iShare 2012

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Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

iShare 2012 Seminar: Health Ministry for Young Adults in the Local Church

Rodney Bowes

Julie Bowes

Christ’s Method Alone: Mingling

My name is Rodney Bows and my wife is Julie here.

And we are very happy that we could join you here for this excellent event I share.

Have you all been having a good time so far?

Now, what a blessing that we could come together and learn about how we can more effectively communicate the gospel.

Before we continue and go any further, I'd like to ask you if you will bow your heads with me as we have a prayer to begin our session.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much that you have been with us, that it is the Sabbath.

I pray for your Holy Spirit to guide us, that everything might be done to your honor and glory.

Thank you again for bringing each person here and we ask that you will especially touch our hearts now in Jesus' name, amen.

Okay, we have a very packed seminar, So we're going to go fast.

Okay, if I go too, too fast, you just say, Rodney, slow down, okay?

But we're first going to lay a little bit of the framework for medical missionary work, and what we're talking about in the seminar is how to follow Jesus' method.

And it's Christ's method alone that is going to bring success in our work.

I want for you all to take a look at this picture with me.

Does everyone know what this picture is about?

No, it's not dividing the day and nights.

This is a very interesting picture because It shows the world and it shows where there is light pollution.

No wonder when you look up you can hardly see any stars.

When you go to Africa and you come on a mission trip with me to Africa, you look up and you see the amazing stars at night.

This is light pollution that we see around the world.

What do you think God sees when he looks down on this earth in comparison to the light of truth?

Is the earth illuminated with truth like it is with the light pollution?

The Bible says, "'Behold, the darkness shall cover the earth "'and gross darkness the what?' "'The people.'" Isaiah 60 in verse 2.

And in reality, this is what is happening in our world.

It shows where there are churches that are established.

The sections that are in green are areas where there is a strong Christian church presence.

The areas in yellow are in between and red is categorized as unreached or least reached.

How many of you are familiar with the term 1040 window?

Well, this is the area right here, going from Africa, extending over into Asia, all the way over to Japan.

These are areas where the Gospel needs to go in this generation.

God wants to do amazing things through his people.

And we also need to know how can we effectively reach dark places.

I believe God may call some of you to go to that area of the world.

Do you have missionary, foreign missionaries in your foreign mission blood?

Those of you who are here and you find yourself in the United States, this is a tremendous mission field.

Even though it's green, it does not mean that there is no work to be done.

There are millions of people waiting to hear the good news of Jesus Christ.

I'd like for everyone to read this with me, okay?

Christ's method alone will give true success in reaching the people.

You know, Often we like to come up with methods and philosophies and all these different things, but it's only Jesus' method alone that's gonna bring true success in reaching people.

It says, the Savior mingled with men as 1 who desired their good.

He showed his sympathy for them, ministered to their needs, and won their confidence.

Then he bade them follow me." And that's what the whole seminar is based upon.

It's those aspects of mingling, sympathizing, and ministering.

We're going to be looking at each 1 of those aspects in greater detail throughout this three-hour seminar.

But before we really get deeply into those things, I'd like for us to consider what Jesus gave us as his own example.

This is Matthew chapter 4, verse 23 and 24.

Notice what the Bible says, And Jesus went about all Galilee, doing what?

Teaching in their synagogues, and doing what else?

Preaching the gospel of the kingdom and doing what else?

Healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.

The next verse, this is verse 23, but the next verse says that multitudes from all over the region came to follow Jesus because of his ministry, because he combined these 3 things together.

How many of you are Seventh-day Adventist Christians?

I think everyone raised their hand again.

All right, how many of you are medical missionaries?

Okay, my goal, Our goal at the end of this talk is that all of you can be able to raise your hand.

It doesn't mean that you have to be a doctor, it doesn't mean you have to be a nurse, but we're going to show you that Christ's method is medical missionary work and He wants every 1 of you to take a hold of it.

So if someone asks you, are you a medical missionary?

You can answer yes, no matter what your other background is.

Now let us look at something very interesting.

Ministry of Healing, page 19, it says, during his ministry, Jesus devoted more time to what?

Christ’s Method Alone:  Sympathizing

For the next hour in this seminar, we are going to look at practical ways to put Jesus' method into action.

We saw in the last or in the first part of our program, we read a quotation from the book, Ministry of Healing, page 143, and it said, Christ's method, what does it say, everyone?

And then it said that there were 3 parts of Jesus' ministry.

This is the quotation, not necessarily the Bible verse, but it says, Jesus mingled with men as 1 who desired their good.

And then the next part was that he ministered to their needs and by doing all 3 of those things he won their confidence Now I want for you.

Okay, the first 1 the first 1 was mingling and we're gonna talk about that in detail right now.

The second 1 is sympathy, showing sympathy.

And the third is ministering to needs, ministering to their needs.

When Jesus did this, he won the confidence of the people.

And I want to make it very clear, and it is very important to recognize that Jesus didn't just say, come follow me first.

He didn't come and say, hello, my name is Jesus, come follow me, right?

He won the confidence of people and then, and only then, did he say, come and follow me.

It's very important to keep that in mind in our ministry as we seek to reach out to people that we win their confidence first.

But once confidence is won, I believe we have a divine obligation to ask people, come and follow Jesus with me.

All right, we're now going to look at the first aspect of Jesus' ministry, highlighted in ministry of healing, and the first part was mingling.

That's another excellent word for socializing.

Or did he just hang out in the hills of Galilee, just praying for the people?

