are there.

Think about it for a while and commit yourself to doing it.

Going back to your skills, remember we talked about in your job, right?

In your job, we looked at your skill set.

Most of my invitations are for a week of prayers for colleges and academies.

Because I'll show you some interesting thoughts.

When I went to the Ukraine with Amazing Facts, we had 2, 000 people coming a night.

And I was there doing health lecturing, answering questions, stuff like that.

When we were done, there were 89 baptized.

That was just at the end of the campaign.

I did it for a church, for the Filipino American Seattle Church, and there were many people that came that were not Christian, that were not Adventist.

Out of the hundred people that came on the retreat, there were about 12 that were baptized.

Out of their 44 students, 36 committed for baptism.

Now, I want to share with you what the principal said to me at the end of that week of prayer.

Hess, what do you think about the 25 students for baptism?

Because after just a short weekend, over half of their student body made commitments.

When I did a week of prayer in Springs of Life, It's an orphanage in Calcutta, India.

Did you know that 82 of his 90 students came forward?

But You know, some of them were quite young, so it ended up being 60.

But still, I get letters to this day after 3 years from the orphans.

And 1 time I called, and I'm going to share with you the story.

What was happening was is that some of the students were actually seeing the devil.

And I'm like, well, what does he look like?

And they got on the phone and they told me.

They said, you know, uncle, they call me uncle.

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Series

Understanding God's Will

Session 2: God’s Will - Your Spouse

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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Recorded

Parts

Session 1: God’s Will - Your Work

49m

Session 2: God’s Will - Your Spouse

42m

Session 3: God’s Will - Your Mission

49m

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