Michigan Camp Meeting 2017

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Flight Plan

Steven Conway

Tamara Conway

1. Departure

Our kind and gracious and loving Heavenly Father, we are so grateful this morning for your mercy, Lord.

We're grateful for the hope that we have that in the sweet by and by, Lord, our plan is to meet you there.

But until then, Lord, there are some things here down on this planet earth that we must work through, that we must allow your Holy Spirit to contend with us with.

And today our topic will be on relationships, Lord, and some different things that we encounter, whether it's from our past, our present, and also looking towards the future.

We are asking that you will be here with us and dwell with us here.

Open up our minds and give us wisdom and understanding because it comes from you.

And you said, Lord, that when we ask that you want to give it liberally.

We don't stand here as ones who profess to know everything there is to know about relationships Lord, but we know that the experiences that we've all had here are put together to help us to be able to learn more about who you are and more about who you want us to be Lord.

So again we praise you, we thank you Father and we love you and bless our time together here is what we ask in Jesus name amen amen all right come on in have a seat and we will get started here But we are gonna be stepping in a little bit and we're gonna be sharing with you guys a kind of a three-part series in regards to relationships.

And the name of the presentation, or what we've dubbed it, is called the flight plan, right?

And so how many of you have actually gone on a flight, gone on a trip, right?

It is a very great experience to be able to go all these different places, but it takes some preparation, correct?

Getting there for some of us can be a bit of a challenge, right?

And so that is what we're going to be discussing and talking with you all about today, the flight plan of our lives and when it comes to relationships.

It's pretty much a three-part plan to what it is that God has in store for us.

So I'm going to ask my husband to come on up here, and he is going to help me with this.

Matter of fact, let me ask before he's doing that, how many of us are married here?

Okay, all right, and the rest of us are sort of single, maybe dating, right?

No, just loving it, like living the life, right?

So this is going to be relevant to all of us, because even though we may be in relationships, there are still many things that we can learn that can help us to grow, amen?

Let me tell you, I've been married for 16 years and I feel like I'm learning something every single day.

God is shaping and molding our characters.

So 1 of the things that we are gonna be talking to you guys about is the process before marriage.

How many of you know that the place that we come from, it molds us and shapes us, right?

Our parents or our grandparents, the people who are in our lives that give us the image of relationship, right?

For me, I actually grew up in a single parent home for most of my life.

My parents divorced when I was around the age of 9.

You know, that was, I didn't expect it, didn't know really what to make of it.

And so as a kid, you just kind of roll with it.

You know, it's not like you actually have a say so, you know.

And so in that process, though, you are learning a lot of different things.

And a lot of those experiences ended up actually showing themselves later on in my life as a young adult, even as a single person, and also going into marriage.

And so, partly those experiences have a lot to, have a lot of impact on us as we go into seeking or trying to have a healthy relationship?

Yeah, I want to, first of all, I want to let you know that Pastor Bentley had some circumstances come up and that's why he's not going to be able to be here with you to do part 2 of his presentation.

But hopefully we've done like, I grew up watching wrestling and we, you know, okay, the ultimate warriors, nobody knows about them, but anyway, tag team, you know.

So like 1 partner's reaching out like, and the other 1 comes and taps his hand.

So we're rushing in to kind of fill in for Pastor Bentley.

As my wife said, the title of what we're gonna be sharing with you is flight plan.

Every 1 of us is on a journey and there are several things that every journey has in common.

And we're going to be looking at 3 crucial elements of every journey, and we're going to, by the grace of God, help you to discover how our beginnings affect our journey, how our baggage can keep us from reaching our destination, and the benefits of not taking the direct route.

I once was going out to the West Coast flying from here in the Midwest and I had 2 stops on the East Coast first.

So I flew from Detroit to like New York to North Carolina, then out to California.

But we're going to be looking at some biblical principles, biblical principles that don't just deal with marriage, but they deal with life, and these principles will give us insight into navigating some of the most challenging twists and turns.

