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Ebenezer SDA Church

Recapturing the Wonder of Adventism

Daniel Pel

Recapturing the Wonder of Adventism, Part 1

I've been very, very extremely blessed in my Bible studies regarding the subject that I want to present.

It's kind of a, what I would call a paradigm shifting truth.

You know, I've been a Christian now for 13 years, an Adventist for 13 years.

I was baptized in 2001 and you know sometimes you think you know it all in the beginning, you know you adhere to the points of belief and you get baptized and you you just wonder what's going to come after that.

Looking back on these 13 years, I can say that it's been a journey of continually discovering what this book is all about.

But in that journey, as I look back on my own 13 years of being an Adventist, I can pinpoint a couple of moments that I would call paradigm shifting moments.

What I mean by that is there's this kind of this awakening that you suddenly see a truth that you never saw it like that before.

And that can be even very simply the gospel, The exchanged life, that my life, it's not about my works, it's about the works of Christ.

Something so, what we could call, fundamental in Christianity can suddenly come on the surface like we had never seen it before.

And I'm sure that some of you sitting here this evening know exactly what I'm saying.

You've been a Christian for a number of years and suddenly you read something.

Maybe it's the account of Christ's death, maybe it's the truth of the sanctuary, maybe it's something else and you suddenly read it and there's truth that emerges and you see something you never saw before and it changes your whole way of looking at God, your whole way of picturing who he is.

And it's 1 of these shaping truths that is kind of at the very foundation of this series that I would like to present.

I entitled this series, Recapturing the Wonder of Adventism.

And our first part this evening is entitled God's glory or God's story rather, but we'll see that his story is about his glory, God's story hijacked.

And before we go any further, I really feel that I want to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to guide us in our study of his words.

So let's bow our heads together and ask the Lord to be with us.

Dear Heavenly Father, it's such a great privilege to call you our Father, and we do so because Jesus, your Son, our brother, told us to approach you in that way.

And Lord, it's mind-boggling to think that the creator of the universe, the 1 that breathes and brings into existence stars and knows their name, is the same 1 that we call Father.

Lord, we come to you this evening And we want to ask for your Holy Spirit to speak to us, each 1 of us individually.

Lord, as we open your word, may we not just encounter truth that we merely accept with our minds as a theory, but I pray that we may encounter truth that will shape us on the deepest level possible.

And so I ask for your Holy Spirit to guide me in my words.

I ask for every person in this room, for an understanding heart, that we may perceive what you want to have us to see this evening.

I pray that you will tailor make this message to each and every individual need in this room.

And I ask these things in your wonderful name in Jesus name.

All right, take your Bibles and turn to the first chapter in the first book, Genesis chapter 1.

This is where we're going to start our journey together.

And I really hope you have your Bible with you because This is going to be a bit of a Bible study, and I'm going to really have to lay a foundation for where we are heading with this series, and in order to do that, I need to share a number of scriptures with you, so I hope you will be able to follow along in that.

And we're going to start in the book of Genesis chapter 1.

Again our title for this evening, God's Story Hijacked.

And I remember that before I was a Christian I thought that the Bible was a book that dealt with history that was not relevant for me today.

And yet when I started studying the Bible, I found out that the story of Scripture is extremely relevant for me living today.

And that the story of the Bible is really all about the story of God.

I like to think of it this way, and this works in English, history is his story.

When you think about history, 6, 000 years of history, it's all about God, it's his story that he is telling.

Now you might think, well I remember in high school in history classes that we talked about this and that and and some of the things that I know about history, they really have little to do with God.

Well, what we're going to find out this evening, that the atrocities of history and the dark sides of history and the dark chapters of history are really when man has attempted to hijack the story of God.

But when it is hijacked by man, then we get the atrocities that we can look back on in history.

And we're gonna start here in the book of Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis chapter 1, and we're going to look at the creation of man in verse 26 and 27.

Genesis chapter 1, verse 26 and 27, God has been creating the world with all its beauties and now on the sixth day mankind is created and God says in verse 26, let us make man in our image.

