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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

02 God’s Mission to Us Part 2

03 God’s Call to Mission

04 Sharing God’s Mission

05 Excuses to Avoid Mission

06 Motivation and Preparation for Mission

07 Mission to My Neighbor

08 Mission to the Needy

09 Mission to the Powerful

10 Mission to the Unreached Part 1

11 Mission to the Unreached Part 2

12 Esther and Mordecai

13 The End of God’s Mission

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

In fact, we are continuing our study this quarter of God's mission, my mission, and now in lesson 7 we're mission to my neighbor.

We're going from God's mission, which is my mission, and specifically within that mission, my mission to this target audience, which is my neighbor.

Which I was going to say begs the question, the biblical question, who is my neighbor?

And you put our Talking Point outline together this week and studied this 1 out in detail so why don't you lead us in that discussion about our neighbor and our duty to him after I have a word of prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the opportunity to know you and to be co-labors with you in your mission to the world.

Help us now as we discuss this important topic of our mission to our neighbor.

Help us know who our neighbor is, what we're supposed to do, and how we can reflect you best in our lives.

Pastor Cameron, I would be remiss if we didn't just comment that we just finished an Emmanuel training session here in this office.

So we, you know, on Talking Points we always highlight it and you'll see, I think we have 1 coming up in March, right?

Everybody said they felt better equipped to go and and go back to their own home churches and neighborhoods and workplaces and Winsouls.

Neighbors exactly so practical and yeah it is coming up in March and so you might want to put that on your calendar ahead of time if you want to plan.

We'll get the specific dates a little later, but...

In fact, maybe we should clarify because 1 of the students who came watches Talking Points and they didn't realize Cameron and I actually teach that training session.

So I was like, wow, I didn't realize this.

You'd be here, I just saw you on the thing.

If you're not clear on what it is, we're basically, we take a week and we have a classroom and practical labs.

On how you can be a more effective witness, how to have spiritual conversations.

And how you can take that same witnessing mindset back to your local church and by God's grace.

So this is the very topic, mission to my neighbor.

What are we looking at this week, Pastor Howard?

So this week's lesson actually focuses on our personal mission to our neighbors in the context of Jesus' answer to the lawyers test question in Luke 10, where he came and and said, you know, what, how do I inherit eternal life?

First of all, that was the first question.

I've got 3 talking points as you might expect.

Talking point number 1 is a provocative question may reveal a deeper soul longing.

So somebody may seem like they're trying to provoke with a question but it may still reveal an interest.

And that's coming from Sunday and Monday?

Talking point number 2, love for our neighbor is a Christian duty.

And that's taken from, yeah I see you, Kelly.

I was like, whoa, I said it's supposed to come from Love, right?

Love for our neighbor is a Christian duty.

So the remainder of the week and you're like well then Talking point number 3 comes from Friday No, also from Tuesday through and then it goes actually into Friday some of so a lot of these things are touched on multiple days yes because you're looking all week you're looking at this story sure in Luke 10 so number 3 talking point number 3 is that love fulfills the law the lesson brings this out and we're gonna tie that into our little narrative this week in Luke 10.

A provocative question may reveal a deeper so long.

Okay so if we go to Luke 10, we may as well go to Luke 10 because everything is based in Luke 10 with this this story and if you were just if you just want to start reading in verse 25, let's just do 25.

All right, just 25 of Luke chapter 10, the scripture says, And Behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

Okay, so we wouldn't be out of line by assuming that this was a test.

It's like, well, you don't know his heart.

Yeah, we do, because it tells us right here.

In other words, it very clearly says this is the motive he was doing this to test Jesus but it's interesting that this whole interchange afterwards Jesus despite the fact that you know he knew the man was trying to test him yet he also knew it was an opportunity to reach a deeper issue.

You know, the lesson brings out how his particular question, as you just read, is what should I do to inherit eternal life?

And this is 1 of the, 1 of those big existential questions that everybody has I mean Regardless if you're a human being and you and you know, you have the reason you build a reason You're gonna ask at some point.

And if there is a thing, how can I have access to it?

And so Jesus understands this and every soul winner should understand this, that even if the person comes and asks the question to provoke or something else, it's still a question.

And I mean it's still somewhere it's a legitimate question.

And so Jesus' answer was to try to address that deeper issue.

And the text that came to my mind that the lesson does not bring out is Ecclesiastes 3.11, where the Bible says that God has put eternity in our hearts The whole concept is that God has put a desire to know what comes next in everybody Mm-hmm.

And so the most sometimes the people that seem the most disinterested From a Christian perspective you can never assume that people are dis, in fact, you would be, you would assume that they are interested because God has put eternity in our hearts.

There's something in there where a person deep down wants to know what lies ahead.

Even, you think about like the non-believer, the atheist, or whatever, the avowed, you know, skeptic will say, well there's nothing else.

Well the fact that you've come to that conclusion means you've thought about it.

The self-evident fact that you have an answer means you've addressed the question, that the question has come to your mind.

And so whether you're a deep sincere believer or you're, you know, even antagonistic, there's some fodder for curiosity in the heart of every person.

In fact, there's a great statement from Desire of Ages, if you want to read that, 497.

The lawyer was not satisfied with the position and works of the Pharisees." Now we should time out, even though he's representing the Pharisees, there was a dissatisfaction.

Yeah, so the lesson doesn't highlight that, but in Desire of Ages, when you read it, it actually says the Pharisees kind of put him up to it.

It's like, hey, go ask Jesus this trick question.

And so, he said, okay, he went ahead, but...

But even in his own heart, there was something going on, right?

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Series

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

07 Mission to My Neighbor

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