GYC Africa 2024 Conference: ONE

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GYC Africa

Relationships and Family Life

Jonathan Ntazana Yamba

My ‘Single’ Desire

This is what Ellen White is talking about.

You as a young person, first of all, must have this level of confidence.

Let me tell you a few things that I hold dear to myself.

That placing a price on yourself is something that no 1 should dictate.

In economics we say whatever is readily available, That is something I couched myself.

Why I couched it is because I just wanted to make sure it sank in my mind.

That whatever is readily available, it's valueless, you get the point.

So now, if you draw your demand curve, okay?

So in my mind, I thought, Which 1 do I want to be?

So he paid the premium price, the highest price.

And so he expects us to carry ourselves as people who know what is it about you that can demonstrate that your price is high or price is low?

If you're a gentleman, you see, have you seen, have you been to the rubbish pit?

You've seen the rubbish pit, You see how when something is rotten there, there are so many flies.

Now, as a gentleman, if you are attracting everyone on the bus, at church, everybody is around you, don't think you are handsome.

The statement is that, because pricey things, Rolls Royce, you know that car?

They will ask for your CV before they sell it to you.

They don't sell it to rich people, they sell it to wealthy people.

So then, so if you want to go through this life, not struggling to look good, because you can easily look good, you must know your price.

So the objective really of our seminar is to share real life and practical lessons about wholesome singleness as an Adventist Christian.

Real life and practical lessons on wholesome singleness as an Adventist Christian.

Now, you know very well that, like I said yesterday in that just small short snippet that when we talk about singleness, people, we are single, people find themselves single.

God has blessed us with 3 children, 1 girl and 2 boys.

The girl is 13, the next boy is Nathaniel, he's 10.

Now, when we talk about singleness, when do you really become single?

At what point do you, holding other things constant, when do you realize, okay, I'm single?

When does the journey of singleness begin?

Now I just want to find out at what point.

So you know, when people are introducing themselves, they really want to nail it that they are single.

So if we're all born single and it's a given, it implies therefore that the input of our conversation is to try and change our perspective, to remain in that mode where nothing will change us because everything is normal as it should be.

So, to just help us dig deeper into this conversation, we'll explore 5 questions.

And number 1 question is, what does it mean to embrace singleness as a child of God?

When we speak about you embracing singleness as a child of God, what does that mean to you as a Christian?

Question number 2, how can you shift your perspective?

Okay, to see singleness as a season of opportunity and growth rather than lacking something.

Have you seen how people panic when your friend or your pathfinder posts her hand with a ring and she says, he proposed.

Maybe in your heart you are saying, ah, these things don't last.

I'm just from talking about the price, being confident to say, I lack nothing.

The third 1 is, how can a single individual find fulfillment and satisfaction in their relationship with Christ?

This 1 entails that your level of contentment.

You know there are times when we feel our identity is only complete when we are identified with a certain group of people and so on and so forth.

The fourth question is what are some of the practical ways to cultivate intimacy with God and deepen our spiritual relationships during the season of singleness?

And finally, how do we deal with feelings of loneliness and longing for companionship while being single?

I will not handle them 1 after the other.

So it will not be like we're now handling question 1, but as we are moving, you will notice.

Now here, I had wished it would have been nice if I had projected, because I want to share a testimony of a missionary young lady, which is part of our context setting.

So I want you to pay particular attention.

Let me read it, I may not be a good reader.

Is there someone who is a good reader who can read the testimony for us.

Where is the testimony so that it's starting from?

Claire is going to read the testimony for us.

And she will read slowly and nicely and gently so that we can all get the gist.

Singleness can be a blessing Singleness can be a blessing, even if it may sometimes feel like a curse.

Before my husband and I began dating, my singleness had been a real roller coaster.

Here's why the experience of being a single young adult was trying.

I listened to everyone and anyone about how I should live my life.

I was in my mid-20s with a good job and living on my own.

That's a fair amount of accomplishment actually.