According to our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them." Mankind, according to scripture, the first thing that we learn about the human beings, the first created human beings, is that they were created in the image of God.

Now, what was the reason of them being created in the image of God?

Turn with me in your Bibles now to the book of Isaiah, the book of Isaiah, and we're going to go to Isaiah chapter 43 and verse 7.

And this is like a, in a nutshell, the reason why you exist.

Have you ever wondered, why am I actually here?

In 1 verse we have it all summed up and this is really what we're going to look deeply at, what it means, this verse means for us.

We're made in the image of God according to Genesis, but what is it all about?

Isaiah is recording the very words of God.

And God says, Isaiah 43, verse 7, everyone who is called by my name whom I have created for, what does your Bible say?

What is the reason of our existence according to this simple verse?

God says everyone, that means that no 1 is left out by the way, not 90%, not 95%, not 99%, not 99, 9%.

Everyone, Every single person that ever entered into this world as a human being is created for 1 purpose and that purpose is to give glory to God, to give glory to God.

Now, go back 1 chapter in Isaiah, go back to Isaiah chapter 42 and look at verse 8.

So we found out in the book of Genesis that we are made in the image of God.

To be made in the image of God means to reflect the glory of God, to give glory to God continually, that's the purpose of our existence.

Now look at Isaiah chapter 42 and verse 8 and this is again God speaking and when God speaks we better listen.

God says, I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory I will not give to another, nor my praise to carved images.

So God is not in the business of sharing his glory with you or with me.

God created us in his image and what that means is to reflect all glory back to God.

All glory belongs to Him and God is not sharing that glory with anyone else.

Now maybe at this point you're thinking, ha, well that creates kind of a egocentric picture of God.

That kind of creates a picture of God, that it's all about him, and he wants worship, and he wants glory, and he wants all of me.

Isn't this, you know, is that the kind of God we worship?

You know, what I want us to see together, and this was really kind of a paradigm shift for my own experience when I came to see this from Scripture, is that every single page of the Bible is about the glory of God.

But at the same time, the glory of God and it being all about him is the most beautiful truth in the entire universe.

And we're gonna kind of try to unpack that together.

Why is it the most beautiful truth that all the glory is about him?

Why is it the most beautiful thing that all my life must be given to him?

And that I cannot retain any of that glory but it must go to God.

Because if anyone else, listen very carefully, if anyone else besides God would claim glory it would be very ugly.

I mean we see that in the world don't we?

When people claim glory for themselves and worship for themselves and attention for themselves, it becomes sin, and in the middle of the word sin you have I.

It becomes pride, in the middle of the word pride you have I.

Self-focus is the most ugly thing in the universe.

Recapturing the Wonder of Adventism, Part 2

I've been a Seventh-day Adventist for 13 years.

13 years ago, I made the decision to enter into the waters of baptism, and I can still say this day that it was the best decision of my life.

I love the Seventh-day Adventist message.

I believe it's the message that the world needs more than anything else.

But I also believe with all my heart that we need to recapture the wonder of Adventism.

Sometimes we get caught up in so many things of life, and sometimes we even get caught up in the motions of going to church and perhaps doing the right thing, but we lose sight of who it's all about.

And so my great desire in this series is that we come back to what Adventism really revolves around and that is the person Jesus.

And he invites us into an incredible story.

And in our first part we looked at the invitation that God has given to each 1 of us to become part of his story.

Remember what I mentioned, for those of you that were there, you'll remember that I mentioned that history is his story.

And when we think about the history of scripture, it is really an invitation for us as human beings to enter into his story, to enter into history and become a part of what God is doing in the world.

And yet what many times happens is that instead of entering into the story of God, we hijack God's story.

And that was the title of our first message.

And when we hijack God's story, what we're doing is we're saying to God, I would rather write my own story, I would rather have life revolving around me than revolving around you.

And if we really want to have a meaningful life, a purposeful life, a life full of true happiness and joy, we must surrender our own plans and enter into God's story, because God's story is so much bigger and grander than anything that we could plan for ourselves in this life.

And what we're going to do this morning is we're going to look at how we can enter into God's story.

