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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Melody Mason

Living the Word

Before I begin my message this morning called Living the Word and Loving the Living Word, I want to pray 1 more time.

So if you wouldn't mind bowing your heads with me, let's pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, I want to Thank you so much again for the opportunity to be here with my family at Advent Hope.

It is a little bit like coming home after spending a few years here and having such amazing memories and fellowship and experiences here.

But Lord, we know that we have a more amazing reunion and fellowship coming when you come back in the clouds of glory to take us home.

Lord, we wanna be ready for your soon coming.

And so Lord, I just plead that I speak this morning that your Holy Spirit would speak through me.

You know, Lord, I don't have what I need to share if it were not for you.

And so, Lord, I am just pleading that you would be glorified, that you would be magnified, and that our hearts would be drawn closer to you and to your throne, and that those that are here this morning would not walk away the same way that they walked into this amphitheater.

Lord, that our hearts would really be drawn to you as they never have been before.

Open our hearts for what you have for us, we plead.

And I pray this in the precious name of Jesus.

I want to start with a story of some things, difficult things that were happening in communist Romania back in the 1960s.

It was a difficult era for them, and freedom of worship and Christianity was difficult, and there were a lot of people that were experiencing persecution for different reasons.

And many of them were being harassed, some of them were being taken to prison, different things like this.

There was a group of 8 Adventists living in a little village to the north of Bucharest that for whatever reason they had come under the spotlight of the authorities.

And so the summons was given to bring them in and who knows what was going to happen but you know they knew that they were going to be going to prison.

So this man came to pick them up, didn't have our usual police car transportation, it was actually just an old ox cart that he was driving them in.

So they loaded into the back of the ox cart and away they went, you know, clip-clop, clip-clop, you know, pulling them in the ox cart, bumping along.

Well, something amazing began to happen as they were going along.

Those 8 Christians, Adventist believers, actually, in the back of that ox cart began to sing.

And they began to sing praises to God and about their love for Jesus and worshipping Him and the man that was driving the cart was like, don't these people know where they're going?

So it was very, very interesting to him listening to these people singing.

A couple weeks later, he had another errand to pick up somebody, only this time he wasn't taking him to prison.

It was actually the local Orthodox priest that he needed to give a ride to his parish.

So he's also riding in the ox cart, I guess that was the transportation for that time and season.

So he's giving this priest a ride in that ox cart to his parish, and they're going along over the same bumpity road, clip-clop, clip-clop, and they go through this really big pothole that jostles the whole cart, and the priest actually lets out a torrent of swear words and blasphemy, And the guy that was driving was like, and he's thinking, he says, he's thinking in his mind, you know, last week I was taking this group of Christians to prison, and they were singing and praising God.

And I'm taking the priest, I'm not even taking him, I'm just taking him to his parish and he's cursing God like what is this?

Well that stark difference made such an impact on that man, that driver, that he said, I need to figure out what those people believe and who they are.

And he began, he figured out that they were Seventh-day Adventists and began to study with them about the truths that they believe, and as a result of his testimony and the testimony of those 8 singing Christians, he ended up influencing and bringing in a whole group of people into the church.

And 1 of those is a good friend of mine that is now a pastor.

He's been in Romania, he's been in Canada, and now he's a pastor here in the United States.

And it's because of those singing Christians that his family became Seventh-day Adventists.

Well, I just, you know, love that testimony.

Of course, we don't know what happened, what the end of the story is for those 8 Christians.

I don't know the end of the story, but won't they be amazed when they get to heaven to find out what their praising God actually influenced and did?

How their worship to God, even in the most difficult of influences, actually ended up changing lives.

This is what I want to say about that, you know, if we have not, I feel like I'm getting a little bit of an echo here, so tell me if I need to move a different way, if we have not been faithful in day-to-day worship, we're not going to be able to worship God when the hard times hit.

If we want to worship for God, if we want to stand for God when the hard times hit, we need to pray that God will make us faithful today.

True worship, well before we talk about true worship, let's actually talk about what true worship is not.

So I want you to open your Bibles with me and we're going to go to Isaiah chapter 1.

Let's look at Isaiah chapter 1 and see what this tells us about true worship.

So here in Isaiah chapter 1, the context is kind of sharing about the rebelliousness, the wickedness of Judah.

And the Lord is just kind of, you know, crying out to them, You know, I've nourished you and I've brought you up and yet you've rebelled against me.

Your whole head is sick, your whole heart faint from the sole of the foot even to the even the top of the head, there's no soundness.

And so it's just kind of the cry of God over his people.

You know, the country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire, and it's becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah.

"'To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me?' to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me?

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices?

Now remember we're talking right now about what true worship is not.

Says the Lord, I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of the lambs of goats Verse 12 when you come to appear before me who has required this from your hand to trample my courts?" Verse 13, bring no more futile sacrifices.

You know, they're basically, it seems like they are going through the motions of worship.

They're going through the motions giving the sacrifices to God, but God is saying, this is futile.

We actually see in Matthew 15 what futile sacrifices are.

"'These people draw near me with their mouth, "'and they honor me with their lips, "'but their heart is far from me.

"'And in their vein they worship me teaching as doctrine the commandments of men so these people are doing the right things they're saying the right things speaking the right things but their heart isn't with it And I think how often the same is true for us.

I mean we as Christians know, If you've been in the church a little while, you kind of know how it goes and what to say and how we talk and everything and happy Sabbath and yeah, everything's great and God is good and we're putting our money in the tithe and all these different things.

But God is saying, hey, I'm looking deeper.

I need your heart, not just a form of godliness.

Well the good news, going back to Isaiah 1 where we have just been reading, you know, he's going through laboring about the sins of Judah and how they've turned away and there's nothing good there, and yet he gives this beautiful plea, and this is for each 1 of us.

Those of you that are here, I don't know your personal walk with God or the struggles, but I imagine there's some of you that are feeling, yeah actually that's kind of me.

I'm here because I know it's the right thing to do, but I've kind of been going through the form.

My heart isn't really in it as it should be.

Because obviously God says he doesn't accept, you know, my worship.

This is a wake-up call to us to search our hearts and really recognize, hey, God does not want the pretense.

And so he says, after saying, you know, there's nothing good in you just in case you didn't know that.

But he says, come now and let us reason together.

Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." There is still hope for the driest branch that might be in this room today.

God is saying, come, and he tells us in John 6, 37, him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.

And you might say, I just need to get a little bit more of my life together and then I'll come.

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