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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Talking Points 2nd Quarter 2026: Growing in a Relationship With God

Kameron DeVasher

Mark Howard

01 Reality Check

I'm Cameron DeBasier and I'm Mark Howard and this is Talking Points.

We are embarking on a whole new lesson series.

New quarter and we are title of this 1 is Growing in a Relationship with God.

It's good I have to trust it's gonna be a great lesson I haven't studied all the way through it yet But that word relationship seems to be the operative focus of this whole lesson series.

Yes, in fact we're going to go into that a little bit maybe after we pray.

But we are looking at the whole quarter is going to be...

It's interesting how it's smaller on the cover and the ideas about the growing, which it certainly is, but that focuses the relationship.

Yeah, and I'm sure there's a lot to talk about.

In fact, I have some thoughts on that that I want to get into, but I want to do it after we pray.

Well, I tell you what, also I want people to notice that you are dressed up with your nice college shirt and whatnot, and I am over here slouching, But I'm not just wearing any hoodie today.

You would be slouching if you weren't wearing a BibleStudyOffer.com.

If you are not involved in local church Bible study ministry, please look into BibleStudyOffer.com.

Just go to oneaccord.cc and see how you as an individual and your church family corporately can be actively involved in a community Bible school.

You can get the gear on there, you can get this sweatshirt.

I was in a place with a Bible study offer shirt the other day.

I was in actually taking some scrap metal in a scrap metal place and a guy looks at me and he's like, tell me about that.

Just up and I'm like BibleStudyOffer.com?

Hey yeah, you go on to BibleStudyOffer.com?

I said you can get free Bible studies sent, brought directly to you.

So we always want to plug Good Ministries and that's 1 we really support here in the Michigan Conference, but we do need to focus on our Sabbath school lesson today.

Like we said, we're off to a new quarter, a new study series, we want to dive into that, but we do need to have a word of prayer first, so let me pray and then let you walk us through.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this opportunity to know you and have a relationship and grow in a relationship with you.

As we here today and throughout the Sabbath School classes around the world, study this concept of a relationship with God and what it entails and what it means for us today.

Help us to truly experience it, develop it, grow in it, and by your grace become like you.

Bless us today for we pray it in Jesus name, Amen.

All right, well, so our talking, our introduction this week I've taken from Sabbath Afternoon's lesson, a couple places in the lesson this week, let's consider the current state of our relationship with God, take an honest reality check of ourselves and listen to the solution that Jesus describes.

That's the gist of today's lesson as we're launching on a quarter of talking about how to grow in a relationship.

Well and the title of it is Reality Check so this is the diagnostic phase before we get into the solution.

What I have taken from the lesson in talking points are these.

Number 1, God wants a committed relationship.

I've taken that from Sabbath through Friday.

Well, we technically, that is a complete sentence, is a whole thought, we don't, but it's tied to number 1.

I could have said, and we'll flesh this out, we think we do, but we don't.

That would be more accurate in light of the lesson.

And then finally talking 0 by the way that was from Tuesday primarily, and then finally talking point number 3 we must choose to abide in Christ and that's taken from Wednesday and Thursday.

Okay, well let's go back to the committed relationship that God wants us to have.

What does it mean God wants a committed relationship?

Okay, well so as we highlighted, the idea is focusing on our relationship with God and I have to say that I I'm a little gun-shy with the relationship.

Relationship speak has been in the church as long as for the 30 plus years that I've come back in the church.

In fact I think it was just really gaining momentum when I came into the church and was baptized in my mid-20s.

And what I mean by that is just this emphasis on how important a relationship is.

And in fact, I'm just thinking it's like a whole thing of relationships.

There's 2 guys talking like, I don't know.

It's not like a manly relationship thing, but you're talking about something different.

Relationship is a broad word and there are different kinds of relationship and so my experience as a member and then later as a pastor in the church is that many members have used relationship as an excuse not to have a good relationship.

In other words, when I'm not doing what I know I should be doing, and somebody presses on me, and the pastor may appeal to me or an elder or something, I say, hey listen, back off man, I'm in a relationship with Jesus.

And the implication is, hey, I might not be doing all the things right or I may be keeping all the rules, but at least I'm in a relationship.

And not just that, but from a perspective of it's being used in a way to make it sound like I'm in a good relationship, and so I'm qualifying there.

It was the late pastor Richard O'Phill who used to say that, you know, we talk about relationships, He's like, the devil has a relationship with Jesus.

But technically that's a form of relationship.

Yeah, but the point is, and I didn't say it was a good relationship, and so we can tend, and I say we, the lesson isn't doing this.

I think the lesson is a good lesson, but I can already see in our Sabbath school classes, it may come as a surprise, but not all of our Sabbath school classes actually pay a lot of attention to the lesson.

They say they see the title and then they just run with their ideas.

They start talking about their opinions and relationships and so it needs to be understood that while it's true that God desperately wants a relationship with us, he doesn't want just any old relationship.

He wants a committed relationship with us.

A quality of relationship that is where we're committed to him and not just surpassing because again we have different relationships with different people and some are better than others.

It's kind of like the word love, we don't want to just have love, we want biblically informed what is the true meaning and what is this relationship God wants.

That's right and so the lesson the quarterly on Sabbath afternoon makes a statement that a relationship with God changes everything both here and into eternity and the lesson is talking about a good relationship with God but I want to pick up on that and say it's true that a relationship with God changes everything both here and into eternity, but that change can be either good or bad depending on the quality and kind of relationship.

And so that in fact that's right where the lesson is going to the Laodicean message and that's right where the Laodicean message goes as we'll get into it.

Yeah, okay, so you know I'm just thinking that relationship itself is generically good but we need to drill down into it and add some of those qualifiers and see what the Bible says about that.

I have a note here in our handout that in the modern church, and this is not just in our Adventist Church, but in the modern church God is often portrayed as the doting, lovelorn boyfriend.

Now I've commented to you in our- we are getting ready.

They used to have a billboard as many years ago, but they had these black billboards with white letters, these notes from God, and I remember 1 that said, if you have some time, come on over before the big game.

Now this is assuming that people go to church on Sunday, and Sunday is football Sunday, and the priority of people is going to be football, and here's God saying, yeah, but if you can just eke out a little time for me.

And so here's God, and I remember a sermon by a Baptist evangelist named Paul Washer where he made the point that God is not a beggar with a tin cup.

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Series

Talking Points 2nd Quarter 2026: Growing in a Relationship With God

01 Reality Check

Transcript

Parent Series

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Parts

01 Reality Check

30m

Sound Doctrine