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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Waters Family Weekend 2005

Alane Waters

Tom Waters

Our Turning Point

Well, it's wonderful to be with you this evening.

It's nice that we also have our son Josiah.

We weren't planning on having him with us, and our dear friend Thomas.

So it won't just be Allison this weekend with us.

We can be kind of worn out and then when the blessings of the Sabbath come, the Lord wants to give us new energy, right?

All right, even at the end of a busy week.

Well tonight we're not really going to share with you a message per se.

We're going to talk about the turning point of our life, of our life as a family, when our children were very, very little.

So we're entitling this our turning point.

So it's not really a message, is it dear?

I'm sure if you thought just for a moment, you could think of 2 or 3 or 4, maybe more, turning points in your experience, right?

How many of you, even in the short span of the last phrase I just shared, could think of some turning points in your life.

So all of us could, you know, share about those turning points and they're very important.

Some of those turning points may not have been the most positive experiences, but nonetheless God used them and we're going to be focusing on a very positive turning point in our experience.

How many of you have ever heard of Hinsdale?

Okay, probably hear of Hinsdale when you're at Loma Linda.

You hear of Loma Linda when you're at Hinsdale.

Actually, I got to get my wife from Loma Linda.

She came to Hinsdale to allow us to come to you.

We were in our late 20s when the Lord began to show us that where we were and how we were living our lives was not the way we wanted to continue.

We were at that time the parents of 2 children, 2 girls, Allison and Emily.

Josiah, who is now our biggest boy, wasn't even in the picture then, when God began to open our eyes.

We were very involved in our medical careers at Hinsdale and very involved in our church work.

I was the personal ministries director of a 1, 300 member church there at Hinsdale.

That's a lot of responsibility for a 28 year old.

And my wife and I were involved in all kinds of church programs, weren't we dear?

From social committee to Savva school teacher to revelation seminars and...

We thought of something very interesting.

That in big churches it's no different than little churches.

In big churches it's still only a few people do a lot of the work.

In little churches, it's only a few people do all the work.

The difference is in big churches, you can hide if you want to hide.

You can just find a little group and just fade away and hide there.

Well, I came to Hinsdale to do nurse recruitment, but after we were married, which was a big turning point in our lives, and we had children, which is another big turning point in our lives.

I left full-time work and went part-time and doing intensive care nursing and was very active in advancing my degrees and my certifications because That was my focus in life, to be married, to have a family and a career.

Isn't that the way it is in America today?

Yeah, that was another turning point for us, wasn't it?

Yeah, and we talked about living in the country before we had children remember that before we even married we talked about it but we couldn't figure out how you could live in the country and work in the kind of environment where we wanted to work it's kind of like living in the country and working in Loma Linda right they didn't don't seem to go habitate too easily But we were buying our first home, and that was exciting.

You know, you signed this 30-year mortgage for all of these dollars every month.

And It was interesting that even though we wanted and desired to live in a more quiet location, especially when we were when we would start a family, that all those things seemed to pass us by when we looked at what would be convenient for us.

We wanted to be close to the hospital so we didn't have much time to commute.

So we bought a home that was a mile from the hospital.

It was a very big hospital with a lot of activity going on.

So we were right in the main route for all the ambulance service to that hospital.

We were 2 blocks north of main east-west railroad tracks into Chicago.

Approach corridor for O'Hare International Airport.

We didn't know all these things quite as much as we found out as we lived there.

And that wasn't part of what they tell you when you're looking for a house.

That's what you learn after you buy the house.

All of a sudden you hear all these noises around you.

And the trains would come, I mean the commuter trains, the freight trains, day and night.

And the house would rattle and the windows would shake.

And you know, it was, you know, but we adjusted to it.

And it wasn't long before we weren't really hearing the jets go over and we really weren't noticing the trains going by all times of day and night.

And we weren't really even attuned to the house shaking.

And the only time we really tuned into the sirens is if we were on call, because we figured if they're going by we're likely going to be going in.

So that's when we turned tuned into those things.

Well something else that we didn't understand and that was that while all these noises, and those are just physical representations of the busyness of our lives in Hinsdale, that while we quieted down all those noises around us, and we got used to them, Do you know what else happened to us?

We also quieted down in a real connection to God.

Just like we didn't say 1 day, hey did you notice that we didn't hear the planes anymore?

Hey did you notice that we weren't hearing Highway 83 anymore?

Did you notice it doesn't matter that the house rattles anymore?

You don't say those kind of things because you don't notice them anymore.

And so we weren't saying to each other, do you notice that we don't have any time for God anymore?

I would get up as late as I could get up in the morning in order to have a little bit of time with God.

A little bit, because I was a Christian, right?

Christian Integrity

That was a little taste, a very little taste of family camp meeting.

We just wanted to play a few minutes of it.

It's actually about 30, 31 minutes, something like that.

So we wanted to give you a little taste of a little taste of family camp meeting.

