GYC 2025: Seeing the Invisible

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Biblical Faith - Secular World

Jordan Reichert

The Word: Is it Reliable? Is He Alive?

You know that I have nothing good except for what you're gonna do and so speak Lord may all of this of GYC not just turn into a preaching contest, but may we just be wanting to see you and to lift you up.

I pray that for the person in this room who can't stand you, but for some reason they're here, they would see how much you love them.

I pray for the person who has doubts that you would help remove some of those in our time here today.

Thank you for your word, the book form and the man form.

1st Peter 3 15 tells us, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.

If you're not going to do it in gentleness and respect, maybe silence is a little more golden at that moment, right?

The goal of talking about things like Christian apologetics, and I'm even hesitant of that word, is not to corner people, is not to fight people.

Nobody's interested in Jesus if you walk around throwing punches in his name.

More of what we're doing here today, what I hope you walk away with is here is maybe hopefully some helpful information for you to take, ready for it, into your relationships, into the people that you talk with, to Steph who works at the post office, and she gives you your packages.

To your grocer, to the person you interact with.

This is stuff for you to take into your relationships.

If there's no relationship there, then don't hit people over the head with all the reasons they can trust the Bible, unless they come right up and ask you.

I'm gonna jump forward to this part right here.

This is a favorite quote of mine by Ellen White.

She says, the strongest argument in favor of the gospel is what?

Look at the opening statement, only through a living faith in Christ as a personal Savior is it possible to make our influence felt in a skeptical world.

If you have a connection to Jesus, that's gonna shine.

If you don't, doesn't matter how much you know.

No trivia test to get into heaven, right?

Nobody has ever, I don't think anybody's ever been forced into the kingdom of God by being intellectually convinced.

However, what we're gonna do today is try to give you some tools that you can use in conversations with people or maybe even just for yourself because you're like, hey, you know, I want to believe I'm a Christian person but sometimes I struggle with that myself And sometimes we just want to be like reminded, you know what I mean?

We want to be reminded of where we stand.

And so hopefully this is helpful for you, but then it can be beyond for somebody else.

Imagine right now that on the way here on a plane, somebody said to you, hey, I see that you have a Bible there.

Don't you know that's been changed through the centuries and you can't really trust it and it's not really a reliable thing?

People think that's God's word, that's crazy.

We got a lot we're going through in this 1.

I hope you're ready for some learning or some review.

Any people out here who love, like you love, trying to drink from the fire hose of information?

That's what we're going to be doing a little bit of this.

Now, really quickly, just for the sake of fun, let's take 1 person's response.

Here's the microphone So yeah, if you didn't hear he said for the New Testament There's more ancient manuscript evidence for the New Testament than many other works of history.

We're gonna get into that hardcore fun stuff.

Who has read some stuff about this before?

Yeah, in the house they're all representing.

This is kind of 2 things we're gonna be looking at.

The 2 questions we're looking at, or statements that I'm gonna be talking about, is the Bible is the reliable, authoritative word of God.

All right, 1 person believes that, sounds good, right?

There was a man named Jesus of Nazareth who really lived in history and he rose from the dead.

First part, so what you're gonna face a lot of times is people have a lot of objections to it.

Probably the most popular 1 nowadays is this idea of when we talk about the truth whether it's like hey this is the truth and other things are not you know the Quran is not the you know very you know other other texts are not this is people say well that's really exclusive That's really narrow or to say that you know there's only 1 God and it's the God of the Bible or to say You know Jesus is the way the truth in life and the only way to come to the father is through him A lot of people say that's that's really narrow.

That's really exclusive There's a problem with that The fact is that every religion and every faith system, and even not a faith system, all has some amount of exclusivity.

Let's pretend that I'm a person, a secular person, walking down the streets of Orlando, and I don't really have any particular religious convictions or faith.

That's the lens through which I see the world and I might think possibly that I'm Oh, I'm a really I'm a tolerant enlightened person, but watch this I can only be respectful and say oh You should respect other people's faiths.

I can only be respectful of their faiths if I pretend like they're all wrong and I'm right.

So really every, there's no such thing as not having some level of exclusivity, but the reality is Jesus calls us to that.

There was a man attested to in history who said he was 1 with the Father, who said he was alive before he was born, who said he was gonna die and rise again, and according to a whole lot of data he did it.

He also said things like, I am the way and the truth in life, nobody comes to the Father except through me.

So you know, common objections people have, that's 1.

Another 1 people say, oh well Jesus never existed.

By the way, that 1 is academically like untenable nowadays.

I'm not gonna go heavy into it right now, but just Google historical sources for Jesus and you'll have a really fun time.