First thing I want to do is ask you to...

Anyway, this is Psalm 139, verses 13 through 16.

Says, certainly, you made my mind and heart, you wove me together in my mother's womb.

I will give you thanks because your deeds are awesome and amazing.

My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret and sewed together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb.

All the days ordained for me were recorded in your scroll before 1 of them came into existence.

So how well, according to the 139th Psalm, how well or how intimately acquainted with us is God?

Would you say that he's more acquainted with us than we are with ourselves?

This 1 is in Jeremiah chapter 1, verses 4 and 5.

It says, the Lord said to me, before I formed you in your mother's womb, I chose you.

Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee.

And before thou comest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Alright, so if the 139th Psalm reveals God's intimate knowledge of us, then Jeremiah chapter 1 tells us that, while affirming that God has an intimate knowledge of us, It also tells us that God has a plan for our lives, right?

I ordained you, I sanctified you, and I ordained you to be a prophet unto the nations.

In the New Testament, The Bible goes on to say something else.

Jesus answered and said unto him, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

So if you're following with us, first God says, I am intimately acquainted with who you are I know everything that there is to know about who you are God says not only do I know everything that there is to know about who you are, but I have a plan for your life And then in the New Testament God says by the way Let me say I want to say this right Because I'm so intimately acquainted with your birth and who you are, I'm gonna say that you need to be born again.

In other words, your first birth is not enough.

Your first birth was so jacked up that you need to press restart and you need to be reborn, all right?

Now, even in that context, I know some of us may think, well, you know, from what I know, my birth was actually pretty decent, right?

You know, everything went pretty well for us.

But the Bible is true and it says that all have sinned, right, and come short of the glory of God.

So even in the best of circumstances, we still need God to come in and transform us, to recreate us as it were.

Now, 1 of the reasons why God says that we need to be born again, we need a restart on our lives, obviously he knows us better than we know ourselves, So in spite of the fact that we may not think we need a restart, God says we do.

1 of the reasons why God says a restart or a rebirth or a new birth is so important is because each and every 1 of us will stand before God in the judgment.

Everyone's gonna stand before God in the judgment.

I wanna read 1 of my favorite passages to you.

2. Connections

Father in heaven, we are thankful for life and health and a portion of strength.

We are grateful for the movement of the Holy Spirit here at Camp Meeting, up and down the various corridors of the dormitories and the roadways and through people's tents and trailers.

We pray that your spirit will continue to move in a very mighty way here with us today.

We ask for clarity of thought, and we pray that what is shared might be clearly understood and applied as well.

We thank you in advance for hearing and answering these humble requests, for we ask them in Jesus' name, amen.

So we've been talking about flight plan, right?

And as we discussed yesterday, nobody really likes connecting flights, right?

Nobody likes to go east when you really want to be in west, right?

So, but the main objective is that we know that when dealing with flight plans in our everyday lives, that every relationship that God has us in cooperation with is meant to be an ideal world for our benefit, right?

But there are times when we have relationships that aren't necessarily the most ideal, right?

Whether it's from childhood or from our own personal interactions with a relationship that we've had with opposite sex or different things like that.

So this was not always in the sense of marriage, but a principle in general is that all those relationships were meant to be good.

A man in connection is better than man on his or her own.

Honestly, most of our relationships are the most painful parts of our lives.

And it says here that the father who deserves his family, the mother who abandons her children, the siblings who live in the same city but don't even talk to each other, right?

The boyfriend or girlfriend that we've broken up with, the parents who are there, probably only physically but not really emotionally or spiritually.

The church even, which was—which has no place for me sometimes.

On and on, if we're honest with ourselves, sometimes relationships seem to be complicated or complicate our lives and make them worse, not better.

Since God said it is not good that man should be alone, doesn't that mean that relationships with family and friends, etc., should be good?