Let's open our Bibles and let us look at a few examples of Jesus' ministry of mingling.

I'd like for you to look with me in the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew chapter 8.

This is really where the ministry, the public ministry of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew is really highlighted.

In Matthew chapter 8, in the first 4 verses, you find Jesus, what was he doing?

The multitudes were following him, so he was mingling with the multitudes of people in general, and then who did he go to help?

And especially at this time, leprosy was considered to be specifically a curse from God, right?

So when we're thinking in our context today of who shall we go mingle with, these are on the list.

Those who are put aside by the rest of society, those who are counted as unworthy.

There is no such thing as someone unworthy in Jesus' ministry.

The next story shows that he went and he mingled with who?

What's the next story in Matthew chapter 8?

I mean, these are the people that are the rich and famous, so to speak.

He didn't say, I'm only going to work for the poor and disenfranchised.

I'm only going to work with those who are absolutely destitute." He worked with those people, yes, but in his mingling and in his sympathizing, he went and ministered to the rich.

Are you afraid to minister to rich people?

Does that kind of give you a little bit of nervousness?

What is so interesting to me is that many, many people that are in positions of power and may include wealth are interested in health.

Specifically the Adventist health message.

I mean, people in governments around the world are actually asking the Adventist church to share the message.

The Pan American World Health Organization asked the Adventist Church, do your program here with our people.

The governments of the world were asking.

You see, the Ministry, the medical missionary work of Jesus, reaches the rich and the poor.

Luke chapter 19, in this chapter, there's a famous verse, and it's Luke chapter 19, verse 10.

For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save which was lost.

Okay, that was the center of Jesus' ministry.

Is that why you're going to be going to school?

Christ’s Method Alone:  Ministering

Okay, everyone, if I can have your attention once again.

We're getting ready for the final hour where we're going to put some things together.

And for this particular session, we are focusing on ministry.

He mingled with people for a reason, not just because he liked to go to parties, not just because he wanted to go hang out with people.

That's what it says in Luke chapter 19, to seek and to save the lost.

That was Jesus' specific desire and his plan.

So he mingled with people and he showed sympathy and he ministered only because he wanted them to be saved in the end.

Let's open our Bible to John chapter 2 and we're going to look and see how Jesus put this into action and how he would mingle with people, how he would show sympathy, and how he would minister to their needs in John chapter 2 verses 1 through 11 you read about the story of Jesus Working an amazing miracle where?

At a what At a wedding Jesus was there at a wedding feast and he worked a Miracle, he was meeting a specific need of those people was he not what kind of need would you say he was meeting?

I mean, they needed something to drink, so he was meeting a felt need and it was a social need, wasn't it?

I mean it wasn't necessarily physical, not like they couldn't drink water, right?

What I want to simply demonstrate is that Jesus, his miracle was meeting a need that was to save people from social embarrassment.

And then in John chapter 3, what do you see Jesus doing?

Who's Jesus ministering to in John chapter 3?

Nicodemus was what kind of an individual?

He was, what kind of need was Jesus working on with him?

So if we're thinking about this and putting it into context of how can we minister, how can we follow Christ's method alone which will bring true success, right?

Look for ways to meet the needs of people.

It may be a social need that you need to fulfill.

It could be like Nicodemus, a spiritual need.

Some people feel their spiritual needs acutely.

I mean, they're ready for Bible studies the first time that you meet them.

I want to study the Bible with you 5 days a week.

I mean, that's not the normal person, right?

But those kind of people are there and they just always they're spiritually so hungry What other kind of needs are there?

Let's look at John chapter 4 what kind of need is Jesus dealing with with the woman at the well.

So Jesus was again doing what he loved to do, mingling with people, showing his sympathy for people, breaking down all the barriers that the world was trying to put up around That time and he was going through that and what was he ministering to here?

What kind of need it's kind of a dual purpose, I mean there was 2 needs that Jesus was covering.

Emotionally There was so much turmoil going on, so much confusion, so many problems.

And so we see that Jesus was turning that every time Jesus did ministry.

He would always turn whatever the need was to spiritual.

There would always be a connection, Always be a connection.

And so Jesus turns this need, this need that the woman has in emotional, Jesus knows exactly how to get there.

He says, well, how many, where's your husband?

He brings it home and says, I know exactly what you need.

You need emotional fulfillment by knowing God and the truth.

And so Jesus would always minister to people's physical, spiritual, emotional needs.

Now in the world today, we live at a time where many people are sick.

I mean, in America, we're in a very bad state of affairs, physically speaking.

I mean, people are, how many people are obese in America?

As you travel around the world, if you come on mission trips with me if you go to the Pacific Islands you'll find it's 50% or 60% obesity I mean it's amazing People are suffering from high blood pressure.

How many people suffer from high blood pressure?

You walk down the street and you think about that when you pass every third person high blood pressure what's that gonna do?

I mean many people have such high blood pressure that they're walking time bombs.

I mean really some serious things could happen and also there's a shift in people's thinking Many people are turning away from pharmaceutical drugs, and they are saying, those are not working.

Now Alternative medicine see God has a right arm for his message and it's called What?

Medical missionary work Satan has a right arm for his message too and he uses health.

I wish we had 4 hours more to talk about the New Age.

Invite us to your church and we'll do a seminar but we don't have enough time.

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Series

iShare 2012 Seminar: Health Ministry for Young Adults in the Local Church

Christ’s Method Alone: Ministering

Transcript

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