GYC Conference 2024: Wherever He Goes

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Morning Devotionals

Charissa Fong Torossian

Into the Wilderness

I come from Australia and it's so good to be here with you in a cold winter.

It's very hot where I come from, but it's warm in here.

And I'm excited about this opportunity that we have to gather together here at this convention wherever He goes.

Before we begin our Bible study together this morning, I invite you to bow your heads with me wherever you are as we open with a word of prayer.

Father in heaven, thank you Lord for the Sabbath.

Thank you for bringing us here to this place.

And Lord, as we study the Bible, we invite the Holy Spirit to speak personally to our hearts.

And Lord, may we leave this meeting changed because we have spent time in His presence.

Well, I came here to GYC with my husband and my son.

And the very first time he ever saw a baptism, it really troubled him.

For me personally, whenever I see someone say yes to Jesus and no to everybody else, it's very moving.

But when my son saw a baptism for the first time, he watched his dad baptizing people in our church.

My husband's a pastor here, there in Australia, and after the first person went down, oh, Judah was a little bit upset.

Then there was a second person who went under the water, a third, and by the time the fourth person was baptized on that Sabbath, he was distraught.

Well I think that there were very many people who would have been interested in baptism.

I've mixed this around, but basically after Judah saw that baptism that first day, he couldn't stop talking about it.

Even though he cried all the way through it, he couldn't stop talking about baptism for a whole week afterward.

He was baptizing his toys, practice baptizing all of us.

And I think that after seeing the baptism of Jesus, which is what I was trying to say, I think everybody who saw it couldn't stop thinking about it, couldn't stop talking about it, and 1 of those people who saw it, who watched it, and couldn't stop thinking about it was Satan.

If you have your Bibles, I invite you to take them and turn with me to our theme passage this morning, Matthew chapter 4 verse 1.

The Bible here says, Matthew chapter 4 verse 1, Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

I want you to know that everything was dangerous about this scenario.

Wildernesses are dangerous places, and I know that because I come from Australia, but they're also dangerous even here in America.

I was reading in 2003, a guy named Aaron Ralston, He was hiking in a national park here in Utah somewhere and while descending into a narrow canyon, a boulder fell on his right arm and pinned it to that rock wall and he was stuck there for 5 whole days.

He survived on the supplies he could reach from his backpack with his free hand.

And when he realized that maybe help wasn't going to come because he hadn't told anyone where he was going, he actually amputated his arm and hiked out of there, and thankfully he was found and his life was saved.

But the point is, wildernesses are dangerous.

And everything about this story, where we find it in Matthew chapter 4 here, it's dangerous as well.

Mark chapter 1 tells us that Jesus was even with the wild beasts in this place.

But not only was the place dangerous, the tempter was dangerous as well.

Having watched Jesus' baptism in the Jordan, Satan had followed him here to this place.

Now the Bible calls Satan many different names.

It calls him the Prince of Demons, Lucifer, the Serpent, the Great Dragon, the Evil 1, the Deceiver, the father of lies.

Satan is literally the most wicked being in the universe.

For 6, 000 years, his 1 studied project has been Christ's attack and our ruin.

And that Satan personally comes here in this story to tempt Christ is big because Satan rarely makes an appearance by name Or by personal appearance here in the scriptures for example after tempting Eve He reappears to tempt Job then disappears from the pages of Scripture for maybe a thousand years until 1 Chronicles where it says Satan stood up against Israel.

He then gets 1 mention in the book of Zechariah and that's it.

Now of course he's very busy behind the scenes, but when Jesus is born, it's like suddenly a whole bunch of messianic dots start joining for him.

Israel might have been asleep at the wheel regarding the identity of Jesus, but Satan, he was fully aware who he was.

He had known Jesus up close in heaven as the second person of the Godhead, and that Christ would set aside all of his power and to come into this world and become 1 with this weak degraded humanity with just the ability to access power from God like other humans.

With the Son of God, who had all of heaven trouble himself with this deceived race in their mess and misery.

Deep down inside his demonic mind, this frightened him, and he didn't fully understand what it meant, but he sensed by Christ's incarnation that his time was short.

And so he and his demons, they determined to destroy the divine Christ's child.

You remember Herod's order to kill all the baby boys under the age of 2?

Until Jesus, no human had completely escaped from his power, none.

