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

Heavenly Father, we are come together just now, seeking your presence.

And I'm praying right now That You would turn our minds away from maybe the busyness of the week, from trials, from whatever may be going through our minds, and just now that our minds would be locked into Your Word.

I pray that Your Holy Spirit would rain down upon us, that You would teach us what You would have us to know and that You would make us the people that You want us to be, that we would be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

I pray that You would give wisdom, that You would give the words, that anything that should be left out would be left out, and exactly what you would have in these moments would be spoken.

If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Genesis 3, right there in the beginning.

Now, you may know Genesis chapter 3 and obviously you go back there right to the very beginning to Genesis chapter 1, you have the story of the creation.

Everything at the end of chapter 1, the Bible says everything was very good.

Then we come to Genesis chapter 2, we have a kind of a deeper understanding of what was taking place in Genesis chapter 1.

And then in Genesis chapter 3 we have the depiction of the fall.

The fall taking place, and it says in Genesis chapter 3, beginning right there in verse 1.

Genesis chapter 3 and verse 1, it says, Now the serpent was more subtle or cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.

And he said unto the woman, Yea, has God said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

So notice the very first picture, the very first mention of this serpent that we have in the Bible.

The Bible said that the first words that come out of his mouth is, yea, has God said?

So immediately as the serpent is portrayed in the scripture, now we know there's a background story, we've read Revelation, we've seen Ezekiel, we know what goes on in Isaiah, the background story of what happened in heaven.

But here in Genesis at the very beginning, the outset of scripture, we see a picture of the serpent and immediately he's questioning God's Word.

Now as we think about this, we live in a time where this question is still being asked.

Now obviously in the context here, it was about food.

All right, so the question there at the very beginning was about food.

Has God said you may not eat of all the trees of the garden?

Obviously that question is asked in many different ways.

And the woman said unto the serpent, we made you to eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not touch it, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.

Now what's interesting, we're told, we are specifically told that Eve actually overreached at this point.

She spoke more than what God had actually said.

That word, you can look up that word overreached.

We could add to the Word of God something ever so small, but that adding to the Word can actually bring difficulty to our own spiritual life.

Because you can imagine if, just in your imagination, if the serpent somehow got Eve to just touch it and said, well God said if you touched it you would die, and guess what, You just touched it and you haven't died, you see?

So if we add to the Word of God, we can put ourselves on a dangerous footing.

But nevertheless, this serpent begins by asking the question, has God said?

And the same thing happens in our lives today.

Whether it's in our own mind, whether it's by outside influences, maybe we ask the question sometime.

I know my wife was sharing at a camp meeting 1 time, and a young man was basically asking the question, has God said really that we can't commit fornication?

That we can't have premarital sexual relations in these kinds of things?

And we can begin to rationalize why maybe certain things in life are okay.

Has God said, and we can have, you could list all the different things people debate.

Has God said that you cannot, you have to keep all the 10 Commandments?

That one's not important, some would say.

Virtually every question about skepticism from the Bible begins with that very question of has God really said?

And we know that we live in a time where 1 of the very clear things that is asked is has God truly said that he created the world in 6 days.

Has God really said, is that really what the scriptures teach?

Oh, you know, I know it says God created in 6 days, but does it really mean that?

Maybe those first 6 days are long, indefinite periods of time, some might say, right?

But if you read it, the Bible's very clear.

It says, and the evening and the morning were the first day, right?

And the evening and the morning were the sixth day, and it goes on through these things.

There was 1 evening and there was 1 morning.

The evolutionists, the atheists don't really care what the Bible says.

They say the evidence of science seems to show that the earth is roughly 4.6 billion years old.

That the universe is some 14 to 20 billion years old, and this whole idea that the Bible gives is just a figment of some Jew's imagination.

And so the skeptic laughs and says, you Christians live in your little imaginary world.

We live by what we can taste, what we can touch, what we can replicate in a laboratory.

But you, You pathetic little believers, you believe by faith.

Well, if that God said that, He's not scientific and He must not be a god, right?

But I want you to think about this just for a moment.

Is it true that all of the Christians live alone by faith and the evolutionists are living by reality, they are living by science?

Now, in order to answer that, first of all we have to maybe get a definition real quickly.

Now the evolutionists say you have faith, we have science.

Hebrews chapter 11, well before we go to Hebrews chapter 11, let me ask you a question.

Is faith a scientific or a religious word?

Typically we would think of it as a what?

So if it's a religious word, then you must need a religious definition for that word.

And what better place to go than the Bible for the definition, right?

Sean Nebblett

The Power of the Personal Gospel

I'm moved by the thought, the reality of just how huge you are this morning.

I'm moved in my mind by Isaiah's descriptions of the temple that you call your home, where when you open your mouth and speak, the very air turns to smoke because the air itself must praise you.

And angels, seraphim, the cherubim, the burning ones, they cover their their faces, they cover their feet at the sound of the thunder of your word.

