Participants: Jason McCracken, Karen Thomas
Series Code: IAA
Program Code: IAA000068
|
00:02 ¤ ¤
00:31 Welcome to another edition of Issues and Answers. I am 00:32 Karen Thomas. And we are back again with Jason McCracken. 00:35 We have been covering a lot of topics in our last few programs 00:38 that we have done with him. Today we're going to talk about 00:41 activities to encourage spiritual growth and faith 00:44 maturity. What can you do to deepen your walk with the Lord 00:48 Jesus Christ? What can you do to know more about God. Thank 00:52 you so much for coming to the program again. 00:54 Thank you, it's nice to be back. Nice to be back and I'm very 00:58 eager to talk about activities to encourage spiritual growth 01:02 and faith maturity in a local church. That's something that 01:06 is greatly needed right now in churches. People feel that 01:10 they're not growing enough. They come to church because they feel 01:13 that I need to get my cup filled That's not really how it's 01:18 supposed to work. You're supposed to go to church with 01:21 your cup already filled and then God is just going to top it off 01:27 when you get there. So it's not I'm going to church empty and 01:30 you fill me up. No. You're personal devotions are extremely 01:35 important to filling your life every day. That's a part of it. 01:40 When you're in a congregation the first area here is to... 01:44 Amen. You see most of us don't understand that when we seek 01:55 the power of the Holy Spirit for revival and reformation the 02:01 church will begin to grow spiritually. Now let me share 02:07 with you an issue. Do you think people are going to sit in the 02:15 congregation and just wait for the Holy Spirit to fall or is it 02:20 that the Holy Spirit is going to fall when they're actively 02:24 engaged in ministry? 02:27 Well I think obviously when they're engaged in ministry. 02:31 Yeah. Let's look at the Bible here for a minute. Matthew 02:34 chapter 10. I'm going to read a text of scripture to you because 02:38 I think we need to understand how this operates here. What is 02:41 Jesus talking about here when he's dealing with his disciples? 02:45 Matthew chapter 10 and it's actually verse 1. It says: And 02:50 when he had called unto him his 12 disciples he gave them what? 02:56 He gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out 03:02 and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of 03:07 diseases. And in verse 5: These 12 Jesus sent forth and 03:13 commanded them saying what? Go not into the way of the 03:20 Gentiles and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not, 03:23 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and as 03:28 you go preach saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And then 03:31 you see in verse 8: Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise 03:36 the dead, cast out devils. Freely ye have received, freely 03:40 give. Now what is that saying to us? The Spirit of God 03:45 falls when we go. It's not going to happen sitting in a 03:50 congregation with a hymnal in front of you and the Bible says 03:53 fall Holy Spirit. It's not going to happen that way. When we are 03:57 actively engaged in ministry Jesus will give us the power. 04:02 So seek the power of the Holy Spirit for revival and 04:06 reformation in the congregation but you must go and you must do 04:10 exactly what Jesus says: Heal, cleanse. That's when the Spirit 04:17 falls. A lot of people have a misconception that the Spirit 04:21 is going to drop and then we're going to run out and start 04:25 speaking in other languages and going to different parts of the 04:29 world and preaching the gospel. We're already doing that now. 04:32 But when the Spirit of God is needed urgently in the 04:35 communities then 04:37 we're out in the community working for God. That's when 04:39 Jesus works best, when we're sitting on a street corner and 04:43 we're preaching in the public, when we're at a high school, 04:45 when we're at a university preaching the gospel of Christ, 04:49 the Spirit will fall on us. That's the good news, that's 04:54 the good news that Jesus wants us to tell people that he's 04:58 coming. We must do it in public but the congregation is the 05:02 location where we can encourage this spiritual growth and faith 05:06 maturity. So number 1 is very good: Seek for the power of the 05:11 Holy Spirit. Number 2:... 