SWYC 2015: Christ Our Righteousness

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GYC Southwest

Breakout Session #1

Keala Thompson

A Safe Place

Within every single 1 of us, I realize that there's a desire to belong to a safe place.

A place that they can feel accepted and loved, whether that's going to be a school, a church, or especially in the home.

And you know I recently came from a speaking engagement at a camp meeting.

And as I was trying to have these breakout groups and people were sharing and wanting to share, I'm realizing that they were having a hard time in this place that I was at.

They were having a hard time in this place that I was at.

They were having a hard time with the breakout sessions and being transparent, especially in this location.

And it's not in this country, so it's another country.

They have a hard time being real and transparent, and they couldn't do it.

I noticed that my seminars was actually decreasing and with less attendance in every session.

You know, and it's like, this getting less and less people.

And it finally clicked and people telling me, look, the people in this country, and somebody just told me recently, my head elders wife told me that this country, the people are very secretive.

I mean that's how we are in America, but even more so.

So they didn't want to open up and share, so it was getting less and less and like, wow, what's going on?

And finally it was coming out in this breakout session that people are saying look the problem is we don't feel that our churches are safe places that they cannot be real they cannot be transparent they cannot tell the struggles they're struggling with They can't talk about the pains and the sins they are going through and all these other things.

Is it only in this country or do you think it is in your home churches too?

How many of you feel you can be real in your churches?

In Hawaii, there's a place called, how many of you have been to Hawaii?

How many of you guys didn't go to Hawaii?

How many of you guys want to go to Hawaii?

So in Hawaii there's a place called Pu'uhonua, or Ho'onaunau.

How many of you have been to the big island of Hawaii?

How many of you have been to that place, Pu'uhonua or Ho'onaunau, which is actually called, in English they actually call it also the City of Refuge.

How many of you have heard of the city of refuge in the Bible?

In the city of refuge in the Bible, if you have committed a crime, you could go to the city of refuge.

So let me tell you about the city of refuge in Hawaii because it's very similar to the city of refuge in Hawaii.

So it's a place that you they had to swim to is right off the coast of Kona, Hawaii and you had to swim to this island and as you go to this island if you had committed like a murder a kapu is something like is a You broke a law a kapu where actually you broke it.

There was a death penalty for doing that.

So they would chase you down and they're trying to kill you and as you go to this island, that island was called a city of refuge, which was at, honaunau means actually refuge, a place of safety, of peace.

And it was at this place that actually you were safe.

And that's what is important about having this city of refuge.

The problem is that this city is no more, right, because there's no kapu laws.

There's only a structure of saying there's a safe place, but it's no longer truly a safe place.

And in the same way I think a lot of times we say that our churches are really safe places but I really don't believe it in a sense that I feel like a lot of people are getting baptized into the churches and they come into the church and a lot of them are ending up within 6 months or 2 years.

I saw 1 statistic up to 70% of the people who got baptized ended up leaving the church within 2 years.

People are running away from home or they actually want to leave home early.

I have a problem I guess I saw with certain culture in Hawaii where a lot of the young people were actually joining the military as a way to escape the home.

And so I see there's like a trend of people like they want to get away because they feel the home is not a safe place and the churches are not safe places.

And it looks like the city of refuge it looks like it's a safe place there.

The form and structure of the city of refuge is still up but it's not operating.

In other words that may look like the churches are safe places but it's truly not operating how God I believe wants us to operate.

So my question is this afternoon where is your Pu'uhonua?

I have a friend he works for CPS, child protective services which is CWS right now.

So he goes into the homes and he has to work with the children and he is watching out for the children and protecting them.

And he said every time he goes out he always asks the young people, the children and the young teenagers the same question and he asks them this.

In other words, where is a place that you can go that you feel safe?

You're going to get into trouble, you're getting arrested, you're getting all these problems with the police, but if you can find your safe place, because he knew that if you find your safe place, you're going to thrive, you're going to do well.

So he told me this story of 1, these 3 teenagers, where they were running away from home and they're escaping the police and running away from the police and he has a way of finding people better than the police.

He can track you down because he was born and raised there.

So he actually found them and the police haven't even found them yet.

He finds them and he talks to them and he says, where is the safe place?

And they said, think about your safe place.

And they said to him, our safe places are with grandma and grandpa.

But we can never go there because the CPS law says that if they have a criminal record they cannot take care of you.

So because they have a criminal record, Grandma and grandpa couldn't take care of these teenager children and so he said come with me.

So he went to grandma and grandpa and he said to them look I know your record but your grandkids really want to be with you.