And here, miracle of miracles, those words, we hold them between 2 black leather covers of a book.

Father I ask you to implant in us such an awe, such a respect for you and your word this morning that we will cover our faces, cover our feet, even as the angels do.

And I ask that in our ears, your word would be the thunder of high heaven to us this morning.

And I ask that we, by hearing it, by embracing it, by making it our own, would be transformed thereby.

And more than that, it is our claim, because you've told us to claim it.

You've told us 2 or 3 can come together and ask, and we will never, never be denied.

So let the word of God speak this morning and set me aside.

All right, I don't know if the original title to this message is anywhere on your documentation, but the original title was a simple two-word title, The Gospel.

But this morning I'm upgrading the title to 6 words.

1, because I think that it more fitly represents the essence of what we're talking about this morning.

And also because that's the format the rest of the titles will follow for the rest of the week.

So the title this morning is The Power of the Personal Gospel.

And I'm going to give you a thesis statement, if you will, right off the bat.

Because the gospel is a theme of such beauty and such complexity that there is no way it can be rightly delineated or described in 30 minutes.

It can be done in 30 days, but we only have 30 minutes this morning.

Before I beat around the bush and establish a bunch of supportive material and try to prove my point before I've given you my point.

I'm just going to tell you what I'm going to tell you.

Until the gospel becomes the reason why you are alive, you haven't tasted life.

Until the gospel becomes the reason why you are alive, you have not tasted life.

And I believe it is the intention of God that we should all taste life.

So join me this morning as I go back in my own mind to my office where I'm pacing, lion-like, over a little passage in Romans which we will address shortly forthwith.

And the dawn is just coming to light outside the windows on the East Wall, and I'm wrestling on my knees, on my feet, on my face, and I finally end On my knees before God saying, Lord, we have got to understand this.

This gospel, this grace, this truth, who you are.

Do we not need to understand who you are?

And then as a flash, it's like the pieces flew together in my mind, pieces from the scripture that we're about to open and others, and I understood, I saw it.

I saw that when the people of God understand who He is, really, the great controversy will be over.

That's probably what all the angels in glory would like to know.

For after all, the gospel is the story of God with us, yes?

And if God before us, who can be against us?

This king arrives to a stable, fresh from a farewell party in heaven, where all of heaven was wonderingly worshipping the 1 who spoke, And it was, who commanded, and it stood fast, this God who was always for us, and now He is God with us, and before He leaves, He promises that He will be God dwelling in us through His Spirit.

So if the Gospel is really the promise, yea, the fulfillment of this God with us, my question is this, why do we ever find ourselves alone?

And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.

This is the Son that shares glory with the Father.

The stars run in their courses, the planets spin in synchrony, and lo, the plan goes on, sustained by the heartbeat of the life of God itself.

And so, the frailty of humanity is linked with the inestimable power of the deity, of divinity.

And when the tempter catches God with us at his weakest human moment, he finds that his sophistries are still insufficient because the Word has come down and the world is no match for it.

But really, if the gospel is the undiluted power of the omnipotent God, Then why do I keep falling?

I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.

All things work together for good to those who love God.

Love claims the victory and the advantage over and over through the centuries.

And it snatches the prey from the mighty.

Out of weakness, makes men strong, waxes valiant in fight, turns to flight armies of aliens, made reference to that chapter last night, and all for a highly, highly undeserving race.

But again I ask, if the gospel is really the secret weapon of a benevolent empire, if it is really heroism at its best, the giving of life, if it is really both an end and a means, which means, which I fully espouse and agree with, then Why do I sometimes in secret or not so secret cooperate with the conspiracies of the dark side?

Why do I ever fall for the stupidity of sin and stoop to be selfish or rude or lustful or proud or hateful?

I'm going to answer that question with 2 more questions.

And for the first 1, The first question of 2, what is this gospel really?

So to answer the first 1, what is this gospel really?

I want you to turn to the book of Romans.

But I went to a Bible study once where at the end of the Bible study there was discussion, what shall we study next?

Someone suggested, oh, let's study the Book of Romans.

And immediately the consensus was, wait, if you're going to study the Book of Romans, we need to agree on our commentaries.

Because pretty much you can't understand the Book of Romans without commentaries.

And I'm here, wait, is this a Bible study or a commentary study?

I happen to think that God hides some of the clearest and simplest statements about himself.

In places like the book of Romans, which people look at and they're like, 000.

I think it's because the carnal and the careless shouldn't know.

But I think those of us who understand the love of God, when we put these difficult Bible passages against the concept, The construct of the love of God, suddenly they become utterly simple.

And we see the deepest things about who God is.

And it reads this way, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

For it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone that believeth to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith.

Alright, now by means of explanation, By means of digging into this first a little bit, I want to just define a few terms.

Anil Kanda

Who is the Lord? Always Ready for the Greatest Minds

And I am blessed every time I get to come back.

I am reminded about all my experiences at Weimar, where I made some of the most loyal friends that I've ever had, and they're still good friends today.

