GYC Conference 2022: Break Forth

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Evening Devotional

Steven Conway

The Surprise of Scripture

Walk and talk, walk and talk, that's what they tell me.

It is so good to be here with you this evening.

I want to ask you to bow your heads with me for a word of prayer as we ask for the Lord's blessing once again.

Loving Father and our God, we are grateful for the privilege that we have to be together in this place.

We are thankful for your word which speaks to our hearts and to our minds.

We ask that during our time this evening that you would speak both to our hearts and to our minds.

I pray, dear Father, that you would move us to action.

In the lovely name of Jesus, let everyone say, Amen.

This is a privilege and an honor to be able to share with you all.

I'm always fascinated why they want somebody as old as I am to come and to share.

My wife and I and our son Israel, we were at the very first GYC in Pine Springs Ranch.

I was just sharing with someone in the back.

I think that we were maybe 1 of 4 or 5 people there who were married, and our son was 6 months old.

And we had a wonderful time there and it has always been a blessing to be able to come and share and spend time together.

I want to share with you something that's very personal.

I'll have to talk to her afterwards because I'm going to share some personal stuff.

Just this past year our family had a scare.

The doctors told my mother that they believed that she had cancer.

And so our family was thrust into prayer mode.

Everyone was praying and everyone was trying to talk to the Lord about this situation.

As you can imagine, the matriarch in our family, well-loved, and I'm blessed to have a praying mother and so We were worried There was an anointing service that was called together.

I remember as my family and I had made the drive over to Ohio, we came there into the church and there were people that were surrounding her, the hands were being laid on her, prayers were being offered.

And yet in the midst of all of that, there was something that transpired that my older brother brought to my mother's attention about something that she had done that had offended some of those who were there in attendance at that prayer and anointing service.

Now, it was extremely difficult for my mother to receive what was shared with her.

And the reason why it was difficult is because she felt after having fasted and prayed for such a long time in preparation for this anointing service, not now.

Perhaps if it had taken place before this, I would have been open to receive this, but how could you say that I've offended someone when I've been fasting and praying in preparation to be anointed so that the healing power of God can be unleashed in my life.

I remember that it was during that experience that the thought came into my mind that this is not an experience that my mother has exclusively.

It would be difficult for any of us, after having fasted and prayed and prepared our hearts and our minds to receive the word that our lives or something we have done has in fact been offensive.

Well maybe 2 weeks ago before I began fasting and praying, but not now.

It is just such an occurrence that takes place in the 58th chapter of Isaiah.

In Isaiah 58 verse 1 the Bible says, cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet.

I was privileged to get my hands on a doctoral dissertation and in this dissertation it alluded to the fact that the trumpet being called is an allusion to the day of atonement.

And so if you can imagine, place yourselves with me as a member of the ancient Israelite congregation as they are afflicting their souls, preparing for the day of atonement, and in the midst of this, God says that your fasting and your praying are in fact useless.

Now I believe, dear friends, that this is potent and it is relevant for each and every 1 of us because we as Seventh-day Adventist Christians believe that we're living in the antitypical day of atonement and we have a lifestyle that is in preparation or living in the judgment time.

And likewise, I believe, my dear friends, that the message of God comes to us just as it did to ancient Israel in Isaiah chapter 58, just as the word came to my mother, just as it comes to so many of us in our personal experiences.

When we feel closest to God, God reveals to us that in fact, we are not as close as we had hoped.

How is it that people who intend to be close to God, men, women, boys, and girls who are in a preparatory state of mind, how is it that we can find ourselves to be so far away from God?

I believe 1 reason, my dear friends, is because we have not fully and completely embraced the message.

We have not fully and completely embraced the message.

Turn with me in your Bibles if you have them to the book of Leviticus.

You're awake this evening, Leviticus Chapter 25.

We'll begin with verse 1, and the Lord spake unto Moses, remember what I'm suggesting, that we have not in fact embraced the message.

Now you can't miss that, because if we haven't embraced the message, then it would stand to reason that we have not preached the message.

No, you ain't with me yet, but you will be shortly.