05:28 Number 2 is exclusively designed for that local 05:32 congregation. Looking at this, this is extremely essential to 05:41 Christian growth and faith maturity. Why? Why do I say 05:47 that? God's grace and forgiveness. Jesus Christ 05:51 came to this earth, died on a cross. On Friday he was 06:02 crucified and on Sabbath he was in the tomb. On Sunday morning 06:06 he was resurrected. He went back to heaven and he's coming again 06:13 according to Acts chapter 1. Now that is the grace that he has 06:21 extended to us a sinners because we are supposed to die for all 06:29 of our sins. We're supposed to pay the penalty for our sins and 06:34 death is that penalty. But because Christ died on the cross 06:38 he has given us grace and so now as sinners we are to say to God 06:45 please forgive me, I am a sinner His grace is available, his 06:51 forgiveness is available and seeing ourselves both as sinners 06:55 and forgiven saints. When we see that we are sinners and one 07:04 day we will become saints, this needs to be experienced in the 07:14 local congregation. Amen. In order to encourage spiritual 07:19 growth, in order to encourage more faith. If we see ourselves 07:24 as not being sinners then we are opening up the flood gates in 07:32 our doors for fanaticism. I remember when I was back in 07:39 college, I guess that was a few years ago and I was witnessing. 07:43 I went door to door. I knocked on the door. I had my Bible and 07:48 I was reading from scripture to a young lady at home. And she 07:53 turned to me and she said, You know what, I haven't sinned in 07:59 20 years. I said, you haven't sinned in 20 years? How could 08:03 you arrive at that conclusion? She said, because I have not 08:08 sinned. I said, but the Bible says we've all sinned and come 08:13 short of God's glory. I said so you don't know when you've 08:17 sinned. She said, I haven't sinned. That's opening the door 08:22 for fanaticism. We must understand that we are sinners 08:27 every day, but we're also saved by grace. Amen. We're not saved 08:31 because of the name of the local congregation, we're not saved by 08:37 how many books we read. We're saved by grace! Let me give you 08:42 another example of grace. As a minister we drive a lot, we 08:48 drive cars and I drive a car too Now I remember I was coming 08:53 back from campmeeting. This was late at night. I was helping 08:57 rearrange some books in the book store so I left campmeeting 09:01 about 12:30 or 1 o'clock at night. Racing back to my hotel. 09:05 I was on a two-lane road you know, dark, no lights. Finally 09:10 it became four lanes. I said, now I can rev it up because I'm 09:13 tired, I'm getting ready to fall asleep at the wheel. So I 09:16 start to crank it up and I sure did. I was speeding. Well did 09:22 you know when I realized when I was speeding? A light behind me. 09:26 It was blinking, it was big, it was blue, it was white. I said 09:32 Oops. Yes it was the state police. Pulled me over and he 09:38 said may I see your driver's license and may I see your 09:41 registration. Well I'd rented a car so I gave him the driver's 09:45 license and the registration. He went to his car. He came back 09:49 a little later. He said, You know what Mr. McCracken, you 09:52 were speeding, you were in excess of the speed limit. 09:55 I said, how much. He said, at least by 15 miles an hour. 09:58 I said, Oh I'm so sorry. Now he whipped out this book. He was 10:03 getting ready to write up a speeding ticket and then he said 10:07 he flipped it closed and said you need to tell me something 10:11 right now so I won't have to give you a ticket. I said, Sir, 10:14 Sir, I promise, I promise I will go back to my hotel as slow as 10:21 possible. I will do the speed limit. He did not give me a 10:25 ticket. That's grace. I broke the law, but that's grace. 10:29 I deserved the ticket. I deserved the ticket, but he gave 10:35 me grace. Jesus Christ gave everyone grace. 10:39 He forgave you too. He forgave me. 10:41 I should have had that $150... I don't know how much the ticket 10:46 cost, but I should have had that ticket. But he didn't give me 10:49 that ticket. Jesus Christ gives us 10:50 grace, and in the local congregation we must understand 10:54 that we are both sinners and we're forgiven saints. 10:57 That's everybody. That encourages spiritual growth 11:03 in a congregation. I don't care how old we are, how young we are 11:09 how little we are, it must permeate within that local 11:14 church. They must know that they're sinners and they're 11:17 saved by grace by Jesus Christ who has shed blood on the cross 11:20 of Calvary. Amen. 11:21 Let's go to number 3... 11:35 One thing I appreciate is when we go to prayer meeting on 11:41 Wednesday night and somebody will stand up and give a 11:45 testimony that you will never hear in church that weekend. 