It Is Time

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IMPACT Scandinavia

Daniel Pel

IMPACT Scandinavia 2012: Plenary Sessions

Immune to the Gospel

Joakim Hjortland

IMPACT Scandinavia 2012 Monday Morning Devotional

Derek Morris

IMPACT Scandinavia 2012 Sabbath School

Jeremy Zwiker

IMPACT Scandinavia 2012 Sunday Morning Devotional


It is time to define our aim. And this statement has grown very close to me and I'm still learning more and more how to put it into practice. But still I think it makes a whole lot of sense. So I actually wanted to help or wanted us to learn this statement by heart because I think if we keep this statement in mind, this will help us in any part of our life. So I'll say it in front first and then you can repeat.

Okay, so success in any line demands a definite aim. Can we say it? Success in any line demands a definite aim. Isn't that? It's so simple, but so profound to me.

So this morning we're going to look at 5 different institutions or 5 different people or institutions that have a definite aim. And we're going to start with going to 1 Samuel to David's life. Let's go to 1st Samuel chapter 17. This is the story of David. This is the time where he is just actually been anointed by Samuel, the prophet, after he has been anointed.

But then there's a war in Israel. The Philistines are coming against him and and you know the story very well. This giant Goliath comes and he rebukes the Israelites, or he says, you know, who are you? And he's a couple of meters higher than anybody else, right? And David comes here and his father sends him to his brothers, because his brothers are bigger, we just learned that as well, right?

They're nicer looking than him, and they're taller, they're stronger. They're in the war, and they're trying to fight the Philistines. And so David comes and he hears these words of this Philistine that is reproaching and defying the living God, as David says. And he hears this and he's like, What's going on? What's the matter with the people of God?

This is not what I know the people of God are supposed to be listening to, right? So he says, what shall be done unto the man that kills him? And he says, you know, let's go back to the living God. And essentially he goes to, he says this to the people of Israel, his brothers hear about this, And his older brother Eliab, he comes to him and he says, shut up, what are you talking about? Like, where did you leave your sheep?

He's rebuking him very clearly and saying, you don't know what you're talking about this is the the guy is is much taller than you ever could imagine yeah I mean so so don't don't talk like you are right but But it is incredible to see David's definite aim, and that was to not have God's name be dishonored. He did not want God's name to be dishonored. And so he says to the people of Israel, hey, this cannot be. And so he actually, after that rebuke, after, I mean, if he was a nice child, right? Or a nice brother, he would, okay, I won't say anything anymore, right?

Or at least say it maybe very in secret. But what does he do? He says, no, I need to continue. And so he actually continues his campaign, you could say, about, hey, we need to do something about this giant. So word reaches Saul and he sends for him.

Saul says, who is this guy? You know? And so he comes to Saul and then in verse 32, let's read from there. Verse 32, And David said to Saul, Let no man's heart fail because of him. Thy servant will go and fight with the Philistine.

So he offers himself he has a definite aim and he is willing to sacrifice his life. He surrendered his life. Verse 33 and Saul said to David Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth. Friends, we are but youth, right? Do we hear this sometimes?

We are but youth. And we don't have experience, right? That's what he's saying, right? And he's saying that Goliath, he has experience, he has gone through the real education, right? He has been a man of war from his youth.

And so he's actually saying, hey, you know, it's nice words that you're saying, but you don't have the education, you don't have the background for this. What is David's response? He could have said, the king is telling him, calm down, you know, I think you're not gonna do this. It's nice to hear your courage, but you know, I think you're a little bit on top, you know, above what you can handle here. David's response in verse 34.

It's very interesting, he shows him how he was educated in a different way. And David said unto Saul, thy servant kept his father's sheep and there came a lion and a bear and took a lamb out of the flock and I went out after him and smote him and delivered it out of his mouth and when he arose against me I caught him by the beard and smote him and slew him." Can you imagine this picture? David, little David, yeah? Like, Samuel was like, this cannot, God, this cannot be the future king, right? This little David takes this huge bear, takes him by the beard and slays him.

