Michigan Camp Meeting 2018: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Amazing Disciples

Mark Howard

4. It’s Not My Gift

Kameron DeVasher

1. Orientation

2. What is a Disciple?

3. Your Gift or Mine?

5. As a Witness

Marshall McKenzie

7. Friendship Evangelism, Part 1

8. Friendship Evangelism, Part 2

Wes Peppers

9. How to Reach the Atheistic Mind, Part 1

10. How to Reach the Atheistic Mind, Part 2

Jean Ross

11. Divine Commission

12. Cycle of Evangelism

Jim Howard

13. Grow Your Church, Part 1

14. Grow Your Church, Part 2

15. Giving Bible Studies

16. Missing Members

Doug Batchelor

17. Christ-Centered Doctrine, Part 1

18. Preparing for Baptism

19. Discipleship

20. Gospel Presentation, Part 1

21. Gospel Presentation, Part 2

22. Christ-Centered Doctrine, Part 2

23. Outreach Lab

24. Keys to Success!

25. Nurturing New Believers

26. Fishnet Demonstration

27. Caveman Theology

6. Christ’s Method Alone

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for another day of life.

Thank you that we can be right here, right now, on this day, for this purpose.

What a blessing it is, not only to be allowed to have a relationship with you, but also in your wisdom that you have entrusted us as your co-laborers in this work of redemption.

So Now as we turn our attention to our time here, we want to dedicate ourselves once again to you.

We want to invite and appeal that you would send to us your Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth, to soften our hearts, to sharpen our minds, to make us more like Jesus, that we may be faithful and useful in his cause.

I'll tell you just a very, very little bit about myself because you didn't come to learn about me.

You came to learn about information and resources and tools you can put to use as a missionary.

But I came from the South, as we were just talking about with our dear sister up here.

She's from my hometown of Madison, Tennessee.

And I went to, when I grew up, I grew up in the Seventh Adventist Church.

I like to joke that I'm the single most Adventist person on the planet.

I was born to Seventh Adventist parents in a Seventh Adventist Hospital that my mom worked at, that hospital.

And my parents went to the church just across the street from the hospital, and they still do to this day.

I went to school at the school across the street from the church, an elementary school.

And then when it was time for high school, I went to the Adventist Academy across the next street, right on the same campus from where I was born, went to church, went to elementary school, went to Academy.

And when it was, when I was old enough, I had to leave home finally and I went to college.

But of course I went, we had a college inside of Tennessee at that time and it had just recently gotten a name change to Southern Adventist University, but it was a couple hours from our home, and I went there until I was 22 years old.

I was...and then I took...I got a degree in the only thing...

I don't know if it's the only thing, but it's certainly the thing I was most prepared in life for, which was religious education, because that's all I had had was a religious education.

So I got a degree in religious education and I got a job at an Adventist Academy.

And in that, since that time, I have married an Adventist lady.

We have 3 little Seventh-day Adventist children.

And I'm right here in the Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, right?

I was literally born in the church, and I haven't left yet.

And I used to think about that not being a powerful testimony, but I realized by looking around the statistics do not bear out that people born in the church stay in the church.

Anyway, I went to Southern Adventist University, but I mentioned the name change.

Before that it would been Southern College of Seventh Adventist.

They stepped it up to university level but before that it had a different name Southern Missionary College that's right and what's interesting is you'll find out that This wasn't unique to that 1 school.

For instance, anybody know what the original name of the Loma Linda University was?

It's College of Medical Evangelists, CME, the College of Medical Evangelists, Southern Missionary College.

I'm thinking about Washington Adventist University, used to be Washington Missionary College.

Andrews University, right here in Michigan, used to be known as the Emanuel Missionary College.

There was the expectation that when you were a Seventh-day Adventist and you got an Adventist education, you were a member of the Seventh-day Adventist church, that you were expected to be a missionary.

It was supposed to be part of our DNA that we were a mission.

