GYC SE 2012: Ultimate Purpose

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GYC Southeast

GYC SE 2012 Seminar: Personal Devotions

Taylor Hinkle

Making God in Your Own Image

Father in heaven, Lord, we're so grateful to be here.

And Lord, to spend some time learning how to get to know you better.

Lord, I know that this is the whole life of the Christian, of getting to know you more and being able to share that with others.

So Lord, I just pray that your spirit would come in here, impress our hearts.

Lord, may your words be spoken clearly so that we can be drawn nearer to you and that your character would be seen in spite of all the misunderstandings that we have.

So, the seminar I'm sure you've seen is called Making God in Your Own Image.

How many of you saw that and were kind of perplexed by what it means?

Have you ever heard someone say, Well, I don't see God that way.

And they're just conjecturing of what they think God is like.

Something that hit me, I'll share an experience of how this title came up in my mind.

There was a canvasser who went to a door.

I'm involved in literature ministry, so canvassing is really near and dear to my heart.

And so a lot of stories will come from there, because I believe it brings out practical applications.

So a young man goes to a door, and a gentleman comes to the door.

And immediately, the canvasser starts saying something to him, like, hi, my name is blank.

And the guy just looks at him and says hey I want nothing that you have I don't want anything about god I'm an atheist and the canister just looked at him and he said well tell me about the god you don't believe in And so the atheist is kind of taken back, and he's thinking, and he's like, well, I don't believe in a God who burns people in hell forever.

I don't believe in a God who just keeps going down the list.

And at the end of his list, The Adventist canvasser looks at the man and says, well, that's great.

And the atheist steps back, and he's perplexed.

This is the God that he's heard about all his life.

And what that shows me is that our view of God changes how we relate to him.

However we see God changes how we relate to him, how we want to get to know him.

And so in order to know God in his fullness, the devotional life, that's the part that we're talking about here, we have to have a correct basis or a correct understanding of who God is from the beginning.

Now, this obviously isn't just a simple past to accomplish we're not gonna be able to go through every single thing of looking at god's character what he's like so that we can understand and better have a proper understanding right were always growing in that the path of the just you know grows more and more until that perfect day.

But what we're going to be doing here is trying to look at 1 of the most fundamental issues of who God is and the common misunderstanding of that.

And how I want to share it is, just to give you a background on why I'm talking on what I'm talking on, is I've always, about the last 5 or 6 years of my life, I started being interested in what God wanted.

But how many of you have started studying it and felt like I have no clue what it's talking about.

And so I was in that situation, I feel like I don't understand this, and I felt like God was just trying to make me study the Bible so that I could be approved by him if I got it, then God would accept me, and it was just this whole different mentality than what the Bible really portrays, But sometimes we're tempted to feel that way, correct?

We're tempted to feel like, well, God doesn't really care about me now.

But once I start to learn about him, then he'll accept me.

I got so desperate that I'm like, I just have to know the Bible.

And this is while I was in college, so it wasn't like I was just had a bunch of free time, so I thought I would study.

But I was spending at least 3 hours studying the Bible every day.

And I still felt like, Lord, I have no clue how to study it.

And I remember I was going through the book of Ephesians.

I decided this is the book I'm going to learn.

So I memorized the whole book of Ephesians.

And I remember going up to an evangelist once and said, hey man, I don't know how to study the Bible.

And he said, well, why don't you pick a book of the Bible?

He's like, OK, well, read it like 10 times.

I told him, I was like, well, I read Ephesians 200 times already right now.

And he just looked at me astounded, like, what's wrong?

But the reason why I couldn't understand the Bible is because I saw God as someone distant, and I saw God as someone who he wasn't.

And this is what I want to share with you, this is the journey that I took.

And I want to read a quote to you because this is what the great controversy is about, right?

You know, Satan is constantly trying to misrepresent who God is in order to draw us away from God.

This is from Desire of Ages, page 21, paragraph 3.

