Michigan Camp Meeting 2016: The Harvest is Great

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Elders Advanced Training

Royce Snyman

Elders Advanced Training- Part 1

Elders Advanced Training- Part 2

Elders Advanced Training- Part 3

Father in heaven, this morning we come to you grateful for a new day, grateful for the newness of life that you give us every day.

And Father, as we spend some time here as individuals responsible for leadership in our church, in our churches, there are some times when we have to face some pretty challenging issues.

And oh, that we had all the answers, but we don't, which is actually a good thing because it makes us more dependent on you.

And I pray that as we have a conversation about these issues today, that your Holy Spirit will guide and direct what we do and that you will be present here to teach us, give us ears to hear, minds to understand, and hearts to be willing to work through these issues in the best possible way.

Tom, You're not close enough to see that thing, but you keep an eye on it for me, okay?

Does it look like it's working all right right now?

I'm just picking on Tom because he saved me yesterday, so I hope it doesn't run out of memory today.

So today, we want to talk about discipline issues and we want to talk about conflict.

I have approximately an hour and 10 minutes to get 2 of the most challenging subjects into place here.

So here's what I'm going to ask you to do.

I'm going to ask you to let me give some content here to start with.

And I'm going to try to do that content in the first 45 minutes or so here before I go on.

And then if I can get that content to you, That was good, really good.

If I can get that content through to you, then anybody else here needing this?

Then I'll give you a chance to ask some questions and all.

So will you hold your comments, whatever the comment or question might be, write it down if you want to share it.

But please, if you'll let me get through this, then I will, I'll give you a chance to ask questions, and we'll try to work through some of that this morning.

And that way I can be sure to be able to...

Yeah, my wife told me this morning she needed it and I did not prepare it the other way, so I thought she's not even doing presentations with that.

Yeah, blame it on the other person, right?

So, let me bring this up here really quickly.

First of all, when we are talking about the issue of discipline, and that's where we're going to start, I really want to stress with you today that discipline is redemptive in nature or it's not what God wants it to be.

Now I don't have time to do a redemptive discipline seminar, but we do redemptive discipline seminars.

I learned from Elder Gallimore the principle of what he calls redemptive discipline and it's not a new term to him, I'm just saying it's a seminar that he does and I sat in his classes for a number of times and then I asked him, will you give me permission to also teach that?

And he said yes, and I have that material, and I share that in a seminar.

I'm not going to do it here today because it takes more time than I have here to do with it, but I'm going to share some of those principles with you today and help to bring about that emphasis.

When you and I are dealing with the issue of discipline, it is not for the purpose of punishing people.

It's not for the purpose of punishing people, it is for the purpose of redeeming people.

We're trying to save people, not get rid of them.

God has no value in us doing that because that isn't why Jesus came here.

He didn't come here to figure out how many people he could get rid of.

He came here for the purpose of saving souls.

Here's the major point that I want to be able to stress to start with.

Does God expect his people to live to the lowest standard or to the highest standard?

We're not perfect human beings, am I right?

But God does want his people to grow and develop.

Because we're human beings, we tend to reach to the lowest standard.

What is the least that I need to do to get into the kingdom of heaven?

Rather than what is it that God wants me to do?

What is the best way that I would be able to represent Jesus?

What does he want me to do in my life so that I can live for him and be the representation for him that he wants me to be?

Because God is holy and righteous, His church has set high standards of moral and social behavior that reflect the character of God.

Those standards that the church has set, some people will say, oh, okay, so the church gets to set the standards.

We don't just say, okay, let's see what we should...

We say, what is it that Jesus is trying to tell us He wants us to do.

These standards are based upon those principles, they are eternal, and they're unchanging, just like God is eternal and unchanging.

Every person baptized in the church promises to follow these standards.

Stop and think about that for a moment and you'll remember that you took baptismal vows.

And Everybody who is baptized in the church has that vow.

Does that vow mean nothing or does it mean something?

Well, it depends on what you and I do in our lives.

And this is where your responsibility as an elder comes into play.

It's easy for us to want to say, all right, let's be nice and let's be kind and let's be, you know, whatever.

Yes, we should also be leaders and understand that if we put the standard down here, when God has put it up here, we're not doing God's work.

And He expects us to do the work that He's appointed us to.

And that work is to hold up his standard and help people to give themselves to him so much so that they are able to allow him to have control of their lives to reach that standard.

I'm not talking about us trying to work our way to heaven.

I'm doing a seminar in the afternoon on the Exodus and the Advent movement, and part of that seminar is talking about the tremendous lessons of faith that God was trying to teach the people.

But when he brought them to the point of Mount Sinai, he had to teach them 2 main points.

He'd already been trying to teach them a lot of things about faith.

First of all, he brought the judgments of the plagues on the Egyptians and showed that if they would trust Him, He could fight this war for them.

How many swords did they have to wield in order to get out of Egypt?

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Elders Advanced Training

Elders Advanced Training- Part 3

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