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

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Reprioritizing in the Last Days

Christian Martin

If Not Now, When?

Our Father in heaven, thank you Lord that you have brought us to Michigan Camp Meeting.

Lord, this is a time of the year that we always anticipate, because it's a time when you can encourage us, you can edify us, you can convict us, you can build us up, you can equip us, empower us to be able to be effective disciples of Christ.

And I pray Lord that as we begin this seminar that you would give us complete understanding of these biblical concepts that could revolutionize the way we live, not only as individuals, but as a church.

And I pray, Lord, that in these last days, in moments like this, you would give us a double portion of your Holy Spirit to understand.

And please convict our hearts, Lord, where we need conviction.

And so we thank you for answering our prayer.

All right, so we're gonna, the title of this seminar is Reprioritizing in the Last Days.

And let me begin, let me begin by first asking, what does priority mean?

Putting it first, putting something first.

And we can combine these things and make them and shape them into 1 sharp, concise definition, right?

I think that all of us have a pretty good concept of what a priority means.

1 of the most straightforward definitions that I came across is a thing that is recognized or regarded as more important or urgent than another.

Okay, you said important, this adds urgent to it.

So it's not just important, but a priority.

Another definition said, recognizing what ought to be done first.

You know, we can have several things to do and make a long list of things to do, but then the question remains, what is the most urgent, what's the most important, and what is the 1 that ought to be done first?

White that I believe many of you, if not all, have heard this before.

Are you familiar with this verse or this passage?

A revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs.

Don't you see that just, you know, speaking of priorities, no?

Greatest and most urgent of all our needs to seek this should be our first work.

There must be an earnest effort to obtain the blessings of the Lord.

Not because God is not willing to bestow his blessings upon us, but because we are unprepared to receive it.

Are you familiar with that verse, passage?

And it's interesting because let me recap it or summarize it in this way.

She says there is something that is the greatest and most urgent, okay?

But we're not reaping the fruit or the benefits or the or the results of having obtained that because we are unprepared to receive it.

And my question to you today is this, could it be that we're unprepared to receive it because we have all the wrong priorities?

See, we know what's important, and we're doing all the important things that we feel important, but no one's arguing that these are not priorities.

No one's arguing that what you might consider a priority is a priority.

The question is, is it the most urgent and the most important?

And I believe, and I've been convicted that, you know, maybe we need to reprioritize, especially in these last days.

And today, we're going to examine this as an introduction.

We're gonna, my first presentation today is an introduction entitled, If Not Now, When?

White's code, we are unprepared to receive it.

I guess another question would have to be, what are we unprepared to receive?

What's causing us to be unprepared to receive the blessing of healthy church growth or primitive godliness?

Social media, okay, which is distraction, right?

It's just a single sentence that caught my attention.

It said, talking about the upper room experience, which we believe we are in now, right?

Like now, now is the upper room period, right?

Where we as believers, as the church, should be in an upper room experience, right?

It shouldn't be happening, you know, you know, in the far future, even near future, it should be happening now.

And look what she says, as the disciples waited for the fulfillment of the promise, isn't that what we're doing?

And are we not waiting for the fulfillment of the promise?

Devotion to Agonizing Prayer

Our Father in heaven, we thank you that you have blessed us with a good rest last night.

Thank you, Lord, for the morning we've had already.

It's been so rich and it's been a true blessing.

And now how thankful we are to be able to gather together once again this afternoon to continue our our journey of just drawing closer to you being able to prepare even more for your soon return but not only for that day but to prepare now today to receive the fullness of the blessings you have in store for us while we're still here, while we're waiting for your return.

We want to be vessels that are filled with your presence.

And I pray that you would speak to our hearts today that there would be something that we can learn or be convicted of that will only prepare us even more for your soon coming.

So thank you for answering our prayer in Jesus name, amen.

I like to begin by sharing with you the references of a few LNG White quotes that I shared with you yesterday that I did not have the reference for.

The first quote was when she wrote, a revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs.

And as we talked about priorities, we did agree that priorities are things that are the greatest and most urgent.

And so, you know, implied in this quotation is the concept of priority.

So the revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs.

To seek this should be our first work, priority, see?

There must be an earnest effort to obtain the blessings of the Lord, not because the Lord is not willing to bestow his blessings upon us, but because we are unprepared to receive it.

And This is taken from Selected Messages, Book 1, Selected Messages, Book 1, page 121, page 121.

And the second reference was 1 that is in the same context.

And this is Selected Messages, book 1, page 124, where she wrote, there's nothing that Satan fears so much as that the people of God should clear the way by removing every hindrance so that the Lord can pour out his spirit upon a languishing church and an impotent congregation." And I love that quote and that's from page 124 from the same book, page 124.

And so as we discovered in our last presentation, and I'll recap somewhat what we covered last week for those who may not have been, or yesterday, who weren't here yesterday, but we discovered that it's really not difficult to know how the devil operates.