It says, he, Lucifer, sought to gain control of heavenly beings.

So he's trying to gain control, and this is what he does to do that.

It says that he therefore misrepresented God, attributing to him the desire of self-exaltation.

With his own evil characteristics, he sought to invest the loving creator.

So Satan knows that if he could get the angels to think that God was not loving, that he was just concerned about himself, that then he could draw them away from God.

And not only that, but he sought to put his own characteristics, that of the devil, on God.

And I think that's really what we're seeing today, right?

You hear a lot of non-Christian atheist people who say they want nothing to do with God because they don't believe in a God who does blank, right?

And it may not even be a biblical thing, or it's just a misunderstanding of scripture that's leading them to that view of God.

And so, what is it that can help us change our mindset?

Where do you think we can find the clearest representation of who God is?

You know, what is the purpose of Christ coming?

But what else did Christ's death reveal to us?

And what does that show us about God's character as a whole and that's what we're going to be kind of focusing on is what is it that causes what brings about this mind shift because we look at Adam okay let's think of Adam back in the Garden of Eden right and Genesis chapter 3 what happens to Adam and Eve they fall and Adam does what wait This is common, this is common knowledge.

But Adam had this thought that since he had sinned, he was no longer accepted with God, right?

He was just, there was no way that God could love him.

How many of you have ever felt like, how could God, so perfect, love someone so sinful as me?

And so I felt that way, and that's how I was feeling as I was studying the Bible, and this is how Adam felt.

The Lifestyle of Worship

Father in heaven, Lord, we come to you because we realize we don't know you as we should, but Father, that we desire to know you more.

And Lord, we recognize that you desire for us to know you, that you're not being hid, that you're, you desire more than anything else to change our hearts and help us to know you.

And Lord, but in spite of that, we still need to know how to implement this into our lives, how to make it practical.

And so Lord, I just pray that your spirit would guide us.

Lord, that you would instruct us of how we can all come closer to you, that our life with you would grow, and that we would see you in a clearer way.

All right, the second session is the lifestyle of worship.

How many of you have ever studied successful people then when studied like what makes people successful the other some here what about athletes have ever studied the life of an athlete or the life of the biggest ceo steve jobs or different people like that you know I started getting interested in what it takes to make people successful without that I mean do you want to be successful people in life I mean I believe god wants his people to be successful so that we can make his name known wherever we are.

And so as I was thinking, what does it take to make people successful?

So I started Googling and doing a little research.

And as I pulled it, there was obviously a ton of information.

I'm not even claiming to have read a portion of it in consideration of what it was.

But as I started looking through, they tried to summarize what made people successful.

And this 1 guy summarized it to 50 things.

And I was like, well, that's not much of a summary.

But what did help me in seeing what it caused for someone to be successful is that it was a lifestyle.

It was a lifestyle commitment that caused people to be successful in whatever field they were going into.

Now, if you look at someone who's a successful student, they're not just a successful student on test day, are they?

But they're a successful student from the time they wake up to the time they go to sleep.

But their primary focus is on how to be applied to their studies, how to integrate the information, so that they can learn it better, right?

So you cannot be a successful student a couple hours a day.

How many of you think you could be a 4.0 student only studying 30 minutes a day?

I'd love to change my study habits greek is getting a little difficult not just give me a hard time but and then you look at athletes right and I started looking up olympic athletes that the top of the top The discipline that they put themselves through is very extreme.

I mean, there are people who will not eat anything unhealthful because they know that that could mess up their performance in 2 years.

Now, I don't think I want to do this because that could mess me up.

And when I get a job and when I have a family, that could hurt me then.

And we don't really think that way too often, right?

You're trying to think what's going to affect what.

And the discipline that they put themselves through is something that actually Paul uses to liken to the Christian life, right?

1st Corinthians chapter 10 Where Paul actually brings this analogy up and you might think well Why does running a race have anything to do with the Christian life?

