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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

John Torquato Weekend

John Torquato

In the Eye of the Beholder

You guys, did you get the little card that was passed out?

So if somebody's got these little cards, if you could be so kind as to make sure everybody gets 1.

It's really important for you that you have 1 of these in your hands.

Those are coming to you, and I'll wait for just a minute to talk to you about that.

I am participating in a program called Total House Spokane, and Total House Spokane takes young people that want to spend an academic year in a stateside mission, gives them training and lots of experience for 1 year, helping people to know Jesus.

And we actually have 1 of your current members from Advent Hope with us actually in Spokane right now.

So anyway, and he's doing an amazing work and he's doing great things and I'm grateful for his participation and it is an important thing that we provide that good experience because he would love to come back and be able to do the things that he's doing in Spokane here to participate in the things that can be done in this area to be a blessing to Jesus.

And so as you get these cards, you'll notice on the backside is my name, my phone number, that's my cell phone, and my email address.

If you find that there's something that I can help you with, I'd like you to have the capacity to call me at your convenience and or use an email if that's necessary.

I take residents and I take students and I teach them for a period of time in my clinics how to do medical evangelism, how to work in medical ministry in a regular typical office in a community, and how to serve the Lord in a way that makes evangelistic visits.

Now does everybody have 1 of these cards now?

And I'd like you to take a picture of the QR code that's on the front of this card.

Take a photo of that and go to that little website.

And when you get onto that website, you will see that is the Total House Bookend website and I want you to have access to that on your phone because some of you might know somebody like Kurt who desires to serve the Lord and can do so in a year-long stateside mission, and in your mind, the Lord will place in your heart the name of somebody that you need to send to me.

And when you get that, I would like you to send that, forward that information to them and be in touch with me as well.

So thank you for that little advertisement for Total Housebook Hand.

I'm just going to read portions of Isaiah 53, verse 2, and portions of verse 4 and 5, and then I will begin.

It states in Isaiah 53, 2, at the end of the verse, he has no form or comeliness.

And when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him." Down to verse 4, surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, and he was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement of our peace was upon him, And it was by his stripes that we are healed.

Father in heaven, we are grateful for the Sabbath day.

We are so grateful for what you provide to us.

We ask you now to open our eyes to see the beauty of your character in Jesus.

We ask your blessing now in your name, amen.

In fact, in some ways, so is worth and value.

There was a little girl, she was teased by her friends because her mother's hands were ugly.

They were scarred and contracted and her mother worked with difficulty trying to do the chores around the house and her mother's hands were difficult to even look at because they were ugly.

And her friends teased the little girl about it.

And she couldn't handle it, the little girl couldn't handle it anymore.

And so 1 day she came and she complained to her mother, "'Mother, your hands are so ugly.

"'Why are your hands so ugly?' And so the mother came and sat her down and she says, I want to tell you a story.

And she shared with her that at only a few months of age, the little girl had been put down in the crib for a nap.

And the mother had been out of the nursery and a fire had broken out in the nursery.

And the mother, when she realized that the fire was encroaching upon the crib itself, she burst into the room full of flames and beat out the flames on the crib with her own bare hands and grabbed the child and ran out of the room with the child safe, but in the process terribly wounded her hands, which will now be scarred and painful and difficult for the rest of her life.

And it was only through the process of trying to save the child that her beautiful hands became ugly to the little girl's friends.

When the little girl heard what her mother had done to save her, she fell on her chest and she hugged her big and she says, Mom, your hands are so beautiful.

You see, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

And oftentimes, perception of value is more a comment on the eye of the beholder than it is on the 1 being beheld.

In fact, value and worth is often the same.

It's more a comment of the 1 who's creating a thought in their mind of what value and worth could be.

So you'll see that when you have the million dollar Picasso that was saved out of the garage sale for 7 bucks.

You know, you've seen that when you have these vases of antiquity that were in the attic and were gonna be tossed until somebody realized that this was worth something.

And now it's priceless in a museum somewhere.

You see, value and worth has something to say about the 1 who's beholding.

Because the beauty of Jesus that you see may actually be a little bit of a comment on where your own heart is.

Do you see the value and the worth of the sacrifice of the Lord, your God, for you?

Throughout my career, I've run into people who have either held back from believing in God or who have totally held Him aside because of a perception of God that they had gotten from somebody.

Now everybody has some concept of God and that concept will shape and influence the way you interact with the Lord.

If the concept of God is wrong, you may not see the beauty of the Savior.

And that, you may project upon God all you can perceive.

For instance, if you don't know what it's like to be unselfish, you cannot understand the unselfishness of God.

If you don't understand holy, perfect love, you cannot ascribe that to God.

And so it's kind of a comment potentially on us when we look at God to understand, do we see the beauty of his character and the love that he has for us?

Because we may project our own thoughts upon God and make God after an image of ourselves.

So we see this happened when we have in Matthew, Matthew 25, verses 22 through 30.

I'm just gonna talk to you about the end of the story, about the 3 servants that were given talents.

You remember the 3 servants that had received talents, and I'm just gonna cut to the chase because of time.

I want you to realize, 2 of these servants had taken the talents and had invested them at risk.

And they were commended and they were told, please enter into the joy of your master, you good and faithful servant.

But then it came down to the third servant.

And it says in the scripture, then he who had received 1 talent came and said, Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, gathering where you have not scattered seed, and I was afraid.

And so I went and I hid your talent in the ground.

The Ministry of Healing

I want to thank you very much for having me back.

