ASI 2010: Inspired to Finish Strong

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ASI 2010 Plenary Meetings

David Asscherick

Blessed Are the Peacemakers

I have been sitting just over there adjacent to where you're at, and I have noticed that you seem, at least to me, to be a little subdued, which for me is uncharacteristic of ASI.

So is it jet lag or are you feeling just pensive?

And yes, my observation is further confirmed.

Forgive me, but this ambiance, this deportment is not going to work for me.

So hopefully we can muster a little bit of enthusiasm for the Lord Jesus Christ and His work on earth.

There have been some profound and powerful and heart-moving testimonies.

I have been thrilled as I have heard what God is doing in the world, and I have been a little surprised.

Maybe you need just a little spanking as we begin.

I have been a little surprised at your pensivity, and so I would urge you to participate with me in an enthusiastic study of the Word of God.

Incidentally, the word enthusiasm, if you're interested in the etymology of that word, actually comes from 2 words, en meaning in and theos meaning God.

The word enthusiasm literally means the joy and attitude that comes from being in a relationship with God.

And so when people tell me, oh, I like you, you're an enthusiastic preacher, I say I'm trying my best.

I'm trying to be in a saving and happy relationship with God.

Our message tonight is a very important 1, and really it sort of just matures and tries to put some legs on the things that we've been hearing tonight, to put some legs on our lessons and some feet on our faith.

And so what we're going to try and do is paint a biblical, theological picture for the very kinds of things that we have been hearing tonight, the testimonies and the experiences of God's people, and really, frankly, for what ASI is all about.

I've had the privilege of being involved with ASI for the last almost 15 years.

And from the very beginning of my conversion to Christ, the very beginning of my conversion to Seventh-day Adventism, ASI has been part and parcel of my life and my ministry, and it is an honor to have been asked to be here for the keynote address.

And so what we're going to try and do is encapsulate biblically, theologically, tonight in the context of the Sermon on the Mount, what ASI is all about.

And so we're going to begin appropriately with a word of prayer, and then we're going to be getting into… You did bring your Bibles, of course.

I know you have your little programs, and you've got all of your… Well, you're beginning to get your various ASI accoutrements, but you're going to need your Bibles tonight.

So let's begin with a word of prayer, and then we'll get into our presentation titled Blessed Are the Peacemakers.

Father in heaven, it is a great privilege and an honor to be here this evening.

Father, we are gathered together in keeping with the promise of Hebrews chapter 10, in which you tell us that we should gather together more and still more as we see the day approaching.

And Father, surely we are living in strange and portentous times, unusual times.

As we look around us, the world seems to be falling apart at the seams, but Father, we pray that as the world falls apart increasingly, that we would not be falling apart with it, but that we would be complete, that we would be whole, that we would be… that we would be joined together in Christ and in His righteousness.

Father, here at the ASI Convention, you know that we are about the upbuilding of the kingdom of God, And we are about the correct and enthusiastic proclamation of the character of God.

And so Father, tonight as we seek to set these 2 gems in their proper orientation, as we seek to understand what that means, the kingdom of God and the character of God.

Father, I pray that we would be able tonight to be able to say that we are each kingdom builders and peacemakers.

I want to thank You for every person that has testified, every experience that we have heard tonight.

Father, prosper these ministries, the outreach there at Heritage Academy and the Wachita Hills team and the AII mission and all of the others that were mentioned, Father, may You prosper us as we seek in our own feeble and often faulty way to build Your kingdom.

Father, help us to be not just kingdom builders, but kingdom participants, that we ourselves may say with the Apostle Paul that our citizenship is in heaven.

So please, Father, tonight as we kick off our inaugural keynote address, we pray that it would be a spirited presentation, and that You would empty us of self and empty us of our own desires to advance our kingdoms and our glory, and that we would be here desiring only the goodness and glory of Your kingdom and Your Son.

In Jesus' name, let all of God's people say, Amen.

I'd like to invite you to open your Bibles with me to the book of Matthew.

We're going to the book of Matthew, and we're going to chapter 7, Matthew chapter 7.

We're going to be spending the balance of our time tonight, in fact almost all of our time, in what is referred to commonly and colloquially, though not scripturally, as the Sermon on the Mount.

We refer to it simply that way because Jesus delivered this sermon, this inaugural public address from, you guessed it, a mountain.

And we're going to be looking here in Matthew 5 and 6 and 7, but primarily Matthew chapter 5, the first part of Matthew chapter 5.

