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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Mark Howard

Leading Souls into the Truth

We're up on the screen, ready to go here.

How many of you are, just out of curiosity, are personal ministry leaders somewhere, or have ever served in that?

All right, there's a few of us in here, amen.

For anybody who doesn't know, and a refresher, a crash course for those who do, and this is going to sound a little odd, personal ministries is something that, by and large, does not take place in the church.

You say, wait a minute, our churches have personal ministries departments and local churches and leaders, personal ministries leaders, but personal ministries by its very definition is what you do personally as a Christian apart from the church.

I've done evangelism training for years and it's funny that people say, I want my church to be more evangelistic.

If the members of the church aren't more evangelistic, the church at large will never be more evangelistic.

The corporate church can only be collectively what its members are individually.

So personal ministries, when we talk about personal ministries, as a personal ministries department leader, in the local church as a personal ministries leader the goal is to try to give members training and ideas that they can employ outside of church in their personal context as witnesses for Christ That's where the witness has to begin.

And if we as Seventh-day Adventists, when we as Seventh-day Adventists lay hold of that, by and large as a people, and despite what's going on in the church, and I'm not trying to dismiss whatever is going on in the church, but I'm saying if first and foremost, I'm active in reaching souls for Christ, you'll see a revival in this church.

You go back and look at the early church and the growth power of the early church was because the laity were all actively involved in ministry.

In fact, I'll share with you, some of you are very well aware of this passage in the book of Acts.

And in fact, we're going to start, we're going to go to Acts chapter 8 verse 1, and then we're going to go back just a couple verses.

So if you go right to the end of chapter 7, Acts chapter 7, verse 59, the Bible says, I haven't prayed yet, so I'd like to pray before we get into the Word of God.

Gracious Father in heaven, as we open your Word, as we are here meditating and discussing and processing our calling as followers of Jesus Christ, especially in this year remnant church, I just ask the spirit of God would be present to give us clarity of mind and heart and understanding as to how we can be better equipped in our circle of influence to prepare souls for the kingdom of God.

We ask and pray these things in Jesus' name.

Acts chapter 8 and verse, I'm sorry, 7 verse 59, it says, Then they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God, saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not charge them with this sin.

At that time, a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem, and they were all what?

This is, this verse changed my whole experience.

I remember when I read this verse, and I don't know how you're reading it, maybe you all are up on this, but when I first read this, it says they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except who?

Verse 2, and devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him.

As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.'" Verse 4, "'Therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word.

Now even reading that, when I first read through that, when I first read the Bible the first couple of times, it's like, oh, it's clear, the apostles are the ones who spread the word everywhere.

It says God allowed persecution to come on the church in order to do what?

Let me just hit the pause button for a minute.

Do you think God would do the same thing today?

If we need a little fire kindled under us, do you think the Lord will allow some hardship to maybe shake us up?

They were scattered everywhere except who?

And then the Bible tells us very clearly that it was the ones who were scattered who went everywhere preaching the word.

And I remember the first time somebody pointed out, The ones who were scattered were not the apostles, it was everybody but the apostles.

And yet there it was, plain as day in scripture.

And you see that repeatedly in different places that the early church grew because every member used his or her talents, great or small, in witnessing for Christ.

And incidentally, when you read that word preached here in the original Greek language, it does not mean to do what I'm doing right here.

But the word simply means to verbally communicate the truth.

And I could be sitting with my brother right here.

And that's preaching according to Acts chapter 8.

Again, the point this is making is that every member was active and involved.

I'm going to share with you the statement I shared this morning, just reviewing as we're launching into what we're talking about this afternoon.

Sister White says in Christian Service, page 69, let ministers teach church members that in order to grow in spirituality, they must carry the burden that, who?

The Lord has laid upon them the burden of leading souls into the truth.

This is a burden or responsibility that God has given to, who?

I'm listening to the answers and they keep getting closer.

I heard the church and then I heard members and then I heard us and we're almost there.

The responsibility of leading souls into the truth.

Now that's what I'm talking about this afternoon.

So this is not something I'm laying on you.

And when the Lord lays something on us, we ought to take it seriously.

So you should be asking yourself, if you don't know the answer now, how would I go about leading souls into the truth?

I'm going to tell you that a lot of Seventh-day Adventists don't spend a lot of time thinking about this because they don't think it means them.

And that's why I'm sharing even this statement here.

You've got to start out realizing, wow, the Lord has called us to do this.

I like to tell people when you, you know, we all know the upper room experience.

Pentecost, this Holy Spirit's poured out and, you know, thousands were converted in a day.

Why were they gathered in that upper room?

Before Jesus left, his parting words to those apostles were the Great Commission, that they had a job to do to preach the gospel to the world.

Do you think that the disciples of Christ after he left said, well I'm not sure that that necessarily means me.

No, of course we know with them, it's like, no, they took it seriously.

Well, now entertain the thought with me for a minute.

What if you were 1 of the 11 and Jesus just told you that you had to reach the entire world with the gospel?

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Leading Souls into the Truth

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