Michigan Camp Meeting 2024: As For Me and My House

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

The Gospel Remedy: True Keys to Wholistic Healing

Kimberly Azelton

Mike Hess

Philip Mills

How Choice Happens: Tools for Change

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2024 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Father in heaven, you didn't make us one-dimensional, you made us whole in the Garden of Eden.

We know that sin broke that wholeness and now the gospel is in the business which you are in the business of restoring us back to the whole physical mental and spiritual that you've called us to be we put this time into your hands we thank you for joining us We ask that you will speak to our hearts and our minds in Jesus name.

I'm from the Lansing 7th day Adventist Church.

I am working on my master's in counseling I'll be a licensed therapist.

I'm not a licensed therapist yet, but I will be in about a year and a half.

It depends on how long it takes me to get the hours.

But I have thoroughly enjoyed learning how to combine mental health with the power of scripture.

And what I've discovered, which is quite obvious if you think about it, the most powerful mental health book is the Bible.

I grew up, 1 just other quick thing, I grew up in Wichita, Kansas going to a church called 3 Angels where my dad, who's a physician, was very involved with Pastor Don McIntosh in doing medical missionary work in our community.

So CHIP for churches was written by my grandma and my aunt in the church I grew up in.

So if you've done the CHIP program, I came out of that.

And so I watched firsthand the power of medical missionary work to change lives.

And I'm really excited about this seminar, and I have the privilege of working with these extremely gifted physicians.

People often call me Pastor Doctor because I'm a pastor and a doctor.

I actually became a pastor first, went through seminary, and was convicted in my studies that God wanted me to combine physical and spiritual healing into 1 life work.

And so I went from Andrews Seminary to Loma Linda, completed residency in family medicine, and then I've been practicing how to combine these things for the last 20-something years.

I have a wife and 6 children and 5 grandchildren, and I just really enjoy helping people to be able to find wholeness.

And it doesn't matter whether the problem's physical, mental, or spiritual, Jesus has the answer.

We're gonna hear from them throughout the week.

And you're gonna introduce yourself, I assume.

I'll try to remember, but he knows me well.

I am also at Lansing with Pastor Phil Mills.

So I run Family and Lifestyle Medicine, a non-profit that is combining gospel and medical evangelism, which you're going to hear all about this week, which is, I'm very excited that we're going to attempt this seminar, because this is a very, very unique seminar.

Now while I'm doing the introduction, is there anyone who does not have a handout?

If you could raise your hands really, really high.

And we have a couple of people that are coming up here.

And he was leading a very routine navigational flight.

He was training, and they were to fly this training navigational flight out of Fort Lauderdale, make this bombing, this practice of bombing, and then head north to the Grand Bahama.

And at 3.45, this experienced pilot, so Charles Taylor, he said, we're off course.

Of course, you know, you plan something routine on a nice clear day when you're not gonna have any issues.

They lost contact for 10 minutes with the tower.

They're trying to figure out how to get in touch.

And then another voice, not Taylor's voice, answers and says, we can't find West.

They were able to intercept some of the conversations that was going on behind the scenes, and they had found out that the flight leader had for some unknown reason turned over the command to another person, another pilot.

So now the most experienced pilot was not in control.

There's 20 minutes of silence and then followed by this just hysteria over the messaging system.

That's the last we've ever heard of Flight 19.

All of these, I see some nodding heads, it's pretty famous.

I have a friend who is a pilot in an airplane, like he's very crazy about airplanes.

And so, have you heard of this graveyard spiral?

That can happen, this spatial disorientation, that even if it's a clear day, you can't tell, you just complete, you think that this way is actually down.

And like your body completely feels that way.

Like all of you right now are spatially oriented.

Like There is so much extensive training that happens with pilots on the spatial disorientation, but they still, it's very difficult, especially when you get very stressed.

So imagine a routine day, like the navigational system, which is a very routine, right?

Does graveyard spirals happen in our lives today?

Came to work super stressed, and there's this new project on the table that I didn't know about, and it just ticks me off the wrong way.

And you don't have any food in the system, so you have super low blood sugar anyway, and then your graveyard spiral just kind of keeps, you know, where did devotions go, right?

