AMEN 2014: Joined Together

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

Christ's Methods in the 21st Century

Mark Finley

Christ’s Method’s in the 21st Century-Part 1

Father in heaven, we are incredibly thankful that you've called us to do more than treat bodies as important as that is.

You've called us to more than alleviate disease, but you've called us to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.

And so as we discuss today, we pray that you guide us, that you direct us, that we would be drawn closer and ever still closer to you.

That you would open our eyes and open our minds.

May this time together this afternoon be incredibly profitable.

May it make a difference in our lives, in Jesus' name, amen.

I think we will close the doors there so that we are not distracted outside.

We can maybe leave 1 open and then close the other 1.

Our class is Christ's Methods in the 21st Century and we're raising the question, what were Jesus' methods?

And so we're going to start with a journey with Jesus through John's Gospel.

John's Gospel really is a case study on how Christ related to people.

In John chapter 1, the 2 disciples are following Jesus and Jesus turns and sees them and He says then, what do you seek?

Those 4 words are some of the most powerful words in all of the Gospels.

John 1 verse 38, Jesus turns, he sees them following him and he says, what do you seek?

The reason these words are so powerful is because they are the very modus operandi of Christ.

Jesus always began where others were, never where He was.

He always began with their needs, never with His needs.

So Jesus is saying, what are you seeking?

Are you seeking relief from physical suffering?

Are you seeking emotional peace and calmness?

So this is an incredibly powerful principle for all medical missionaries.

You know, somebody said anybody wrapped up in themself is a very small package.

So we're looking out of ourselves, looking at the person to whom we are ministering, saying, what are you seeking?

What's in the deepest recesses of your heart?

So the Jesus model is 1 that always starts where the individual is.

Jesus began with others' agenda, not his.

He was more interested in their needs than his own.

So Jesus always begins where people are, not where He is.

So in a busy practice with people coming through your office, The bottom line is not profit driven, it's people driven.

The bottom line is not merely how many patients do I see, it's how many people do I help.

And there's a vast difference between that.

In the typical medicine of today, it's motivated by profit.

You need to see as many people as possible so the bottom line of profit can be enhanced.

Jesus is more interested in people than in profit.

He's more interested in their needs than He is His own.

He begins where they are, not where He is.

Now when you look at John chapter 2, John chapter 3, John chapter 4, and John chapter 5, you have in John's gospel, Jesus meeting a variety of needs.

First, we look at the story of the wedding feast of Cana.

There was an enormous need at the wedding feast of Cana.

The host of that wedding feast was socially embarrassed.

Let's suppose that your daughter was getting married And the conference president was in line to receive his non-alcoholic bubbly grape juice and to eat his vegetarian, vegan, chicken-like sandwiches.

And let's suppose you ran out of bubbly, non-alcoholic wine and let's suppose you ran out of bubbly non-alcoholic wine and let's suppose you ran out of veggie chicken and let's suppose that the conference president had driven 3 hours to be at the meeting And there are 50 people behind him and there's nothing now to eat.

Would you feel pretty chagrined, pretty red-faced?

At the wedding feast of Cana of Galilee, There was a specific need and the need was social.

Anybody that ran out of wine at a Jewish feast would be incredibly embarrassed.

Now don't get nervous that this might have been alcoholic wine.

There are multiple indicators in the text itself that it was not.

And we will not go into all of that because that's not my main point.

Jesus created the unfermented, pure juice of the grape.

And as Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night, and as Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night, Jesus does not offer him a hydrotherapy treatment.

Neither does Jesus invite him to a cooking school.

Neither does Jesus offer to give him a massage.

Neither does Jesus offer to give him some of the wine that was left over in John chapter 2.

Why is it that Christ approached the wedding feast of Cana of Galilee and did not give a sermon but multiplied the… changed the water into wine.

And why is it that Jesus did not begin with health with Nicodemus?

Because Nicodemus' need was spiritual, his felt need.

Now everybody's need is spiritual, but Nicodemus sensed that.

He cut through the formalism of religion.

In John chapter 4, there's a different felt need.

It's not social or spiritual, it's deeply emotional.

Now notice the difference between John 3 and John 4.

Nicodemus is a man of well repute, she is a woman of ill repute.

Nicodemus is popular in society, she is unpopular in society.

Nicodemus comes seeking spiritual things, she has no interest in spiritual things at all.

When you look at John chapter 4, her need is deeply emotional.

So you're looking… we can shut the door there now please, thank you so much.

Ernestine Finley

Christ’s Method’s in the 21st Century-Part 2

Shall we just take a moment and pray and ask God to be here?

Father in heaven, we thank you that you are the great God of the universe and that you're a loving God and you care for each person on the face of this earth.

And so, Father, give us the wisdom to know how to reach these people.

We thank you for what you have given to us as a people.

