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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

02 God’s Mission to Us Part 2

Greg Whitsett

03 God’s Call to Mission

Amy Whitsett

04 Sharing God’s Mission

05 Excuses to Avoid Mission

Doug Venn

07 Mission to My Neighbor

06 Motivation and Preparation for Mission

Clifmond Shameerudeen

08 Mission to the Needy

09 Mission to the Powerful

Jeff Scoggins

10 Mission to the Unreached Part 1

11 Mission to the Unreached Part 2

12 Esther and Mordecai

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

Glad that you could join us today for lesson number 9.

Today we are looking at mission to the powerful.

How do we reach people who are in positions of power?

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

Father, we're grateful to have another opportunity to learn about ways, practical ways, that we can reach people for you.

And as we look at reaching individuals in positions of power, we ask that you will open our hearts and minds to opportunities and help us to find those opportunities that you give us to reach people like that in the world around us.

Well, we're glad also again this week to have Cliff Shemirudin back.

He is the director for the Center for South Asian Religions.

And we're grateful to have you back again, Cliff.

So we're looking at mission to the powerful today.

Now, many of us maybe are not in positions of power and we're trying to figure how do we reach these people in positions of power.

Does God have a desire, let's start here, Does God have a desire to reach people who are in positions of power?

But what evidence do we have of that in the Bible?

This particular lesson is going to challenge us a little because We strive in a situation where we stay away from people of power, because either they are government leaders, they are business owners, they run companies, they provide what we need.

So we tend to stay away from them because they're powerful people.

And they're not in our circle, on the average church member or pastor.

The Bible is challenging us to go beyond what we are accustomed to.

It's easy to work with people who are, we will say, are in need in a general sense.

But when it comes to people who are powerful, is there any hope for them?

Even does God really even want to save them?

You know, because they are responsible for a lot of tragedy or a lot of problems we have in society and as well as a lot of good.

What the question is, do we have evidence that God wants to reach them?

1 of the famous or known example is in the Bible with the little maid, right?

And Naaman, as we refer to him in English, right?

Did God really want to save him or he was just trying to get help?

Yeah, but I really believe that God invests resources and uses us and calls us to reach the powerful in the same way that he is trying to reach those that are in need.

And that little maid, as she's sometimes called, she reached an individual who was in a great position of power, and God was able to use her to reach him.

It's interesting when you take a look at the story in 2 Kings 5, it says that the Syrians had gone out on raids and had brought back captive a young girl from the land of Israel.

So this was a servant who was reaching out to her master's husband.

Then she said to her mistress, if only my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria, for he would heal him of his leprosy.

So even in this position of a lack of power, a lack of influence, God opened a door for this little maid to reach an individual of significance, power, and influence.

So not even limited to they're out there somewhere, and I feel insignificant in comparison, but she was actually a servant of the 1 who she reached.

Can you imagine slave reaching the master for the gospel?

And yet God opened the door for that to happen.

She saw a need there and took advantage of that opportunity to share something with Nahum.

What kind of hope or encouragement do you think that ought to give to us?

Oh, I say that's tremendous, because how much of us are slaves?

Slavery still exists today, but it comes in different form.

When you look at social scientists, they can tell us all the different ways that we become slaves to society in so many ways.

But just comparison, I think we can understand that slavery do exist and people who are in those positions, God is still calling us to witness to those who are powerful.

But there's some other components in this particular story, is that Her faith was grounded.

I'm sure she, you know, I don't know, did she ever met him?

And so when her master was in need, she can refer to him.

She used the channels that was available to her to witness to him.

And I think this is also an important step that we can learn as a church.

God can use us to witness to the powerful with the channels that is available to the Adventist Church.

She wasn't affluent, she wasn't influential, but she was confident and she had a connection with, well, with the most powerful individual in the universe, and that's God.

And that connection that she had helped her to be able to find an opportunity to witness to someone who is more powerful than she is or was, but not nearly as powerful as her God is.

Now, when we look at those who are in positions of power, the wealthy, the influential, the famous, We may have a tendency to kind of look at them as if, oh, they're powerful, they're influential, they're wealthy.

But there are a lot of people who are powerful, influential, and wealthy who don't have relationships with God and whose lives are, maybe on the outside they may look like they've got everything, but really lives are falling apart.

There are significant holes, things missing, that relationship with God that can really ground a person, that can give them purpose, a more appropriate purpose.

How does that misconception, or how could that misconception, that the powerful have their act together, they don't need anything, How could that misconception cause us to trip up or miss opportunities to reach out to them?

I think this is where God is calling us to be more diligent in searching the scriptures to understand his role in our lives and the ministry he has called us to.

And so it's easy for us to, as you have shared, to say, well, that person has been blessed.

When if I go to them, they're gonna look at me and use their understanding of life.

Well, look at me, I have everything I need.

But look at you, you don't even have half of the resources I have and you will come tell me I need help, I need Jesus, I need God when I have everything I need.

We have numerous stories about us trying to go witness to the powerful.

The first thing I wanted to observe here is that the methods we use.

1 of the things that Jesus did in scripture, and we see it with Zacchaeus, we see it with powerful people, is that he created a space for them to hide their identity when they're searching him.

And so a lot of times when we want to reach the powerful, we want to broadcast it, we want to make it public.

But this doesn't work very well with them because of their position of power and influence, sometimes they're afraid to come to us to express needs because what will happen after?

And so Jesus created a space and he protected that.

He respected their immunity so that they can actually get the help they need and find Jesus and still have a, even to the extent, have a secret relationship with Jesus because of the situation that they're in.

You know, speaking of Jesus creating a place for them to meet, it brings to my mind the story of Nicodemus.

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Series

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

09 Mission to the Powerful

Transcript

Parent Series

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Recorded

Deacons & Deaconesses Advanced Training

Deacons & Deaconesses Advanced Training- Part 1

1h 11m

Ministerial

Starting Bible Studies, Building Friendships and Gaining Decisions

1h 10m

So You Think You Are a Leader?

2. Learning From Trump

56m

Elder, Deacon, Deaconess Basic Training

Deacons and Deaconesses Basic Training - Part 2

1h 16m

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

08 Mission to the Needy

30m

Morning Devotional

1. Off to a Good Start

58m

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

04 Sharing God’s Mission

28m

Does God Have Favorites?

36m

Plenary

GYC Beyond

1h 17m

AMEN 2012 Plenary Sessions

Contemporary Tent Making

53m

Working with God

36m

Sound Doctrine