Presentation given at the AMEN Australia 2018 annual conference held in Adelaide, Australia, www.amenaustralia.org.

AMEN Australia 2018: Healing, Surviving, Thriving

<p>Presentation given at the AMEN Australia 2018 annual conference held in Adelaide, Australia, www.amenaustralia.org.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Adventist Medical Evangelism Network Australia

Andrew Jasper

Maintaining Life Balance


There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered his rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from his. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for the Sabbath and thank you for a place to see the sunset way up high off the ground. Thank you for the peace, the rest that is ours, not only on this day But as we take its benefits with us into the week, we can hide its precious gem in our heart, in our minds.

Thank you for a place to come and relieve us of our burdens and our cares. We can more fully take up your yoke, more fully learn of you who is meek and lowly of heart so that we can find rest for our souls, for truly your yoke is easy and your burden is light. Speak to us now from your word, in Jesus' name, amen. Healing, Surviving, thriving. I'm not sure if that was supposed to be consecutive and progressive, but it could make sense because as we heal and give, sometimes we get to points in our life where we merely survive.

And the question is how do we get back to thriving? The Sabbath is our antidote for the pressures of life so that we can have balance in our life. The Sabbath. The Sabbath. Think back 6, 000 years ago.

God is speaking words that make things out of nothing. And then he comes to a patch of ground in the garden. The scripture says he made man out of the... What? You ever tried making anything out of dust?

What do you have to do to make something out of dust? Add what? What happens when you add water to dust? So you're telling me God got down on his hands and knees in the mud, and he made Adam. You just answered my questions, right?

And there he is, formed, fashioned, but dead? No? That's a trick question. He's not dead, but he's not alive. What is he?

He's there, but not quite there yet. And God breathes into him the breath of life. So, maintaining what balance? Life's balance. We need to understand what life is.

And after following 2 doctors tonight, I'm a bit intimidated. Brother Butcher was supposed to have this talk and he needed some time off to keep life's balance, I'm sure as he was preparing this talk, it finally hit him. I can't go and do this talk, I need this. He's at home with his family. Praise God for a conference president who finally could say, I'm sorry, I can't make it because I need to be with my family.

Praise God. Maintaining life's balance, not dead, not non-living, but with the breath of life. Adam becomes a living soul, a living being, alive. And so his blood vessels start pumping, his brain nerves start functioning. He gets switched on.

Yeah? You switched on? You're not sure. Because this is the third talk tonight, right? The Sabbath is a time to remember the God who made something out of nothing, because that's what he wants to do inside of us.

When we're in survival mode, tempted to burn out, It's almost as if we have nothing left to give. And that's where God could start to bring renewal on the inside. You're getting to the And let him restart your life. The created world that we see today abounds with mysteries, And the Sabbath brings us back to reflect on the Creator's handiwork and power and mystery of life. Even where there is no life, there is still wonder and enchantment.

The cosmos is full of mystery. Take for instance our closest sun, the star. Sorry, our closest star, the Sun. I had the wrong switcher in my hand and I was wondering why it wasn't working. Now I can get it to work.

How big is this thing? Have you ever done any overseas travels? You get on that big blue jet and you're traveling over the Pacific or over the Atlantic and you're up there for hours. How big is our planet? Nothing compared to the sun.

There it is right there. If we want to put that in full screen, let's take a look at what this looks like. You could put 100 planet Earths across the diameter of the sun. So you thought your overseas trip was huge and massive this ball of fire up in the sky 93 million miles away sorry for those American measurements still haven't stopped to calculate the kilometers This thing puts off 5 million tons of matter every second. Great weight loss program for New Start participants.

Got to figure out how it does it. Shooting out its beautiful energy, 360 in every axis, most of it which never benefits our planet, but a small sliver gets to our planet, heating and maintaining our life, that for all intents and purposes to our visible eye is the only lonely planet with life. The Sun. 1 star. Actually a modest star.

If you're to look in astronomy today, the largest star today, this shows up really good tonight. In churches, this is often blasted out, blanched out by the sunlight. There's the sun, there's Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The largest star on record now would fit somewhere between the orbit of Jupiter and Saturn. I wonder how much energy that puppy puts off every second.

That's a massive star. You don't seem impressed. Somebody out there say amen. I'll get you to say amen here in just a minute because as you go outside and look at the Milky Way that density of stars right in the wings of our own galaxy And then you realize that when the telescopes look into that mass, you find out you're not looking at stars after all. Some of those are actually whole galaxies of other stars.