But in Jesus, Satan found a child, he found a teenager, he found a young person he just couldn't bring under his influence at all and it enraged him.

And so when Satan saw Jesus going into the wilderness, he saw this as his chance to come and take Jesus out with 3 hand-picked temptations.

Know that temptation is inevitable, even for baptized, spirit-filled people.

If Jesus' baptism didn't prevent him from being the focus of Satan's attacks, then we can expect, we shouldn't expect anything different for ourselves.

Temptation may not find you in a wilderness, but it will find you.

And by the way, temptation in and of itself is not a sin, But it becomes sin when we welcome it, when we entertain it, when we dwell on it, and when we enjoy it.

And when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, afterward he was hungry.

Now you think about how you feel after missing just 1 meal.

I don't know if you have this here in the United States, but I remember when I was in high school in Australia, there was this fundraiser thing that we did.

I tried to do the 40-hour famine when I was in high school, and I didn't last very long.

I remember feeling sick after the first couple of hours.

When my dad came home from work, he found me stretched out on the couch, and I was faint.

I still remember he went to the kitchen and he put on a cracker some peanut butter, tomato and salt.

I still remember it because it was so amazing and he gave it to me and I took bites and I felt my whole body reviving.

It was just the most amazing cracker I had ever had.

He is weak, physically weak and vulnerable, but I want you to know, Jesus was spiritually full.

He didn't have any social media, he didn't have any phone, any digital connection to Galilee.

The cross was before him and Jesus was preparing to meet it.

He Prayed in the Garden

Father in heaven, thank you for waking us up.

And as we study this very, very sacred passage of Scripture, we ask for the Holy Spirit to speak personally to our hearts.

And may we hear what You have to say to our hearts.

If I close my eyes, I can remember the day, the moment, just like it was yesterday.

It was a week after my former boyfriend and I had just met, he's now my husband, and we'd spent 1 week together, and I remember we went for a walk and we went and we sat down on a park bench and I looked at him and he looked at me and he proceeded to tell me at the time that he felt it would be a good idea for us to stay in touch and to get to know each other better.

Yes, that is a good amen moment, brother.

And I don't remember a word of what we said.

I just remember looking at him on that park bench and thinking to myself, Could this be the 1 that God has for me?

And just this year, I took my 21-month-old son to the very same park bench.

And I sat him in the same spot his dad had sat in those years before, and I thought to myself, God is good.

But there is another place that's also very special to me.

In fact, as we talk about it, I think you'll find it's very special to you too.

And this morning, we're going to visit it together.

I invite you to take your Bibles or follow along with me on the screen.

The Bible says, Matthew 26, verse 36, Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane and said to the disciples, sit here while I go and pray over there.

It was late at night and a full Passover moon was shining in a cloudless sky.

The busy city filled with pilgrims' tents had settled into a hush.

Having just shared what would be their last meal together, their last Passover meal, Jesus and his 11 disciples, they leave Jerusalem through 1 of its eastern gates, and they descend into the Kidron Valley, they are headed for Gethsemane.

Now, Gethsemane was a garden grove of olive trees located at the base of the Mount of Olives where Jesus loved to pray.

But this time, he was coming for the last time.

As he nears the garden, a strange change of silent sadness sweeps over him.

In less than 24 hours, He is going to be betrayed, arrested, tried, condemned, and crucified.

And while his closest friends had no idea what was about to happen, Jesus knew.

He had time to go and prepare weapons to fight, but I want you to know that instead, he chose to pray.

And if we follow Jesus to Gethsemane, you will find it a place of prayer.

There is a sacredness about this scene that makes me feel fearful to preach on it this morning because I feel like as we come here that I'm intruding on Jesus into his private pain because as you read, you see he leaves 8 of the disciples behind at the entrance of this garden.

But we this morning, we are going to follow him in.

And he took with him Peter and the 2 sons of Zebedee, who are not mentioned by name, but it's James and John, and he began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed.

Then he said to them, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death, stay here and watch with me." Anticipating that a struggle is before him in this place on this night, Jesus takes with him his 3 closest companions on earth, his 3 closest friends for support, Peter, James, and John.

These guys had spent many nights with Jesus in this place where after a season of watching and praying, they would fall asleep and then they would stay sleeping until the morning when Jesus woke them up for service and for action the next day.

All 3 of them had confidently declared their loyalty to him before.

You remember what Peter said, he said, if everybody else leaves you, Lord, you can count on me, I will never leave you.