11:47 And that testimony is going to keep me growing. It's going to 11:53 keep me focused. That's my growing confidence because if 11:57 God can help that young lady, God can help me too. And so when 12:00 people are hearing this that sustains them as good members of 12:04 the church. 12:05 You know one of my favorite books in the Bible on this topic 12:08 is Philippians. Every single chapter is all about God working 12:12 within you and he can do great things in your life that you're 12:15 not capable of doing yourself by yourself. 12:18 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. 12:21 And see when we have members who have a growing confidence that 12:27 God is at work in their lives, oh that church is going to be 12:30 buzzing. They can't just sit there every week and just say 12:34 our church is boring, our church is boring. You hear a lot of 12:37 young people talk like that. Oh church is boring, it's boring. 12:39 But when God is at work in their lives individually church is not 12:44 boring. It's too exciting. You have to stop the worship service 12:48 so people can go home. If not they'll stay until midnight. 12:50 When God is working in the local congregation they will look at 12:55 every experience and say you know he is really at work. 12:58 He is really at work. Let me give you an experience. Now I 13:06 hope this doesn't take too long but I have to cut it real short. 13:08 No go ahead, we've got time. 13:10 OK. I was called early in the morning because one of my 13:13 elder's son was in the hospital. He had to have an aneurysm 13:18 removed from his brain. He had a certain type of illness during 13:24 his childhood and so the doctors said if they tried to remove 13:28 this aneurysm he's going to die. But they're going to do it 13:32 anyway because he was already in a coma. He went to operation. 13:37 When I arrived at the operating room he was already in there. 13:39 We waited just about all day. When they came back the doctor 13:44 said, Pastor, you need to prepare for a funeral or a 13:49 miracle. One of my members jumped up and said, I'll take 13:51 the miracle. And so what happened, we prayed. We got on 13:55 our knees, we called churches all over. We said, please pray, 13:58 please pray that he will live, that he will survive. He was on 14:02 every tube and every type of sophisticated instrument in that 14:07 hospital. And so the next day I went to the hospital. We were 14:11 having a little prayer meeting there in the waiting room, we 14:16 were having a prayer meeting. He was in intensive care. Nurses 14:19 and doctors were tending to his care and so the Lord said go in 14:23 there, put your hands on him and pray for him. And I walked in 14:26 there and I said, Nurse, I'm sorry, but I need you to leave. 14:30 The nurse left. I placed me hand on him. He couldn't see, he 14:34 couldn't hear me and I prayed a prayer of healing and I said 14:38 Lord. I can't tell you exactly everything in the prayer but in 14:42 essence I said, Lord, this man is really dead, but you are in 14:49 heaven and I'm on earth. Send your power through me, use me 14:55 as a vessel, as an electrical wire so that when I touch him 15:00 your healing grace will touch this young man. I prayed a 15:07 prayer like that. The doctor came in later on that afternoon 15:10 and said now I need to run a test to see if his brain has 15:14 activity. So he took a pen out of his pocket. He said, I'm 15:18 going to start with the foot. I'm going to brush the pen right 15:20 up his foot. If he moves, if the feet or the toes move that means 15:26 he has brain activity. So I said wait, doctor, wait. I ran in 15:31 the room and said pray, pray, pray, pray, pray. Here's God's 15:34 test, here it is. Pray, have faith. And the doctor went 15:39 whoop and he moved his toes like this here. Then he went to his 15:43 hands. He did the same thing, he moved his hand. Within 24 15:46 hours. Amen! then he opened up his eyes and his eyes were 15:50 moving left to right. He said the man is alive, this is a 15:53 miracle! He lives today to tell that testimony. This encourages 15:59 strengthens, it gives confidence to God's work in that 16:03 congregation and in their lives. Isn't that beautiful? 16:06 You know I have seen... I know what you're saying. People are 16:10 healed in church. Oh yes! I have seen people come sick to church 16:14 on a Sabbath morning. They would call me up and say you know I 16:18 don't know that I can come today I'm not feeling well. Now I 16:20 mean the flu. I mean serious illness and they come and God 16:25 does things. There are things that happen when you go to 16:28 church. Oh, it happens. But now let's 16:31 encourage by fostering regular devotions and personal prayer 16:36 by members. Every church needs to have the ABCs of prayer. 