Passion & Purity

Loving father as we dig a little deeper we pray for your grace and mercy in Jesus name and for his sake amen so 1 more time welcome to our conversation this morning in our seminar we are building on what where we left off yesterday.

And today we want to just, we're talking about passion and purity.

It's something that we need to just crystallize.

And I pray that we are going to be as interactive.

So the objective of our lesson today is just that number 1, that we build character, because character is power.

Remember, yesterday we were talking about, we began a journey about singleness, okay?

In the context of you beginning a lifelong journey with them to form a marriage, what do you find most attractive?

You are single, so you must be very active in answering.

What do you find attractive about people?

But let's not complicate it, let's just be basic.

So it's the face that is going to be, that's going to strike first so that you can then move to whatever you want to do.

That is why character becomes a very, very important conversation.

Because it is not something that you can easily pick up.

As you are walking, you say, hey, I am attracted to your character.

You've heard how some people say, hey, no me, I like a woman with a good heart.

I believe all those things are just, you know, like synonyms to express how a character of a person is more attractive than anything else, isn't it?

Now, the character of a Christian life is, it's in everything we do daily.

So life is not like, look, now I am getting ready to marry.

That is not how we are created and built by God.

Everything that we are doing on a daily basis, it's like small building blocks that are leading us to somewhere.

It is shown on a daily basis, how you treat others, how you behave, whatever you do, it is all speaking to that aspect.

Now, the other aspect is what I want you to keep as food for thought is from messages to young people, page 100.

Ellen White here says, character formed according to divine likeness is the only treasure that we will take from this world to the next.

Character that has been formed, okay, formed according to Divine likeness is the only treasure.

You remember the uproar that Jesus nearly received when he said, for in heaven they neither marry nor give in marriage.

People were now saying, so Lord now, what will happen?

Because remember the question had been, the woman is married, then apparently her husband dies.

And according to the culture then was that when the older 1 dies, the 1 that follows is the 1 that does what?

So apparently this woman, this woman, her husband dies, then the brother comes and takes over until the seventh.

Now imagine if you were the seventh to marry your brother, your brother's wife.

Because if you are the seventh born, chances are high that there's quite some age gap between you and your first born brother.

Finally, to be landed and be given this wife to say, no, no, no, this is your wife, okay, fine.

And Unfortunately, and also you can feel for the mother, isn't it?

Because all her 7 children married to this same woman, and they keep dying.

Shouldn't they have said, ah, no, I think this far, let's change the wife?

But the issue is that eventually they are asking Christ the question, who then is going to be the husband in the resurrection morning?

Yeah, speaking from the point of ignorance, I understand.

Where you are going, where you are, you are going.

That if there is something that we must perfect here, which is of eternal value, The exchange rate of marriage between earth and heaven is 0.

You can't say, no, my spouse is so wonderful, I want them with me.

But then character formed in the likeness of God is something, is a treasure we will go with.

Therefore, formulation of character becomes very important.

I would have loved to summarize this conversation, but this is just a story about a lady who was studying in London, met up with a young man, handsome, tall, with a mustache.

For a long time, they dated and so on, until finally graduation time came.

So she went back to the Scandinavian country in Sweden, and then he remained in London.

And for a while, there was no letters that were coming from him.

And there was a bit of a war, cold war, and there was no way they could meet up until finally it cleared.

Then she, you know people had been telling her, look this person that you are so much concerned about, He has forgotten about you.

After so many years, she got on a ship and she was back.

And unfortunately, we are told that when she was just near getting to to the dock she saw some gentleman who was dressed like the 1 she had been waiting for And so she was waving as she was going.

And unfortunately, she discovered that she was waving at the wrong person.

So the moral of the story is just that aspect, that you have waited, you have prayed, you have done everything, only that you have been waving at the what?

The Heart of the Matter

We have been building our conversation to this moment where we are.

You have enjoyed the blessing of being single.

You have developed yourself in the fact that you have exploited the opportunities that the Lord has given you in musing like we learned, isn't it?