And then I see that this is the kind of friend you would want in a crisis, right?

These 3 had been in the room when Jairus's daughter, when he raised her from the dead.

They were with Jesus when he was glorified on the Mount of Transfiguration.

In fact, Matthew 24 exists according to Mark's Gospel because these 3 plus Andrew, they were the ones who sought Jesus out privately and said, tell us, Lord, when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the world?

But now, on this night, Jesus needed to know that someone was praying for him.

Huge forces, legions, were assembling and coming to war against him on this night.

He needed them to stay awake, to be spiritually vigilant with Him.

And so He opens His heart, not to all of them, but to these 3.

And He confides in them, and what He tells them is actually worse than what they had thought.

There's 2 different Greek words that are used in the passage that we just read before.

When it says, they saw him begin to be sorrowful and exceedingly sorrowful, those are 2 different Greek words.

And the word that Jesus used to describe himself when he says, I am exceedingly sorrowful, It is a word in the Greek that is very strong and it means horrified.

I read 1 scholar said it describes the kind of feeling you would have if you came home 1 night and discovered your whole family had been murdered.

Jesus was experiencing a sorrow so horrifyingly deep, dark and dense, that he felt as though he was literally being crushed to death.

Follow Jesus into Gethsemane and you will find it a place of pressure.

He's in distress, He is trembling, He is swaying in agony as if carrying some intense load and weight upon His shoulders.

Gethsemane means oil press and Jesus who had lived his entire life knowing that he was going to die but now that he's in the shadow of the actual cross falling upon him it seems that He who calmed the storm, who walked on water, who raised the dead and healed the sick.

He is so horrified by something that he literally feels like he's going to die and the question is why?

We keep reading and the answer we'll find.

Verse 39, the Bible says, he went a little farther, Luke's Gospel says it was a stone's throw away and he fell on his face and prayed saying oh my father if it is possible let this cup pass from me, nevertheless that's the most beautiful and wonderful nevertheless in all the Bible.

As Peter, James, and John watch Jesus stagger into the garden, they see him fall to the ground and then in the stillness of that silent night they hear him pray.

Hebrews 5 verse 7 says, He had offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears to him who is able to save him from death.

Friends in Gethsemane, we are on holy ground.

Jesus had always addressed God as Father, but on this night and in this place, and then also on the cross, he actually addresses him as my father twice.

These are the only 2 times we find him in the gospels addressing the father as my father.

In fact, Notice what it says in Mark, Mark's gospel, Mark 14 verse 36, he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.

Nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will.

Abba, that's an Aramaic term of closest intimacy.

It's like saying, Daddy, I'm not a daddy.

I am a mama, and my ears are peeled for whenever my son cries or calls for me.

And I know my husband, it's exactly the same.

Ever since he was born, if Judah calls for us or he's in distress and he cries for us, it's like nothing else can be heard.

But on this night, in this place, Jesus is pleading to his daddy for help with a cup.

It was a cup brimming full with lust and jealousy and hatred and pride.

Every sin you can think of, the Bible says in Isaiah 53, verse 6, that the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Now, to you and I, that may not seem like much.

For us, the sense of sin is almost like the clothes that we wear, we're so used to it.

And trust me, I know, I flew here on an international flight and when I get up to use the restroom I see it.

We watch sin on the back of headrests, people are watching it and they're not, they're not plussed about it.

But for the holy spotless Lamb of God, sin was heavy.

He Carried My Cross

We have a very beautiful subject, the cross of Christ, to study together this morning.

And so I invite you to bow your heads with me as we open with prayer.

Father in Heaven, As we study the Bible, we ask for the Holy Spirit to help us to understand this story, help our minds to see Jesus today, to see him high and lifted up, help us to understand the message you have for us.

And Lord, may we leave this meeting changed because we've spent time in his presence.

Please take your Bibles, Come with me to Matthew chapter 27.

The verses will also appear on the screen, but it's good to see it in your own Bible.

The Bible says, Now as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name, Him they compelled to bear his cross.

If we were to go back to that Friday to join Simon as he approached the city of Jerusalem, I think we would notice a few things.

We would notice the temple and the crooked streets of this city.

It was known as the pearl of the Middle East, a fortress of faith.

And I think that we could expect it to be a stir on this morning.

The scent of spring in the air wouldn't let anyone forget it.

