FYI 2011

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Florida Youth Initiative

Kameron DeVasher

The Great Object of Life

My place of residence right now is Avon Park, Florida.

Over there is my wife, Emily, and my 10-month-old son, Henry.

We're trying to train him up right, sit him on the front row every meeting, every church service that there is.

I'm very privileged to be here with you, very honored to be here with you this morning.

Kim mentioned that Satan has been trying to distract us and to discourage us and try to dissuade us from our purpose here during our time together, FYI.

I want to let you know that that's absolutely true.

Last evening my friend, well yesterday afternoon, my friend Matt is here with us also today, I praise the Lord for that.

He started in Omaha, I think it was 6.15am if I'm correct.

His flight was supposed to leave and there were some storms and he got diverted to Chicago, got delayed, in fact had to board and then deboard 3 different planes.

So his plane was supposed to come in in Orlando at 1 p.m.

Last night I got the text message as I was waiting in the cell lot at 2.43 a.m.

At Orlando that he had finally arrived, that the planes had made him get here safely, And we drove the 2 hours back, so we got a couple hours of sleep last night.

And I know that this is all part of Satan's plan to distract us, to discourage us, to dissuade us from our purpose.

But I believe that the Lord has something bigger in mind than what Satan can stop.

We wanna come together and humbly study God's Word.

Before we begin, briefly a word of prayer and then we'll get started.

Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for the opportunity of Christian fellowship.

I thank you for the privilege of prayer and the opportunity to study your word together.

I ask in a special way that you bless our time here together.

Edify our minds, our hearts, And Lord, help us to see a bigger, better picture of you so that we can be more like you every day.

Our talk this morning is entitled The Great Object of Life.

And if you have some pens and paper, that would be fine if you want to take some notes, but I'm gonna share with you, hopefully, an idea.

In fact, every day, my goal is to share 1 idea that might expand a concept you already have in your head.

All right, I'm gonna take an idea that's in your head, and hopefully, by the grace of God, through the truth of his word, through the guidance of the spirit of prophecy, we're gonna enlarge your thoughts, okay?

I was born and raised a Seventh-day Adventist.

I went to Craterold, just like my son does now.

In fact, I'm going to start saying some words and you're going to start conjuring up images if you relate to what I'm saying here.

The felts on the board, you had the sing-along Sabbath songs, you had the My Bible Friends, you know, and you had the story time in the morning and the evening, Uncle Arthur, Uncle Dan and Aunt Sue, all these names ring bells.

I want you to know that I had a picture planted in my mind, a good picture, the right picture, at the earliest age, that there was 1 time a place called the Garden of where?

And in the pictures, in the storybooks, and on the felt boards, and in the Sabbath school classes, there was the exact same picture shown to represent the Garden of Eden.

There was always the man and his wife, and there was the lion and the lamb laying down together.

There's always that calm, rippling brook that kind of goes through the garden.

And it's a blue, blue sky, the green rolling hills.

He's just standing there and he's, of course, unclad, chest exposed, just broad, massive, majestic man, always kind of half, yes, exactly like that, Henry.

And he'll stand with his arm out like that, but have a pleasant, godly kind of look on his face, right?

On the other end of the Bible, of course, there's another picture identical to that same picture.

The lion and lamb are laying down together, the green rolling hills, the calm blue waters, the bright blue skies.

And this time the only difference is, we're clad with white robes, we have gold crowns on our heads, and there's an emerald city in the background, all full of spires and shiny and shimmery, right?

We should put those pictures in our kids' heads as young as we can.

We need to start getting them into this idea of the great controversy, that there's a start and a finish, from Eden established to Eden restored.

In fact, that's what the Bible basically tells us.

This is probably old news to you, but the first 2 chapters of the Bible talk about the establishment of God's original ideal, the Garden of Eden.

The last 2 chapters of the Bible talk about God's restoration of that ideal in the new heaven and the new earth, the new Eden, if you will.

Those pictures on the felt board made a framework in our brains.

There was 1 time, there was that place, and someday there'll be that other place.

Then we started, once we started learning the Bible more, we started filling in that framework as to what happened.

Why aren't we there anymore and why hasn't this 1 come yet?

We know that Adam, through transgression, through disobedience to God's law, lost the Garden of Eden for us.

But praise the Lord, we know that Jesus Christ, through his redemption, his shed blood, his atonement for us, is going to restore Eden for us again.

So we start to build on that framework that was established in our minds.

Everything I said, I absolutely believe in.

I think it's the right thing to present, I think we should present it at the youngest stages, and that framework should guide the rest of our lives.

Now, although it's absolutely true that we lost Eden because of Adam, and we'll get Eden back because of Jesus, exclusive focus on these objective, external, historical facts leaves us with a gaping hole in our religious experience.

Because we're not living in the Garden of Eden as it was originally established, and we're not in the new Earth yet.

So We find ourselves living between Eden lost and Eden restored.

I mean, the most common answer, why are we still here?

The most common answer you'll probably get is something along the lines of, this life of probation exists to give you an opportunity to make a decision for or against Jesus.

You have a life so that you can choose for Christ or, if you will, against him.

But this life exists to make that decision for Christ.

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The Great Object of Life

Transcript

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