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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Talking Points 4th Quarter 2023: God's Mission My Mission

Kameron DeVasher

Mark Howard

01 God’s Mission to Us Part 1

I'm Cameron DeBasia and I'm Mark Howard and this is Talking Points.

All right, Pastor Howard, we are now on the very first lesson of the very last quarter's study for the year 2023.

And our topic is God's Mission, My Mission.

Now, obviously this is not a full quarterly, this is a little bit smaller, but this is just a copy of the picture of it.

We are actually recording these early enough that we don't have the paper copies in hand yet.

We're highlighting the West Central Africa Division when it comes to our mission offerings this quarter.

And it's appropriate to bring up mission offering because not just as the mission, the offering for mission, but the whole topic of our study is mission.

And I'm, they've even done so far as to integrate some little challenges, weekly activity elements to this.

There's some pretty cool things coming up.

I'm excited, looking forward to this study.

And you outlined the first talking points for this lesson, So let me have a word of prayer and turn the time over to you.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this particular time of study of Sabbath school.

And the topic that we're going to be looking at, the concept of mission, help us to understand what it is, what you want from us, and how we can be faithful and active in your cause.

So bless us today as we study, for we pray it in Jesus' name, amen.

So starting the quarter again, I will reiterate that we have a half-page, two-sided handout.

Well, we have different formats, but basically we do an outline for SavaSchool teachers, not that you have to use it, but something that could be helpful to you or your class, and that is available through the link that you find in the YouTube description or from our website.

When you look up the Talking Points page, you'll see a link to our outline, our Sabbath School outlines there.

In our outline, I've described the lesson study introduction.

In these words, this quarter begins a study on the mission of the church, as you just stated, and our part in that mission as individual members.

And then I quoted the first sentence, I believe it's the first sentence from, no it isn't the first sentence, from, it's the last paragraph there on Sabbath's lesson it says but before we understand the mission of God it is essential that we understand the God of mission.

And so this week's lesson God's mission to us part 1 and next week is part 2 looking at basically the God of mission, as stated here.

Now, that being said, our talking points this week are 3.

I was telling you in the prep, I was tempted to call it, I was going to call it God was the first, and then you can't say God was, because God always is.

God is the first missionary, and that I drew from Sabbath and Sunday's lesson.

Number 2, talking point number 2, is God's ultimate desire is to be reunited with us And I do that from Monday and Tuesday's lessons and then finally talking point number 3 Jesus will return when the mission is accomplished and that from Wednesday through Friday Those are our talking points this week.

And then when we get to the end today, we're going to talk about the weekly, what I understand is in their terminology, the challenge and the challenge up.

Yeah, it's like there's challenge and then challenge plus.

So the challenge is kind of like it's almost like I know I'm overstating this it's the challenge is like an omission thought And then the challenge up is a mission do.

Now do the, so anyway, it's gonna be, we'll wrap up the lesson and we're saying, I'm saying that to say to you teachers, when you teach a lesson, do not skip that part.

Where they used to give challenges in class and it keeps people thinking about actually being active in mission.

And if a teacher would make sure to keep a portion of the class at the very beginning or the end or something to say like, Let's not forget that challenge and do we have a quick testimony?

Can someone share what's happened this week as you started doing the very things they asked for?

And I think we're going to see a revival of a missionary spirit right in the Sabbath school.

But anyway, we need to talk about this God of mission and how he is not just was, but is the first missionary.

This is a very short trip to the book of Ephesians, which just happens to have been last quarter.

The lesson brings this out, and we'll read that and kind of then build on the concept.

Scripture reads, "...just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love Obviously, we're in the middle of 1 of Paul's thoughts God the Father chose his Jesus his son before the foundation of the world and So the the idea being emphasized is that When it came to sending jesus on his mission god was the initiator We don't initiate mission god initiates mission again.

My talking point is god is the first missionary.