We were not just to be another denomination or option amongst Christian churches.

We were to be a movement raised up by God to give a distinct message to the world.

The Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists believes in that mission still to this day.

Thus they have the Emmanuel Missionary, well the Emmanuel Institute that gets its name from that.

In an article from the Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald of August 25, 1903, this description was given.

Emanuel Missionary College has for its sole purpose the training of missionaries.

Oh, and by the way, you can get a career.

It's almost offhandedly, oh, you can be a nurse, you can be a whatever the thing, but the 1 thing you're there for is to be a missionary, and the other thing is the side dish.

In those days every church member was a missionary and every occupation was a mission field.

Loughborough in his book The Great Second Advent Movement wrote on page 396, you'll find this quote there, to qualify laborers fully prepared for work in any part of the world where they may be called in the providence of God to labor is the 1 great desire and aim of the teachers of the Emanuel Missionary College.

I believe that the Seventh-daveness Church and I know this sounds heretical a little bit, but just give me a second.

We have too many members that are merely members.

That we've settled into a membership of this denomination instead of being a missionary for Jesus Christ.

There is this concept that every member is supposed to be made.

I want to take out, I want you to take out your Bibles.

I assume you brought your Bibles with you, yes?

But in Ephesians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, right there in that little sandwich of books, Ephesians.

We find Paul's description of the work of ministry.

And I like to preface this when I preach this in a sermon that every Adventist evangelist is familiar with Luke 23 43 in the problem comma where Jesus when dying on the cross looks to his side and he gives that beautiful promise to the thief on the cross But if you read it with the punctuation as it's inserted in the scripture, it gives a misunderstanding to what Jesus was saying.

Did Jesus say, today you will be with me in paradise?

Or did he say, I say to you today, comma, you will be with me in paradise?

That comma makes a big difference, right?

And we have to explain to people that, what the words are right, but the punctuation gives a wrong meaning to the words.

We have to kind of dissect that a little bit.

Look at Ephesians chapter 4, and look what God has appointed in the church to do the work of ministry in the church.

Ephesians chapter 4, verse 11, the Apostle Paul says, and he himself, and notice that's he, capital H, himself, capital H.

Who is the he himself that Paul received this instruction from?

And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers.

Now clearly, is everyone called to be a pastor, a teacher, an administrator in the church?

But if you say some are, that implies that the majority are not.

So what is the job of those responsibilities?

What is the duty that they are called to?

And does anyone here have a King James Version of the Bible with them today?

I like your southern accent right here on the front row.

So if you could read to us Ephesians chapter 4 verse 12 as it reads punctuation in the King James Version.

For the perfecting of the saints, for the, comma, for the work of the ministry, comma, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

Pastors, Bible teachers, evangelists, apostles, all of those listed responsibilities, what are their jobs in the local church, apparently, or for the church members.

The first 1 is to perfect the saints, that's job number 1.

The next 1 is to do the work of ministry, and the third 1 is to edify or build up the body of Christ.

Series

Amazing Disciples

1. Orientation

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

What Is Revival and Reformation

Our Greatest Need

1h 28m

Our Great and Urgent Need

54m

Dwayne Lemon Revival

How to Have Religious Liberty Before Religious Liberty

1h 24m

Revival and the 1888 Message

1888 and its Continued Rejection

1h 18m

Acts: First Generation Lessons for Last Generation Believers

4. Antioch

59m

Purpose of a Church

52m

Revival & Reformation

40m

GYC 2011 Seminar: Revival & Reformation

Revival & Reformation: End-Time Prophecies, Part 1

57m

ECYC 2011 Plenary Meetings

The Lostness Monster: The Empowerment of Identity

51m

GYC 2009 Plenary Sessions

Unashamed? Which Cloud are You in?

52m

If You Love Me…

42m

Seven Keys to Effective Evangelism and Church Growth

03 Corporate Transformation

1h 3m

Sound Doctrine