Michigan Camp Meeting 2024: As For Me and My House

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Who Am I - A Crisis in Identity

Jeremy Hall

01 I Am That I Am

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2024 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Father in heaven, we thank you, Lord, that in the chaos of this world, in the challenges that we face, specifically our young people, You have given us an anchor of truth.

Truth that we can utilize to define who we are in You.

And as we embark on this journey together this week, We pray that your Holy Spirit would guide our minds and hearts, that we would be open to your Spirit, and that you would teach us, for you're the only 1 that can.

Just as a matter of personal introduction, just to give you an idea of who I am for those of you that don't know me I am the Incredibly blessed husband of my wife Donna.

We've been married for 27 years 28 years this December.

We have 4 children Ranging from We have 2 college age girls ones at Andrews ones at Southern We have a fresh sophomore in high school, and then we have a sixth grade boy.

So we have 3 girls and a boy, and it keeps us busy and we are blessed.

I currently serve as the Vice President for Education in the Michigan Conference, and I've spent a total of 24 years in Adventist education, in a variety of different things, whether that's Boise Dean, I've been a chaplain Bible teacher right here at this school, a principal, and then associate superintendent before I became vice president of education.

My educational experience, personally, I have a bachelor's degree in psychology with a religion minor and then a master's in community counseling.

I do not at all profess to be a theologian, expert, or biblical scholar.

I also don't profess to be a PhD level psychological researcher.

But I do have some training and I do have a lot of experience working with young people and so my presentations this week are born out of those things.

As I shared with you earlier, we're going to be doing a two-part today and tomorrow.

The title of our presentation is, Who Am I?

Today our title is, I Am That I Am, Part 1.

Satan's attacks against who God made us to be.

And tomorrow will be the continuation of that.

On Wednesday, we have a presentation called, I Thought So.

You ever heard that term, I thought so I am?

It's a look inside the mental health crisis and its assault on identity.

Thursday, we're going to be touching on a topic that I've entitled Love but Lead.

And it's discussing leading those who are struggling with LGBTQ, with some of those elements, transgenderism, some of that.

We're going to be talking about some of the background of that relative to the psychology of it, and then also looking at some helpful and hopeful things as we move forward.

So I would encourage you throughout this week, Friday is just dedicated to a Q&A unless I need to sort of finish off some things from the days that we've spent previous to that.

I will not attempt to suggest that I'm going to have the answers for every single question that you have, but we want to give you an opportunity to raise questions, to even share perspectives, and we'll do that on Friday.

How many of you have heard of the concept identity theft?

We have all had probably a time or 2 when somebody has come along and given us a phone call and said, hey, you know, you need to do this right now or else.

I had my grandfather call me a few years ago when I was working at the office.

Somebody had reached out to him and told him that I was in prison and that he needed to bail me out of jail.

And I said, no, I'm actually right here in my office.

And he was so relieved because unfortunately, the individuals who try to steal our identity, they actually have some factual information.

Sometimes they'll have family member names, sometimes they'll have pieces of information that other family members would say, boy, this might be legit because no 1 else would know that information except maybe a family member.

The impact of identity theft in our country.

In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission reported 2.6 million fraud reports.

The total loss from those fraudulent activities was $10, 346, 000.

So far in this calendar year, 2024, there has already been reported 487, 000 fraud cases with a total loss of $2.4 million.

Do you want to know which states are the worst for identity fraud?

Just a little Interesting piece of information.

The states with the highest rates of identity theft per 100, 000 people is Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, Delaware, and Nevada.

The states with the lowest rates of identity theft per 100, 000 people.

It's not about population of states, but actually speaking about rates per 100, 000 people.

The States with the lowest, South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming, Iowa, and Maine.

Now, Michigan sort of falls in the middle at 24.

So identity theft is a real thing, and we see it happening all over the place.

There's people who try to sell insurance policies that protect your identity, like LifeLock and other types of things.

Satan actually is about identity theft in a much deeper and sinister way.

The definition of the word identity is as follows.

