WYC 2013: Always Ready

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GYC West

WYC 2013 Plenary Sessions

Chad Kreuzer

Did God Actually Say? Always Ready with the Word

Sean Nebblett

The Power of the Personal Gospel

Anil Kanda

Who is the Lord? Always Ready for the Greatest Minds

Natasha Dysinger

The Power of the Pure Faith

Subodh Pandit

Good News

The Power of the Pure Heart

Fadia Kreuzer

What Shall I Do? Always Ready to Face Materialism

The Supreme Transaction

May We Know? Always Ready for Scholars

Joshua Nebblett

The Power of the Word Driven Life

How Can God Know? Always Ready for the End

Heavenly Father, this morning we come before you.

We've already spent some time with you, but we're here to spend more time with you, to learn of you, to learn of your word.

Lord, you know this topic is far bigger than me, and that I would be a fool if I came here and endeavored to speak it without your help.

I pray that you would come here and that you would manifest yourself.

That you would hide me in the shadow of your wings.

That you would be with my hearers and the hearers here today and that you would help them to hear your voice, not mine.

And that if I misspeak, that you would help them not to hear that.

Thank you, please send your Holy Spirit to be with us now.

Okay, so Diving right in, let's turn to Genesis.

And the Lord said unto Abram, after that lot was separated from him, lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art northward and southward and eastward and westward for all the land which thou seest to thee will I give it and to thy seed forever.

And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.

Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and the breadth of it, for I will give it to thee.

Now we know this region now, today is the promised land, right?

God says, stand up and walk through the land.

Look in all directions, from the wilderness to Lebanon, from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates to the great sea, it's yours.

Oh, and your seed, you know, you don't have children, but your seed, they will, If someone could number the dust of the earth, which we know is impossible, then your children can also be numbered.

You who are a stranger, you who have no land to call your own, you who have no children, that's what I'm gonna do.

It's just like God to make a big outrageous promise like that.

Now Sarah, Abram's wife, bear him no children.

I mean God have you forgotten what's going on here?

You've just made this big promise that this land between the River of Egypt, the River of Euphrates, Lebanon, the wilderness, to the Great Sea that's theirs.

And it's going to be filled with their descendants that they cannot even number there's going to be so many.

And He's a sojourner here and He has no children.

What are you making these big claims for?

Do you know the feeling of God promising you that the promised land is yours?

That anything within it is in your reach, that he is going to bring forth in your life, Christ in you, the hope of glory, that he will bring forth the fruit of the Spirit in abundance.

And yet, even after he's promised all these things, we feel a little bit barren.

And like we're sojourning in a land with a bunch of kingdoms that are a lot bigger than us, like lust, or like fear, or like impatience.

And we're like, God, you've promised this, but I don't see it.

You know, I cannot stand it when God is painted as like, hoary with age and dusty and rusty and a little bit, you know, decrepit.

And we don't do this purposely, but sometimes this sort of comes out as if all the miracles that he's done, we don't see that anymore.

We know technically, at least in a group like this, that God can still do the same things he's done, that the warrior that threw down the walls of Jericho is as powerful today.

But we don't see the walls of Jericho coming down, so something must be going on.

And so we kind of reasoned it away by saying, yeah, God could do all those things, for sure, he could.

But he doesn't very often, or at least we don't see it.

And so we reasoned this away as if God's ability has not been touched by 3, 000 years, but somehow his gumption has.

Somehow now he's more content to just sit on his throne and watch what happens without being as involved in our life and experience as he was back then.

So I remember having a discussion with our neighbors, my siblings and our neighbors, we were having a lively conversation as we often do about spiritual matters, and we got into the subject of God laughing, because I'm a firm believer in the fact that God has the most interesting personality in the universe.

So we had this conversation about God laughing because Ellen White makes this little remark about when Jesus was on earth, he was often known to cry, but he was never known to laugh.

Well, I think Ellen White's remark needs to be taken in context.

She was talking about him being a man of sorrows.

But because of that quote, we got into a discussion about God laughing.

And there's actually only 4 references to God laughing in the Bible.

4 references to God laughing in the Bible.

4 references to God laughing in the Bible, and if you read them just quickly at first glance, none of them indicate like the way we would laugh, something, you know, like Funny.

He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh.

I mean, how strange for that, I mean, like, how remarkable would that be to hear God laugh?

Oh dear, I don't want God laughing at me in derision.

Why is God laughing, quote unquote, in derision?

The kings go back to verse 2 and 3, Psalm 2, 2 and 3.

The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying, let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us.

Not that God laughs at his creatures are rejecting salvation, that they're, you know, removing themselves from his beneficent rule, no.

What God is laughing about is that somehow, God's laugh is a laugh of profound strength, of unconquerable ability, A laugh that somehow, you know, the princes and powers of darkness think that somehow they can get around the muscle of omnipotence.

God laughs at the absurdity of that idea.

Somehow Christianity today is having an identity crisis for our God.

Somehow we believe that God can technically do the same things he did once upon a time but he doesn't quite do it anymore.

And so when God comes down and makes these big promises, we're like, I don't know, maybe.

Or we say we believe it, but then underline, we don't act upon it.

The God laughing is not a God in an identity crisis.

It's a God whose reign is unchanged, whose throne is immovable and eternal, who is all-powerful, whose ability is intact, whose promises are yes and amen, whose word is creative and redemptive today still.

If you do a search in the scriptures, how many times God says, I am the Lord?

It's outrageous, I forget the exact number, but it's well over 100 times.

This is no God in an identity crisis or wondering what he can do today versus could do back in the day.

I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.

Psalms 81 10, I am the Lord thy God, which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go.

Isaiah 48 17, Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh.

Series

WYC 2013 Plenary Sessions

The Power of the Pure Faith

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

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