Empowered

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Eastern Canada Youth Conference

ECYC 2011 Seminar: Seekers

Jonathan Zita

Seek

Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your faithfulness towards us.

We thank you for waking us up today and giving us so many blessings.

We thank you for the privilege of reading and understanding your word through the help of your Holy Spirit.

So as we open your word at this time, instruct us, O Lord.

May it have a subduing, a sanctifying effect upon us.

And Lord, may this word cause us to be a powerful influence to those around us as we leave this place in Jesus' name.

The title of the workshop is actually, does anyone know what it is?

But the actual theme is not, the actual theme is how to be a witness or an effective witness for Christ.

And meaning how do, how can I be a modern day missionary in a highly secular world?

I don't know where you guys came from, but you obviously drove from somewhere.

And just driving from the 401 to here, you passed a lot of buildings.

Every day you pass by hundreds, maybe thousands of people if you take the metro.

And most of the people that you pass by don't believe in God.

Some people believe in God, they don't believe in Jesus.

Some people believe in God and Jesus, but their belief of God and Jesus doesn't really influence their life, right?

They go to church on Christmas, and if they go to church, Christmas, but it has no impact.

It doesn't change anything in their lives.

So the question is, how can I be an effective witness, and I say the word effective because I know people that are witnesses, but they're not very effective?

How can I be an effective witness to secular individuals?

Whether in my school or work or gym or mall or wherever I go, how can I be that kind of witness?

Stats tells us that here in Canada, it's about 85% of the people don't go to church.

You know, I work with literature evangelism, and we realize that when you go door to door, we realize the amount of people that don't go to church.

Now, we know that it's not church that will save you, But it just gives you an idea, you know, if I have some kind of spiritual interest, wouldn't I want to gather around people that have spiritual interest also, if you understand what I mean?

So people, it just shows a reflection of where we are in our society where God or things of God is really, is not a priority, right?

So how can I be empowered to be an effective witness for Christ?

So you can go to conferences like this, you know, this is a very inspiring conference.

Some of you have gone to a conference called GYC.

You know, you see other young people on fire for God.

Or you can go to church and be inspired also.

But I believe unless we understand the principles of how to be connected to the source on a consistent basis to be an effective witness, then It's kind of like a coal, a piece of coal that is warm.

You know, when you blow on it, what happens?

But as long, you have to keep blowing on it.

If you don't blow on it, whenever the wind stops, whenever the breath stops, then it comes back and becomes black again.

And these conferences are like that sometimes, where you have a call and then it's like this nice thing of oxygen and you light up and you're so encouraged, then you go back home, and then the breath stops, or Sabbath finishes, or you had a good speaker.

Then you go back home, and you become black again.

And the truth is that if you just put the coal by itself eventually with no oxygen, it dies.

And unfortunately, I was at the first GYC that they had in 2002, I think it was.

But there are people that went to that GYC that are not Adventist anymore.

So what I'm saying is that we need to understand certain principles beyond just going to be inspired in a conference or Or going to church to get our inspiration We must learn to be effective witnesses and there's where the title or the theme comes to be a seeker Our workshops gonna be based on 2 fundamental principles Can someone or actually I think you could all say it, Matthew 6.33, can you say it with me?

The kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.

It's very basic, but we're going to start building from that how to be able to seek the kingdom of God, his righteousness, because God tells us that this is what should be their most priority.

Is he seeking secondly or is he seeking first?

So this is the highest priority in our lives of what we should seek for.

So we're going to seek his righteousness.

And so the first principle is to seek God, and then to turn around and to seek others also.

How to do that in a practical, step-by-step way.

When I was a teenager, I was in my before, I guess, junior year, and I decided to go do literature evangelism, go knock on the door and save souls for Jesus, right?

I experienced amazing testimonies, answers to prayer.

Just the fact that you get out of your shell to go and speak with people about God, trying to help them to know Him better.

And if you haven't tried it, I encourage all of you to test it.

You may not be cut out for it, but you can at least try it for a summer and see what your life will, God will do with you.

And the year before, I was voted to be president of the student body or student government or student association.

So the last year after I did my year of canvassing, I came back, and it was a busy year.

And then we had all kinds of things going on.

We decided to start a store in the school to fundraise to get money and we were doing good financially as a student body.

We had all these clubs that we started to do like photography club, computer club, and all kinds of activities.

And of course, 1 of the big things that I had to work with and organize was dances.

And, you know, this is just after an amazing experience with God.

And I have to come back and I have to organize all this stuff.

And there's like a fight going on within me, because, and that's the year I also got baptized.

You know, that December I gave my life to God, and I decided I'm going to follow Him all the way.

And you know, as a teenager, there's this strong, what's the term, desire to be accepted, you know, to be cool.

OK, so it was amazing how when I look back and I analyze, like I would organize the dances, hire the DJs, everything.