By that time, you're so hungry, you're out to a fast food restaurant, but that's not gonna keep you full, because it doesn't have a lot of fiber.

So you eat your biggest meal at the evening and so you get to bed late, you don't sleep well because you have all this food on your stomachs, you get up late and you repeat the whole cycle over again.

These are called reactionary habits and this can be compared to a graveyard spiral.

So notice where in your life you might have these graveyard spirals, these little triggers.

And these are just some of the areas we're going to talk about this week.

This really relates to your medical health and your spiritual and your mental health.

Grief, anxiety, discontent, remorse, guilt, distrust all tend to break down the life forces, invite decay and death.

Some of these early areas, some of these things that we think, oh I can survive, oh I don't need to deal with the grief of such and such.

But then there's still those those seeds of death and decay that God wants to heal.

And you're at this seminar to learn how that can heal.

So on the last 2 pages of your handout, there are a number of different reactionary habits and things that you could identify in various levels of this graveyard spiral.

New Identity in Christ

Dear Father in heaven, thank you so much for your blessings, your healing power.

As we learn about this today, I pray you come close to us and teach us in your precious and holy name.

All right, raise your hands again if you need a handout.

We're doing the gospel remedy, keys to physical, mental, and spiritual health.

So remember, you're creating a transformation plan this week, especially those, the 30 that are in the health kickoff plan.

This seminar, the 1130 Look and Live, is the spiritual processing that needs to happen in all of these different changes.

So you don't want to miss the 1130 to 12 small group prayer.

It's right here in the sanctuary with Pastor Darrell.

And that would be very, very helpful in your processing.

And then individual consultations, even if you're not 1 of the kickoff patients, feel free to go ahead online and schedule 1 of those.

If you're not someone who can, you know, if that sounds overwhelming to you, just go to the registration desk on your way out and they will help you schedule as many of those as we have available.

And there are some local resources, there's a page that has follow-up resources that you can grab as well.

We have looked at where is God calling us to wholeness.

We heard the Testimonies of how God can lead us from the spiral of brokenness and all these reactionary Habit habits and things, you know, the late-night eating leads towards getting up late and the whole Challenging stressful anxiety producing days starting all over again and feeling like you need comfort foods in the evening.

Mike shared this quote on Sunday, I believe.

It says, Our Lord Jesus Christ came to this world as an unwary servant of man's necessity, took our infirmities, bared our sicknesses, that he might minister to every need of humanity.

The burden of disease and wretchedness and sin he came to remove.

It was his mission to bring to men complete restoration.

He came to give them health in place of their disease and peace in place of their wretchedness and perfection of character in place of sin.

How many of us want that type of restoration?

And I pray that with the health survey that Dr.

Mike did on Sunday, and it's also there's a QR code in the Sunday handout if you haven't done it, there's a health survey you can identify areas that God may be calling you to wholeness.

And you can utilize the resources in Revive Clinic to help with those specific issues.

So we're not going through specific diseases or conditions, that's in the individual appointments, and there's some good handouts out there as well.

So, what, and then the reactionary habits, so if you look in the handout, the, what Dr.

Mike talked about yesterday is the components of who I am, the physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental.

He talked about emotions driving our decisions or reason.

How many of you have started your decision journal?

Make sure you grab that handout on your way out.

I think that decision journal will start to make a lot more sense today, because we're going to go into more detail in how that all works.

We want to stop that spiral, and we want to be able to make decisions with faith, that are based on faith, based on reason and evidence.

Powerful quote in Desire of Ages That it says that faith is based on evidence, not on demonstration.

That means that trusting that God can reverse your type 2 diabetes if it's his will, but distrusting that even though you don't have the numbers to prove it yet.

So that's evidence in his creation, right?

We study in science and say that yeah, it is very likely that you could reverse your type 2 diabetes.

But you aren't going to notice, you aren't going to reverse your type 2 diabetes the first time you sink your teeth into some beans.

So that's decisions based off of, with faith based on reason.

So let's look at some of these triggers in more detail.

So what happens to my blood sugar when I eat ice cream?

