GYC 2014: At The Cross

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Training Center Churches

Kameron DeVasher

1. Who Fed the 5,000?

2. The Real Emerging Church

3. Soul-Winning DNA, Part 1

4. Soul-Winning DNA, Part 2

6. May I Have Your Attention, Please?

5. Discipline

This message was presented at the GYC 2014 conference at the Cross in Phoenix, Arizona.

For other resources like this, visit us online at www.gycweb.org.

The Apostle Paul talked about how he, I believe it's through the church in Corinth, and reviewing his work there, he said, I caught you with guile.

That's what I was going for with the title of this seminar, The Real Emerging Church.

Now I know when you hear that language, emerging church, already you have a picture coming to mind.

Oh, man, I'm going to hear about contemplative prayer, breath prayer, some other prayer thing.

I'm going to hear about candles and incense and labyrinths and spirituality and mysticism.

All of that, by the way, I'm not saying that that's not a problem.

But that's not the emerging church we're talking about here.

Now, that might be, and I'll say this, there are people who address that issue, study it out for yourself, be an informed person, that's no problem.

But The real emerging church that I'm discussing here is the 1 that has already emerged in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

It's not a danger out on the horizon, it's the 1 that's already here, and we need to be aware of, and many of us are completely numb to the fact that it's occurring.

The real emerging church is the 1 we're gonna address today.

Now, out of curiosity, raise your hand if you were not here at the last session.

But we're going to build on some of the principles that we had last time.

So if it's confusing, you're like, how dare you say that?

Well, you gotta go listen to the other 1, get the other stuff.

They have been promised that handouts are still coming.

At the end of this session, they should be available.

So please take out your Bibles, you'll need your own paper, I wish I could provide some for you now, take out pens or whatever, but we're going to be studying the Word of God and we're going to be doing a bit of sampling of Adventist Church history, the Spirit of the Prophets, we're going to be all over the place.

But before we do any study, of course, What's the first thing we need to do?

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for giving us instruction in your word, and Lord, now we ask for understanding of that word and application of its principles and practices in our own life.

Help us to be faithful and useful for you.

In Seventh-day Adventist evangelism, when you're talking about the state of the dead, I don't care where you've been, if it's a small group, Bible study, one-on-one, or a big public campaign, Everywhere you go, every evangelist, if he's worth his salt, is going to have to explain the misplaced comma in Jesus' conversation with a thief on the cross, correct?

If you change that 1 comma, which of course commas were not there, punctuation wasn't there in the original, but you have to, that's there, you've got to deal with it, right?

The Bible writers, I mean the Bible translators put that in there, so now we're stuck with it.

And of course 1 version says, today you will be with me in paradise.

And the other 1 says, when I come in paradise, I'll bring you with me.

The sense of the sentence changes with that 1 comma.

It's the difference between, it's time to eat, grandpa, versus, it's time to eat, grandpa.

Same exact words in the exact same order, but that little comma, that emphasis, changes the meaning, yes?

We're all very aware of that misplaced comma.

But there's another 1 that I want to make you aware of, probably in your Bibles today.

Starting with verse 11, hopefully a very familiar passage to all of us here.

It begins with, and he himself, and of course the he that we're talking about here is Christ and his establishment of the church, which was a big part of our talk last time, right?

And he Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers.

Clearly, he's defining different job descriptions, different titles of positions of leadership in the church, and Not everybody is all of those things, but we have some apostles, some evangelists, some pastors, some teachers, you get the picture.

Now, I'm going to read this to you from the King James.

How many of you have a King James here today?

It's a great translation of the Bible, but please understand, punctuation is not inspired.

For what purpose does he have all these different jobs in the church?

For the perfecting of the saints, comma, for the work of ministry, comma, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

Their first job is to perfect the saints.

Then, either when they're done with that or at the same time, they should also be working on another project, doing the work of ministry.

And in their spare time, they should be edifying the body of Christ.

Do you see that in the sense of the thing?

You have these people do these things for this purpose, for the perfecting of the saints, for the...

And it lists out 3 different jobs, the work of ministry, the edifying of the body of Christ.

How many New King James do we have in here?

Not that your allegiance is there, you just happen to have a Bible in your hand, there's New King James, right?

Same verse, verse 12 now from the New King James.

For the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, comma, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

For the edifying of the, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry.

Now I know this is going to be heresy, but I think that's even still slightly incorrect, even though we're getting better.

I think the new international version sums up the meaning most accurately.

To equip his people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up.

To equip his people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built.

The building up of the body of Christ is simply the result of everybody working, which is what the job of the leadership is, is to get them working so that the body is built up.

Now how do I have the audacity to stand here and say that King James, in this particular instance, not in the wording, I'm not getting into that, but in the punctuation, has given us improper reading of the text.

As we talked about in the last, most of the Bible problems that we have would be solved if you have this 1 simple principle, just keep reading.

So let's go back, and I'm reading from the New King James with the same wording as basically in the King James as well.

But if you go back to the context of this passage, we'll just start with verse 12 again.

For the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure, the stature, the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men and cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ, from whom, " and remember the whole thing started how it was he himself who gave these.

We're still talking about our headship of Christ in the church, no problem with that, but watch this.

From whom the whole body joined and knit together by what?

By what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

The way that the Church grows and stays healthy, both doctrinally and evangelistically, and all the things that we're tasked with doing is not by having people do it for us, but by having those people train us so we can be workers.

Series

Training Center Churches

2. The Real Emerging Church

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

Total Member Involvement

3. It’s Time To Eat Grandpa

1h

Bob Folkenberg, Jr. - Evangeliving: The Great Commission in Action

God’s Marine Corps and You

1h

Acts: First Generation Lessons for Last Generation Believers

4. Antioch

59m

The Question

1h

Training Center Churches

6. May I Have Your Attention, Please?

51m

Plenary

GYC Beyond

1h 17m

Soulwinning 201: The Next Level

2. How to Get a Bible Study

1h

GYC SE 2013 Plenary Sessions

The Model Ministry

59m

Leading Souls into the Truth

1h 5m

The Second Angel’s Message - The Fall of Babylon

52m

The Doctrine of Personal Ministries

Part 2 - Who Fed the 5,000?

1h 13m

Total Member Involvement

6. Moving The Ship

1h

Sound Doctrine