Maryland Men of Faith 2025: Do Justly

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Maryland Men of Faith

Seminars

Joe Reeves

How to Make Disciples?

Thanks for coming out this afternoon and being together here.

And so let's bow our heads, continue to ask the Lord to be with us on this special day.

Heavenly Father, thank you that we can be here today at Maryland Men of Faith and we want to open up our hearts to learn whatever you want to teach us from your word, from the example of Jesus, please challenge us, grow us, stretch us, help us to be your disciples and disciple makers.

My name is Joe Reeves and this seminar is How to Make Disciples.

I work at the General Conference in the Sabbath School Personal Ministries Department.

I'm the editor for Inverse, the young adult Sabbath school quarterly.

And I get to be involved a little bit in global total member involvement.

What I'm teaching you this afternoon, I wish I could claim it all as all my original ideas, but actually there's many others that share the same concepts, and these concepts are on our website, globaltmi.org, which I'll have a QR code for that I believe at the end of the presentation.

And so these principles are universal principles, global principles that we can glean from the example of Jesus, his disciples, and how we can make disciples today.

We're going to look at 5 steps And we can test ourselves to see how we do in those steps, which ones we want to grow in.

But first of all, we have to ask ourselves this question, who is called to make disciples?

I already mentioned this presentation is from Global Total Member Involvement.

That is an initiative of the General Conference, calls on every church and every member to become actively involved in making disciples using Christ's method.

Well why would we sign up for such an audacious goal?

We, we, is it okay if we read what Jesus said about it?

That's where Jesus gave the command to go make disciples.

He was speaking to his disciples, and he was speaking to all disciples.

We're called to call followers of Christ.

Giving these presentations is very convicting thinking about things the Lord's trying to grow me on so I can be a better disciple maker myself.

So but I'm in good company because what about the 12 were they perfect disciple makers?

No man in Matthew 28 they're doubting, they're fearful, they're running And so when I read about those things, okay, maybe I can fit in after all.

So those are my credentials for presenting today.

It's not because I'm an expert or better than anybody else, but because I fit in with the with the 12 with all my weaknesses and seeking the Lord's help and becoming a better disciple maker myself there's no ambiguity in the book desire of ages page 822 The Savior's commission to the disciples included, what does it say?

His first interest should be to make money, to build their career.

Is it okay to make money and to build your career it is but the first interest is to win souls for Christ he may not be able to speak to congregations but he can work for individuals Does everybody have the ability to speak to large congregations?

Does everybody have the ability to work for individuals?

And so really the core of disciple making is not about public speaking.

It's about individual work and It's really too bad because some of us were trying to duck out find a way out.

I'm not a public speaker I'm not this I'm not that but actually what Jesus calls us to do with disciple making, every single 1 of us can do according to what has been revealed to us.

Every believer is called to make disciples, to focus on people, not just programs and events.

Now if you lay out your church calendar, some of our churches are busier than others.

Do you guys come from, any of you come from a busy church?

Pastor of Tridelphia back there is raising both hands.

He has Fall Festival tomorrow at Tridelphia Church.

Is it ever possible to become so busy running with our programs that we're missing the people?

It's the planning, It's the budgets, it's the schedules, it's the printing the programs, it's the advertising.

You do a little bit of that for Maryland Men of Faith?

And you can be zooming along with all those things and miss that the whole point is the people.

The point of our church is not the programs.

If we miss being personal with people, we miss the whole point.

When I was a pastor, I often reminded my church, especially when it was seasons of doing evangelism, and that we invite the community to our church.

I would preach, sometimes other people would preach, and often the most impactful part of the whole evening, for first-time visitors, come-back visitors, whoever they are, is not necessarily the sermon.

It's that five-minute conversation after the sermon with the person you're sitting side behind or in front of on the way out.

So when you go to church, if you're there, or just out of school and you're in any other program, if you're there to bless, you actually have the power in your hand to make a deeper impact than the preacher in a much shorter amount of time period when you debrief with somebody after the message, hey, have you ever heard that before?

