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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Jonathan Walter Weekend

Jonathan Walter

Pillars of a Higher Loyalty - Secret Sauce for Endtime Missions

Father, I just thank you for this Sabbath yet another reminder of your beauty and holiness, a reminder of the fact that you have been faithful to us this last week and all of our lives.

And so as we pause to focus our attention on you, we pray that we who are dust, yet jewels in your eyes, that we will be reminded this morning of what your plan is for us and how you desire to transform us.

I pray that your spirit will be here today, that you will drive away any distractions, any influences that are not holy.

And we just pray that your word will speak and that Jesus will be seen.

This is our heart's desire, for we pray it in his name.

The message today, this is part number 1, by the way, of 2 messages, I wanna encourage you to come this afternoon as well, at 4 p.m.

But this message this morning is entitled Pillars of a Higher Loyalty, Secret Sauce for End Time Missions.

I agonized for an hour to find a good title.

The book of Acts is where we're going to spend our time today for the most part.

And I want to have a little drone fly over the first couple of chapters in the book of Acts.

Acts, we're gonna be mostly in chapter 8, but if we go in the book of Acts in chapter 1, it's right after, 40 days after Jesus was resurrected from the dead, Jesus spent some time with his disciples, the Apostles, and now he's about to ascend to heaven.

He gives them a final charge and then goes to heaven and the disciples have to figure out what to do next.

And as we continue our flyover here in chapter 2 we see that they come together, they pray, they unite in prayer seeking the Lord's guidance for this incredible task that Jesus has given them to reach the whole world.

And the Holy Spirit comes down in Pentecost power, The early rain falls on the believers and thousands are converted as Peter preaches a powerful sermon of repentance.

We see more and more people joining this movement that has began now here in the year 31 AD.

Chapter 4, Peter and John are before the council.

They try to stop them from preaching the word.

They try to stop them from sharing what they've seen and handled.

They cannot stop sharing what they have experienced with Jesus.

And so the believers in chapter 4 pray for boldness.

And the Spirit falls again and they have boldness to share the message.

Chapter 5, Ananias and Sapphira, a very solemn moment in the history of the early church where these believers were not faithful to God and they lied to the Holy Spirit.

And God had to intervene to help these young believers understand the solemnity and importance of the work that God has given them.

And then the Apostles are arrested and freed again.

The movement grows to such an extent that now they need to have some organization.

We need some men full of the Holy Spirit who will take care of some of these things that we as apostles can't do.

And so they choose 7 deacons, 1 of which is Stephen, who later on, shortly after, is executed and killed by the leaders of the Jewish nation.

And here's where we're going to pick up our message today.

When we look at the book of Acts, whose acts are we talking about?

We call it the act of the apostles, but is it really the apostles?

Isn't it much more the acts of our living God?

Isn't it much more God who is working through individuals who are willing to serve.

It really is a testimony of the incredible things that the Holy Spirit wants to do through people who love and serve the Lord.

And I believe that the book of Acts is an open-ended book.

Yes, it ends in chapter 28 with Paul's story in Rome, but really if Luke was alive today, he could have, or throughout the centuries, he could have recorded the faithful, amazing things that took place, that faithful Christians have been doing over these hundreds and thousands of years now.

The question is, if Luke was still alive today, would he be able to fill his book with the stories of your life?

Would your life fit into the narrative of what we just saw a glimpse of?

Are we letting Christ live out His life within us?

Living a life radically committed to his mission, our prophetic identity, and saving the lost, seeking to finish the work in this generation.

Chapters 1 through 7, they mostly focus on what happened in Jerusalem and in the proximity of Jerusalem.

But if you remember, Jesus told them to go beyond.

The perspective changes now away from Jerusalem towards what's out there and further beyond Israel.

Let's read verses 1 through 3 in Acts chapter 8.

And Saul, verse 1, And Saul approved of his execution, and there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem.

And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.

Verse 2, Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him.

