Michigan Camp Meeting 2025: He Must Increase

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Restoring Connection

Norbert Restrepo

Ivonne Restrepo

01 From Dysfunctional to Functional Families

02 From Dysfunctional to Functional Families

03 From Dysfunctional to Functional Families

04 From Dysfunctional to Functional Families

05 From Dysfunctional to Functional Families

You're about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2025 Michigan Conference Camp held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

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

Yesterday we asked you to write your questions so we will have the opportunity or the attempt to answer because the Holy Spirit is the 1 who answers, but We can deal with the topics.

And we have 2 cases here, and I want to read them because the presentation of today hopefully will give a lot of insights to this situation.

This person has 2 daughters, and they are grown already.

The person who writes the questions suffer abuse and then their daughters suffer abuse, but she was an enabler, so she couldn't protect her kids.

Now the girls resent that and she says, how can I reconnect to my children?

How can I tell Jesus' story to help them?

Today's presentation is about that and also Wednesday and Thursday you know we cannot give everything in 1 hour.

And today, we will attempt a training that we do in churches for 1 week to give in this presentation.

So your buckles, your belts, get them tight, because we are going to go.

And the second case is my husband loves our children, but he struggles to connect with them.

He comes busy working, he doesn't connect with them.

There is kind of a lot of do it, but how connection.

We will work specifically, we talk specifically how to connect and intimate, and learning how to on Thursday.

So today our topic is going to be as my wife was saying, it's going to be pretty dense.

The fear of God versus the fear of rejection.

Now the fear of God sounds like a scary word, but actually in scripture, the fear of God, all the way from Genesis with Abraham's experience, now I know that thou fearest me, to Revelation, fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come is a word that has a very positive connotation.

Fearing God is looking up among many other definitions, we need someone bigger and more powerful than ourselves on whom we can depend, that we can have that trust.

And fearing God is actually finding that all-powerful being in whom we can trust and place all of our burdens and know that he will guide us.

But when we don't have the fear of God in our lives, we will seek to fill that void with someone or something else.

Scripture has a name for that in the Old Testament, and in today's presentation, we're gonna give it a modern name, but I'll wait for us to get there.

So There are many fears because we are sin.

And those behaviors are the ones who make any home, any marriage in peril, the behaviors.

We see the fruits and we fight against the fruit and knowing what is the fear that is nourishing that behavior.

So we will see 1 out of the different ones, the fear of rejection, okay?

We will see the fear as a root, then we will see some of the behaviors as a fruit, and you hopefully you can identify with some of them, and then we will see how can we tell Jesus' story over those fears as a root and how to deal with the behaviors that come as a result, okay?

It's a false belief that I must have the approval of significant others to feel good about myself.

If my husband tells me, you did it good, that's great.

If people, my mother, my father, finally value what I'm doing, I'm okay.

For companionship, and you will see it tomorrow.

All the things that we were created for the problem is how we crave for that need in places and we ended up doing things to have that need feel to prove ourselves, to prove others and that's the problem so this whole fear have emotional indicators Okay, what are the emotional indicators of someone who fears rejection?

It's an indicator that we have a fear of rejection, experiencing shame.

The thought that I'm intrinsically broken or I'm not right is what gives shame.

There is something in me that is not right.

Looking for affirmation and love in people.

If I look for affirmation, if I do things so you might say, yes, then I will have acceptance and not rejection because the fear of rejection, And let me do something in 1 minute here.

Fears are so powerful because fear is a type of worship.

When you fear something, why do you fear something?

So you know what we do to fears, good or bad?

We do whatever and you will see, not to go there because I cannot handle.

When there is something you can handle, you don't fear that.

But when there is something you don't have control, then you do whatever not to be in those circumstances because we like control.

So that's why we bow down to that fear, for good or for bad.

Fear is a type of worship, for good or for bad.

Fear God and give glory to Him, because when we fear him, we bow down to him because we recognize he's bigger than us.

There is a whole presentation about this, but this is just for you to think.

So the fear take us to looking for information and love, unconsciously, consciously, and unconsciously, so I won't be rejected.

Another emotional indicator is codependency, and I want to stop here, because we will see today Codependency and independence, which is like an everyday breath in many homes.

We're talking about how to go from dysfunction to function.

Let's speak in practical terms of the everyday life of a home.

If they need me, then I can't be rejected.

2 people rely on each other for support and love.

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Series

Restoring Connection

02 From Dysfunctional to Functional Families

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Other Teachings in Series

01 From Dysfunctional to Functional Families

52m

02 From Dysfunctional to Functional Families

1h 7m

03 From Dysfunctional to Functional Families

1h 3m

04 From Dysfunctional to Functional Families

1h 1m

05 From Dysfunctional to Functional Families

1h 6m

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