<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

Pavel Goia Weekend

Pavel Goia

01 Can People Change?

02 Growing in Christ

03 Incredible Grace

Father again, we pray that you will speak, you will transform, you will come with your presence.

Please fill us with your Spirit, that we may understand what you try to say, that we may know you more and love you more and trust you more.

I was trying to, I had 4 messages in mind and so far we didn't manage to finish 1 and so I am trying I'm debating to continue to start the other 1 but as we said in the beginning in the morning how do you grow real growth measurable growth in your relationship with God in your spiritual maturity growth how do you grow to be more like Jesus?

You may change your external behavior, smile, pretend, but you cannot change the human nature You cannot change your heart Nobody is good.

They never do anything wrong, but we all seen and so How do people change?

I'm going to continue the message drawing a parallel between Abraham and our lives How Abraham tried to have children and how we try to acquire righteousness and salvation Now listen carefully.

I'm gonna give an illustration imaginary illustration, okay we said Abraham was in Loma Linda and he graduated from whatever and Sarah was in nursing school and she graduated and they got married we said and they moved to Florida okay and they got a job and they got a house and now they try to have babies as we try to get righteousness and they try really hard no babies and when you try and fail and when you try and fail after a while you get discouraged and you get in your mind that you cannot do it it's like people who try to lose weight it's like people who try to get victory over anger It's like people who try to lose weight.

It's like people who try to get victory over anger It's like people who try to get victory over alcohol or drugs or whatever you try and you fail and you get discouraged Abraham tried to have children and they didn't manage so what they did they started to eat tofu That if you eat tofu, maybe you get pregnant.

You go to a Thai restaurant and you get tam yam soup with tofu, that's amazing.

So they ate tofu to get babies as we sometimes try to do things to get righteous.

We should eat healthy because it's the right thing to do not to become righteous or to be saved.

And then they went to Mark Finlay seminars and to Dwight Nelson seminars, how to get pregnant and yet they didn't become pregnant.

The more sermons you listen, You have listened to a thousand sermons in 20-30 years of being an Adventist.

Sermons are wonderful But sermons don't change a heart only God's presence changes the heart Unless you have a personal relationship with God we don't change The fact that we go to church, listen carefully, if you go to church and you don't encounter God, there is no benefit in going to church.

If you study the Bible, is it good or bad to study the Bible?

But if you study the Bible and you don't encounter God's presence, so many people read the Bible and then they fight and cheat and lie and kill.

It doesn't change you to study the Bible unless you encounter God's presence in the Bible.

Jesus told the Pharisees you study the scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life but they testify of me in John chapter 5.

Jesus implies You should not study the scripture just to get eternal life or this or that.

You should study them to get me Unless you study the Bible to know God it doesn't benefit If you pray wonderful, you should pray the Bible says pray without ceasing but if you don't encounter God in your prayer, then it doesn't help you.

So many people pray and yet there is no growth.

Unless you seek to know God, there is no merit in all we do.

Abraham tried to listen to more sermons on how to get pregnant and go to more seminars, yet no pregnancy.

They went to Cincinnati clinic to get pregnant and no pregnancy.

As we try really everything to change and grow and yet growth doesn't happen.

Now I want you to imagine Abraham is 75, Sarah is 65.

The Bible says Way beyond the time of bearing child.

She was the Bible says her womb was closed.

Okay, and so God tells him you'll have so many babies like the stars.

I Want you to hear what I say next in the Bible about 92% of the prayers The answer is not an event, it's a process.

In the Bible, most of the prayers, their answer is not an event, it's a process.

Abraham prayed for a child and God took 25 years to give him a child.

Would you be willing to wait 25 years to get an answer?

Moses, 40 years until God fulfilled the promise.

That's a long time to wait for deliverance, isn't it?

God promised him To put him over his family And then God put him in prison.

When God's plans start to be fulfilled, they always go in the wrong direction.

