ASI 2012: It's Time... To Be About Our Father's Business

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ASI 2012 Plenary Sessions

Frank Fournier

It’s Time... To Afflict Our Souls

I finally get to relax and preach a sermon.

You don't know how stressful some of these things are.

This afternoon I was asked to go to the general conference meeting we had on medical missionary work and the blending of our works together.

And I finally realized when I got there that I had been told that I would be speaking, except that I hadn't remembered until I got there.

Now, you can see how stressful something like that can be.

And it was cold in the room, and I began to shake.

But anyway, I sent a prayer up to the Lord, and the Lord hears our prayers.

He calmed me right down, and we were able to say something.

I'd like to invite you to turn with me to Matthew chapter 6.

Now you all know our theme, it is time to be about our Father's business.

Tonight I'd like to focus on the word business.

Yes, sharing Christ in the marketplace, sharing Christ is our business.

It's important, I believe, with all my heart, I believe, that we should put ourselves in a frame of mind where we think in terms of what God would be doing in our business were he here in our place.

Now the words, wist you not that I must be about my father's business, " were uttered by Jesus when he was just 12 years old.

Even at that young age, Jesus was on the job.

Jesus knew what his father's intentions were for him, and he went about to do his father's business.

We must not have the mindset that is in the minds of the people who do not have a God.

Now I've asked you to turn with me to Matthew chapter 6.

Matthew chapter 6, we're going to start reading with verse 31.

Jesus is speaking, this is the Sermon on the Mount.

Therefore, don't use your brain power on these things.

Take no thought saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewithal shall we be clothed?

God is speaking to his people and He's saying, I don't want you to waste any brain energies on what you're going to eat, and what you're going to wear, and what you're going to drink, and what you're going to drive, and what kind of house you're going to live in, and what kind of money you're going to make.

As a matter of fact, it says so in verse 32, for after all these things do the Gentiles seek.

As far as I know, not being a theologian, the word Gentile means the ungodly, the people who have no God.

And if you have no God living in this world, you can imagine in this world what is there?

Well there isn't anything else but what we eat and what we drink and what we wear and what we drive and what we live in and the money we make and trying to make ourselves as successful as we can in this world because that's all there is, this world.

But Jesus comes along and he says, listen, I don't want you to take any thought about these things.

It's implied in the next verse or in the same verse, the last part, for your heavenly Father knows that ye have need of all these things." What's the implication here?

The implication is that God will supply the need.

It's written between the lines and it happens to be true.

And so I guess it's a shame if God's people spend their brain power on the things that God has promised to supply, if we would just forget it.

And he says, I'm going to supply the food you're going to need, I'm going to supply the drink you're going to need, the clothes you're going to need, the money you're going to need, the house you're going to need.

I want you to save your energy to be about my business.

But, seek ye first the kingdom of God, that is to expand it, and his righteousness, that is to receive the gift of his righteousness so that you can have the character of Jesus Christ built in you.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be what?

There used to be a time when I would envy those who somehow were blessed with so much wealth.

Well, I'd like to be blessed with so much wealth, too, but do you know I am?

My God, it says here, all these things shall be added unto you if you will do my business.

Long time ago, long time ago, at an ASI convention, and it's just come to my mind, my wife was being interviewed because she was doing some work in Africa.

And I remember my wife saying to the people who were listening that our children had left home.

Here we are in Africa and our children were going home to America and that's a long way away and we were feeling it we really were but I remember at the convention she was telling the people that she had made a plan a bargain with God she said listen I will take care of the work you give me to do in Africa if you will take care of my children." Does he do stuff like that?

And obviously God has 2 purposes for his people.

He wants us to receive the righteousness of God so that we can have the character of Jesus Christ.

And he wants us, once we have the character of Jesus Christ, he wants us to be witnesses by the power of the Holy Spirit and by a life that reflects the image of Jesus Christ, he wants us to go out there and build up his kingdom.

