GYC SE Spring Conference 2019

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GYC Southeast

Dee Casper

Don’t Forget Where You Came From

Sweet Jesus, thank you for this privilege to study your word together, and I just pray that you would speak to us in a powerful and convicting way in the time that's allotted.

You know what I need to do, and you know the real estate I have, and I also know that you are God.

And so, Lord, I pray that you would do what you need to do, and I would just be in your hands.

This evening's message is entitled, Don't Forget Where You Came From.

So, The best advice I've ever received in ministry...

I said sorry because I'm not sharing what I said I was going to share, and those who are in my seminar, it's changed.

You can find it on AudioVerse probably or something.

So the best advice I've ever received in ministry was from Taj Pakleb, 1 of the army guys, and it was at ASI a couple years ago.

And every time I get to meet someone who's done evangelism for longer than I have, I always ask them the same question.

What is the advice that you wish you would have received knowing what you know now when you started?

What do you wish someone would have told you when you were starting knowing what you know now?

And the answer that Taj gave me was not what I expected.

I expected Taj to give me a direct answer.

He answered my question by telling me a story.

And Jesus did this, so this is not an unbiblical premise.

And so anyway, he starts telling me this story, and he starts telling me about the man at the Pool of Bethesda in John chapter 5.

And if you've heard me preach at all, I cover this story a lot in a lot of different areas.

But this man in the pool Bethesda, Jesus comes up to him and asks him a seemingly obvious question.

He's been an invalid for 38 years, and he asked him, do you want to be made well?

Now, if you had been an invalid for 38 years, what would you say?

It's just the fact that he himself gives a not the best answer.

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

And what Taj said was the rising makes sense and the walking makes sense.

Rising makes sense when you're paralytic.

Walking makes sense when you're paralytic.

It's just this reminder of 38 years of shame, rejection, abandonment, loneliness.

It's a reminder of all the horrible things that were in his life.

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

It's a reminder of the fact that this is who you were when I got a hold of you.

It's 1 of those Ebenezer moments in your life and it was such a convicting counsel that he gave me.

Right, he couldn't just went for the jugular and said, look man, don't get too big for your britches, it ain't about you.

What Taj did was through telling me a story, did something that I have never forgotten, has changed my life, And I've heard so many stories from people that this message did the same for them, all because of advice I got from a fellow minister of the gospel.

Now this reminds me of 2 people in scripture of their stories, this counsel of not forgetting where you came from.

2 completely different life stories, but their journeys converge of all places at the feet of Jesus.

Simon is a religious leader who contracts leprosy, and that's a bad day, right?

Any day that you contract leprosy, it's not a good day.

But it's not just this, because there's a high cost when someone contracts leprosy.

They're completely cut off from any form of intimacy.

No hugs, no handshakes, no close proximity to your family.

But what makes it even worse is the fact that you are viewed by your community, because this is what Jews believed, that you are cursed by God.

Imagine being a minister of the gospel who now the entire community believes has been cursed by God.

But the amazing thing is Jesus miraculously heals this man and completely restores his ministry.

Just imagine, you think your whole life and ministry is over and Jesus comes, sets you free, and restores you.

You'd think that would put a whole lot of gratitude in this man's heart.

Then we have the story of Mary Magdalene.

We don't know all the details, but something happened to her at an early age that leads to her running into a lifestyle of sexual sin.

She's worthless and she just goes to this to make her feel worth something and to provide for her needs.

She also is an outcast in this community, right?

She lives in a very small community of Bethany and there used to be this line in a program called Cheers back in the 80s, and in the jingle leading into the program, they'd said, we wanna go where everyone knows your name.

Everyone knows your business, and everyone knows that she got problems, right?

And Jesus, in his miraculous, superhuman, amazing, awesome, yeah-ness, Jesus sets this woman free, completely free.

I was reading a book a couple of weeks ago that talked about the fact that Elohia alludes to that this was not a 1 encounter and 7 demons left.

It was multiple treatments she had to go through.

We don't know all of what that looked like, but it was multiple encounters to set her free.

And then the person made the point, imagine being in the headspace of Mary that you get set free from demons and then all of a sudden you got demons again.

Then you get set free from demons and you got demons again and they said there's nothing that hurts more than a fall when you thought that you had been set free.

And this woman goes through that 7 times.

But what I see about this is that the pursuing love of Jesus is tenacious.

And he keeps laboring for this woman until she's free.

So a feast is held in honor of Jesus for 2 reasons.

1, Lazarus has been raised from the dead and Simon the leper has been cleansed of his leprosy.

Now he's just the priest formerly known as Simon the leper?

If you don't get it, that's probably for the best.

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Don’t Forget Where You Came From

Transcript

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Speak it in Love

49m

The Shadow’s Light

Don’t Forget Where you Came From

55m

Examining the Laodicean Message

Don’t Forget Where You Came From

42m

Plenary

Why Many Have Left

38m

Don’t Forget Where You Came From

40m

The Three Angel's Messages

02 The Everlasting Gospel

1h 7m

Meeting the Master Gardener

First the Blade, then the Ear

1h 2m

Going to Extremes

1h 10m

Dance of the Broken

54m

Plenary

Explaining the Impossible

1h 20m

A Beginning With No End

A Beginning with No End

53m

Sound Doctrine