If the Scripture is all about an invitation to enter into God's great grand story for us.

And I would like to invite you, if you have your Bibles, and I hope you do, and otherwise I hope you can follow along with someone sitting next to you if they will be happy to share with you their Bibles.

I invite you to turn to Genesis chapter 1.

This is also where we started in our first message and we want to do the same now.

We want to begin in the beginning of the story.

We have an account of the creation story in Genesis chapter 1.

And he called it, he looked at it and he said it was very good.

And we read about the creation of the first human beings, Adam and Eve.

And in Genesis chapter 1 verse 26 and 27, this is what it says about the creation of Adam and Eve.

Then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.

Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them." The first thing that we learn about mankind in Scripture is that they are made in the image of God.

They are made to reflect the glory of God.

We do not have any glory in and of ourselves.

We are merely like a mirror and we were created to reflect everything back to God, to worship God.

And in worshipping God and in reflecting the glory of God, we find our greatest happiness.

And I mentioned this also in our first presentation that the problem today is really that we want glory for ourselves.

And whenever we want glory for ourselves, and we no longer reflect the glory of God, we have hijacked the story of God, And in doing so, we think we find pleasure, but we end up finding emptiness.

And that's why in this world today, people need more than anything else to understand what they're created for.

Now I want to drop down to the end of the chapter and I want you to take notice of verse 31.

Then God saw everything that he had made and indeed it was very good so the evening and the morning were the sixth day." According to Scripture, mankind was created, Adam and Eve were created, not on the first day, not on the second day, not on the third, fourth, or fifth day, but in the creation account they were created on the sixth day.

And there is a lot of truth in that, because they were not created in the beginning, but in the very end of the creation account.

And so when they came on the scene, the story was already happening.

They entered into God's story and they entered in on the sixth day.

And The first thing that they were to do is when you continue to read into chapter 2, is they were to rest, they were to experience the Sabbath.

Sometimes you might think, well, what must that rest have been about?

Because they weren't really tired, they were just created.

And God doesn't get tired, He's omnipotent, He's almighty, He's all-powerful.

It wasn't that God was tired and needed a rest, neither did man need a rest because they just came on the scene.

And the Sabbath that is introduced right after the sixth day, the seventh day Sabbath, is actually an amazing, beautiful picture of the character of God.

I want to read a couple of verses here from Genesis chapter 2.

Mankind created on the sixth day, We enter into the seventh day, and listen to what it says.

Thus the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished.

Verse 2, And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done.

Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made.

The word that is used is sanctified, and to sanctify something is to set it aside for special use.

It was to be a time in which they would remember the creation, and that wasn't very hard in the first Sabbath that had just happened.

And so, looking back upon all that God had done, and actually enjoying that they are now part of God's story.

God created in 6 days, man didn't create in 6 days.

Man only came on the sixth day when everything was done.

What man had to do is enter into the rest of God, enter into the story of God, and actually be part of what God was doing, what God had done.

And this is amazing because when you think about the Sabbath, and the first thing that we learn about the Sabbath, is that it was sanctified.

Now the first thing that God ever sanctified was time.

And I want you to think about that for a moment because when you look at the various religions in our world today, You will find in the various religions and world views in our world today that there is often a sanctified place or there is a sanctified object.

Think about Islam for example, they have a sanctified place.

It is advised for the followers of Islam to, once in their lifetime, make a journey to Mecca, a pilgrimage to Mecca.

There are other religions that have sanctified places.

And then you have a lot of religions that have sanctified objects.

A number of years ago, my wife and I, we were traveling to India.

And for a month long, we were traveling to different places in India and preaching and teaching the word of God.

And I remember that we had to take a taxi in the city of New Delhi.

And New Delhi is quite a wild city and the driving is, well, it's not like here, to say it that way.

And I remember sitting in the car and the taxi driver had this little object on his, right in front of him there, in the car.

And it was actually an object that was sacred.

And I found out that many taxi drivers, they have these sacred objects in their car because they believe it's there to protect them.

Well, the protection is really something they need, by the way.

But when I looked at that, I thought, well, I would rather put my faith in a living God, in the creator God, than a plastic object right there.