Passover was the highest and the holiest of all Jewish feasts and worship ceremonies.

A reminder of that time when as they were leaving Egypt, everyone who had taken the blood of the lamb and applied it to the doorposts of their homes, everyone under the homes where this blood was on the doorposts, they were safe when they were found under the blood of the Lamb and the death angel passed through the land.

Literally tens of thousands of pilgrims, perhaps more, had descended on Jerusalem for the Passover on this day.

The supermarkets were crowded, coming from the country.

We can expect that Simon was anticipating the streets of Jerusalem to be filled with worshippers from as far away as Caesarea and Rome itself.

Blind men were staggering through the streets, begging for money from strangers, hoping that religious pilgrims on a religious pilgrimage would be generous.

Passover did so much to boost the economy.

I invite you to consider what the Bible also says about him in Mark's Gospel.

Mark 15, verse 21, the Bible here says, Then they compelled a certain man, Simon a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus, as he was coming out of the country and passing by to bear his cross.

We know precious little about Simon in Scripture, but as we read the 2 verses that we've read together so far, we can determine 2 things.

And Cyrene was a small city in northern Africa on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the region that we actually call Libya today.

That's some 15, 000 miles away that he has come from.

If you're like me and you think in kilometers, 2, 414 kilometers, that's how far he's come.

That's like traveling halfway across the United States to be in Jerusalem for this occasion.

It was perhaps a lifelong dream of his to be in Jerusalem for the Passover and to be in the Holy City for this occasion.

We don't know how old he was, but we also know that he was the father of 2 sons.

And that Mark mentions these guys by name indicates to us that Alexander and Rufus were obviously known and familiar to the Christian community at the time he wrote.

In Ellen White, she shines a light on this in The Desire of Ages in this single sentence, page 742, she says, Simon had heard of Jesus.

His sons were believers in the Savior, but he himself was not a disciple.

I imagine that Alexander and Rufus must have heard so much about Jesus.

I don't know how they heard about him, I don't know who told them, but somehow they heard about Jesus.

How he opened blind eyes and opened the ears of the deaf and how he raised the dead and how his words, oh, how they fed their souls.

They were convinced as they considered the evidence of the life of Jesus that he had to be the Messiah and so the sons of Simon believed in him and they longed for an opportunity to bring their dad to meet Jesus as well how they longed for him to find Jesus.

And so they prayed for an opportunity when they might bring him to him.

Maybe they even wrote to their dad, Dad, he raises the dead.

You have to come and meet him." But I suspect that when Simon learned of his son's newfound faith in Jesus, it probably concerned him a little bit.

Were my sons part of some cult, he might have wondered.

And so confused and curious, Simon had come to Jerusalem.

But as soon as he enters the city on this morning, he knew something was wrong.

There was no sound of joyful worshippers like he had expected to hear entering a city on an occasion like this.

Instead, an ominous mood seemed to pervade the streets of the city.

He makes his way through the city and he finds himself somehow caught up in the midst of an angry mob and he thinks what on earth is going on?

The Sabbath was coming, this is Passover, Why are these people behaving this way?

But his thoughts were rudely interrupted by a chilling chant that comes from down the street and it's growing, it's getting louder and louder down the road.

At Passover, he thinks, couldn't they wait until this was over?

And in my mind's eye, I see him puzzled as he's pushing through the crowd, trying to find a way of escape, trying to find a way out from the press of this mob.

But somehow, and I'm just using my spiritual sanctified imagination here, he somehow perhaps rounds a corner and however it happened he somehow finds himself face to face with 3 men staggering under the weight of crosses coming down the street he is on.

They were reserved for Rome's worst enemies.

It was a form of execution that was just horrific and humiliating.

History tells us that after the revolt that followed the death of Herod the Great, 2, 000 Jewish rebels were crucified by the Roman proconsul Verus on crosses set all along the roadside as a warning to anyone else who might consider a rebellion as well.

Crucifixions on a smaller scale were normal.

In fact, I was amazed to read as I was researching for this subject, that scholars believed that 30, 000 crucifixions occurred under Roman authority during Christ's lifetime.

Tozer said, you knew 1 thing about a man that was carrying a cross out of the city, you knew he wasn't coming back.

As Simon watches these 3 staggering down the street.

2 of the victims looked like the usual arrogant type.

In fact, they even looked like they know each other by their interactions.

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