GYC 2025: Seeing the Invisible

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Andrew Park

Different

As we mark the close of this year and also the opening of another, there is no other place I would rather be than right here in Orlando with you.

I am a pastor living in Michigan with my amazing family.

I'm also the president of GYC and I want to warmly welcome you to the 2025 conference this year.

Also to everyone who's viewing online, want to welcome you.

We're blessed that you're here with us today.

In this building, we have people from all over the world.

I know that some of you drove many hours to be here tonight in this convention center, and some of you flew some very long flights across oceans to be here.

Thank you for taking the time to go through the application process of obtaining a visa if you needed to.

I say this every year, but you have been prayed for, our speakers have been prayed for, they've been praying for you, and as our executive committee has been pleading for the Holy Spirit to have ownership of this place, I am fully confident that the next 4 days that we spend together is going to be filled with the light of Christ's presence.

We have every reason to believe that Jesus is already here And I'm excited to be in the presence of God.

Before we begin with tonight's message, I also have another quick announcement that we make every year as well.

And that is that this is a really big convention center.

We have a lot of people and Because of that, if you hear a song or a message or words that you resonate with during our time together, I invite you to say a hearty amen.

When we use amen in place of clapping, it helps us to have a focused worship experience during our time together.

Okay, I think all the preliminaries are done.

So let's have a word of prayer as we open up this convention with the keynote address.

Father in heaven, Lord, you know that the message I have is not in my hands.

I need you to have leadership in this place.

I invite the Holy Spirit, please use me as your instrument for the work of the gospel.

12 years ago, I came to this exact convention center for the first time.

I was 19 years old, I was a freshman in college, and I was here because my cousin Judy invited me to the 2013 GYC conference.

If you're here at the 2013 conference, just raise your hand.

Okay, so just a couple here from the 2013 conference.

I hadn't heard of it before and sadly even though I was at GYC I didn't make it to many of the main meetings because I wasn't in a good place spiritually.

Now even though I wasn't in a good place, I did end up going to 1 of the testimony plenaries where I heard a man named Lawami speaking.

He was sharing his story of how God took him from being a drug dealer to a servant of the Lord.

As he was sharing his story, I was totally captivated and at a distinct point in his testimony, he said, I was driving to a certain destination with a pound of cocaine and 2 pounds of marijuana, this was at a time when marijuana was illegal, in my trunk and as I was driving, a cop pulled me over.

He had my undivided attention because God took a man like that, worked a miracle in his life, and years later, put him on a stage to share the things that the Lord did for him to bring him out of darkness into Christ's marvelous light.

As I look back on that conference, even though I came to Orlando, focused on myself, seeing the world around me through my human perception and insecurities, through GYC in 2013 and many other influences that God was setting in motion, Jesus was in process of helping me to see through a different kind of eyes.

This evening, what kind of eyes do you have?

We're reading our theme passage for this year in Hebrews chapter 11 starting in verse 24.

And the Bible says Hebrews 11 24, by faith Moses when he became of age refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the to the reward.

By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is, what's that last word G-Y-C?

A man named Moses came to a point in his life where he had to choose his path.

Am I going to live the life that people only dream of?

Or will I live a life of suffering for the Master?

But the Bible tells us that Moses opted in for the life that probably none of the social media influencers you currently follow would take.

Now tell me, why would Moses throw his life away?

Why doesn't he use the platform of status that he's been blessed with?

Shouldn't he use his opportunities for God?

Verse 27 says, by faith he endured as seeing him who is invisible.

That means that Moses saw something that no 1 else in his social circle saw.

He had a clear vision of the invisible God.

GYC is a movement of young people at the end of this world that are wholly and entirely consumed, that are relentless in their pursuit of true vision.

I hope you brought your Bible with you tonight.

Phone Bibles do the job, but there's only 1 option in the physical Bible, if you know what I mean.

If you didn't bring 1 tonight, I warmly invite you to bring 1 tomorrow.

We're looking at 1 Kings chapter 17, verse 1.

Okay, the Bible says, And Elijah the Tishbite of the inhabitants of Gilead said to Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel lives before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years except at my word." Elijah was a man who lived during a time of overwhelming darkness.

He lived in a time when the Christians of his day were openly living in sin and in this era of compromise and immorality, Elijah was a man of destiny.

You see, when people turn away from God to pursue a life of darkness, God will do everything in his power to bring them back.

He'll even send warnings to bring us to repentance.

By the way, maybe you've experienced that before.

But if these things don't work, God will have no choice but to resort to speaking through judgment.

That's the place where the nation of Israel found themselves in Elijah's day.

They were persistent in unbelief, coming even to the point where they were attributing the blessings of God to the power of false gods.

So it's in this context that Elijah had a calling on his life.

God's call came to him and it was a call to be a prophet to the nation.

Being entrusted with prophetic responsibility, God assigned him to the task of giving a message of judgment to the king of Israel.

Imagine if you were sent by God to deliver a message to your nation's highest leader, your president, your prime minister, your king.

What if God told you to say, starting today, no electricity will run in the entire nation until I say so.

How comfortable would you feel giving that message in the White House, in the Kremlin, in your national governmental office, as a rebuke to your head of state, who would do that?

Elijah's message was, no more dew, no more rain, until I say so, a drought is coming.

By the way, Elijah doesn't live in an arid environment.

As he's on this journey to give this message from God, from Gilead where he lives to Samaria where he lives, all Elijah can—where the king lives, all Elijah can see is beauty.

There are strong rivers of water, hills covered with greenery, forests that seem impossible to be affected by drought.

It's almost like giving that message to your head of state that electricity will stop running.

And as you're on your way there, all you can see around you are the bursting city lights.

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