He developed the plan of salvation before the fall That verse alludes to it as well as 1 that this was in the lesson, 1 that wasn't, that I found was Revelation 13 8, which talks about Jesus being the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Obviously, if God developed the plan of salvation and redemption before the fall, then he instituted missionary work.

Well, and you know what just dawns me right here in real time?

Is that God not only is a missionary and sent his son, but he planned for his mission before he sent him.

So like it wasn't a haphazard, like it was a having a missionary strategy, a plan, like a local church having a plan for the next year, that's not an unscriptural thing.

God models that by like, I had a plan for this and when the time came we put it into action.

Yeah, I mean we could go on, maybe we'll interject this, maybe make our own lesson of a 14th week in this quarter if it doesn't touch on it in the quarterly about the idea of so many churches waiting until an opportune moment comes and says, okay, what are we gonna do?

The lesson also highlights, and let's go to Genesis 3.

In fact, I can look at it right here from the quarterly.

Then the Lord God called Adam and said to him, where are you?

And so here, immediately after the fall, we find God seeking lost humanity.

I mean, that's, again, taking it, it wasn't Adam who took the initiative to say, well, we messed up, we need to go talk to God about it.

They were hiding from God exactly the opposite.

And so the Quarterly says on Sabbath's lesson in the first paragraph, the very first sentence, if you want to read that.

Mission finds its origin and purpose in God.

It's almost a truism, you know, it's like, well yeah, of course, obviously, but maybe it's not so obvious.

Well, we need to certainly be reminded of it.

Yeah, I'm already looking ahead to next week's lesson and they do bring out that point that the mission didn't start with the church.

It's not like the church was forming like, we should go on a mission.

No, it's God formed the church for his mission.

And we'll get into that next week, but you're exactly right.

02 God’s Mission to Us Part 2

I'm Cameron DeVasier and I'm Mark Howard and this is Talking Points.

We're In lesson 2 of our God's Mission, My Mission quarter study, this time the very close of our 2023 calendar year, we're ending with an emphasis on mission, which is wonderful.

The title of this week's lesson is God's Mission to Us, Part 2.

It's an extension of what Mark started us off with last week.

We're gonna go on to this week and fill out some of those details about God's mission that is indeed our mission.

It's of course the foundation for this entire quarter's study.

All right, well you came up with the talking points.

Heavenly Father, we're so thankful that we can have a part in this great gospel mission.

We ask, Lord, that you would guide our time and study.

We pray that you would especially be with those who are teaching classes, that you would give them the words to say that would be an inspiration and encouragement to members the worldwide that would be able to unite their talents in helping to complete this work you've given us to do and hasten the coming of Jesus.

All right, a very simple lesson introduction.

This week's lesson is the second part of an introductory overview of God's mission that he intends to accomplish through his people.

Now that's the added through his people part that's going to be kind of the focus of this week's more.

And that's when you walk through this week's lesson, you see I've got the larger copy, the PDF that I printed off here, but of course the quarter cover looks like this.

We're gonna have a hard copy here real soon.

I've got a PDF on my iPad and then we've got this printed off.

And a Xerox copy over here, but we're gonna have, we're gonna make it through this.

Regardless, I told you I was at my at my local church, and they already have quarterlies.

But here in the Sabbath School Department in the conference office, we don't have them.

Regardless, we do have access to the material.

And each day of this week's lesson has something, the blank of mission.

Then there's the focus of mission, the message of mission, the channels of mission, the arena of mission.

So you could be tempted to say, well, each 1 is its own standalone thing, and we're going to look at the origin, then we'll look at the channels, then we're going to look at the, whatever.

I still would urge our teachers not to take that approach, that each day is its own standalone compartment, because it's just too many points to flesh out thoroughly, and...

Because we're in a new quarter, I like to kind of revisit these things.

The contributor or contributors of any lesson did not write it in 7 segments.

They wrote a lesson and then it had to be squeezed into 7 days because there's 7 days in a week And the idea was each day you'll study a little bit.

So that seven-day format is for personal study and preparation, not for teaching the lesson.

