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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Dean Cullinane

Why We’re Still Here

Father in heaven, we thank you, Lord, for your love towards us, your mercies which are new every morning.

And we thank you for your word, the word that became flesh in your Son, Jesus Christ.

And we pray that through your Holy Spirit, He would live in our hearts this morning and forevermore.

How many of you are happy to be here this morning?

You don't have to put your hand up, no one's gonna judge you, only I can see all of you.

How many of you would rather be somewhere else?

How many of you would rather be in heaven?

That you would give everything, that you would give anything to be in the kingdom right now, for us all to be in the kingdom with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

That day's coming, I believe that, but how badly do you wanna be there?

That's the question that I hope you can answer by the end of this message.

How badly do you want to be in the kingdom?

The title of today's message is why we're still here.

So rather than just throw the answer at you and let you digest that, I want to hear from you guys.

And I'll repeat it back for the sake of the recording, but I want to know from you guys why you think we're still here.

Now it's not Babylon so we're not all going to shout out at the same time.

So if you have an answer just put your hand up and I'll point at you.

And he's waiting because he knows that maybe I'm not ready, maybe you're not ready, he's holding things back giving us another chance.

Okay maybe because we haven't been faithful, right?

God is waiting for his people to be faithful before he comes.

Okay, because God is still waiting for his people to display an accurate representation of his character, right?

We're still waiting for this gospel to go to the entire world.

How does it go to the entire world, by the way, according to the verse?

Right, The gospel needs to go to the world as a witness.

So, I wrote down what I thought would be the 3 most popular answers from the congregation.

The first 1 being character-based, right?

Christ, The members of Christ's church do not perfectly yet reflect the character of Jesus Christ.

The gospel hasn't yet gone to the whole world.

There's so many unreached communities, even here in the US, never mind the rest of the world.

And the third 1, unity-based, because God's church is divided.

We have some that believe 1 thing, some that believe others, loads of controversies happening right now.

How can we perfectly represent the character of God if we can't even get along with 1 another?

These are all good answers, but what if none of them are the answer?

What if there is an answer that has been right in our face this entire time and for 1 reason or another, we just haven't seen it.

The Adventist church has a strong history of being active when it comes to evangelism.

We are born of the evangelistic decree of Revelation 10 to go forth and prophesy again.

Of Revelation 14's commission to be a messenger to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, proclaiming the everlasting gospel, to be the hands and feet of Christ that take the gospel to the entire world, as you mentioned in Matthew 24, verse 14.

And let's pause there for a moment on the Matthew 24, the gospel going to the world as a what?

In other words, it's not something you can't just say, Jesus loved you and put it on your Instagram and just send it out there and hopefully everyone's gonna see.

I can't just get megaphones and just start shouting it out in the middle of the street.

And then slowly but surely, we'll knock down all the numbers and then eventually everyone will have heard.

Scripture tells us that the gospel needs to not just be witnessed, but demonstrated as a witness.

It isn't enough for you and I to preach the gospel.

For what power do we have in preaching the gospel if when people get to know us, see a gospel-less people?

What power do my words have if my actions contradict them.

The gospel has to go to the world as a witness, not just as a sermon and not just as a WhatsApp broadcast.

I don't know if I'm speaking to any of you in particular about the WhatsApp thing.

I'm just going to say I personally don't think it's that effective of a ministry.

I think a lot of people kind of find it a bit annoying, but if that's what God has put in your heart, that's the best you can do, by all means go for it.

Some might say, especially here, especially here, that what we need is the gospel in action.

And the medical missionary students will tell you that that's what that is.

The gospel in action is the right arm of the gospel, the medical missionary work that's gonna go out into the world and bring practical healing to people, open up their eyes to the truth, and the gospel will be spread that way.

But what if there's something even more than that?

What if there's something even more basic?

What if there's something, like I said, that's been in our face the entire time?

In 1 Samuel 2, we are introduced to not Eli, but the sons of Eli.

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Why We’re Still Here

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