16:42 You have the entire congregation praying for one person, so when 16:49 every member has a family member and they're constantly praying 16:53 for that person, but they have to have good devotions. 16:56 They need a Bible, they need good books, they need magazines 17:01 In fact our magazine features great devotionals. Also we have 17:08 books that will encourage them for Bible study. And we also 17:13 have books that help them with health. You need to have a 17:18 healthy life in order to have a good spiritual life. They tie in 17:23 together, they word together consistently. So in order to 17:27 read the Bible, study other books, pray. The Bible says pray 17:31 without ceasing. That encourages that growth. It feels that 17:39 people now know that God is working through prayer. That's 17:44 important. So as we go to the next one and this is what I 17:46 like. Oh I love this one. This is one of my favorites... 17:54 When I speak about scripture the first thing I do is I look 17:58 at the Bible story. Take the essence of the story and put it 18:03 in a contemporary fashion. Make it contemporary, like something 18:08 can happen like down the street or across on the other side of 18:11 the country. And so I'm telling this story about somebody, a 18:16 Biblical personality and the congregation doesn't even know 18:21 what I'm talking about until I reveal the person's name. 18:24 An example: OK. A filthy rich man, he had over a billion 18:31 dollars, clothes imported world wide. He had a mansion. He had 18:36 at least 196 acres of land. He had many houses, many servants, 18:43 swimming pools, cars, fine clothes. He was a Th.D. in 18:50 in theology, a doctor of ministry, a Ph.D. in psychology. 18:55 He was a person who also was a member of a large council in the 19:01 city. They called him Dr. Nick. He heard about this young 19:07 evangelist preaching. He heard of that evangelist and then he 19:11 said, I don't want to be caught with the evangelist but I want 19:14 to meet with him at night. He met with that evangelist at 19:18 night and the evangelist turned to him and said You must be born 19:23 again. John chapter 3. And so the Bible must come alive. 19:32 people must understand that things happen like this every 19:36 day. The Bible is our example. It focuses on the lives of these 19:41 Bible personalities and also our lives, so it must come alive. 19:45 Now for children who are coming to know the Lord and for 19:49 children in our home, I like the Bible videos that actually have 19:53 the scripture word for word and they can actually see the 19:58 settings and the times. It makes it very interesting. 20:02 It makes the scriptures come alive. 20:03 It's important that children, since we're on this little topic 20:08 here, there are devotional Bibles for children. There are 20:13 devotional Bibles for juniors, there are devotional Bibles 20:17 for young adults. There are devotional Bibles for adults. 20:22 There are devotional Bibles even for seniors. There are 20:24 devotional Bibles for women and for men. So whatever age 20:28 category you fit into, that's where you need to run to get 20:33 this type of material to help you grow spiritually within the 20:38 congregation. It's very important that we do this. 20:39 Because when children are growing up faith is increased 20:44 by the knowledge that they gain every year. You can tell them 20:51 the Bible story of Noah and the ark when they're babies, but 20:54 they still need to hear that when they're 20. They still need 20:59 to hear about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden when they 21:02 were six, but they still need to hear that when they're sixteen. 21:06 Because it reinforces the Bible. It reinforces now how God has 21:15 dealt with men and women in sin. They need to understand that 21:22 because that helps them when they are in a dilemma, a 21:27 personal problem. God is there to help them. He's our present 21:33 help in the time of need. That's what the Bible says. So that's 21:38 important, prayer by numbers; have a prayer chain, have a 21:42 prayer partner so we can pray together, on the telephone, via 21:47 the internet if you want to use that, or in church. My aunt 21:53 passed away but she had something that she did every 22:00 week. At 5 a.m. in the morning she had a prayer session with 22:06 members of her church in her home, 5 a.m. in the morning. 