Now despite me saying that, there are going to be teachers who feel like, well, I've got to go Monday.

So that's back to Cameron's 0, well, there's 7 pieces.

Somebody kind of wedged it into 7 pieces because it, that's the way the quarterly lays out.

But some of these, like 2 or 3 of the pieces, may form 1 point.

And that's what I did for this week, is kind of take some of those and put them into a single concept and with sub parts to them.

Also some of the things we visited here we have just revisited either in the previous week study or in a previous quarter not too far back So there's some things that are unique to this that we really want to draw and other things you can try to just mention but kind of do in passing.

And of course every teacher can figure it out.

Let me throw out as well this point that if you want to walk through the 7, we're not telling you you're wrong for doing it, but I'm going to say you're going to be hard-pressed to get through 7 different points in a lesson in a typical Sabbath school time.

So the reason that, 1 of the main reasons we do this is to help teachers get through a substantial lesson without having to be like, oh well I really wanted to cover this but we didn't have time for it.

Exactly, so what I've done is put together 3 talking points which incorporates the main ideas from those 7 but kind of syncs them up a little tight.

So for example, talking point number 1, God's mission will be accomplished through us.

Now for instance there was a day that talked about God how it's God's mission and then another day to talk about how it's gonna be done through us but let's combine that in 1 concept that we can understand pretty simply.

And it looks like you've drawn that from Wednesday, Sunday, and Monday.

Yes, primarily Wednesday, but also a little Sunday and Monday thrown in there too.

So again, I don't want to take too much away, but I think it's important, again, starting this new quarter, sometimes you'll find that the meat of the lesson might be in the middle of the week.

So for you it's like, well Wednesday really speaks more to this point and so you've put it in that order in our notes.

For instance, if topic number 1 is God's mission will be accomplished through us, talking point number 2, our mission is to make disciples everywhere.

So God has this mission, wants to use us, then from there, our mission is to make disciples, and where do we make them?

And that combines a couple of the other day's points, namely Monday and Thursday.

Then we go to point Number 3, which was kind of alluded to in this week's lesson, but I wanted to draw it because I think it's a really important feature, and that is that the everlasting gospel includes present truth.

And that's, that's anchored in Tuesday's study, and we'll explain that more when we get there.

God's mission will be accomplished through us.

First of all, the fact that it's God's mission is the burden of Sunday's lesson, and it talks about the triune God, how God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have different parts to play, but are each 100% committed to this mission, this plan that was established before the foundation of the world.

Of course, that's inherent in the Great Commission.

You're baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And I just made a little point that as we discussed before, the gospel mission began before humanity even existed, and it includes all the members of the Godhead.

So in 1 sentence, we put those together, but there's a reference to Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 and 4, how that God chose us beforehand.

In 1 Peter 1, verse 20 talks about the same theme, how before the foundation of the world, this was God's plan.

And that now, and thus when we say God, let's be clear, In the same way we say God created the heavens and the earth.

Well, yes he did, but the spirit hovered over the water, the son executed, the father gets the glory.

Just like creation involved all members of the Godhead, so does redemption.

There was a really helpful, insightful comment that came out of Wednesday's lesson, paragraph 3, if you would read that for us, about mission's origin.

Yes, it says, mission did not originate with church.

On the contrary, the church exists because God still has a mission to be fulfilled and is using his church to fulfill it.

It's a great point Yeah, and let's think about what that's saying for a minute.

It's not like God built a church and Then gave it something to do gave it a mission.

03 God’s Call to Mission

I'm Cameron DeBasier and I'm Mark Howard and this is Talking Points.

We're continuing our study on God's mission, my mission, which by the way, Pastor Howard, this is an actual teacher's edition of the adult Bible study guide.

So now yours, however, the 3 ring binder version has not yet but you have it on the PDF I do I have the app and so we're good to go exactly so there's a variety of ways to get these resources and we're on the third lesson now which is titled God's call to mission yes pastor Howard you put the notes together for this week, so you're gonna lead off on our discussion about that, but obviously there's a lot of mission talk and God's leading in that mission we're gonna examine.