We would sell stuff and make a lot of money.

But I would not go to them, because it's Friday night.

But yet, I organized for all these people to go and party.

I started to get more and more convicted on certain things.

Kingdom of God

Our gracious Father in heaven, we invite your presence in our midst at this time to sharpen our minds, to give us a clear understanding of a little bit more of your character, of what you desire for our lives, what you desire to do in us and through us.

We want to be seekers, seekers after you, seekers after lost souls, as you manifested that kind of experience when you were down here.

Teach us how to seek, and may you fulfill your promise for us to find.

My name is Jonathan Zita, and this workshop, the theme is seekers, and this specific 1 is the kingdom of God.

So just to rehash a little bit of what we covered last time, we covered principles on how to seek.

So, Christ is saying that above everything, paramount should be the seeking of God through His righteousness and the seeking of the enlargement of His kingdom.

So everything else that we do in life, the person we marry, maybe where we work, what we do in our spare time, should kind of fall under those 2 categories because those 2 things are what should be our focus.

Last time, last workshop, we focused just on what are the attributes of a seeker?

Because if I'm able to truly seek well, if I can really seek fully according to God's plan these 2 things, then I can truly fulfill God's purpose.

And I believe that that is the key of where lies empowerment, to fulfilling God's purpose for his purpose for me in this generation.

If I am to seek, there should be some kind of preparation that is done.

In Ezra, it talked about how Ezra prepared his heart to seek, to do, and to teach.

Preparation has a lot to do with, we found out with, Danielle, do you Remember?

Has a lot to do with a plan, meaning he had a plan.

So if you go Ezra chapter 7, verse 10, we find out that there is a plan.

We talked about humility, which is another attribute of seeking.

And from, you know, being told from a, first of all, a woman, to a girl, being a slave, being a nation that their gods weren't able to conquer, and then to being sent a servant instead of having the prophet go out to him.

So step after step, being told to wash, assuming that he was dirty, and going to the Jordan which was polluted.

So step after step, we found that A seeker is 1 that is humble.

And the last point that we covered is a seeker is persistent.

And we looked at the story of the man that was looking for loaves of bread.

And persistence, does anyone Remember the definition in dictionary?

Or a couple dictionaries, I looked it up.

The definition is persistence to the point of annoyance.

So that's The bottom line of the story was he didn't get what he wanted because he was buddy-buddy with the guy inside the house.

Now what we want to do is to take some of these attributes of being a seeker and we want to put all our heart into how that can we seek for the enlargement of his kingdom.

So this session will be a little bit more practical things on how I can use my influence, the words that I have, or talents that I have in a practical way to be able to reach my friends for Jesus Christ.

So it's going to be a little bit more of a practical basis.

But before we share different tips or things of how we can be able to be a practical witness for Christ.

I think it's important to base ourselves on the Bible and spirit prophecy.

So, real quick, This is something that some of you may have seen, but I just want to put emphasis on it once again.

I need 4 volunteers to read Bible text for me.

So we're just going to get our foundation of, Before we start talking about practical ways to share our faith with others, the foundation will give us a little bit of what should be our motivation and our focus.

And when Jesus went out, he saw a great multitude, and he was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick.

So Jesus was moved with compassion, which led him to do what?

Now Jesus called his disciples to himself and said, I have compassion on the multitude because they are not continuing with me.

And I do not want to send them away hungry, lest they faint unaware.

So Jesus had compassion on these hungry people so he gave them a Bible study.

Because that's what you do when you have compassion.

So these people were sick, and what did he do?

These people were hungry, he had compassion, he didn't give them a Bible study, he didn't heal them because they didn't need to be healed.

So once again, we see that term compassion.

And I want you guys to note that because that should be our foundation of witnessing.

He sees them as sheep without a shepherd.

He teaches them to be able to instruct them in the path of righteousness.

People are confused and so he teaches them.

So this is the woman's name, I believe it is, the widow.

I don't know what happened to her husband, but definitely out of the picture because she's a widow.

And because Jesus has compassion on her and she needs Jesus, He has to explain to her the 2300 days so she can have hope.

If you have the 2300 days, then you can really see that there's no more time prophecy after 1844 and therefore you can hope in the second coming of Jesus.

His Righteousness

So the first session was on how to seek effectively.

Does anybody remember what were those 2 emphases for those who were there?

Meaning there's no point in just seeking God with having no plan or seeking to do anything that is God-related, whether it's seeking the enlargement of his kingdom or his righteousness without a plan.

When I want to do ministry, there are many things that are not pleasant to me.

And sometimes, If you do true ministry, how can I say that?

I was listening to the great controversy the other day.

And there was a chapter that talked about all that live godly in Christ shall suffer persecution.