22:11 She did this for many years. It strengthened the congregation. 22:16 It helped them because when people needed help they didn't 22:19 mind getting out of their bed and going to have prayer time. 22:23 So it's important to pray. Make scriptures come alive. We've 22:27 done that and changed lives... 22:33 There are four T's: Number one, time; two, talent; number three 22:40 treasure, which is your money. Number four temple which is 22:44 your body. All four constitute stewardship. The managing of our 22:50 time, the managing of our talents, the managing of our 22:54 treasures and the managing of our bodies. That's stewardship. 22:57 Many people think that stewardship is based on money. 23:00 No, no, no, no. It's based on all four balanced. That's the 23:05 stewardship, a steward over all four. A manager, put it that way 23:11 a manager of time, a manager of talent, a manager of treasures 23:15 and a manager of your own life. That's what we call stewardship. 23:20 That was a quick Bible study. Let's go to... 23:35 We as the body of Christ must teach members to view systematic 23:46 giving of personal income as central to Christian lifestyle. 23:52 Not as a part of, but centralizing it as your 24:03 lifestyle. I will give because it's a part of me. It's not 24:08 something that somebody's begging for. It's because I as 24:13 an individual, as Christian, must make sure that my Christian 24:18 lifestyle has a center of systematic giving. Now let me 24:23 break it down. Systematic giving of my time, systematic giving of 24:29 my talents, systematic giving of my treasure, systematic giving 24:35 of my body. See the Bible talks about the body as the 24:41 temple of God, but it also talks about a spiritual sacrifice, 24:47 holy and acceptable unto God which is our reasonable service, 24:51 as it says, but it's reasonable worship. Reasonable service is 24:55 actually reasonable worship. And so we have to teach members 25:00 through seminars, classes, through studies, that giving our 25:05 income is very much a part of our Christian lifestyle. Isn't 25:10 that cool? Yes. So money is not an issue, it's not an issue. 25:13 The last one is very interesting This maybe will take one minute. 25:24 We as a church have a strong heritage more than 150 years of 25:30 preaching the gospel worldwide. And so we must teach history to 25:34 our young people, teach history to our members that this is 25:38 whence we have come. We have a large worldwide network of 25:44 hospitals and clinics and schools and academies, nursing 25:49 homes and it goes on and on and on and on. So we must teach that 25:53 heritage. Especially the writing of E.G. White, a spiritual 25:59 prophet who has written counsel for church members in the local 26:03 church. Never substituting the Bible at all, but just writing 26:08 counsel. Just like when I was in college my mother write me some 26:11 letters about counsel. Now Jason please watch those young ladies 26:14 that you're dating, counsel. And so Ellen G. White was a 26:18 counselor and so her writings are found in many books and 26:21 she's written beautiful scores of books that give us help and 26:26 inspiration. I think often when you add the 26:30 heritage with the Bible foundation that you can see the 26:33 consistency, a pattern, a building block, and then 26:37 young people. I enjoy Adventist history and seeing where we've 26:42 come from as you've said and the pioneers in many different 26:47 areas, those that put their lives in danger and made 26:54 sacrifices to make opportunities for people to know the Lord 26:58 Jesus Christ and spread the gospel around the world. 27:02 Let me give you some examples of Adventist heritage. 27:05 In Battlecreek, Michigan we have a cemetery there and a large 27:11 exhibit area for Adventist heritage. We have a grave site 27:16 with Sojourner Truth and Ellen G. White. We also have on the 27:21 Seventh-dayadventist.org website the E.G. White estate. We have 27:26 CD ROMs that we have already created with Adventist heritage 27:30 and books. So there are a lot of things we can do to teach 27:33 Adventist heritage. Now Sojourner Truth was part of 27:35 the underground railroad. Definitely, definitely. 27:38 And there's a lot of interfacing between Ellen White and Kellogg 27:41 I mean there's a whole lot of very interesting history. 27:43 I would encourage you in the few seconds remaining for this 27:47 program, check out those web sites. That is 27:48 EGWhiteestate.org or the Seventh-day Adventist Church. 27:55 God bless you and have a great day. We'll see you next time. |
Revised 2015-01-08