Is the fear or hell, or the reward of heaven really what should motivate us as Christians? What truly motivates you in your experience? And is that what God wants for you?

<p>Is the fear or hell, or the reward of heaven really what should motivate us as Christians? What truly motivates you in your experience? And is that what God wants for you?</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>

Heritage Academy

Examining the Laodicean Message

Dee Casper

What’s Your Motivation?

This evening's topic is again, what's your motivation?

What is it that motivates you in your Christian experience?

And I wanted to start with a couple Google searches that I had.

When you see signs that say this, warning, Jesus Christ will return, are you born again?

Or everyone gets a ride sooner or later, it's a hearse, and it says everyone gets a ride sooner or later, the question is where are you going when you die?

Global warning, you see what they did there?

Instead of global warming, global warning.

Now, what emotions are generally being awakened when you see signs like this?

Using fear to get people to make a decision.

Clean up your house and get in order, this little guy says, because Jesus is coming.

And then this 1 in the bottom right corner, few will be taken.

Is fear something that should be motivating us in our religious experience?

Is that what we should be using to reach folks?

Thankfully none of these are Adventist publications, by the way.

I've seen this on a semi truck a few times because I drive a lot on the interstate, just for travels.

And I see this picture and it just really frustrated me.

There's this angry looking man pointing his finger at you and it says, did you pray today?

Again, using this sense of like fear and intimidation, is this what should motivate us as Christians?

You can take the escalator going up to a bright light or an escalator going down with flames.

There's this fork in the road, there's bad stuff on the right, good stuff on the left.

What if our motivation is just that we get something good at the end, right?

There's this beautiful celestial city, there's angels, there's rainbows, there's children writing briefcases with wings on them.

I don't really know what that is, but there's hot air balloons and That looks like fun next to rainbows.

And then there's this beautiful Nathan Green poster.

And I'm not saying that heaven isn't a beautiful place.

I'm going to make a very good point, I hope, through the course of this evening.

But the question is, what is it that's motivating us in our Christian experience?

What's wrong with these things being the motivation?

What I'd like to do is unpack with you something that has been very, very helpful for me.

They had this like nerdy theological publication called the Journal for the Adventist Theological Society, not an iPad, but I have an article from there that was actually written in 1991.

Now how many people in this room were actually alive in 1991?

But this article is absolutely amazing, and I'm going to get to that in a moment, but I need to begin with a word of prayer, and then we'll enter our study, what's your motivation?

I'm going to kneel, just want to invite you to bow your heads with me.

God in heaven, I thank you for this privilege to have this time with these young people and I just pray that you would bless us, not only with your presence, but Lord that you would open our eyes to what it is that motivates us and I pray that we would have the right motives in our Christian experience.

And that we would be very reflective in seeing what God is describing us.

I thank you for the blessing it's been to me.

I pray that we bless these young people and that we would see you do something here that we would not soon forget.

And we ask for the Spirit's guidance now in Jesus' name.

So, the article's called, The Role of the Law in Salvation.

If you just Google this in Google, Anyway, if you search for this in Google, the role of the law in salvation by Louis R Walton, he's an Adventist attorney who I believe is still practicing out in California.

I need to call him but I didn't get a chance to do that today.

Anyway, in this article he kind of lays out, he starts his article, it's basically a sermon I think is what it is, and I'm just gonna borrow, I'm not gonna do all of it, but I will cover some really, really good things in here.

He makes the point that we as the Seventh-day Adventist movement are of the mind that God has given us a very precious message, a very important message to prepare the world for the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Okay, just making sure I'm in the right room.

I could have walked in the wrong building.

So, We believe that that's actually the case and that this message should radically turn the world upside down for Jesus Christ.

In 1991, when he was looking at the landscape, we still have a lot of work to do, right?

And he makes this point that, in other words, we seem to have, we've not fully lived up to the potential of our faith.

And the article that he quotes from is what he's talking about, but then he says, this guy's observation is illustrated dramatically in the statistics of our own youth.

