iShare 2014: Light

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Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

iShare 2014 Plenary Sessions

Anthony Baca

Commencement Message iShare 2014

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.

Taariq Patel

Testimony

Today I'm going to share with you why I'm here, how I got here, standing on this stage talking to you.

Before I begin, would you please join me in another word of prayer?

And I am thankful, Lord, that your mercies endure forever.

I am thankful, Lord, that all your people are here and you are here with us.

I am thankful, Lord, that you are so faithful and you love us so much that you want to keep us from falling.

And Lord before I go any further I pray for forgiveness of our sins.

I pray that your angels will be here to rebuke evil and to focus our minds on eternal things, on things that matter, and that we will get a glimpse of the most high because we ask it in Jesus' name.

Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever.

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy.

I was born in Gloucester, England in 1981.

I have 4 siblings, a twin brother and a brother Javid.

And my brothers and I grew up Muslim boys.

I vividly remember my father sitting in front of us, and all 3 of us in front of our father, and he would have his slipper right there as we were reciting the Quran, starting like from age 3 or age 5 years old we were learning Arabic.

And that slipper would flash out and hit us if we mispronounced 1 word.

We grew up in Islam and going to the mosque all the time, growing up around the Muslim brothers, we were told that if we weren't good Muslim boys that our father wouldn't make it to heaven.

We were told that if we tell lies, that the angel Gabriel will pull out your tongue and put it back in your mouth according to how many lies you told.

This is the kind of religion we grew up in.

By the age of around 8 years old, 9 years old, my mom had a meeting with Jesus.

You see, she grew up Seventh Day Adventist, But she had backslid and she met my father in England and they both had 3 kids And then from there they moved to you to the to the United States and had my 2 sisters And so for the first 7 8 years of my life, I was a Muslim, but then my mom had a meeting with Jesus.

She found in the garage a book called Steps to Christ, Desire of Ages, and man, she fell in love.

And she used to walk by the room and see her sons being disciplined, learning Islam, and she got a flashback of the felt boards, of the Sabbath school songs, and she said, man, I didn't grow up like that.

And you know, when you meet Jesus, you got a mouth problem.

Because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.

And Jesus had touched my mother's heart so she couldn't stop but telling us about Jesus.

So now when my father's at work, she would teach us about the Word of God.

And it was the first time we read stories about Joseph and Daniel and David and all this stuff.

And we were like, wow, it was so amazing.

But my father, a strict Muslim, wanted control of his house.

You see, when the Spirit of the Lord is in the house Satan got really angry at that time.

It was 1989 the brothers at the mosque many of them came from the war from Afghanistan a Lot of them lived in Saudi Arabia and they were telling my father take your family to Saudi Arabia You will have complete control My mother was praying to God and she said, God, I want an experience with you.

That's a mighty prayer because God will give it to you.

She felt impressed to go to Saudi Arabia with my father, with all 5 of us, children.

So we're on the plane and we're going to Saudi Arabia.

I'll never forget, got off the plane, it was like at midnight, walking down the stairs in the outside in Saudi Arabia in Riyadh, and I thought that the jet engine heat was blowing on us because I felt like I was melting.

But then I realized that was the temperature there in Saudi Arabia at nighttime.

We got there and it was just straight desert.

The women over there have to walk behind their husbands.

It's typical to see 1 man with like a tribe behind him, a bunch of kids and a few wives.

Women have to cover up, no ankles and cover your face up.

It was the type of country where we would drive And we would get caught in a traffic jam, and you smell something in the air.

And there's somebody hanging, because they've been hanging there for 3 days in the public square.

If you get caught stealing, your hand gets chopped off.

In coming into the country, little did my mom know that it was under the penalty of death if you try to sneak in the Bible or any kind of Christian literature.

But my mom would tell us, hey boys, we're undercover agents for the Lord, And we're going to go into this country, we're going to still spread the gospel as best as we could.

And we were, we had imaginations, we were excited about this mission.

And so we were at the airport, my mom had 2 suitcases, and she had, you know, wrapped up some books, some Ellen White books, she had a bunch of books, 2 suitcases full.

We got to the customs these guys with guns were walking by the suitcases my mom was praying The Lord told my mom before she got there, dress up in the traditional Muslim garb.

It was all wrapped up in a bunch of clothes.

And as he was flipping through the pages and looking at us, flipping through the pages, looking at us, it didn't make sense.

Because we looked like a typical Muslim family.

We looked like nice little Muslim children.

And then he called all the security to him and they were all talking in Arabic, what's going on, what's going on?

And then finally, they said, you guys are all good.

Don't even check the rest of their bags they're good and my mom was rejoicing because those other bags had some desire of ages and great controversy and councils on diets and foods and all that it would have been a wrap.

Got in there undercover agents for the Lord So now my father would go to work, but guess what would happen at the house when my father's at work?

I'm 33 years old now, but I never forget those Bible studies when I was 8 9 years old we would get so so excited that we're like rolling around on the carpet never heard stories like that before filled with love and filled the Spirit of God was in that room 1 day my father came home and caught us in the middle of Bible study.

You see, while we were doing Bible studies that whole time in Saudi Arabia, 1 of the brothers would be looking out of the window on lookout and making sure we see our father's car pull up into the parking lot while everybody else is having worship.

That was our job and we would rotate but this particular time my father took the back way nobody saw him coming.