And you exchange, and months later they might have forgot that sermon, but they didn't forget that conversation.

And so disciple-making is for individuals.

Why is individual disciple making essential for every church member to engage in?

Christian Service page 69 says, Let ministers teach church members that in order to grow in spirituality, you want the rest of this?

This is like setting up some requirements, apparently.

If you want to grow in spirituality, how many of you want to grow in spirituality?

They must carry the burden that the Lord has laid upon them.

Key phrase, because I'm getting ready to talk to you about the importance of making friends, But we're not just making friends.

If we're not leading souls into the truth, Those friendships really don't have a very deep purpose to them.

So we can, there is, there's multiple temptations for Adventists and our evangelism.

1 of the temptations, 1 of the temptations is to be making lots of friends and connections, but missing that purpose of leading souls into the truth.

So that's part of our package, part of the call that Jesus has called us to do.

To grow spiritually we must lead souls into the truth.

This means more than helping at church events, it means personally guiding people through the process of becoming a disciple.

And so that's why we're going to look at it in 5 steps.

How can the disciple-making efforts of only 1 person make a difference?

1 soul, in Christian service page 121, 1 soul, 1 to the truth, will be instrumental in winning others and there will be an ever-increasing result of blessing and salvation.

Ron Clouzet

The Experience of Personal Revival

The title of this presentation is Christ in You, the Experience of Personal Revival.

And you could come at this from a number of angles and there's a lot to be said about it.

So I have selected some of the things that we're going to talk about and that may create some questions and so if we come at the end and we still have time we'll deal with those questions but Hopefully it'll be clear enough throughout.

You probably have read my bio that's in the program there.

So if you haven't, you might want to so you know a little bit of the context regarding this seminar.

I've been in ministry for 45 years and I've been a pastor and I've been a professor most of my life, academic administrator, I've been a missionary, I've been an evangelist, so the whole full length of ministry range.

And I'm happy to be here talking about this subject.

1 preacher I respect a great deal and you would all recognize his name if I mentioned it, said once, we preachers preach what we preachers need to hear.

And that's 1 of the reasons why this topic is important to me.

Father in Heaven, thank you for giving us the opportunity to meet together today.

And I pray that your Holy Spirit may be with us and that you guide us in our thinking, in our processing, and that your Spirit may make an impression in our heart in a way that no 1 else can do.

I just want to mention that some of these thoughts...

Come from that book, Adventism's Greatest Need.

Getting to Know the Holy Spirit is another book on baptism.

I'm not sure if this is still being sold, but certainly the first 1, the major 1, these are some of the other books that the ABC has.

1 is written for secular people, the other 1 is a primer on understanding prophecy, and the latest 1 is on a ministry of prayer in the Church.

What does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

To do justly is the result of something else.

You cannot, as fallen human beings, we cannot do justly normally.

Something needs to happen in us so that we may be doing justly.

Remember when they went down with the disciples of Jesus down to Jerusalem from Galilee?

And they noticed that the Samaritans were not making room for Jesus and his disciples.

And John and James so innocently said, Lord, you want us to pray so that fire may come down from heaven to destroy them, just like Elijah.

He says, you do not know what spirit you're of.

In other words, the spirit of God did not inspire that in you.

It is the spirit of the enemy that inspired, the spirit of vengeance that inspired that in you.

This is the same guy who is called, who is known as the beloved disciple, who wrote probably the greatest epistle on love that you can find in the Bible, 1 John.

So something happened to John from this experience till later when he was writing what he wrote.

In 1 of the most beautiful chapters you can read from Ellen White's The Acts of the Apostles is a chapter on the conversion of John and that was not overnight.

It was a life process and that might be 1 of the reasons why God kept him alive to be 90 or 95 because for some of us it takes a little longer to catch on.

That is why John eventually wrote the 1 chapter that deals squarely on the new birth.