I mean wouldn't it be easier just to have relationships with God?

Now I don't know about you, but there are times I felt like that in my life, like okay it's just gonna be me and God.

If we only had a relationship with God, we feel like we would never experience hurt or pain.

But what we want to do tonight is we want to rethink why God gave us so many different types of connections and experiences with relationships.

We want to read a couple of passages to you in the Bible that emphasize the importance of connections.

It says, as iron sharpens iron, so a person sharpens his friend.

As iron sharpens iron, so a person sharpens his friend.

And These are taken from the New English translation.

The next 1 is Ecclesiastes chapter 4, verses 8 through 12.

And it reads, a man who is all alone with no companion.

He has no children nor siblings, yet there is no end to all his toil, and he is never satisfied, He is never satisfied with riches.

He laments, for whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?

This also is futile and a burdensome task.

2 people are better than 1 because they can reap next slide more benefits from their labor.

For if they fall, 1 will help his companion up.

But pity the person who falls down and has no 1 to help him up.

Furthermore, if 2 lie down, together they can keep each other warm.

But how can 1 person keep warm by himself?

Although an assailant may overpower 1 person, 2 can withstand him.

Moreover, a three-strand cord is not easily broken.

All right, so the Bible emphasizes first as iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens his friend.

And now the Bible again emphasizes this concept that the more we are in relationship with people, the better off we are, the further ahead we can get.

Now in Luke chapter 6, now this would be great if it only referred to positive relationships.

Because I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that everybody has had good relationships and bad relationships, good friendships, bad friendships.

So if Life only consisted of good relationships and good friendships.

As Tamara mentioned earlier, if we only had a relationship with God, how ideal would that be?

Then it would seem that we would be further along, but the Bible seems to introduce the concept that not only positive relationships, not only do positive relationships have the potential to influence us towards good, but also our negative relationships as well.

In Luke chapter 6, verses 32 through 36, Listen to what Jesus says.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?

For even sinners love those who love them.

And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you?

And if you lend to those from whom you hope to be repaid, What credit is that to you?

Even sinners lend to sinners so that they may be repaid in full.

But love your enemies and do good and lend expecting nothing back.

Then your reward will be great and you will be sons of the most high because he is kind to ungrateful and evil people.

Be merciful just as your father is merciful.

So in essence, Jesus says, if you love people who love you, I mean, big deal.

I mean, dogs can love their masters who feed them, right?

So the real challenge when it comes to being a mature Christian, and I like that word, the real challenge when it comes to being a mature Christian is your ability to love and be kind and do good even to those who are not kind or loving or good to us.

So we are going to try to take another step and delve a little bit into the benefit of loving your enemies.

And let me try to help put this in context.

On yesterday, we talked about beginnings, how affected we are based on the prenatal, in utero experiences that we have, and then our upbringing, our childhood, so forth and so on, how all of those things affect us.

And we talked about the importance of the new birth.

Because of that, God says, listen, I've known you from before you came forth out of your mother's womb, and I know all about your baggage, and so I want to press restart on your life.

But when we are born again, when we experience a new birth, and even prior to that, what we want to emphasize today is that God can use not only our good relationships, but also our raggedy and rugged relationships to help us to become more like him.

So, we want to show you another video, all right?

Michael, can you turn up the sound where it says computer?

Ephesians 2.10 says that we are God's workmanship, his masterpiece.

I don't know about you, but when I get up in the morning and look in the mirror, I don't really see a masterpiece, you know, I mean maybe a Picasso.

It's like, but I want to be his masterpiece.

I want to be everything he created me to be.

And so I go to him in prayer and I say, dear Heavenly Father, do whatever it takes to mold me into the image of your Son.

3. Destination

Go ahead and bow our heads together, Tam.

Kind and gracious and loving Heavenly Father, we are so grateful to yet again be here today and have the opportunity to delve into your word and to take a look at ourselves, Lord.