Leviticus chapter 25 beginning with verse 1, and the Lord spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai saying, speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, when you come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a Sabbath under the Lord.

6 years thou shalt sow thy field and 6 years thou shalt prune thy vineyard and gather in the fruit thereof.

But in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest under the land, a Sabbath for the Lord.

Thou shalt neither sow thy field nor prune thy vineyard.

That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed, for it is a year of rest under the land, and the Sabbath of the land shall be meat for you, for thee and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee, and for thy cattle and for the beasts that are in thy land shall all the increase thereof be meet.

And thou shalt number 7 Sabbaths of years unto thee, 7 times 7 years.

And the space of the 7 Sabbaths of years shall be unto thee 40 and 9 years.

Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month.

In the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.

This year of Jubilee was to be announced in connection with the Day of Atonement.

Now I'm going to venture out and say that as you and I have attended, or some of us have perhaps even preached evangelistically about the day of atonement that this we have left out.

You and I cannot fully biblically preach about the day of atonement separated from the concept of Jubilee that is presented here in Leviticus chapter 25.

The irony is my dear friends, and there's much conversation, if you want to put it that way, as to whether or not the year of Jubilee was ever actually kept.

There is no biblical record of what happened when a Jubilee year was kept.

The principle is there in the scriptures.

However, we lack evidence as to whether or not it was actually entered into.

I would encourage you to read Leviticus chapter 25.

1 of the things that happened is if I had sold my property or leased out my property, when the Jubilee year approached, it signified the end of the lease and the return of my property.

It was supposed to symbolize the end of the lease agreement and the return of my property.

But if what we suggested already is in fact true, and that is that the year of Jubilee was never actually kept.

I want you to imagine what that society was like.

At 1 point in time my family had a possession of land.

You could find where your family's allotted land possession was, but through hook or through crook or difficulties or whatever the case may be, the land was leased out, but it was never returned.

I think this is extremely significant, my dear friends.

I'm going to come back to that jubilee concept, but I want to share with you just how significant it is and why I believe that this is so very pertinent to each and every 1 of us today.

Turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Luke.

Luke chapter 4 this is a very familiar Passage of Scripture that many of us those of us who have had the opportunity to preach evangelistically We've used this passage in our evangelistic series We've used it those of us who have had Bible studies, we've used it in the study of scriptures as well.

Well, let's start with verse 16, because this is the part we really love and we focus on.

And he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up.

And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to read.

And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias and When he had opened the book he found the place where it was written.

The Burden of Scripture

Let us bow our heads together for a word of prayer.

Loving Father, we are grateful that we have another opportunity to come together in this place.

We pray that the Holy Spirit might descend and Open our hearts and our minds.

In fact, we thank you that your spirit is already here in this place.

As we open the Scriptures, may the entrance of your word give light in Jesus' name.

In a chapter in the book by Bryan Stevenson entitled Broken.

He reflects on a failed attempt at justice.

When I hung up the phone that night, I had a wet face and a broken heart.

I thought myself a fool for having tried to fix situations that were so fatally broken.

My clients were broken by mental illness, poverty, and racism.

They were torn apart by disease, drugs, and alcohol, pride, fear, and anger.

In their broken state, they were judged and condemned by people whose commitment to fairness had been broken by cynicism, hopelessness, and prejudice.

After working for more than 25 years, I understood that I do what I do because I'm broken too.

My years of struggling against injustice had finally revealed something to me about myself.

Being close to suffering, death, executions, and cruel punishments didn't just illuminate the brokenness of others, it also exposed my own brokenness.

We all share the condition of brokenness.

I desperately wanted mercy for Jimmy Deale and would have done anything to create justice for him, but I couldn't pretend that his struggle was disconnected from my own.

The ways in which I have been hurt and have hurt others are different from the ways Jimmy Deals suffered and caused suffering, but our shared brokenness connected us.

I want to begin tonight by taking a look at Isaiah.

Isaiah chapter 56, beginning with verse 1, Thus saith the Lord, keep judgment and do justice for my salvation is near to come and my righteousness to be revealed.

Blessed is the man that doeth this and the son of man that lays hold on it, that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil.

