ASI South West 2025: We Shall Behold Him

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ASI Southwest

Seminars

Carlos Craig

The Second Coming: Preparing our Hearts and Communities

Father in heaven, thank you so much for another day of life and health and strength, the privilege to reason in our right minds.

And as we go through this topic this afternoon, we invoke the presence of the Holy Spirit, the divine teacher, that the words and thoughts that we hear not come from this human being, but may they come directly from you, may it be a hundred percent your word, we pray in the precious name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

As I thought about a passage that would be our Passage of reference for this topic, I could not think of any better than this 1.

Matthew 24, verse 14, And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world, key words, as a witness to all the nations and then the end will come.

Gospel of the kingdom would be preached in all of the world as a witness and then the end would come.

Our next slide gives us a quote from Ellen White that I have found very enlightening.

Notice the words, the third angel of Revelation 14 is represented as flying swiftly through the midst of heaven, crying, Here are they who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

We'll come back and talk a little bit about the faith of Jesus in a little bit.

Goes on to say, there we see the nature of the work of the people of God.

They possess a message of such great importance that they are represented as flying in the midst of heaven, presenting it to the world.

They are holding in their hands, notice, the bread of life for a famishing world.

And then she says this, the love of Christ constraineth them.

If we were to translate her words, what she's saying is, these individuals, the remnant of the remnant, have now received the character of Christ upon them.

And thus they are equipped to give this last message to the world.

John Peckham, currently a professor at the seminary at Andrews.

He was a professor here at Southwestern Adventist University for a period of time.

In his book, God With Us, page 3, he makes this statement.

The story of Jesus stands at the core or the center of the story of God with us, which is the greatest story ever told.

It is an epic like no other, a cosmic drama, the story of stories in which every person's story has a part, including your story, which matters more to God than you can imagine.

The story of Scripture is the story of God's love and desire to be with us, the story of his relentless mission to be with us, his quest for a covenant love relationship with us.

I think the The core thing I want to get across to you, my fellow church members, is this.

We would ask ourselves, as Seventh-day Adventists, is the Sabbath message important?

Vital to who we are, our identity, who we are as a church.

God gave the Seventh-day Adventist Church a special health message for our own good, that if we would implement, we would be much healthier.

Once again, God has commissioned the church to warn the world about things that are coming upon the world.

But those messages pale in comparison to the central core message of the gospel.

And the central core message of the gospel simply is God with us.

God loves humanity so much that he can't bear to spend eternity without us.

So he sent Christ to live in our place, to die in our place, to resurrect, to return to heaven, to intercede on our behalf, and to return for those who are faithful in the end.

And so the gospel message is, the core of the gospel message is Christ, our righteousness.

I wanted to share with you this afternoon 3 very valuable gems that are embedded in this Matthew 24, verse 14 passage.

What is the essence of what Jesus is saying there in Matthew 24, verse 14?

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the entire world as a witness.

And sometimes, unfortunately, as God's people, we forget whose kingdom it is.

And God sets the parameters of his kingdom.

"'This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached "'in the entire world, ' Jesus says." And Jesus had a hard time convincing, persuading, influencing his disciples to understand his kingdom.

Because his 12 disciples always wanted to set the terms of his kingdom.

And Jesus had to continually come back and methodically teach them that his kingdom was not of this world.

And 1 of the things that I see today that is holding back the church is that our intolerance for individuals and certain things is not allowing us to be identified as God's kingdom.

Christ accepted everyone to the point that he was often criticized for his acceptance of people.

I think if you or I had the opportunity to sit down and interview Jesus, and you ask Christ this afternoon, Lord and Savior Jesus, Are you conservative or are you liberal?

I'm pretty sure Jesus would say I am as conservative as they come as far as my doctrine.

But I am as liberal as they come as far as accepting people.

Jesus accepted the woman at the well, who was a known sinner.

He accepted Zacchaeus, who was an outcast, as a sinner.

He is accused of sitting with sinners and eating with sinners.

He accepted people, no matter where they came from and who they were.

If we go to the next slide, we see here that the gospel of the kingdom is in stark contrast with the commandments of men.

And in 63 years of life, I've often read Christ's passage there in Matthew 15, and I've often wondered what it is he exactly is telling his people.

Jesus said to his disciples then and to his disciples today, in vain they worship me teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

And so what are commandments of men as compared to the commandments of God.

The commandments of God are infallible, written in stone, unchangeable.

The commandments of men change from generation to generation.

I remember when I was in academy, long time ago, late 70s, I remember a specific teacher, Godly man, well-intentioned man, coming up to me and putting his arm around me and saying, Carlos, God loves you, but you do know with that long hair to your shoulders, you're headed to hell.

Now think about the dysfunction of that act.

Placing his arm around me and saying, God loves you, But with that long hair, you're headed to hell.

We have throughout the generations lost entire generations of the church because we have spoken the truth, but the wrong way.

In fact, in John chapter 4, Jesus made the statement, the day is coming, and is even now, when the true worshippers of God will worship Him in Spirit and in Truth you have to have both, they're indivisible the Gospel is a perfect mixture of Truth and spirit you can have the truth, but if you don't speak it with compassion and love it annuls the truth and you can have all the love and compassion in the world but if you don't have the truth, you're missing something and so somewhere, the devil is standing in a corner laughing his head off because half of the Christian world has the truth but they don't have the Spirit.

