GYC West 2015: Saved to Serve

Plenary

Neeta Hillman

GYC West

Days of Ministry

Father in heaven, we've come together here seeking something.

Each of us is seeking something maybe a little bit different.

Maybe we need to hear something from you that we've been struggling with.

I'm just asking that tonight, you would please allow me to be hidden behind you.

You know what you desire to be shared, you know what needs to be heard, and so I pray that the words would not be mine but yours and that your power and your Holy Spirit would be here tonight in a mighty way to move on the hearts of each person to do with what you convict on their hearts Fully and completely, no turning back.

We thank you again for the privilege of being able to study, to hold, and to look at your word tonight.

And we pray and ask, knowing that if we ask, you delight to give.

We thank you again, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

If you'll turn with me to Philippians chapter 1.

Philippians chapter 1, and we're going to look at the letter that Paul wrote to the Philippians.

I just wanted to give you a little bit of a background for myself.

I didn't know my entire life that I was going to go into medicine.

All I knew was I heard missionary stories growing up.

When I was at church, I would hear people share about someone who answered a call somewhere and went to share the gospel wherever it was.

And sometimes it was overseas, and sometimes It was right there in our community.

And I remember thinking over and over again, I just wanna go wherever you send me.

I can be a nurse, I can write, I will do whatever.

And you know people always ask, when did you know you wanted to be a doctor?

All I know is I just kept going forward however it was that God desired, wherever he was calling.

I made the decision to go to Loma Linda for 1 specific reason.

All the pros on this side, the cons on that side.

And I made the list, and in speaking with several physicians, many of them mentioned that medical school was the time in which they lost their faith or put aside their faith because they were so busy doing school.

Medical school was not worth it if in the process I lost sight of the very 1 who called me there.

And when I went there, the 1 thing repeatedly in my heart over and over again, I had never struggled through school, never struggled through school.

It always tended to come pretty easy, but medical school was challenging, was very, very challenging.

And I remember thinking, Lord, if you want me to do this, why does this have to be so hard?

I sought help, I did everything that I could and went through, and by God's grace, he has led me every step of the way where I've been.

My husband and I, we met while I was doing residency.

What actually attracted me to him at the very beginning was him getting up and sharing a testimony about answering a call to serve God wherever he was.

And he had come into the faith through 3ABN.

He was working as an accountant, eventually worked as an accountant for 3ABN and then went to AAFCO back in 2000.

And ever since then had been a Bible worker.

And as I remember sitting there and thinking, here is this man who had a dream at the age of 45.

He wanted to be retired on a boat in Lake Michigan.

And if you ask Jim to this day, where anywhere was in the world that he wanted to go, it was Lake Michigan.

You want to go into Europe or to, sure, it'd be nice to visit, but where do you want to be?

We went to Lake Michigan when we got married.

But what attracted me to him was this, was the fact that here's a man who wanted to retire on a boat in Lake Michigan at the age of 45, and instead he was driving around the country every 6 months with everything he owned in a car, doing Bible work wherever God called him to do.

And I remember sitting there and thinking, who does that?

Who gives up everything because of the call of Christ?

And if you know my husband, My husband is a very quiet and a very shy person.

He used to, his parents, my mom and dad, my in-laws live in Dyersburg, Tennessee where the Krugers had come from and they know how quiet Jim is.

He could easily sit with a group of people and not utter 1 word the entire time and he would be completely at peace.

And yet, when he comes to someone, to a home somewhere, and he speaks about the love of Christ, you can't stop him talking about it.

And he speaks with such passion, and his voice grows and it strengthens, and there's an earnestness and a desire for them to know the Bible for themselves, to study it and to find out about it the way he himself found out about it.

And I remember sitting and thinking, Wow, I want that kind of passion and purpose and drive in my life.

After he gave the testimony, I wrote down in my journal, Lord, I know I'm never going to see this guy again, but this is the kind of man I would like to serve God alongside for the rest of my life.

So if I don't see him, just bring along somebody just like him.

And 9 months later, he shows back up at the church as a Bible worker.

And it was funny because Pastor Bradshaw and he were friends, and so he asked Jim to come and to be a Bible worker there at the church.