So if this is blood sugar and this is time, And the blood sugar, does it go up slowly or quickly with ice cream?

Because they're simple carbohydrates, right?

So they don't need a lot of breaking up and processing by the body.

So This would be like after a big potluck or after Thanksgiving dinner.

Yeah, very sluggish and sleepy and fatigued.

Now, your pancreas just received a whole bunch of work with all that blood sugar that it has to put away really quickly.

So it gets super stressed out like, wow we've got to produce like, oh look at all this blood sugar.

We have to produce all this insulin Oh, no, we got to get this under control and so Because your blood sugar spiked really fast your pancreas responds Fast as well, So how do you feel down here when the bag of potato chips wears off?

So that irritability, that anger, that maybe you feel a little shaky, or again, you can't think very well, that kind of a thing.

So what do you feel like doing if you're hangry?

Oh, and I want a Snickers candy bar, and I am going to have some pizza and whatever else.

So not only is this hard and this can produce diabetes, but this is just an awful cycle to go through.

So this we mainly think of with simple carbohydrates, comfort foods you might think of it as.

Now up here, the reason that you feel a little bit of relief when you eat the ice cream, right, you feel a little momentary like, oh, I feel like my stress is going down, like, okay.

You know, it's called comfort foods for a reason and so that is serotonin a happy hormone and so when normally we might feel like that stress relief here at this level in kind of the normal blood sugar ranges.

You know, because hey, God made food to be enjoyed, right?

But this is a super normal stimuli, so the serotonin receptors really get filled up and so your body puts its work where the demand is and so it builds more receptors So it takes more sugar to fill up the serotonin receptors and feel the same effect.

Well, there's this thing called a sugar addiction.

And this, very powerful, You look at the MRIs of people with an opioid addiction, with a sugar addiction, and they have similar blood flow patterns.

Now, obviously, there are differences, but it is an addiction.

So, in your handout, there, and you can meet with your individual provider.

If this resonates with you and some of the triggers that Pastor Phil is going to be talking about in a moment for what triggers this, Then think about the sugar reset there in your handout.

A lot more detail to that, but we'll suffice it to say that.

An energy boost, get us going in the morning when we're up late eating pizza.

So caffeine blocks the adenosine receptors.

Adenosine is what makes us feel tired, 1 of the components of that.

Building New Pathways of Change

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness.

We thank you that you have given us your word, which is truth.

We pray today that you would send your Holy Spirit to further enlighten our minds and our hearts with your truth that we may be transformed.

You know that we have struggled with many things and many times and failed over and over again, but we believe that you have the power to set us free.

And so Lord, I pray today as we consider the various ideas from scripture and from other writings, I pray that you would help us to understand, and not only to understand, but that the truth would sink down into our hearts and transform us.

We pray these things in the name of Jesus, amen.

I'm gonna start out by telling you a story of 1 of my patients.

Johnny was, I hope you'll pardon the derogatory phraseology, but it seems the best way to put it.

He was third, fourth, fifth grade, something like that.

He was already quite overweight and his parents brought him to me for just routine childhood things, sore throats and earaches and whatnot, but I was most concerned about his weight.

He was already gaining weight and becoming more and more overweight and I talked to his parents and say, hey, what are you feeding him?

Well, you know, pizza and hamburgers and french fries.

And well, you need to maybe think about fruits and vegetables.

Little by little, over the years, a few years, they sort of escalated, and it got to the point where they just kind of threw up their hands and said, we don't know what to do.

Every time you would see him walking around town, or even coming into the doctor's office, he would have a can of soda in 1 hand and a candy of some kind in the end, a lollipop or a candy bar.

And his parents said, we try to give him healthy food at home.

We don't buy that for him at home, but his friends at school, and they give it to him at school, and there's vending machines, and he goes over to the general store down the street, and they give him candy.

They tried bargaining and all these things.

And then when Johnny got into 8th grade, something happened.

I still don't know why or exactly what took place behind the scenes, but he decided that he wanted to be a wrestler.

Now I don't know if any of you, Anybody ever known a wrestler, like high school or junior high wrestlers?

