ASI Southern Union 2023: Fill Me Now

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ASI Southern Union

Plenary

Don Mackintosh

A Love Song for the Empty

We'll pray together and we'll get started.

But what I want to do this week is share some some just practical ways to share your faith, you know, There's nothing better than sharing your faith with people and it actually helps grow your faith as you're helping other people as well.

All right, tonight I want to just go through a psalm with you actually, Psalm 77.

So if you have a Bible and you want to open it to Psalm 77.

And I first really got energized with this psalm while I was working with a person who was going through a depression recovery program.

And I ask, you know, people, I'll ask people, what are your spiritual resources?

Because we realize if people that are depressed have spiritual resources they can draw on, they can get better 40 to 70% sooner.

And so I do a worldview inventory on them.

We dialogue about what they really believe.

And then, depending on what happens, we go forward in bringing in the scriptures or other spiritual things.

And this person introduced me actually to Psalm 77.

But I went back and meditated on that psalm, and as I meditated on that psalm, I realized, Man, this is a paradigm, you might say, to help people who are empty get filled.

And the first 10 verses of the Psalm actually show how people get empty.

And the last 10 verses show how people get filled.

I don't know if my slides are up on the screen or not.

And You can see those first 10 verses will take us down, and the next 10 verses will take us up.

We might say the road down is depression, and the road up is what?

So being emptied and then filled, if we were using it for, using our theme today.

I'm going to put up on the screen and you can read.

You don't have to look at your phones or your Bible even, because I don't even have it on the screen.

I cried out to God with my voice, to God with my voice, and He gave ear to me.

In the day of my trouble, I sought the Lord.

My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing, my soul refused to be comforted, I remembered God and was troubled, I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed." Now, what do you think about this?

Can you see a journey downward at all in these verses?

What gives you the idea he's in trouble or she's in trouble.

If you really want to get depressed just focus on yourself.

He's stretching out his hand, but then notice, my soul, what does it say?

In other words, there's a conscious decision here to not be comforted.

There's a use of the will that says, no, I'm not going to be comforted.

I remembered God and was troubled and then what happens I did what I Complained and my spirit was what?

How many of you've noticed them when you start complaining you get overwhelmed and you see this?

I am so troubled that I cannot speak." So what's he doing here?

I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times.

I call to remembrance my song in the night.

I meditate within my heart and my spirit makes diligent search by myself alone.

How many can see the steps downward here?

And when he gets down here, Notice what happens.

This guy is getting further and further away.

This person is getting unmoored, you might say.

When you start complaining, or when the person you're talking to is complaining and they're overwhelmed, or if they refuse comfort from God.

And there may be different reasons people refuse comfort from God.

We'll come to that later on this evening.

Will, read it with me so I know you're still alive.

If I don't hear you, I'm gonna jump down there and do CPR on somebody.

I think I'll start with Calvin just because I think he's generally healthy and if he was going out then I know for sure we're in trouble.

It literally is his unfailing mercy ceased forever.

It's kind of oxymoronic, but he's saying has his mercy ceased forever?

Steven Grabiner

Leadership Resonance

Good morning everybody, especially those of you that are still congregating in the back.

So our presentation for this session, this plenary session, is on becoming a resonant leader.

Harmonious is kind of the thought behind this.

You know, we have resonance where when a group sings, everything just falls into place.

And then you have dissonance where there's discord.

Park's presentation a moment ago, the fellow that was sending texts, I think the name we gave him was Joe, Joe was creating harmony or discord, what would you say?

And it's very unfortunate when a leader brings discord or disharmony into the organization.

Now there could be teams that are disharmonous, but really there's a tremendous amount of research that focuses on the role of the leader himself or herself.

So I'm gonna share a little bit about leadership in the brain and that'll be more of our topic during the breakout session as well.

And I wanna give you a very simple illustration.

So just to be clear, I'm a doctor of theology, I'm not a neuroscientist.

But if you just follow me along and just imagine that your arm coming up from your elbow is your spinal cord, just as an illustration.

And then it comes into the brain, at the base of the brain, and oftentimes in talking about the impact of neuroscience, people call this the reptilian brain.

I think Ellen White refers to it as our lower nature.

And then in the center of our brain are a collection of bodies called the amygdala and they're highly connected to emotions.

And then if we were to make a little fist We would have the prefrontal cortex, left and right prefrontal cortex.

And usually we want the prefrontal cortex to make our decisions, to be in charge.

The brain really works through systems, not just discrete parts.

And all the time there's a communication between your amygdala, your emotions, and your prefrontal cortex.

But it really depends which one's in charge.

And oftentimes, we get into situations where the emotional center of the brain is more in charge than the thinking center.

And have you ever had an experience like that?

And when a leader experiences that, oftentimes that can create dissonance, disharmony in an organization.

So just briefly what's going on inside the leader's head, lots of different facets.

Now, Tony and Vivian, could you pass out those papers?

And Naomi, of course, and anybody else that wants to help.

