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It Is Written

Sabbath School 4th Quarter 2023: God's Mission My Mission

Eric Flickinger

Kleber Goncalves

01 God’s Mission Part 1

Welcome to Sabbath School brought to you by It Is Written.

We're delighted that you could join us this week because this week we are beginning a brand new quarter.

We are looking at 13 weeks dedicated to God's mission and my mission and your mission.

So we're on a 13 week journey, taking a look at how we can be very much involved in the work of spreading the gospel here on earth.

But before we dive in today, let's begin with prayer.

Father, we wanna thank you for giving us an opportunity to be a part of sharing this great gospel message with the world.

And we ask that during this quarter, you will help us to find very practical ways that we can do that.

We ask your blessing on today's study as we get started.

Well, we're delighted to start this week with Kleber Consalves.

He is the director of the Center for Secular and Post-Christian Mission.

Now, this is a really exciting quarter because we are, as I said, talking about how we can be personally involved in the spread of the Gospel.

And we're going to be blessed this quarter by you, most certainly, for the first few lessons, or first couple of lessons, but then we have some other contributors as well.

Who are all these contributors and why are they involved in what we're looking at this quarter?

Actually, Eric, we had a team approach for this quarter.

Under the Office of Adventist Mission at the General Conference, we have 6 global mission centers.

Each of the center, we have the challenge and the privilege of finding bridges of communication with the hardest people groups to be reached around the world, like the Jewish people, Hindus, Buddhists.

I have the privilege of directing the Center for Circle in Post-Christian Mission.

So as a team, we together, with excitement, we wrote this quarter to help the World Church understand that all of us, we can be part of God's mission if we understand what He wants to our lives.

So over the course of 13 weeks, we're looking at very practical ways we can do that.

Give us kind of an idea, where are we going, without giving everything away of what we're going to be covering, what are some areas that we're going to be exploring, that we're going to be discovering, that we can share?

First of all, we need to better understand who God is and what is His plan through our lives.

Mission is not for those who are more skilled or those who have the privilege of going through a theological education.

Mission is something that all of us can be involved.

So that's the main purpose, is to understand how each 1 of us can be part of this mission.

So on a weekly basis, we will not only understand biblical aspects of mission, but also how can we practically be involved in that mission.

As I looked through this quarter's lessons, Thursday of each week is about that practical application.

So you learn some of the theological, the purpose behind it.

But then Thursday, it gets down to the real deal.

Actually, we're going to be presenting a challenge to all of us.

So this week, week number 1, is God's mission to us.

When we take a look at the God of mission, We find in Genesis 3.9 this question that God asks.

It sounds like God is busy, God is looking, God is on a mission to do that.

So, how do we understand God's nature, His purpose in this question, where are you?

Actually, Eric, for us to understand what mission is all about, we have to start with God himself.

He is the foundation, he's the center of mission, because mission started with him.

So it's a fundamental step that we have to take.

And actually, this very question, the very first question God asks in the book of Genesis, where are you?

He was pushing them for them to understand where they actually were.

And This is something that all of us need to understand where we are.

To understand that we depend on him all the time.

When we understand his purposes and what he wants to do through our lives, we really grasp the privilege of being part of his mission.

Mason So it sounds like he's a searching God.

He's a God who wants to interact with us.

He's a God who obviously cares if he's not coming out wagging a finger, you know, saying, you did wrong.

Mason But he's reaching out to us to connect with us where we happen to be, he's clearly a God that cares, very much a God that cares.

So when we understand that God is that type of a God who is reaching out, who's caring, who's a God of mission, What would that personally mean to you or to me or to us?

Actually, it's this concept that we believe in a God that cares for us.

And actually, His attitude was to come in direction of Adam and Eve.

There is a thread, Eric, in the Bible from the book of Genesis to Revelation in which we see a God that wants to be with us.

When we understand his nature, his relational nature of being together, connected with us, it does change even our understanding and our practice of mission.

Throughout the Old Testament we see this, and the New Testament the same thing.

His desire to be with us and to love us so we can share the same experience with those around us.

There are some in the world today who have this idea that God is kind of a distant God.

Some who believe that he sort of got this world spinning and then kind of disappeared to go care for more important and weighty matters.

But it seems here like we've got this picture of a God who, like you said, he does care.

He's very much involved in what's going on.

What kind of encouragement would you give to somebody who's maybe heard that God is distant, doesn't care.

What words of help would you give to them to kind of help them to see?

And of course, we're going to unpack this a great deal more.

But somebody who's struggling with that, what would you tell them?

Let me use 1 of the most beautiful stories we find in God's Word, Joseph.

When we read his experience, we see that things were going really bad to him and actually getting worse.

The Bible text says that, but God was with him.

The problem, Eric, is not with God, the problem is with us.

Even when Jacob was fleeing from his brother, after the dream he had, he felt God's presence and said, I was not aware that he is here.

So when we have this assurance that he is with us all the time and he wants to be with us, it does help us to understand how can we really get involved in this relationship and how we can share him with other people.

So you just touched on something that I want to unpack just a little bit more.

Once we understand that He wants to be with us.

