ASI Pacific Union 2012

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ASI Pacific Union

John Bradshaw

Pacific Union ASI Plenary Meeting, Part 1

Our Father in heaven, thank you for bringing us to this place tonight.

Just as I'm praying, the words of that old hymn come to me.

In my hand no price I bring, simply to the cross I cling.

And so thank you, Father, that we can be here tonight to discuss this this thought, this idea, this business of reflecting Christ.

We've been blessed with beautiful music tonight.

We have been encouraged with stirring testimonies tonight and now we pray expecting that your Holy Spirit will do a great work.

Speak through this faulty instrument please Lord if you would and even though we've come from our varying places and backgrounds and we've had We have distractions and bothers and burdens and things on our minds and all of that.

That as we consult and consider a passage of the Bible, your Spirit would speak.

That we would take from here the very impressions you want us to take that we would go from here somehow affected our hearts warmed our minds 1 with your mind and our purposes blended into your purposes So thank you Father for guiding and blessing now we pray confident we pray expecting and we pray in Jesus name and we said together Amen.

1960 just like this year was an election year.

And it was clear that the presidential race was going to be a close race.

The Republican Party had been holding office.

Eisenhower had been the president of these United States for 2 terms, 8 years.

And his vice president, Richard Nixon, who knows his middle name?

Richard Milhouse Nixon, Eisenhower's vice president, was seeking to win the presidency in his place.

However, on the other side of the political aisle, there was a dynamic young senator from the state of Massachusetts, 1 John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

The political campaigning was intense and it was in earnest.

This was really back before politicians learned to fight like they fight today.

President Eisenhower had something to say about who he felt was the best qualified to succeed him in the White House.

And I'm going to read to you what Eisenhower said about Richard Milhouse Nixon.

He said, Richard Nixon is superbly experienced, maturely conditioned in the critical affairs of the world.

For 8 years he has been a full participant in the deliberations that have produced the great decisions affecting our nation's security and have kept us at peace.

He has shared more intimately in the great affairs of government than any vice president in all our history.

He has traveled the world, studying first-hand the hopes and needs of more than 50 nations.

He knows in person the leaders of those nations, knowledge of immeasurable value to a future president.

By all odds, Richard Nixon is the best qualified man to be the next president of the United States.

Really, no matter how you lean politically, you have to admit that Nixon came at this thing with some very impressive qualifications.

Some years later Those very qualifications would help him succeed Lyndon Baines Johnson and become the actual President of the United States.

Nixon was a graduate of Duke University's School of Law.

He was a lieutenant commander in the Navy during World War II.

He was a congressman and 1 of the youngest vice presidents in the history of the United States.

But these and other very impressive qualifications were not enough to sway the minds of the people of the United States.

Kennedy was elected president and the rest is history.

When you open the Bible you find several characters who come at faith with very impressive resumes.

The apostle Paul was 1 who had tremendously impressive credentials.

Writing to his good friends in the city of Philippi, which is in present Macedonia in the east of Greece, near the Aegean Sea, Paul was able to recite a list of very impressive credentials, demonstrating that when it came to being religious in the terms of Jewish religion this man was eminently qualified.

If you have your Bible I invite you to open it with me to the book of Philippians and we shall look in Philippians chapter 3.

Philippians the third chapter and I'm going to read from verse 4.

He says, in verse 3 he talked about these individuals such as himself who have no confidence in the flesh.

From there he segues to verse 4 where he says, though I might also have confidence in the flesh.

I say I can't see the lights were dimmed.

Though I might also have confidence in the flesh, If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more.

Paul is saying if there's anyone who thinks that he has enough goodness in himself that he can boast of his human goodness and his own righteousness.

Paul says, if anybody can do that, he can do it more.

Verse 5, circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, and Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law, a Pharisee.

He, his mama and his daddy fulfilled the qualifications of the Lord just right when he was a little boy.

Now you might not know or you might wonder or you might have figured it out already, but somebody might say, so what, tribe of Benjamin, so what?

Wait, Benjamin was the tribe that the first king of Israel came from, King Saul.

There's a very good chance that this Paul, Saul, was named after King Saul.

Man, I come from the tribe that the first king in Israel came from.

And Hebrew of the Hebrews as touching the law are Pharisee.

Paul belonged to that little sect of people who are known for their law keeping, for their righteousness, for their law doing, for their good deeds, for their strictness.

These people, these things drive me nuts.

And Paul could say, I was 1 of the orthodoxest of the orthodox.

Concerning zeal, I persecuted the church.

When it came to touching the righteousness which is in the law, I was blameless." How many of us could say that right here?

As touching the righteousness that is in the Seventh-day Adventist Church?

So far you're doing okay, but I'm going to get you soon.

Not many people today can say they're that righteous.

But Paul had all the boxes checked, all of them.

This man was a righteous man, the way we measure righteousness as human beings touching the righteousness of the law he said blameless blameless but then notice what he said next but what things were gain to me those I counted loss for Christ." Isn't that something?

Now this fellow was somebody we could say as We say in the South, and I'm from the South, you know, North Carolina.

I mean, my wife is from North Carolina, and that's kind of home for us.

His strictness, his commitment, his righteousness, at least, I mean, this was 1 of these, this was the nice old elder at church who takes up the offering, greets people, says God bless you, happy Sabbath, and you think That man's a saint.

Paul would have been the guy in the church.

He would have been not only the elder, but he would have preached many weeks when the pastor was away.

He would have headed up the building committee.

He would have been doing visitation, everything.

This righteous man said something shocking, though.

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Pacific Union ASI Plenary Meeting, Part 1

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