And we kind of just take it, you know, you've heard people preach the sermon sometimes, well, we're running the race of Christianity.

Are you guys gonna run from here to Talish Hall to go back to your room?

And so, let's look at 1 Corinthians chapter 10.

Now let's pick up 1 Corinthians chapter 10.

I got excited and wrote down the next chapter.

Says, do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only 1 receives the prize.

Verse 25, everyone who competes in the games exercise self-control in how many things?

But in order to do that 1 thing well they discipline everything that makes sense that's what he's bringing out says they've been do it to receive a perishable read but we in imperishable right there They're not even doing it for anything that great.

You know, they're going to get a little crown, a little gold medal, and they're disciplining their whole lives for this 1 thing.

Now Paul brings out the point, verse 26 and 27.

Therefore I run in such a way as not without aim.

I box in such a way as not beating the air, but I discipline my body and make it my slave so that after I've preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified." So Paul is saying, you look at these athletes who are competing, they're disciplining themselves, they're doing all this preparation for 1 event and they don't even know for sure they're going to win that event.

And if they do, all they do is get this little medal.

And so he's showing that it's really nothing, but how about ourselves in our Christian lives?

Now I'm not saying that as a workspace we gain it by our works but we have the opportunity of being in heaven with christ forever but yet sometimes we walk through the christian life very haphazardly with no discipline no self-control and we expect for god to still speak to us and bless us and help us get it together does that make sense these people are so focused on their 1 goal that everything in their life comes into play with it and I believe that that's the secret to the christian life not in some sort of you know secret like here's the 1 key to having a successful Christian life, but that a Christian life is something that influences everything you do.

You cannot just have a devotional life in the sense of spending an hour a day in the morning, or whatever that may be, and then live your life however else you want, and expect to understand the Bible and understand the depths of who God is.

Now the problem is a lot of times as Christians we just want the simple key to knowing God, right?

How many of you have gone to studying the bible seminars just looking for okay what's the secret they're gonna give because when they give that secret it's just got off open the realms and I got it you know that's not what a devotional life is a devotional life is learning to know god more and that's something that you do all day long so it's not now I'm not saying that you do not have that time in the morning we need that we need to set aside specific time will talk about this but I want us to distance our mind from the thought christianity is a one-time event oral you know 1 day a week or 1 hour a day thing that we do in order to connect with God.

When I was first coming to God, I would study the Bible.

I said, I'm going to study the Bible an hour a day.

And I remember I dreaded that hour more than anything else in my life.

I'm just going to be honest and I think some of you could probably relate.

I mean I would start studying the Bible and I'm thinking this is miserable, it's really boring and why am I wasting my time, you know?

Because then right after I'd get done studying the Bible, I'd go watch Fast and the Furious, I'd play all my racing games.

My brother and I were in the street racing, like I was telling you, so we'd go race, run away from cops, and then I'd come away, and I'd be like, let's study the Bible.

You know, like, come on, you know, how is your mind that's so filled with adrenaline and all these different things going to be able to concentrate on something so solemn?

I'm not saying it's dull and it's boring.

But when you're filling your mind with so many other things, how can you focus?

It's first volume of the Testimonies, page 125, paragraph 2.

Principles of Division

Father in heaven, Lord, we recognize our need for your Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth as we spend some time studying your word.

Lord, we recognize that so many people misapply different things and they come up with crazy theories.

And Lord, we just pray that you would safeguard us from that.

Lord, may your spirit guide us to a closer knowledge of who you are and Lord help us to learn practical ways of how to increase our devotional life.

So the topic for this session is principles of division.

Now this is, how many of you liked division in elementary school, long division?

I remember like fifth, sixth grade when that hit.

Now, imagine if your teacher just gave you a division problem and never explained to you how to divide it.

Not only overwhelming, wouldn't you come up with some pretty fancy answers.

So this is, it's similar in the Bible, right?

