A study of practical Biblical principles that give victory in common everyday struggles.

Michigan Camp Meeting 2018: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

<p>A study of practical Biblical principles that give victory in common everyday struggles.</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>

Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Practical Christian Living

Dick Bullock

Part 1 - Accepting the Me God Made Me to Be

Father in heaven, I thank you so much for the privilege of being here today.

You know us, you made us, you know where we've gotten our wires crossed, Lord, And there's nothing that I could say of my own that would make any difference.

But You have said that Your Word is powerful, sharper than a double-edged sword.

And I pray that you will unsheath that sword, even if it may be painful to us.

I pray that you will cut dividing between the joint and the marrow of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

I thank you for that promise that Jesus gave.

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

And so I pray that you will take this simple, humble presentation and just send it home to our hearts.

May we walk out of here differently than we came in.

How many of you are familiar with this verse?

How many of you have memorized this verse?

And His grace toward me was all mixed up.

You don't have to show your hands, but how many of you have read it that way?

I am what I am by the grace of God, and His grace toward me was not in vain.

Today we're going to look at the profound impact a person's attitude toward himself or herself has on their attitude toward God and life in general.

Too many of us see life, our life, as a mistake rather than as an expression of God's creative love.

I know there have been times in my life where I wasn't so sure whether my life was an expression of God's creative love or whether it was just because 2 people, my mom and dad, came together and produced me.

My parents, and some of you probably know my parents, so I've got to watch what I say.

Brenton Bullock, Joyce Bullock, they were up at Camp Asable for years.

My parents were going to have the perfect American family, 1 boy, 1 girl.

And the doctor told my mom, you know, this was back 1960 when I was born and they said, you know, they didn't have all the ultrasounds and all the interest in finding out before you're born what gender you are.

The doc says, you need to consider a boy's name.

I was I was coming out in time for Sabbath school.

And I came out with the wrong plumbing, and they all cried.

I told my mom that it's affected me all my life, you know.

My dad was the administrator of a hospital there in Portland, Tennessee, and had a 17-year-old gal come in, pregnant, and said, do you know anyone who wants a baby?

And that was before social services and welfare and all the rest.

And so they signed the papers and Cynthia Joyce was born.

And he called my mom up, says, how are you feeling?

Well you just had a baby girl and he brought her home from the hospital.

He did that for about 6 other gals that came in wanting to adopt their babies and then the state came in and said, hey, wait a minute, you guys can't do this.

So anyway, you know, sometimes we wonder, though, I mean, that hasn't affected my life at all.

I like to tell the story, but some of us.

That story could come pretty close to home.

This verse is profound and I hope you never forget it.

You know, for many the greatest hindrance to a loving, trusting relationship with God is an underlying resentment for the way He has made us.

We don't believe He's treated us right in the past.

And so we're reluctant to trust Him fully with our present and our future.

I just want to suggest to you, friends, that it's impossible.

It's impossible to truly love and trust somebody we have resentment toward.

For many of us it begins with not liking the way that God made us.

Now, the Bible is very clear that we are not the product of chance.

And let me just give you some scriptures to back this up.

By the way, I have handouts with everything I've said, almost everything I'm saying today, so that you can take them home, all the texts out there, ready to go, alright?

Your hands, God, have made me and fashioned me.

It's in the Bible and if it's in the Bible we can trust it, right?

Number 2, Isaiah 64 verse 8, but now O Lord You are our...

You know, some of us have a hard time with our dads.

They go into prisons, take cards for prisoners who want to send cards to their mothers for Mother's Day.

They went into those same prisons with cards for dads for Father's Day and guess what happened?

All we are the works are the work of your hands.

Part 2 - Understanding Personal Problems

Our Father and our God, we have so much to be grateful for, that you would even bother with us after all that we have done to you.

And yet you love us with an everlasting love.

And you have given us the most wonderful gift you could give so that we might experience the fullness of life.

Lord only you know the strength of the enemy and how ruthless he is, and I thank you for being willing to become as 1 of us, made like your brethren and your sisters in every way.

And I thank you for holding firm to the faith so that the enemy has been defeated.

I ask that you would take your word and break it to each 1 of us according to our needs.

And Father, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight and instructive as we share together.

I wanna begin with 2 God inspired statements and I wanna see what conclusions we can draw from them you're familiar with the first 1 at least john 10:10 the thief does not come except to watch to steal and to killed and to how many of you want that thief to come?

