<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>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Janessa James

The Science of Faith

Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for being our creator, our redeemer, our sustainer, our protector.

Thank you for loving us with an everlasting love and drawing us with your loving kindness.

Thank you that you've given us your word to live by, that it's a word that's alive and powerful and transforms us and will transform us as we examine it today.

Open our hearts and minds to hear your voice speaking to us just now.

It's a great privilege to be with you this morning.

I've just been surrounded by blessings this week in preparing to share.

And 1 of the blessings happened this morning.

I live with 2 girls here in Loma Linda, and 1 of them has been across the country in Washington, D.C.

And I woke up this morning, and I was getting ready around the kitchen, and she walked out of her bedroom, the 1 who's supposed to be in Washington, D.C.

And she proceeded to tell me how she had changed her flight last minute to arrive yesterday, but because of delays and cancellation, she didn't get into LAX until like 1 in the morning, And then my other housemate drove all the way to LAX to pick her up, to bring her back, so that she could surprise me to be here today.

So I was just very surrounded by love through that.

So thank you to my sweet houseys who are here this morning to support.

1 of the last times I was speaking was up in front of a group in Bali, Indonesia a few weeks ago.

I gave a children's health talk there at a local healthy lifestyle center.

And we started our talks in the morning by saying, Selamat pagi.

If you guys know Indonesian, that means good morning.

And Selamat Sabat, which is happy Sabbath.

So the last time I was speaking, I was getting translated into Indonesian by our new friend Pamela, who is active in ministry in that area.

But it was very nice to have time to think before she, as she translated what I had just said.

For those of you who don't know me, I did in fact grow up on a horse farm in rural Indiana.

I spent a lot of my childhood summers making hay, showing horses.

And I another blessing I received this week, Jeremy text me and he sent me a text saying, so how are you doing, which is not what your younger brother texts ever.

But before I could reply, he was calling me on the phone.

And he proceeded to tell me how doors had opened for him to move to Loma Linda in the near future.

He's currently a little bit in limbo regarding his job and where he will end up and it's something that's been on my sister heart very much the past few months praying for him with some of you as well and I'm just really overjoyed that his journey will be bringing him here soon.

I've heard that 1 key to being a good partner in any relationship is to not nag the other person but bring our requests to God first.

So I think God is teaching me this through my little brother.

If I would have said, move to California, move to California, he would have not done it.

But bring our concerns to God, and he always works it out best.

So back to childhood, My brother and I were raised by a loving mother and father.

We grew up on a lake in the woods, a really lovely setting for our childhood.

And my mom raised us to know and love God.

My family came to be part of the Adventist Church through the influence of my maternal great-grandmother.

In the 1930s, when my great-grandma was in her early 30s, she lived in rural Indiana and had a nearby neighbor who my family remembers as a very kind lady who invited her to church.

And in visiting the church, Grandma eventually joined the Adventist faith.

And then much later in life, my great grandmother lived with my mother when she was a young child.

They were actually roommates up until the time my mother was a junior in high school.

And so my mom attended church with my great-grandmother every Saturday growing up.

So throughout mom's childhood, a lady from the church, another lady who lived nearby, would come pick up my mom and my great-grandma and take them to church and they would spend the day together after church sharing lunch going to homes of the other church members and thus My mom became a member of the Adventist Church through the influence of this special great-grandma.

My great-grandma lived to be 102 years old, so I was fortunate to have her during much of my childhood.

And this is a picture of my mother, my brother and I with my great grandma who's got a great grin on there and my great grandma's birthday was actually yesterday which was a really special realization this week as I was studying her life a bit more.

Grandma loved to write poetry, and she could quote her poetry right up until the time she was 102.

It was 1 of the last things that she kept when her other memories were becoming foggy.

And I want to share 1 of her poems with you today.

The title of it is Prayer and this is written in her handwriting and it says, It illuminates the pathway that leads to heaven's door.

If we follow in His footsteps, soon our troubles will be o'er.

It strengthens all our weaknesses and cleans our hearts from sin.