May your Holy Spirit dwell here in Jesus' name.

Well, you've all heard a lot about an insurance plan.

Everybody wants to know what insurance plan we have, but God has a health assurance plan.

And as we conduct health ministry as a health professional or as a layperson, you know, when we were early in our ministry, we had the wonderful privilege of working with Elder O.J.

Mills, and he taught us how to actually incorporate the health ministry along with the gospel ministry.

McFarland also was the general conference health director at the time.

And we went to him because he came and worked with us with Elder Mills in Hartford.

And we went to him and said, we're young, and we are not health professionals.

And we said, should we be holding health programs?

And he said, by all means, You just need to do 1 thing, and that is hide behind the authorities.

We have studied, we have taken classes, we've taken courses.

I took the 30-hour course at Loma Linda to try and learn about cooking schools and other things since then.

But if you are a health professional, you have a great advantage.

But if you are a lay person here today, you can hold these programs in your church as well.

Hide behind the authorities, and God will bless you.

And by following God's health assurance plan, we can actually increase the possibility of living longer, healthier lives.

And God, we also know that God has principles for health.

He has those wonderful 8 natural remedies.

We teach a class on wellness or New Start or creation health or whatever it is And we know that they work.

We know that God has given us the natural remedies, the real true remedies of pure air.

But pure air, sunlight, abstemiousness, rest, exercise, proper diet, the use of water, trust in divine power, these are the true remedies.

And As people come to our health programs, they actually see that this is true, that these are actually the true remedies.

But God has given this message of healthful living not only for his church, but for the world.

And so we need to translate this into our churches, incorporate this into our churches, so that we can give this message to the world.

They're coming to our church and by the way, they will come to your church for a health program when they may never, Pastor Finley, come for a Bible study or come to church.

Councils on Diet and Foods, page 32 says, the health reform I was shown, I was shown is a part of the third angel's message.

But she says, the health reform I was shown is a part of the third angel's message and is just as closely connected with it as are the arm and the hand with the human body.

So we need to connect the health message with the 3 angels message, with the gospel message.

She says, I saw that we as a people must take an advanced move in this great work.

So we must take an advanced work in this move of health and the biblical together.

This is why it's so important for pastors and doctors, pastors and health professionals to work together as a team.

And God has commissioned his church to share the principles of healthful living as a part of his end time message.

And if we miss our opportunity, God can and may even will use others to accomplish his divine purpose and will miss a great opportunity.

I see this in cooking schools all the time.

I can go into Whole Foods or I can go into Wegmans in Virginia.

I can go into some of these places and they will tell me that they are plant-based vegan vegetarians and they're conducting and they're wanting to know where they can go to learn more about vegetarianism even.

You see, the church is the body of Christ meeting needs everywhere in Jesus name.

That's what the church is and the church needs to be open.

I share with people in my training classes that the church is actually probably the least economical building in the world because it is open once a week when it should be open every day.

Every day, people should be coming to our church to get help in whatever need that they may have.

Because wellness has to do with the whole person.

It includes the mental, the emotional, the physical, the social, and the spiritual.

Nedley went over that very clearly on opening meeting.

That is so important to have a balance of all of these factors together.

And that's why you can incorporate the spiritual into your health programs, not have it as a tacked on part.

7T 59 says, medical missionary work is the right hand of the gospel.

It's necessary to the advancement of the cause of God.

In 1987, before communism fell, we were asked to go to Poland And we said, but the government hasn't given us permission to go to have an evangelistic meeting.

But they said, Pastor Finley, we know how to pray.

We want to pray that we can get in, get you in for an evangelistic series in Poland.

We prayed and then the next thing we knew is that our people had gone to the government officials and asked if we could have an appointment with them to do some programming in Gdańsk, Poland.

And when we got there and met with the government officials, they said to us, Mr.

Finley, what do you, can you do for our city of Gdańsk?

It's the center of the solidarity movement.

We have many challenges here, many problems, many what can you do for our city?

And he said, oh do you have heart disease here?

Well, what if we came in and had programs on how to stop smoking, how to reduce your cholesterol, on cooking schools, on all stress management, all of these things.

Oh, if you could do that, we would gladly have you come in to Gdansk, Poland.

In 1987, we went in there with just health, the right arm of the gospel, the entering wedge.

And do you know, after several months of training and working with the pastors, of working with the lay people, and conducting all of these health programs, that we went back to England at the time.

Albans, England and they called us back to the government office and they said, Mr.

Finley, it is amazing what's happening in this city.

Christ’s Method’s in the 21st Century-Part 3

I want to tell you a story as we begin our class this afternoon, but let's pray as we do.

Father, this is our last class for the afternoon, and I pray that you'd give us wisdom, enable us to really grasp how we can better integrate physical, mental, and spiritual modalities together.