No, none of those things are very positive in my book.

But I have come, Jesus says, that they may have what?

There may be some of us here today that it's been a long time since we've had abundant life.

We've existed, we've gone day by day, but this abundant life that Jesus is talking about is something that I'm interested in.

We were designed by our Creator to experience an abundant life filled with purpose.

Filled with meaning, with hope, with joy, with peace, all of those things that make up the abundant life.

Even though that was our design, when sin entered this world, it kind of changed everything, didn't it?

The entrance of sin brought misery, heartache, despair, death, hopelessness, all of these things.

I mean to bring that much horrible stuff it must have been a huge sin right?

Now come on, on a scale of 1 to 10, how big is eating a piece of fruit?

If it's the fruit that you were told by God not to eat, how big is it?

You know, here's something we need to understand.

Now there are sins about small things, but no such thing as a small sin.

Those of you who are parents and had toddlers, you can identify with this, you know, little Johnny.

He's about 4 or 5 and he gets angry And he picks up a book and in his anger he says, he just throws it down on the floor.

Now in light of all the problems in the world, how big is that?

And dad says, Johnny, that's not appropriate.

Would you please pick up the book?" And he does this, I ain't gonna do it.

There's sins about little things, but every sin is a huge issue because it's a rebellion against Dad.

And if we read the Bible correctly, that's not a small issue.

We need to understand that because how many times have we said, oh, this is just a little thing, right?

Jesus came into the world as 1 of us, made like us in every way, tempted in every point, just as we are tempted, that ought to encourage you so much, yet without sin.

And He came so that we could have at least the option of an abundant life.

Now this is such a familiar verse we skip right over it, but this is a valuable verse.

The question that we need to ask ourselves is how badly do we want to know the truth?

But if we want that abundant life, what must we have?

And the Truth can be painful at times, can't it?

But it's only the truth that will set us free.

And yet, even though that's why Jesus came, and we have the truth, we have the Word, we can quote a lot of it, yet for many of us, even as Christians, life seems to be more filled with guilt, fear, anger, emptiness, than joy, peace, and hope.

And we're all on a search, constant search sometimes, to find meaning in life.

We look for it in so many places, pleasure, wealth, things, you name it, relationships, all of these things looking for some meaning.

But in the end, all of these things do what?

Leave us just as empty and unsatisfied as before.

How many of you have done that in the moments of despair?

I hope you do, but if we're going to be honest, and I'm in this crowd as well, how often we turn to the promises of the Bible and they only seem to mock us.

They don't work for me, they work for others.

And we marvel at all the wonderful stories we hear of people in the books that have been written, and we say, I wish I could have that.

The fear, the anxiety, the emptiness remains.

And so what we often do and what I did for many years in my own life, I settled down with a form of godliness without knowing the power of godliness in my life.

I did all the right things for all the wrong reasons, hoping at least that that would get me an entrance just inside the pearly gates.

I didn't have to walk the golden streets, but just get me inside.

This comes from the little devotional book, My Life Today from the writings of Ellen White.

The true principles of psychology are found where?

We could stop right there and we could have quite a discussion, couldn't we?

Friends, how many of the founding fathers of psychology were Christians?

The true principles are found in the Bible.

And then I list 3 things I want you to notice there, that's all part of the quote.

Number 2, he acts according to his unconverted temperament of character.

Because he does not look unto Jesus, both the author and the finisher, somebody ought to get excited about that.

How many of you have tried to be the author of your faith and hoped that the Lord would finish it.

How many of you have let the Lord author your faith and then you say, I think I can take it from here?

I love this verse, this passage, because He is both the what?

Part 3 - Holding on to a Clear Conscience

Our Father and our God, we thank you for another day of life and all the little things you've packaged into this day for our pleasure, our success, our instruction so that we can be complete in you.

As we open our Bibles and study this topic of the conscience and guilt, Lord, I ask for your Holy Spirit to come close to us and speak to our hearts.

I ask not only for speaking to our hearts, Lord, I ask for victories.

Because there are some of us that have been plagued with guilt for a long time.

And we just remind you what your Word tells us, that you sent your Son, that we might know the truth, and the truth would set us free.

Guilt is a burden that we've all carried at some point or another.

And have you noticed that when you're carrying the burden of guilt, it just kind of saps the life out of you spiritually, emotionally, and physically.

In Psalms 38, 3 through 10, David writes of his experience with guilt.

He said, there is no soundness in my flesh because of your anger, nor any health in my bones because of what?