And so Johnny decided he was a wrestler, so he joined the wrestling team.

And he was so out of shape it was pretty bad and so he joined the track team also to get in shape for wrestling and so he was running track he was doing his wrestling workouts and then later at night he'd do another workout, strength training and whatnot, to try to get stronger because you know what happens in wrestling, they have weight classes, not strength classes.

So like if you're just fat and the other guy's your same weight but he's all muscle, you're in big trouble.

So he was lifting weights and he totally changed his diet.

Well, he started eating like meat, potatoes and vegetables.

Still not the ideal diet, but way better than just candy and soda pop and pizza, right?

And his weight started coming down, his lean muscle mass started coming up, and he worked hard and by the end of the year, he had gotten good enough that he went to the state semi-finals in wrestling.

Which that's pretty impressive for the guy that was in seventh grade he was just a fat kid And now he's like 1 of the jocks and he's like grinding it out, going to the semi-finals, and he got the award for the most improved athlete of the year in his school.

Was it his parents saying, hey you have to go do this, you need to join track, you need to start working out, you need to start...

No, they had been on him for a long time.

Now if you pay attention to what's happening in the world, in our culture, in the popular media, there's a lot of talk about people choosing identity.

It totally transformed his life that he chose to identify as a wrestler, and then it changed all the other decisions that he made from the time he woke up in the morning until the time he went to bed at night.

So, we're going to talk today about identity and about how sometimes our identity gets stuck in an unhealthy place and how we can move to a better identity that will actually help us to become the people that we, in our better moments, the people that we aspire to be.

I'm not going to enter the debate, but we'll give you a definition.

But I want to just introduce that by saying that, you know, there's different levels of change.

And what we found, I remember this all the way back to 5 day plan to quit smoking days.

I was, I'm not sure what year that came out, I think It might have been even before I was born.

But I remember when I was 5 years old helping my dad, who was a pastor, running a five-day plan.

And I would go hand out the little pins and the brochures, and I remember seeing the videos.

Any of you guys seen those old videos they used to show?

Like people getting their lungs hacked out and all this stuff.

But I remember 1 of the things that they taught in there is that when, like how many people that smoke know that it's not good for them?

There might be a few people that are not intelligent enough to understand that it's bad for them, but the vast majority of people that smoke know that it's bad for them, but they do it anyway.

And isn't that true for a lot of other things in life?

We know that we should exercise every day.

We know that we should eat a whole food plant-based diet and not eat junk food.

We know that we should make time for our devotions to not be hurried.

All these things that we should we know, but yet we don't.

The second level of change is emotional, and by that I mean when your knowledge about change gets connected to some kind of emotional motivation, then something happens.

So for example, I see this, I haven't kept track exactly, but probably at least a dozen times, a patient comes in to see me and says, hey, I gotta quit smoking.

I go, okay, I mean, I agree with that, but why now?

Well, my grandma just died from emphysema and she made me promise that I would quit smoking and I don't want to die from emphysema.

So now there's a motivation, there's a knowledge, there's a motivation, and so people begin the struggle.

And a lot of times people will quit smoking for a few weeks, a few months, but then something happens and they relapse.

And that cycle often continues for a long time, the struggle back and forth and back and forth.

It's just like, we're going to be in the Bible a bit today, but if you read Romans, I told you to read Romans 7 and 8.

I know we have the best students in this seminar.

Paul, before the law came along, before he had that experience, he thought he was fine.

And then when the law kind of smacked him in the face, he realized he wasn't fine.

He's like, oh, I've got to get with the program.

He got into this emotional struggle and then there was turmoil.

He was trying and trying and failing and that was the cognitive and the emotional together.

But the level of change that is deeper than that is identity.

And this is what we told people in the 5-Day Plan to Quit Smoking.

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Series

The Gospel Remedy: True Keys to Wholistic Healing

The Safeguards: Managing Stress

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

How Choice Happens: Tools for Change

53m

New Identity in Christ

57m

Building New Pathways of Change

1h 1m

The Safeguards: Managing Stress

58m

Inspiring the Launch

1h 2m

Sound Doctrine