Too often in our Christian experience we forget where we’ve come from, and this can lead us to self-righteousness and complacency. The story of Mary Magdalene helps illuminate the solution.

GYC Northwest 2018: Return. Receive. Run.

<p>Too often in our Christian experience we forget where we’ve come from, and this can lead us to self-righteousness and complacency. The story of Mary Magdalene helps illuminate the solution.</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>

GYC Northwest

Plenary

Dee Casper

When Missionaries Leave

Father in heaven, I thank you for this privilege to come into your presence in prayer.

And I'm just asking now that you would bless us with the ability to understand.

I pray that the message would be relevant and helpful.

And I just pray that you would minister to each of our hearts, particularly those of us who maybe may be in the throes of failure right now and are wrestling with knowing what to do.

And so I just pray that you would open our eyes to how you dealt with the precious servant of yours and the promise that's available to us.

But I pray as Moses prayed that you would show us your glory, O now I pray.

So the theme text for GYC Northwest this year is found in Hosea chapter 6.

Kind of begin with a scripture reading here.

Hosea chapter 6 and verse 1, and then we'll actually go into our message.

Hosea chapter 6 and beginning in verse 1.

It says, After 2 days he will revive us, on the third day he will raise us up that we may live in his sight.

Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord.

His going forth is established as the morning, and he will come to us like the rain, like the latter and the former rain, to the earth." So what I'm going to be covering this evening is the story of a missionary who left, who ran, someone who stumbled.

We're just gonna walk through the story of Elijah and see how it is that God dealt with him in the midst of his misstep and his weakness and what lessons we can learn from this.

We're talking about the pursuit of God in the midst of our discouraging moments in our lives.

So what I'm going to be walking through with you, and I'm going to be kind of overviewing for time's sake this evening, is basically the content you'll see in Prophets and Kings 11 to 13.

If you haven't read that, it's better than any Hollywood script you'll ever see in your life.

Can I say y'all in the Pacific Northwest?

And the narrative is basically in the general range of 1 Kings 17 through 19.

So the man Elijah is given an amazing call and kind of a scary call and almost kind of seemingly unreasonable because the call that God has given this man is to tell Ahab, the king of Israel, that there's not going to be rain in this land until I say so, basically.

And he not only says that it's not going to rain, but the problem is, on his way to tell the king this, we're told this in Prophets and Kings, nothing that he sees would make him think that what he's saying is true.

Right, these hills look completely devoid of any lack of moisture.

They're rolling with verger, there's water everywhere.

And so this man has to believe what God says in spite of what he sees.

And by faith he makes this charge." And she says that like a thunderbolt on a clear sky, this guy comes in and drops a bomb and leaves.

It's kind of like getting sucker punched.

Like, by the time that Ahab realized what has happened, Elijah's nowhere to be found.

Like, he doesn't even know where he is, and he's still trying to make sense of what happened.

Now, once Jezebel gets word of this, she's livid, beyond livid, and they literally check every rock in Israel for this guy and want him dead, because the drought does come, hardship does come.

And he's guided to the brook Cherith, and God miraculously feeds him through ravens bringing him meals.

Now, in my mind's eye, I would love to believe that this food comes from Ahab's table.

None of our inspired writings tell us this, but I would just love to see that with the case, but we don't have that.

But what we do know is that God does miraculously provide for this man.

Now, once the provision starts to run out at this location, he calls them to go visit the widow at Sarepta, and as she's gathering sticks, he asks her, would you please bring me a morsel of bread?

Now, it's the drought, and she's really discouraged, she doesn't know what to do, and she says, look, I just gotta be real with you, we don't have much.

Like, I'm literally gathering these few twigs so I can make a small loaf for my child and I because we're going to die after this.

And he basically encourages her to take a step of faith and to trust me.

If you take this step, I promise you God will provide.

And God does provide and blesses this home in the midst of great hardship.

Now, after the 3 and a half years have finished, it's just barren.

It's just—it's a very difficult place to be.

Jezebel and Ahab have actually sought after and tried to kill prophets of God, and are killing prophets of God, because they just want to get rid of all of them.

They brought us bad news, get rid of them.

But Elijah's given a second call at the conclusion of this time frame, where he's told to now go back to Ahab and tell him that it is going to rain, there's going to be a showdown, first of all.

And when he does this, again, nothing he sees tells him that rain is coming.

There's not a cloud in the sky, everything is dry and parched and gross, and yet he has to believe what God says in spite of what he sees.

Trusting God in circumstances the most forbidding, and that exact phrase will be used here in a moment.

So then, A servant of Ahab comes and sees him, and Elijah says, go tell him that I'm here and tell him to come meet with me.

And he says, do you have any care for me at all?