The distinguishing character or personality of an individual.

The condition of being the same with something described or asserted.

I want to open up the Scriptures and talk about a specific passage and if you have your Bibles open them up to Genesis 1, 26 and 27.

The Bible says in Genesis 1, 26 and 27, then God said let us make man in whose image?

Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image.

Herein lies the identity that God set up for mankind when He created man and woman.

Mankind was created in the image and the likeness of God.

The Hebrew word for image is selem, which is a term that we would utilize like resemblance.

And likeness is a Hebrew word called diluth, or similitude of God.

The Hebrew word for image, selem, is actually a masculine term.

The Hebrew word for similitude is a feminine term.

And in talking with a Hebrew professor just this last week, it's fascinating that what he shared with me as a biblical scholar was in actuality when God created mankind he created mankind to have his likeness externally and internally his external resemblance and then of course the similitude of God in character secondly man was given dominion over all created things.

Man was given dominion over all created things.

And also in this passage, God identifies gender distinction by creating man and woman.

Marriage as defined by God sets the framework for society in the family unit.

When God looked upon what He had created, indeed, it was what?

There was nothing left that could have been done differently that would have enhanced what God had made.

03 I Thought... So...

Father in heaven, we thank you for being our God.

We thank you for giving us the gift of salvation.

This wayward mankind has the opportunity to be redeemed through the blood of Jesus, and we are so thankful for that.

Lord, Satan is working overtime to distract us from what you have created us to be.

Lord, help us to look to Jesus because when we look to Jesus we're drawn to Him and our identity in Him becomes clear.

Bless us as we talk and share today and may everything that is said and done be to your honor and glory in Jesus name we pray amen the title of the message today is finding me the hidden struggles of youth identity crisis and mental health.

And for those of you that haven't been here throughout the week, my basic academic training at Andrews University is an undergrad in psychology and a master's in community counseling.

And so this is a topic that has great relevance to me and is 1 that is very important to me.

I have spent my entire career working with young people.

13 years of my career, of my 24-year career in education has been working specifically with secondary students.

And as a chaplain, I carried a client load of students here at the Academy and have continued to keep my tabs on this age group as they are struggling in a society that when I look back 30 years ago, it was difficult to grow up then.

But just imagining what these young people are going through now, it is mind-boggling.

And so, I have a great interest in this topic.

Today, we're going to be looking, as I said, in the specific areas of mental health.

Before we do that, I'd like to ask you to open your Bibles and look at 3 John.

We're going to look at just a few verses in this small but powerful book.

3 John and verses 2 to 4, and then we'll skip down to v.

Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in how many things?

We could spend the hour just unpacking that and its relevance to mental health.

3, for I rejoiced greatly when brethren came and testified of the truth that is in you." There's so many powerful messages here as it relates to our identity.

I rejoice greatly when brethren came and testified of the truth that is in you just as you walk in the what?

I have no greater joy, the Scripture says, than to hear that my children walk in truth.

Looking at verse 11, beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good.

He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God." Remember we shared earlier in the week Isaiah 520, woe to those who call evil good and good evil that put darkness for light and light for darkness.

We are living in an age where we are seeing the Scriptures fulfilled before our eyes.

Proverbs 23, 7 says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

I think, so I am." This idea of our thoughts, the mental processes, the psychology of how we relate to ourselves and to other people is such a powerful thing.

We have a lot of material to cover today, and we're going to be moving fast.

So I ask your forgiveness if I am speedily moving today.

Before we get going into more of the substantive elements of this presentation, want to look a little bit at mental health and its impact on society.

Were experiencing depression that is severely impairing their ability to function at school or work at home with family or in their social life 16.3 percent of youth ages 12 to 7 report suffering from at least 1 major depressive episode in the past year.

11.5% of youth, over 2.7 million youth are experiencing severe major depression.

10.6% or 2.5 million youth in the US have severe major depression.

And let me tell you, as a therapist, severe major depression is debilitating.

It is a tunnel that you do not have the capacity to see out of.