And so the astronomers estimate, conservatively, somewhere in the order of 100 sextillion stars in our known universe at the present moment. Think about it. How much power and energy and force and heat is being put off by all of that mass of energy, and the Bible simply says, oh yeah, he made the stars also. Almost as if it were a cosmic sideshow to the great God of heaven. Who is it that has invited us into this space called Sabbath?

It is the 1 who said, stars. And Jesus said, all right, Father. Stars, Holy Spirit. There they were. I tell people, and I get crucified for it sometimes, I believe in the Big Bang.

God said it, bang! It happened! This is the life. You know what we're seeing out there? That's not even alive that's just chemicals forces laws of physics it's fascinating it's not even alive come with me to something that actually lives I'm bunch front of a bunch of medicos here, and I'm gonna talk about the eyeball.

Are there any ophthalmologists here? I'm just curious to know. Okay, I might get away with this. I'm fascinated by the eyeball, not only because I married an orthoptist, I was fascinated with the eyeball back in my studies at Weimar College. Pre-Nedley days, you came too late, man.

I graduated from Weimar as a pastoral ministry major with an emphasis in about 3 other things, I don't know. Rob Granger was 1 of my teachers and I took an advanced nutrition class from him. Not a thing to do for a preacher! I should have taken intro to nutrition, man. I took some third-year class because I had to get a nutrition course in my last year.

Mistake. I passed, didn't I, Ron? I taught an amniotic physiology laboratory for 2 years. I was so fascinated by the body and how it works and functions that Dr. Goley was our head of the health department.

I got to not only take the class, but the next 2 years I got to teach the lab. I was fast. We got the cats and frogs and dissect. I remember 1 other teacher found out I love dissecting things, she wanted me to dissect a cow's heart. I like prepared animals much better than the ones from the butcher.

I do like the eyeball. We actually dissected a sheep head and the eyeball of a sheep. I don't know if all of the eyes, I've never done human anatomy dissections, didn't go into medical school, but the eyeball of a sheep, that back part of the retina, it is absolutely fascinating. The iridescence. Is the human eye like that too?

Those of you who have dissected human eyes? Nobody has dissected human eyes. Well, let me tell you, go get a sheep's head after it's dead and take a look at its eyes. I'm not joking. It is fascinating.

And as you look into the eye, Weren't we told in grade school that what you saw in your right eye goes to what side of your brain? And what you see in your left eye goes to which side of your brain? And when you went to college and medical school, you found out that wasn't true, didn't you? Because what you see on the right-hand side of the right eye goes to the right hand side of the brain and couples up with what you see on the right hand side of your left eye. And that optic chasm actually splits the nerves.

They go all over the place. And it's not just rods and cones. My wife tells me, you've got nerves that see edges of things and other nerves that see motion of things better. And it is. And then you get into the muscles.

I love muscles because muscles contract. Do they pull or push? Y'all are way too tired tonight. How many came from Sydney in that bumpy way? They pull!

So When your lateral rectus of your right eye, sorry, over there, your lateral rectus contracts, which way does your right eye go? To the right. And what happens when your superior rectus contracts? It goes where? Right?

But you've got how many eyes? That was a trick question. You have 2 eyes. So when you want to look up, your superior rectus contracts. And what happens to both of your eyes?

They go up. But the fascinating thing is when you go right and left, you've got opposite muscles contracting, right? Isn't that cool? It's like, who made, don't you, aren't you glad you don't do, you know, kind of like this and like this, you know? You don't have opposite muscles when you go up and down, but right to left, they're opposite muscles.

It's lateral rectus and a medial rectus to turn right, and the other 1 is left. Who designed that 1? If you think you're having a bad hair day, there are animals that seem much better than us. They have much greater acuity. This guy, he's great.

He actually can do this. 360 degree radial sight all over the place. Chameleon, lizard, fascinating. Nothing gets around this guy. He sees everything.

This one's also fascinating to me off the southern coast of Australia. What is this? The cuttlefish. Your birds in your cages have that little cuddle bone? It comes from this guy.

That's what they sharpen their beak on. This guy has a W-shaped pupil. Also, 2 fovea for seeing in front and in back at the same time. You cannot sneak up on a cuttlefish. Its cousin, I'm not an evolutionist but you get what I'm meaning, is the octopus and the squid.