The Quiet and the Pain: Where is God?

It's a great relief to realize that being an effective witness for Christ doesn't mean you have to be the knowledge person about everything.

Instead, just be a person who's going to the cross all the time.

Just be a person who's wanting to direct people to the cross of Jesus all the time, right?

It turns out what people usually need, probably more than 90% of the time, isn't like direct specific answers with like factual data.

What people want is the presence of somebody who is the hands and feet of Christ.

I was terrified when I first became a teacher.

I work out for those of you who, this is your first time here.

It's our Adventist Conference boarding school.

I was terrified my first several years being a teacher because I was like, oh man, I teach Bible classes.

I don't know what I'm going to do when they ask me questions I don't know what to do with.

And then slowly I read stuff and studied stuff.

And then I got like a little bit kind of arrogant like, oh yeah, this is good.

Like I found a lot of really good material.

And then over the years I've kind of realized that even that didn't scratch the itch for a searching person.

Just turns out people are looking for the presence of Christ more than anything.

The 20th century gave us more genocide than in any other century of world history.

And it was supposed to be the century that was going to do away with war.

You look at the 1870s, the 1880s, the 1890s, all the world peace conferences that were building up coming to the turn of the century in the name of enlightenment progress, the building of democratic, quote-unquote, empires.

This was supposed to be, we were supposed to purge the world of war and suffering, and then 1914, yikes, the guns of August roll out and tens of millions of people are killed throughout the fields of France and other places in Europe, World War I, World War II.

We come to things like the Holocaust, the Nazis, horrible genocides that have happened in Southeast Asia and China and other places in Africa throughout the world and Turns out for all our intellectual acumen guess what?

The human heart's still pretty messed up.

Yeah And what about the families what about my grandmother?

My grandmother was a little girl She was a German.

They were living in Yugoslavia, and Christmas morning, she was like 6 or 7 years old, the war had started, and the Russians were actually coming into town, and they were looking for local Germans to kind of punish them for everything that's happening with Germany, you know, World War II.

And my grandmother was, she got a little doll, it was Christmas morning, and then all of a sudden, knock at the door, Russian soldiers, you have 10 minutes.

Tells the family, you have 10 minutes, gather all your belongings, get out, you're not coming back.

Took all the belongings and what'd they do?

Saw my little, my Oma trying to hide her little doll, her little baby doll under her dress.

She watched her mom die in a concentration camp.

Little bit of a just, like, ah, doing that again.

Yeah, sorry, I'm a classroom teacher, is what we do.

So turn to the, you know, and if you are single and you are on the Adventist dating plan which is go to GYC then seat yourself well close our eyes seat yourself where You need to sit so you can turn.

Really quickly, turn to somebody next to you.

What do you do when somebody says to you, oh, you believe in God?

But there's so much horrible evil in the world.

Now that your conversation is going good, I'm going to cut you off.

There's all so much evil, horrendous evil in the world.

Somebody on this side, what would you say?

You want to unpack that suitcase a little bit?

We're going to unpack some of that today.

I was going to say, it's a test that no matter how many chapters of the Bible you do, there's a chance that you have to go down and just say, I'm on that.

I mean, it's, I'm not saying it's not the Word of God, it is, amen, but like it's pretty awful.

It's like this long, sad, one-sided love story of a patient, loving God who is suffering in the sufferings of his people, who are willfully choosing their own suffering, and he has the remedy, but they're like, yeah, no, yeah, no, right?

So no matter how much he keeps on, he keeps on sticking with.

The Remnant: Elitism or Evangelism?

We are now bridging a gap in our fourth presentation, 4 or 5 presentations.

The first 3 dealt with sort of general Christian apologetics in the sense of, you know, what about a person who is, you know, unchurched, you know, more of a secular mindset?

How would we, you know, how do we answer questions like is God even relevant anymore in the 21st century?

We moved into the reality that actually what we have available to us in the New Testament is essentially the best historically attested document from the ancient world.

I think that was just cool, powerful stuff.

We talked about the resurrection of Jesus.

There really was a man named Jesus of Nazareth who lived when the gospel account said that he did, where they said he did, who died a real death, who was God in human flesh, made those claims, but then vindicated every 1 of his claims when he rose from the dead, a real event in history, yeah?

We would not be here, there'd be no generation of youth for Christ if he wasn't risen from the dead, right?

Because you have to have Christ to have a generation of youth for Christ.

And then in the last session just now, we talked about the quiet and the pain.

Where is God in terms of, it seems like quiet, if somebody said, oh yeah, there's a God and there's, you know, he's capable of miracles and all sorts of things You're like, well, I don't really see that kind of stuff happening in the world the same way that I seem to read it in The Bible, right?