And we're going to be trying to… we're going to try and understand what Jesus was communicating in the opening part of this address that we refer to as the Sermon on the Mount.

Now, in order to do that, what we're going to try and do is listen to the Sermon on the Mount contextually.

Now, 1 of the most difficult things to do as someone living in the 21st century, for myself and for each of us, is to read the Bible in a contextual way.

It can be very easy for us to read the Bible with a 21st century perspective, to read the Bible with a modern perspective, when it is true that the Bible has a great deal of modern application.

But there can be no question that the Bible is an ancient book that needs to first be understood in its original context, and after we have understood what was meant then, we can then ask the question what it means now.

Now we're going to what is referred to simply as the Sermon on the Mount, and this is Jesus' first public address, as we've already said.

Now, in the Gospel of Matthew, more so than Mark, Luke, or John, Jesus sets… Matthew, rather, as an author, sets up the Sermon on the Mount as a sort of sequence in which Jesus is seen as the new fulfillment of Israel, and not just as the fulfillment of Israel, but as He's sort of tracing the chronological, historical steps that Israel had gone through, Jesus is presented as the Messiah.

Matthew does this purposefully, evangelistically, and certainly apologetically, just to give a little bit of a context here.

For example, in ancient Israel, the way that Israel originally ended up going into Egypt prior to the Exodus was that a man named Joseph had dreams.

A man named Joseph had dreams, and in the context of those dreams, the children of Israel, literally the descendants of Jacob, went into Egypt for a time.

They remained there for a time, and then they were called out of Egypt, and we refer to this simply as the Exodus or the leaving of Egypt.

Hosea refers to this, Hosea the prophet in Hosea chapter 11, verses 1 and 2, when it says, out of Egypt I have called my son.

And So Israel here is not just a national entity, but an entity in which it takes on the position of sonship.

And Egypt, or Israel rather, had gone into Egypt because of a man named Joseph having dreams, remained in Egypt for a time.

Now, as the children of Israel are then called out of Egypt, the very first experience that they have as they're leaving Egypt, the 10 plagues have fallen, is they meet this major obstacle known as the Red Sea.

Now the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 picks up on this imagery and says that as they passed through the Red Sea, they were all… I wonder if anyone knows.

They were all… he gives it a theological application.

And so he makes application here that the passing through the Red Sea was analogous to the New Testament experience of a believer being baptized.

And so he sees them coming through and he says this is the baptism.

Now I just have to ask a quick true or false question here.

True or False, it was God's plan for Israel to wander in the desert for 40 years.

So his plan was for them to go from the passing through of the Red Sea to a certain place, to a certain location.

Okay, so the distance, according to the book of Exodus, the time that it took them, the duration that it took them from the Red Sea passing to Mount Sinai was just about a month, roughly a month, give or take.

It could have been 40 days, which will become important in just a moment.

And so, let's just sort of take stock of what we've got.

A man named Joseph has dreams and the children of Israel go into Egypt where they remain for a time, And then they are called out of Egypt, and the first experience that they pass through is the Red Sea, the first significant experience, the first significant obstacle.

Then from the Red Sea, they go through a wilderness period of wandering, actually just a wilderness journey through the wilderness of sin, and they come to Mount Sinai.

Now we know that after Mount Sinai, the children of Israel are going to wander in the wilderness for some 40 years, but this was not part of God's original plan.

God's original plan goes like this, into Egypt, remain in Egypt, out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, through the wilderness to Mount Sinai.

Now, Jesus walks through this, I believe intentionally, and other scholars share that perspective.

Tim Riesenberger

Truth that Transforms the World

It's my joy to be here this morning, and of course, we're all here to see 1 person, and that's Jesus Christ, and Him lifted up in the marketplace and in our lives.

So before I begin, I'd like to ask Him to be with us 1 more time.

Please bow your heads as I kneel in prayer.

Loving Father in heaven, what a joy it is to be here with Your people, with Your children.

And Lord, we ask that you would be present not only among us, but within us.

I ask that you would hide me behind the cross of Jesus Christ.

Does God love the angels that surround His throne?

Does God love the people who don't know Him yet?

Does God love the people who do know about Him, but have chosen not to follow Him?

You know, it's interesting, as I go through this cycle of questions, we start out, yes, yes, and then yes?

I'm going to share with you how my life was transformed by a text message.

