GYC Conference 2022: Break Forth

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Medical Mission Work

Calvin Kim

01 Won by One

I swung by the homeless camp as I had something to drop off for 1 of the homeless residents just 3 months ago.

On this particular day as we were driving out of the camp from the corner of my eye, I got a glimpse of what looked like a naked man laying face down on the ground.

So I quickly stopped and backed up the car to see if we could help.

As we got out of the car and got closer, I realized it was not a man.

It was a woman lying face down on the ground, completely naked except for socks on, and groveling in the gravel.

As soon as I realized it was a woman, I turned around and headed back to the car since I was with 2 female friends who could approach her and help her She was totally intoxicated and incoherent.

My friends asked her if they could help her Communicating with her was not easy as she was incoherent My 2 female friends came back to the car and suggested we go to the store to buy wipes, water, and food for this woman.

1 of the gals described what she had just witnessed.

She told me that this woman, and I'm paraphrasing, looked like she was trying to get intimate with the ground.

When we returned, she was now in a tent with the homeless man.

As we drove off, we prayed that God would interfere in her life and that this man would not take advantage of this woman.

This was 1 of the most deplorable things that I had ever witnessed in my life.

As a father of 2 teenage daughters, I can't even imagine how much my heart would break if either of my daughters became so dehumanized and debased that they would be in such a state of depravity.

At that moment, as my heart hurt, I got a glimpse into God's heart.

How much must God's heart be hurting for His children, and my heart hurt for God's heart." Have you ever paused to consider how God's heart must be breaking as He sees all the suffering in the world?

Sister White tells us that most of us think of the Gospel in relation to ourselves and to the world, but few think of it in relation to God.

She says, few give thought to the suffering that sin has caused our creator.

Every departure from the right, every deed of cruelty, every failure of humanity to reach his ideal brings grief to him.

This experience was a humbling reminder to me of the repercussions of sin, that sin brings pain and hurt to the heart of God, and sin brings pain and hurt to us, his children.

That day, I didn't see a crazy woman who was drugged out of her mind.

I saw a precious child of God in bondage to sin.

It was a humbling reminder of what our calling in life is, to restore man and woman back into the image of God.

If you will bow your heads with me for prayer.

Our gracious Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for sending your Son Jesus to redeem us, a gift which is beyond computation and inestimable.

I want to thank you that you have called us to be co-labors with you in this most important and grand work of saving souls into your kingdom.

As we speak on this most important topic, I just ask that you would speak through me today.

The title of this presentation is 1 by 1, with a capital O.

The 1 is Jesus because Jesus should be the central theme of every message that we share.

We have been won by Jesus into his marvelous light and as we are the recipients of His goodness, grace, and mercy.

It is our privilege and honor to win others to Jesus 1 person at a time or 1 by 1, hence the alliteration.

I was asked by GYC to share in light of the call set forth in Isaiah 58, how to practically share Jesus, His love, and unselfish service to those in need.

What is the best way that we can reveal Jesus to others?

Ellen White says, How shall we reveal Christ?

I know of no better way than to take hold of the medical missionary work in connection with the ministry.

In another place Ellen White says in new fields no work is so successful as medical missionary work.

If medical missionary work is the most successful method and there is no better way to reveal Jesus, this subject matter deserves our careful attention.

If I ask you this, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?

I asked a number of my friends to tell me the first thing that comes to their mind when they hear the word medical missionary work.

1 of my friends said the first thing that comes to his mind is Eden Valley and Weimar.

Another person mentioned helping people in third world countries in the underserved worlds.

Someone said someone living in the boonies or lifestyle center, herbs and natural remedies.

Most of the answers that were given are stereotypes that I hope to abuse in this presentation.

Sister White says, we have come to a time when every member of the church should take hold of medical missionary work.

In Adventist Home, she says, children can take part in the medical missionary work.

By virtue of the fact that every member and even children are encouraged to be medical missionaries, the first stereotype that I want to disabuse is the idea that medical missionary work is a work entrusted to doctors, dentists, nurses, and those trained in medical or health ministry.