But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

Here we see Saul, unconverted, infused with satanic fury, starting to persecute Jesus' followers.

This young movement, they're scattered into all directions, away from Jerusalem.

It's a very intense time for the young Christian church.

I want you to think about this for a moment.

What it must have been like to be in that situation.

Here are thousands of people who gave up everything to follow Jesus.

Earlier in the book of Acts it talks about how they shared their resources and things with each other.

They were not living their individualistic lives, they were a community.

They gave up everything to believe in him, to proclaim him, and now as a result, persecution breaks out, which is what always will happen.

When you stand up for truth, persecution will come.

They have to flee, and many probably with not much more on them than just what they were wearing, fleeing for their lives.

This leads me to ask myself, and maybe you will ask yourself as well, some important questions.

How much does Jesus and his mission really mean to me personally?

Enough that I'm willing to give up everything for his cause?

Enough to go through the often painful experience of persecution?

Enough that I'm willing to lose my reputation, friends and family?

Enough that I'm willing to not have a big paycheck?

Is Jesus and his cause so precious to me that I'm willing to die for him?

Those are some hard questions, aren't they?

It's especially hard since most of us have never gone through a situation like this.

Maybe some of you have, but I doubt that the majority has.

We can somewhat dismiss these questions because we assume, well, we'll never really face persecution here.

It's hard to know if our vow of faithfulness today would manifest in actions of faithfulness in the future when persecution and pressures come.

In fact, Christianity today is the most persecuted religion in the world.

Daily people are being massacred and killed for standing up for Christ.

We just don't really hear much about it but it's taking place.

Growing up in Europe, Europe is as many of you know it's a science worshipping atheistic stronghold And growing up in that surrounding as a Seventh-day Adventist is a really weird situation.

We don't have these massive institutions like here.

You don't have cities full of Adventists.

And so growing up you don't feel a lot of pride.

You can't really brag about, oh, wow, we have this massive hospital, or we have this TV station, or this.

Driven by a Higher Loyalty - Step aside, Star Trek

Father, I just thank you so much for the privilege of spending time with you in the Word this Sabbath afternoon.

And I pray now that your Spirit will descend upon this place.

And as we look at this powerful story, 1 of these followers of yours may inspire us and guide us in the way we reach out to people around us.

It was 2013 and I flew to Porto which is in Portugal, a very beautiful city.

And we had a GYC Europe planning meeting close by, about an hour or so away in the mountains in a beautiful health facility.

And I had some time before the meeting started and my friend and I, my friend Samuel, and I, we decided let's do some sightseeing, let's go around the city and check it out.

And so we did, we looked at all the buildings.

I love old buildings, and I always like to touch them and see, oh, I'm touching the past.

This cathedral is a thousand years old, or whatever it is, I just think it's kind of cool.

And so we walked around and then we, there's this huge bridge across, I think it is a river that goes into the ocean, and beautiful, beautiful place.

And so we walked over that bridge and went up to another church that was on a hill and I was told it's a very beautiful church inside you have to check it out.

And so we walk up to this church and as a Catholic church building and as we walk up there were these stairs on the side and You walk up the stairs and there was the entrance, big entrance.

And so we walk up there and I see a Catholic priest standing there with his cell phone, talking to someone in Portuguese.

I don't speak Portuguese, so I don't know what he was saying.

And then there was a woman standing there and a man holding the woman kind of like this, just kind of holding her together.

I just had a really weird feeling just walking by.

But, you know, it's not my issue, so I just walked by and go into the church doing my tourism thing.

And as I walked through the church building and looking at, you know, paintings and statues and glass stains, you know, all this stuff, I just couldn't really enjoy it because I was constantly feeling that something was wrong.

Something was going on that I had to kind of look at.

And I told someone, I said, I think there was something wrong with this lady out there.

I don't know what it is, but I feel like we need to go out there again.

So we walked outside of the building and we just kind of like walked out and kind of looked over and just kind of walked by, you know, what else are you going to do?