And if you're willing to take them, then I'm going to pretend that they're not here.

And so what happened, let me tell you what happened with this story.

So these teenagers who were like getting into problems with the law and running away, They went to the grandparents, it was illegal to go, and he left them.

So they were actually being raised by the grandparents.

And you know what, these troubled teenagers, they were doing so horrible and just getting in trouble with the police and all that.

And afterward they began to do so good and so well.

And even the police still don't know where they're at.

Norman McNulty

The Science of the Mind of Christ

Father in heaven, we thank you for what you're doing here this weekend at Southwest Youth Conference and we thank you for this opportunity that we have to be here to learn more about you and I pray that we will make decisions this weekend that will further and deepen our walk with you.

And I pray that as we go through this presentation this afternoon that the information in here will give us encouragement that if we've been struggling with something that we can gain encouragement that you can help us to trust in you to develop new habits.

So bless me now as we spend some time on this topic.

So yeah, so this presentation is going to be on the science of the brain which as a neurologist I certainly find interesting, although I'll readily admit I rarely talk about the brain, except to my patients in clinic, but I don't usually do presentations on this.

I actually like talking about the Bible, But this is a very important topic, so I'm glad that we can spend some time talking about the brain.

And so let's just go ahead and get started here.

So the human brain, which is the body organ that houses the mind, is the most important structure in the human body.

And that's my opinion, but I think it's obviously important, because if you lose your mind, nothing else really matters.

And if you don't have an operational, functional brain, you know, all of a sudden the things that you've worked so hard on, technical abilities you may have, everything just kind of goes with it.

So, and of course there's a difference between the brain and the mind.

The brain is simply the physical organ, the structure, the tissue.

And who you really are as a person, what constitutes who you are as a person?

We all can put on a good front for who we are as a person, but the real you, that which constitutes who you are as a real person happens right here in your mind.

And that's the thoughts and the feelings that you have when nobody can necessarily tell what you're thinking.

So when you're just kind of sitting around and nobody's with you, you're driving around town and your mind is going through its process of thoughts and the feelings that are generated based on the thoughts that you have, that's who you really are.

It's not the good front that you put on for the job interview.

Hopefully that's the real you, but you can put on a good front for the job interview and then the real you shows up.

So who you are is right here, especially in the frontal lobe.

And the thoughts and the feelings that you have on an ongoing basis determines who you are as a person.

So that's why I say that this is the most important structure in the human body.

I mean I don't want to have any injury or damage to any part of my body, but I'll take a broken foot over a concussion.

So the mind controls the rest of the body and the choices that we make in the mind determine our human destiny.

Now, There's such a thing that we call the lower passions and the higher passions.

And the higher level of thinking, the critical thinking happens in the brain and then you have the rest of the body, the lower passions, the appetite.

And you know sometimes we give more credit to our stomach than we really should.

It's like, well I was just so hungry, I mean I couldn't help it.

Your mind controls the rest of your body.

It's only by the grace of God, but you can make choices that can lead to good outcomes in the rest of your body.

So your stomach is actually reliant on your brain, your mind, to keep it from being overloaded.

Even though it's telling you that it's hungry at 10 o'clock at night or whatever, your brain can do better than your stomach every time.

If you let your brain do the thinking for you.

So the mind controls the rest of the body.

The choices that are made in the mind determine our human destiny.

And I can tell you certainly as a neurologist that I wouldn't say all, I mean for example people who have carpal tunnel syndrome and they have numbness in their hands, that's not because they've made poor choices in their mind.

That comes from the type of job that sometimes they're required to do because the need they have to support their family, and they do repetitive work, and then they get numbness in their hands.

So I'm not talking about that kind of neurologic difficulty, but a lot of the neurologic illnesses that I see originate from poor choices in the mind.

And in fact, I am often called upon to do evaluations for patients who end up not having neurologic issues, but they think they're neurologic.

So I have some, I'll have people routinely come into my clinic and I just saw someone recently who was in very good shape and ran marathons but due to anxiety issues, started developing sensations that were electrical shock-like sensations in her head after she would run for about a mile.

And she was convinced she had some kind of a tumor or other issue in her brain.

And she saw several neurologists, and then somehow she came to see me.

And I did what's called the hyperventilation test.

And if you get the same symptoms within 3 minutes of hyperventilating, chances are it's an anxiety-induced condition.

And sure enough, within 15 seconds, she got that electrical shock-like sensation in her head.

If you're jogging eventually you're going to be hyperventilating because you're jogging, right?

And so, but because of her anxiety issue, it created some other issues.