Every committed 70 Adventist is called to be a medical missionary.

What does a medical missionary look like?

Most of us don't live in third world countries, most of us don't attend self-supporting institutes, and most of you are not in the medical or healthcare field.

I want you to understand that medical missionary work is not an occupation, a degree, a place, a thing, or an event, but rather medical missionary work is a mindset.

It is a mindset that understands and makes use of a divinely inspired prescription or recipe for soul winning success.

What is this divine prescription for medical missionary work?

Before I get into this, I want to preemptively establish a basic principle that needs to be understood in regards to soul winning.

Soul winning is not a one-size-fits-all because every person is at a different place in their life.

Some people are ripe and ready for the gospel.

In evangelism, we call them low hanging fruit and they are ready for the picking.

Some people are not ready for spiritual truth at all.

An important metaphor that Jesus uses for soul winning is the farmer who sows seeds.

When a farmer sows seeds, does a farmer plant seeds at any time of the year?

Would a farmer try to plant seeds in the dead of winter when the ground is frozen?

You have to plant seeds when the ground is soft.

A farmer needs to wait until the harvest is ripe before reaping.

There's a whole continuum or range of where a person can be at and Jesus was a master at meeting them where they were at.

Just 2 weeks ago my hygienist tells me that she had a neat conversation with our patient and she seems interested in Bible studies.

As soon as my hygienist told me this I went to the front desk as my patient was checking out.

She told me she was agnostic atheist and her parents were Buddhists, but she's open to learning about the Bible.

I had to invite her to do Bible studies with me.

She accepted and we did our first Bible study via Zoom last week.

When we were done, she said it was great.

On the continuum, she's at a certain place where she is receptive and open to learning new truth.

For the purpose of this presentation and understanding this divine prescription for soul-winning success, let us assume that we have someone on the far other end of the continuum and they have 0 interest in spiritual things, the soil of their heart is frozen solid.

The first step, We need to disarm people so that their heart becomes soft and open to receiving spiritual things.

The initial step in this recipe for soul winning success is to be intentional and deliberate about not presenting anything spiritual first.

Because the world does not like spiritual things.

Just because you and I like spiritual things doesn't mean that the world has any kind of appreciation for spiritual things.

In John 3 19 it says, and this is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.

John 3 20 tells us, For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

Spiritual things make people who are living in darkness feel uncomfortable.

Paul tells us that the cross is foolishness to those that are perishing.

The Greeks were into their philosophies, their humanistic ideas, and their Greek mythologies.

Stephen Waterbrook

02 Undo Heavy Burdens

So breaking forth your part of the medical missionary work.

I really want to take my time this hour to really address those that are maybe, you know, the younger cohort.

And so I really want to speak to you if you're younger, you're in high school, academy, or you're college age, or just outside of those ranges.

This really is a time that I want to really have your attention as you think about your life's work.

As we discussed earlier, being a medical missionary, each member, if you're a Seventh-day Adventist, which I'm assuming this largely, or maybe exclusively, is a Seventh-day Adventist group, maybe there are some non-Adventists here, Maybe there are some non-Christians here.

Another caveat is that this is largely, or you know, probably all of you live in the United States or are from the United States.

Maybe you're traveling from abroad, and that would be fine.

But this is mostly in a context in the United States as well as we discussed.

So keep those things in mind as we go on.

These are going to be our objectives though and I'm selling this seminar as a five-in-one.

You're getting 5 seminars for the price of 1, okay.

Every seventh day Adventist loves a good deal, right?

All right, the first thing we're gonna do, identify the problem in our world today.

You're probably thinking, well, there's more than 1 problem, and you're right, but we're gonna kind of distill it down a little bit.

Objective number 2, reveal the real goal of the medical missionary work.

The third objective is kind of a title, indebted, our responsibility to the world.

So we're going to see what is our responsibility to the world.