And another half of the Christian world has the Spirit but they lack the truth.

And Jesus said that we are to honor his commandments, but to do so in Christian love.

A verse here out of 1 Timothy 2, verse 5.

If you ask me what verse in the Bible describes the gospel better than any other verse, I will cite this verse.

And I know that John 3, 16 is our banner verse describing salvation, But I love this verse and I'll explain why.

1st Timothy chapter 2 verse 5, For there is 1 God and 1 mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

The reason I love this verse is because it says that Jesus is the bridge between God and humanity.

But I love the way that Paul makes it clear.

He says Jesus is the bridge between God and humanity.

There's no salvation for man without Christ.

But Paul is saying Jesus bridges the gap between a perfect God and a fallen humanity, but Jesus identifies with humanity.

There is 1 God and 1 mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus.

God loves you and I so much that he's not ashamed to be associated with us.

Endi Stojanovic

Beholding Christ in Service: Reflecting His Character in Our Work

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the blessings you shower upon us each and every day.

You give us so many good things and we aren't worthy of them, but we are grateful for them.

I pray, Lord, now as we open up your Word and as we seek to understand what You have in store for us today, help us to hear Your still small voice.

Help us to hear that gentle knock on the door of our hearts.

Help us to open the door and to let You in.

May we not only know what we should do, but may You strengthen us to actually do that which we know we should do.

And may all the glory and all the honor and everything that we are able to achieve in our lives be because of Your glory and because of what you have done, for you alone deserve that.

All right, I've entitled my presentation, The Way You Know.

And I'm getting this from a very important text which is familiar to us, particularly the first 3 verses which we often go to, and that's found in the Gospel of John chapter 14.

So if you turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 14, we're gonna read some of the most beautiful words in all of Scripture.

We're going to unpack it a little bit more.

He begins here, John speaking in chapter 14.

Oh, you know the verse well, which is not surprising.

If it were not so, I would have told you.

I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also." And notice these next words that Jesus says, and where I go you know, and the way you know.

Now this is significant for many reasons.

There's a lot of beautiful things in this passage.

Not only are those first few words so wonderful, I mean all of them are wonderful but let not your heart be troubled.

Now what is happening immediately before chapter 14 in John?

Just turn to the beginning of chapter 13.

They're having their communion, their last supper together, right?

He's going to be tried unjustly via the night, then he's going to be tried before Pilate during the day, right?

In less than 24 hours, Jesus will be no more for the disciples as they're eating this meal and as they're going out and Jesus is speaking with them.

Now at this point, are their hearts very troubled just after the communion service?

Not particularly because they don't really believe Jesus is going to die.

You remember when Jesus mentioned that and He told them many times because He wanted to prepare them for what was happening, they simply said, oh no, no, no, that's never going to happen to you, right?

Because their conception of what the Messiah should be compared to what he actually came to do was somehow in disagreement, right?

That happens to us sometimes too, where we think we know what we should know, but in reality we didn't know and we make a mistake or whatever it might be.

So Jesus, what I find so beautiful about this is not only that the words are seriously comforting, let not your heart be troubled, but Jesus is anticipating what's going to happen in just a few hours.

And He's telling them ahead of time, look, you're going to witness a whole bunch of things.

I'm going to be arrested, I'm going to be flogged and beaten, I'm going to be tried, I'm going to go through, they're going to scourge me.

Again, not only will the Jews scourge me, but the Romans will scourge me.

I mean, he hasn't told them all of these things, but he's anticipating.

His disciples are going to see Him go through all these things, and finally He's going to be led to the cross, and He's going to be hung up, and He's going to stay there until He breathes His last.

And with that in mind, that's going to happen in less than 24 hours, Jesus says, let not your hearts be troubled.

Like a parent wanting their child to know something bad is going to happen, but do not worry, you're going to make it through it.

You believe in God, it says, believe also in me.

Now, Another thing we have to consider in this passage, especially in verse 4 here, when it says, where I am going, you know, and the way you know, where is he going?

What has he been talking about in verses 1 through 3?

But in terms of His special location where He lives, we know He lives on Mount Zion, right?

We can hardly wait for Jesus to come because He's going to take us and we will go and live with God there for the thousand years.

And then the beautiful thing is that God comes and lives with us.

Forever, not just for a thousand years, but forever.

And here he's saying in my father's house are many mansions.

Now, I know we love the translation mansions, but to be honest, the more accurate translation there is really rooms.

It's indicating kind of like how the temple had many rooms in the temple, in the sanctuary, particularly the 1 which Solomon built, and later on which Nehemiah and Ezra helped build and helped form and then Herod put an enlargement on that and there were many rooms.

This is the context in which Jesus is saying it.

Basically there is plenty of room for you to have a home in my house.

Now you think of our homes typically what do we have like 2 bedroom, 3 bedroom, you have a bigger house you might have a 5 bedroom, rarely you know 6 bedroom.