It helps us bear our burdens and lets our Savior in.

It gives us peace and quiet rest to know our Savior hears.

So let us pray and seek that rest as we follow through the years.

May we all be waiting when he comes to claim his own.

So let us all be ready for it to share that happy home.

So in part due to the influence of this special grandma, my mother raised us to know and love God.

This is a picture of my mother on her first Mother's Day holding me.

In the home where I grew up, my brother and I's room was separated by a catwalk that overlooked the living room and the sunroom where my mom had her devotional time.

And an image really ingrained from my childhood is waking up and peering over that catwalk down into the sunroom to see my mom sitting in the sunshine in her PJs, leaning over her Bible and studying, reading, writing.

I loved looking through her Bible as a little girl because she had little comments and drawings penciled beside her favorite verses.

She's a teacher and so she likes to illustrate things like with a little heart besides the verse, God is love, or a little muscle arm besides he gives us strength.

Her example of faithfulness continues to be 1 of life's richest blessings.

She helped me find photos across the country and did grandma investigation and prayed for me throughout my preparation for this message.

So just prior to my freshman year of high school, my world was shaken by the divorce of my parents.

And as with any child, it was a very tumultuous time in my young life.

I poured myself into my academics, but praise God, he allowed me to maintain a very strong relationship with my mom and my dad during this time.

And 1 vivid memory that I have is lying in bed when I was 14, 15 years old, and I was crying 1 night, which is not a common thing for me.

I don't remember exactly why, but I know it had to do something with the pain of the divorce.

And I remember I was flipping through my Bible that night and crying, and I came across the verse in Psalms 30, verse 5, that says, weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

And it just kind of left off the page at me and at first I just started crying harder because I was just really touched that God actually cared to bring comfort and saw my tears and recognized that weeping was a present reality but he would bring joy in the morning and he did.

In preparing for this message I went back to a journal that I have that I've written in since I was 15 years old.

So clearly I'm a very poor journaler if I still have the same journal from when I was 15.

But I found 1 verse written, it was actually the very first verse on the second page of my journal and it said, charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

And in my 15-year-old handwriting I had written after it, wow, that's a pretty powerful verse.

It made me do a reality check on what my focus was on in life.

And at first, I was a little surprised, like, wow, I even knew this verse existed when I was 15.

And then, wow, God spoke to my heart even when I was 15.

And it reminded me just that the word of God is powerful at every age, at every stage.

It has the power to transform and create and refocus our vision like nothing else can.

I'm a pediatrician and I don't often know how to speak to 15 year old hearts but praise God he knows because he created those hearts.

So continue to redirect the children and teens in your life back to his word.

After high school, I attended Southern Adventist University, which was mentioned.

I was the first person in my family to attend a school in the Adventist education system.

So that whole process is a blessed story of getting me there.

After coming out of high school, I was really leaning towards going to an in-state school where my tuition probably would have been covered.

But at the same time, God brought a number of people into my life, friends, my pastor at the time, that said, just consider Southern and shared how their experience had been there.

And I remember as a teenager sitting in a chair in a kitchen at home and just praying, Jesus, could you please just make it clear?

The Science of Faith

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Plenaries with Norman McNulty

Abraham - Father of the Three Angels’ Messages

50m

Abraham: Father of the End-time Faithful

Father Abraham: Building Altars

46m

Norman McNulty Weekend

02 The Prophetic Destiny of Adventism

42m

Talking Points 2nd Quarter 2022 Genesis: The Creation

06 The Roots of Abraham

29m

Father Abraham

54m

Practical Christianity

01 Practical Christianity

45m

The Science of Faith

42m

Ron Clouzet: The Greatest Thing in the World

The Greatest Power in the World: The Nature of Faith

1h

Abraham: Father of the End-time Faithful

Father Abraham: Always Giving

40m

The Whole Truth

Faith or Works?

1h 4m

Timeless Keys to Resilience

The Resiliency Mindset, Part 2

28m

Dave Steward: Prayer Inspiration Weekend

Faith is Closer Than You Think

58m

Sound Doctrine