WYC 2013: Always Ready

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GYC West

WYC 2013 Seminar: Always Ready for Family

Nebblett Family

Prepared to Seek

I am the head of the Neblett family, but there would be no family Father's Day just passed.

There would be no family if there wasn't anyone with me.

And I'm very delighted that I have my bride with me here, Maria, and our 3 young people.

There are 4 young people in my family, young adults, young adults, 4 young adults, but 1 of them is now a part of another family, and so we've adopted him as a part of our family as well.

So we say we have 5 people in our family.

And she now lives with her husband in Oklahoma.

So we'll talk a little bit more about their story in the next breakout session, but our session today is Always Ready for Family, being ready for family.

And Sean is going to begin our session this morning, and our message this morning is entitled, Prepare to Seek.

Heavenly Father, we're just so thankful for the opportunity that you give us to be here today, to share together from our hearts, and we ask that you will teach us what we need to know.

For we desire to have families that are modeled after heaven and we want to be able to enter those pearly gates with our families.

And so Lord, teach us what we need to know, that we are ready to go home with you when you come in the clouds of glory, as a family, in Jesus' name, amen.

The word ready implies a certain level of preparation, yes?

Preparation without which any dreams of success are just a phantom.

And so what we're talking about being always ready, always prepared, but the theme of this conference is always ready, not always preparing.

So, as we're going through this, what we're gonna do is briefly and hopefully clearly assert some foundational principles.

And then as we go along, we're going to build on this foundation to explore the tangible reality of how these principles are applied in real life.

So as we seek to interweave the concepts of preparation, the process of preparation, and the the concept of being ready right now, not at some point in the future.

As we do that, we're gonna establish this morning 5 critical elements that are absolutely necessary for our future happiness and usefulness, not only as individuals, but as families.

So in this starting section we're going to dive into the present practical, you know, in the starting segment we're going to dive into the principles.

In coming segments, we'll dive more into the practical application, as Father mentioned a moment ago.

So this seminar this morning is entitled Prepared to seek fundamental foundations to build in your youth.

Matthew 6 holds a very common, very well-known principle in passage that I think we're all familiar with, and that is this, Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added.

Which says to me something very important.

Everything that we desire, everything that we pursue, our quest for readiness, our pursuit of heaven, our desire to bless and heal, our desire to give, to live fully alive, to be a blessing, all of those things start in 1 place.

And that place is with the seeking of heaven.

Of nothing else in the universe can it be more truly said if you don't have it, or in this case if you don't have Him.

If you don't have Christ, we don't have anything.

So to find anything good, we start by seeking Christ.

Over and over again, the writers of Scripture, the lessons of history, nature itself, they trumpet this charge in our hearing.

And without this foundation everything else is basically useless.

So what we're going to cover in this first hour is the preparation of seeking.

The foundation of that seeking Christ, that seeking God, that seeking righteousness plays in our readiness to be all that God wants us to be.

I want you to open your scripture, if you have scripture with you, to Mark chapter 8, verses 34 through 36.

This little passage of scripture is gonna serve as kind of our blueprint for the next hour, our outline, if you will.

And we'll just begin by reading it together, and then we'll kind of start breaking it down into pieces.

Mark chapter 8, 34 through 36, and it reads, When He had called the people unto Him, with His disciples also, He said unto them, Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, But whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and for the gospel's, the same shall save it.

For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?

Now I find something very interesting about this passage of scripture.

Before the very first imperative, which is, let him deny himself, there is a very vital implication.

In that coming, in that implication, whosoever will come after me, this is who we're talking about in this verse, I also see a command.

And I think that this lies at the very foundation of the process that we want to go through, the reasoning process that is laid out in this scripture.

So I want to start by telling you a story, a true story.

It's a story about a beautiful girl, at least he thought so.

She was his companion through thick and thin.

She was the best in her class, smart, alert, educated, dedicated, unwaveringly determined, and they made a winning team.

She with her senses, he with his training, together a weapon of war.

And the 2 of them were on assignment in Vietnam.

And they spent their days either patrolling the perimeter of the base or sniffing out snipers or you name it, as soldiers and their dogs do.

But 1 day on patrol, no, 1 day on patrol, often on patrol, daily on patrol, as the 2 of them would be out walking jungle trails, The dog would often stop dead in her tracks, and soldier instantly responsive to the cue would stop as well.

And the dog would put her nose to the earth and sniff and search until she found the thread, the filament, often a trip wire to a mine, that it was his finest dental floss.

And he would get on his hands and knees till he found it.