I was reading something the other day like some I forget who it was now whether it was Bill Gates or something has a house with over 80 bedrooms.

I'm like, hey, he must know a lot of people or something and they must be coming over a lot that he might has to need 80 bedrooms to keep that many like, I don't know, to me personally that's overkill, right?

But God can even exceed Bill Gates or whoever this person was, right?

He has many, many rooms, many, many places.

He doesn't want you to have your own place somewhere out there alone, And we will have once the new earth is made new, we'll have our own place.

But he wants us to be like it's more intimate, to have a bedroom, to have a room in his house.

Not to have another house that's next door.

That's exactly what Jesus is trying to highlight here.

He's saying there are many rooms, mansions.

I assure you probably the rooms in that New Jerusalem are going to appear like mansions to us.

I mean the city's made of gold, the gates are made of pearl, I don't know what's in the rooms but I can't wait to be there.

And then he says I am going to prepare this place for you.

I wouldn't have told you if that's not true and if I go I'm gonna come again.

And then he's saying, the place where I'm going, you know, and the way to get there, you know.

Because John is telling us this, the context, the time in Jesus' life where this passage is being written is again towards the end of Jesus' ministry.

How long have the disciples been with him?

Cesar Vasquez Flores

God’s Blueprint for Wealth

We're gonna start the first seminar, Barah Wealth Series.

And at this moment, I wanna talk God's Blueprint for Wealth.

Yes, because God wants us to have prosperity and to enhance our relationship with him.

My name is Cesar Vasquez-Flores, Regional Manager for Flores Continental Financial Service, the company that developed this program, Barra Weld.

At this moment, I'm giving this seminar for the ASI Jump Professional Track here at the ASI Spring Convention in Southwest.

Okay, so disclaimer, this is only for education purposes.

So please do not use this as a legal, tax, or other kind of advice.

And of course, this is for honoring God in all ways.

And we want to dedicate this time to learn about God's plan for us to how to generate wealth.

So we want to start with a first, I mean with a quick prayer.

Okay, so anyone, everyone who can, who wants to kneel.

Heavenly Father, thank you for letting us be here in this wonderful place, Crowley Church.

Thank you, Lord, for everyone who was involved in the organization of this event.

And now, Lord, prepare our minds, because we want to learn from you, Lord.

I know there are great people, there are great teachers, coaches about business, wealth generation, and other things related.

But Lord, we want to learn this first from you.

So, since we're talking about God, way to do business, how to generate wealth, We're going to start with the Genesis 128.

That's our, that's going to be our core verse for this section.

So go to your Bible and read Genesis 128.

Let me get my Bible here because, yes, Genesis 1.28.

And I'm going to read the King James Version.

It says, and God blessed them, and God said unto them, and here are the action verbs, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the folk of the air and over every living thing that move on to the air.

So in this seminar, we're going to relate that with this objective.

We're going to understand God's original design for wealth.

We're gonna connect stewardship to business success.

But we're going to talk a little more in this section about the first 2 verbs, be fruitful and multiply.

The Hebrew word for be fruitful is para and the Hebrew verb for multiply is rava.

I have a deeper meaning than just have more kids, okay, of reproduction.

It's more about bear a fruit, be fruitful, you know, bring something of value.

So we don't have time to go in deep on this concept, because this is a seminar.

We have 7 sections, so we're quite putting together at least in 3 hours or so of training.

God designed that men should be co-worker with him.

He doesn't want us to be back prayer is first, but we need to bring that prayer into action.

And the action brings also into your business, into whatever you decide to be useful to others.

Because when you are applying for a job, you are saying, I want to be fruitful for you, boss.

So that's the Hebrew word para is related to.

What I love about God is He's very simple.

Believe that Jesus is your Savior, repent from your sins, and let Him work on your heart.

Sometimes we humans, we try to make things more complex, because we want to look smarter than we actually are.

But God said, you know, I want to put it very simple.

And now, the strategy that I want to mention here, I can prove you that it has been applied by the best companies in the world all the time of history, and it's exactly the same.

First, if you want to generate wealth, most of us are going to do it through businesses.

You need to be fruitful, because you need to create something of value for others, not for you.

And remember when Jesus said, you know, love your neighbor, first you love God, because you need to have that relationship in order to convey a balance, a good way of doing business.

So, when you have that relationship, because if you pay attention to the birth, I don't mention it because those are actually births, because that should be, and God bless them, and God said unto them, Genesis 128, which means you are talking constantly with God.

Every morning, every time that you're having a meal, every time that you have, you need an advice.

That's why having a relationship with what is very critical, but since we are in charge, we know that's very important, and that concept is clear.

Be fruitful, because every business must produce an excellent service and excellent product.

Not for you, for your brothers and your sisters.

And this is the most difficult part, because in any business, that's what's going to take you longer.

How are you going to decide your service?

What kind of product are you going to sell?

There's a lot of time, a lot of trails, a lot of failures, but there's going to be a moment with prayers that God is gonna show you and the market, your clients are gonna tell you, I love this, I want more of this.

Therefore, you can sell more so you can produce more.

And a lot of people just focus on, oh, I like this.

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