Let's look at 2 Timothy, chapter 2, verse 15.

This is gonna be our platform that we're gonna start off in this presentation.

2 Timothy 2.15 says, Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth, or that King James says, rightly dividing the word of truth.

A workman who doesn't need to be ashamed is 1 that's equated with accurately dividing scripture.

So then the question comes up, how do you interpret scripture?

I mean that question, if God's like, hey, just divide it right, God bless, and just walks away, you're like, oh no, what's gonna happen?

But God gives us principles within his word to help us to divide it, right?

And some of those principles, which we're not gonna talk about at length here, We know the principle of line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.

And let scripture interpret itself is what we're looking at in those verses.

Now, how many of you have heard those verses used before in a study the Bible seminar?

So the reason why we're not going to be looking at that is because it's so prevalently used.

And so I just want to focus our time on a little different aspect of studying the Bible.

So we want to make sure that we are going line upon line, which what that means is you're just line upon line, right?

And we're not going to delve into the exegetical side of that.

But what we are going to look at are just different principles in the Bible or of study, even in different material that can be applied to the Bible that helps us to understand it better.

The first thing that I want to say is that studying the Bible, and this may not sound like a revelation to you, but it was surely a revelation to me, is that in studying the Bible, there is no key that unlocks the mysteries of scripture.

1 single key, 1 single little nuance of how you do it that unlocks it, right?

God is not a god of like the Buddhists, where the Buddhists believe in enlightenment, where once you get enlightened, you've just walked into this new world of where everything makes sense and everything is spiritual, that's not how the Bible is, right?

You spend time, you're studying his word, and it's through that study that you start to understand, right?

And the reason I bring that up is because if we think it's technique, we can waste so much time looking for that specific technique of studying scripture that we lose all the time that we could have used in just studying scripture itself.

Now, I'm not saying there aren't principles we apply, and there is a lot in depth, but I just don't want us to try to be finding the right formula, or thinking that God is just some sort of mystery that has to be figured out.

Because that's not what scripture is like, right?

And so he's already wanting to show it to us.

The first and most important thing would be repetition.

When you study for a test, do you just read the information through once and say, well, I know it.

So you're saying just because you've read it doesn't mean you know it?

Sometimes, and this is, I've had friends who, I'll start sharing something with them, and they're like, I know that, I know that, but what else?

This is what we need to understand, that the Bible isn't just what we see on the surface necessarily, but it's through repetition that we can start to understand the deeper things of scripture.

And scripture is laid out in a very interesting way.

And This is a very large overview type look at scripture.

And to how many of you is that kind of frustrating sometimes?

Like, I don't even know what happened back then.

And what I want to say is that it's not the only literature that does that, right?

He was actually a really funny experience.

A big guy, Hispanic, 6 foot, works out in the gym.

And I just thought I'd randomly ask him 1 time.

I'm like, hey, man, what's your favorite thing to do in the world, like favorite thing?

And he looks at me, manly guy, and he's like, study poetry.

So I thought, well, this poetry thing might have something in it, right?

So I'm taking a world survey of literature class at my college.

And we're surveying different poetry and different things like that.

And I thought it was the most boring thing I've ever read.

Like some of it was beautiful, and there was some nice stuff.

But there was 1 author, some specific authors, I can't even think of their names right now, who would be alluding to their own works.

Like they would use this phrase, and they would have used that phrase before in a poem 20 years before.

And that context helps you to understand this poem.

And I'm like, it doesn't even make sense.

Like, why can't you just speak in English?

And I'm thinking, how can someone love something so cryptic?

But what's interesting is when you start to understand poetry, you start to get a richer meaning.

Because instead of just saying 1 sentence, you have this huge connotation that goes along with it.

And that's kind of the beauty of poetry, that you're getting this big picture along with this simple phrase.

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GYC SE 2012 Seminar: Personal Devotions

Principles of Division

Transcript

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