There is to be a key ingredient in the life of every Christian, and without nothing else matters. Join us to find greater depth in your relationship with God.

<p>There is to be a key ingredient in the life of every Christian, and without nothing else matters. Join us to find greater depth in your relationship with God.</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>

Bay City SDA Church

Taylor Hinkle

Finishing the Work

Father in heaven, Lord, we thank you so much for this week.

We thank you for the blessing of being able to gather here this morning.

And Lord, we're so thankful as the song says, I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God.

Lord, we realize that families aren't perfect and families have difficulties and challenges.

But Father, nonetheless, we realize that we are brothers and sisters in Christ here this morning.

We think of our other brothers and sisters who are suffering all over the world.

Lord, the people in Massachusetts whose homes were destroyed, the people who are suffering right now through the hurricane or the effects of the flooding.

We think of the brothers and sisters in the Philippines, and Lord, we pray that your hand would be upon them and that you would protect them.

Lord, we pray that you would intervene and we know that all of these chaotic things in the earth are not your will, but Lord, sometimes as a result of sin they take place.

Father, please just send your angels to continue to hold back the 4 winds so that your people can be sealed and that we can have assurance of home with you.

Father, this morning as we study your Word, we pray that you would clear our hearts and minds.

And Father, we pray that you would give us clarity.

Help us to see your message, not the message of a man, but the message of your word.

And Lord, we ask that you would guide us.

Well, this morning we're going to be looking at a message called Finishing the Work.

And amongst many of the Seventh-day Adventist young people that I'm involved with, there's a term that we talk about frequently and it goes something like this, we want to finish the work of God in this generation.

Have you ever heard someone say something like that?

And what do they mean when they say finish the work or finish the work of God?

The people are talking about carrying out the gospel commission, right?

They want to take the work of God from where it's at today and starting to spread throughout the world and they want to take it to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people like we're told to do.

And they want to do it in our lifetime so that we can go home and see Jesus.

Now my guess is that's why you and I are both here in the pew and we just finished the series on what is a Christian, looking at the twofold call of the Christian, seeing that it's to be with God and to go for God.

And so as we look at this message on finishing the work, I'm often wondering what is that secret ingredient that will cause us to be able to finish the work of God.

Have any of you thought of things along those lines?

You know you see the work that there is to do in the world and statistics if you look today in the Middle East there are hardly any Christians.

In cities of multiple millions sometimes there's only a few hundred at best and some cities of over 10 million people have 0 Christians in them.

And the question that continues to go through our minds is well if that's the situation what is needed in order to finish the work of God on this earth?

Well that's why this the subtitle for this message this morning is finishing the work the missing key.

What is the piece that's necessary in order to finish the work of God here on this earth?

Now I want to have a Bible study today going through the time when the children of Israel were coming back from Babylon.

And for those of us who aren't as familiar with this part of history, we want to do a little bit of groundwork so that we can understand the message this morning.

So if you turn in your Bibles to Daniel chapter 1, beginning in verse 1, we're going to try to understand what's the situation of God's people back in the day, and God was calling them to finish a work.

What was that work, and how was it that the Lord was going to use them to do it?

We're going to be in Daniel chapter 1 to begin with.

Daniel chapter 1 verse 1 gives us the historical context of this passage or of this topic.

In Daniel chapter 1 verse 1 notice what it says as the Prophet Daniel writes.

It says, In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of who?

Of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it.

You set up a siege around the city, right?

And they're going to starve the people out or force them to surrender some way in some shape or form.

And notice what it says in verse 2, And the LORD gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hands, with some of the articles of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar, to the house of his God.

And he brought the articles into the treasure house of his God." Verse 2 tells us that that siege was successful there in Babylon.

And what happened to the inhabitants of Jerusalem?

That the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand, being King Nebuchadnezzar.

Now, you know if you fast forward during this time, how long were the children of Israel in Babylon?

God promised and he prophesied through the prophet Isaiah that they would be in captivity for 70 years.

And during that time when Judah was taken off as captive into Babylon, what happened to the temple and the city of Judah and Jerusalem?

They didn't just leave it intact for the people to nicely go back to after 70 years, but they utterly destroyed it to the point that it was unrecognizable or unusable and then sent God's people away.

Now there is a point to why we're sharing this.

Because notice what would happen after these 70 years take place.

I want to ask you to turn back to Jeremiah chapter 29.

Jeremiah chapter 29, we're going to read 1 of the most quoted verses in all of scripture, but what we often don't do is read it in the context of scripture.

Jeremiah chapter 29 and how many of you are familiar with verse 11?

For I know the thoughts that I have for you right?

Jeremiah chapter 29 beginning in verse 10.

It says, For thus says the Lord, after 70 years are completed at Babylon I will visit you and perform my good work towards you and cause you to return to this place.

For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me and I will listen to you.

And you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.

I will be found by you says the Lord and I will bring you back from your captivity.

I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you says the Lord and I will bring you to the place from which I caused you to be carried away captive." Now the blessing of the Lord is that in his punishments in the Old Testament he was always seeking to redeem his people through those punishments.

God was not just attempting to displace the Jewish nation for an extended or eternal period of time, but it was just for this 70 year period and then God gives a promise that what would He do?

Well for those of you who know your Bible history, you realize that this happens.

And what we want to look at this morning is, what would you do if you were God's people and you showed up to Judah or your house where you used to live and your whole city was destroyed?

You walk back and not just you but all your neighbors, and we're going to look at a little bit further.

In other words, about the same size as Bay City, Michigan.

And can you imagine all of the inhabitants of Bay City coming back here and the whole city is absolutely destroyed.

Would you be encouraged or discouraged a little bit?

Well this is kind of the situation of God's people.

They start to look at the city and they realize, well God called us to go back But how can we ever restore this nation?

Now something that's important for us to understand as we're looking at this topic, we're not just looking at how God gave someone their home back, even though that's a blessing and we're thankful that the Lord does that.

But when God is seeking to bless Israel, God always blesses Israel for a spiritual purpose.

Have you noticed that all throughout scripture?

God called Abraham and he promised that he would give him a seed, not just for Abraham's own blessing, but so that all the inhabitants of the earth could be blessed through Him, isn't that what Scripture tells us?

And we look at Judah and Jerusalem, why did God want it to be restored?

What was the crucial point in all of this?

Isaiah chapter 2 tells us exactly what the point was to restore Judah and Jerusalem, to restore God's people.

And notice what it says in Isaiah chapter 2 beginning in verse 1.

God was not seeking to just go on a building campaign for the sake of making another nice city.

But notice what this says, Isaiah chapter 2 beginning in verse 1.

The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills and all nations shall what flow to it and many people shall come and say, Come, let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob.

He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.

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Finishing the Work

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