And before I get started, I wanted to remind you, maybe some of you didn't know in the first place, I happen to have a gift.

Elvin Adams and courtesy of the Adventist Medical Evangelistic Network.

They have come and they've provided these books to students.

So if you're a student and you would like to have 1 of these books called the principles and practices of health evangelism, you can have 1 for free.

It is for you as a gift from the Amen Group and Dr.

In addition to that, David Fiedler, some of you know his name, has agreed that we could distribute a copy, a PDF copy of his book De Sozo to anybody that's interested.

So I'm going to ask Kyle afterwards to be responsible for getting you a book if you're interested in you let him know to get your name also and if you're interested because we're going to I want your name because I want to send a thank you to amen for their kindness to be able to provide these to you.

And in addition to that, if you're interested in the PDF, you'll give your email and Kyle will get that from you, and I'll send you the PDF when I arrive home back to Idaho.

So let me pray 1 more time before I get going, and then we'll go ahead and move forward.

And Father in heaven, we are grateful for the things that you do for us.

We know Lord that all things come together for good, but only 1 group of people, those who love you and are called according to your purpose.

So Lord, we pray that you'll help us to be those people.

We ask your special watch over us today as we talk in your name we pray.

So I wanted to switch directions a little bit this afternoon and talk about something that's a little bit more somber.

The whole thing I want to talk about this afternoon is suffering.

And if you don't experience it personally soon, you will see people around you, whether it be family, relationships, patients, they will experience suffering and kind of getting an idea, another thought of how to address suffering in a way that's going to bring victory, both to you and to those that are suffering.

So, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to share a couple of stories.

And then after the stories, and I bring out 1 or 2 little points, I'm just going to open it up to anybody that wants to ask questions.

I'm willing to answer any questions about the ministries that we are doing together in Idaho, or if nothing else, just good to know you guys.

So that's all for purpose, then to kind of give you a sense of having resilience.

When you have some perspective on suffering, you'll have some way to get your hands around it.

And that way you'll be better off, be better able to bounce back from the sufferings that we experienced.

I had a partner, his name is Andrew Rokeet, who was a graduate of Loma Linda.

He came and he spent some time, It's a little hot.

So he came as a student and spent some time with me actually as a resident.

He was in residency when he came and spent time up in Idaho and eventually decided he was going to come up and join us.

And his testimony is actually on audio verse.

And and so Andrew keys as part of my experience, he was with us for 5 years.

I was lonely and I was going to be bored because what do you do in Idaho?

He stayed 5 years When he left, he was married with 2 children and he had done some amazing ministry in the process.

So as part of what he did as a student, though, he, we have this blog that was actually begun by 1 of the attendings here, John Shin.

He was a student when, it was 1 of my first students that came on rotation with me.

And he asked that we set up a website to be able to do a blog and he put it together for us and he actually has the first notation on that blog site.

If you ever want to see it, it's student medical ministry.

It's all 1 word student medical ministry.wordpress.com student medical ministry.wordpress.com.

And since then, probably about 3 quarters of the students that have come up to Idaho, and rotated with me in my office to do a medical ministry rotation.

And 1 of the ones that did that was a guy that was going to be my partner eventually.

And he was writing about his contact, I think it was in Chad, with James Appel.

And as I was reading through that just recently, I thought, you know what, this is very insightful, and I probably should share it.

So I'm going to share that, and then I'm going to share a story of my own, 2 stories, and then I'll be done.

It's claimed the life of James, James Appel, James oldest son at the age of 6 months.

I asked him about that suffering and James said this, we have a unique opportunity in all of eternity to share in the sufferings of Christ.

No other creature in the universe will get to know this aspect of God.

Andrew goes on, I've been thinking of those words since then.

It's a cosmic view of suffering, 1 that takes into account the entire picture of why we exist and what our purpose is.

Truly, our position as a fallen world is unique.

Only humans have tasted and experienced suffering No other creature in the universe has had to go through this throughout the ages of god's creative history no being except god himself God entered the suffering of humanity through the person of Jesus Christ.

Jesus bore the sin and the effects of sin.

He suffered in the same way that every human would suffer who lived in the world.

Suffering then becomes the temporary experience that eternally connects us in our humanity with divinity.

It is this shared suffering with God that provides a special connection of humans with no other creature but God, and no other creature could fully understand.

Perhaps this is why Paul made it his aim to become intimately involved with suffering.

I want to know Christ, he writes, and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings.

I hate the death that it brings to families.

I hate the pain that it inflicts on children.

Yet somehow, through the suffering that I have experienced, I have seen the broken heart of God.

God is constantly using pain and suffering in our lives to grow us, to mold us, and to share with us what His experience in salvation has been.

Beloved, Do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing has happened to you.

But rejoice to the extent that you partake in Christ's sufferings, that when his glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy Says down a little further in verse 16 if anyone suffers as a Christian let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God in this matter." Further down, verse 19, therefore, let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to doing good.

Wait a second, I'm suffering, but in my suffering I commit myself to doing good.

Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to him in doing good as to a faithful creator.

In other words, the way I read that was when we suffer and we do good, we're declaring to the universe that we have a faithful creator regardless of our suffering.

That's what we're So it was Christmas 1998.

I was a resident of Florida Hospital Family Practice.

I was the chief resident and a senior resident at that residency.

We had our oldest daughter who was a year and a half and my wife was pregnant.

We're gonna have 2 kids at the Florida hospital.

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John Torquato Weekend

The Ministry of Healing

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Parent Series

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