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Living Hope SDA Church

Christian Martin

Our Message Has a Name

Today's sermon title is Our Message Has a Name.

Let's bow our heads together as we acknowledge him.

Father in heaven, we thank you Lord because you have given us a message.

And today Lord we pray that you would guard our hearts and give our minds the ability to give attention to your still small voice, speaking to us to remind us, to convict us, to reveal to us what the greatest message is that you have entrusted us to share with this lost and dying world.

So Lord, come, join us, be with us, speak to us through your word, and we thank you in Jesus' name, amen.

A small group of Christian men and women gathered together wanting to grow in faith.

They knew that God was working among them and there was a greater work for them to do.

They wanted to make a greater impact and so they saw the need to become more organized.

Gotta have a plan, gotta be organized in order to be able to fulfill the mission that God has given us.

In fact, they were convicted that they needed a name.

James White, 1 of the gentlemen among them, had made the comment in an earlier convention that this movement, like a child who's only 16 years old, would feel awkward not to have a name.

So they had a meeting, a business meeting together and they start discussing a name.

And others felt that, no, Church of God, that's a little too much.

They felt that was being a little boastful.

Other names included Friends of the Sabbath, Seventh-day people, a church of God.

And in time, in time, the name Seventh-day Adventist came up, it was discussed.

And it was a man by the name of David Hewitt who introduced the motion, and I quote, resolved that we take the name Seventh-day Adventist.

But after some discussion among them, his motion was withdrawn.

Because some delegates felt concerned that the wording was not the best.

That didn't sound right with some of them.

Well, it was discussed some more and the resolution was reworded to say that we call ourselves Seventh-day Adventists.

And this was approximately 16 years after the Great Disappointment, October 22, 1844.

And so the minutes record that, and I quote, the Seventh-day Adventist was proposed as a simple name and expressive of our faith and position.

The name Adventist, Advent, affirms that Jesus Christ is coming back, The same Jesus who went up to heaven, the same 1, will return visibly, literally, gloriously, audibly, and he's coming back to take us home.

Then seventh day reminds us that only the last day of the week was made holy and favored over the other 6 days as the Sabbath of the Lord and memorial of creation.

A reminder that we are dependent upon God, that He fills the voids of our life.

That's what the Sabbath celebrates among many other deep things.

So Seventh Day was very fitting and the committee closed adjourned sensing that God had been with them.

You know, Seventh-day Adventists now, over the years, have a message, all right.

There is a message that needs to be heard.

I want us to realize that we must not, we cannot, we must not end up with the message but without the name.

You know in today's world of smartphones, I would say the majority of us here have a smartphone, you know, it's very easy to know things.

We can find out things in a blink of an eye.

If someone asks the question, how long is the Vernazzo Narrows Bridge in New York City?

But if you were to take your cell, your smartphone, and if you have an iPhone, you would say, Siri, I got a question.

And I asked and I immediately was told it's 13, 700 feet long.

If we were to take our cell phone, get that knowledge and that information and have that knowledge now of something we didn't know before.

But what if we compare that to sitting down next to an 85-year-old retired construction worker, a man who is full of stories.

You can just see that by the look of his eyes.

A man who spent 2 years of his life building the Vernazzo Narrows bridge in his 20s.

2 years, long hours every day, and we were to learn his name and hear his stories.

After a short time, not only would we get the right information with details that we never imagined, but we would get that information with great passion.

Listen my friends, knowing the name of a bridge is mostly factual.

You got the stats, you got the facts, and knowledge is impersonal.

A radio can transmit knowledge, But you know, you don't have any relationship with the voice that's sharing that information.

But when you know the name of the person who built the bridge, you suddenly have access to the story behind the structure.

And what was once distant becomes intimate.

What was once something that was just merely impersonal and factual becomes something that's alive.

There's something about a connection when you hear this story and discover the behind the scenes from a personal, intimate source.

And think about it in a similar way, gaining biblical knowledge and knowing various topics in the Bible.

You've gone through all the different sets.

You've learned, you've internalized all these different subjects and you know how to teach them well.

That's 1 thing, and that would be a spiritual gift.

It would be very helpful knowing many Christian beliefs.

But when we know the name of the message, something more happens.

You know, if we as Adventists just baptize people because they agree to a set of 28 fundamental beliefs without full ownership of their newfound faith, without coming to a place of surrender, a place of knowing and tasting and seeing that God is good.

A place where they've come to take ownership of their own faith.

Not something passed down from another generation, but something that they have come themselves to know.

Because they have spent time in the Word, which is the source of the teachings they have learned.

They've come to know the Savior, the Lord.

When they've come to discover this, something happens.

But when it's just an agreement of a set of 28 fundamental beliefs and that's all you know, what will happen?

Maybe for a few years, maybe even a few decades.

I have the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.

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Our Message Has a Name

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