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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Chelsy Schauer

This One Thing

I left warm, sunny California, let's see, It would have been in April, and I have been in Minnesota since then.

God is just blessed, I've been working at an academy there teaching Bible, and we started an evangelism class where we're going door-to-door, giving Bible studies, doing some health ministry, and also starting some small groups there, campus ministries work, and I'm also deaning there.

And so it's been quite exciting, but it's good to be back with you here.

And This morning the message is entitled, This 1 Thing.

And I'm gonna start with prayer before we begin.

Father in heaven, I thank you for your faithfulness.

And Lord that anytime we will come to you and seek you and open your word that you promise that you will speak to us and we will find you.

And so Lord this morning as we open your word and we spend some time studying together I just pray that the message from your word will be plain, that we will hear your voice speak to us personally, and Lord, that we will be encouraged, that we will be challenged, that we will be inspired by you.

I was in an airport, and I was walking by, and I saw a magazine that said, 100 people that changed the world.

It was a Life magazine, and they were featuring the top people they believed, the top 100 people who had changed the world.

So I pick up the magazine, and I see on the front there's like Oprah, and maybe like Hitler, Mother Teresa.

So I open the magazine, and I'm looking through, and I'm thinking, all right, where are the Aventists, right?

Where is it where they've told that an Aventist has been part of changing the world.

And so I was looking through this magazine and I noticed they had someone like Oprah and they said she's a rare power that has changed the world.

And they came to the Beatles and they said, we don't know if they've actually changed the world for good or for bad, but they definitely brought change.

And they went through all of these people.

Jesus was in there, along with many other religious leaders, as they felt.

And as I was looking through this magazine, I noticed something in common about all these people.

They had, in fact, had an effect on society, on this world.

But all of them, when they began, they had a sole focus, a sole mission.

Their purpose was to set out to do something, and they were going to do whatever it took to get there.

Most of them came from unlikely backgrounds, rough circumstances.

No 1 ever thought someone from that family would become this.

No 1 ever thought someone from that community or with that status would become what they became.

And as I was reading through it, I was studying the Great Commission again And seeing how Jesus sent us out with all power, He sent us out with a mission, with a certain focus.

Jesus sent us out and when we look in the book of Acts, when they went out, it says that they turned the world upside down, right?

And I was like, Lord, what in my life would keep me from reaching that potential that you would have for me?

What in my life would keep me from being 1 of those, just 1 person, but has an influence on the whole world?

Just me, like little me, how could I have an influence on the whole world?

And I started looking at over and over the promises we have in the Word.

And I'm like, okay, so what's keeping us, Lord?

Why are we not turning the world upside down?

And Paul, we see, had a drastic effect on the world, right?

And he was just this 1 man, and I was studying his life, and I was asking God, what is it about Paul?

And this sermon came, this 1 thing, and I want you to turn to Philippians with me, in your Bible.

But as I was reading this, I have a book of sermons of Ellen White.

It's sermons and talks that Ellen White had spoken.

And I was reading in there her messages to different young people or to different groups of people and there was 1 spot where she was just saying, brethren you strike too low.

And she went on to say, set your mark high.

Not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended but 1 thing I do.

But 1 thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Here Paul starts off and he says, this 1 thing I do, this 1 thing, this 1 thing is my aim, my focus, and what does he say it is?

He starts off, no divided aim, a singleness of purpose.

And he says first, he forgets what's behind him.

Was he always this wonderful Christian who was preaching?

Paul had been persecuting the church, right?

Paul had a past that I'm sure the devil often brought to his mind.

Paul, look at your past, look who you are.

Sometimes when We are trying to press towards the mark of the devil brings the past to us.

Yeah, but wait a minute, Chelsea, you have that in your life.

That Forget what's behind you, the word there literally means disregard it, intentionally put it aside.

You know in 1 John 1 9, I'm sure many of you know the verse, if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

God says he will forgive that, put it behind you.

Often, I just read verse 9, but verse 7 is powerful.

It says, But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with 1 another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanses us from all sin.

If we keep our eyes fixed on Christ, those struggles that we have, God will give us victory.

Those things of the past we can put behind us.

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This One Thing

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