Now this is 27 years ago, but this is already a troubling statistic then.

He says, it is now clear that by the time they reach 18 years of age, well over half of our young people functionally sever their church connections.

Roger Dudley has reported some unflattering remarks by Adventist youth about the message that we believe will change the world at the end of time.

This is what the young people in the Advent movement are saying about the movement that's supposed to prepare the world to stand for Jesus.

No fun on Saturdays until the sun is down.

This is what some people were saying in this study, young people.

He says, I personally remember a young relative brought up in an impeccably avid his home, romping gleefully through the house late 1 Sabbath afternoon while saying, oh boy, oh boy, only 10 more minutes till sundown.

I'm not gonna ask you to raise your hands if you've ever been in that situation.

Throughout such remarks, 1 finds a common theme.

They relate negatively to the law, the same law that we believe is going to judge the world.

A reverse but equally illuminating view of this problem can be found in remarks by Adventist youth who decided not to leave the church.

According to Dudley, even faithful young Adventists said the following, I have a lot of work to do if I want to be saved.

I wish I could be completely good, but it's not always easy.

I don't know if I'll be able to stand up for it when the time of trouble comes.

And again, I won't ask you to raise your hands if you're in that category either.

Once again, my memories corroborate this.

I will recall the words of an academy classmate reflecting the uncertainty we all shared.

His friend said, I wish I knew if I'm going to be saved, because if not, I sure want to have fun.

If all church members had the gift of frankness so unique to youth, many Adventists of mature years might express similar sentiments.

Indeed, some have in a phenomenon we call New Theology.

Perhaps we've reached a point where it's time to ask a question that we've not asked amongst conservative Seventh-day Adventist circles.

Don’t Forget Where You Came From

God in heaven, thank you for this privilege to come into your presence.

Thank you to be able to share with these young people, and I just pray that you would bless us, that you would minister to us, and that you would open our eyes to what we need to see today.

Father, I cannot help these people, and so I pray that you would do for them what only you can.

Don't forget where you came from, and what I'm going to begin with is share a story with you.

So I was at ASI earlier this year in August.

ASI was in, I'm everywhere all the time, Houston.

ASI was in Houston, and I had had dinner with Taj Paklev on a Friday evening, I think, before the Sabbath came, and had picked his brain on some stuff.

And then I asked him a question, and I've asked this to a lot of evangelists just because I'm kind of new to this.

And so I said, what advice do you wish you would have received when you were me, knowing what you know now?

So what advice did you wish people would have told you knowing what you know now whenever you were just starting in evangelism?

Not just starting, but you know, going through this process of becoming known and other stuff that you never asked for.

And he's a severe introvert too, so it was helpful.

And instead of answering my question directly, he started to tell me a story.

Where you ask them a question and they don't just say, the answer's X, but like, let me tell you a story about whatever, and eventually they get to their point.

Jesus did this, other people in the Bible did this, so it's not a bad thing.

So Taj begins to tell me this story, and he says, you know, there's this guy, the man at the pool of Bethesda in John chapter 5, and the guy's been an invalid for how long?

He's been incapable of walking, of supporting his own body weight for 38 years.

We're told in Desire of Ages that He's actually the most helpless case there.

Of everyone who's there, He's the most helpless.

And Sotaj begins to tell me, you know, that He's in this horrible condition.

And Jesus asked him a question, and it's a seemingly obvious question, you would think.

The guy kind of gives this lame answer, and I don't mean because he's lame, I mean the answer he gives is lame.

And then eventually, Jesus asks a follow-up question.

He tells him to rise, 3 things, to rise, to take up his mat, and to walk.

And Taj made this point that the rising makes sense and the walking makes sense, but what's with the mat?

What's that got to do with the price of fish?

Telling the guy to rise in the stand, I get that, but why is it that he's telling this man to take his mat with him.

This mat is just this reminder of 38 years of rejection, abandonment, shame, and hopelessness.

And then Taj went in and he says, that's precisely the point.

What Jesus is basically telling the man is to not forget where he came from.