So we talked about some of that but then even probably more importantly we talked about How do we wrestle through the pain and the agony of real sorrow and trauma and evil that we experience in this world in the light of the fact that the Bible says that God is all-powerful and all-good, right?

And the heart of it basically came to, I don't know, what did we come to, friends?

What was the big slam-bang finish about it?

The story of the cross, the message of the gospel is that God himself knows what it is to suffer.

If any of this is interesting to you, let me know and I'm happy to hook you up with any further extended resources because I'm like I'm like this smart and there's other people who are a whole lot smarter, right and so but welcome Today we are venturing now into The first of 2 specifically more Adventist style topics.

I think that it's I think that it sometimes you know produces this mental image Of the person who's like basically got you machine gun against the wall and they're like no you're gonna you're gonna hear all my good Reasoning and then you are going to factually assent to being a believer, right?

Yeah Right, and then you when you get to the pearly gates you will pass you will pass the basic 25 you know 25 multiple-choice question test that makes you qualify to be a man it's like no not at all it's gonna be a lot of people Matthew 7 says that come rolling up to Jesus we're gonna say Lord do we do all these amazing things in your name in other words weren't we super present truth people Didn't we do a lot of incredible things?

We did seminars, we cast out demons in your name, we did incredible things.

Jesus will say, apart from me, I never knew you, you workers of lawlessness.

My goodness, all this time you thought heaven was a place, turns out heaven's a person.

So we're gonna talk today about something that's really on my heart and we'll start off with a word of prayer.

Father, I'm a big fool, but I determined to know nothing else except you and you crucified.

And I ask that you'd speak through that, the willingness of a fool who said yes, and God, that you guide your people here, that you've brought here.

I will never know most of them till eternity, but for whatever reason You have brought The paths and the strands of our lives to this moment to this room for this time and I ask that you'd make it something that needs to be what it needs to be.

I pray this in Jesus name shield me if I'm gonna say something that's wrong.

The imperative from our friend Peter, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you yet do it with what?

You're not gonna do it in gentleness and respect.

It wasn't Jesus speaking through you, right?

You can still say something that's true and that's hard cutting and hard hitting but you can do it in a way that's gentle and respectful but always have a reason for the hope that is in you.

Don't be like my friend who called me up 1 day and said hey I'm talking to this guy here what is it that we believe about hell again?

Well For those of you who don't understand the joke, you know, if you have to ask that, you don't actually believe it, right?

Sister White says this, there's an eloquence far more powerful than the eloquence of words and the quiet, consistent life of a pure, true Christian.

For the sake of time, I'm going to jump into this next bit of it Look what she says here only through a living faith in Christ as a personal Savior Is it possible to make our influence felt in a skeptical world.

No other influence that can surround the human soul has such power as the influence of an unselfish life.

The strongest argument in favor of the gospel is a loving and lovable Christian.

If you get nothing else, hold on to Jesus.

And when your friends and your people and your community and your circles ask you questions about your faith, let the presence and the person and the love of Jesus shine through more than your ability to be very articulate and have good answers.

People aren't looking for you to always have the right answers.

Sometimes they're looking for you to be the presence of Jesus in their life, right?

Which might look more like, I mean, like in Elijah's case, it meant like a nap and making him some food, right?

You remember that story love that story so good the remnant elitism or evangelism Start off with a question each time.

I'm gonna have you I'm a classroom teacher Turn to somebody next to you Imagine that somebody casually strikes up a conversation with you and you mention that you're, oh yeah, we're Seventh-day Adventists, and they're like, oh, you know, the knowing, oh, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah.

They start kind of sizing you up and like you look like you need more protein in your diet, whatever it is, right?

And they make some remark about like you're the ones who Like think that your church is like the only right church or something.

I don't know something some remnant something like that What would you say?

If somebody said yeah, what's that all about?

Now maybe you've never even heard of this doctrine.

We'll try to define our terms here in a minute.

So it makes sense but turn to somebody next to you What would you say if somebody said?

Oh, yeah Your your movement claims to be like the 1 true church or like the final faithful church and everyone else's I don't know What would you say?

You're only gonna need the edge I want to hear from you.

I would say, I hope you feel the same way.

I would say that the idea of a remnant of the biblical truth that we see throughout Scripture.

Okay, yeah, I had a fun conversation with my uncle about this once What an arrogant claim like well, like the word is actually in the Bible Do you like the Bible?

So like it's that's a thing right somebody is gonna be that group What about us?

Series

Biblical Faith - Secular World

The Remnant: Elitism or Evangelism?

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

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Sound Doctrine