I mean, many of you use cell phones every day and saying your life is changed by a text message is like saying my life was changed by a forwarded email.

I was at a time when I was going to meet with my boss.

Riesenberger, I need to meet with you sometime.

It's usually fairly distressing, in fact.

So I asked my friends to pray for me, and 1 friend sent me a text message.

They said, I'm praying that God will give you the words that you need to speak at the right time.

Very sweet, nice text message, but it bothered me to no end because what was said was, whatever happens, whatever, right, I'm proud of you.

Now whatever could include being fired, could it not?

And I can tell you I've worked full time during the summers, part time during the school year since I was 15.

They said, whatever happens, I'll be proud of you?

I wouldn't be proud of myself if I was fired.

Certainly the people at my job know that I'm a Christian.

They know that I go to church on that funny day.

What kind of witness would that be if I were fired?

So I struggled with that for a long time, and the Lord brought me to a message that has transformed my life.

Turn with me in your Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter 14.

Now in all Israel there was no 1 who was praised as much as Absalom for his good looks.

From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, there was no blemish in him." Now to say there was no blemish in him from head to toe is another word for saying he was Perfect.

But perfection does not always extend to the inside.

We're going to be reading through this story quickly.

Chapter 15, verses 1 through 6, we find Absalom at the gate of the city.

There are men lined up to talk to the king about a suit, about a complaint.

And Absalom says to them, look, your case is good and right, But there is no deputy of the king to hear you.

Moreover, Absalom would say, O that I were made judge in the land, and everyone who has a suit or cause would come to me, then I would give him justice.

Absalom was encouraging people to come to him rather than to the king.

And in verse 6 we read what the result of this behavior was, that Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.

Drop down to verses 10 through 12, and we find that Absalom has proclaimed himself king.

Verse 12, we find, then Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David's counselor from his city, from Gilo, while he offered sacrifices.

And the Conspiracy grew strong, for the people increased continually with Absalom.

Certainly he was a counselor of David, we read that from the text, but he was Bathsheba's grandfather.

If you doubt, it's 2 Samuel 11 3 and 2 Samuel 24 34 that will give you those insights.

Now how do you think Ahithophel felt about David at this point?

Can you imagine your grandson-in-law is assassinated by the king?

He sleeps with your granddaughter, impregnates her, lies about it in front of everybody, and what punishment does the king receive?

Ahithophel was waiting to even the score with the house of David, and he found this opportunity with the rebellion of Absalom.

You'll find that David is fleeing for his life from Jerusalem because his son has marched into the city to take it over.

David does not stay to fight for the city.

He does not want to see Jerusalem devoted to bloodshed.

And as he's fleeing, a guy comes out of the city, he throws rocks at him and says, that's right, you better run.

God is getting you back from all the bloodshed that you committed to the house of Saul.

Members in Action

It is my distinct and real privilege to invite to ASI tonight my friend Bill Knott, who is presently serving as editor of the Adventist Review.

We are grateful for his service, and he has the privilege also on Sabbath evening of bringing our keynote address.

But tonight we're going to talk about the Adventist Review.

The Adventist Review is 1 of the longest published papers in the Adventist Church.

What role has it played as the church has developed?

I was trying to describe not long ago the role of the Adventist Review as sort of being the center pole of the Adventist church for the last 161 years.

It's where you go to get the best information, to get doctrinal materials, to read about mission.

It always has been in the life of the church.

We see ourselves as committed to the central core, not only of the teaching of Adventism, but of the people of Adventism.

My wife and I happened to have the privilege of being at GC a few weeks ago.

And every morning when we came down that long walkway from the hotel to the meeting, there would be young folks handing out flyers that showed us what happened.

And most of the days, there was a new edition of the Adventist Review.

How in the world did you manage that logistically?

Well, that's 1 of the things we spend 5 years getting ready to do.

When you try to turn out a 32-page four-color magazine every 24 hours for about 8 days, the challenges, especially when your publishing house is about 700 miles away, are immense.

Every day we would send the content digitally to Hagerstown, Maryland, and the Review and Herald Publishing Association about 6 p.m.

They would plate it and print it and bind it and box it and put it on a private charter plane by 2.30 in the morning in Hagerstown.

It would arrive in Atlanta at 5, and it was sitting on the table of the steering committee by 6.30 a.m.

I have to admit, that was 1 of those moments that a huge team of people contributed to.

I have said, and I will say again publicly, an enormous thanks to the good folks at the Review and Herald who made that possible by literally staying up all night.

