<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>

Bristol SDA Church

Garhett Morgan

The Lamb of God

Father, Lord, we just are so blessed again to be in your house.

Spiritual things are spiritually discerned and we want to ask for a double outpouring of your Holy Spirit today here.

Father, Be with my words, help these not be my words, but let them be yours.

Help me not to mar them, for I'm a sinful human being.

If there's anything in our hearts or our minds are distracting us from you today, please let us know about those things and may we walk away from them.

That we may focus upon You, our Savior, our Redeemer, our Creator.

We thank You and we praise You in the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.

I gotta tell you a couple stories and then we'll get into the word, actually kind of a mixture of the 2.

You know that I'm kind of a history nerd.

And with that, there's some books that I read that are controversial because I want to get to know kind of different world views and how people believe.

So for instance, I read a few years ago, I read the New World Translation, Jehovah Witnesses use that.

I don't agree with their translation because they do a lot of changing, but I wanted to read that so if I talk to a Jehovah Witness someday I would be able to know how to communicate with them in their language, so to say.

Last year I read 2 books that were really difficult reads.

1 of them isn't necessarily a religious book, but it was a book that is shown all over history and I'm really into the World War II era of history.

And so I actually sat down and I read Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler.

I had to take lots of breaks in between it.

And then the next book that I read that was very difficult for me to read and not comparable at all to the book that I just mentioned but another book that was really hard to read but I got through it was the Quran.

I read through the Quran because I've always wanted to witness to somebody of the Muslim faith.

And I have never had the opportunity, and I was praying about that 1 day and saying, Lord, how do I have the opportunity to witness to somebody of that faith?

And he said, how will you witness to them if you don't know what they believe?

And I thought, well, that's a good point.

So I read the Quran, and I finished it about a year ago.

And this past week, someone called Church in Big Rapids and said, I'm a veteran.

And while I was over there, I converted to Islam.

And I came back and I married a Roman Catholic.

And we're having some disagreements, as you would probably imagine.

And so I know that something has to change.

And so I was praising God because finally, I was able to communicate with somebody.

And so he came by this past week and we were able to talk a little bit.

And he had Googled Seventh-day Adventists online.

Now, when you Google Seventh-day Adventists online, you'll get a few different perspectives.

Number 1, you might get some perspectives of people that are like, oh, this is a great church, yada, yada, yada, that's fine.

But on the other side, you'll get a bunch of websites and people that say, some of the Adventists are a cult.

And so he had gone online, he had researched those things, but I'll tell you today, as we read the word of God, I want to clarify just a few points.

Number 1, I believe, and I hope that you believe as well, and I hope we can agree on this, that if it is written in the Word of God, we believe it.

If it's in the Bible, it's for me, And if it's not in the Bible, then it's not.

That's kind of what I believe and I hope that's what you believe as well as Christians.

And then 1 other thing that we believe that is extremely important is we believe that Jesus Christ came, he died on the cross, He bled for our sins and that Jesus Christ is coming again.

If I had to condense what we believe in just a few points, those would be the ones that I would bring out.

We believe in the Bible, Not just the Old Testament, not just the New Testament, but the entire Word of God.

And if we aren't in love with Jesus, then all of this and all of the doctrine that you might have, if you don't know Jesus, then what good is it?

But if you know Jesus, John 14, 15 says, if you love me, then what?

My friends, in order to truly keep the commandments of God, first, we have to fall in love with the author of them.

I'd like to take you to a part of Scripture today that is quite interesting.

We're going to bounce around a little bit in our Bibles.

But if you go to the book of Titus, in your Bibles It goes Titus, Philemon, and then it goes Hebrews, in case you're wondering.

Now for those of you that are into reading your Bible, this passage of scripture is pretty popular actually.

Titus chapter 2, and we're going to start reading here in verse 11.

Titus chapter 2, starting in verse 11, and I'm reading out of the King James version this morning.

And it says this, for the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to how many men?

Do you believe that Jesus Christ through His Holy Spirit is wooing all mankind towards Himself?

Whether we admit it or not, Jesus hasn't given up on you.

It continues on and it says, verse 12, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live how?

Soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.

Now, here we find this text, and it talks about a few things.

But the 1 that I'd like to focus on just now is it said that we need to turn aside from things that are ungodly and are full of worldly lusts.

Now, we do not need to go and start listing things that fall under those categories, right?

I'm pretty sure when we read ungodly and worldly lusts, you get a pretty good idea of what that's talking about, right?

We could probably say that what that is talking about is sin or the definition of sin.

Turn away from sin is what that verse is saying, living in the modern world.

Now, when you look at the modern world today, especially maybe like the entertainment industry, look at Hollywood, you look at things like video games, maybe even social media, right?

When you take a look at what the world has to offer, do they tend to fall under the godly or the ungodly side of things?

It falls under the ungodly type of side of things.

And God has called us to step away from those things.

You know, repentance is interesting because a lot of people think that repentance just means to ask God for forgiveness.

And it does include that, but true repentance according to the Bible is asking God's forgiveness and then turning away from those things, right?

Now, I remember when I was, you know, I was raised Christian, and I remember when I started to allow some creeping compromises to come into my life.

And for those of you that know my story, you know that I was really into things like heavy metal and stuff like that.

And it wasn't too long in my Christian journey when I realized that there was some music that I needed to stop listening to.

And so I began to take those things out of my life, among other things, maybe you can relate to this experience.

And as I started taking these things that I used to enjoy out of my life, It began to leave holes.

But my friends, God doesn't want us to just take these things that we're excited about out of our life and then just sit around and do nothing.

God wants us to turn away from the things of the world and turn to something that He is willing to offer us.

I mean, this next verse in verse 13 explains to us what we need to fill where sin used to be.

"'Looking for that blessed hope "'and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, amen?

Those things that you may have once loved, the things that you have given up because God has convicted you to do so, God wants to take your heart and He wants to fill it with excitement and love for Him.

Back to Menu

The Lamb of God

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

The Kings

The Kings: Amaziah

40m

Medical Missionary Work Panel

1h 3m

GoTential

Who May Live on Your Holy Hill

29m

The Sower

Present Truth of the Wheat and Tare

47m

Hindsight is Perfect

32m

Seminars

How to Preach and Speak with Power

1h 42m

The Power of Grace

54m

Plenary

As Was His Custom

48m

Revelation Today Crusade

19. The Testimony of Pastor Anil Kanda

46m

The Midnight Cry — 175 Years and Counting

45m

Keeping Focus

Keeping Focus Part 2

43m

Sound Doctrine