Now what do you find in the bones that David would mention the bones?

This burden of guilt goes deep, but he doesn't stop there.

In verse 6 he says, I am troubled, I am bowed down greatly, I go mourning all the day long.

Guilt, you just don't have the same oomph for the day, do you?

He goes on in verse 10, My heart pants, my strength fails me, as for the light of my eyes, it also has gone from me.

This is some pretty heavy-duty stuff to be carrying around.

In Psalms 32, we read, Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit is no deceit." And then he tells his own experience before he experienced that blessedness.

He said, when I kept silent, what happened?

My bones grew old through my groaning all the day long.

For day and night your hand was heavy upon me, my vitality turned into what?

He says, I acknowledged my sin to you and my iniquity I have not hidden.

I said I will confess my transgression to the Lord." And what was the Lord's response?

Now Just looking at that passage there, when our sins are forgiven and we know that and accept that, what physical benefits do we receive?

These are things that God wants us to experience, and we can experience that if we let go of guilt.

We've all experienced that weight, and this is not the life that God designed for us to live.

He wants us to live continually in the freedom that comes from being in harmony with Him.

The Christian life is summarized in 1 word.

That's what God designed us for, love for God, first and greatest commandment, love for each other, the second commandment.

First John chapter 4 verse 7 tells us love is what?

Now here's the question, if love is of God, I'm assuming that we are all Christians, right?

How many of us experience that abundant, joyful life of love on a consistent basis, even fairly consistent?

Why wouldn't our love be strong, full of vitality?

Love comes from God and guilt is the thing that separates us from God.

Your sins have separated you from God, right?

So He's the source of all love and we cannot experience the fullness of that love without 3 things.

I hope you've noticed something in this seminar.

3 things, and they're found in 1 Timothy 1, 5.

It says, now the purpose of this commandment is what?

1 that's void of offense before God and man.

And the third thing that love comes from?

This statement ought to give us some serious thought, because God wants us to wage a good warfare here.

Let's look at what he says in 1 Timothy 1, 18 and 19 in relation to this.

He says, Wage the good warfare, having what?

A good conscience, Which some have rejected concerning the faith and what's been their result.

So you look at these 2 verses here in 1 Timothy.

Love comes from that pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith.

And if we don't have that faith, and we don't have that clear conscience, are we going to be able to wage a good warfare?

Instead of waging a good warfare, what's going to happen to us?

Now to wage this good warfare, we need to hold on to 2 things, as the second verse there tells us.

Part 4 - Overcoming Worry and Anxiety

Father in heaven, I thank you so much for this day.

And I want to thank you especially for your word and the power of Scripture.

Father, as we study it today, we need the Holy Spirit to speak to our hearts.

You know what creatures of habits we are.

We can read things pretty superficial at times.

I ask that you will unsheath your sword and cut deep, dividing between soul and spirit, and help us to understand the sinfulness of worry, anxiety, and to experience the joy of resting, trusting in your great love.

We thank you, Father, for hearing us, for joining us now.

Have you noticed that worrying seems to be a national preoccupation?

Even though most people don't see worry as a positive thing, they still worry about everything.

Don't ask me to explain that, it doesn't make sense.

They even worry about the physical and emotional and spiritual effect all their worrying is going to bring upon them.

In this study we're going to see what the Bible says about worry and how we can overcome it.

It's not that hard, but first let me ask you a couple questions, and I want some response on these, alright?

All right, let's go to the second question.

What do you hope to accomplish by worrying?

Well, now, are you thinking or are you worrying?

I'm not going to ask you to divide the percentages on that for us, but really, what do you hope to accomplish by worrying?

What do you gain by worrying besides ulcers?

This is beginning to seem like a foolish pastime, isn't it?

I pray and pray and pray and pray, but it's not seeming to...

She's saying, I don't gain anything by worrying, But how do you stop worrying?

Well let me just give you a quick answer to that 1, alright?

Somewhere in this yard, years and years ago, pirates hid some treasures.

When are you going to start or stop digging holes all around the campground?

You realize that you don't gain anything for your investment, right?

Can you think of anything positive you've accomplished by worrying?

Someone in this crowd ought to have at least 1 positive thing.

I thought of the worst case scenario, and that didn't happen.

And so you have something to be grateful for.

Can I suggest there are easier ways to find things to be grateful for?

Series

Practical Christian Living

Part 2 - Understanding Personal Problems

Transcript

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