And so we walked off and I wasn't sure what to do.

And so we, after maybe 100 meters, what is that, 300 feet, we just kind of stopped and I was like, I don't know what to do, but let's just pray, I guess.

And so we prayed for whatever was going on there, and then we said, well, let's just go.

And as we started to walk, I had a very, very strong impression.

I think the Holy Spirit told me, you have to go back right now.

I'm like, oh, this is, I don't know what to do, Lord.

And so, okay, well, somehow I think we need to go back.

And so I walk up, and I didn't know what to do.

I just walked up again to the entrance and I went to the man who was holding the woman.

The Catholic priest was still on his phone.

I said and He just kind of looked at me and kind of just waved me away because he didn't speak English and he said basically his body language was saying don't get involved, just go away.

But I looked at the woman and it became very clear that at least my impression was that she was demon possessed.

Because she looked very, very bewildered, Her eyes were very strange and she was kind of shaking.

I said, in English, because I don't speak Portuguese, I said, believe in Jesus and he can set you free.

And I was, you know, I wasn't sure what I was doing, but I said, believe in Jesus and he can set you free.

And when I said Jesus, I think it wasn't her, it was the demon started screaming, like, no, no, no, no, no, don't talk, you know, like was just screaming around and cursing and, you know, just a terrible situation.

But I just continued saying, you know, believe in Christ, he has the power to free you.

And you know, you can be free of these things.

And this went on for a while, and it's kind of hard to describe this.

But in the moment, I could just feel the tenseness of the situation and maybe it was the supernatural world clashing because my whole body was shaking and it was just a crazy situation.

But I was just trying to pray out loud and try to reach this woman that is obviously has lost the control over herself and this demon started holding her ears so that she cannot hear and And saying all kinds of things meanwhile a police officer could this cost a huge scene so all these tourists and people are like, what's going on here?

I'm just like, no 1 filmed this and put this on YouTube.

And so this police officer comes up here and he starts talking to me and kind of wants me to go away.

But then the Catholic priest walks up to the police officer and tells him, no, what he's doing is fine.

And so I continued just praying out loud and saying, you know, You can be free if you trust in Jesus.

And then the demon said, you have no authority over me.

And that was just a crazy moment, a scary moment.

The Bible says here, Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.

Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ's and the crowds, verse 6, with 1 accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip.

When they heard him and saw the signs that he did.

For unclean spirits crying out with a loud voice came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed.

Verse 8, so there was much joy in that city.

Philip is first introduced to us actually in chapter 6 of the book of Acts.

But he was 1 of those 7 men filled with the Holy Spirit who were chosen to serve as deacons to the early church.

And you know deacons back then, today we often think they just take care of the pews or the church building, and that's a wonderful thing, but if you look at the church manual, by the way, that's the last point in the church manual that deacons are supposed to do.

First thing is to be ministers to the members.

So Philip was a powerful, holy spirit filled man.

And he was part of those Christians that were persecuted and scattered.

And he was not scared as we learned this morning to continue preaching the word.

What I love about Philip is the fact that he was not an apostle, that he was not a VIP, so to say, that he was not a pastor, an elder.

And so he went in Holy Spirit power down to Samaria to proclaim Christ.

I believe the story of Philip should inspire all of us today, not only to pray for a daily baptism of the Holy Spirit, but to go and collaborate with God in missions, amen?

The reality is that we will not experience God unless we step out in faith.

We can sit and pray for God to show up and do something, but unless we go and do something, he's not going to be able to use you to perform miracles.

As we've learned this morning, accepting our prophetic identity and God's love in our hearts will inevitably and naturally lead to engaging in God's mission.

And that is exactly what happened with Philip.

The book of Education by Ellen White, page 262, tells us that the heaven-appointed purpose of giving the gospel to the world in this generation is the noblest aim, the noblest that can appeal to any human being.

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Jonathan Walter Weekend

Pillars of a Higher Loyalty - Secret Sauce for Endtime Missions

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