Got a little sheet for you that I'd like you to fill out for me.

On the front side of it, There's a spot for you to write the name of the leader you most admire.

And that could be actually somebody you have worked with or somebody you know, somebody in business, somebody in politics, if you could find such a person, somebody in history, somebody biblical, whoever it is.

So just take a moment and jot down that person's name on the front side of this paper.

And I think they have pens as well if somebody needs 1.

Does everybody have a sheet or are you still getting some?

Give you a moment to get yours and think and fill out your most effective leader.

And don't overthink this or you're not gonna be graded.

And then underneath it, write the 7 characteristics, 7 traits that helped you choose this person as the most effective leader you know.

7 attributes, 7 traits, 7 adjectives to describe the leader.

Again Somebody you've worked with, somebody you admire, somebody in any sphere, business, politics, religion, somebody biblical, somebody historical, whoever you choose.

Then the traits, 7 of them, up to 7, of what makes this person the person you've chosen for this award as the most effective leader.

Then on the backside is a little chart with 4 columns for it.

And there's intelligence, skill or expertise, emotional awareness, and then other.

So take those 7 characteristics and put them in 1 of these columns.

Now you might have more than 1 in each 1.

Somebody might be intelligent and very capable, you're smart, but they might have particular expertise.

So if you feel like you need to put a trait in more than 1 column, please just feel free to do that as well.

So name, 7 attributes, And then place those attributes in 1 of those 4 columns.

Tally the number of characteristics in each comment, in each column.

You don't have to actually tally it, but just see which 1 of those columns has the most characteristics in it.

So name of leader, 7 characteristics, place those characteristics in a column, and then get an idea of Which column has the most characteristics in it?

Emotional awareness, emotional awareness, emotional awareness, Nico?

So very frequently emotional awareness gets the highest level, highest number of attributes, which tells us something about leadership and the harmony behind leadership.

And you know, intelligence, skill, those are very important, particularly in certain settings.

But what strikes us as this person is a really good leader is how do they function in the emotional arena?

What are they communicating to their team?

So here's a quotation from Christ's, excuse me, Councils on Health, page 107.

Our first duty toward God and man, our fellow beings rather, is what?

To grow, And there's many different areas in which we grow.

But we could, you know, we all can grow in different areas.

And yet sometimes we get this thinking, no, I'm not really going to spend a lot of time there.

But that is our first duty, at least in this quotation, toward God and our fellow beings.

And where I want to drill down this morning is the area in which leaders most need to develop themselves and grow is in the area of awareness.

Not being aware of how they're impacting others.

As a leadership coach there's a number of assessments I help leaders with.

A Complete and Harmonious System

Father in heaven, Lord, tonight as we get into our message again this evening, we ask that you would empty us so you could fill us.

And so that we could not only be filled but overflowing as we leave this place as a result of your Spirit in Jesus' name.

Alright, so I've been trying to share some practical messages the first time we got together we looked at Psalm 77 and a very practical Psalm Then this morning we looked at Psalm 126.

If you weren't here for these, I think they're very practical.

They really can help you and your witness.

And our message tonight, I looked at the program, what I'm supposed to talk about.

And I said months ago when they asked me that I will be talking about this a complete and harmonious system and this of course is talking about what that wonderful quote in great controversy page 423 that we find about the sanctuary the subject of the second you can read it with me the subject of the sanctuary was the key which unlocked the mystery of the disappointment of 1844.

It opened to view a complete system of truth connected and harmonious showing that God's hand had directed the great Advent movement and revealing present duty as it brought to light the position and work of his people.

Last time I was at Wildwoods, which was a long time ago, as I recall, they have like, in the chapel, they have a model sanctuary.

They open up the curtain and there's that model sanctuary.

And the Advent movement was somewhat disappointed.

Somewhat disappointed, and they were saying, God, fill me.

And what happened was this connection made by Hiram Edson and others where they saw heaven opened and they saw that really what had happened in 1844 was not a disappointment, it was a magnificent appointment.

And they were filled with a sense of purpose and mission.

And I think if we get back to understanding what they saw and what they savored then we can also see things and savor them and actually help the Savior in his work today.

So I want to look at that and I want to suggest tonight that this this prophecy this 2, 300 year prophecy and the subject of the sanctuary actually is something that can help us in our evangel living.

A complete harmonious system For witnessing and ministry.

It's what I call the give me 5 principle to give me what?

So 5 and you remember the 5 dates of the 2300 day prophecy.

Now let's look at them through the lens of witnessing and ministry and see what we can learn.

First of all, in 457 BC the prophecy said that the the sanctuary would be rebuilt, the temple and the street.

Even in troublesome times, it tells us in Daniel chapter 9 in that 70 week prophecy.

And the reason that needed to be rebuilt was because it had been emptied because of apostasy and because of sin and because God's people had lost their focus and their vision and their mission and they had been taken captive to Babylon.

And God wanted a people that would be faithful in Babylon.