Like, I don't know if you understand, but like, they literally have checked every rock in Israel, and if I come back and you're not here when I come back with Ahab, he's going to kill me.

I had, you know, 50 servants in a cave here and fed them, and I put another 50 here and fed them.

And Elijah says, I'm not going anywhere, tell him I'm here.

And when Ahab shows up, the introductory greeting that he gives him is, is that you, O troubler of Israel?

Elijah's the problem, the righteous prophet, not the wicked pagan king, right?

And then Elijah basically gives him a charge.

And he says, bring everybody up to Mount Carmel.

And it's basically to meet me at the flagpole.

I don't know what your situation was in your upbringing.

But in the public school, whenever you had differences, you had to settle with somebody, you took care of it at the flagpole.

It was actually at the clothing store across the street when I was in junior high.

And he basically tells them, bring the prophets of Baal, and we're having a showdown on the top of Mount Carmel.

He's not boastful, but he says you need to bring them.

Elijah makes a proposition to them that you build an altar and I'll build an altar, and if you call down fire from heaven, then your God indeed is God alone.

If I call down fire from heaven, then this is God alone.

It seems like a fair proposition to them, and they go first.

And what begins to ensue once they've set up their altar is a scene of absolute mayhem, chaos, and madness.

They're jumping, they're leaping, they're screaming, they're cutting themselves, they're bleeding all over the place, trying to prove to their gods that by what we're doing, by harming ourselves, we deserve to get a response.

And what Ellen White says about this is absolutely amazing.

She says, the sacrifice remains unconsumed.

Awkward silence for hours, as they make fools of themselves for quite a while.

And this keeps going on, and it eventually gets to the point that she says that the people who are watching here, because right before Elijah gives him this charge, he says, how long do you tarry between 2 opinions?

And not a single soul would claim loyalty to Jehovah on that mountain top.

And there's Israelites upon the top of this mountain, not just prophets of Baal.

But as time goes on, these people of Israel are starting to become weary.

They grow weary of this type of religion, she says.

Why Many Have Left

Oh, sweet Jesus, I just thank you for this privilege to come into your presence just now.

And I'm asking that you would pour out a rich blessing upon us this evening, and that we would sense you here, that we would sense you speaking to our hearts, and that you would remind us of our first love.

Lord, that we would cease forgetting where we came from.

I pray as Moses prayed that you would show us your glory, O now, and I ask it in Christ Jesus' name.

Why many have left, my burden is to address a topic that is my newfound passion.

I'm head over heels in love with a man named Jesus, but there is a specific aspect of the gospel that I've come to realize we were actually told that we should be telling alongside the gospel, and I'd like to share that with you this evening.

But I'd like to begin with the best advice I've ever received in ministry, and it was from Taj Paklib, and I wish he was here this evening.

I was speaking with him at ASI earlier last year in August, and I asked him the question I ask everybody I get a chance to speak to who are speakers and who have done this a lot longer than I have, what is the advice that you wish you would have received when you started knowing what you know now?

And instead of answering my question directly, Taj began to tell me a story.

He said, there's this man at the pool of Bethesda in John chapter 5, and he's been an invalid for 38 years.

And when Jesus comes up to the guy, he asks him, do you want to be made well?

I think we know the answer to that question.

He says to rise, to take up his mat, and to walk.

And the point that Taj made to me was that 2 of these things make sense and 1 of them doesn't.

Rising makes sense and walking makes sense, but what's with the map?

Like, this map literally is just a reminder of 38 years of rejection, of abandonment, of shame, of hopelessness, and loneliness.

So why would he tell them to pick that up?

It's just a reminder of all this horrible background and history that this man has had in his experience.

What Jesus is basically telling the man is to not forget where he came from.

Rocked me, right there in the exhibit, no it was in an elevator I think, I forget where it was.

And it was a beautiful truth to me, hit me hard, it was the best advice that I could have received, to not forget where I came from.

And the counsel that he gave me reminds me of 2 stories in scripture that I'd like to cover with you this evening.

2 people's stories, I should say, that they contrast in an interesting way.

They actually converge at the feet of Jesus.

Kind of 2 opposite stories, but they converge at the feet of Jesus.

The first is Simon the leper, and the second is Mary Magdalene.

And Simon is basically this religious leader who contracts leprosy.

Any day that you contract leprosy, it's not starting off well.

But the cost is very high because this man is isolated now.

He's completely deprived of any form of intimacy, right?

And the belief in that day was that whenever you contract leprosy, it's a divine curse from God.

Well, what do you do when you're a religious leader, a ministry leader who's now viewed by the people as being cursed by God.

He's lost his public ministry, he's lost access to this, but yet Jesus in his great mercy miraculously heals this man and restores his ministry.

And what a blessing if you've ever been in a situation like that.

