2019 Maryland Men of Faith: Not Bought or Sold

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Maryland Men of Faith

Jim Howard

Behold the Man

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It's been a blessing to be with you all today.

Really good program, really well organized.

Only 1 thing I think that could make it a little bit better.

There would be a few ladies involved, you know, with the decorations, the registration, you know.

A couple of housekeeping items before I dive into the topic for this evening.

Somebody asked me for the reference to a quote that I shared in the morning message that was, I had not shared the reference because I didn't have it with me, it was something I was kind of speaking off the top of my head, it was the passage in the book Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing that talked about not censuring or trying to change people from the wrong position by censure of reproach.

So I'm just going to share this quote with you briefly in its full context and then give you the reference.

Not until you feel that you can sacrifice your own self-dignity and even lay down your life in order to save an erring brother have you cast the beam out of your own eyes so that you are prepared to help your brother.

Then you can approach him and touch his heart.

No 1 has ever been reclaimed from a wrong position by censure and reproach, but many have thus been driven from Christ and led to seal their hearts against conviction.

A tender spirit, a gentle winning deportment may save the erring and hide a multitude of sins.

The revelation of Christ in your own character will have a transforming power upon all with whom you come in contact.

Let Christ be daily made manifest in you, and He will reveal through you the creative energy of His Word, a gentle, persuasive, yet mighty influence to recreate other souls in the beauty of the Lord our God." That's thoughts from the Man of Blessing, page 128.

Let's just see how it works and then I'll come back to it.

For those of you who did not come to my afternoon seminar.

You may have interest in a couple of resources that we're producing a whole series of resources.

This 1 is just a small booklet called Fundamentals of Faith that is used for preparing people for baptism.

So it's a baptismal preparation or a profession of faith preparation guide that an elder or a layperson could use, not just for pastors.

And then this is a book called the Discipleship Handbook that is to be used after someone is baptized.

You know, we often have loose or unorganized methods of discipling people after baptism, and this is sort of a systematic way to connect a mentor or a small group leader with a newly baptized person so that they can go through together.

It's got 26 chapters, which is representative of 6 months, 1 chapter per week, that a mentor or a small group leader can go over with a newly baptized person and they can gradually be gaining a deeper understanding and becoming more grounded in the truth while at the same time having time with someone from the church to build a relationship.

And then in the appendix, the first appendix, it has weekly outlines, one-page outlines for the mentor, so that not just is he going through the chapter, but he's also got little ideas for things he can do to incorporate the new member into the life of the Church and the mission of the Church.

Taking them, inviting them over for Vespers, taking them with them on an outreach project, and a whole host of other things.

So through the 6 months, they're integrating them into the church while they're learning as well.

And then it also has in the second appendix a Bible and spirit of prophecy reading plan that's correlated so that when you're reading about something in the Bible the same topic is being covered in the spirit of prophecy and you're reading it together and that's to help the new member develop a devotional time and devotional life so it's built around developing spiritual habits in the new member as well as training them in the idea of soul winning so that we make disciples who make disciples.

So if you don't have something in your church, a systematic way of continuing the process after baptism, I'd highly encourage you to check this out.

You can get this and this at the Adventist Book Center.

And if you have any questions about either of these, you can talk to me afterwards.

All right, before we dive into the topic in This last message of the day, I'm going to ask if you wouldn't mind bowing your hands with me once more.

Loving Father, I am so grateful for the privilege to be with these men here this weekend and we want to thank you for making it all possible.

You are the 1 who sent Jesus to be our sacrifice, to surrender all that we might have the hope of eternal life.

So please give us eyes to see the revelation of Christ to our souls.

So the title of the message this morning was, I sought for a man.

The title of the message this evening is Behold the Man.

And I'd like you to take your Bibles and turn with me to the book of John, where we will see where This title is drawn from John 19.

So then Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him.

And the soldiers twisted a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and they put on Him a purple robe.

Pilate then went out again and said to them, Behold, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no fault in him.

Then Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.

And Pilate said to them, Behold the man." What an incredible scene.

He was battered and bleeding, and yet He was maintaining a kingly bearing before the people.

Pilate probably thought that the crowd was going to look upon Jesus and be satisfied with what was evidently a near fatal punishment that he had already received and which had been inflicted upon him.

But he guessed wrong, because the bloodthirsty chief priests and officers would not be satisfied until Jesus was dead.

But still, Pilate, in the midst of his cowardice and his own wickedness, and that of the religious leaders, we would add, unwittingly, Pilate says these 3 words in which he explains to us the prescription for eternal life.

As I told you earlier, I was born into a Seventh-day Adventist family that left the church when I was 9 years old.

The only thing I really remember from those days, and the only thing I remember even as a teen, was, well, I think there were 3 things I remember.

I had a little Good News Bible with a yellow cover.

And you know, anybody familiar with the Good News Bible, it had those little sketches in it.

And I remember that sketch of Lazarus coming out of the grave.

I remembered singing around the campfire at Vespers.

We would have Vespers and there was this woman her name is Pat White who was a singer and she put out some CDs and she always played the guitar and we would sing around the campfire.

And I remembered 1 Sabbath school teacher who evidently had epilepsy because he had a seizure in the middle of Sabbath school and was beating on his leg uncontrollably, and that was kind of traumatic for a child.

Those were the 3 things I remembered from my childhood religious training.

And as I grew up outside of the church, it wasn't really a hardship to me.

I just kind of followed the path that my parents took us on.

We didn't talk about God in the home really, except for the occasional negative comment that might be made here or there.

My mom would sometimes talk about how the friends she made in the world were much more accepting than the friends that she had in the church and those types of things.

Of course, there was a divorce around the time that all this was happening, so they had some bitterness that was of their own experience.

But growing up as a teenager, I called myself a Christian.

I considered myself a Christian, although I didn't really want to be equated as a Seventh-day Adventist, so I called myself a Methodist.

I thought that was like the generic Christian was a Methodist.

I had never stepped foot in a Methodist church.

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Behold the Man

Transcript

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

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Restoration 2009: Expect It

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Fisherman’s Reform

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