But a lot of what I see in my clinic, people who have anxiety issues, depression, people who've had even other health issues, people who've had strokes, people who have other similar things, they've made poor choices in the mind that lead to poor health conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, and then you develop neurologic symptoms and diseases because of that.

So the mind controls the rest of the body and the choices that we make in the mind, you know, I'm starting to get older.

When I lived here in Loma Linda I thought I was young, well I didn't think I was invincible but I did think I was young.

And boy, I'm pushing 40 now, that's kind of discouraging.

I came here when I was 23 years old, so that's, you know.

But when you're young you think that it doesn't really matter so much what you're doing, but the older you get, The more you realize that the choices you're making are affecting your life in significant ways.

Philippians, and by the way, the title of the message is The Science of the Mind of Christ.

So, Philippians 2.5 calls us to have the mind of Christ.

Now let's just talk about the mind of Christ a little bit.

And Pastor Batchelor read that verse at the end of his sermon today, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and humbled himself, became obedient unto the death of the cross." So yeah, the sermon today was really a good segue to what we're talking about this afternoon.

Elder Batchelor came up to me in the hall after the sermon and he's like, hey, you know how I said I was going to change my talk at the last minute?

I was going to talk about what you're talking this afternoon.

So that's interesting how the Lord kind of works that way.

So I had this topic covered, so he was impressed to change it to a different thing.

If we could all have the mind of Christ, Wow, what kind of a difference would that make in the decisions we make on a daily basis?

Making himself of no reputation, and in the original that means he emptied himself, he emptied himself especially of his divinity, but he emptied himself of all human selfishness and was completely unselfish and obedient, humble, was willing to go to the cross.

You talk about being made of no reputation, and talking about pride, how many issues could be resolved if we were content with no reputation?

Because what this passage of scripture is teaching us, and again, we're going to be talking about how we can have the mind of Christ and the science behind the mind of Christ, but what this passage of scripture is showing us is that reputation doesn't matter, but character does.

Now if you have good character, you're gonna have a good reputation, generally speaking.

Although Jesus was hated, he didn't have a good reputation by the Pharisees.

But Jesus wasn't concerned about his reputation, He was concerned about character.

So He emptied Himself, and He humbled Himself, and He was obedient, even to the death of the cross.

And so many issues that we have as human beings is because we're concerned about our reputation.

And because we're concerned about our reputation, and that's because we have a pride problem, that leads us to make decisions that lead to bad outcomes in a variety of ways.

We're concerned about our reputation, so we dress a certain way, or we eat a certain way.

We hang out with certain groups of people.

I mean, I was talking to somebody yesterday who was asking for advice, what would you give advice to a first year medical student?

And this is sort of related and I was like, well you know, it was interesting to me that when I went through medical school, The people who were at the bottom of the class tended to hang out together, and when it came time for exams, they would complain about how the exams were just so hard and so unreasonable and this is so unfair.

And a lot of them were failing the exams and then they would just talk to each other and then they would make themselves feel better about themselves.

And so in their little group their reputation was okay among themselves.

But again the Bible says comparing yourselves among yourselves you're not wise.

They should have been hanging out with people at the top of the class who set the bar high and said what more can I learn not how little can I get by with the pass?

So that's always a piece of advice I give to people who are starting school, and not just medical school, any type of study.

Ellen White says, success in any line demands a definite aim.

And if you're like, my aim is to barely clear the bar, boy, I don't want to come see you as a doctor.

I want to go to the best car mechanic in town, not someone who barely got through.

So, we're concerned about reputation so much, we're not willing to humble ourselves, to be obedient.

And so we're talking about the science of the mind of Christ.

And so now we're going to get into some of the pathways.

Dwayne Lemon

National Apostasy Leads to National Ruin

Our Father in heaven, we are so grateful.

We thank you so much for the blessings of life, health, and strength.

Dear God, we thank you for the privilege to worship you and to do it with such freedom, because Lord, these days truly are being numbered moment by moment.

Help us, Father, to cherish these precious hours that we have remaining of probation, and help us, whatever we must do, teach us to do it quickly, as we hear the voice of the shepherd, and as we hear him, may we follow him, wheresoever he may lead.

And I thank you that you've heard this prayer, and I ask you to please abide with us now and take our lives and let it be consecrated Lord to thee.

Fill us we pray with your Holy Spirit and may he come and teach us and open our eyes and help us behold wondrous things out of your word.

It is our prayer that we ask in Jesus' name.

I would like to invite you to turn your Bibles with me to the book of 2 Peter chapter 1.