And if you'd like to see the whole DVD presentation, then you can come back at 2.30.

Now the meeting isn't scheduled in the afternoon until 3.

So if you'd like to see the whole DVD and find out and hear testimonies from single young adults, from families, the whole diversity family camp meeting is for families.

And you know that if you're single, you're a part of a family?

So you'll hear some powerful testimonies.

So come back if you'd like to see the rest of the DVD because We already have the schedule made at 2.30, which is a half an hour before the 3 o'clock meeting that's regularly scheduled.

You can see the whole taste of family camp meeting.

I want to talk about Christian integrity today.

You know, it's unfortunate that we would even have to talk about integrity connecting it to Christianity.

Because what does it mean to be a Christian?

To be a Christian means that we're connected to Christ.

It doesn't say, he who knows his Bible from cover to cover has Christ.

Even though what's inside this cover is Christ, the Word.

The Word that was made flesh and dwelt among us.

The difficulty is, and we were talking about it this morning in the Sabbath school class, is that we can have all this knowledge, we can know about Christ, but Jesus is going to say to many people, and I hope that I'm not 1 of them, and I hope that none here will hear these words, depart from me, I never knew you.

You know, the Bible begins there in the first chapters of Genesis, and it talks about how God made Adam and Eve and how Adam knew his wife and that meaning is very intimate.

And that intimacy that Jesus Christ wants to have with us is called becoming a partaker of the divine nature.

Having escaped the corruption of this world through lust.

If we had that kind of Christianity, we wouldn't even be talking about integrity today, would we?

Because the world would know that anyone who professed the name of Jesus Christ were the most honest people in the world.

But you know, 1 of the greatest tragedies that I experience as I travel all over the world with this ministry is finding out that many of the people who have the poorest business relationships are Seventh-day Adventists.

People who say, I would never work with a Seventh-day Adventist contractor.

Today I want to talk about Christian integrity, and I want to talk about it in 3 areas.

Now I realize that we're supposed to be out of here at 11 o'clock, right?

It's 25 minutes to 11, and I know we're trying to be sensitive to not interfering.

But if I go over a little bit, am I gonna get in trouble?

And if anyone here needs to leave because you were expecting this to be over at 11 o'clock, you have my full permission.

I will Not evil surmise about you if you get up and walk out.

But I want to talk about integrity in 3 areas.

First, complete transparency in our relationship to God.

And if it is not happening there, it will affect the next area that I want to talk about, and that is within the marriage and within the family.

So if you're not married today, that's okay, Because we're going to talk about it in marriage and we're going to talk about it in the context of single individuals as well.

And lastly, we're going to talk about integrity as it relates to every other relationship we have in business, with our friends, with our church.

Today, right now, and I'm not going to ask anybody to raise their hands, but How honest are you really being with God?

Let's go back to that name Christian again.

You see, for a period of my life, more time than I would like to really admit, I did not understand what real Christianity was.

I did not understand the connection between Christianity and a connection to Jesus Christ that is personal, living, vibrant.

If you read about the 5 foolish and the 5 wise virgins, you'll find out that the 5 foolish virgins were not hypocrites.

They really desired to be at meetings like this.

They really liked to read the Word of God.

They really wanted to be a part of what God was doing.

And when the bridegroom called, or when the cry went out, behold the bridegroom cometh, where did they want to be?

They suddenly realized when they woke up that they didn't have any more oil left.

And they said to the wise, please give us some of yours.

I believe brothers and sisters that we are at that time in Earth's history.

I was not a hypocrite, but I was a foolish virgin.

I did not have a living connection with the power of Jesus Christ.

I wanted to be involved in Revelation seminars.

I wanted to be there because I really believed the message, but I did not have power, living, life-changing power.

Today, in this room, there are people just like I was.

You may dress right, you may eat right, you may be giving Bible studies, you may be attending the right meetings, but you do not have a living connection with a living Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

I hope before you leave this weekend you will have that connection.

All of the miracles of the Bible point to 1 thing, what happens when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?

Every blind eye that was opened, every tongue that was loosed, every cripple that was healed, all point to the maladies that we have in the Christian experience, but we must be honest with the Lord Jesus Christ.

The devil does anything he can to kick the door down, to jimmy the locks, to do whatever he has to do.

The Lord Jesus stands at the door and knocks.

And he says, if you'll open the door, I will come in.

Brothers and sisters, opening the door 1 time at your conversion experience, opening the door 1 time that resulted in baptism is not enough to be saved in the kingdom of God.

We must open the door to Jesus every new day.

And then when the door is opened, we must continue to keep the door open.

Because every time that the devil sees us connected to the Lord Jesus, you know what he tries to do?

My Need of a Savior

It's a joy to see so many of you come back this afternoon.

I want to share with you something that's very dear to my heart, and I think it's very dear to your heart, too.

Our need, my need and your need of having a personal Savior.

Because we want Jesus Christ to be real in our day-to-day experience.