And the 2 of them together would go over, under, around, whatever was required.

And time and time and time again, the dog saved the soldier's life.

And over and over again, he, through his understanding of tactics, saved the dog, guarded the dog from enemy fire.

The 2 of them made a team, but there came a day when the man on patrol, the soldier on patrol, his footfall found a pressure cap and the dog and the man were both thrown in a ball of fire.

And how long he'd been there he did not know, But when he started to regain his consciousness in the fog of the blackness slowly creeping away, his first thought was of guess who?

Well, he didn't have long to wait to answer that question, because as his eyes cracked open, the first sight he saw was the face of his dog, leaning over, looking into his eyes with an expression that only a dog can give.

And all at once, his heart leapt, because yes, she was alive.

But then a moment later, a second thought followed hot on its heels as he looked down, and he saw what he should never have seen.

Where used to be his uniform, now he could see 1 of his lungs.

And 1 of his arms was mangled, almost completely gone.

And the thought that followed hot on the heels of, where is my dog?

And another thought followed hot on the heels of that thought, And that was, she must not watch me die.

And so this soldier gripped with a determination that watching him die would not be the last gift he gave to his friend.

He mustered all of the strength he could and commanded the dog to go home.

And the dog stared at him as if to say, are you crazy?

And as soldier repeated the command, go home, The dog turned and walked away a dozen paces, then hesitated and turned and came back.

And the soldier repeated the charge with more fervency, with more strength, go home.

The dog turned again, walked 5 or 6 paces, and returned again.

And finally, the Marine raises 1, the 1 unmangled arm, strikes the dog that was his friend.

And with all the strength he can muster through grinding teeth says, go home.

But only 1 or 2 paces And then she returns and lies down by the side of her dying friend as if to say, I'm not going home without you.

What happens when you put love against love?

Prepared to Love

The organizers of GYC West requested that we speak about a subject that is near and dear to the hearts of the young people in our home anyway, and that is on the issue of courtship.

Or to put it another way, how do you go about having or creating a God-honoring union?

And So with that in mind, we want to share for the second seminar, Preparing to Love on the Formation of a God-Honoring Union.

Now I will say this at the outset, and then we'll have prayer, that this seminar is going to be more informal than our previous seminars.

And to be very honest with you, we, our family, did not feel qualified to talk about courtship when we had not gone through courtship before.

Well, we have now had that experience with our oldest daughter who is enjoying and we're seeing the fruits of a God-honoring union.

And I have to tell you, there is nothing sweeter to see, and there's nothing that you would not want to have.

So on the subject of relationships and courtship, 1 thing becomes very clear.

You will either follow after the pattern of the world, or you will follow after what the word says to do.

If you want to have a God-honoring union, a marriage where heaven on earth approximates heaven, then you're going to have to follow what the Word has to say, than rather what the world has to say.

So young people, if you want to be chosen to be set apart for God, then you have to set your heart on the Lord Jesus Christ.

And you have to go to the Lord Jesus Christ to ask what do I need to do in order to have a marriage that is God honoring.

So today what we want to do is to talk about, we cannot be comprehensive, we want to talk about 3 principles that are important, we believe, in forming a God-honoring union.

By no means is it going to cover everything.

But as we share from our hearts to yours, we ask that you would ask the Holy Spirit to show you what you need to do.

Precious Heavenly Father, we are getting into a very important subject, because we know that you desire above all that our lives reflect what the kingdom of heaven is based on, that is love, and that the unions that we are part of also reflects the kingdom of heaven.

And so we ask that you would call to our hearts where you need to, Teach us what we need to know and help us above all to go to you for the answers and not the world in Jesus precious name Amen So there are 3 Principles that we want to share with you today That young people can adopt which will help to facilitate a God-honoring union.

So those are the 3 things we want to talk about today, waiting on the Lord, accountability, and authenticity.

We have chosen to call this 3 disciplines because all 3 of these things, and I will, As we go into it, you'll understand more the importance of each.

But all 3 of these things require self-discipline.

It's in the way of the world, young people, this is an area that of course every young person is interested in.

It's an area where it's very difficult to submit to the authority or the counsel of parents or even friends and godly mentors.

And so young people tend to simply follow their inclinations.

They seem to be, to lose their intelligence, to be only subject to hormones, to be oblivious to the danger that they are in, seemingly blind and ignorant of their dire need in this area more than any other probably of the wisdom of God and the judicious counsel of godly mentors and parents.

So we want to appeal to you young people that if you want to set your heart on the glory of God, you have to manage this area of your life very differently from the way that the world does it.

