Hartland Summer Conference 2018: Prepared for the Final Crisis

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Hartland Institute of Health and Education

Gillian Bethel

Jesus in Our Doctrines

And I don't think you would be here if you didn't think that that was something very, very important.

This is something that for years and years my husband and I have talked about, that we need to make more effort to put Jesus front and centre in all our doctrines.

And it's only been this summer that I've really had the time to think about this a little bit more and to work on it a bit more, and then I've been blessed to have this opportunity to share in this seminar, I think that we will not be fully prepared for Jesus' second coming, for all the events that will be happening before that, unless we know how to put Jesus in the middle of our doctrines.

And so I've had a little chance to study about this this summer, but it's a work in process.

This is just my efforts at thinking about how can we do this.

Now I know that you are not all preachers, but we all have opportunities to share.

I think it's very important to look through what we believe with an eye to finding Jesus in it.

Can we put Jesus front and center in that 1?

Can we put him front and center in our presentations about diet and exercise and those kind of things?

Can we put him front and center in the 2, 300 day prophecy?

Because everything, it's like spokes from a wheel, right?

All the things that we believe radiate from that.

I'd like to share a scripture reading with you this morning.

And this is Jesus speaking, and this, well, no, this is Jesus about Jesus.

And this, do you remember when this took place?

This is when Jesus met with the 2 disciples walking to the road of Emmaus, and he began to study with them.

It says right here, and beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

All the scriptures talk about Jesus, right?

And so Adventists take their beliefs and their doctrines from all the scriptures.

That means everything we believe and everything we speak about and preach, we should be able to find Jesus in it.

Here's a piece of counsel from the Spirit of Prophecy.

It says, the sacrifice of Christ as an atonement for sin is the great truth around which all other truths cluster.

In order to be rightly understood and appreciated, every truth in the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation must be studied in the light that streams from the cross of Calvary.

I don't know if you've noticed this, but I think there's a movement taking place in our church towards doing this.

I think it was last week in our Sabbath school lessons did you notice that 1 of the days was talking about putting Jesus and his cross in the middle of all our presentations when it was talking about Peter giving his sermons in the Book of Acts.

I also found I was searching for a church in New York to recommend to somebody.

I found a church that was very suitable for the person, but it actually, as I scrolled through the website, they were having seminars about the 28 fundamental beliefs of the SDA Church in the light of the gospel.

And I don't know if you read it recently, but Mark Finley had an interview in the Adventist Review and it was entitled, I haven't got it here, The Mark of the Beast, Has the Message Changed?

Yes, it's really worthwhile reading that.

He talked about how his vision has expanded and he still presents, you know, who the beast is and he still presents what the mark of the beast is, but now he places it in the context of the great controversy.

Now he makes Jesus the center, Jesus as creator, Jesus as redeemer.

I encourage you to read that and think about it.

So I think the Lord is stirring everybody to do more of this, to think about how the gospel is central to everything we believe.

And I want to share with you 5 principles that I think Mark Finley followed and I think we can follow for presenting any doctrine.

Because you may not find a set of studies, you know, ready-made that do this.

I'm not saying there aren't some, but I haven't seen them yet.

But there will be and there can be, but we need to do it ourselves.

We need to know what we believe and where Jesus is in that.

I'm sorry, something came up on the screen.

We're not talking about just making an appeal at the end, Jesus Christ died for your sins, won't you accept him as your savior?

We're talking about looking at the doctrine and thinking about how does this relate to Jesus?

How can I put him in this, where the whole doctrine is wrapped around him?

Number 2, locate the specific doctrine in the big picture of the great controversy.

And I think this is really, really important because as Adventists we have been given this emphasis of the great controversy.

Other churches understand that there's a battle going on between good and evil but we have such a full picture of this.

And we in the past sometimes have just presented our doctrines as little isolated units.

You know, here's the Sabbath, here's the Mark of the Beast, here's salvation in Christ, Here's diet, here's education, here's family, you know.

Okay, so when you do puzzles, this is the way I do it.

I don't know about you, but I try to sort the colored pieces into little groups, and then I sometimes try to put the little groups together, you know, before I move them into the big picture.

So I'm getting a little picture and then I put it in the big picture and I go, oh wow, you know, that's how that is in this big picture and it's really fun.

And we need to do the same with what we believe because everything we believe is part of 1 big picture with Jesus right in the middle.

This is Christianity about Christ and we have such a lot of light but it all focuses on Jesus.

So point number 2 is locate your doctrine and your presentation of Christ in the big picture of the great controversy which covers everything beginning even before Lucifer fell and going on through into eternity.

It's an amazing, we have an amazing truth.

If we study it as a whole, it is quite amazing and it just gets more and more amazing the more we study it.

Number 3, obviously, lift up the cross and link every topic with the plan of salvation and righteousness by faith.

We have pages and pages of counsel from Sister White that no presentation should be given without mentioning Christ and his sacrifice and his salvation and the steps to receive him as our saviour.

Personalize it, make Jesus as real as possible.

I'm going to show you in a minute, but it's possible to talk about Jesus in a study like he was just a figure back in history somewhere, without his really coming alive to the person or the people that you're talking to.

And different ways we can do this is use Jesus's actual quoted words.

For instance, if we're presenting the state of the dead, We have lots of Bible texts that we can use for that.

But let's not leave out that Jesus called death a sleep when he was talking about Lazarus, right?

So if it comes from Jesus, then, you know, what more do you need, right?

There are people who don't believe the Old Testament, but if it comes from Jesus, they'll receive that.

And also, relate his work to the audience's lives.

Again, it's about Being personal to the people and their needs.

How can you encourage them to come to Jesus with their burdens and their issues?

It's personalizing the gospel so that it's not just up here.

Jesus in Our Doctrines

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