You know, when we were singing through that song, there was in that last verse, there was a little phrase, prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it." Have you ever felt like wandering away from God?

It doesn't really take a lot of effort, in fact.

It just takes a moment of turning our eyes off of Him, and we find ourselves in a short period of time, maybe moments, maybe longer periods of time, we're far from Him.

I want to share with you today Something that the Lord has put in my heart many years ago, and it continues to be in my heart, my prayer, my desire, is to have Christ be a real personal Savior.

You know, Jesus came not just to save us and forgive us from our sin, he wants to save us from what?

He wants to be a personal God, he wants to be a personal Savior to guide us, to keep us from going astray.

I can remember many years ago reading this verse.

It's found in John chapter 15 and starting with verses 1 through 5.

We're not going to read the whole thing, but just to give you the picture, it's talking about Christ being the vine and we are the branches.

And then in verse 5 it talks about bearing fruit.

When we are the branch and we're grafted into the vine we bear fruit and who does that fruit represent?

We reflect His fruit, His image, and so it bears a beautiful life, and that's what we desire because as Christians we want to be like Him.

But then the next few words there, closing that verse, chapter 15 of John in verse 5, For without me, he says, ye can do nothing.

We all know that without Jesus Christ, it's impossible to do anything.

We know it here, but do we know it in our practical everyday life?

I mean, in our marriage, It could be something so simple as 1 day I was standing in the bathroom in the morning I was brushing my teeth and my husband comes to the bathroom door and he asked me for a very Important letter that we had received in the mail Something that was very important that we needed to address and he was coming to the bathroom door to ask me a very simple and honest question.

Honey, where's the letter we got from so-and-so in the mail?

Do you know in a flash my first thought was, I don't have that letter.

It's almost an intense feeling that wells up inside of us.

And thankfully, at that moment, my mouth was full of toothpaste and a toothbrush and I couldn't say a word.

And in that amount of time, the Lord called to my heart because he wanted to be my savior.

Maybe a sharp word, a sharp response, a accusation.

You know the spirit that can come so easy.

And so by the time I got rid of the toothbrush and the toothpaste, God had given me a better way to respond.

Honey, I'm not sure where the letter is because I really didn't know because in my mind it was clear he had it.

And that kind of situation, as simple as a letter, can cause what?

It can be the instrument by which we go into sin and into agitation and then something else comes up and something else comes up.

Before you know it, it can taint the entire day and for some, it can taint days of time.

Jesus says, without me we can do nothing.

It's impossible to do anything without the power of Jesus Christ.

That's why Jesus says that he's the vine and we're the branch, and in order to be in him we have to be grafted into him, fiber by fiber.

That means we have to be severed from the old rootstock of self.

Not in those terms necessarily, but there are 3 interesting roots of self that the Bible talks about.

And it's these 3 roots of self that cause us, that lead us to do our own way and to end up where we often end up in discouragement, in frustration, maybe even anger, because self is ruling and Christ is not.

So I'd like to illustrate these 3 roots of self this afternoon through my personal experience because my prayer is that the Lord will be my personal Savior.

I hope you pray that way in the morning every day.

Lord, today, today Lord, I want you to be my Savior.

I want you to guide my thoughts Because it's our thoughts that lead us into every decision we make.

Our thoughts is what lead every word that comes out of our mouth.

Our thought is what leads every emotion, our mood, our experience that we go through.

The Bible calls it our thoughts, it calls it our heart, it calls it our soul, our mind.

God wants to be there for us, a personal Savior.

So this 1 morning, years ago, and Again, it's been my prayer often, daily, that God will be my personal Savior.

But this 1 particular day, I can remember praying, Lord, today I want you to be my Savior.

I want you to help me to think the right way and to respond the right way.

And this particular day we had friends visiting us from out of state.

We didn't get to see them very often, so you know what it's like when you get together with special friends.

It's something that you want to just soak in all the time you can get with them.

And we had planned a special afternoon, we were going to sit around our pond in the backyard and we were going to visit while our children played there around the pond.

And I can remember in our discussion, catching up what was happening in their lives and what was happening in our lives.

In that discussion, after a while, they asked us about another family, mutual friends, who were not present with us, and they said, well, how is the so-and-so family doing?

And As soon as that question came, my mind flooded with all kinds of thoughts.

But before I could even open my mouth, my husband started to share something.

When we have something we want to say and we want to make sure we have the opportunity to speak, right?

I found myself kind of sitting right up on the edge of my chair waiting for that split second in the conversation so I could jump in with what I wanted to say.

Now, maybe not the little bitty ones, maybe sometimes they do too, but that was where I found myself that day.

And I began to share with our friends all about this other family.

And even as I was sharing, I began to feel, as I heard my words, I began to feel uncomfortable Because I was telling them the truth This family was struggling spiritually.

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Series

Waters Family Weekend 2005

Christian Integrity

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

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