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Sabbath School 2nd Quarter 2026: Growing in a Relationship With God

Mark Finley

01 Reality Check

Welcome to another series of Sabbath School Lessons.

Our lessons this quarter are entitled Growing in a Relationship with God.

As I have gone through the first few lessons and have been studying them, I've been deeply impressed with the spiritual impact of these lessons in my own life.

In the introduction to the lessons, our author, Nina Acheson, says this, no matter where you are in your spiritual journey, no matter where you find yourself today, the topic of how to grow in a meaningful relationship with God is crucial.

Our fellowship with God, our personal relationship with God, our intimate relationship with God makes all the difference in everything else that we do and know in life.

A little later on in the introduction to the lessons, it says, the lessons are written in a more personal style because they're about a personal God who wants to know you personally.

Most of the time in our Sabbath School lessons we have material that explains biblical doctrine or biblical truth.

This series is a little bit different because it really speaks to the heart in each lesson.

Nina challenges us to go deeper in our spiritual experience.

The first lesson is entitled Reality Check.

The memory verse is, as the Father loved me, I also have loved you, abide in my love." The lesson begins with a series of questions, questions that really probe our own spirituality.

How would you describe your relationship with God today?

Do you spend time investing in this relationship, searching his inspire word and talking to him as a friend?

For any relationship to be strong, you have to invest time in it.

If you want a good relationship with your wife or your husband, you spend time with them.

With your children, you spend time with them.

Can you have a close friend that you don't spend time with?

So friendship requires an investment of time.

And that's the way it is with the things of eternity, an investment of time.

Sunday's lesson leads us right into the 3 angels' messages and particularly the message of the 7 churches.

Of course, the 3 angels' messages are in Revelation chapter 14, but the first of those 3 angels' messages says, Fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come.

In the light of the judgment hour, God has given to us a message in the book of Revelation chapter 3.

It's the last of the 7 churches, very much connected to the 3 angels' messages.

Now if I ask the average person, what does Laodicea mean?

They would respond and say it means lukewarm.

Well, that's the condition of the church.

But the word Laodicea means a people adjudged.

So the 3 angels message in Revelation 14, 6 and 7 is a message to prepare for the judgment hour and the message of Revelation 3 tells us how to prepare for the judgment hour.

So let's jump right into Revelation chapter 3 verse 14 to 17.

Revelation chapter 3 verse 14 says, and to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans, so the angel of the church of the judgment hour, write, These things says the Amen, the faithful and true witness.

The Laodicean church is the last of the churches.

That's why the Bible puts an Amen after it.

Amen usually comes at the end of a prayer, so be it.

But there's not another church, another movement that's to come out of Laodicea.

There's no remnant that comes out of the remnant.

When God says Amen, I believe Amen, right?

And then the scripture says the faithful and true witness.

Jesus faithfully witnesses of the Father.

He is the true witness of the Father's love and grace.

The scripture then says he's the beginning of the creation of God, not beginning in the sense that he was created first.

The word beginner there is archaic, which means the beginner of the creation of God, the all-powerful creator.

Jesus, the true witness, reveals to us of God's love and grace.

He is the beginner of the creation of God, the all-powerful Creator.

So if he's the all-powerful Creator, he can recreate our hearts.

He can take away our disease, lukewarmness and complacency, and place within us a new passion for him, a new passion for his word, a new spiritual vitality.

The scripture says here, 2, I know your works, you're neither cold nor hot, I wish you were cold or hot, so then because you are lukewarm and neither cold or hot, I'll spew you out of my mouth.

So here is this idea of lukewarmness, it's spiritual apathy.

It is not the coldness of rejection of Christ in his Word, not the hotness of passion for Jesus, but rather a spiritual apathy, a dullness spiritually, a loss of spiritual vitality.

But then he says, you say that I'm rich, verse 17, have become wealthy and have need of nothing.

See, this is spiritual arrogance where people feel, you know, we have the richness of doctrinal truth, we have the wealth of schools and hospitals, and we have need of nothing.

We have a worldwide system of missionaries and a worldwide reaching out with community services.

So it can lead to a spiritual dullness but you don't realize you're miserable, poor, blind and naked.

Now this is kind of a very strong indictment.

If you recognize it, and I think it's put well in our lesson where it says in the lesson under our condition, the paragraph under read Revelation 3.14-17, it says, Jesus tells us, individual Christians who live in the last days that he knows us.

We're neither hot or cold because from our vantage point, We don't need anything.

The days and weeks pass by, and we can spend a little time with God here and there, and we think that's enough, but it's not.

Instead, we actually need him far more desperately than we realize.

If only we could love and live for Jesus wholeheartedly, or not at all.

You see, what counsel then does Jesus give to the church at Laodicea?

No, the almighty, all powerful creator speaks to Laodicea and he says, "'I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire.'" I thought salvation was free.

Well, you remember if you go over and read Isaiah 55, he tells us that we need to buy, we need to purchase something.

Isaiah 55, it says, Ho, everyone who thirsts, who thirsts for a deeper spiritual experience, who thirsts for the things of God, come to the waters, you who have no money, come, notice, buy and eat, come buy wine, the wine of the gospel, and milk, the milk of the word, without money and without price.

So the scripture tells us to come and buy without money.

Just like 1 invests their money to ensure a profitable return so we invest our time.

Our time in getting to know God, our time in studying his word, our time in prayer.

I'm reminded of Ellen White's statement where she says, consecrate yourself to God in the morning.

With the investment of time spent with God.

Well, Peter talks about gold as faith and love.

How do we get that faith that works by love?

By reading his word, by beholding we become changed.

And then it says in White Raimonds, what are the White Raimonds?

His righteousness that clothes us, his righteousness that covers our sins, his righteousness that transforms our lives, that we may be clothed in the shame of our nakedness that may not appear.

In Christ we appear before God just as if we'd ever sinned.

We come, saturate our minds with his word.

We are prompted by his spirit to know him more deeply.

And as he gives us that faith, we believe through faith in His righteousness that covers us, His righteousness that changes us.

Then it says that your eyes can have eye salve.

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Series

Sabbath School 2nd Quarter 2026: Growing in a Relationship With God

01 Reality Check

Transcript

Parent Series

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Parts

01 Reality Check

20m

Sound Doctrine