Verse 3, neither let the son of the stranger that hath joined himself to the Lord speak, saying, the Lord hath utterly separated me from his people.

Neither let the eunuch say, behold, I am a dry tree.

For thus said the Lord, unto the eunuchs that keep my Sabbaths, and choose the things that please me and take hold of my covenant, Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters.

I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

Also the sons of the stranger that join themselves to the Lord to serve him and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every 1 that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it and takes hold of my covenant.

Even them will I bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer.

Their birth offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar.

For mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.

For the sovereign Lord, this is the New Living Translation, for The sovereign Lord who brings back the outcast of Israel says, I will bring others too besides my people.

Now, if you read Isaiah chapter 56, It is easy to understand that the thrust of this is the inclusive nature of the love and mercy and grace and character of God.

It is big enough and broad enough to embrace the foreigner, the stranger, and the eunuch.

We are commissioned by God to take the gospel to the world, but it is quite possibly the most challenging experience when men and women, boys and girls, begin to respond to the gospel and come into the house of the Lord when they don't look like you and I, when they don't dress like us, when they don't smell like us, when they don't talk the way that we talk, when they don't understand even the language and the euphemisms that we use, when they are so different from you and I, the difficulty is not in the power of God to draw those into his house.

The challenge of the difficulty is with those of us who are inside of the house to receive those who God has drawn.

Oh, you got to understand that in Isaiah chapter 56 in order for you to understand the power of what we've been looking at in Isaiah chapter 58.

And I want to focus in on 1 thing tonight.

1 thing, There are many things we could talk about in Isaiah 58, but there's 1 thing in verse 8, then shall thy light break forth as the morning and your health shall spring forth speedily and your righteousness shall go before you.

The glory of the Lord shall be thy reward.

In the RSV, it says this, then shall your light break forth like the dawn, oh, I like this, beloved, And your healing shall spring up speedily.

The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then shall your light break forth like the dawn and your healing shall spring up.

Later on in Isaiah chapter 58, God says this, that He wants His people to be restorers of the breach.

And we interpret that restoration to refer to the Sabbath.

I want to suggest something to you this evening.

If we ourselves have not been restored, then we cannot take a message of restoration.

If we ourselves have not been healed, then we cannot take a message of healing to the world.

In fact, my friends, I want to go out on a limb and suggest this evening, and in fact, the limb I'm going out on is very short because I believe it's scriptural.

The reason God calls you and I to engage with the poor, the oppressed, and the brokenhearted is to help bring to the surface in our own experiences, our own brokenness.

And this, my dear friends, is precisely the reason why you and I would perhaps be okay if our experience never included any of them.

Because we have, in many instances, we have used religion and we have used even the Sabbath to get us away from our brokenness and our stuff.

And yet in Isaiah chapter 58, God says, no, I want to bring you into community with broken people.

I want to bring you in community with eunuchs, the proverbial eunuchs who don't see themselves as having hope or a future to remind you of where I have drawn you from.

To remind you that even though you have come to me, you have still in many instances not allowed me to heal you.

Now I must admit that when it comes to healing, many of us have a misconception about what it means to experience healing.

Why is it that we have a misconception about what it means to experience healing.

Why is it that we have a misconception about what it means to experience healing?

How can we get a misconception about healing from reading the Bible?

No, no, no, no, the Bible tells us what healing is and that's how we form — I want you to follow me.

And hopefully you can still call me friends after we're done.

In the New Testament, but also in the Old Testament, in most instances when we read about healing, the healing takes place in an immediate sense.

Sometimes Jesus will say, go show yourself to the priest, or Jesus will even say something like, go and wash, right?

But even in those instances, the healing takes place in what many of us would consider to be an immediate sense.

What the New Testament doesn't show is what happens afterward.

And as a result of this, when we talk about healing, our expectations are that healing must take place in an immediate sense.

We love the testimony where a person says, God took the taste of alcohol out of my mouth.

That's a testimony that you can stand up and share in church.

But none of us are comfortable when someone says, God delivered me from alcohol, I've been sober for 7 years but I had a relapse and I need prayer tonight.

I want you to use your sanctified imagination with me this evening.