Every other time we would see him coming, okay Pap is coming and we'll pack up all the books.

We'll have books in pots, books under the bed, books under the clothes, I mean, and we would just play games and act like nothing was happening.

But this time he came in, and I never forget.

You know, when domestic violence happens or something traumatic happens in your childhood, it leaves a scar in your life for the rest of your life.

The feeling I felt when he came into that room, it was like the Holy Ghost was in there and then darkness just came in the room.

And we knew he was irate, he was beside himself.

My mom was screaming, she ran into the bathroom, and he was threatening to kill my mother.

We were, each sibling, each of my brothers and sisters, we were on an arm and a leg, and we were screaming, no, Papa, no.

You see, he had made a threat to my mom before, the day before she got baptized.

He said, if you get baptized, you see this knife, I'm going to run you through if you decide to wake up and get baptized.

My mom woke up and got baptized, and that morning he was as calm as a lamb and he walked out.

When my mom went into that pool in Hartford, Connecticut, my older brother was so moved that he stood up and he wanted to get baptized.

So this threat that he made, and we've seen him hit my mom before, it wasn't an idle threat.

And we were screaming and screaming and he got mad.

He took all the books, all what my mother had.

You see, she didn't have no personal contact with her family, couldn't write a letter, couldn't call nobody.

The only thing she had in that country as a woman with no rights was those books.

All she had was like a little Bible that she had hid somewhere else that he didn't find and maybe a couple of other Ellen White books.

From then on, my father would take us boys to the work, to his job with him, so our mother's influence wouldn't be over us.

Anil Kanda

Dwelling in the Secret Place

Amen, where the people of God are, that is where he is at, and that is where he makes his dwelling place.

I'm really excited about tonight's message.

I really like how they grouped the Easterners together tonight, but God has a plan.

How many people were at the graduation last night?

When I was sitting down listening to the graduation and watching all the various people come up and just go through this very wonderful procedure.

I was reminded when I graduated from Weimar College.

And when I graduated from Weimar College, they announced something very similar, which was to be very respectable, be very respectful and reverent during this time.

And sure enough, that was very important.

And so what took place was at Weimar College, they had this graduation.

I was graduating, so I thought to myself, I'll invite my Hindu family to this graduation and maybe they'll get converted by the graduation speaker.

And what happened was, they declined to come.

You ever had those kinds of situations where you see everybody else's family there, super supportive, and you feel like you are the loneliest person in this entire universe, that's how I felt during my graduation.

You see, I had been working with a black church, and this black church decided to show up uninvited to my graduation.

And what took place was when they started going through the processional they announced, they're not the processional, they started announcing everybody's name and sure enough they had Bob Williams come up to get his degree, and Bob Williams would come up, and you hear this, amen, amen, you know?

So that's what was taking place, and then they announced Cindy Williams, Cindy Williams, amen, amen, and then they said, Anel Kanden, All of a sudden, it was like lightning stroke, and everybody at Weimar awoke.

And I turned, and I looked, and I saw all those church members there supporting me.

It was so loud, it made the teachers tremble.

Why don't we begin with a word of prayer.

Let's ask Jesus to bless us with his Holy Spirit.

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

And Lord, right now I think of Paul when he was preaching late.

And Eutychus, that young man was on that housetop and all of a sudden he fell over.

Lord, I pray that no 1 would fall over today.

I pray, Jesus, that the message would be heard and the words that you have designed to impress upon our hearts, that that experience would take place tonight.

May we leave excited and just wowed by what you can do tonight.

Now how many people enjoyed canvassing this summer?

How many people have not canvassed before in their entire life?

All right, my challenge is to you, next summer, you need to experience that.

I was thinking about how awesome it is to see when 1 person is changed by ministry and what they can do.

Now, I had a youth kid when I first started working at the series church as a pastor.

Now, Maverick, where's Maverick right now?

Now, you need to hurry up real quickly, okay?

So I had this youth kid by the name of Maverick and he was much shorter than the way he is.

And when I first heard his name, I thought, that's a mascot.

And so here was Maverick right here, okay?

And when I was working as an associate pastor at Ceres, I said to, you know, I've got to get at least 1 person into the canvassing work.

I was able to convince 1 person and his name was Maverick.

Now I thought, praise the Lord, I never forgot when I sent him off, he was just a little bit timid, not knowing what he was going to get himself involved into.

But it was powerful to see what God did in his life.

And then I thought, wow, I wonder what's going to happen next.

Next year, the year after this, OK, there were 2 more kids who were inspired by Maverick.

1 of whose name is Robbie Backlot and Christy Aguirre.

And you know who was influential in their lives to go canvassing?

Because as Maverick began to share and began to just witness to them, they decided to get into canvassing.

Then all of a sudden I'm hearing, they're going to Seoul West.

And I thought, wow, praise the Lord, right?

Because from their influence, there was a couple more kids who decided to get involved.

1 was by the name of Cheyenne, is she here?

And I was blown away because here they are, they're starting to canvassing.

I really thought, okay, I can understand they go canvassing, but I cannot understand they go canvassing.

And so what happened is, all of a sudden I'm hearing, they're joining the Soles Northwest Program, is that what you call it?

But it didn't just stop there because the year after There was another person who decided to join, I was just blown away by this person.

It was a guy by the name of Larry Carter who decided to start canvassing, but that didn't happen.

Leah Jordache