The thought that comes to my mind most recently was the story of Steve Wahlberg, if you've heard what happened to him.

In the early first half or late first half of last year, came down with heavy depression, anxiety, and panic attacks, was hearing voices and discouragement, and was just horrible.

I ended up having to take sleeping pills to get to sleep, and that caused a whole nother problem.

Was it just a difficult situation, and he was fully convinced he would never be in ministry ever again.

And by the grace of the Lord Jesus, he went to the Nedley Institute, was treated very, very wonderfully there, and is in a different condition now than he was when he went there, and they found out more of the reasons why.

When you hear the story, he shares an audio verse, he's weeping as he tells the story because he was sure that he would never be in front of God's people ever again.

So imagine how Simon must have felt, right?

But then you have the story of Mary, who was sexually abused as a young person, which led her into even harder, difficult situations.

She ends up having a lifestyle of sexual sin that she also is basically viewed as an outcast in the small community of Bethany.

Bethany is kind of like the intro to the show Cheers, which most of you young people have no idea what I'm talking about.

But they say, we want to go where everyone knows your name, or something like that.

Everyone knows your name in Bethany, Everyone knows your business there.

And yet Jesus, in His great mercy, sets this woman free as well.

It seems that it takes some time and multiple efforts, but this woman ends up finding great, great freedom because of Jesus.

So, eventually there's a feast that's going to be held in honor of Jesus for 2 main reasons.

Lazarus is a family member, and he's a famous figure in this community now because he kind of like died and stuff and Jesus rode him from the dead, right?

But this this resurrection was even more significant than the others.

Resurrections are amazing, but this 1 was even more significant because there was a view amongst the Jews who had kind of inherited pagan Greek views when it comes to the state of the dead, that the soul doesn't actually leave the body for 3 days is what they believed.

And they hated Jesus so much that the resurrections that he had performed could potentially come into question because they fell in that window with 3 days, right?

Anyway, the widow's son and Jairus's daughter.

So, those are within that window, so they weren't really dead, I mean, they were only dead for 24 hours or whatever.

Just the hatred towards Jesus was so strong that this is how they respond.

But the raising of Lazarus is more significant because Lazarus was dead for how long?

4 days, outside of that window, well beyond it.

And it's this powerful witness, it's such a powerful witness, that now the Jewish leaders not only want Jesus dead, but they're now realizing we're gonna have to kill Lazarus too, because too many people are believing in Jesus because of this guy.

So, then someone shows up to this feast uninvited and she completely steals the show.

It's found in Mark chapter 14, and I'm gonna have some of the text up on the slides here, But if there's a feast being held, there's music involved, there's large gatherings, and you know, lots of talking, it's going to be a very loud event, but there's something that happens that kind of just makes the record stop and causes people to pay attention.

So in Mark chapter 14, it says, "...and being in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, as Jesus sat at the table, a woman came having an alabaster flask of very costly oil of spikenard.

And then she broke the flask and poured the oil on Jesus' head.

This is a token of her gratitude for what Jesus has done to set her free.

But there were some there who were indignant among themselves and said, Why was this fragrant oil, and what's the next word they use?

Just imagine, this woman's given everything she has for Jesus, and they have the audacity to say that it's a waste to give such a precious gift to Jesus.

For it might have been sold for more than 300 denarii and given to the poor, and they criticized her sharply.

Now, is it the poor that they're really worried about?

Who's the person that starts this statement?

It's Judas, someone who had a habit of borrowing from the offering plate.

And not only does Judas cause this problem, but the disciples are kind of catching this.

So she's accused of being wasteful by giving all that she has for Jesus.

I don't know if you've been in a situation like this, that when you're given everything you got for Jesus, people around you don't seem to understand or appreciate it, and they get on your case about it.

Taj Pacleb

Thief in the Night

Bring you greetings from the beautiful, warm, sunny islands of Hawai'i.

We just came in this—I just came in this morning, had a red-eye flight last night, and I've always heard about Walla Walla ever since I became a Christian, became an Adventist, I heard about this place called Walla Walla.

Thought that was a cool name, Walla Walla.

I apologize that I was not able to come from the beginning of the conference But we're happy to come for the last few days to share with you.

Amen you've been experiencing revival and reformation and restoration in your life Amen, praise God and I just have to say that it's a it's a high honor It's a great privilege to stand before you here tonight to share the sacred message of the Lord Our topic tonight is entitled thief in the night.

I hope you brought a notebook I hope you brought a spiritual appetite.

We're gonna feast upon the wonderful words of life tonight.

We definitely need the Holy Spirit to make it sink in to our hearts and minds tonight.

And so I invite you to bow our heads as we begin with a word of prayer.

Dear Lord, we wanna thank you so much for giving us life today.

