Students and young adults often feel alone in school and in doing ministry. The experience of Elijah reminds us that we are never alone and that we need to prioritize daily communing with God and learning to listen.

ACF Institute 2017: Never Alone

<p>Students and young adults often feel alone in school and in doing ministry. The experience of Elijah reminds us that we are never alone and that we need to prioritize daily communing with God and learning to listen.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Adventist Christian Fellowship (ACF)

Anil Kanda

Learning to Listen

And Father in heaven, right now, we just want to thank you for being a God who is God of the entire universe, yet you're hearing our prayers even at this moment.

Thank you for this incredible time that we could just lay everything else on the altar just to listen to you.

We pray and ask as we open up the Word of God that you would open up our hearts and minds to minister to us, to speak to us the things we need to know.

We thank you God for hearing us and being with us tonight.

Put your Bibles in the air if you brought your Bibles.

And all right, and those who brought their Bibles, turn to the person next to you who didn't bring their Bible with a judgmental look for not bringing their Bibles to this retreat.

Okay, so, I wanna share something with you.

And the reason why I am so blessed to be here is because I became a Seventh-day Adventist when I was in college.

I also come from a Sikh background and so I was part of an Eastern religion growing up down in Southern California And I had gone to college, a local college, and also the local university.

And it was during that time that I was going through a lot of heart searching, a time where I was very confused about life, God, religion, all these things.

And I never forgot those moments that I'd be walking down the hall that I wished somebody would talk to me about God.

And it was through Providence that God brought me into contact with the Seventh-day Adventist.

Probably tomorrow I'll share a little bit about that story.

And just what took place when this Seventh-day Adventist, and by the way, he wasn't even baptized, and he actually got kicked out of the academy when he was younger, And his mom had been praying for him to witness to somebody, and that was the answer to that prayer, right?

And it was so powerful because we both ended up getting baptized.

So I always like to say I got baptized before the guy that brought me to the Lord, right?

But I just have a heart for people who are in college just because I know That is an epicenter of diversity an epicenter where identities are being formed and forged where people are making decisions for the rest of their life.

So you have been called to a very, very special ministry.

Even if nobody else in the world knows who you are, all of heaven is looking with admiration at the work that you are doing.

In fact, how many people here have ever read the book Great Controversy?

Okay, if you never read that book, I want to challenge you, read that book.

When you read that book, you will know exactly why you are Seventh-day Adventist.

In fact, what is so powerful about that book, I was just reading it a few days ago.

Now, the Waldenses were a group of people who were being persecuted By the Roman Church and this group of people lived out in the wilderness They had trained their children to memorize scripture They built their life around biblical principles and there they remained untouched by papal power for several years.

What was so amazing is they would sew clothing and they would spend several days putting certain kind of clothing together and within the clothing was stitched scripture verses they would send their children their kids to the universities of their day you can read about it when you get back to your dormitory or room wherever you're staying.

And what's so amazing, she says, Ellen White says that, that they so changed the direction of the universities that they were attending, that when the papal powers got Hold of what was happening in these universities.

They could not trace it to its source These young people who loved the scripture who loved people and above all things loved Jesus changed the current flow of society at that time in the universities So I really believe God can do powerful things through you.

We're gonna be talking about something very special we're gonna be taking a good look at a very interesting individual in the Bible and This individual is kind of a contradiction in terms Because he is somebody who is very encouraging someone who is very courageous Someone who's faithful to God and on the other hand.

He's someone who's very discouraged very cowardly and Sometimes questioning whether or not God can work in his life this man's name is Elijah and we're gonna be learning about this special individual tonight But before we do I'm gonna ask you a question Does anybody know who this person is Raise your hand if you know who this person is.

I mean, I will be impressed if you know who this person is.

Now, this may not seem like anything impressive to you, but the reason why this guy is impressive is because he has climbed several mountains all over the entire world.

What makes him so amazing, he was the first person to climb Mount Everest without oxygen tanks.

He climbed Mount Everest without oxygen tanks.

Do you know the top part of Mount Everest?

Do you know why they call it the death zone?

Yeah, it's pretty obvious because people die up there, right?

The oxygen's very thin, storms can come on really quickly, and people just have a certain amount of time to get to the very top once they enter into the death zone.

In fact, did you know still at the top of Mount Everest there's over about 200 bodies still up there?

So what was so interesting about this individual is that he actually went on expedition in the 1980s.

And when he went up there, there was a few people who actually died in the expedition.

He came back down from this expedition And there were people who were, you know, trying to take pictures of him.

There were people who were trying to interview him.

And somebody says to him, they said, didn't you know death was waiting for you at the top of the mountain?

People have died on top of this mountain.

Didn't you think you were going to die up there?

I went up there to live in tonight's message.

We're going to be taking a good look at the mountaintop experience of a man by the name of Elijah.

He was somebody who was so discouraged in his life.

He even thought he was going to die But God had another purpose in mind for him at the mountaintop Do you know in Scripture God has 2 primary purposes to bringing people to the mountaintop here?

They are number 1 to encourage us and Number 2 to show us what the next few steps need to be.

To encourage us, and number 2, to show us what the next few steps need to be.

We're going to be taking a good look at Elijah's mountaintop experience and we're going to understand some powerful things from that passage.

You know, so, interesting, every time I speak before students or I speak at a graduation or a collegiate retreat, I always like to say this.

There are 2 things you need to know for the rest of your life.

Like, these are the 2 things you can never forget for the rest of your life.

This is probably the best advice I could ever, ever give you.

Number 1, here's the first thing you need to know for the rest of your life.

If you understand these 2 things for the rest of your life, you're going to be good.

If you understand these 2 things for the rest of your life, you're gonna be good.

Learning to Listen

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