Except that obviously God has a problem with his Laodicean people.

We are lackadaisical about character perfection and active soul winning.

Now I may be speaking these words to the wrong people.

You're probably more active than most but just in case now just in case you're not we need to be.

We've been here a long time as Seventh-day Adventists.

We should have bought in to the intentions that Jesus has in the most holy place of the sanctuary a long time ago.

And we should have gone home long ere this.

There must be a reason why it hasn't happened, don't you think?

We've been easygoing, we've been nominal about this.

God wants us to have the character of Jesus and he wants us to be witnesses in a mighty way and he plans to do that.

Now we're going to take time to look first of all at character building.

I'd like to invite you to turn with me to Revelation chapter 6.

What I'm going to share with you for just a few minutes, some of you have already heard in another sermon.

I promise I'm not preaching the same sermon.

By the time I get through reading it, you're going to wonder what this has to do with character building, but hang on, you're going to see it in a few minutes.

Revelation 6, we're looking at verse 9, we're going to start there.

And this is Jesus opening the fifth seal and when he had opened the fifth seal I saw under the altar the souls of men that were slain for the Word of God and for the testimony which they held And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

And white robes were given unto every 1 of them.

Allen Lloyd

Increasing Your Capacity to Learn, Retain, and Apply Knowledge

Good morning and welcome to the early morning ASI meeting.

I don't know about you, but I always, when I attended camp meeting as a young boy, I liked to get up for the early morning presentations.

There was something special about the focus on the Lord first thing in the morning, and often I noticed a lot of the better presentations, maybe a little less fluff, a little, You know, less bells and whistles, but more meat sometimes was available in the morning.

And I certainly hope that it's a blessing for you, this ASI time to attend these meetings.

Before we begin, let's bow our heads and ask the Lord to be with us.

Father in heaven, we thank you for the interest that you have in our health of body, mind, and soul.

And as we open your word and also discover the revelations from science.

We pray that each heart and mind would be open to receive your spirit of truth that brings comfort and love.

We thank you for hearing and answering this prayer in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, I was told last night that there was no way we could use any kind of graphics here this morning.

And somehow with a non-3ABN person back there, we rigged something up for you on the screen.

So we'll see if this clicker actually works, but since a lot of my material, a picture is worth a thousand words sometimes, I thought it would be better to display this.

The good news is this isn't being recorded on DVD or anything like that, so we don't have any cameras flashing here today.

I do understand The audio will be there for those that want to be able to get it that way.

But today we're going to be talking about how to enhance your intelligence.

Intelligence is your capacity to learn, retain, and apply knowledge.

But that's a pretty involved statement there.

It's actually looking at the capacity to learn, retain, and apply knowledge, not your actual knowledge base now.

And this is 1 of the reasons why people sometimes at age 18 are disappointed at age 30 when they find out their IQ has not improved on an IQ test because they think, hey, I've gone through college, I've gone through all of this learning and my IQ hasn't improved.

No, IQ is just measuring the capacity to learn, retain, and apply knowledge.

Now we know IQ tests are not the best necessarily for measurement of this, but it's the best that we have available at present and it's often a pretty good indication.

It's related somewhat to academic performance.

How many of you have known someone with a high IQ who has not done well in school?

How many of you have known someone with just an average IQ who excelled in school?

All right, many hands go up on both of those, and that's simply due to the fact that IQ is measuring your capacity, but it's not at all measuring the motivation.

Motivation has to do with emotional intelligence.

And there are individuals with average IQ, with high EQ, who excel in academics.

Simply because they have that motivational portion, they know how to study, etc.

And then there are those with a high capacity who don't have the emotional intelligence, and they can do pretty poor at school, but it is related somewhat to academic performance.

And studies show that college graduates' first job after graduation is found to be related to their IQ.

So in other words, how good a job at least people in the world get is often related to that capacity to learn, retain, and apply knowledge.

Now there are other advantages of higher intelligence.