You've seen these guys. They're very fascinating creatures. Can you see it? The marine biologist who took this film was following the octopus. You don't see it because he's camouflaged into the plant.

Watch as your eyes see him unfold his true colors. This is the octopus, squid, and cuttlefish's capacity to blend into their environment so well that they look like a rock moving on the bottom of the ocean. I'm a rock, I'm a rock, I'm a rock. But when I get to this red plant, boom, I turn into the red plant. That is not photoshopped.

Who made this thing? That is an octopus by the way, and now he's part of the plant. Masters of camouflage. The cuttlefish is no different. This is a cuttlefish in the laboratory acting like he's a plant.

This is the God who made you. This is the God who told you, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. So in order to maintain balance in life, I've just got my 0 minute. If the axe is dull and 1 does not sharpen the edge, then he must use more strength. But wisdom brings success.

If you're losing your edge in life, it's time to stop and go back and sharpen the saw. Sharpen your capacity. He said to love him with our whole what? Our heart, our soul, all of our mind and our strength. We're not just physical beings.

We're whole people. We illustrate that today in a metaphor that is actually able to reach out to secular minds. This is common now. We're not just physical beings. We're more than that.

We're an integrated whole person. And we need to become physically energized, mentally focused, emotionally connected and available to other people, and spiritually aligned. So that we can sustain high performance in the storm. And let me tell you, the storm is coming. Relentless in its fury, are we prepared to meet it?

There is reason to live a balanced life. My wife's adopted grandfather said, I pray, I would rather be 100 years too early than 5 minutes too late for the coming of Jesus. And the Sabbath is a reminder. I'd rather be early for the Sabbath than 5 minutes too late. What's the key to being ready and prepared?

She says, are we 1 with Christ as he is 1 with the Father? If you are seeing people in this state of affairs, and let me just ask, an intensity such as never before was seen is taking possession of the world. In amusement, in money-making, in the contest for power, there is a, sorry, in the very struggle for existence, talk about just barely surviving, She says there is a terrible force that engrosses what 3 things? This is what we're to love God with, with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind, all of our strength, and yet here in the last days there is this intensity that is just sapping us of our faculties. It doesn't matter our gender, it doesn't matter our age, we are bombarded.

And this is speaking of the world. She goes on to say in the midst of this maddening rush, God is speaking and he bids us come apart and commune with him. Be still and know that I am God." Then she goes a little farther and a little more closer to us at home. Many even in their seasons of devotion. Who is she talking about now?

That's us. We fail of receiving the blessing of real communion with God. Why? We're in too great haste. With hurried steps, we press through the circle of Christ's loving presence, pausing perhaps a moment within the sacred precincts, but not waiting for counsel.

We have no time to remain with the divine teacher, and with their burdens, she says, they return to their work. If you're going to maintain a lifestyle like this, you're going to come to a point of breaking. And so she says these workers can never attain the highest success until they learn, and this is the good news, no matter where you're at, no matter how tightly wound that is about to break, She says you need to learn the secret of success. May this Sabbath be a time where you learn this secret this weekend. She says we must give ourselves time to think and to pray, to wait upon God for a renewal of what?

Physical, mental, and spiritual power. Look at these words. They need the uplifting influence of His Spirit. The what kind of influence? I just got new tennies this last week.

Man, they bounce. These aren't them. But I got these tennies that got this like spring bounce in them. And I love this quote. It's uplifting.

Yeah? You see, this is what God sent into Adam, that breath of life. These are life words. Let these words recreate in you newness of life. Listen to them.

Receiving this, they will be, what? That's a life word, quickened by fresh, what? Life, you hear it? I love this next 1. The wearied brain, the tired, sorry, The wearied frame and the tired brain will be refreshed, and the burdened heart will be lightened." She concludes, not a pause for a moment in his presence, but personal contact with Christ, to sit down in companionship with Him.

This is our need. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for your word. It is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword.

It's even cutting now, convincing, convicting us of a need that we dare not deny another day. Our need is to sit down with you and talk things through, and be refreshed and renewed physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. Bless us this weekend as we seek to do that with your presence here in our midst. In Jesus' name, Amen. This media was brought to you by AudioVerse, a website dedicated to spreading God's Word through free sermon audio and much more.

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Maintaining Life Balance

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