And I wanted to find out his name, but I was too embarrassed to ask John or Melissa.

But I remember when I walked into that church and As we continued and have been on a journey of ministry over the last 7 years, we've been married 6, known each other for a little over 7 years.

The best part of my life has been serving alongside.

God answered that prayer to have someone with whom I can serve him alongside from day to day.

We would love to have a place that we call home.

We have, oftentimes even, We would love the desire to be able to have a family and to have kids.

And for whatever reason, God has not answered those prayers for us, which is okay, and we're okay with that.

But I remember us thinking, you know, we don't have a place, but we have that is home.

And yet my husband would repeatedly tell me, you know, we go wherever God leads, that's home, right?

And we're all, our aim, our entire purpose is so that we can take everybody back to our permanent home.

With that in mind, I want us to look at Philippians and to look at the letter of Paul to the Philippians.

We're going to start in Philippians 1 verse 19.

He's talking about how he's been imprisoned and Some people have been emboldened because of the fact that he was in prison to go and to share the message.

And some people are doing it well and some people are doing it with strife.

But he says in that context, Whatever happens, I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

According to my earnest expectation and my hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death.

For me to live is Christ and to die is gain." That phrase, Die is gain.

To live is not getting a job, being successful, making a name for ourselves, being famous, doing all those things, having security.

Christ in me, Christ working through me, Christ is the reason I wake up in the morning.

Christ is the reason I go out and I do the work that I do from day to day.

To live is Christ and nothing else matters.

Is that what we wake up with every morning?

In the midst of the frustrations and the challenges, some of you work directly in ministry.

Some of you are doing ministry within the workplaces that you are.

Some of you are going to school and that is your ministry.

Is living for you, is waking up every morning Christ?

Do you know him so well that every other ambition pales in comparison to that?

The Co-Working of the Divine and the Human

Father in heaven, we come before you humbly.

You know how much the verse means to me that says that you called us out of darkness and into marvelous light And what a privilege, what a privilege that is, Lord.

And Lord, I just ask, you've saved us to serve.

And I thank you for the testimonies that we've heard in word and in song.

And I pray that you would use your servant tonight to share a little bit more of that glory of what you long to do in and through us.

And I pray that those who need to hear this message would hear what you are calling on their hearts, and I pray that tonight I would be hidden behind the cross, that you may be lifted up and that you would draw men to yourself.

May we have a deeper walk when we leave here because of you, because we met with you, not your servants.

Preparation for the surgery started 5 months prior and it took a team of 70 to begin.

There were 7 pediatricians, pediatric anesthesiologists, 5 neurosurgeons, 2 cardiac surgeons, 5 plastic surgeons, several nurses and several technicians.

The twins joined at the head shared a large major vein, the sagittal suprasinus, superior sinus, that had to be separated and reconstructed.

To do the surgery would require doing work with the cardiac surgeons.

The neurosurgeon could not work on his own.

At 11.10 PM, they finally were able to separate down to the dura.

The boys, the 2 twins, their body temperatures were then lowered using hypothermia, lowering the body temperature from 95 degrees Fahrenheit down to 68 degrees.

The purpose was to stop all the metabolic processes so that they could then divert the blood and allow for the vein to actually be cut and separated for each of the young boys.

This allowed the physicians 1 hour, 1 hour then to separate the veins and the rest of the head in addition to reconstructing the veins and restart the blood.

The team work that ensued was described by the surgeon as such.

By using 20 minutes to separate the vessels, this gave us only 40 minutes to complete our work.

Fortunately, the cardiovascular surgeons had been looking over our shoulders and observing the configuration of the sinuses as I was cutting through them.

From the pericardium, they cut pieces to exactly the right diameter and shape.

Although they were estimating, the 2 men were so skilled that when they handed the pericardium to Long and me, all the pieces fitted perfectly.

We were able to sew them into place along the affected areas.

At 1 point, perhaps 45 minutes into the hour, I knew we were moving close to the deadline.

Without looking around, I sensed the tension level around me increasing, almost as if the individuals were whispering to each other, are we going to finish on time?