Amazing, right? Why? For the little lamb. I mean, would you risk your life for a little lamb? The guy had a definite aim.

So he tells him, you know, I slew him and I took him out of the beard and I smote him. And I smote him. Verse 36, Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as 1 of them seeing he had defied the armies of the Living God. Can you say amen? It's amazing, he has such a definite aim, he's sure this is gonna work because God has shown me, has led me in the past, he will lead me in the future.

So then David says, moreover, in verse 37, the Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said to David then, he's overwhelmed by his courage and says you know go ahead go and the Lord be with you Then Saul puts on the army or the, not the army, the armor, that's right, on David and David's like, I can't, I can't, I have not been trained with this. I can't, I can't fight him with this. So he goes with his staff and with a couple of rocks against the giant. Could it be that we are in a similar situation?

That it looks like there's this giant, and we are just like Goliath says, Am I a dog that you come with a stick? Are you kidding me? What do we have to offer for the battle? Oh, we have, we have, we don't have much if we look at reality. But if we look at God, oh, we have everything.

And we can, by God's grace, fight this uncircumcised Philistine. And this giant that looks at these cities, right? These millions. How in the world are we going to reach those? It looks impossible.

David had a definite aim. And you know the end of the story of course. God was with him and his faith changed the whole situation. It's amazing And I believe we're at a similar step and we as youth need to think about what is our aim. Can't really see exactly what it is.

Exactly, we've heard Yesterday, right, we talked about the general conference and I'm so, so thankful to God that there is a definite aim. We have a definite aim to work the cities. Wow, It's amazing, it gives energy. It seems impossible, it really seems impossible, but somebody's standing up and saying, let's go and let's go forward to these millions and reach out to them. The question is if we want to be part of this.

I believe the General Conference has laid plans with definite aims and we can be part of this. It's amazing. So, then there's, oh, I went a little quick there. Then we also, at our school, at Madison, we have defined our aim, redefined our aim you could say. And we have newly, you could say, before we were here to train active lay members, which is good.

It's also a name. But we've realized that if we want to reach out to the world in this generation that we need more commitment. And So we have started a slogan called training missionaries for life. We want to train missionaries for life. People that are willing to give their whole life to the service of God and not serving themselves.

And we have seen results in this. We can see that people are taking decisions to serve God and it is it is such a it's the best life that you could ever have. It's it's so amazing. So so I hope and pray that God would help us to put this aim into practice and that we could train missionaries for life. 1, also in impact, we have decided that we need to have a definite aim.

If we don't have a definite aim, then what are we going to do? I mean, We can have mission trips here and there and a little bit here and there and do a lot of good, but maybe not the most amount of good that we could have if we had a definite aim. So we have started to contemplate on some questions. Here's 1 question. How can the message be proclaimed to the whole world?

And you maybe are familiar with this statement, we actually mentioned it yesterday. The work of God in this earth can never be finished. This is an incredible statement. It can never be finished. This means we're not going to heaven if this statement didn't continue.

The work of God in this earth can never be finished until lay members, us, rally to the work and unite their efforts with ministers and church officers and people that... So we need to start uniting. So You know the Matthew 24, the gospel will be preached in all the world. Can you see Goliath? All the world.

This is huge, the cities, it's immense, it seems impossible. And then shall the end come. How can this happen? How is this possible? There's a statement that gives a direct answer to this.

It says there, with such an army of workers as our youth rightly trained. Wow, army of youth. We are an army of youth. We are, let's say, youth. How can we rightly train?

That was our question. So with such an army of workers as our youth rightly trained might furnish how soon the message of a crucified, risen and soon coming Savior might be carried to the whole world. Can you see how it's answering Matthew 24? The whole world will hear about it if the youth are trained rightly. Can you see that?

Can I hear an amen? Amen. So we thought, well, how can we rightly train? It's difficult to bring people, you know, how to lead people to be rightly trained. This is not so easy.