And yet, in many religions today, there is either a sacred place or a sacred object.

But isn't this just mind boggling that the first thing that God sanctifies is not an object and it's not a place, but it is rather time.

Now what is so special about time and the fact that God sanctified time, what does that say about his character?

If a place is sanctified, then in order to experience God or to experience whatever the supreme being that the religion believes in, in order for that to be, him to be experienced, I must go to that place.

And if there is an object that is sacred, then in order to experience the God that the object resembles, I must have the object.

When God sanctifies The Sabbath, He is sanctifying time.

And time is not something you go to, and it's not something you have, but it's something that is coming to you.

If someone would lock me up in a room and I couldn't go anywhere and I could not get the sacred object and I could not go to the sacred place, the seventh day is always coming to me.

Recapturing the Wonder of Adventism, Part 3

We've come to the third and last part in our series, Recapturing the Wonder of Adventism.

And this final message is entitled, Writing the Last Chapters.

And I believe you and I are called into God's story to do exactly that.

There are some last chapters of earth's history that need to be written and we can be part of that.

And so I look forward to share with you what God has laid on my heart.

I will also mention that normally when I'm here, I'm here together with my wife.

It was about a year ago the last time I was here.

My wife is not with me this time, and there's a reason for that, because she's pregnant.

And in about 1 month, we are expecting our first child.

So maybe next time we come, we'll come the 3 of us.

And we're very happy, and of course, anticipating this, as this is going to be a great change in our lives, but a great blessing as well, I believe.

I know that the greatest testimony for God is a well-ordered family and that is our great prayer that that may be a testimony our family.

I would like to have another word of prayer as we open God's Word and I invite you to bow your heads together with me.

Heavenly Father We are so grateful that we can be gathered together here, and we ask once again that your Holy Spirit will be poured out upon us.

There's nothing that we can do without you, and yet with you all things are possible.

Lord, as we seek to recapture the wonder of Adventism, I pray that we may truly understand our identity, who we are.

For Lord, when we truly understand our identity, it will give power to our mission.

So please, grant us your spirit, grant us your presence.

Again, I pray that all hindrance may be removed from us so that we will clearly understand what you have for each and every 1 of us.

The Scriptures reveal the history of God.

And they span 6, 000 years, And here we are in the very end.

We are anticipating the coming of Jesus, the advent of Christ.

And prophecy reveals that Jesus is soon coming, and that's not just merely a cliche, amen?

Now we call ourselves Seventh-day Adventists and an Adventist is referring to someone that is awaiting the Advent, the coming of Christ.

And I believe that the truth of Seventh-day Adventism, it must impact our lives and shape our lives.

Sometimes we narrow down what it means to be a Seventh-day Adventist.

See a Seventh-day Adventist is not just someone that goes to church on Saturday, Sabbath, and that awaits the second coming of Christ in the end of time, Adventist, seventh-day Adventist, even though it is important that we follow God's Word all the way and go and fellowship and worship on the right day, Sabbath, the Saturday.

And it is very important that we have a correct understanding that Jesus indeed will come back in the end of time, Adventist.

Yet being a seventh day Adventist, listen very carefully, is not limited to a day once a week and an event in the end of time.

Recapturing the wonder of Adventism is recapturing the meaning of the Sabbath and the advent of Christ every day and every moment of our lives.

We found, we already found out in our second part this morning of our series that the Sabbath is a beautiful manifestation of the character of God.

And the first time the Sabbath was introduced, it was introduced as the time that God sanctified.

And when God sanctifies time, He sets it aside as something special, and time is something that always comes to us.

We talked about how that in many religions, there are sacred objects and there are sacred places.

And so in order to experience God, according to many religions, you need to go to a sacred place or you need to obtain a sacred object.

And that means, and that shows that time, since it is coming to us, God is initiating this relationship with us and he's inviting us into his story.

We were created on the sixth day and then a rest follows God's story is there and we are invited to become part of it.

Series

Recapturing the Wonder of Adventism

Recapturing the Wonder of Adventism, Part 2

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

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