Chapter 3 of John, the encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus.

And he said, Jesus said, you need to be born again.

We think of, when we hear those expressions, We think of people out in the street, people who are far away from God, people who may have a life of crime or something.

He said that to somebody who knew God and taught other people about God.

And he said to him, you must be born again.

In fact, Nicodemus thought for 3 years about what Jesus said that night before he really fully understood it.

So, revival is necessary for all of us actually.

And revival is not something that is passing.

The concept of revival in the Bible is a concept of absolute change.

It comes from the verb to revive, which is from Latin to live again.

Re is again, vive is to live, to live again.

The implication is, whatever it is that you were experiencing before, that was not life.

I checked in the Bible all the expressions that say, revive me.

All of them in the book of Psalms and most of them, about 9 out of the 12, are from Psalms 119, which is famous not only for being the longest Psalm, but for being a psalm about God's Word basically in its various forms.

So I'm going to read this quickly and then I'm going to summarize that and if you want to wait until the summary it might make more sense.

In Psalm 71 20, you who have shown me great and severe troubles shall revive me again and bring up again from the depth of the earth.

Not you might do this, not I'm asking you to do this.

The second 1, my soul clings to the dust.

And that comes up several times according to your word.

Okay, the third 1 is turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things and revive me in your way.

How applicable this is today more so than ever in the history of humankind when there's pornography so accessible and so affordable and there are so many distractions, so many worthless things that we spend our time looking at.

So obviously spending time looking at worthless things militates against any possibility of revival.

That's why it says turn away my eyes from that.

Behold, number 4, I long for your precepts, Revive me in your righteousness.

You would expect that maybe saying revive me in your love when you're loving kindness.

And that concept is repeated several times in the Psalms.

In verse 88, Revive me according to your loving kindness, so that I may keep the testimony of your mouth.

Revive me according to your loving kindness remember the prayer confession by David after Bathsheba says you know yes according to your loving kindness according to the multitude of your tender mercies, right?

In verse 107 of Psalm 119, I am afflicted very much, revive me, O Lord, according to your word.

David Buruchara

True Self-Care: Guarding the Man, Growing the Mission

Alright, I hope it stays that way over the next hour.

In the morning I was at the nature center.

With the animals and So they had me downstairs with all the safari animals I'm from Kenya So I'm trying to figure out if that was intentional or what But I'm not there anymore so it's alright, it's alright.

They say I have a friend he told me that, he's also Kenyan he told me that he was in Kenya and an American friend sent him a photo of a lion in the zoo in the zoo and he said that's not a lion that's a loser the losers got caught if you want to come see real lions You're invited to Kenya amen But enough about Kenya So thank you for coming We'll we'll dive into today's topic.

It's called the just man's Kryptonite the just man's kryptonite.

Let's pray Father thank you so much for this gathering of men.

Thank you for the blessing of today's program.

We thank you for the message during the divine hour and the fellowship, the lunch.

And we pray that and we believe that all these things are for a reason for those who are here today that you would allow us to apply these things to our lives that you give us the grace the power and even now May your spirit speak to each and every 1 of us individually.

Speak to us and also may we may also speak through us that we may bless those who are not here today with a message in Jesus name Amen.

Now, if you're a good Adventist, you might not understand what the word kryptonite is so allow me to take some time to explain to you what it is.

It's not a it's not an element on the periodic table it's It's something else.

In order to explain kryptonite I must explain to you who these men are here.

I love Maryland Men of Faith because it is a multi-generational gathering of men.

And because of that, 1 of these men will appeal to you more.

Does anyone recognize the man on the left?

Yes, Christopher Reeves, the first Superman on scene on screen.

Millennials like myself might recognize Henry Cavill in the middle there.

And Just this recently, there was a movie that came out this year with David Corenzweig.

Now across all these men, the story is the same.

This comes from another planet and he has super strength, super speed, he can fly, he has x-ray vision, he can do all these amazing things.