So well, it's, I realized when we went through this, the last 2 quarters we've gone over books of the Bible, and so it strikes me, you know, and I'm bringing this up for the benefit of teachers, that when you get into a topical study like this, whereas God's called a mission, I might have chosen some many different texts than they did.

I am somewhat constrained to work in the context of Right.

I mean, I guess I could take God's called a mission and do it differently But I would recommend that a teacher would try to work in harmony with quarterly But I have also had different texts and ideas that I bring in so hopefully that will give teachers an idea on how to work with the lesson and and yet add their own well and also encourage the freedom to let's remind we're studying the Bible and the topic is God's called a mission And they have some recommended good resources here in the lesson.

But if something else, a perspective on that really stands out to you, don't be afraid to bring that up in class.

And the class has already studied ahead of time.

I will say, and this goes in with our lesson a little bit, that Sometimes it's just more comfortable to say, well, I have my idea of what I've always taught on mission and I'm going to do that.

So the lesson brought a few things out that I hadn't given thought to before that I thought were interesting.

Imagine there's still things I have to learn.

Well, I'm going to have a word of prayer and then turn the time over to you to walk us through the lesson.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this day.

Thank you for the opportunity we have to study from your word.

And the topic at hand is so important this idea of mission and our place in your mission.

So bless us now as we study and prepare and have Sabbath school classes that are a dynamic, engaging blessing for everyone involved.

All right, now as I've summarized our lesson with our intro this week in our handout, which is available with the link on YouTube in the description and also on our website.

If you want to utilize that we often refer to our outline and I just want to make sure I touched on that because some people are like, where is this outline?

But my summary is this week's lesson explores who God's call to mission is directed to and where that mission proposes to take them.

Okay, 3 talking points that I'm drawing out of this week's lesson.

Talking point number 1, comfort compromises mission.

And I have Sabbath through Monday but I realized it's really the whole week's lesson talks about us being pulled out of our comfort zone.

So it's kind of an overarching thing but that's talking point number 1, comfort compromises mission.

And I've drawn that from Wednesday through Friday.

And then finally God wants you and that from Monday and Tuesday's lesson.

You did the pointing finger and everything too.

So the, and I want to, I want to point this out.

So there've been a lot, especially as we went through Ephesians last quarter, the lesson really laid out kind of chronologically, not always, but in this particular lesson, earlier in the week, it talked about our involvement in mission and who God calls and that kind of thing, and I personally thought, well, that's a better note to end on.

And so as a teacher sometimes, you might have something that comes up on Thursday and like that's what I want to start with.

So all right well let's go back to number 1.

Okay so as I mentioned the lesson does a lot of talking about being drawn out of our comfort zones and I noted here that God's call to each 1 of us often comes by disrupting our comfort zones.

When you look at, And time doesn't permit to go through example after example in the bible you think of david when he got comfortable in with the War against the ammonites and put his feet up in jerusalem that that's when he got picked up with besheba That's right.

And you know, you you could go throughout the bible I think about the churches in Revelation, the 7 churches, and every time a church came to a time of prosperity, it would weaken spiritually.

You think you're this, but you got, yeah.

So, but all through scripture, comfort, and I don't even know if compromise might be too strong a word because I don't want to give the idea that God doesn't ever want us to have time to relax and be comfortable.

Yeah, the mission of the Christian is just discomfort.

But at the same time, understanding that Sometimes my own personal desire for comfort is not the best thing for me and it could be impeding my mission so for example, the first thing the lesson brings out is the How God altered the comfort zone of the Babel builders in order to preserve it a knowledge of himself through all the world So this was kind of through all the earth This was kind of a unique thought to me because we've talked about God disturbing In previous lessons, and I'm sure our our viewers have had these conversations where God will You know call us out of our comfort zone to go and spread the gospel.

Well, the Babel builders were not going and spreading the gospel.

So the lesson's clear when we go to Scripture and read it in Genesis 11.

