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Loma Linda University Student Association

Relationships Week 2006

Don Mackintosh

God? Why?

Parents? How?

Peers? Who?

Back to Normal

Phil Mills

God’s Purpose in Marriage

God’s Ideal in Courtship

The Essentials of Happiness

Key Questions Before Marriage

Courtship Question and Answer Session

I mean, in the last couple days we've talked.

We've talked about God, who, our first time together, and we discovered that God is there.

No matter how despicable and unruly we are, perhaps like Sam, the man we talked about, he, in each of us there is this desire to do what's right.

It's a knowledge of what's right and wrong.

I mean, even if you have 2 atheists walking down the street and 1 hits 1 in the mouth, you know, the 1 that got hit in the mouth kind of thinks that's wrong.

So he has instilled in us this right and wrong and preferring the right over and against the wrong.

And then secondly we learned in that talk that he cares for us and he knows what's happening.

And then in our second time together we looked at friends or rather we looked at what we look at the second time parents how and we talked about how significant these relationships are with our parents if we we don't have a relationship with God where we're in trouble We don't have a healthy relationship with our parents.

And sometimes parents are just unhealthy toxic individuals you never can get along with ever.

But from your side of the equation you can forgive.

You can you can move through bitterness and different things.

You may have to set up some boundaries and different things afterward, but you don't need to be ruled by what they do.

That text that saved my life in Ezekiel, considering and considering, seeing, considering, but not doing likewise.

How many of you were just here for the first time today?

Oh man, guys are going to have to go to, what is it?

Audioverse.org if you want to know what's happening.

You'll think maybe I'm a little tangile or perhaps even a schizophrenic today, so please get the other messages.

Alright, so today we're gonna talk about friendships.

And you know when I became a Christian I started to change.

And I'm a Christian now but I would say to you I'm still becoming a Christian.

It's a relationship we have that's growing and it's not a static thing.

And so for me I'm always learning more things about why I'm not like Christ and how I could you know you look at Christ and you're like oh man I'm a disaster but I'm glad he loves me you know what I mean so I'm not saying I'm at the end of the road but when I became a Christian my whole idea about friendships began to change it started kind of before because I was more and more made aware of my un-Christ likeness.

Even before I became a Christian, this happened.

I remember working, like I said before, as I shared my testimony, I went through school as a nurse, and I got through, and I was working there in the hospital and taking care of different people.

And I was basically an unkind, bitter person.

I had all kinds of friends, but I really, they were all acerbic and the punchline was always kind of mean.

And so I remember 1 day this lady came in and she was a lady of the night.

She came to the emergency department and there she was.

She had the smell of alcohol on her breath, and I went in to talk with her, and she had children with her, a couple children with her that had different last names.

And so I was already, you know, having this feeling that, you know, I could say something mean or think thoughts that were mean.

She said, well my child has a fever, and this and that, and the other, and I said to her kind of sarcastically, well, have you considered Tylenol?

And the way I said it, when someone is already slightly inebriated and compromised, It just set the lady off.

And then, you can fill in the blanks, she just went to town, man.

And she just threw all costs into the wind and she just, I mean, it was so blue in the room, I don't think any of the other primary colors would have shown up.

I mean it was just, and then bang, she kicks me.

So the head nurse comes in and says, Don, I think you may have compromised the patient-nurse relationship here.

And I said, I think you're probably right.

So I would like to put you on something else.

I said, that is definitely okay-dokay with me.

So I go down the hall and you know and of course all the nurses are like yeah that lady and this and that they're all telling me that what she did you know sees this and that and the other and by the way she's a prostitute and all that and they were all talking about and everybody was like confirming that what I've done and how I behaved was okay.

But I was just kinda convicted that this is kinda was not right.

You know, so I go home, not yet a Christian but this is just before I you know that other lady that you heard about the first day died and it was, you know, it's still kind of that time.

I go, I'm thinking about this and that night I go home and I just, I'm just kind of, it just comes back and I go, man, You know, if I saw that lady again, if it was possible I saw that lady again, you know, I'd probably have to tell her I was sorry, which I don't want to do, but I probably would.

I went back the next day, go in, go in to see the first patient, open the door.

And she looks right at me and she starts swearing again.

And I said, you know what, I'm really, I was amazed.

I wasn't willing to admit that God did it, but I said, you know what, I'm really glad that I ran into you again because I just wanted to tell you, I mean someone else can give you the, in a silly shot, but I just wanted to tell you that I'm sorry about what happened.

She looked at me, and she started to cry.

She said to me, very few people in my whole life have ever told me I'm sorry.

And I think he went to here, to this school, to medical school, but like so many people, even in health professions, he had lost his vision of Adventism, of Christianity, and he basically was, you know, not believing in God and all these other different things.

And I was taking care 1 day of this other guy.

And of course, if you've taken care of sickle cell patients, you know they need a lot of fluids and they need pain medication.

And this guy came in and I haven't quite put that all together.

I was relatively new with taking care of sickle cell patients, and so I thought he was malingering and perhaps wanted some narcotics and different things and everything.

And so he asked me for a drink and I was like, I'm not going to get you a drink, I'm not getting you this and that and the other, and this guy heard me.

And he came to me and he goes, don't you know the Bible says that if anyone asks you for a drink, you should give it to them?

Now this guy was the most unsavory clinician you'd ever work with.

He was just rude, crude, all these things.

I had never heard him ever mention anything about the Bible, but here he was bringing the Bible out.

And I was like, yeah, so I got the guy a drink.

So these kind of things were happening even in my benumbed state.

But there's another reason my friendships changed and this is why.

I began to see, as I looked at my friends, what was happening in their lives.

I had a good friend named Lance and he liked to smoke things that were grown.

And he always said this was part of his vegetarian lifestyle, you know.

He was really kind of a twisted and confused individual.

Although, at that time, I thought he was quite profound.

And I was like, look what's happened, look what happened to my friend.

And then several other people, the same thing was happening to them.

And then I went to Chicago, I was working with a bunch of my friends in Chicago.

I was dodging in and out and I went there and I was talking to all these friends and these friends were there they were we all had something in common we were all ministers sons actually seventh-day Adventist ministers sons we all didn't believe in God anymore we were all miserable and angry and just didn't want to act like we were so we're trying to fool ourselves and it was amazing 5 of us some were about my age a couple younger and then the guy that was our crew manager, he was in his 60s.

And all of them were, We would go to the clubs, we would be at that whole scene, we were doing this and we were just, you know, you know, acting like we were really cool.

But when I got alone with these guys, you know, the 2 things that would come up number 1 they would talk about why they didn't believe in God but then they would talk about how they were angry at their dad and guess what I saw I didn't realize it then but God was playing in my mind If you continue in this way and your relationships are going this way, your friends are all bitter like you and you're gonna be bitter at 25, at 30, at 35, at 40, at 65, you're just gonna be a wreck your whole life and I could tell you the stories they were telling me but I don't have time.

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Series

Relationships Week 2006

Peers? Who?

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Who Are Your Friends?

43m

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Individual Conflict: Victory Over Sin

06-Closing Arguments

1h

Bible Study

26m

Medical Mission Work

04 Live out Love

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Balanced Living

Creating Connections Part 2

15m

MTYC 2010 Breakout Seminar - Relationship

Am I His Witness?

48m

A Study in Hebrews

A Study in Hebrews 13: Seek the City to Come

35m

AMEN 2011 Plenary Sessions

Our High Calling, Part 2

48m

True Education

Communion with God in Nature

1h 1m

The True Medical Missionary

56m

God's Love Stories (Noon Meetings)

8. Praying Right

39m

Sound Doctrine