But most importantly he has a good heart.

It's said that Superman would even save a little small animal if he had to.

He is 1 of the most powerful superheroes in the superhero world.

So kryptonite to summarize is this radioactive element from his home planet that when he is exposed to kryptonite he's not only he not only loses his power and is as powerful as any other human but he's sometimes even weaker than a regular human.

So obviously you can see here he's not liking it very much.

Kryptonite represents for Superman mortality.

It represents humanity and it represents his limits.

The question today is what is your kryptonite?

As a mental health therapist, I work with a lot of men I think I mentioned it earlier today during the teaser.

I see men of all walks Adventist, non-adventist, Christian, non-Christian people who struggle with addictions and non addictions And what's most interesting is when I work with men who are successful in the areas of ministry.

I work with pastors, I've worked with missionaries in foreign countries, I've worked with leaders.

And it's interesting to see that What you see in the public world is not what you see in the inner world It's interesting to see that there's unique weaknesses That people like like we all here men of faith struggle with silently and That is that is the kryptonite that I'd like us to explore today.

James White was what we call the Renaissance man.

He was an active father and husband, often taking up for his sick wife when his wife was unwell taking care of the kids he was a handyman and a builder from a very young age and all through his career he'd even when he ran the publishing house he would he would help fix up the printers I you know I somehow I someday hope to be a handyman and a builder.

In fact, he was called the man who could not wait.

It says, God forbid that I should fold my arms in lazy lock while sinners are sinking into eternal night this is the kind of preacher James White was he wasn't afraid to preach anywhere and to anyone And he traveled land and sea even at his own cost not paying himself a salary so he could preach the gospel.

He was a GC president 3 times and an administrator.

He started hospitals, he started schools, and he started a publishing house and ran it successfully with many employees.

He was an abolitionist, he wrote extensively against the ills of his time, such as slavery, and of course he was a writer and editor and published hundreds and hundreds of articles.

They don't make men like James White these days.

We don't see men who did as much as he did today and much of what we benefit from in the Adventist Church is due to the likes of people like James White would you agree?

In fact his wife at the end of his life said he had done the work of how many?

What do you say it was a pretty super man?

All right, but even James White had a weakness.

You know, they say if you really want to know who a man is, ask his wife.

There's no 1 who knows you better than your wife.

And so James' wife, who we all know as Elroy, said this, My husband's last sickness came upon him in consequence of what?

Bearing burdens which God had warned him he ought not to bear.

My question for you is are you bearing burdens which God has not told you to bear because this is what killed James White at the young age of 60 the young age of 60 we are fortunate to not only have the words of his wife but during his funeral we actually hear from Ellen about what he had said 2 weeks before his death.

He lived all this long life of doing so much for the Lord.

2 weeks before he dies, he comes to these realizations.

Do you feel like those realizations must be pretty crucial?

So he was walking in a garden and he would reflect often on his life.

I'm not sure if he knew he would be dying in 2 weeks.

Michael Verlus

The Last Man Standing

Our seminar for today is entitled The Last Man Standing.

It is so good to be here with brethren in nature, with brothers and elders in the truth, and to be able to cover a very, very important subject.

I'm really grateful that we can be here, and I'm really grateful that the Lord would be so gracious to really determine and enlighten our minds and our hearts, most importantly, our experience with Him.

So, when we look at the world today, we see that there is moral decay here, there, and everywhere.

We see that men aren't being men as God had designed them to be.

We see that men, many are relinquishing responsibility.

They don't really step up as God has called for us to step up.

And so we're seeing morals collapsing, truth being mocked, courage being rare.

Yet God is calling for men who will not fall when everything else does.

He's looking for men who will stand and do justly.

Men who will love mercy and walk humbly before their God.

Inside each and every single 1 of us, there are 2 men indeed.

The old man is corrupt, fearful, selfish, proud, bitter, resentful.

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