Luke chapter 5 tells the story of the man who came to Jesus.

He was sick, filled from his head to his toes with a dreaded disease of leprosy.

And you remember the story, he comes to Jesus, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.

But I want you to use your sanctified imaginations with me tonight because when a person contracted this disease, in the days of Jesus, there was no cure.

Also, the individuals who contracted this disease would have to live separated and apart from their families, lest they infect not only their families, but even the places where they lived.

So I want you to imagine with me a wife who has 2 young children And her husband has contracted this dread disease.

6 months go by, 8 months, 9 months, a year, a year and a half, 2 years.

And this wife, listen to me tonight, friends, this wife emotionally disconnects from her husband.

The Practical Nature of Scripture

It's a privilege and an honor to be here to share with you.

I want to ask you to bow your heads with me as we ask again for the Lord's blessing to be with us.

Father God, we humbly come before you this evening, and I know there have been many prayers that have been offered.

We do not come again because we doubt that you've heard us, but we sense our soul's deep need.

And I just pray for your spirit to remain here in this place with us, and if possible, come in an even greater measure into our hearts.

Thank you for hearing and answering this humble request in Jesus' name.

Only 44 people have reached the summit of all 14 of the world's 26, 000-foot peaks, according to the record books.

The difference rides on a timeless question that was given a fresh look.

The question was this, what constitutes a summit?

He is 1 of the 44, the only American on the list.

In 1993, climbing alone and without supplemental oxygen or ropes, he reached the central summit of, this is a good 1, Shishapangama, the world's 14th highest mountain.

Most climbers turn around there calling it good enough.

Before him was a narrow spine of about 300 feet, a knife edge of snow with drops to oblivion on both sides.

At its end was the mountain's true summit, a few feet higher in elevation than where he stood.

He retreated, but then he said, I was 1 of those guys where if the last nail in the deck hasn't been hammered in, it's simply not done.

So 8 years later, Ed climbed within reach of the summit again.

With a leg on each side of the narrow mountain spine, he shimmied across it.

He touched the highest point and scooted back to relative safety.

There is a summit and then there is everything below it.

By asking a simple sounding question, what constitutes a summit?

The researchers are raising doubts about past accomplishments and raising standards for future ones.

Eberhardt Jogowski has spent 40 years chronicling the ascents of the 26, 000-foot peaks, and now he has some jarring news.

It is possible that no 1 has ever been on the true summit of all 14 of those peaks.

Some stopped on the central summit not daring to straddle the ridge the way Viesters did.

Some turned around at a popular selfie-taking spot without scaling the precarious ridge hidden just beyond it.

Climber and author David Roberts says, the summit does matter.

Because it's the whole point of mountaineering.

Australian explorer Damien Gildia said, People are stopping short because it's simply too hard.

People are stopping short because it's simply too hard.

I want to be real with you tonight, and I promise you I've been trying to be real with you on the previous nights.

But Isaiah chapter 58 makes Seventh-day Adventist Christians in the year 2022 uncomfortable.

Why does Isaiah chapter 58 make us uncomfortable?

Number 1, it makes us uncomfortable Because we don't want while preaching and teaching and delving into the truths of Isaiah chapter 58, we don't want to be confused with the social gospel.

Now, let me define the social gospel for us this evening.

It is a belief that Jesus' coming depends on Christians helping to rid the world of all of its evils as Jesus will set up his earthly kingdom here and reign for a thousand years.

You'll have to excuse me as I go back to Cleveland.

That ain't got nothing to do with Isaiah chapter 58.

Oh, we don't want to be confused with the social gospel.

Should we not talk about the light of rain and the outpouring of the Holy spirit because some people have those concepts twisted?

But it makes us uncomfortable because we see people who are talking about things that are unbiblical.

Turn with me there, if you have your Bibles, to 2 Timothy.

2 Timothy, and This is a familiar passage of Scripture, chapter 3, beginning with verse 1.

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Evening Devotional

The Surprise of Scripture

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The Surprise of Scripture

1h 27m

The Burden of Scripture

1h 29m

The Practical Nature of Scripture

1h 34m

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