There was a faithful group, Daniel and his friends, and finally after 70 years, as foretold by Jeremiah, they were going back.

And he says, I want to have this temple rebuilt.

And Of course, Zerubbabel helped to rebuild it, and they looked at it, and they said, it looks like a bunch of Zerubbabel.

Because they had seen the former temple, and they said, this is nothing.

The desire of the ages would come into this temple, and it would be fully filled.

So there's this rebuilding of the temple of the sanctuary and it was supposed to be a place where God could dwell among them, Exodus 25 8, and where they could have actually a place of healing where they would have none of the diseases of the Egyptians, Exodus tells us as well.

In other words the sanctuary was to be a place of healing.

And let me just say to you, if you want to have a witness, a fulfilling witness, you need to be asking God to help you to establish centers of influence, centers of healing, places where you can do ministry.

You've built beautiful facilities and this is what you're doing.

Dave and I created a little sanctuary space down in Gatlinburg today, his guitar and me singing.

And there was only a few people that passed by and a couple entered in momentarily.

But what we were trying to do was to create an experience, an atmosphere.

And I told you the other day that when I'm on a plane, I'm sitting next to somebody, I try and create a sanctuary space by meditating.

And Calvin told you he tries to create a sanctuary space by sitting in the middle seat between both of them and he puts his arm around both of them and gives them a big hug.

This is how Calvin works, and I work with meditating.

But whatever it is, we're trying to create a sanctuary space.

And you know, this sanctuary space, or even the sanctuary itself, Was to be a place where the glory of God was to be seen now interesting enough in the Pentateuch that is the first 5 books of the Bible a center book of the Pentateuch is Leviticus and the center of the center of Leviticus is chapter 16 and in 16 is where the glory of God was seen most fully on the day of but have you ever considered the chapters that led up to chapter 16 chapter 10 clean drink chapter 11 clean meat or clean food.

Chapter 12, cleanliness after giving birth.

And chapter 15, clean up bodily discharges.

And then finally, the ultimate day of cleansing.

How do you think this is kind of fascinating?

Clean clean clean all physical things and then this spiritual day of atonement Don't miss the point, You know, we have a lot of inspiration.

And then notice, following this chiastic structure down the other side of the ladder, don't eat blood, it's unclean.

Sexual and morality laws, they're unclean.

By the way, these were all read on the Day of Atonement.

Social laws, loving others with a clean heart, the land will vomit out the unclean, a clean church leadership, etc.

Now how many think this is just a fascinating chiastic structure?

Because you're building, building, building, building, to what?

The ultimate day of filling, of infilling of that sanctuary with the glory of God on the day of at-one-ment.

Whatever you eat, whatever you drink, whatever you do, do all to the what?

The Adventist Catechism

Well you know I had this very heavy theological presentation because I wanted to finish off the I wanted to finish off what we had talked about in the 3 angels messages I wanted to talk about the wrath of God and how that all works.

And we really do need to talk about that because that does have a health aspect to it.

And when you really understand that third angel's message, the actual motivation for the people is a passage that looks like it should motivate anybody.

Tormented, the presence of the angels and the lamb.

That's actually the ultimate motivating text, you know why?

Not because of fear, not because of torment, not because of eternal wrath or anything like that, because actually, I used to be an evangelist and scare people into the church using those kind of texts.

You know, I didn't quite do it because I was in Adventist, but close.

That really is there to show what Jesus went through for you on the cross Hello Because He took the wrath of God on himself so you don't have to take it He lived in fact Ellen White says that the vials of the 7 last plagues were poured out on God.

He went through the plagues so you don't have to.

So this is the last meeting but we can still have some energy, folks.

He went through those plagues, so you don't have to.

So what looks like a demotivator, now I'm preaching the sermon.

What looks like a demotivator is really a motivator.

If you actually understand the code language of the Bible, which people many times don't, which is why you gotta stay with them.

Okay, so I'm not gonna talk about that, but I think that's important.

All right, let's pray then, and we'll start.

Father in heaven, Lord, thank you tonight.

Man, it's been great to be here at ASI, the Southern Union.

What a great group of people that are surrendered or surrendering to you that are converted but being more converted.

I join in that quest to be more converted as a result of our time together here tonight.

And so Send your Spirit to us to fill us once again.

All right, what I wanna cover with you tonight is something, anybody here that is not a Seventh-day Adventist Christian?

Anybody here not a Seventh-day Adventist?

I thought, I said, maybe there's somebody here that hasn't heard maybe of our faith, and I was hoping because you know, an audience that's all seventh heaven is kind of boring.

Gotta have some people there that maybe haven't heard the message.

I mean I love you all but let's look together at a chapter that I think is what I call it Sue is Grandma Sue is the Adventist Catechism.

Someone will get 1 for you right next to you.

So, all right, so we're gonna look at this, and this, if I'm on a plane, if I'm on a train, or if I'm even talking to people, look, I don't have a lot of time in life.

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The Adventist Catechism

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