And we're going to consider a very important passage of scripture, I would imagine even a familiar passage, but we're going to consider it once again because our study today is going to be based on Bible prophecy.

And as we look at Second Peter, Chapter 1, We just want to consider what the Word of God says, and we are going to look at 2 Peter 1, and we're going to consider verse 19.

And when you are there, just please say amen.

The Bible says in the book of 2 Peter 1, we're looking at verse 19, And the Bible says, for we have also a more what?

Where unto we do well to take heed unto it, as unto a light that shines in what kind of place?

A dark place until something very special happens.

The day dawns and the day star arises within our hearts.

The great grand purpose of prophecy is that it will shine like a light in a very dark dark place and it will literally lead us to none other than Jesus Christ.

Anytime prophecy is preached and it does not lead us into the arms of Jesus, something is wrong with that prophetic utterance.

The Bible is very clear that when God gave the gift of prophecy, he gave it to us as a means for us to see our need for Jesus Christ and to run to him as our only safety in these very last moments of Earth's history.

It is not a wonder that we are told in the book Evangelism, page 196, and this is for those who are taking notes, in the book Evangelism, page 196, we're told that ministers should present the sure word of prophecy as the foundation of the faith of Seventh-day Adventists.

It continues by saying the prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation should be carefully studied.

And it says, and with them in connection the words, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

This is always to be the means by which we present Bible prophecy, and there's much to present because there's much that's happening.

Right now, we are living in a time where many of God's people, not just the world, not just worldlings, but even God's people are being filled and overwhelmed with fear.

There are many of God's people that are putting up a front and they're coming to churches and they're putting on these rose-colored glasses and they're acting like everything's all right when they know deep in their hearts everything's all wrong.

And I'm not simply talking about living contrary lives where we're professing righteousness but we are indulging in sin.

I'm talking about individuals that understand a bit about Christ their righteousness, people who understand, yes, I know the word of God, I know God's promises, but somehow in their study life and in their devotional life, they have not found a refuge in Christ, and when they see the end time events coming in such incredibly rapid pace, there are many who are putting up a front before others and acting like everything's all right, when their hearts are being overwhelmed and perplexed with fear.

We are told in that blessed little book, 1 John chapter 4 and verse 18, there is no fear in love, for perfect love casts out fear.

And there is nothing wrong that if you find yourself in a place where you are being so overwhelmed and so perplexed, what God is trying to help you see through that personal crisis is that His love has not been perfected in you.

And if His love has not been perfected in us, then that is what needs to be the very, very forceful prayer of our lives is, Father, please help me to enter into an experience with you by which your love will become my love so strong that it will cast out every single fear that I have.

Because we are told in life sketches 196 we have nothing to fear for the future except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us and his teachings in our past history.

When you find that you are becoming fearful of the future God is letting you know, then you must have forgotten the way he led, you must have forgotten his teachings in the past history of his people.

And this is why it is so imperative in such a time as this in Earth's history that we have to get back to understanding biblical history, getting back to understanding how did God lead his people?

How did God lead during the time when there was papal supremacy.

We're living in a time right now where there are all sorts of agitations taking place that ultimately is gonna bring everything back to papal supremacy.

And so it is that we would do well to study the history of looking at the Reformation, looking at the Waldensians, looking at the Huguenots and all these various groups and how God kept them.

Because we are told that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

And how he kept them in times past is how he will keep us.

And that's why I say with all due respect, brothers and sisters, in such a time as this in Earth's history, I just want to lay this out in the front right now.

This is not the time to give out great hope.

This is the time to give out great controversy.

I'm not saying that to insult any of those who created the Great Hope or whatever it may be, I am not here to read a man's heart.

But what I am telling you is that in the Great Hope, you don't get the Protestant history.

And this is a time we need the Protestant history.

We need to understand how did God lead in the Reformation?

How did God lead his people when they were living in a time of papal supremacy, and you can't get that in Great Hope, but you can get that in Great Controversy.

Series

Breakout Session #1

A Safe Place

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Healing Broken Relationships

5. A Safe Place

1h

Plenary Sessions

God Invented Sex

1h 34m

Lost

03 The Lost Son

1h 3m

Man to Man

A Father’s Heart

49m

Reflections on Luke 15

30m

Teen Talk: In Search of Love

49m

What Jesus Said

2. The Unconditional Love of God

54m

What I Want

1h 11m

Revelation Today Crusade

20. The Final Prophecy

48m

Lost

The Prodigal Son

29m

Forgiveness Breaks Barriers

55m

Lost in Paradise

42m

Sound Doctrine