Number 4, discover the path God has for you.

This is going to be really interesting as you think about your life and all of the potential that you have should the Lord, Terry, is coming.

And the fifth objective, focus on the great object of life.

Now how many of these objectives are of interest to you?

You know, when I was putting this together, I thought like each 1 of those could be a seminar in itself.

And if we answered just 1 of those, we'd have a successful seminar.

And what I love about this verse, verse 8, is that it is at the core of Isaiah 58, which is at the core of some wider chapters of Isaiah 58, which is then part of the last third of Isaiah, and then of course part of the bigger work of Isaiah.

It really is this crux verse, And what is so amazing about this text are the action words.

And your righteousness shall go before you.

The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard, which is like a protection behind you.

This has echoes of the medical missionary work, obviously.

We see that righteousness is about a right relationship, right?

And it really is a contrast to what's going on in the world.

Imagine living a life where your light breaks forth or your healing that you provide in many, many different ways springs forth and your righteousness or the fact that you have a right relationship with the Lord, something that people see.

And the glory of the Lord would be your rear guard.

Can you imagine living your life like that?

Sounds like a pretty blessed life to me, doesn't it to you?

This is an amazing couple of sentences by the prophetess Ellen G.

This is going to be pretty word heavy and we're going to be going through a lot of different quotes that I think will be really powerful as we think on these themes.

And you're always welcome to come up to me afterwards, grab the slides from me, I'll be happy to email them to you so you don't have to take pictures.

Objective number 1, man lost all because he chose to listen to the deceiver rather than to him who is truth, who alone has understanding.

By the mingling of evil with good, his mind has become confused, his mental and spiritual powers benumbed.

No longer could he appreciate the good that God had so freely bestowed.

You know what, I skipped over this sentence.

It is the richest possession mortals can have.

Health is the richest possession but when you think about it some would sell everything they have to get it, wouldn't they?

Because once it's gone it rarely comes back.

So being a medical missionary you could literally spend your life giving what?

Oh I give treasure, it's really no big deal.

I give the richest possession that mortals can have.

You know, I have patients, I'm a surgeon by training, and that's what I practice in Northern California, where I live with my wife and my 3 beautiful kids.

I have patients who come in in distress, anxiety, sweating, clearly something's wrong.

And they say, Doc, I have no idea what happened.

And as I look back through their history I can see obviously chronic things that have been happening that then led them to this particular event.

They had no idea that they were gonna wake up 1 day and have a complete loss of health and that their life was going to change forever.

It is something, your health is something that rarely comes back.

And so it's not only important for us to live by these health principles, but this is what people are going through.

This is what the world is going through, and as a medical missionary you can be prepared to meet them at these critical junctures.

So going back to the problem in the world, objective number 1, we see that the world and Satan has caused people to mingle evil with good.

Have you seen this on your, you know, you're scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, you know, YouTube, whatever your social media platform of choice is?

You see, I sometimes I see these things and they're just amazing to me how good and evil can be commingled.

It's that good is becoming called, is called evil and evil has become called good.

And this is the norm in the world, all over the world, and it has caused people to become confused.

Have you ever gone to sleep, you wake up and you realize 1 of your limbs has gone completely numb.

Isn't that the weirdest feeling in the world?

And you can literally lift it up and it'll just fall down.

I don't know if that's happened to anybody else, but that happens to me sometimes.

And this is how the world is out there now.

Even, I would say, some in the Christian world are pretty confused as to what the Bible has to say about reality, about what's going to happen, about the present situation.

Mark Quion

03 The Bloody Nose That Healed London

My name is Mark Heon and I have the privilege of sharing seminar number 3 with you.

We are very blessed that you're here and the post-lunch seminar.

I take that as a great trust in me to keep you awake after a good meal, so I'll do my very, very best.

I have the privilege of attending Loma Linda School of Medicine.

And I just hope that the message that is shared today, and the ones, hopefully, that you've heard already this morning, will just continue to build.