They were trying to make a name for themselves, their whole focus was selfish, and they were not worshippers of God.

So it's not like they were going to be scattered and go spread a knowledge of God, but God spread them out for at least a couple reasons.

Number 1, to keep them from, like their goal, and I've got a statement from Spirit of Prophecy we'll look at here in a moment, but their goal was to get rid of the knowledge of God.

And so united they have more ability to do that, so God was going to scatter them so they would not reach that goal.

And then the other thing that came to my mind is how God often, and we were talking about this in our preparation, God often will take, so for example, if I'm trying to share my faith with somebody and that somebody's surrounded by a group of their friends who don't believe, their likelihood of being open to what I have to say is a lot less than if I was talking to them one-on-one.

So sometimes God will remove the ungodly from their comfortable situation to make them open.

Like that the Lord, it's like, and I know that we're about to move into chapter 12 here about Abraham and his calling, so basically the Lord disperses those who need the gospel and then he disperses those who give the gospel and he's basically overseeing, and maybe I even get to the next 1 by God leading the charge but he's administering through the calls out what the people need or need to do it's that's really interesting yeah so in fact if you read that statement from patriarchs and prophets 119 and 19 Says God had directed men to disperse throughout the earth to replenish and subdue it But these Babel builders determined to keep their community united in 1 body and to found a monarchy that should eventually embrace the whole earth The whole undertaking was designed to exalt still further the pride of its projectors and to turn the minds of future generations away from God and lead them into idolatry." Okay, so it's interesting, they were little missionaries where they were, and God said, I'm gonna scatter them to thwart their missionary endeavors.

So he scatters them to harm Satan's endeavors of ministry and then heighten his own.

And actually, it's in their best interest because now they can be open and receptive to what the missionary is going to bring.

And so, and then we move, as you said, to chapter 12 of Genesis, where Abraham's called out or Abram and how God altered his comfort zone in order to influence the world with the gospel message.

He said, and you all the families of the earth are going to be blessed.

And it's always interesting, the quarterly will ask these questions like, in what way was God's instruction to Abram a call to mission?

And to me sometimes like in you all the families of the earth, but it's kind of self-evident, maybe it's not.

But at any rate, Abram, you know, God scattered him, took him out of his comfort zone Mm-hmm, and and it's interesting in when you read the story that initially he was called out of er But he only went to her an mm-hmm which evidently was named after his brother who passed away with his father, Tera, who also passed away, right.

But he's still in his family unit, right?

Right, And then God calls him away from some of the rest of his family.

And I don't have the quote in here, but Patriarchs and Prophets tells us that that him being in that proximity to his family was hindering his own spiritual development and God's ability to use him.

But I also think it's interesting about that story.

He leaves Ur of the Chaldees, then he leaves the household, but then he takes Lot with him, which is a blessing, right?

But then Lot is nothing but trouble the whole way through.

So it seems like, man, if you just obey the first...

Well, wasn't you had that talking point in 1 of our studies in Genesis.

So God takes Abram out of his comfort zone in order to influence the world with the gospel message, and then the lesson highlights in Acts chapter 8 where God scattered, God altered the comfort zone of the early church through persecution in order to scatter them everywhere, in the words of Acts 8 verse 4, everywhere preaching the word.

We need to be clear that God doesn't just move people out of their comfort zones because he's got nothing else to do.

We've got to recognize, and I think the reason I think this is a good point is we've got to recognize that God sees this is necessary, and so God will move us out of our comfort zones Only for the purpose for a greater purpose and we see that this is a pattern Old Testament New Testament We've only looked at a few examples in fact there's a great quote from Gospel Workers page 269 and I should I should say that the heading this comes under is Called how God trains his workers.

Okay, So it's in the context of sending missionary service.

It says a life of monotony is not the most conducive to spiritual growth.

Some can reach the highest standard of spirituality only through a change in the regular order of things.

When in his providence God sees that changes are essential for the success of the character building, he disturbs the smooth current of the life.