The long journey of life for many of us, there have been questions and we've wondered oftentimes, Lord, what are you doing to perfect us?

And we are hoping that through this series of flight plan that you will help us to be able to see better your hand working in our lives.

I pray for everyone who's here as well as myself, Lord, that we will be transformed by the renewing of our minds, Lord.

And I pray that you would just give us clarity and understanding and direction and bless the efforts today of exposing just how much you love us, Lord.

And we thank you so much and we pray and ask all these things in your precious son Jesus' name, amen.

On yesterday, I said that those who perhaps didn't get 1 of those sheets, that I would have 1 for you.

Printing here is a challenge, but here's what I'll do.

If you would like another 1, then at the end of our time together, you give me your email address and we will email those to you in a PDF format.

We'll pass around a piece of paper and just write your email on there.

Does anyone have any questions about what we have talked about so far?

The first presentation was called Departure, and we talked about our beginnings, prenatal, and in utero experiences that all of us go through, along with the fact that we're born in a sinful world.

And we have parents who, as good intention as they may be, have also been born on a sinful world.

And we experience things that are the results of sin here on planet Earth.

So we dealt with that, and we talked about how these things emphasize the importance of the new birth.

Jesus says, listen, you need to be born again.

I understand all of the inner workings and I know you better than you know yourself.

I know your family, generations upon generations upon generations ago.

And so we need to press the restart button so that you can have a fresh or a new start, a new birth.

And then we talked about connections on yesterday.

We talked about the importance of relationships, even relationships that are not ideal, and how God uses our relationships to sanctify us, to make us more like him.

And today, our presentation is entitled Destination.

So any questions on anything we talked about thus far?

So let's let's delve into our presentation for today then.

Can you can you we want to show you all a video first apparently.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Lord, we take up our cross every day for you.

Oh, thank you, But the cross is where it begins, not ends.

Thou art the beginning and the end, Lord Alpha and Omega.

Guys, I just want you to be real with me.

Drew, I think it's great when you worship me.

It's just that sometimes it feels like you're putting on a show.

Oh Jesus, please forgive me for putting on a show and being fake.

Guys, just say what you would normally say.

No, I mean like, you know, if we were talking, you know, say what you'd say.

Yeah, I mean, you know, like you were before.

Jesus, we're living for you just like we always do.

When you live in me, you'll understand who you are and what you're living for.

I just want something a little bit deeper.

So, that was kind of a quick little video.

And how many of you, I'll be honest with you, I can, at some point in my life, identify with that, what about you?

Yes, the idea that our relationship with God is limited to not being personal, not being real, not being honest, not being authentic.

That is 1 of the challenges in church settings.

My wife is gonna read something to you a little bit later on in the presentation.

People in churches tend not to be real or authentic.

But what we want to do today is we want to talk about where God wants us to be in terms of our relationships, where God would ideally have us to be.

So everything we've talked about has kind of been building up to this, and all of the things we've shared are important aspects of where God wants us to be.

But we wanna focus first on authenticity with ourselves and with God, because it's our belief that understanding the battle can help us to win the war.

Understanding the battle can help us to win the war.

Series

Flight Plan

1. Departure

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Plenary

Radical Practice

1h

Going ABOVE and BEYOND

Daring to Ask for More - Part 5

53m

03 Waiting

48m

Lessons from the Life of Paul

Hermeneutics

43m

Crisis At the Close: The Mob

47m

The Parables

The Rich Man and Lazarus

43m

ECYC 2012 Seminar: Leading People from Health to Him

Health and the 3 Angels’ Message - His Robe Not Mine

1h

Bold unto the Throne Seminars

Sanctuary in Relation to Mission

57m

Families

The One Thing

1h 9m

Emmanuel Training Sessions

23. Bible Study Reformation

54m

Finally It’s Over

1h 25m

Plenary

Sabbath School Q&A Panel

57m

Sound Doctrine