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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Jim Howard

He Knows Me?

My name is Jim Howard and I come to you from the other side of the country, over in Maryland, and I'm glad to be with you.

It's no problem at all for me to be here because I have a daughter and a son-in-law here, so Glad to have the invitation.

I'm going to just tell you a little bit about what's happening in Sabbath school at the General Conference.

I should be quick to add that sometimes I say Sabbath school because I'm here at Advent Hope Sabbath school but sometimes we leave off the fact that at the General Conference and in most places around the world it's Sabbath school and personal ministries and I have a burden for both.

But Sabbath school is going strong in many, many places in the world.

In North America and in some other westernized areas, Sabbath school is declining, and we know that.

So there's a strong effort being made to revive Sabbath school and we believe that the Lord is going to help us with that.

But there are many areas of the world where the church is very strong in Sabbath school and where Sabbath school is a means of growing the church at large.

We have a new Sabbath school curriculum that we're working on right now, from babies all the way through youth, 18 years old.

And that will be, there'll be a staggered rollout of that.

2025, we're gonna see a totally new curriculum for babies and beginner.

And then the next year, kindergarten and primary.

And then the next year, we're going to have junior and teen, and then the next year, youth.

We have a wonderful curriculum manager who lives in Australia, Nina Atchison, who's helping us with that, and she's just incredible.

It's going to be distinctively Adventist.

It's going to be mission-focused, and it's going to involve the whole family.

So you're going to want to be linking in with that as soon as it comes out.

We also have our Inverse Bible study guide.

And for the sake of our editor Pastor Joe Reeves I had to make sure I joined the Inverse Sabbath School this morning and where's our leader from this morning from Inverse Sabbath School?

Go ahead raise your hand I know he was here.

Ok well he just likes Sabbath School He doesn't want to stay around for this part.

It was a great class and I was thanking the Lord for it.

But Inverse is growing around the world, both the lesson study and the program.

We're picking up programs in Europe and in the Philippines.

All around there are inverse programs picking up.

By the way, in the official General Conference Sabbath School and Personal Ministries app, you can find all of your favorite Sabbath schools like Amazing Facts, It Is Written, Talking Points.

How many of you have heard of Talking Points Sabbath school?

He's my brother, my brother, my much older brother, Mark.

Anyway, Mark and Cameron are solid Sabbath School proponents and we put them into our official app along with Hope Sabbath School and Derek Morris and others.

You can listen to the Sabbath School on audio.

All you have to do is go to Sabbath School, search Sabbath School, and you'll get to the official app.

We also, in another sort of pseudo side part of my role, it was mentioned I'm an assistant to the president for total member involvement.

How many of you have heard of total member involvement?

We are trying to launch, and we just voted it at spring meeting, which happens in April of every year at the general conference with people from around the world, that are executive committee members from around the world, union presidents, division officers, etc.

We voted something that then we kind of gave more detail to at annual council just here in October called Global Total Member Involvement where we are inviting every church around the world to enact or implement a culture-changing evangelistic strategy that is comprehensive but it will include evangelistic reaping meetings in every church around the world this is our emphasis is to have a comprehensive not event-based but comprehensive local church-based evangelistic strategy that includes public reaping In some places it'll be in small groups or seminars or what have you, but we're hoping to not only have a big splash, but to have more than a big splash by really establishing a culture-changing event.

If you want to check that out, and I invite you to, please do.

I'm not going to take time to talk to you about it now, but hopefully you'll hear about it down the pipe from your own conference.

Anyway, I'm going to jump into our message today.

By the way, on the screen it said, He Knows Me was the message.

Before I pray, I want to speak of some sad news.

Some of you who are on Adventist social media may be aware of this, but yesterday there's a General Conference Vice President who oversees each of the departments of the General Conference, just gives advice, it's kind of advisory, and The advisory vice president for the Sabbath School and Personal Ministries Department is Elder Maurice Valentine.

And yesterday, Elder Valentine died of a heart attack, suddenly at the age of 63.

It was totally unexpected, and we need to pray for his wife Sharon and and their children.

So I'm gonna lift up a prayer for them and a prayer for us as we take time to worship together this morning.

Father in heaven, we're so grateful for your goodness toward us.

We're thankful for the gift of salvation that has been offered so freely and for the way by which you pursue each 1 of us to give us that gift and father we're grateful for all the ways that you have brought us to this day and to this point where we can give you our time and attention, where we can worship you, and where we can have our hearts changed and transformed to serve you.

Today our hearts are heavy, Lord, for the loss of our dear brother, Pastor Maurice Valentine, and we pray for his family today.

In a special way we ask you lift up Sharon, his wife.

May she feel the promise of scripture that you are the God of all comfort.

And Lord we pray for his children and grandchildren and we pray for all of his loved ones and for your church because he was actively involved in many areas of your cause.

So we want to thank you for being our refuge and our help in any time of need.

And we now ask Lord that as we take time to consider your word that you would speak to our hearts personally.

So please abide in this place, send the Holy Spirit, and may we know when we leave this place that we've been in the presence of Jesus.

This is our prayer, in Jesus' name, Amen.

Multitudes of people all around and yet you feel somewhat invisible.

This is a common experience for humanity.

Walking by people in mass who are absorbed in their own interests and give you the sense that you wonder if anybody really notices that you are here.

Jesus is different and that's what I want to talk to you about today.

The love of Jesus is not just for the world, but it's for each 1 of us, each individual.

This is the message that is given in Luke chapter 15.

We're going to take a quick look at Luke 15 to start off our message this morning.

So take your Bibles, if you would, or your phones, and turn to Luke chapter 15.

And we'll look at the parable of the lost sheep.

Of course, this is found in Luke 15 and verse 4.

In verse 3, the Bible says, So he spoke this parable to them, saying, And then in verse 4, What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses 1 of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the 1 which is lost until he finds it.

And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing." This is 1 of my favorite parables in the Bible, 1 of my favorite things that Jesus ever said.

I guess the reason is because the beauty of this parable is the number of sheep that were lost.

He could have said anything here, but he made it clear, and I believe it was very intentional.

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He Knows Me?

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