And I remember when he told me that, it just hit me hard.

And so instead of telling me just a direct answer and sounding like some, you know, crusty old guy, even though he's not, Taj isn't very old at all, but just, you know, just don't get too big for your britches, young blood.

What he told me was, don't forget where you came from, man.

But he told me through a story that made it easier to swallow, right?

As someone who's going through this process that I never asked for, I'm an introvert, I didn't ask to be in front of people, I didn't ask to be a public speaker, I didn't think I could do any of that stuff.

But people believed things about me that I didn't believe, and because of their belief, which awakened me to God's belief, I do what I do now by the grace of God, which is only by the grace of God.

And This counsel that Taj gave me kind of reminded me of the story of 2 people in Scripture, Simon the leper and Mary Magdalene.

And I'd like to tell you their 2 stories and through their 2 stories bring out this point of not forgetting where we came from.

They have 2 completely different life journeys, but their 2 different journeys converge to the feet of Jesus.

Simon the leper, he's a religious leader who contracts leprosy.

Any day that anyone contracts leprosy, it's not a good day.

But the problem is when you get leprosy, that means you have to leave the community that you live in.

You have to live now outside of the city.

He loses a lot immediately, just interpersonally.

He's an outcast and can't even be touched.

He's deprived of any form of intimacy, right?

And the belief in that day was that if you contract leprosy, it means that you're cursed by God.

Well, just imagine being a religious leader who's cursed by God.

How's that going to go over for your self-esteem, let alone your public image, right?

And yet Jesus miraculously heals the guy and he restores his ministry.

You assume that I'm never gonna be in ministry again, I'm never gonna be able to do what I did before, I can't see the people I wanted to see, And God in his great mercy and love gives you a second chance.

His whole life story is restored and he's put back into ministry.

We're given some additional insight and desire of ages that she herself was actually sexually abused and this set her life on a course that was not in her best interest and she eventually fell into a lifestyle of sexual sin, which is not uncommon.

Many people in the adult film industry, there's nothing adult about it, but many people in the adult film industry have wrestled.

They were abused by someone at a young age.

People that are in other forms of that type of behavior.

It's not the only cause, but it can be common.

So she herself, because of this lifestyle, is an outcast in society, similar to Simon's, isn't it?

And in the small community of Bethany, right, this is 1 of those places where everyone knows your name.

They had that song for the TV program Cheers where everyone knows your name.

Everybody knows everybody else's business, and she's the outcast.

It's not like she can just kind of hide in society and hope, like everyone knows.

But she herself is also set free by Jesus.

We're told that 7 demons are cast out of her and she's healed of her sordid past.

How to Lose the Kingdom

God in heaven, I thank you for this privilege to come into your presence in prayer.

Lord, I thank you that you've been with us last night and this morning, and I'm trusting that you who brought us this far will continue with us.

So we just pray for your presence, for your blessing, and that we would not soon forget the blessing we receive just now.

Send your Spirit to do what I cannot, I pray.

And someone remind me, I need to make an announcement at the end of this message.

So if I don't make the announcement it's your fault and not mine.

So what I'd like to do is cover a contrast between the life of King Saul and David, because there's a...

We got 1 big fan in the room, all right, and I think it's very fascinating.

I think there's some profound lessons on righteousness by faith, for 1, but 2, you just look at the 2 lives of these guys and if you compare the sins of David and compare the sins of Saul, David's life is an absolute dumpster fire in comparison to Saul.

What is it that led to this tragic result in the life of Saul?

So in 1 Samuel chapter 10, if you'd turn with me there, we're gonna have a Bible study this evening.

If you're not, too bad because that's where we're going.

It's lawful to do good on the Sabbath, I hear.

1 Samuel chapter 10, and we're just gonna walk through the experience of Saul and start connecting some dots.

First Samuel 10 beginning in verse 6 says, so whenever Saul is chosen and Samuel's communicating with him, he says, then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man, and let it be that when these signs come to you that you do as the occasion demands, for God is with you." Then go down to verse 9, "...so it was that when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, that God gave him another..." What?