We sense that in the ministry of Jesus, the gospel of healing and the gospel of health and the gospel of salvation, which is health and healing, were never separated.

And so teach us to walk in the footsteps of our master and to make these integrations, we pray thee, in unobtrusive ways, in ways that we can not be offensive, but we can break down prejudice and we can see hearts and minds open in Christ's name, amen.

Tini mentioned that we live in a community, it's a gated community in Dominion Valley, Haymarket, Virginia.

And we are just in the process of building a new church, a new community health center, and a new evangelistic training center there.

Our target audience are pastors in our training and physicians and leading lay people.

Our curriculum will be about 1 week a month.

We will do eight-day intensive classes and we're building an 18, 400 square foot facility.

It is a $4 million project and we started with no money.

And God is doing some just amazing things.

We're $600, 000 short right now, and we've raised about $3.4 million, and the Lord has just worked miracle after miracle.

Tini is running a 26-mile marathon to celebrate her 70th year of life.

She won't mind my telling you she'll be 70 years old on December 4, and she will run her marathon, her first marathon, 26.2 miles, on January 25th.

I asked her, I said, why are you doing this?

1, I want to demonstrate the health message in my own body.

So she's training about 10 to 12 miles, 12 miles a day, is that accurate?

So she's out doing 12 miles a day now, those are on the low days, on the good days she does 15 miles or so.

But how many are you going to have by the time you go to bed tonight?

She very rarely does any less than 10 or 12.

So if you get up in the morning, you'll see her jogging.

She said, well, first, for the glory of God, I want to demonstrate my own body that the health message pays off because how can I teach health if I'm not active in my own life?

Second, I want to show in our health classes.

And you know, in our last health class, she jump ropes.

And so I have her jump roping on the stage while I talk about exercise, and she jump ropes, you see.

And so we didn't bring the rope here, or else I'd have you jump rope for them.

And she said thirdly to raise funds for our new health evangelistic and training center.

So people are sponsoring her so much of my island.

We've got a website and it's really neat what's happening.

You can see all about that on the website.

It's really, really just kind of a very, very neat thing.

But if you're interested in that you can talk to Tini later.

But we in our community started about a year ago and I began various programs and we had no church in the community So Dr.

Michael Hosel from Southern Adventist University and I began to do, we wanted to do something in the community so we started to hold some archeological seminars.

Our community is an upmarket community, it's people like to travel a great deal and so I began to talk about Egypt and Israel and so forth and we had 100 people that were not Seventh-day Adventists coming.

1 night I was getting ready to teach, it was probably a half an hour before the course and a man walked in, suit and tie, very well dressed and he said to me, His first words were, you're Mr.

He said, you don't know who I am, but I know who you are.

He said, before I tell you who you are, I want to tell you who I am.

He said, I came to the United States when I was 17 years old.

When I got to America, I had no education.

I began to work in a little common job and finally I bought a car and I was sleeping in my car.

But in Washington DC in the winter it gets cold so I said where should I go to stay warm during the day?

And so he said I began to go to the library, I had a 17 year old boy, and he said I'd study from 8.30 in the morning until they closed at night, 9 o'clock, every day.

Finally I got acquainted with the librarians and he said I had a little job, I did some work, but when I wasn't working I'd always go to the library.

Finally, the librarians would let me sleep among the stacks of the books." He said, I learned that you could take a GED test and you didn't have to go to high school.

So I took my GED and passed high school equivalency.

But then I learned if you want to do something in America, you got to go to college and you've got to go to college.

So he said, I took my college entrance exam and passed with flying colors and got accepted at Harvard University because my scores in my college entrance was so high.

So he said, I took pre-med and then I took medicine at Harvard, graduated from Harvard University as a physician.

But he said, that wasn't enough so I went out and got a PhD degree.

That wasn't enough so I went out and got a master's degree in business administration.

He said, then I became the professor of medicine at Georgetown University.

Now he's sitting there telling me this story and then he said, I've got a reason for telling you.

Then he said to me, I said I'm not doing enough for this society.

And he became the president of the second largest community college in America today, 33, 000 students, Northern Virginia Community College.

So after he told me this story, he said, that's who I am, now let me tell you who you are.

He said, I don't know much about you, but everything I've read on the internet, you have the ability to motivate people.

So I want to hire you, how much do I have to pay you?" I said, sir, I want to work for you but you don't have to pay me a penny and I won't accept a penny.

I want you to come to my university and motivate my students to get better grades.

So I am a lecturer at Northern Virginia University.

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Series

Christ's Methods in the 21st Century

Christ’s Method’s in the 21st Century-Part 2

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Christ’s Method’s in the 21st Century-Part 1

54m

Christ’s Method’s in the 21st Century-Part 2

1h

Christ’s Method’s in the 21st Century-Part 3

31m

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