I completed mine, and within seconds before the blood had started flowing again, We were right on target.

A silence momentarily filled the operating room and I was conscious only of the rhythmic humming of the heart-lung machine.

As a pessimist, as I was going about the eventual outcome of the surgery, I still felt a glow of pride of being able to work side by side with the best men and women in the medical field.

And the end of the surgery wasn't the end of our teamwork.

The post-operative care was as spectacular as the surgery.

Everything in the weeks following the surgery confirmed again our togetherness.

It seemed as if everyone from the ward clerk to the orderly to the nurses had become personally involved with this historic event.

We were a team, a wonderful, marvelous team.

Without the cardiovascular component of the surgery, the surgery of separating the head and the brains of these children would have been impossible.

But diverting the blood away to be cooled and directing the blood flow from the site of the neurosurgery site, in and of itself was not the main surgery that needed to be done.

It was necessary and even critical, but it was not the final goal.

Yet without that component of the surgery, the main neurosurgery component could not have been taken care of.

We're going to go back to a very familiar story, The story of Naaman.

Many of us know the story, you could probably tell it.

If you haven't, I pray that you would be encouraged tonight.

Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and honorable because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria.

He was also a mighty man in valor, but he was a leper.

And the Syrians had gone out by companies and had brought away a captive out of the land of Israel, a little maid.

And she said to her mistress, would my Lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria, for he would recover him of his leprosy.

She just got taken from her family and she probably has no idea what has happened to them.

Can you imagine the depression that she's in?

A loss of her sense of identity, not even in the home that she is in.

She has every right to be focused on herself and to think of no 1 else but herself, to just do her duty and then go back and maybe cry.

But yet, She sees in Naaman what her parents taught her to see in every person that probably came to their home.

Someone for whom God had and would bring a Messiah.

But someone, inspiration tells us, her parents likely taught her about the God in heaven who's not only about a person able or willing to bring healing, but 1 who uses even the humble, a child like her, to bring healing.

I wish you and I would have such an experience, such an experience with God that when we see a person suffering, we would not be able to hide it, no matter what our capabilities.

If it means that we go to the riverside and we sing, I pray that we would not be afraid to do that or not think it enough.

Oh, that we would have such an intimate experience with our God, that we would know where to point weary souls, the human cooperating with the divine.

And 1 went in and told his lord, saying, Thus and thus said the maid that is of the land of Israel.

And the king of Syria said, Go, I will send a letter unto the king of Israel.

And he departed and took with him 10 talons of silver, 6, 000 pieces of gold, and 10 changes of raiment.

And he brought the letter to the king of Israel saying, Now when this letter is come to thee, behold, I have therewith sent Naaman my servant unto thee that thou mayest recover him of the leprosy.

He not only listened but he believed enough to take a large amount of wealth and to travel to a land that he just destroyed.

People that he had destroyed and yet he was going to them to seek for help because of what this little girl had shared with him.

The only way that an intelligent man like that, remember how he was described, right?

This is his king's top official in the army.

He looked at this and he had and saw in this young lady an influence that he could believe, an experience that was believable.

And the only way it was believable was because she lived it out.

Her confidence in the God above gave him hope.

Is our influence such that those who are with us can trust our word when we say, Go to my God.

In Testimonies, Volume 3, page 170, the following is written, The greatest responsibility rests upon the church at Battle Creek to live and walk in the light and to preserve their simplicity and separation for the world, from the world that their influence may tell with convincing power upon strangers to the truth who attend our meetings.

If the church at Battle Creek is a lifeless body filled with pride, exalted above the simplicity of true godliness, leaning to the world, its influence will be to scatter from Christ and to make the most solemn and essential truths of the Bible of no force.

The members of this church have opportunities to be benefited by the lectures from the physicians of the Health Institute.

They can obtain information upon the subject of health reform if they desire it.

But the church at Battle Creek, who make great profession of the truth, are far behind other churches who have not been blessed with the advantages that they have.

The neglect of the church to live up to the light which they have had upon health reform is a discouragement to the physicians and to the friends of the health institute.

If the church would manifest a greater interest in the reforms which God himself has brought to them to fit them for His coming, their influence would be tenfold what it is now.