Life is hopeless and then of course, consequently, unfortunately, young people start to have suicidal ideation because they cannot see hope and prosperity in their future.

I will tell you, anecdotally, that the impact of mental health is hitting Seventh-day Adventist institutions.

Our secondary principals are crying out to us, please help us.

We have so much mental health need in our institutions.

Young people are struggling, they're coming, it is impairing their ability to perform academically, it's impairing their relationships.

And so by God's grace, here in the Michigan Conference, we have just received a privately funded grant to provide mental health resources to our schools for the upcoming school year.

Not only that, but 2 of our academies in our conference have already been accessing this mental health support.

It is impacting our young people so much that it is starting to push education to provide specific resources, Adventist education that is, to our students.

60 percent of youth with major depression do not receive any mental health treatment.

That's 1 of those statistics you pause on and let sink in.

Young adults aged 18 to 25 years had the highest prevalence of AMI or any mental illness, meaning they have a mental illness, they qualify, it is clinically diagnosed, and it could be a variety of different things.

As compared to adults aged 26 to 49, so you can see in young people ages 18 to 25, they have a higher prevalence of mental illness diagnosis than even adults aged 26 to 49.

And then of course as you get older, in the age of 50 and beyond, you see that that drops dramatically.

Young adults aged 18 to 25 had the highest prevalence of significant mental health illness at 11.4% compared to adults 26 to 49 at 7.1% and then you can see again that that drops significantly lower.

Even in states with the greatest access, nearly 1 in 3 are going without treatment.

And this is from the Mental Health America website.

The prevalence of any Mental disorder among adolescents.

This information I'm going to share is based on the diagnostic interview data from the National Comorbidity Survey Adolescent Supplement.

In ages 13 to 18, an estimated 49.5% of adolescents had any mental health illness, meaning they had a range and a variety of different things.

And of adolescents with any mental health disorder, an estimated 22% had severe impairment and or distress.

That's almost a quarter of those in this study.

Mental illnesses are common in the United States.

It is estimated that more than 1 in 5 US adults live with a mental illness, which represents 58 million Americans.

4.5% of adults report having serious thoughts of suicide.

This has increased every year since 2011.

So these adolescents who are having struggles with mental illness become adults and their bandwidth of capacity is already compromised and then when they move into adulthood, they have more and more responsibility, more and more stressors on them and their ability to cope is marginalized even more.

And so we're seeing these young people carry these challenges into adulthood and it is significantly impacting our society.

24.7% of adults with a mental illness report an unmet need for treatment.

More than half of adults with a mental illness do not receive treatment, totaling 27 million U.S.

And this is from the National Institute of Mental Health.

How about the financial impact of mental health?

Serious mental illness is a significant public health concern.

The estimated economic impact of SMI is more than $300 billion every year.

It represents $193 billion in loss of earnings, $100 billion in health care expenditures, $24 billion in disability benefits.

Then we move into something that psychologists call the psychosomatic effect.

Does my brain affect my body and vice versa.

Positive psychological well-being can reduce the risks of heart attacks and strokes.

Depression has been linked to many chronic illnesses such as diabetes, asthma, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and arthritis.

The mortality rate from cancer and heart disease is higher for people with what?

Depression and other mental health conditions.

04 Love... But Lead

Father in heaven, thank you so much for your Word.

It is truly living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, and we're thankful for that.

You designed it that way because You love us.

And You love us enough to go to the very root and core of our lives and our souls to show us what it is that we need to surrender to You.

Now, Lord, as we examine Your Word today, as we talk about the subject and what we will discuss, we pray Your Holy Spirit would again be our guide and that everything that is said will be to Your honor and glory.

The title of the message today is Love, But Lead.

And in a sense, what we are talking about, beloved, this morning, is really inheritance.

It's the inheritance that God has intended for us as reflected in the identity he gave us.

Our inheritance and our identity are joined together.

And so I wanna look at a couple of stories to set the context for where we are headed.