God told Moses, you are going to deliver my people, and then he went to wilderness.

God told Joseph, you'll be over your family, and then he was a slave and then in prison When God's plans start to work they always go in the wrong direction and you say what's happening in my life Since I started to pray everything goes wrong because God cannot make you before he breaks you we would always mix our deeds with God deeds because that's how we are we need to do something in order to feel good And before we understand that there is nothing you can do to save yourself, God cannot work.

That's the reason it is by faith, through grace it is the gift of God so nobody could take credit for it.

And we need to learn to work but only what God says and only in his power You cannot have a board meeting make a plan and ask God to bless your plan It's like Joshua like Let's have a board meeting and plan how to take Jericho and after we make a good plan We had 3 meetings and they lasted until 11 p.m.

It doesn't work that way in order to have God's blessing.

You need to receive God's strategy You don't go to God with your plan to get God's blessing.

You go to God with an empty brain, receive God's plan and then you have his blessing.

God needs to have us give up not our bad stuff but also our good stuff.

And only as you surrender all, God can give you the plan and the blessing You follow me and So God had to let Abraham exhaust all his resources all his plans and get to the point that there was no hope and then God could work and Every time when God starts working we have to finish our resources And we get so scared that we don't need that anymore and then we find a way When you start going down don't get scared it is God working on you If Joseph didn't want to go to prison, he would have never been Prime Minister of Egypt.

If Daniel didn't want to be a slave in Babylon, he would have never been Prime Minister of Babylon.

I'm not saying that when you go down you'll be Prime Minister.

But I'm saying that when you pray things are gonna go wrong.

It is God teaching you to trust fully in Him and 0 in self.

God's plans, when they work, they seem to go in the wrong direction.

Because the Bible says that all things work together.

You don't need to understand in order to believe you need to know him and trust him in order to believe and So back to the story when Abraham had no more hope to have children no more hope to change to acquire righteousness Salvation and so on When Abraham had no more hope God said now I'm gonna give you children so you know that it was me You cannot take credit for it.

And so what happened God instead of giving him children It took another 11 years and then Abraham says, you know, I need to do something about this and he slept with Hagar or however you say it in English, Agar, Hagar, whatever, English.

He slept with her and he had Ishmael and that made a mess for the generations to come.

When you get involved to help God, you make a mess.

God is absolutely able to do what he promised.

And then, after 11 years, he realized that he did a mistake.

And it took another so long until 25 years later all together from 75 to 100 no children.

I Would get tired waiting If you pray and you don't get an answer Oh God doesn't answer God answers spirit voice says that to every every means every to every honest prayer an answer will come Coma, but it is wrong to assume that God answers in the time.

We want the way we want God answers but the way he wants and if we knew the end from the beginning a different paragraph we will choose the same path and so finally Abraham is 99 God shows to him and says next year you'll have a baby I want you to imagine 99 a Baby Sarah is 89 and in that moment God says next year very specific Abraham getting his Chevy and goes to the gas station.

He's on the steering wheel You know driving he gets at the gas station and his hand is shaking Putting gas in the in the car and on the other side is Jim his next-door neighbor Hey, man, I heard you changed your name from Abraham to Abraham Uh-huh.

Back to Menu

Series

Pavel Goia Weekend

02 Growing in Christ

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Reuben and the Birthright

25m

Hebrews 11- Faith

09 The Faith of Joseph Part 1

38m

Our Greatest Need

42m

Plenary

No Longer Enslaved

56m

Forgiveness and the Time of Jacob’s Trouble

44m

Plenary

Preparing for Rain

1h

The Power of Prayer

01 The Power of Prayer: Making a Difference in the Gap

41m

Prayer and Revival

Revival

49m

Christianity 24-7

2. The Long and Winding Road

1h 9m

Come Unto Me

31m

Spirit of Prophecy or Spiritual Exercises?

43m

Mantra Meditation is Self Hypnosis

5m

Sound Doctrine