And so the very first discipline is the discipline of waiting on the Lord.

And let me share with you a few verses before we talk about that.

Psalm 27, 14 says, Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thy heart.

Friends, God makes everything beautiful in his time.

Ecclesiastes chapter 3, I didn't write it down here.

There's a time and a season for everything.

And so as young people get into their teens and their awakens in their hearts, the question, the desire, the interest, It's hard, it's hard to hold back.

But if we wait on God, it can be more beautiful than what you can imagine.

And I'll tell you, as I go into the story, I'll share with you a few more verses before I go into Shante and Luke's story.

But we saw that portrayed in their story very beautifully, that it is worth the wait.

It is worth the sacrifice that it is for a young person to just go to sleep in this area of life until God says it's time to wake up.

1 of the important things to pay attention to is that we need to be content with God's providential leadings for the present.

Right now in your youth, redeem the time, being eager to discern and to embrace God's purpose for your single years, to engage in your education.

Phil Mills, who wrote a syllabus on courtship based on the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy, which I recommend very highly.

We use this very closely as we were going through this experience.

I guess I cannot, I'm connected here, but I just want to show it to you.

It's called Preparation for a Happy Marriage.

And Phil says, to be happily married, we must first be happily single.

If you have the thought in your mind that if you could only get into that, you know, get into that, having a relationship as your friend has a relationship, you would be happier.

If you are not perfectly happy right now, you will not be happy then.

Discontent will arise and conflict will begin.

This is an excellent time, that waiting period, as you're waiting on the Lord, is an excellent time to address areas of character weakness and develop strengths in those areas, which will pave the way for you to be able to build a relationship that will end in a happy, strong marriage that will bless not only you, but will bless all those within the sphere of your influence.

True contentment is something to cultivate.

And that contentment remains undaunted, even with the thought that comes to every young person's mind at some point or another, What if it's God's will for me not to get married?

And some young people respond to that thought with dread.

True contentment can even look at that possibility and find that if that is the perfect will of God in your life, perfect will of God concerning you, He can give you the joy and the fulfillment that others find in marriage.

Paul said, I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content, Philippians 4.11.

In everything give thanks, whether in singleness or in a relationship, for this is the will of Christ Jesus concerning you.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, make your requests made known to God.

Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.

Trust, trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass and He shall bring forth thy righteousness.

Here's a promise, if we choose to do this, to delight ourselves in the Lord, instead of being in a hurry for that special relationship to begin.

Delight yourself in the Lord, and then that promise will be fulfilled in your life.

He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgment as the noonday.

Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him." As a rule in our family, over the years, as we studied this topic, we decided that for us, the rule of thumb was going to be based on a comment that Ellen White makes, and that is that the minimum age of safety, Because this is a decision that affects the rest of your life, that requires a great deal of maturity, spiritually and otherwise.

So the minimum age in our minds, in the minds of our young people, and this is a thought that we nurtured from early on, was 20.

This is the beginning of the season when it is safer to get into this kind of decision making.

A youth not out of his teens is a poor judge of the fitness of a person as young as himself to be his companion for life.

Now, this does not necessarily mean that a person that is 20 years old is ready.

There are times when it requires more time.

Our daughter Shante, who is now a very happily married girl, was actually 27 when her relationship, well, when she married Luke.

So I'm going to tell you a little bit about Shante's story before we go on.

And this is the very dangerous part of this message because my family knows that I could really lose a handle and be so wordy here that we could be here for several hours and we cannot afford to do that.

So I'm especially going to ask them to just come and stand next to me if I'm being, because this is not in my notes.

I'll just be sharing candidly from my heart.

And that is that I didn't want to forget.

And that is that Shante experienced a bit of personal attachment to a particular friendship when she was just 19 years old.

And we knew, she knew, and we knew that it was not the season for her.

She was not ready, she still had a lot of schooling ahead of her and so Shante made the decision to guard her heart from premature attachments in the years to come by keeping her friendships with young men exclusively in the context of our family friendships.

Now that's kind of a drastic decision for a young person in this day and age to make.

And we're not here today to promote that this is the way to do it, or to even judge whether this was a good choice or not.

And so she spent the majority of the first 5 years of her 20s focusing on her education, developing edifying friendships with other young ladies, and with some young men only in the context of our family friendships.

So she did relate to in friendship with young men that were in a relationship with us because our families were friends.

Prepared to Serve, Part 1

We're here for our third session this afternoon here at GYC West.

And this afternoon we are going to take a two-part message here.