Studies show that you're more efficient in studying.

So in other words you don't have to study as long to get as good a grade sometimes and that's of course a significant advantage.

You tend to be, not tend, you are more creative.

In fact creativity is 1 of those things we look at in regards to capacity.

You're also more logical, and so you're able to advance in regards to planes of learning just in regards to the logic part itself, and as a result of that, you're more persuasive.

So people with high IQ tend to be in an environment in which they have an increased influence, and that also puts them into a capacity where they're more likely to become a leader.

And so, whether that leader is of a church, whether the leader is that of a country or of a company, etc., if they have a large following, chances are they have those things in regards to logic, persuasiveness, and leadership.

Studies show that you're also more likely to become wealthy.

And of course, that's not across the board.

None of these are across the board necessarily in regards to IQ, but obviously there's significant advantage is of intelligence.

There's another advantage, and I like these long-term studies.

This was a study based on 862 men and women followed since childhood starting in 1922 until 1986.

The researchers found that up to the cutoff point of 163, now I should just back up a little bit, What is the average IQ?

For those of you involved in statistics and math, to go up 10 points is a significant amount.

So if you're up to 120, you're up to almost the top 5 percentile in the country.

So if you're at 163, that's an extremely high IQ.

And So the researchers found that was the cutoff point, they didn't find people with higher IQ than this.

Participants' risk of dying during a given period decreased as their IQ increased.

For example, those with a childhood IQ of 150 had a 44% lower risk of death than those with an IQ of 135.

In fact, in longevity studies, this is something that has to be looked at.

We didn't used to look at this aspect in regards to how long people live.

But how long people live is often related to their intelligence.

And if we want to know whether it's intelligence or other things, sometimes we have to break it out.

Now of course the question is raised, why is IQ related to longevity?

And we'll be able to answer that at least in part here today.

Now it's also important as we talk about capacity to learn, retain, and apply knowledge that we talk about myths about intelligence.

1 of the myths is genetics is all that matters.

And 1 of the reasons why this myth is perpetuated in our country is because many individuals are raised in a uniform way.

They eat the same types of foods, they go to the same types of schools, they watch the same types of movies and entertainment, they read the same books, and in general, many people in America are raised in a very uniform way.

They might have different parents, there might be slight differences, but in reality when you see these big differences in IQ and everyone is pretty much raised the same, what is different?

And so genetics seems to surface as something very powerful in regards to IQ.

However, it is not even up there as far as more than 25% of your IQ.

And so it's important to recognize genetics does have a role to play, but environmental influences actually have a much more powerful role to play in regards to intelligence.

Another myth that's out there is there's nothing you can do about it after age 18.

Many individuals, by applying the information that we're using today, have significantly increased their IQ.

And I can just give you an example of someone who went to an ASI institution.

Actually, he was in our town of Ardmore, Oklahoma.

He came to our vegetarian restaurant there and he became interested in diet and then he became interested in biblical truth and he not only changed his diet, he became a Seventh-day Adventist Christian and was baptized.

This young man was good-looking, tall, and he did this against the wishes of his wife.

It ended up, not right away, but unfortunately his wife ended up divorcing him over the fact that he became an Adventist Christian.

And shortly after that, the 1 who runs our restaurant there, Mary Berndt, made a recommendation that he go to a place to become a Bible worker.

And so he went to a Bible worker training place.

Now this was a place that had an accredited curriculum.

You know, it was accredited by Griggs and it was pretty intense for someone who had barely made it through high school.

And I remember talking to the 1 who ran the curriculum and he told me halfway through the program, I don't think this gentleman's going to make it.

He loves truth, but he's just, I don't think he's going to be able to pass.

And near the end, I talked to him again and I asked him about him.

He's actually, he's going to barely pass, but I think he's going to pass.

And he passed this six-month Bible worker training program with the good enough grades to get the credits.

Now he comes back, he actually got a job in Colorado after that in a local church, was a successful Bible worker, young Bible worker.

