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Country Life SDA Church

Eric Walsh

In Search of True Revival

And just love your church, love your pastor, and love what you all are doing here.

We look at what is going on in the world and I think it's never been a better time to be a Seventh-day Adventist.

I was in Australia last year, first trip to Australia we made last year, and I was talking to the president of the New South, New North South Wales Conference, their names are pretty long, and he, I went into his office and sat down with him, and he said every time he's interviewing a new pastor, he asks them this question, why are you a Seventh-day Adventist?

I want you to think about it before I give you the answer I gave him.

I told him because it answers all the questions.

Being a Seventh-day Adventist answers what happens when you die.

It answers what purpose is there for your life.

Being a Seventh-day Adventist tells you the true character of God.

Being a Seventh-day Adventist tells you the tale of eternity.

And 1 of the most important questions, being a Seventh-day Adventist answers why would a good God allow wickedness, evil, and pain in this world.

What we have as Adventists is a precious treasure.

These truths are literally words of life.

Transform you the way you see the world, the way you show up at work or school.

Being an Adventist is a powerful, powerful thing.

And I thank God for this truth, for our church, and for this church, because we are called to be light in a very dark world.

I don't know if the slides are up yet, but we're going to get into our talk.

And so our scripture reading is going to come from John chapter 16 and verse 33.

John 16, 33 says, these things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.

In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer.

Our message this Sabbath is entitled, A Calm Voice in a Chaotic World.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your Word.

And once again, Lord, I ask that you just make me a nail on the wall, a rusty, sorry nail, Lord.

But upon that nail, I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

And so with that, Lord, we are asking for an extra outpouring of your Holy Ghost.

This is our prayer in Jesus's name, amen.

We're gonna go to the book of Matthew, the 14th chapter, and we are going to get into 1 of my favorite Bible stories and really think about the ministry of Christ and how it pertains especially to us living in these last days.

In Matthew 14 and verse 22 the Bible says, and straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship and go before him unto the other side while he sent away the multitudes.

And the last time, the other time that he put the disciples get into a ship, Jesus falls asleep in the back of the ship.

Jesus is actually frustrated with his disciples.

He's not happy with them at this point in the story.

He had just, they had just seen an incredible miracle.

In fact, if you do the math, if there were 5, 000 men, and if most of them had a wife, and if most of them had a wife and if most of them had 2 or 3 children, really we're talking 12 to 15, 000 people.

When I think about the miracle of the feeding of the 5, 000 or of the 4, 000, I must come to the conclusion that in order to perform these miracles it's not simply that the law of physics of the conservation of mass must be defied and when you get deep into it Christ also must have had some time component because how if you tried yourself to break up enough bread to feed 15, 000 people, you would be here till Monday.

The story starts with the confidence that we serve a God who is not constrained with the physical laws of this world, which means that when this world begins to constrain us, we just need to call on Him.

Jesus had fed them And what happened when he fed them is that the disciples got to a point where they were so committed.

Can you imagine seeing all these people eating like this?

The bread breaks and it just keeps breaking, right?

The fish break and it just keeps breaking.

Basket after basket goes out, people are having their fill.

And the disciples and others are watching this, they are tired of Roman oppression.

They're sick of being under the boot of evil, mighty Rome, and so they start to whisper among themselves, this man must be our king.

He will sit on the throne of David, and with him, we will defeat the mighty Roman Empire.

They got to start thinking, listen, this is perfect.

If a soldier gets wounded on the battlefield, he just heals them and we have a forever healthy army.

If we start to run out of the supply lines that feed the troops, This guy could just break up whatever food is left and feed the whole army.

But as their thoughts came to them and they wanted to make Jesus king, he picked up on it.

Jesus was not happy with this because it meant they did not understand his mission and if they didn't understand his mission they were in trouble because they would not stand in the time of trouble that was coming for them.

If they didn't understand what he was really here for, Jesus says, my kingdom is not of this world.

This is why I don't get too involved with what goes on outside of the spreading of the gospel, because if you're not careful, you can get caught up in stuff that is just a distraction.

They wanted a Jesus who would liberate them.

Earthly liberation, but not spiritual liberation.

Number 1, their politics was self-centered.

In fact, 1 of the challenges Jesus had with his disciples were, they were always trying to figure out who was going to be vice president in the kingdom.

Everybody wanted to be second in command.

I mean, 1 of them, 2 of them even had their mother advocating for them.

They did not understand that the Messiah was coming to establish now a kingdom that would last forever, that would be based on the righteousness of God, not on the might of men.

And they totally did not understand Christ's mission.

He had come to die to save us from our sin, not save them from the Romans.

And so when you look at this, the mission of the church, for us, there's 2 key things as a denomination.

I believe it's why as such a small percentage of the world's population, our church has such a big impact.

I believe it's why our church has so many enemies.

If you look at it, the first thing when you look at the ministry, the mission of our church, number 1 is to reach the world with the gospel and the 3 angels' messages.

When you look at the number of countries where Adventist churches are active, it is staggering.

When you look at the fact that Seventh-day Adventists have the second largest hospital system of all religious organizations in the world, only second to the Catholic Church, which has over a billion members.

The second largest parochial school system in the world.

There are countries where if you want the, where the population is not at Venice, but if you want your child to have a good education, You figure out a way to get them into a 7 day a week school.

God has blessed us because of this mission.

Because we are calling people out of darkness into light.

The second 1, The mission of the church is to become perfected, sanctified, set apart, to be like Christ, individually and collectively.

Let me show you some verses on this, on these callings.

Matthew chapter 28, 19 to 20 says, go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world, amen.

And so there are some who say, listen, all these teachings don't matter, but absolutely that's not what Christ says.

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In Search of True Revival

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