It's not something that is a mystery that we have to try to somehow, you know, discover and resolve.

The fact is that the Bible does not hide the nature of the devil's work.

And you can thank the Lord for that, amen?

I mean we can be thankful that we are in a world under the sway of the enemy and we have a book, an inspired book, that exposes our enemy, that reveals to us the nature of his work.

Selected page messages, book 1, page 124.

It's from the same chapter, the same page now.

She wrote, we are not ignorant of his devices.

It's not some you know impossible mission or task.

When the way is prepared for the Spirit of God, the blessing will come.

And you notice how it kind of links the 2 thoughts together with that concept of preparing.

The first quote, back to the first, says, we don't receive the blessing because we are unprepared to receive it.

And now she almost reiterates, paraphrases that same thought, but the flip side of it, when the way is prepared, see as opposed to unprepared, with the ways prepared for the Spirit of God, the blessing will come.

And I believe that preparation includes reprioritizing.

Taking thought and stopping ourselves and asking, what are my priorities?

What's my greatest and most urgent need right now?

So in the last days, if I were the devil, you know, George Knight, he once wrote a well-known article or book, I think, entitled, If I Were the Devil.

So in the last days, if I were the devil And I knew that I had a short time when to most definitely concentrate your demonic efforts on anything to stop anything that connects us with God.

If he could just accomplish that 1 thing, that 1 purpose, to get us disconnected, unplugged with God, he would be triumphant.

So in John 10, verse 10, and we looked at this yesterday in our last presentation.

In John 10, verse 10, Jesus unequivocally tells us what the enemy's top priorities are, and they're threefold.

He comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.

But when combined with the inspired writings of Paul, we discover even more detail, don't we?

He comes to steal power and we briefly touched on what that really means.

Because in Christ, all power is given unto you.

All power is given unto you, okay, and in Christ we have power.

But then the enemy comes along and he tries to convince us of his lies.

But if he can convince us to believe his lie and we choose to believe it, then what we're doing is we're placing ourself under his power.

We're forfeiting the power that we have in Christ because now we're believing his lie, and now he uses that power of the lie to hold us under his sway.

And so he steals power with the lie, you see?

And I can't begin to tell how many times when people have come to me and said, pastor, you know, the enemy has been so powerful in my life.

You know, what would have been the most effective approach to that kind of, you know, request or that kind of burden?

Because evidently, apparently the enemy has power in your life because you've been believing 1 of his lies.

They began to tell me about, you know, their spiritual journey and how, no, they just feel so sinful.

Like, you know, God, they're beyond God's grace.

What does the Bible say is true about you?

And we discover that his grace is sufficient.

And then as they begin to recognize, oh, I've been believing a lie, haven't I?

Then we go through a process of renouncing the lies and verbally renouncing it.

You know, in the biblical sense, the word renounce is a very powerful word.

In the Greek, it means to cut off, to no longer identify with.

So we renounce the lie and we choose the truth.

And then I hear the story, the testimonies of how something changed.

Yeah, because the only power the enemy has is the power of the lie.

Fervent Love for One Another

Our Father in heaven, how thankful we are that you have been with us every step of the way during this Camp Meeting experience.

Thank you that you've been ministering to our hearts.

Our hearts have been lifted up by praise, by music, by preaching, by fellowship, by so many different ways, Lord, and we are so thankful.

And as we gather together this afternoon, once again, to take a closer look at the priorities that you would have us practice, Lord, in our lives.

I pray that you would speak to our hearts today in a special way, Lord, and we thank you because this is a prayer that you love to answer.

So the Apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, outlined what must be the greatest and most important priorities in the life of a modern day disciple in these last days.

And so in our last presentation, we looked at priority number 1, priority number 1.

So if you have your Bibles, let's turn to First Peter, First Peter chapter 4, First Peter chapter 4.

Peter wrote, But the end of all things is at hand.

Therefore, be serious and watchful in your prayers.

So that was yesterday's last presentation.

And I'm sharing with you a handout that I want you each to have.

Okay, here, if you can pass it back to the back corner there.

Could you do me a favor and make sure everyone who, if anyone else comes in.

And I wanted you to have something to take home and to compare notes with.

And if you'll take a look there, I listed, and this was mostly based on our sharing, our discussion that we had at the conclusion of our seminar, and it says, the best practice is to make prayer a personal priority.

Number 1, early prayer time, early morning prayer time, before the daily grind begins, allows us to make sure that time is set apart for prayer.

You know, because otherwise, otherwise, then you have to try to make it fit into your already busy schedule.

So if you could do it early, before anything else gets started, the better.

And you know what I've concluded, and I've been convicted of this myself, and that is this, that I'm hard pressed to conclude that I just don't have time to pray.

No, I don't even have half an hour to pray.

Why can't I not set my alarm half an hour earlier and sacrifice sleep for the sake of being able to have time to commune with God.

So I think that at the end of the day, first thing in the morning is ideal, ideal.