Is our influence and our experience in the faith such that someone can come to us and we can bring a tenfold influence than what we see right now.

Are we living the Bible faith that God has given us?

Fred Hardinge

Health Ministry Around the World

I wanted to share with you a little bit about health ministry.

Nedley's last quotation was most appropriate as a segue into what we're talking about and what I'm going to be sharing this evening.

If you look in your program, you'll see a totally different title.

I'm not exactly sure what happened to my titles that I submitted earlier, but we're going to look at this evening at health ministry around the world.

I have been involved in health ministry for about 35 years, a little more than that now, and I have never seen a greater interest in our church, and I am very thankful to the Lord for that.

There are a number of reasons that might be mentioned, but this evening I just want to share with you some things that are happening in the world of health ministry.

And it's just a small set of what I have the privilege of being able to see and interact with in the work that the Lord has called me to right now.

30 years ago, the Lord laid upon the heart of a pastor and his wife the burden that they should become interested in health personally.

They knew very little about it, but they began reading the good books.

And they were moved and inspired and strengthened by the Lord.

And when they decided to become vegetarians, they were told by their conference president that they would never see another church.

They would be stuck for the rest of their lives where they were.

But they said no to themselves, no, the Lord has led and we will continue.

Today, that pastor is the conference president.

He has worked all of his ministry in that conference.

Today, it is a leading influence in the area of health ministry throughout South America, including the country of Brazil.

In the city of Sao Paulo, there are 4 conferences.

And 1 of those conferences is being led by this pastor and his wife.

About 25 years ago, they felt impressed with a small group of friends that they should buy a piece of land that was outside of the city of Sao Paulo and that they should establish a training center for health ministry.

Today, that piece of property of 13 hectares is within the city limits of San Paolo.

And it is located in a very, very upscale neighborhood.

They can now, and I have a few pictures of this training center.

They can house about 450 people at 1 time for training seminars.

And it is dedicated to training for health ministry.

Now, that is not the only seminars that come.

But Long ago, they made a decision that they would choose the food that would be served to all who would enter those gates and come to seminars or to training programs, whether they were sponsoring the training program or not.

Thousands and thousands of individuals have now been trained in health ministry at this conference.

It is the most desirable conference center for Seventh-day Adventists in the entire city of Sao Paulo.

And Elder Biazzi's wife, many years ago, came to the conclusion that 1 of the reasons there was prejudice against a vegetarian diet was that it was not being prepared well, it didn't taste well, and it wasn't being presented well.

And so she took upon herself to attend and become certified in a chef school, 1 of the best chef schools in all of Brazil.

And she has taken and applied those principles to what happens here in the training center.

And I just show you a few pictures of a few of the meals that I had during the time I have been there.

I've been there twice and will be going back there next year.

They have a very, actually they have 2 sessions back to back of health ministry training.

People from all over Brazil, as well as other parts of the country.

Just a few pictures of the kind of food that we get to eat when we're there.

And it's all presented absolutely wonderfully.

This was 1 of my breakfasts and I just couldn't help but get my cell phone out and take a picture of it.

Pastor Biazzi is the man standing to my right in the picture.

She had slipped and fallen on a wet floor and was not able to be in the picture, but most of these individuals are the people who helped pioneer this training center with him.

But the most exciting news of all is that their kitchen has, and they are cooperating with our university in Sao Paolo, and they have recently been approved for an accredited vegetarian chef training program, the first and only 1 in all of South America.

You need to learn Portuguese if you're going to attend.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

Days of Ministry

57m

The Co-Working of the Divine and the Human

36m

Health Ministry Around the World

52m

A True Knowledge of God

42m

05. Biblical Missionaries: Exiles as Missionaries

1h 22m

Forward On Your Knees- Part 2

1h 32m

Forward On Your Knees- Part 1

1h 29m

Teach Us to Pray

1h 34m

Daring to Ask For More

1h 34m

Prayer for Area Schools

51m

Better Beggars: The Purpose of the Latter Rain

1h 22m

Praying While Waiting For an Answer

1h

Sound Doctrine