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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Mark Howard

Revival of True Discipleship

I was wondering if you were with me for a minute.

I was going to tell, you know, Carlos, you're looking at moving east, and people in California don't have nice afternoons as an excuse for not coming out to meetings.

And it rained last week and it rained the week before and so this week I had things to get done.

But here you guys get nice weather all the time.

So You know, this is not an excuse for a Sabbath afternoon, and that's why you're here, right?

Because you want to build on this morning, I hope.

This morning, we just scratched the surface.

And I have to tell you that what we're talking about this afternoon in both of our messages, but I would dare say even this message here is 1 that is of the utmost importance, and it's gonna probably be 1 of the most challenging for at least some of you.

But that's okay, we like to be challenged, don't we?

Okay, well, I'm gonna kneel and ask God to bless our time, and then we're gonna get into our topic this afternoon.

I mentioned to you earlier that I believe that what we're dealing with here is something that is key to helping us to maintain a solid spiritual experience and get away from the roller coaster that so many people have of being on a spiritual high and a spiritual low and a spiritual high and a spiritual low.

And it's actually not as, it's a lot more elementary than most people think.

It's just a little bit of a cross bearing.

And I think that's why we don't hear about it as much.

Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for this Sabbath day.

I want to thank you for this beautiful weather, and I want to thank you for the opportunity we have to come together to fellowship, to spend time in your word, Lord, as we are looking at the things happening in the world around us and we know that the coming of Jesus is at hand.

Not only do we want to be ready for his coming, but we want to help others to be ready too.

And so Father we ask that you would bless our time in your word.

We ask it in Jesus name and for his sake, amen.

I used, This morning I used 1 of those little ear mics.

I can't stand them, I can say that here, just to let you know like you care.

But every time I go, I have little ears and they always end up hanging on my face while I'm preaching.

And Everywhere I go, and I said it this morning, I said, you know those things, and they say, oh, this will be okay.

It'll be different, and every time, you know, it's just a, so I went with the lapel mic.

It's just the complaint there was that there's not a sound level except for on the mic itself.

So he can't go to a soundboard and turn me down.

This afternoon, I would like for you to open your Bibles to a parable in Matthew chapter 12.

And maybe before I go in there, I don't have the article with me, but there was an article on CNN that came out and I clipped the article about a book called The Almost Christian that was written by a woman named Kenda Creasy Dean.

She's a professor at, I want to say Princeton, but she had done this, she'd written this book, and she'd done a summer survey of teen Christians and their religious experience.

And the title of the article was More Teens becoming fake Christians.

And the basic point of her article is this, these poor teens are getting sold a religion that has no cross in it, a crossless Christianity.

And she says, the challenge is when you talk to the young people, There's nothing left in Christianity to challenge them anymore.

That's what she picked up from her summer working with these young people.

There just isn't enough substance in Christianity.

And of course as I read that I thought, well this isn't just a problem for the teens.

And I believe Jesus addresses this very issue here in Matthew chapter 12.

I believe there's a substance issue with a lot of Christians.

In fact, how many of you are at university church this afternoon?

Okay, talking about a Christ-centered doctrines and a Christ-centered religion.

We're going to take that, we're going to flesh that out here this afternoon.

What does it mean to center your religion on Christ?

I mean, I have to tell you, saints, I mean, And if you were there in the service, I mean, I'm glad for what I heard, but when you say, hey, I believe in Jesus, you're aware that James says the devils believe and tremble.

And I think we live in a day and age that we have to understand what it means when we say I believe.

And I believe that there are, when we're talking about living a Christ-centered experience, I think Jesus addresses that here in the book of Matthew.

Now the Bible says, When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places seeking rest and finds none.

Then he says, I will return to my house from which I came.

And this evil spirit was in the person, but the evil spirit got, for some reason or the other, left the person and he went to find some other place.

But he couldn't find another place that he liked as well and so he comes back and notice what the Bible says, I will return to my house from which I came and when he comes he finds it empty, swept, and put in order.

Then he goes and takes with him 7 other spirits more wicked than himself and they enter and dwell there.

And the last state of that man is worse than the first, so shall it also be with this wicked generation." What does a man look like who's been swept and put in order and had an evil spirit leave.

If you were to see him, what would you probably find him doing?

What would you probably find him doing what would you probably find him looking like.

Okay you find you probably find him at church initially, and probably even now, yeah, find him at church, what else?

Reformed lifestyle, He's stopped drinking, he's stopped smoking, he's stopped cussing, he's stopped doing a lot of the things that he used to do.

Probably see him in church on Sabbath, right?

In other words, let me ask you this, why did the evil spirit leave?

When we go to the Bible and we find an evil spirit leaving, when does an evil spirit leave?

He's cast out and something else comes in.

Now the distinction between this particular man is he's cleaned up, he's swept, he's put in order, but he's empty.

And it doesn't say right here, I'm assuming because the evil spirit left that he wasn't always empty.

But we find him here empty, but he's cleaned up.

In other words, outwardly he's got the forms of Christianity.

The problem is that there's no substance of the Christian life within.

He's got the forms of it, but it's empty inside.

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Revival of True Discipleship

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