02 God’s Mission to Us Part 2

We're delighted that you could join us again this week as we take a look at lesson number 2.

We are looking at God's mission to us, part 2, or as you might call it, the mission of God.

We are on a 13 week journey now, taking a look at God's mission and my mission.

Father, we want to thank you again for being with us this week as we continue to look at the importance of us understanding our mission as it relates to your mission.

And we ask that you will bless us in this and thank you in Jesus name.

Well, we're delighted again this week to have with us Cleber Gonsalves.

So this week we're looking kind of at part 2 of last week and this week is essentially the mission of God.

Help us to understand this a little bit better.

We we looked we got to start last week and looking at God's character and so forth.

And this week we're kind of we're looking at things slightly differently.

We're looking at it from a little different perspective but but continuing to emphasize and dwell a little bit deeper drill a little bit deeper into this.

When we look at God, we've got the Father, we have the Son, we have the Holy Spirit.

They're all involved, as it were, in saving souls.

What about this should motivate us when it comes to us desiring to reach out to others?

When we get an idea of who God is and what he is, how he is, why he is, why should that give us encouragement?

Actually, it's important for us to never forget, Eric, that mission starts in him.

You see, it's this triune approach, the triune God, the Trinity approach to mission.

The Father sent the Son, the Son sent the Holy Spirit, now the Holy Spirit sent us, the Church, those who accept his mission in our own lives to share with others.

I would say that this connecting point with what we have shared on week 1 is that since this mission belongs to Him, it's God's mission, we It will not fail.

You see, we have nothing to fear, as I have mentioned.

Right now we just need to understand how can we be used as channels, as agents of mission in that process.

So understand that mission is centered in God himself.

It gives us the motivation and even the inspiration for us to find ways to really fulfill what he wants, because that's his desire, to share his love, to share his purposes that he has shared with me, with you, with those around us.

So I would say that that understanding should give us the motivation to move forward in that direction.

And he calls us to take part in that mission work.

In fact, the Great Commission is about making disciples.

If we are to go and make disciples, what does that mean?

Jesus didn't just say go and make church members.

There's a difference between being a member of the church and being a disciple.

And in many people's minds, there's, not everybody sees the importance of being a disciple on a personal level.

What's the difference between being a church member and a disciple, and should there be a difference between being a church member and a disciple?

Actually, when you talk about discipleship, disciple-making, everything starts with us, with me, with you.

Because in order to fulfill the Great Commission, which is centered in that command, make disciples, imperative force of the Great Commission is exactly on that action, making disciples.

We need to go, we need to baptize, we need to teach.

But that's the purpose, to make disciples.

But Eric, we cannot make a disciple if we are not 1.

It starts with you, it starts with me, it starts with a journey that we have to have with him in our relationship with God.

Then we can understand his love, his purposes, his mission.

Making disciples is the central point of who we should be as a Christian.

Actually, discipleship is not basically centered in what you know, what we can learn, what we can hear or listen from other, no, no, no.

So then we understand that we can take, as Paul says in Ephesians 5, making the most of every single opportunity to live Christianity, to live Adventism in our own life, is to share with others in every single opportunity who we are, making disciples, helping others also to follow on that path.

It's someone that we are, something that we are, not something that we know.

So there's nobody, nobody needs to be, and I'm trying to be careful how I say this, nobody has to be qualified to be a disciple.

You don't have to have some sort of letters after your name to be a disciple or a prefix before your name or hold a position in order to be a disciple.

If you are a Christian, if you are a believer in Christ, you're called to also be a disciple.

If we are indeed to share the message with the world, which he's called us to do, which we know is going to happen.

How important is that understanding of who I am as a Christian being a disciple?

The moment we accept Christ in our own lives, we start this journey of, actually, even before the Spirit is already working with us, but we have this privilege of becoming a disciple of Christ.

And but we need to, we don't need to go through theological training.

You don't need to go through a seminary to be a...

Actually, simply use the gifts that the Lord has given us in every area in which we can really use our passions, who we are, to share God's love with other people.

So discipleship is this awareness that no matter who you are, you have to be and to go through that transformation, but in such a way that the Lord will use you in the circumstances of your own life.

Every single person who comes to be part of this body in which Christ is the head has the privilege, you see, to really share and to really live that experience with God, with other people.

So everybody gets the opportunity, the privilege of being a part of that, that mission strategy that God has had since the beginning.

You know, since the very beginning, God has had this desire for his people to share his message with others.

And we look at the Old Testament and the New Testament, and some people have this idea that the Old Testament is so very, very different from the New Testament, and others not so different.

But there is a subtle change, if you will, in the mission strategy there.

Help us understand this Old Testament, New Testament dynamic of the mission strategy and what happened there.

Actually, Eric, when we see, for instance, Abraham's call, you see the Lord comes to him and says, you will be a blessing.

So in God's plan in the Old Testament, you see the nation of Israel in such a way that they would attract through the blessings that the Lord will put on them.

We call this the centripetal way of doing mission, in which the nations would see the blessings.

They would come and they would ask, why are you blessed that way?

So that would be an opportunity for them to witness and to proclaim and to show to every single nation who God was.

