Empowered

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Eastern Canada Youth Conference

Valmy Karemera

ECYC 2011 Plenary Meetings

The Prerequisite of Empowerment

Andy Im

The Lostness Monster: The Empowerment of Identity

Mirriam Norte

The Joy of Full Surrender

The American Facade: The Empowerment of Purpose

Mark Johnson

Outreach Charge

Possessing the Land: The Empowerment of Destiny


Well, it's a joy to be able to be here today, and I just need to set some of my apparatus down there so that I can turn my attention to you. Thank you for being here. I want to tell you how much it means to me as an individual who has a responsibility in God's church To think about how we are going to deal with the great task That we have before us We are living under war conditions Because there is a huge challenge that is going on. There's a conflict that's called the great controversy between Christ and Satan. And it's being played out in the lives of individuals, real people.

The challenge that we face is that so many of us have grown up in this room, watching things on television, seeing films, videos, and so on, of things that are not real. And we've become accustomed to the sense that it's no big deal because those people will appear in another film on another day. But the reality is is that the challenge between salvation and sin is a deadly challenge. This past week, as many of you likely are aware, 1 of our Seventh-day Adventist teachers, a principal of the Seventh-day Adventist School in Memphis, Tennessee, was murdered by 1 of her own students, stabbed to death by someone who had been plotting her death since May, who was a student there. And as I listened to that sad story, and Suzette York was a person who had ministered for the church from the Maritimes to British Columbia and had more recently gone to work in the United States.

As a principal and teacher, I thought to myself at the time that she got up that morning, she did not know that this was her last day. And by 1115, she was dead. We live in a time and under circumstances that are very serious, very challenging. And The reality is that Christ needs for us to understand that so that we can, as people who are a part of his church, be as serious about sin and salvation as he himself really is. I appreciate the fact that there is, across Canada and I think throughout the North American division, a renewed sense that God is touching and inspiring men and women in different places and from different backgrounds with the same burden and the same conviction that Canada is a beautiful place, but we don't wanna be here forever.

You follow what I'm saying? Heaven is our home. That's where we belong. And God has a plan for individuals. He has a plan for you and a plan for me.

The plans that God has encompasses the need for us to with urgency, communicate the gospel to individuals for whom the very concept of the gospel is a foreign term. Many of the people who are your contemporaries have no knowledge of Jesus or God as a savior. To them, the terms God or Jesus have only been heard from the reference of profanity. Many of these individuals have no point of connection. The challenge of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America today is the same challenge that we faced many years ago when the church determined that it was going to take the gospel to China, when it was going to take the gospel to foreign lands of Asia, of Africa, and other contexts, where now the gospel had to be presented to people telling about a God that they were not familiar with, using techniques that we had never used in the church before, expressing in language which was foreign to the way that the older saints were accustomed to hearing the gospel presented.

And I'm excited because I know that you are up to that challenge. God would not have asked you to come here and would not have inspired you to be in this room if he didn't have the power within his reserve to make it happen through your hands and feet and your mouth. I am so very, very, very excited that I have the privilege of being here. Last week I was at the ASI meetings in Sacramento. It was exciting to sit with an old friend of mine who we talked about some innovative ways of doing evangelism.

And he made a commitment that he wanted to be involved in that. I listened to Elder Ted Wilson talk about the idea of distributing the book The Great Controversy. 100 and nearly 30 million copies will be produced and be distributed in 2012 and 2013. I was interested as I stood on the campgrounds of Foothills Camp in Alberta just a few weeks ago. And a woman approached me and told me that she has a burden to distribute that book to all of the postal addresses north of the Arctic Circle in Canada.

Unless you think that that is not a big deal, it's a challenge to find out where those people live on places like Baffin Island, in Nunavut, in Inuvik, in places around the Arctic Sea. But God has a plan. And God is going to use many different ways and means to do his will. The exciting thing is that if we stay connected with Him, He will let us know what it is that we can do for Him. And please understand this, that God saves people individually, and he also equips and inspires people individually.

So when you look at your brother or your sister in the pew, it is important to understand that God is not necessarily going to use that gingerbread man cookie cutter to punch out identical Christians with identical abilities to do the same job. You can do something where you live that I could never do, and vice versa. I'm excited because everywhere I go I hear stories from people who God has spoken to. I think about the folks at Black Falls who decided to study the Bible at the public library certain nights of the week. God inspired them just to sit there and open up the Bible in a library near the fireplace.

And God led individuals to wander in through there and say, what in the world are you doing? And then God gave them the intuition to say, we're studying the Bible, why don't you sit down and do it too? God has been using that ministry to build up a congregation in that community between Red Deer and Lacombe. I was there the other day with Dr. Dennis Marshall, our education superintendent, as we sat in the Sabbath school class.

God is using men and women wherever they are. When I was sitting in Winnipeg just a few weeks back, I found myself sitting next to a man who I'd never met before and he'd never met me. And the speaker mentioned that I was there from the Canadian Union, and after the end of the service he turned to me and said, so tell me what you do. Well that's an interesting question because I'm still learning what I do myself. But in the conversation I learned that he was a New Adventist.

Somebody came up and said this guy's a new Adventist and I said he is You are he said I am how old an Adventist are you I said 6 months he said Wow They said Today is 1 of his off days. Normally, you wouldn't be able to sit in this pew because he would have it filled with people that he brings to church with him. Amazing, isn't it? Because he figured out that because Jesus had touched his life, the important thing for him to do was to say to people, why don't you come with me and we will go to church together and hear the Word of God. In Montreal the other day, I sat in a meeting.

Next to me was a young man who, when they said, pray with the person next to you about something specific, I said, what would you like me to pray about? He said, pray for my brother. He doesn't know God. He's a very godless sort of an individual. We come from a godless family.

