Michigan Camp Meeting 2025: He Must Increase

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Prayer Ministry: You and God Alone

Darrel Le Roux

01 Cross Claims

02 Servant Heart

03 Trusting Heart

04 Child Heart

05 Friend Heart

06 Heart Connected

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.

Father in Heaven, thank you so much that when we look at the cross of Jesus Christ and we see how He wants to draw us, when he said, and if I am lifted up I will draw.

It's not just a promise to draw, but it's a promise to connect in a relationship heart to heart, 1 on 1.

And so teach us these things as you want to give us the joy of your salvation.

Teach us how to surrender and allow you to have complete control over our lives.

So bless us now as you open your word and as we have these conversations, let your spirit guide our hearts, our minds, and our actions to be in harmony with heaven.

When you look at the cross, His love is stronger than his hurt.

It's 1 of those incredible things that he emptied himself.

And when he had emptied himself and became a human, he humbled himself even more to the point of death.

And that's as he decreased, the more he decreased, the more he was going to increase that every knee and every tongue is going to bow and confess that he is Lord.

And so just to wrap up in those little booklets and bookmarks that through praise through repentance through asking in our need of the Holy Spirit especially and through yielding, he will increase.

I'm going to talk about that specifically because there is nothing that he wants most or more than what he has already prepared us for.

He's designed you and created you for his purpose, and so he wants to fulfill his purpose.

And you are created in the temple for the Holy Spirit to be the temple of the Holy Spirit.

And so in this experience, this child heart is a critical factor as we complete the trusting heart, because like a child, The 1 memory I have as a child that stands out of above all the many trips and all the things that we have and going to the game parks and seeing the giraffes and the elephants and all the rest, and amongst all of those memories as a child, the 1 that stands out to me is when I could climb up onto a roof that my father allowed us to.

It wasn't the highest, it was actually a lower roof.

And as he passed by, he would put his things down and say, okay, I'm ready for you to jump.

And it was the most fun thing to jump into his arms.

And I remember just, there was no hesitation.

I could trust him completely because he never dropped me.

In fact, 1 time he said, now you got to wait for me.

Because he had to drop things because I said I'm coming dad and so this this trusting heart of your father that he'll catch you every time that you he won't let you fall And we think that if we face death, he's letting us fall.

And that is what I believe God is focusing on.

So the child's heart should be a trusting heart with the Father.

So you see the link there, and especially when you look at the cross of Jesus Christ.

Trust, I love this, we should be willing to trust everything to the hand that was nailed to the cross for us, steps to Christ.

And so these progressive positions, we're going to complete the 1 position of when you don't understand like Joseph, you're still going to trust him and just serve him because you don't have understanding.

Life just doesn't make sense that you're sold as a slave, that you're in jail, that you are forgotten there, but you will still just serve him because when you don't understand, you're just going to take the position of being a servant to serve God.

Then, when you have and you start to get understanding, it's a child's heart.

With understanding, It's a choice to now cooperate with the father and then eventually to be a friend with God.

So in this context, we said all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose and who love God.

In other words, all things are not good, but God can make all things work together for good.

And Joseph's experience is 1 of the greatest moments that we have gone through.

And we went through this that Joseph did not trust himself when he gave an answer to Pharaoh and said, the Lord will give you an answer.

He could have said, hey, I think I know something about dreams.

I've had dreams and I've interpreted dreams.

Joseph had learned humility when he's not in control.

God is in control, and it's a servant attitude.

And so when he rises to power, he can rise to power that God places him in.

Places him in, I mean, it's not possible that a non-American citizen will become the president of this country ever, right?

That's not in part of the Constitution, part of the thing, but imagine someone who's not an American Being vice president.

That's what happened in Egypt with Joseph.

Not a citizen, not an Egyptian, a Hebrew.

And God did that because he had learned to be a servant and he allowed God.

And I want to say this, not every patient saint rises to power.

There are patient saints that have been killed, that have been tortured to death, and for years been left to rot in dungeons.

And I tell you what, God is going to raise them to power when He comes.

And so the testing of the hearts, the disclosure of the hearts, the hearts connecting has to do with, and this is where we ended yesterday, it has to do with a heart that is tender and that is not stone and hard, but is responsive to the Spirit of God.

And in that, it will be a forgiving heart.

And so you find Joseph willing to forgive.

The faster you forgive, the faster you can understand that you know God forgives you.

And so when your prayers are included before anyone even comes to say I'm sorry.

You've already forgiven them in your prayers to God for the hurt they've given you.

You've already prepared your life for that forgiveness.

If they ever came to ask you forgiveness, and if they don't, they have no control over you.

Your emotions are not entangled with their unforgiveness if they don't ask for it, because you are connected to the heart of God.

And so the family would not be united in Joseph's experience if he did not forget.

He could have just taken them out for that without them even knowing what's happened to them.

God is going to give you complete power When you look at your enemy outside the gate, and you know what's gonna happen?

When fire destroys your enemy, eventually you will weep because you're connected to God's heart.

Because that heart of tenderness is not 1 that wants revenge.

It just wants unity in God and in the Spirit.

And it's through that servant experience of Joseph that he saved his own family and the whole of Egypt and many other countries during that devastating thing.

I want to remind you because it is important enough Genesis 50 verse 20 where Joseph says to his brothers that after his father's death, they think, oh, now their father was the 1 holding Joseph in check, and Joseph wasn't gonna do anything.

Now that their father is dead, Joseph's now really gonna do something.

And Joseph is so sad that they think that it's not from within his own spirit that that God has placed it in him.

And he says to them, no, do not be afraid in verse 19.

For I am in the place, for am I in the place of God?

I have learned that God is the 1 in the control.

And if he wants to take revenge, it's up to him.

And Joseph was had wanted no part in trying to Take God's part.

And I want to pause you just for a minute.

There are deep hurts that happen in our lives from close people, family members, close friends, deep, deep betrayal and hurts.

And we tempted to want to have them experience what we went through when they hurt us so badly.

It's like if I forgive you, you're off the hook.

You don't even feel what I've gone through.

Series

Prayer Ministry: You and God Alone

04 Child Heart

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

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