Staying a little longer on the word of God and you have disciplined yourself in terms of character.

You have gotten to this point where you are ready to move on to the next level.

How are we going to now know to say, behold, this is Canaan, let me possess the land?

First of all, by African culture, as a lady, you have gotten to this point where you are saying, I am ready.

Hebrews 13 verse 4, what does the Bible say?

1 of my favorite texts that is a challenge is Ephesians chapter 5 when it comes to marriage.

Because if you think you're organized as a man until you read Ephesians, then you realize you are yet to be organized.

The Bible there challenges that the love you must have for your wife, the comparator, is Christ.

When you look at how he loves the imperfect church, that is how much you must love your wife.

Now, that extent is to, you can't do it on your own.

No wonder Ellen White says when you contemplate marriage, you must do what?

In other words, if you were praying twice a day, pray how many times?

Our traditional understanding is that when you are praying and you're praying for a spouse, First of all, let me ask you a question.

Is it okay for me to sit down and say, Lord, you know the future that you have prepared for me, isn't it?

And I don't just want to go there with anybody and everybody.

So, you don't want to go there in your future with anybody and everybody, isn't it?

That is why Ellen White says that this aspect of marriage, you should not begin to think about it carelessly.

People can influence you to become an engineer when you wanted to be a lawyer.

But when it comes to the choice of your spouse, This, she says, will ruin your usefulness.

What is the equivalence of a life that's been ruined?

A potential young lady, very good singer, she has kept herself.

When she gets married, She can't even differentiate between law and behold.

She doesn't know where the church is anymore.

Some of the men who can take you in such a case are very handsome and rich men.

So there are a lot of young ladies at the smell of wealth, they would rather get wealth.

So at work, when I'm done with what I'm doing, I'll have people, my fellow literature evangelists, come to them.

I usually have early meetings by 7.30 in the morning.

And by 10, I have freed, everything is running.

But the point I'm belaboring to make is this 1.

If you are a literature evangelist in the Seventh-day Adventist church, even as you set your eyes to say, I am beginning a friendship with this 1, the opposition that you face is too much.

There is an ungodly brother who parks his X5 there.

So the major point we have is with our generation, what we are seeing today as a weak church, as a weak society, women who cannot lead their...

You see, Ellen White speaks about a young lady and says, As a young lady, she says, a woman who takes care of her family does as much work as a preacher in the pulpit.

So you, your salvation is when you are cooking meals, they must be wholesome.

Meals that will give health to your family.

Don't come to say, no, I'm ready to start a family when you don't even know what it means to cook healthy meals.

You have failed on the very first foundation.

I am not saying men can't cook, But I am saying from the Spirit of Prophets point of view, as a young lady, you must account for what everyone in your family is ingesting.

You should be able to guide your husband and say, no, no, no, no, we don't drink Fanta here.

We are better off drinking passion drink because you are responsible for the vitality that the family receives from every kind of food.

Your children in church, when they're running, from 1 end to the other, When you just look at them, they know to say, I think they sit down.

You, some of you as young ladies, you have no principle to stand.

So I doubt what you would transfer to the little ones.

They go, and you stand, you say, oh, let's go.

But the grace, the Lord promises that I will make you a pillar.

So you need to be firm, because they're children to guide.

Some of us as husbands, we like to throw socks anywhere.

You should be able to say, this you will not do.

So when you are coming in the home as a wife, though you see men very organized, the 1 who runs the home is you.

Now with your ill preparedness in terms of mannerisms, I doubt whether you have a proper home.

When we are out here, you see a man who is wearing a necktie.

My wife was in the Eastern part of the country.

And because I was coming here, she had to cut short.

My mother-in-law was saying, but you, you are my daughter.

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Relationships and Family Life

Passion & Purity

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Parts

My ‘Single’ Desire

1h 24m

Passion & Purity

1h 23m

The Heart of the Matter

1h 43m

Sound Doctrine