But he comes back to Ardmore, Oklahoma to visit his family on occasion and he came back 1 day and I happened to be eating there in the restaurant, and he says, Dr.

Nedley, he said, I would really like to expand my influence.

Now, I must admit, my first reaction to that was, you know, this guy just barely made it through high school.

John Bradshaw

Doubtless

It's just important for the preacher to know that the people listening are awake.

I noticed some friends of mine, some dear friends of mine, when we passed in Lexington, Kentucky, some people down here were the most, they were the best church members in the world.

In Kentucky we had this little thing, and Keith will tell you about this, we had this thing when people fell asleep in church, it wasn't good.

We had a deacon in the church, his name was Jim, he was the head deacon.

When someone fell asleep during the church service, you knew trouble was coming because Jim would stand up and walk out.

And I knew trouble was coming, I mean I hated this.

And Jim would walk out and he would go to a cupboard we had out on the foyer with the word Deacons written on it.

And he'd go out to the Deacons' cupboard, This is what would happen when somebody fell asleep in Lexington, which is not far from here.

And Jim would go out and he would get this, it was a big long pole that stood in the corner of the deacon's closet.

And on the end of the pole there was a knob, a rounded knob, is what would happen.

And then Jim would come walking back into the church, our beloved head deacon, and he would be holding the long pole and everybody knew what was coming.

And I, I mean, I knew what was coming, I dreaded this.

And Jim would come in with the long pole, and remember this is what happened when somebody fell asleep in church, and heads would turn and people would look and they'd be, you know, 1 of the dear sisters over here would gasp a little bit, oh, not again, dear God help us.

And when somebody fell asleep in church, Brother Jim the Head Deacon would come up with that long, that long pole and he'd walk right up the front and when someone fell asleep in church, he would take that pole and, and jab, he would jab the preacher.

So please don't fall asleep on me, it just makes me nervous, break out in a cold sweat, Not good.

What a great place to be, ASI, the National Convention.

Our theme for this weekend, this week, weekend, is it's time to be about what?

I believe it's time to be about our Father's business.

So let's pray and talk a little bit about this from what I hope will be a biblical perspective.

Please bow your head with me as we pray together.

Our Father in heaven, we thank you that we can come to you today in the name of Jesus.

We are reminded of the words of the old hymn, in our hand no price we bring, simply to the cross we cling.

I thank you that we have this, really this oasis, a place where we can come together and celebrate that we are yours and be challenged a little bit, challenged and inspired.

Please, Lord, would you speak to our heart.

And I pray that you would be merciful to me.

And please do not allow the fallenness and the inadequacy of sinful humanity to get in the way of the working of your Spirit.

I will not ask that you send your spirit to be here.

Instead, I will thank you that your spirit is here.

So speak, dear Lord, and be heard, please, we pray.

I think I'm right in saying that in this world we love sure things.

If you knew that there was a place that you could take your hard-earned money and invest it and you were guaranteed a risk-free return that was handsome, that was attractive.

You'd be all over that, you would love that.

We like the idea of a can't-lose investment.

1 of the reasons, 1 of the reasons so many people lost their shirt during the housing crisis was that, well, you can't possibly lose on real estate, right?

That's 1 of the reasons so many people, as many people as did, came out of this thing kind of hard.

Unfortunately, many can't lose investments turn out to be, can lose investments.

Now what I'm about to tell you is very difficult for me to tell you.

It's difficult for me to tell you, I'm from New Zealand originally.

In 1987, the first Rugby World Cup was held.

New Zealand is traditionally the rugby superpower of the world.

Now there's a South African or 2 around here who's gonna disagree with me but I don't mind I have the microphone and they don't.

You can talk about South African rugby when you preach.

New Zealand was expected to win the 1987 Rugby World Cup and did.

The last Rugby World Cup was 2011, last year New Zealand was expected to win the 1987 Rugby World Cup and did, no problem.

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