Now I believe you're rolling out some of those issues to regular subscribers, aren't you too?

In fact, all 8 special daily bulletins are in addition to the normal 36 that you get in an annual subscription in 2010 and in every GC year.

Do you print everything that comes to you, or do you exert some kind of editorial prerogative?

I don't want to discourage people by giving away the actual percentage of what we print, of what comes in the mail, but I can tell you that we look at every article with a point of view that asks, how will this build up God's people?

If it doesn't pass those tests, we thank the authors and send it back.

But if it meets those tests, we publish those things, working carefully with authors to make sure that the impact of the ideas the Lord gave them really get communicated to the church.

Do you believe that your policy as you apply it today is representative of mainline traditional Seventh-day Adventists?

We're committed to those values as persons, as an editorial team.

We take counsel regularly with the leadership of the church, both lay and administrative, trying to make sure that we stay on balance, that we stay focused on the mission of the church that we know to be central.

I have seen in our local conference paper that you were a speaker at 1 of our camp meetings.

You're out on the circuit, you're on TV, why are you out so much, out and about?

1 of the things you have to do when you edit a magazine in today's culture is help people understand what value it has for their lives.

I get to look people in the eye and say, you read this magazine, your faith will be strengthened.

You read this magazine, you're going to fall more in love with Jesus.

Read this magazine, your children are going to grow up maturing in the Lord Jesus Christ.

This evening when you walk out of here, you're going to get your own copy at the door, test that out.

My wife and I read the letters to the editor.

Some of the more interesting conversation or points of view are expressed there.

Do you have any particular themes of letters or particular experiences with letters that you'd like to share?

A lot of our writers send very encouraging notes, and if we printed all those, everyone would think we're only about self-congratulation.

What you read in the letters section of the Adventist Review is frequently just a sampling, usually reacting to the content of previous issues.

Most of the time, people write us to say, do more of this.

Sometimes we have honest voices who say, I don't think you got it right here.

And if you're 1 of those who's written a letter, we try to respond to your letter personally as well as publish the most useful ones that we think the church is gonna be helped by.

Would you be willing to let us take a hand poll here of how many people read and or subscribe to the review?

In fact, I hope more hands keep going up.

How many of you receive the Adventist Review on a regular basis.

So you're in friendly territory, but it's not unanimous.

Well, you know, that means I still have work to do.

That's why I come to places like ASI and GYC.

I go to camp meetings, continuing to put the word out.

This magazine has been and continues to be the center pole of the Seventh-day Adventist church.

We want you to come gather here and learn what God is going to do with His people.

Now, if you wanted ASI members and those in the 3ABN audience to have a takeaway point of view, what would you want us to know or think or have an impression about the Adventist Review?

I want you to trust it as a place that you can open up on Sabbath or Friday evening.

That's the way I grew up, reading the Adventist Review, little knowing that someday I'd be responsible for the words in those pages.

I want you to know that when you come away from these pages, your faith is going to be built.

That's been my story so many times as I've gone back in the archives of this magazine.

I get the privilege to see what God has done through the pages of this journal.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been won to faith and strengthened in their faith by what God has put in the pages of this magazine.

I think we're still following that vision of sending light like streams of light around the world.

Just a few minutes ago, you heard the beautiful rendition from Wayne Atwood.

You know, 8 years ago, Wayne decided to pull up stakes from the United States and go to a foreign country.

When he moved to this foreign country, he realized that there was something missing in his life.

And he began to dream and pray and wished and hoped that he could interact with ASI family on a day-to-day basis in this foreign country.

A series of events took place that would change everything and bring to fruition his dream.

Well, I'm very excited to share this with you this evening because as Ramon said it's true that I found it a little bit difficult to be where there weren't very many Adventists and where there wasn't a thriving group like ASI.

And so it took a while to kind of, you know, adjust to the move into a different culture because I live in Quebec, Canada, so it's French-speaking, so first of all I had a language to learn and then second of all a few cultural things to learn as well.

But about a couple of years ago, the conference president, his name of the Quebec Conference, his name is Dragan Stojanovic, and he approached me and he told me about an experience that he had when he was a pastor in Michigan.

ASI was involved in an evangelistic project there in his church.

And he was so impressed to see the way that lay people work together with the church that he said we have to have ASI here in Quebec Canada as well.

And that story really touched my heart because I felt here is an individual that the reason he wants ASI is because he's experienced ASI.

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