And they're pastoring during Bob work, evangelism, or 1 is actually finishing up his PhD down in Southern California, and we talk every other day.

You make some of the best friends you have when you're doing ministry, amen?

Weimar is very special because I went to Weimar, I believe it was 3 years after I became a Seventh-day Adventist.

And when I went to Weimar College, I got a good taste of healthy Adventism, surrounded by some good people, good teachers, wonderful experiences, got to be out here in nature.

I was born and raised in Southern California.

The biggest things we saw were pigeons and dogs.

Coming here, I saw a mountain lion, bears, you name it.

But being out here again just reminded me of many experiences.

Some of those experiences was going into the cafeteria and being a pastoral student and a young single pastoral student, you're oftentimes looking for a mate.

And so me, like several other pastoral students, we would take our Adventist home and our child guidance and we'd walk into sort of the cafeteria and we'd be like we're reading it just like this, hoping that some young single lady would see it.

And then we'd try to make eye contact with them so they could see that we are a family individual, family type person.

So these are the things that I remember coming back to Weimar College.

I'm taking off tomorrow, Maybe even tonight, I'm not quite sure, but I will be back Saturday night for the presentation.

And that's going to be about how to reach the scholarly mind.

I actually felt impressed to take a class at the local college, and it was a philosophy of science class, and I'm going to be sharing the experiences that God led me into as I took that class.

But before we go any further, why don't we bow our heads for a word of prayer.

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for this time.

And Lord, our heart's desire is, our heart's desire is openness to your spirit.

God, we need you to touch not only our mind but our hearts.

We need you to change our characters, to bring our finite self into contact with your infinite greatness so that we may be changed.

God, we are praying especially for the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

We pray and ask that when we are done with this message, we will have known we have sat at the feet of Jesus.

This is our prayer, Lord, in the name of Jesus.

All right, we're just going to make sure this clicker is working.

Well, I just had a birthday about a few days ago.

You know, every time I go home to my family, they always say to me, look at him, he's not married yet.

And they'll say things like he's got more gray hairs than the gurus.

They'll say all sorts of things like that to me.

And so, every time it's my birthday, I get to reflect upon the years that have come.

Age 34, I was born and raised in Southern California.

My parents immigrated from Northeast India or Northwest India, Punjab.

I grew up in a Hindu family with a Sikh background also.

And about 13 years ago, God led a young man to start giving me Bible studies, and we were both baptized in the year 2000.

But as I was thinking about my age, I was just looking back in all the things that I have encountered in 34 years of living, 34 years of living.

I have seen so many different things in my short life, and I just wonder about the things that are gonna take place in the future.

You know, just looking back, it seems like I have seen nations rise and nations fall within my 34 years of life.

I have seen some revolutions and counter-revolutions that have taken place.

I've seen wealth disperse and wealth lost during my time.

I've seen an entire nation come under fear because of planes that hit 2 buildings.

I've seen so much in just my short life, and I look at my life and I think to myself, Things are changing very rapidly, very quickly.

Just think about your life, maybe about 10 years ago.

Think about all the things that have taken place.

We are not living in the same America that we were living 20 years ago.

And anyone who's over the age of 25 will admit that.

We are living in a completely different world like never before.

Think about all the things that have taken place with the Internet, the advancements that have happened in our lifetime.

We have seen an entire generation go from playing out in the streets to being confined in their rooms on their iPhones and on Facebook.

You take a good look at what's happening in the world and it is unusual.

We are a generation that have experienced advancement so rapidly in our time there is no other generation that even compares to the XYZ generation.

We are living in some very unusual times.

And it's times like this that God is calling us to bear a message like never before, to present the gospel clearer than it's ever been before.

You know, we have more Bibles than we've ever had in all the history of humanity.

Right now, we have more Bibles than all the generations that have come before us.

We actually know more about the Scriptures than Abraham did.

We have more knowledge about who God is, more than even Moses himself, even more than Nehemiah.

Even the disciples did not understand the things that we understand today.

We have more information about who God is, yet the world is even more ignorant than it has ever been before.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a very special message to present and God is wanting us to understand some very special things about these messages.

Everybody take your Bible and let's go to Proverbs chapter 22.

I'm going to show you a very remarkable verse.

God has a high and holy calling for every 1 of us.

And there are going to be people within this group who will be privileged with what Proverbs chapter 22 says.

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Series

WYC 2013 Plenary Sessions

The Power of the Pure Heart

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

Did God Actually Say? Always Ready with the Word

55m

The Power of the Personal Gospel

28m

Who is the Lord? Always Ready for the Greatest Minds

55m

The Power of the Pure Faith

28m

Good News

45m

The Power of the Pure Heart

35m

What Shall I Do? Always Ready to Face Materialism

51m

The Supreme Transaction

1h 15m

May We Know? Always Ready for Scholars

1h

The Power of the Word Driven Life

34m

How Can God Know? Always Ready for the End

59m

Sound Doctrine