So we actually started a concept, you can see the Impact logo, we started a four-step plan that we want to raise up an army of workers as our youth, rightly trained. So we started with the first step, actually we started with the second step. We started with impact mission trips, right? We started with having these mission trips, but we realized that not anybody is willing to come to a mission trip. Like going from door to door or actually serving.

So we thought we need a preliminary step. And so we started, started, or we have organized inspiration weekends, right? And these kind of things. And, and now we started Impact Scandinavia conferences. It's not so difficult to come to a conference, right?

You listen, you get inspired, you want to know more, you want to seek God's will. And so we started the first step. People come to conferences and are inspired. And from that inspiration, If you look at the graph, the last step there on the bottom right says, a life of committed and effective service. And we believe that this is the definite aim that we should have, that we call people to serve God and not themselves.

And so, so everything we do in the conference has that as a name, that we would, that we would encourage people to, to think of God's work, right? Have you, Have you heard a little bit about, and are you starting to think a little bit about God's work in this conference? Amen, right? So we're pointing towards the right side of the graph. And then from conferences, we want people to go to mission trips.

And from a conference a couple of days to a mission trip a couple of weeks maybe, right? And spend more time. And so we have organized many different mission trips in the summer that we can participate in and get experience and see what a privilege we have to serve the community. What a privilege we have to preach the gospel, to do all kinds of outreaches, to do, yeah. It serves ourselves, you know?

It actually gives us true happiness to serve others. And that experience, we have seen the youth love that experience. They come back from mission trips and they're inspired by this. And so, after mission trips, we encourage the people to even take further training, missionary training, to think, how can I be even more effective? And so we have mission training as the third step, mission schools and the like.

And then from the mission schools, of course, as you just heard, training missionaries for life, our definite aim is to have people serve God full time. So this is the definite aim we have set as impact. What we would like to do. We would like to raise up an army of workers. Now, this statement.

Do you remember it? I'll say success and then you complete the sentence. Are you ready? Success. You can't deny that I have the definite aim.

And this statement is in a context. What is the context? It is amazing. The context defines our aim. It says, the heaven-appointed purpose, this is from outside of this world, is appointed to us.

The heaven-appointed purpose of giving the gospel to the world in this generation is the noblest that can appeal to any human being. Any human being. That's amazing. That's not just active Adventists or Adventists in general or Christians in general. This is any human being.

This is amazing. I mean, it's so broad. This would be the noblest purpose for any human being to live for. Isn't that amazing? The heaven-appointed purpose of giving gospel to the world in this generation.

I believe we need to think about our aim. We need to define our aim. What are we doing? What is our aim with our lives? Is it to gain a lot of money?

To have a car, a house, these kind of things? Or is it to actually serve God and use our resources, nothing wrong with resources, Use our resources in God's work and for God. And give everything that we have, all of our energy, all of our talents for God's work. I'd like to sing a song that demonstrates this problematic of what are we living for. We say something, but maybe we're not acting the like, and it calls for a revival or a change.

A change. What are we doing? So now I would like to sing a song together with Jesse. The song has really spoken to me and said, Hey, what are you doing? It's asking, it's crying out, what are you doing with your life?

And I've had to think about this over and over again. What is your aim? What is my aim? And I pray that this call we could also experience in our life and think about what is our aim, what is our definite aim. It's called hands to the plow.

You know, the image is hands to the plow, start working. Right? Let's start finishing the work that God has given us. Free sermon audio, and much more. If you would like to know more about AudioVerse, or if You

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IMPACT Scandinavia 2012: Plenary Sessions

IMPACT Scandinavia 2012 Sunday Morning Devotional

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Immune to the Gospel

1h 10m

IMPACT Scandinavia 2012 Monday Morning Devotional

30m

IMPACT Scandinavia 2012 Sabbath School

47m

IMPACT Scandinavia 2012 Sunday Morning Devotional

21m

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