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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Esteban Arevalo

God Cares About Your Dreams

You know, the Bible has a very famous verse in Psalm 37, verse 4, that says, delight yourself also in the Lord.

And I would like for the purpose of today's message to say that dreams is the desires of our heart.

And today we are going to speak about God caring about your dreams.

And I don't know when was the last time that you had a very big dream in your heart, or maybe accomplished a dream, or maybe gave up on a dream.

But I think that dreams are something that all of us have in common at some point in our lives.

And I think it's special to see what God thinks about it.

So before we start, I just want to make a small disclaimer that I am just a sinner.

So as I share my testimony, all the mistakes and things that you can say, oh, he didn't do it very well, is because I'm just a sinner.

So if there is anything that you think, oh, actually that was not bad, it's because of Jesus.

Now when I was a child, I thought, why should we share a testimony in front of the church?

We are supposed to share about Jesus, not about us.

And I still think that we should share about Jesus.

But through the Bible and quotes like this, God changed my perspective, and I still think Jesus should be always the center.

But it's interesting that the Spirit of Prophecy says in messages to young people that we are to acknowledge His grace as made known through the holy men of old, as we see here in the Bible, but that which will be most effectual, what is it?

And I love when I hear your testimony, and I'm here and I will be very glad if you tell me your story.

And I've heard some of your testimonies and I have been really blessed.

And I was called by the Lord and Josie to share my testimony.

So, today's message will be like a meal, a three-course meal for you from the Lord.

I'm married to a chef recently, so for the last 4 months I have been thinking a lot about food.

So the appetizer for this morning is called Unlimited Possibilities.

The main dish is my weakness and righteousness by faith, and the dessert will be called love.

You know Chile is a beautiful country for tourism.

How many of you either are from Chile or have any Chilean connections.

That's why this church looks so beautiful.

And of course, the rest of you make it look even more beautiful.

So You know, Chile is nice to do tourism, but the average Chilean family is a very humble family.

And those of you who are from Chile will agree with me.

It's not like a rich country with fancy things where you can do whatever you want because you have the money, the resources, and the opportunities.

And I was born in a very average, very humble Chilean family.

And this subtitle of unlimited possibilities was the opposite for me from a human standpoint.

I was born with many limitations, if you want, from a social standpoint, from an educational standpoint, from a financial standpoint, even from a language standpoint.

You know, if you are born speaking English, you already have a lot of opportunities.

And it was interesting that I didn't know any of that.

So I just thought everybody's born in kind of about the same type of family when I was a child.

But something that was special is that my parents instructed me on this special book called Santa Biblia in Spanish and my grandmother gave me that little lion and I really liked it and she handmade it if I remember correctly And I think that some of us maybe were born with a lot of possibilities and some of us maybe not.

And if you are here, maybe you can identify with me.

We are all here in Loma Linda, which is great and we have a lot of opportunities, but maybe even here there is some limitations to us.

Maybe it's not financial or maybe it is or maybe it's social.

It's interesting that this book was written for everybody.

I really like that and we will build a little bit more on that later.

For the first 4 and a half years of my life, regardless of those limitations, you know when you're a baby, you don't know about that, I actually don't have not even 1 sad memory for the first 4 and a half years of my life.

Only memories of a Christian mom and dad that really loved me and that in a very simple but special way just did the best for me and taught me about Jesus.

And I have been always very grateful to my parents for that, but then after my 4 and a half years of life, I decided to go to school.

So this is 1 of my very first days in kindergarten, and things changed radically actually.

So I was happy about learning, but I came from this very Christian loving family with very interesting principles.

And please don't think about Loma Linda when you hear my testimony.

Think about the opposite side of the world, where being Adventist, plant-based, and not having TV, and having a very particular lifestyle, was very unpopular and different to your surroundings.

So when I got into this public school that was right across the street from my rural town.

I really liked the learning, even though my mom had already told me everything I was learning, but I didn't like the atmosphere.

And so much so that I started to cry every day.

You know, my parents didn't know so much about homeschool and it was very expensive and the legal issues of that in my country, it was something that they didn't know so much, so they just sent me to the school that was closest.

And the Adventist school, which was like an hour away, didn't have any places for me.

So, I really didn't like school to say the least.

So much that after a little more than 1 year, I couldn't handle kindergarten, I couldn't handle the first year of elementary school, and I basically self-kicked me out of school.

So I don't know if the med students are here or not because I know we are coming back to the academic year.

If you are having struggles in your college or school, I had struggles with elementary school and kindergarten.

And you know, I did homeschool for a little bit, and it was great, but it was very expensive.

And I wanted to go to the Adventist school, and finally God allowed me to be there, and it was a blessing too.

In the big city closer to my town there was an Adventist school and they accepted me there.

But even over there, of course you have classmates from across society, I decided to be very lonely.

I wanted them to listen to the same music that I was listening at home.

And when they asked me, who's your favorite singer?

And everybody looked at me and laughed and nobody knew about it.

And when they would say about the movies and about the actors and about the things that they saw on TV, I didn't know anything.

I didn't know any movies, I didn't know any actors.

I couldn't talk to them, even though I really wanted.

And all the things that were interesting to me were not interesting to them, or to a lot of them.

So I became very lonely, but I thought that sacrifice my little house principles and these principles for that was not worth it.

So I was like, well, I guess Jesus will have to become my friend because it's not possible to live with no friends.

At least you need to have 1 friend, even if it is Jesus.

But then I thought, well, I guess in this world, we won't be able to accomplish much, because if we are this different in society, and this lonely and almost discriminated, I guess my life probably won't be super exciting, but I will try to be faithful to Jesus and someday I would like to live with Him in heaven.

So I had kind of my expectations going down and even my dreams in a way, until my parents gave me a book called messages to young people.

But I said, OK, I'm going to read this book page by page from cover to cover.

So I went to my room, and I started to read this book.

Balanced by religious principle, you may climb to any height you please.

I was like, wow, that's a very interesting and powerful quote.

Those who are satisfied with low attainments fail of being workers together with God.

And it says things like this, Dear youth, what is the aim and purpose of your life?

And I know you know these quotes, but please imagine a child in the other side of the world reading the same quotes that you know.

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God Cares About Your Dreams

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