Well, my name is Mark Heon, and I'm a second year medical student, and I'm very privileged to have you here for the third seminar, the post-lunch seminar.

As I said, I will do my very best to keep you awake after such a good meal.

Before we begin this afternoon, let us just begin with another word of prayer.

I just pray that as you've come to various seminars, I'm sure there's different ones you've been to, that they would just be propelling you forward in your desire to do what is right and to follow that Isaiah 58 model.

So that's my hope for this seminar as well.

Lord, you know the many ways that I lack in experience, and I pray that you would fill in those gaps for me.

I pray that this seminar would not showcase anything that we can do, but through surrender to you what you can do.

So I pray now that as we finish the seminars here this afternoon, that you would just be continually working in our hearts as presenters, but also in the hearts of those listening, that what you need to be shared would be shared and nothing else Lord.

So in this way I just pray that your Holy Spirit would be with us this afternoon and that you would just continue to lead in all the seminars, all the presentations that are occurring.

There are 2 key quotations that I'd like to read to you.

I'm just going to put them together so they're just going to sound like 1 quotation in total.

But I want you to try with your mind's eye to imagine what book this is coming from.

Okay, I think you'll have a guess, but we'll see, we'll see, okay?

Observe all the time the greatest exactness in your regimen.

Sup at 6 or 7 on the lightest foods to preserve steadiness.

Above all, add to the rest that old, unfashionable medicine, which is prayer.

The love of God as it is the sovereign remedy of all miseries by the unspeakable joy and perfect calm, serenity, and tranquility it gives the mind becomes the most powerful of all the means of health and long life.

The quotation and the book that I'm referring to go into great detail about how the mind and the body are intricately connected, and how affecting 1 affects the other.

This book in its initial pages discuss how man was created without any illness, but then through time, disease and sickness affected the human frame.

It talks about how God is intricately interested in healing, in human flourishing.

You have an idea what book this might be?

The book is called The Primitive Physician or an Easy and Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases by John Wesley In 1747.

I was surprised to hear this, but let's follow Wesley's story a little bit to see if we can understand why this sounds so familiar.

1720, Wesley attended Oxford University in order to become a pastor.

Part of his training was to actually take classes in medicine.

He became a deacon by 1725 and ordained in 1728 and in 1729, this is perhaps what we know him the most for now, he started a group called the Methodists.

But as he began his ministry, both in England and later in the U.S., he was perplexed.

Because as he would preach and as they would hold evangelistic seminars, people were not filling the pews.

Him and his brother, George Whitfield, the other ones as well, they would bring in many numbers in their high times.

But in his beginning years he wasn't sure why the pews were not filling up.

So he started to ask people to leave the stage and enter the pews and inquire as to where the people were.

Either they were sick or they were taking care of a family member who was sick or some other illness was keeping them from getting to the pews.

He started 3 free clinics mustering any type of medicine that he could have understood from Oxford, he tried to find ways to alleviate the suffering in the people that were not able to make it to the various evangelistic series that he was holding.

He started them in Bristol, Newcastle, and eventually London with great success.

Many attended and were able to find relief.

So he instructed 1 of his lay leaders, all of his lay leaders in fact, to leave 2 books in every home.

1 of them called The Imitation of Christ, a devotional, perhaps analogous to what we now would think of for Steps to Christ.

And with that book, The Primitive Physician, the 1 that I had recited from previously.

But even this was not enough for Wesley, And so what he decided to do, inspired by Matthew 25, in every Methodist parish he would allow 1 office that was specifically for the preventing visiting of the sick.

Anything to alleviate and support those who were sick.

His books on remedies and cures, that 1 that I read from again, went through more editions than any other book that he had.

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Series

Medical Mission Work

04 Live out Love

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

01 Won by One

57m

02 Undo Heavy Burdens

56m

03 The Bloody Nose That Healed London

48m

04 Live out Love

39m

05 Panel Discussion

53m

Sound Doctrine