iShare 2014: Light

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Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

iShare 2014 Plenary Sessions

Anthony Baca

Commencement Message iShare 2014

Taariq Patel

Testimony

Anil Kanda

Dwelling in the Secret Place

Leah Jordache

Do This and You Will Live

Kyle Allen

Daniel Garza

Scott Mayer

Vera Onkoba

Adam Patel

Arnold Trujillo

Sabbath School Panel

Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.

Our gracious Heavenly Father, we come before you this evening first and foremost to praise you, to thank you for being the God of love that you are, for putting a calling upon us, for each of us in this room whom you have called from darkness to marvelous light.

I thank you for the privilege to teach my friends here for the last 2 years and to be privileged to be asked to share 1 last message with them.

Be with my mouth as you have been before.

Lift Christ up that he may be seen and I pray that you would prepare us Lord for the things that are soon to come.

1 of the biggest challenges whenever I'm asked to speak is I never know what to say.

And especially when I'm asked to say the last thought to the class of Souls West, it's even harder to know what to say.

In fact, I remember the last week of classes, when the staff were given their last worships and I gave my last worship, I knew it wasn't my last worship.

So I didn't have the weight in my mind then, but I have the weight now.

And as I was thinking and praying about what to share with you, a thought came to my mind, and you can open your Bibles to the book of 2 Peter chapter 1.

A thought came to my mind on what to share for you, with you, Knowing that you're about to go out, some of you to be Bible workers, some of you to go back to school and to be used in campus ministries, some of you to go into health ministries or wherever God may lead you.

And I thought, what should I share with my friends?

And in 2 Peter 1, I was reading this book, which is 1 of my favorite books, and a text came out that you should know very, very, very, very well by now.

Chapter 1, and we're going to read verse 12.

2 Peter chapter 1 verse 12 says, wherefore, I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them and be established in the present truth.

I thought to myself, how can I not be a negligent teacher?

Simply remind class of 2014 of what they already know, lest they forget.

And I thought to myself as I read this text and as I've spoken on this text as we've had worships on this text the importance of the thought of it's not what you know or how much you know per se but it's what you think about.

There's a temptation when you come to the place that you've come to in your experience.

When you've graduated from a Bible college, as we heard a student mention earlier, she is now a scholar, praise God.

Remember verse 2 of this chapter because it's a verse that has been helpful to me since I've graduated soul, since I have learned some things from the Bible.

The Bible says, and if any man thinks he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know it.

You, when you think of a graduation, you think of it's over.

You think of it's accomplished as it was said earlier, but in reality it's just beginning.

The road, the gates are opening wide and the journey continues from here.

So With this in mind, I decided tonight's message is going to be 1 of a reminder, a way of reminding you of something that you should already know, but it's okay that we're doing that because even if we know something, we don't know it as well as we should know it.

The rest of the night will be spent pretty much there.

A month ago I was studying Romans chapter 1, and as I was going through this epistle, through this chapter specifically, I noticed something very important to me that stood out.

And it's describing a group of people that I do not want to be a part of.

The Bible says, Wherefore God also gave them up.

The Bible says in verse 21, because that when they did what?

Describing this group of people in Romans chapter 1, Did they know God or did they not know God?

Now I was interested in which word in the original language was this word and it is that word ginosko, that word that describes not simply intellectual knowledge but experiential knowledge.

In other words, this verse is describing a group of people who in all reality know God.

They know Him in the way the Bible asks us to know God.

In other words, the verse that says, this is life eternal, that they know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent, they knew God that way.

I believe over the last 2 years especially you have come to know God.

You've had an experience with God and many times when we have an experience with God when we come to know him we may think we're invincible.

But notice what the verse goes on to say.

It says, because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

I want you to look at this text carefully and think what happened to this group of people.

The Bible says they knew God but something changed in their experience.

Their imaginations or if I could say simply the things that they thought about.

For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

So this text here is speaking about the what?

Something changed in this group of people and what changed?

Now what changed and what was the result?

Verse 22, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible mad and to birds and to four-footed beasts and creeping things.

The people who knew God, something changed in their minds.

We don't know what it is yet, but we know their minds became vain and darkened.

They have gone from worshiping the creator to worshiping an idol.

Now I remember when I first became a Christian 6 years ago and I was told that thou shall not bow down to graven images, to idols, I thought to myself, well that's the easiest commandment to keep Because there's no more tree-like cutouts to bow down to.

I mean, there's a Buddha at the Thai restaurant, but no 1 bows down to it.

And so we see these different objects, but in my mind, it was the easiest commandment to keep.

Because let's be real, do any of us worship idols in this room?

Do any of us bow down to carved images in this room?

I want to read to you a quote from Testimonies Volume 4, page 632.

Series

iShare 2014 Plenary Sessions

Commencement Message iShare 2014

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

True Education

Communion with God in Nature

1h 1m

Prophecy Seminar

The Mark of the Beast

43m

God is Love?

19-The Mark of the Beast

1h

The Word

1h 12m

The Art of End Time Preaching

6. Tools of Creative Language and Speech

1h 20m

Summary and Conclusion

39m

Jesus Throughout the Bible

1h 17m

Christ in Daniel

Christ in Daniel- Part 5

1h 16m

Why Am I a SDA?

1. Does the Truth Really Matter?

35m

Preparing for the Latter Rain: The Judgment Hour Message

Defining Sin

1h 25m

Morning Devotional

The First and Final Forerunners

1h 3m

The Almost Overmastering Delusion

54m

Sound Doctrine