In the New Testament, we see a subtle change, as you have mentioned, in which now we need to not simply attract people to us, but we need to go to people.

So that's the main difference, is this centrifugal way of doing mission.

You see, following the Great Commission, which we need to go, we need to baptize, to teach people in a way in which we are making disciples.

So that's basically instead of just being there and waiting for the others, we have the opportunity to share through our lives, going everywhere, going to every single corner of this planet, showing God's love and his mercy and his wonderful blessings in our own lives so people can see.

The best way to really demonstrate and to show Christ is through our experience with him.

So that's the privilege that we have, especially in this subtle change from the Old to the New Testament.

So, the Old Testament was largely just drawing people to, to see what, so that they could see or because they would see what God was doing.

Now, God's still working within the body, as it were, but we have this very clear commission to go also.

I think maybe some people today believe they're, at least missionally believe they're still living in Old Testament times and just hoping that people will come to them and say, well, maybe if people just see the good life I'm living or whatever that they'll come and ask me.

And there's nothing wrong with living a good life and hoping that people will ask, but there's also that very explicit command to go as well.

Do you think that if we live Old Testament-ly, I don't know that that's a word, but I'm going to coin a new word today.

Greg Whitsett

03 God’s Call to Mission

Welcome to Sabbath School, brought to you by It Is Written.

We're glad that you could join us again this week as we continue our journey through God's mission, my mission.

And we are looking today at week number 3, God's call to mission, an exciting study which will begin right after prayer.

Father, thank you for being with us today and giving us an opportunity to learn more about how we can be involved in the mission of sharing the gospel with others.

We ask that you'll bless our time together today and we thank you in Jesus name, Amen.

Well, we're grateful this week to have Greg Whitsitt with us.

He is the planning director at Adventist Mission.

What is it to be the planning director at Adventist Mission?

What's kind of your background that's brought you to where you are and what you're doing right now?

Well, my wife and I enjoyed 16 years of mission service in Southeast Asia.

In the last 5 years, we've been working at the General Conference.

Right now, as planning director, The great thing I enjoy is that I actually am able to partner with the Adventist mission directors in the divisions and the attached unions to the General Conference and support them with funding, but also in any other ways, training and different resources and that sort of thing.

And so you're bringing that to all of us so that we can figure out how we can be more effective in the mission fields wherever we happen to be, and we're grateful for that.

So this week we're looking at God's call to mission.

Now, it would be a natural assumption for us to say, oh, God's call to mission, Matthew 28.

Let's go to the Great Commission and just find out all about it.

But in this lesson, you didn't jump straight to Matthew 28.

Tell us where you went and why you went there.

Well, yeah, we go to actually the Tower of Babel.

And the reason for that is a couple of things.

And so we find a lot of meaning in story.

But second of all, this is where we have the dilemma of the languages being confused.

Because that's the barrier, you know, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is to help us overcome the barrier of languages.

So it just seemed like a good place to begin.

All right, so we're starting here in the Tower of Babel.

Give us a little picture of what's going on.

Why don't we actually turn there to Genesis chapter 11, and we'll look at a few verses.

Beginning in verse 1, it says, now the whole earth had 1 language and 1 speech.

Google Translate helps us but I enjoyed a ride once across Moscow talking with a taxi driver using Google Translate.

It worked quite well but we know that often it doesn't.

The languages of course are not 1 language anymore, but at this time of earth's history it was.

In verse 2, and it came to pass as they journeyed from the east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and they dwelt there.

Then they said to 1 another, come, let us make bricks and make them thoroughly.

And so then they begin to describe this process of what they're doing and the reason is in verse 4, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top is in the heavens, let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." So we see that they had an intentionality that they wanted to make a name for themselves because they didn't want to be scattered.

And the thought comes to my mind, well, why in the world are they afraid of being scattered?

A lot of times we tell the story that they were afraid of the flood.

Maybe the flood would come back, and I think there's some truth to that.

But what's explicitly stated here is that they didn't want to be scattered.

Well, we know that this is a concern because this is based on the story of the flood.

In Genesis chapter 9, in verse 1, God actually blesses Noah and his sons, and he says, this is of course after they come out of the ark and they've had the sacrifice and the rainbow and different things like that happen.

So God tells them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

Which when we read that we should be thinking of course what God's blessing was in Genesis when he created Adam and Eve that they were to multiply and fill the whole earth.

So It seems that God's blessing is that he wants us to spread out.

And so what we see in Genesis chapter 11 is they're saying, we don't want to do this.

Even though they have all this history that's fresh in their minds, They still, they don't want to follow this command, meant to be a blessing, to spread out.

And so they stay to make a name for themselves and to stay together.

And so of course, God needed to do something to help them avoid, because In fact, this is a revolt happening.

And I've often asked people, is this, is God, well, let's read the verse first before we get ahead of ourselves.

Verse 8 says, so the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth and they ceased building the city.

Therefore its name is called Babel because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth." So they didn't want to be scattered, and God ultimately scattered them.

Series

Sabbath School 4th Quarter 2023: God's Mission My Mission

04 Sharing God’s Mission

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Sabbath School 4th Quarter 2023: God's Mission My Mission