"...another heart." And he literally has an encounter with the new covenant.

Well, in the faith I live by, 111, something I made my juniors memorize, but I don't have juniors here anymore because I left.

The Faith I Live By 111 gives a great definition.

She says, So, righteousness by faith is God doing for you what you can't do for yourself, but you need to confess your nothingness, your inability to do for yourself what you can't do, right?

In Ezekiel chapter 36, God makes this extravagant promise to the Israelites.

He says, I'm gonna bring you into your own land.

I'm gonna sprinkle clean water on you and you'll be clean.

I'll cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols." And then he says, I'll remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and then I'll put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them." Jeremiah 31, 31 to 34 alludes to something very similar.

He says, I'm gonna write my law in your heart and in your mind, and he says, your sins and your lawless deeds I will remember no more.

This is a beautiful promise of God in the New Covenant for believers, right?

Whenever we come to believe the gospel of Jesus Christ.

What we see in the experience of Saul is somewhat similar.

He's given a new heart and the Spirit of God comes into his life and it literally gives him this holy boldness, as we're gonna see.

It actually happens in 1 Samuel 11, that some people are doing some stuff towards the Israelites and Saul's like, what is this nonsense?

And he says, let's go get busy and take care of work.

And they end up beating the bad guys or whatever.

But this holy boldness comes upon him when he encounters the Spirit of God and is given a new heart.

In 1 Samuel chapter 13, it starts to get ugly.

Beginning in verse 8, it says, He was going to war.

Samuel told him, I'll be there in 7 days.

The problem is it looks scary and no one's showing up and he's getting kind of freaked.

And so he's feeling like he needs to do for the people and for himself what Samuel promised to do on behalf of God.

So he tries to make himself and the people right with God by making his own sacrifice.

Samuel said, wait here for 7 days, I'll take care of it.

Yeah, but Samuel isn't coming and so I'll just do it.

Instead of following the clear call of God, I'll do for me and I'll do for the people what God said that He would do.

It was a direct violation of God's counsel, and then he tries to justify himself when confronted.

This is literally 1 of my funniest moments I think in Scripture.

He says, "...and he waited 7 days according to the time set by Samuel, but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattered from him.

So Saul said, bring a burnt offering and a peace offering here to me.

And now it happened, as soon as he had finished presenting the burnt offering, that Samuel came.

And Saul went out to meet him, that he might greet him.

But anyway, Saul said, When I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered together at Micmash.

Then I said, The Philistines will now come down on me at Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to the Lord.

Therefore I felt compelled and offered a burnt offering.

The Lord has sought for himself a man after his own heart.

And the Lord has commanded him to be commander over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you." It's of great importance, young people, that when God asks things of us, we do them.

Not because God says, do it or else, and because I said so, He only asks us to do things.

The only things that God asks of us to do are the things that we ourselves would choose to do if we knew what He knew.

The only things that God asked us to do are what we ourselves would choose to do if we knew what he knew.

It's not legalism, it's not control, he's just doing what we would have wanted him to do if we knew that ahead of time.

Now in 1st Samuel chapter 15, And it's even more important for leaders, specifically.

People mess up, stuff happens, confess your sin, come back to God.

Series

Examining the Laodicean Message

What’s Your Motivation?

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

Go and Do: New England Conference Youth Week of Prayer

01 Finding God in a Godless Society

38m

Desire, Purpose, Motive

40m

Jesus Introduces the Truth

1h

Strength in Times of Darkness

56m

Star Falls

02 Star Falls

1h 2m

The Living One

47m

The Plan of Salvation

04 The Nature of Christ

1h 14m

On the Outskirts of Jerusalem

True and False Disciples

57m

Go and Do: New England Conference Youth Week of Prayer

03 Prophecy and Purpose

43m

History and Heroes - Those That Stand: Part 3

1h 6m

Plenary

Salvation to the Uttermost

1h 2m

Encounters With Jesus

Jesus’ Encounter with Zacchaeus

36m

Sound Doctrine