And then I discovered that he'd only been in the Adventist church as a Christian, and in any church as a Christian for a period of 2 years. In that 2 years, he had brought his wife to Jesus and to the Seventh-day Adventist faith and now he was praying that somehow God would give him the heart of his brother. And we prayed together there and we said, God, give us people so that we can bring them to you when you come again. The purpose of the church is not to crawl into a big sleeping bag and stay comfy until Jesus comes. There are some who have that vision, but that was not Jesus' plan.

Jesus said, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel. I don't know about you, but I like to write down little things sometimes that have come to my attention 1 place or another that speak in some way to my need. You all familiar with moleskin notebooks? How many of you don't know what a moleskin is? Check with somebody near you and find 1 so that you can use it.

I get the grid type because my son-in-law is an engineer and he turned me on to squared paper, you know what I'm saying? And that helps me to line things up in multiple dimensions. I am more multidimensional now than I ever was, actually. But what is interesting in this book is I have written down passages of scripture and have also been led to make my own compilation of the writings of Ellen White that is special for me. 1 of the things that I discovered in a little book called Gospel Workers is this little statement on page 194 that I've copied here.

It says this, "'Those who have been most successful in soul winning "'were men and women who did not pride themselves "'on their ability, but who in humility and faith "'sought to help those about them.' "'Jesus did this very work. "'He came close to those whom he desired to reach. How often, with a few gathered about him, he gave his lessons. And 1 by 1, the passersby paused to listen, until a great multitude heard with wonder and awe the words of the heaven-sent teacher." It's not about speaking to a big congregation. In another place, I remember that little statement made by the servant of God.

It says that Christ had a faithful regard for the 1 soul audience. 1 by 1. 1 by 1. Back a few years ago, my wife was 1 of the managers of a bagel shop. It was interesting, I lived in a community where I was the only guy on my block besides the Chinese people who were my neighbors, who did not attend 1 of the local synagogues.

I had 10 bagel shops in 5 minutes of my house. That gives you an idea of where I lived. It was a wonderful Jewish community. But what was interesting to me was in the middle of that Jewish community were about 3 fellas who would show up first thing in the morning with their Bible, get themselves a bagel, get themselves a little warm beverage. For us that would be herbal tea, wouldn't it?

Just checking to make sure how adventist you are. And so they would sit there, gather together, and read scripture together. What a witness. I thought to myself, God has so many avenues for us to do his bidding. And so God will inspire you.

This afternoon you're going to go out and you're going to take some material to people in the community. What a wonderful opportunity that is. In Canada, we have the joy of not having to go overseas to engage in missions to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. Those people have come here. In Vancouver, we have half a million ethnic Chinese.

Here we have a large Chinese community. We have people from every part of the world. Every 1 of them can have the opportunity to hear the voice of Jesus. 1 way or another, so today, you are going to go and you are going to have the opportunity to share your faith. I want to pray that God will send His mighty angels beside you.

I want to thank Him for your presence here. I want to thank him for your energy. And I want to thank you for being a part of God's church. Together, we are going to do things that God designed should be done just before he comes again. And I really believe that we're going to see Jesus soon.

This last summer, my daughter was with us as we went out to the session in the Maritimes, Leroy. And she stayed by for a few extra days. I was in Loma Linda for meetings down south, Jay. And it was while I was at the meetings in Loma Linda that I started seeing text messages come through and I stepped out to see what was happening. My youngest daughter had been on the phone with her husband who was in northern Arkansas for a kayaking trip with his dad.

At the end of the kayaking trip, he decided to run into Joplin, Missouri to see his sister. And as he was talking with my daughter, he said, the wind is starting to blow. The sky is getting very dark. There's stuff flying through the air. And then the phone went dead.

Now, if you're a little 28-year-old, please forgive me for those of you who are even younger than my daughter, characterizing my baby as a 28-year-old, but I held her in my arms over there in the Bowmanville Hospital when she was born, so she's always going to be my baby. But when she lost contact with her husband, that was a kind of a traumatic moment for her. Fortunately, God made a way for him to call her back before the grid went down and he said, I'm safe. In the process, ran over nails and so on, trying to get to a place of safety and it took him 2 days to get out of town because of the difficulty surrounding the tornado that devastated Joplin, Missouri. Just a couple of weeks before that, my oldest daughter who lives in St.

Louis, Missouri was missed by the tornado that devastated the St. Louis International Airport by 2 blocks. That was it. We live in a time when all the signs around us are saying, You need to be right with Jesus because he's coming soon. And we need to be characterized by that message as we go to the community around us.

I want to pray for you. Is that alright? And I want to pray that together we will be faithful to Christ so that when he comes, we'll see him face to face. Father, thank you for each of my friends who are here. Thank you for the energy that you bring through their lives into the church.

Thank you for giving them a desire to see Jesus and to make it happen soon. Help us, Father, that we will not be complacent and relaxed. Help us not to see the church as the sleeping bag, but may it be the springboard for which we live to bring people to fellowship so that they can get to know you and be ready for you when you come. Be with them in this afternoon's activities. Guide them door by door and step by step.

Bless us each as you inspire us with what to do and what to say. May we live in humility and in kindness and in service to others so that as people see us, they are able to say with all honesty, if Jesus is anything like that person then I want to know him more. Make your church truly representatives of you. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Free sermon audio and much more.

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Series

ECYC 2011 Plenary Meetings

Outreach Charge

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Other Teachings in Series

The Prerequisite of Empowerment

40m

The Lostness Monster: The Empowerment of Identity

51m

The Joy of Full Surrender

42m

The American Facade: The Empowerment of Purpose

41m

Outreach Charge

20m

Possessing the Land: The Empowerment of Destiny

49m

Sound Doctrine