Unceasing prayer is not limited to time and posture, But it is an awareness of the presence of Christ wherever you go with readiness to commune with Him at any given moment.

And that is so true because after all when you sense that Jesus is with you, in the moment that you sense a need for prayer, your first go-to reaction will be pray because Jesus is with me, you see, and that's something that you can cultivate.

It doesn't just automatically come to you.

It's something practiced and put into our daily lives.

Number 3, the more specific you are, the more you'll discern God's specific answer.

Intentionally bring to God the heaviest burdens and the greatest needs mingled with thanksgiving and praise.

You know, let's be transparent with God and let's come to Him, you know, just with all that we have within us.

Number 5, prayers being fully convinced that God is able to do what he has promised, yes, yet trusting where, how, what, and when he'll answer.

You know, it's a trust relationship with God.

Prayer, it's not about, you know, 3 wishes from the genie, you know.

You're greater than my greatest trial or situation and I will trust in you.

Number 6, Prayer is the platform on which character development takes place and the life of God flows into us.

White quote where she says, it's doing prayer.

It's that bond with God in which the life of God flows into us.

And so prayer is crucial to our sanctification.

Number 7, prayer journaling gives structure to prayer, facilitates focused prayer, allows for deepest expression, and reminds us of past answers to prayer.

And that's something that if you have not practiced, you might want to experiment and see how it works for you.

Number 8, setting a predetermined amount of time to pray strengthens the discipline to pray.

Told you about my half hour timer, you know?

And if I prayed for 25 minutes, oh, I gotta pray for at least 5 more.

And then of course, after doing this for a while, you get off the stopwatch.

That's just to discipline yourself to get to the point where you can pray and focus on that.

It's a tool to train you and discipline you.

Number 9, having a prayer partner keeps us accountable.

Okay, can you see how that would be a blessing?

Yeah, being able to have somebody that you can pray with.

And if you decide on a very specific time of the day or of the week to pray together, yes, it will keep you accountable.

If married, praying together with spouse will improve the quality of your marital relationship.

I think it was Pastor John Lomacain, he put up a triangle picture.

God, you and your spouse, it's a triangle relationship.

But notice, the closer you come to God individually, the closer, what happens to the distance between the 2 of you?

And so that's what that is all about, spiritual intimacy.

And oh, and by the way, this probably should go without saying, but I will say it.

And that is that there's an intimacy that goes deeper than physical intimacy.

And that's spiritual intimacy and emotional intimacy.

And for that reason, it is not recommended or even encouraged or advised that you spend time in prayer with someone of the opposite gender, especially if they're married, and because intimacy results from that kind of time together And you don't want to find yourself in that kind of situation and then create greater challenges that you did not anticipate.

So Best practices to make prayer a corporate priority.

How can we make prayer a priority for our congregation, for our church?

We actually didn't take time to actually discuss that, but I did wanna share with you some ideas.

Early morning United Prayer Session in the church.

So it's a suggested time Sabbath morning prior to Sabbath school.

So at Denver South, we have a United Prayer Session at 09:00.

Sabbath school is at 10, Worship Services at 1115.

Genuine Hospitality

Our Father in heaven, we are thankful today for a new day.

Thank you that you brought us back to be able to examine once again the priorities that you would have us take to heart, especially in these last days as we prepare for your very soon return.

And tonight, Lord, or this afternoon, as we take a look at our third priority, we pray that you would give us an understanding, give us conviction, help us to see this priority, this biblical priority from a perspective or an angle that we have never thought of or plighted before.

So we thank you for answering our prayer in Jesus' name, amen.

So we've been considering in this seminar the top priorities that 1 ought to have as a modern disciple of Christ.

And Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, outlines in his epistle what they ought to be in light of the fact that the end of all things is at hand.

So 1 of our first priorities was that we must learn to seriously pray.

Our prayer life has to have a very distinct change in its expression and it must reflect spiritual maturity.

We must not pray as we used to pray 3 years, 3 or 5 years ago in our spiritual journey.

If in fact we believe that we grow in Christ and that prayer is learned or is taught, then we must see a growth in the way that we pray.

And if it's not, we must reprioritize and make it a priority.

The second is to choose to love fervently and unconditionally.

So let's take a look at our handout number 2.

And I wrote a few pointers there of things that we did touch on, discuss, towards the end of our last presentation on what are the best practices to love others as Christ loves us as a personal priority.

The first 1 is golden rule, love as you would want others to love you.

You know, that's taking the golden rule and just applying it to this principle.

The second 1 says, make a conscious choice to love regardless of emotions and feelings and leave the consequences to God.

We have to exercise ourselves to make these kind of choices.

And my sister here, Yesterday she shared with us something that you know that that fits with this principle.

Would you share with us for those who weren't here yesterday maybe you can do a little recap and then tell us what happened after the class?

Series

Reprioritizing in the Last Days

Fervent Love for One Another

Transcript

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