Not only this physical life, but the abundant life and the promise of eternal life when you return.

And Lord, We come before your presence and to your presence tonight just asking that we would be in the spirit on the Lord's day.

That you'd give to us a fresh revelation of Jesus.

That you'd help us to see you more clearly.

That we might know you more intimately that we might reflect you to the world more accurately We'd ask Lord that You'd please speak now and give us ears to hear your voice We thank you Lord for this wonderful privilege for we ask this in Jesus blessed name amen amen our message tonight is entitled thief in the night I'd like you to take your Bible and turn with me to the book of Romans chapter 13 As we begin our study tonight Romans chapter 13 I'll be sharing 4 different presentations this weekend or the next 24 hours and every single 1 of them has been inspired by events that have recently transpired in my in my life in the last month and The Lord has given me some Some precious lessons.

I would like to share with you this weekend.

Here's the first 1 We go to Romans chapter 13 beginning with verse 11 Romans chapter 13 verse 11 makes you write it down and notice with me Romans 13 verse 11 if you're there if you're ready to study would you please let me know by saying amen.

The Bible says and that knowing the time that now it is a high time to awake out of sleep.

For now is our salvation nearer than when we believe it.

Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light.

Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantedness, not in strife and envy, But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof My friends in this awesome verse the Apostle Paul is writing Inspired by the Spirit of God the Lord is sounding an urgent solemn and serious alarm an alarm that is calculated to shake us up and to wake us up to arouse us from the spiritual sleepiness that many people have fallen into to recognize the time that we're living in that right now it is a high time it is an urgent time It's a solemn time a time for us to shake off Spiritual sleepiness to put on the armor of light, which is none other than the righteousness of jesus christ That armor of light is what's going to prepare us for the salvation flight.

Without the armor of light, we're not gonna make our salvation flight.

How many of you have ever missed an airplane flight before?

My wife and I, we travel quite a bit, and so we've missed our fair share of airplane flights.

I'll never forget the experience we had some time ago.

We took a group of young people to Central America.

We were going to do evangelistic meetings, multiple meetings.

We brought a whole bunch of young people teenagers high schoolers who are going to be the speakers for these different evangelistic meetings in the Latin country of El Salvador Many of them were going to be speaking for the very first time their own evangelistic series and every single morning we would worship together we would have worship we would pray we'd study in the afternoons we spent the time looking over the start sermons that we will be preaching in the evening in the evening we separated at the different Sites all over El Salvador to preach the message night after night for 2 weeks straight.

It was an amazing experience We were able to witness thousands of people getting baptized.

Here are some of the pictures of those Getting baptized during those meetings now, not only were the hearers lives change, but the speakers lives were changed as well My friends we can't hold up the light to someone else's path Without our path being lit up as well to amen and that's the reason why God calls us to go and to share not only for other sakes but for our own sakes and so if you want to grow you got to go and show people who you know that Jesus is the 1 that can satisfy the longings of our hearts amen we God has called us not only to be recipients of the message but participants in the mission.

The Bible said it is more blessed to give than to receive and so the hearers lives were changed but also the speakers lives.

These young people I want to share with you about 2 of them their names Daniel and Samuel Daniel's there in the middle Samuel's to the left of On the other side left of him or that would be the right of him, right?

Yeah, that would be the right of him And Let me tell you about them that Daniel had just come to the Lord a few years before that He was on fire for the Lord Jesus He introduced Jesus to his friend Samuel Samuel was just coming to the Lord and so he looked up to Daniel as his spiritual mentor And because they were high school buddies, they shared the same hotel room during our time there in El Salvador.

Well, on our last night of our meetings, we all met back at the hotel and everyone was in a good mood.

We're sharing the stories of what happened at our different sites.

We were lingering in the moment and rejoicing in the memory of how God had used us and blessed us.

Well, after that, everyone retired to their respective hotel rooms.

It was time to pack and get ready for an early morning flight home the next morning.

I went back to my room I packed up and before I went to sleep I made sure to go and check on the 2 high school prophets Daniel and Samuel just like the prophets they were named after they were being used by the Lord Jesus.

And so when I went into their hotel room, it was like I entered a crime scene.

It was the stereotypical room of 2 teenage boys.

There was trash on the ground, dirty clothes on the floor, toiletries on the table, towels over the TV, laptop computers left out, sermon notes in disarray, there was boxes of food on the nightstand and bags of pupusas on the bed and in the midst of this mess were these 2 high school prophets Eating talking story having a good time not having a care in the world.

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Series

Plenary

Why Many Have Left

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

When Missionaries Leave

46m

Why Many Have Left

38m

Thief in the Night

57m

The Faith of Jesus: Why He Left

47m

GYC Beyond

1h 17m

Sound Doctrine