So if you have your Bibles, whether electronic or physical Bible, I'd like you to turn to Genesis 25 and verses 29 through 34.

And like I said yesterday, with an apology accompanying, I'm going to be moving very fast because I have a lot of material.

As I have continued to work on these presentations, even up to the present time, there have been things in the news that have been coming out that have been put into this presentation because of their relevancy.

This is a fluid topic and so we have a lot of information to cover.

Now Jacob cooked a stew and Esau came in from the field and he was what?

And Esau said to Jacob, please feed me with that same red stew for I am weary.

But Jacob said, sell me your birthright as of this day.

You see, Jacob was the secondborn son, albeit a few minutes later, he was the secondborn son.

And the firstborn son, Obviously, if you understand Old Testament days and times and culture, they had a lot of privileges.

They had two-thirds of the father's wealth coming to them.

They had a lot of privileges and a lot of status, but with that birthright blessing came the responsibility of spiritual priesthood.

And as we will see here, Esau didn't want anything to do with it.

Then Jacob said swear to me as of this day, so he swore to him and did what?

Sold his birthright to Jacob and Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils Then he ate and drank and arose and went his way.

I don't think he despised it because of the wealth.

I think he despised it because of the spiritual responsibility that accompanied that birthright.

You see, Esau thought that the birthright was worth selling.

He viewed the birthright as a curse instead of a blessing because of the spiritual responsibility that it carried.

He wanted to cast it off because he felt it limited his choices to do what he wanted.

He was impulsive in his actions and viewed immediacy as more important than eternity.

And friends, I think we could agree that our society has become very impulsive and very now oriented.

I want what I want now, and I don't want to wait.

And if I have to wait and I have to look down the road in the future and delay gratification, then that's a problem for me, and this was Esau's issue.

Esau justified his impulsive action because he thought he would die if he didn't have physical nourishment.

But get this, in feeding his body, he starved his soul.

In feeding his body, He starved his soul.

The pottage, friends, the pottage became Esau's birthright blessing.

Now I want to turn to a contrast story in 1 Kings.

1 Kings 21, 1 Kings 21, 1 of the unsung heroes of the Bible that I don't think receives enough attention.

1 Kings 21 and starting in verse 1, And it came to pass after these things that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard which was in Jezreel next to the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.

So Ahab spoke to Naboth saying, Give me your vineyard that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near, next to my house.

And for it I will give you a vineyard better than it.

Or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its worth in money.

I guess the vineyard wasn't that good of a vineyard.

Ahab wanted to take it and make it a vegetable garden.

He's like, listen, I'll give you money for it.

I'll make it a better vineyard, or I'm going to make it a vegetable garden.

Either way, let me have this piece of property.

Verse 3, but Naboth said to Ahab, the Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers to you.

The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers to you.

Friends, the Lord forbid that we should give our inheritance to the devil.

And I'm telling you what, I cannot imagine how difficult it must have been for Naboth to have the king of Samaria come by his house and say, listen, let me have that vineyard.

Series

Who Am I - A Crisis in Identity

03 I Thought... So...

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Who Am I - A Crisis in Identity

04 Love... But Lead

1h 3m

Unraveling the Gay Spin

2. Identity Matters

1h

Arise and Shine

43m

Go and Do: New England Conference Youth Week of Prayer

03 Prophecy and Purpose

43m

GYC 2013 Morning Devotions

01-Trusting God

46m

Biblically Correct: How to be Male in the 21st Century

2. A ‘Heaven-Appointed Purpose’ for Your Male Brain

1h

Vertical Vision: Learn to Look Up

04 Chemical Chains: How Satan Uses Drugs and Alcohol To Bind the Mind

53m

You Know Enough!

37m

Making Sense of Last Day Events

5. An End Time Life Worth Living

59m

Making Sense of Last Day Events

4. God’s Final Call

1h

Why Protestantism Matters

1h 5m

Raising the Remnant

5. Epigenetics, Courtship, Lust, Intimacy, Marriage, Sexuality… and Successful Parenting

55m

Sound Doctrine