And Ellen White there was saying, what we need to worry is not so much about persecution, but we need to worry about why we are not experiencing persecution.

And she says the reason we're not experiencing persecution is very obvious.

Because if you live godly, you will suffer persecution.

Now I'm not saying to be zealous out there and bulldoze people, but I'm saying that there is an annoyance.

And when you decide to follow God all the way, there will be opposition.

There will be annoyance with just people, with just you being there.

Sometimes you don't have to say anything.

They have this feeling that you think you're more holy than me, you know type of thing and there's that that conflict and you can Be nice with them and so forth, especially family members you can sense that so What I'm saying is that There needs to be heart preparation that as Ezra we covered, you will seek, you will do, and you will teach.

Make that in your mind from the start so that when opposition comes, you'll be able to go through, right?

We talked about what's another character trait of a seeker?

And what's the other character trait that we covered?

I think we should temper that a little bit.

But Imagine that literature vanished, I would knock on the door, they'd close, I'd knock again, they would close, I'd knock again, until they would buy.

I think I'd get more sales for sure, but I'd get more police after me too.

This last session we talked about, seek ye first the Kingdom of God.

So we talked the enlargement of the Kingdom, practical steps on how to enlarge the Kingdom.

What was the principles that we base ourselves in the Word of God?

The principle of, it starts with the letter C, compassion.

Compassion leads us to meet felt needs first.

If somebody is crying and is sad, what do we do?

If We are zealous, we're filled with the truth, everybody needs Jesus, I should just pour out Jesus on you and just tell you Bible study, is that what I should do?

No, I should stop enough and long enough to do what?

People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

We went through Ministry of Healing and we found out that there's only 1 method that can be revealing itself in many different ways and forms and shapes and sizes, but there's only 1 true method that will give true success.

Mingle with people as 1 that decides they're good.

So if I want to get involved in media, should I get involved in media?

Yes, I can still get involved in media, But should it be a means to an end?

Media is nice, but it definitely doesn't mingle with people.

It doesn't definitely say, as ministry, he's saying to go where the people are, come close to them by personal effort.

So it should only be a step in where I want to go.

As a church, we stop at media and we say, you know, this is the future, this is everything, let's just do media.

So nobody does anything and if, if there's any personal thing, just come to the church, we'll pop a DVD and hopefully you'll get attached somehow with the guy on the DVD.

But it should be a point to get closer to people.

The only way to do is by knocking on door as a cold porter.

You'd be amazed on how people welcome you.

What are ways that you can show sympathy?

Comfort them through your words and so forth.

All These Things

Father in heaven, once again we invite your presence in our midst.

Help us to understand, O Lord, certain principles in your word that we may not be deceived in the last days of which we are in.

The whole workshop is very basic, but this is something that I just discovered not long ago, and I thought I would just share because it has made such an impact in my life.

It's just cleared up quite a lot of things in my mind and I'll just share some principles with you and you may agree or not agree and just see.

So if you have any comments, feel free to raise your hand and share and we're all in this together, okay?

I want to start with just, I want you guys to give me as an adult, I'm an adult living here in Canada, I want you to give me basic needs.

So I don't want to hear BMW, I don't want to hear about a flat screen TV.

But I want to talk about, I'm an adult, I'm a Canadian, I live in Canada, what are my basic needs?

Meaning something that I really need here in Canada.

And by the way, in Canada there's certain things that I may need that I may not need in Papua New Guinea, for example, right?

Or I think I need work, don't I, in Canada?

You know, so, meaning, because I need to eat, and are you with me?

You can start with the most basic ones there's no bad or good answer just help me out here okay food oh some of you like that water shelter Water.

Especially in Canada, we need a jacket, right?

You know, you may not have a home, but you need a jacket to shelter.

Even just as a human being we're talking about here.

And I think that's understood no matter if you're a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Jehovah Witness, an atheist, all of us kind of understand that this is what we kind of need here in Canada just to live, you know?

But In Canada I think that's very important, right?

Because, especially for example Toronto, everything is spread.

So if you want to go from somewhere, you just can't walk.

Which means that you need to have money, which means that you need a job, or you need parents that will keep giving and giving and giving until they give you out.

Talk to me maybe about non-tangible things too.

To survive, you need to have education, whether it's by school, whether it's by parents or something, if nobody teaches you anything, you can't talk, you can't live.

That's why they give it to everybody, right?

In the United States, it's not the Constitution, it's the Declaration of Independence, there's 3 things that they mention also, do you remember?

That it's an alienable, unalienable right, meaning if you're a human, it's your right, period.

That kind of fits with security and so forth.

I think all of us, it's a basic thing, just want to be happy.

We believe that if I'm not happy, my needs are not being met.

Are we created with that basic need or no?

To be loved None of you care about being loved?

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Series

ECYC 2011 Seminar: Seekers

Kingdom of God

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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