Series: Overflow
Message: Thank You
Preacher: Japhet De Oliveira
Reflection: Japhet De Oliveira
Live Wonder: Jessyka Dooley
Live Adventure: Jessyka Dooley
Live Purpose: Kyle Smith
Editor: Becky De Oliveira
Refresh: Begin with prayer. Ask for the Holy Spirit to open your heart to new understanding and for God’s character to be revealed.
Read: Hebrews 12:18-29 in the New Testament for Everyone (NTE). Note 1–3 insights or questions.
Reflect: At our very first international One project gathering, back in Atlanta in 2011, my brother in Jesus, Sam Leonor, preached a sermon called “They Heard a Voice.” This is a little excerpt from an article based on Sam’s sermon that was published in the Lake Union Herald, August 2011.
The Reformers heard a Voice. So many of them were burned at the stake and died horrible deaths. One example is Jan Hus (also known as John Huss) who led the Reformation Movement in what is now the Czech Republic, where the Reformation actually failed. During his trial, Jan was about to be burned at the stake and was offered a way out. “You know, do it our way and things will turn out okay.”
During his rebuttal, Jan quoted Paul: “God will meet all my needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus.”
“When the body of Huss had been wholly consumed, his ashes, with the soil upon which they rested, were gathered up and cast into the Rhine, and thus borne onward to the ocean, his persecutors vainly imagined that they had rooted out the truths he preached. Little did they dream that the ashes that day borne away to the sea were to be as seed scattered in all the countries of the earth; that in lands yet unknown it would yield abundant fruit in witnesses for the truth” (The Great Controversy, p. 110). You cannot bury the truth!
William Miller heard a Voice, he recognized the Voice and he followed It. While studying the Bible he concluded, “I had to admit that the scriptures must be a revelation from God. They became my delight and in Jesus I found a Friend.” Of Jesus he said, “God opened my eyes and what a Savior I discovered Jesus to be. My sins fell from my soul. The Bible spoke of Jesus. He was on every page.”
So, William gathered his people and his followers on October 22, 1844. And on that day they did not have the Sabbath. They did not have the Trinity. We were heretics for years! We didn’t have the State of the Dead. We didn’t have rules about pork, coffee, gluten, soy, cheese, chicken, beef. We didn’t have Blue Zones. We didn’t have conferences or unions or divisions or the General Conference. Before Ellen White had her first vision, we were about one thing. We had an all-consuming, irrepressible, irresistible, overpowering, radical desire to be with Jesus.
“Although I have been twice disappointed, I am not yet cast down or discouraged. I have fixed my mind upon another time and here I mean to stand until God gives me more light; and that is today, today, today until He comes and I see Him for whom my soul yearns,” William said. He did not speak about streets of gold, friendly lions, mansions and crowns; His soul yearned for Jesus—for the One.
What do our souls yearn for? As a people, as Adventists, what do we yearn for?
Recalibrate: Paul was always yearning for Jesus. When you think about Jesus, what do you yearn for? What insights have you gained that you are grateful for?
Respond: Pray for courage to follow through.
Research: Read the full article “They Heard a Voice.”
Remember: “Let us be grateful and worship God in a way that will please Him, with reverence and awe . . .” (Hebrews 12:28, GNB).
Japhet is senior pastor at Boulder Adventist Church in Boulder, Colorado, and is co-founder of the One project. Originally from southeast London, he served in the South England Conference for nine years—as a pastor and later as conference youth director—before moving to the United States in 2006. He and his wife Becky have two sons, one at university and one in high school.
Go through some opposites with your child. Like happy and sad. Make a happy face and then a sad face. Or show them opposite kinds of food, like orange juice and milk! Talk to them about the two different mountains described in Hebrews 12. One is really scary and dark. It was a mountain that made even Moses scared. The other was a place where the angels sang and people felt joy. Ask them what mountain they like best and why.
In Hebrews, we are told about two very different mountains: Mount Sinai and Mount Zion. What is each mountain like? One mountain is burning with fire, surrounded by darkness and storms. The other mountain is surrounded by angels and filled with joy! These two mountains are quite the opposites. Find someone to play with you in a game of opposite words. If they say “ice cream,” you might say something like “broccoli.” Or if they say “sun,” you might say “moon.”
When I was growing up, every time my grandfather would take me to lunch it was lecture time. I used to dread those lectures, but now that he is gone I understand what he was doing. He wanted me to be unshakeable. At one of our last fast-food life discussions, he said, “Kyle, when the earth shakes and the rocks fall this world will have nothing to cling to.” I looked at him like he was crazy, but when reading Hebrews 12 I can see that this is true. The world has nothing to cling to unless it clings to Jesus. Unless is the key word here. If you want to be a person who is unshakable, become a creature of the Word. Paul says, “See that you do not refuse Him who is speaking.” The word of God is the voice of Jesus. Taking in the word is an act of worship. How can you become unshakable in listening to the voice of Jesus? What are your current Bible study habits? Could they improve? Remember, studying the Bible isn’t about checking it off the to-do list; it is about listening to “Him who is speaking”— Jesus.