Our first portion of our message today will be focusing on God's glorious plan for our families.

And we'll just sort of lay out a vision for our family and the realities of Satan's attack on God's institution.

And then in Part 2, we will talk about the solution for strengthening the family.

So we pray that as we share some of these principles, some of our thoughts with you, that you will listen to what the Holy Spirit would have you to do with your family.

And by the way, we would just like to mention that since we are here at GYC West, and this is what we were asked to speak of, we know that we have young people who are gonna be listening to these messages as well, and they may say, well, I don't have a family right now.

But we want to encourage you that as you sort of listen to some of these things that we're going to share that you can begin to prepare for success because I have to tell you that the enemy is not committed to the success of a godly, God-fearing family, Not at all.

So why don't we just bow our heads for a word of prayer and we will begin.

Heavenly Father, we just want to thank you for the opportunity that we have today to share from our hearts what you have taught us.

And we pray, Father, that those who are here will take the principles that are shared and use them as your Holy Spirit indicates, that they may be determined to have a family that will be God-honoring.

Now we want to begin at the outset by saying that the concept of family has been in the heart of God throughout eternity.

And this is long before He created Adam and Eve, because God is a part of a family.

And he has existed throughout all eternity in this family, very much where they were of 1 heart and mind.

So God, understanding what family is about, God being having the kingdom related on love, we recognize that relationships is important to him.

And so, as we begin to look at God's character and throughout the scriptures, we can see pictures of how God wants to relate to us.

And you know, it can start off in the Garden of Eden.

When he came in and he would walk and talk in the evening with Adam and Eve.

And we can also see how, as God related to man, how man's heart was captured by the love of God, like Enoch.

So captured that God just said, come on in and just keep walking and just come with me to heaven.

But also, even in the stories that we would read to our children of the little maid.

How many of you young people know about the story of the little maid?

And even though she was taken out of her family, away as a captive in a strange land, nevertheless having God as her family, even though she was not with her own family, and how God can use her to reach other people is just such a wonderful testimony to what love can do.

Well, we can see based on the reading of the book of Psalms, and I'm now currently reading Psalms, And as I read the accounts of David and as he talks about God, I have to tell you, for a person very left-brain like myself, just to hear his description about his, just his absolute love of God and how he depended upon God's love for him to protect him from his enemies is just a marvelous thing to see.

Well this has inspired us when we about 20 plus years ago as young parents we began to respond to the loving entreaties of God and began to think about how we could be more intentional about our relatedness to God and how it would impact on our family.

You know, we wanted to be able to relate to God as Enoch, related to God.

And so, God began to lead us on a journey, which has been rich, filling us with a lot of meaning and purpose in our lives, and he has helped to turn our hearts, the hearts of us parents, toward our children, and the hearts of our children to us as parents.

So we want to share with you some of the insights that we have gained throughout that journey.

You know, for years, our family has desired to be more responsive to God's love, more capable of fulfilling His vision for families, and more grounded in His Word, and more steadfast in our faithfulness to our understanding of what that Word called us to do, not just as individuals, but as a family, and how we could be more efficient in our service for God as we were doing that.

So we began to ask ourselves some questions.

How do we shape, we parents, shape a godly vision for our family at this time in Earth's history?

Another question we asked ourselves was how do we reveal the character of God and communicate that vision to our children?

And how do we lead our children to develop a passion for God's service, for rescuing the lost, and inspiring them to stand alone when all around them, their friends or others, were completely disloyal to God.

So in praying and studying to answer these questions, we were led into deeper study to broaden our understanding of what God's purpose was for the family.

So, as we began to understand it, I began to read the Bible from the perspective of family.

And 1 of the first Bible patriarchs that I saw that exemplified my understanding of what the family was about was Abraham.

You know this when I began to read what God had to say to Abraham and to other patriarchs about the family It was very interesting what I read.

If you have your Bibles with you, or if you can turn to the Word of God, look at Deuteronomy chapter 6.

Now we're going to look at the first 2 verses.

Now what we began to see as we saw how God made covenants with Adam and with other of the patriarchs in the Bible, there was something that you would...

You know, the family of man would either receive blessings or curses depending upon whether they obeyed or disobeyed the commandments of God.

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Series

WYC 2013 Seminar: Always Ready for Family

Prepared to Stand

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

Prepared to Seek

1h

Prepared to Love

50m

Prepared to Serve, Part 1

51m

Prepared to Serve, Part 2

1h

Prepared to Heal

1h

Prepared to Stand

1h

Sound Doctrine