Chester Clark

Ouachita Hills College

Me vs. You, Part 2

Before break began, in fact before the call porter program began, we began a 2 part series entitled Me Versus You.

Does anyone here remember what we talked about?

We talked about how God is in the business of fashioning or refashioning mankind into his character, right?

We talked about how at the end of time, there's going to be a group of people who it says the Father's name is written in their foreheads, right?

And they're gonna be following the lamb wherever he goes.

And in fact, we also looked at the fact that when God gives a plan for Christian education, that plan must model, not the very least, that a Christian must live in order to squeak into the kingdom of heaven.

As Christian educators and as Christian students, we want to find an atmosphere, create an atmosphere, where the question of our hearts is what is the best that God has to offer, right?

And so Ellen White says that the watchword of all true education is something better.

There's something better for God's people.

There's some things in the world that are fine, they're okay, they're not bad, they're not necessarily evil, but there's always what?

And so at the very beginning of Adventist education, There arose a struggle which continues to this day.

And that struggle is, are we going to adopt God's plan for education, or are we going to have a little bit of the world, a little bit of this idea, a little bit of that idea, mixed in because it makes sense to us.

So we did a whole study in the Bible about how in the end of time, God's people have his character.

Satan is working to impress whose character on mankind's minds?

Now how many of us really believe that Satan is going to be most successful in warping our characters, Christian's characters, into his nature by having us go around and say, I will be like Satan.

I want to be just like the enemy of souls.

Clearly, my friends, the devil is going to use seemingly innocent temptations to lead our characters to be formed, maybe unconsciously, I believe for the Christians who are lost, it will be unconsciously into the character of Satan.

Why does God say that our schools should be built in the country?

It's not just because it's cheaper out here.

God wants the students who come to our school to later find their homes in the country, and so the schools should model what God's last generation young people should be doing, right?

It's not always economically beneficial to live in the country.

For those of you who have parents who have moved into the country and moved away from better paying jobs in the cities, sometimes they did so because they loved you and they wanted you to be saved, not because it was easier or cheaper.

But there's something that happens in this city, every day you're confronted with advertisement, and whose character does advertising seek to develop in our hearts and minds?

Does it seek to initiate the thought process in our minds that says something like this, man, I wish somebody else had that.

Every time you're watching television, And listen, it's not evil or sinful to watch an advertisement.

I find some advertisements to be very entertaining.

And you see some of these advertisements, and you're like, wow, that was a really good idea.

You know, I mean, But the point of the advertisement is to develop selfishness to the extent that you're gonna go buy their item.

And so while you're inundating your senses with these billboards and those advertisements and this and this and the commercialism and gotta go to the mall and gotta go here, What is developing in your heart is not the peaceful, unselfish character of Jesus.

It's actually a selfish, self-centered, egotistical character.

That's just 1 example, you understand, of how Satan subconsciously works to develop his character in people who don't realize that's what's happening.

Other popular amusements in which people spend large amount of time, which they don't realize is, these amusements are actually impressing upon them also the character of the enemy.

And Christians we find doing these things.

Do people spend a time almost every week in that is about lifting up me?

That is the opposite of 1 Corinthians 13 we talked about last time, the character of God.

What is something that even most Christians do on a regular basis that is all about uplifting of self and putting down of others.

Even if they're not playing sports, what are they doing?

And what is the whole nature of the game?

Now tonight I want to give you, last time we talked we just talked about the principle of character formation, right?

Tonight I want to look at specifically this, because from time to time, I find questions arise at Washtenaw Hills.

On a number of occasions, there have been the question raised, perhaps at staff meeting.

I remember years ago, it's happened probably 2 or 3 times since I've been here.

Maybe we should have a game, just on, you know, maybe once a quarter on a Sunday afternoon we'll have a ball game.

Some people have even suggested a more regular occurrence than that.

And always, because we want to have a school that's not based on our ideas, but on whose ideas.

Always, the staff have come together and studied that.

And do you realize the 2 or 3 times that we have come together and studied this issue, we have come to a unanimous conclusion, including those staff that first said, we want to do this on our, you know, the students need to play, we need some games, we need, we need, unanimous conclusion.

And that conclusion is that we should not be fostering an appetite or encouraging the use of time in games and sports.

So to try to draw a line, we've said if they're teams, we're just not gonna get involved with it on this campus.

Doesn't matter if the teams are different 1 week or next week or the next quarter.

If you wanna throw a ball, it's fine, but just don't form teams.

That's the policy that we have, and I wanna thank you.

I wanna thank especially the college students that have come here.

Some of you haven't had a chance to even go through the principles why we've made these decisions, but you've been respectful of that on this campus, and I wanna thank you for that.

Sometimes we don't even have staff that respect that decision or that authority.

But you have, and I want to thank you for that.

I really, really appreciate the fact that you have said, I may not understand it, but I'm here, and I'm going to go along with the decisions that have been made.

And that's a very, very admirable quality in you.

But tonight I want to look at the principles, the reasons why we have decided that This should be the policy at Washtenaw Hills.

And I think that because this is 1 of those things that comes very close to some of our opinions, it might do well for us to have an additional word of prayer.

Father in heaven, today we want to know truth, not our own ideas.

And Lord, I'm going to present concepts, ideas as much as possible from inspiration, but yet my ideas, my opinions could become intertwined.

Back to Menu

Me vs. You, Part 2

Transcript

Sponsor

Related

GYC 2013 Seminar: Don't Get Schooled, Get Educated

06-Don’t Get Schooled, Get Educated, Part 6

1h

True Education and the Final Generation

1h 12m

Talking Points, 4th Quarter 2020: Education

06- More Lessons From the Master Teacher

29m

Talking Points: Advent HOPE Sabbath School Training Series

03 Avoiding the Sacrifice of Fools

1h

Competitive Christianity: Sports & Spirituality

2. Self Worth or Self Period?

1h 2m

These Things We Know

These Things We Know: God is the Great Teacher

53m

WYC 2012 Breakout Sessions

Babylon and False Education

1h 48m

Plenary

The Final Exam

45m

GYC 2008 Plenary Sessions

Wrongly Trained

54m

Gardening, Mission, and the End

Gardening, Mission, and the End- Part 5

48m

Practical Christian Living

Part 5 - Changing Bad Habits into Good

1h 9m

Sound Doctrine