Henry Wright | Displaced | Soquel Camp Meeting 2021 | Night 3

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome to the 140th camp meeting of the seventh-day adventist church in central california can you believe that we've made it to the third day of a concentrated camp meeting that's right socal 2021 instead of the regular 10 days we have four day experience this year plenty of ministry spotlights uh miracle roadways and tremendous inspiring worship music of course powerful preaching the last two nights pastor john bradshaw and then tonight pastor henry wright who i'll say a little bit more in just a few moments and then tomorrow uh pastor wesley knight and pastor if ivet williams you know earlier today i thought i got a whiff of veggie burgers coming from the burger board then i said no i'm not at socal campground i'm at the conference office studio i can't wait until next year 2022 when we can be physically at the socal conference center and by the way make sure you go to socalcampmeeting.org and take a look at the planning for our children's programs our young adult programs tomorrow there will be special programming for all of those special programs we are have a wonderful worship hour planned for you this evening now we will be led in prayer by tara vang one of the conference administrative assistants at this time thank you so much elder hudgens will you join me in prayer now let's pray dear heavenly father happy sabbath we thank you so much lord that we are one sabbath closer to your soon return lord i just ask that you would just pour out your spirit upon our program upon this camp meeting and upon the speaker tonight be with elder henry wright as he shares a message that you've put on his heart lord hide him behind the cross the cross where you infinitely showed your love for us and humanity help us to be reminded of your love tonight lord i just ask that if there is anyone who's listening that is battling with something lord i just ask that you would be present in this program and that you would speak to the hearts lord we know that where you are the blind sea the lame walk and the dead are raised to life so lord i ask that your spirit would work a mighty work in tonight's program we pray for this camp meeting and lord we long for your soon return help us to be reminded of your love for each of us and your love for each other help us to know how to love each other better and lord we finally just ask that you would continue working in our lives throughout this camp meeting we love you we pray all these things in the mighty merciful and loving name of christ amen now at this time we are going to have a music by cartagenas and it's called hallelujah to the lamb [Music] we've on holy ground [Music] stand now [Music] oh and praises [Music] i will be i will sing to the lord [Music] and lord of lords [Music] um [Music] glory [Music] i will i will sing to the lord [Music] to the land [Music] in my hands [Music] [Applause] [Music] to the land wow that was amazing thank you cartagena family what an amazing musical offering hallelujah to the lord indeed good evening my name is pastor eddie perez conference evangelist for the central california conference of seventh day adventists and it is a a high honor this evening to present to you the evangelism's department brief response to covet 19 rather than it shutting things down rather than slowing up the lord has provided unexpected blessings through evangelism and through covet 19. i can better illustrate it this way i want to invite a friend of mine jose welcome and uh tell us a little bit of what you discovered about the pandemic and how you took advantage yeah so at the at the start of the pandemic you know as we were you know kind of shifting gears from in-person to digital platforms i started to try to create more digital content for you know the digital audiences and social media platforms and and it started off as just an experiment something that i you know basically said god hey i'm gonna i'm gonna put these resources in your hands i'm gonna put this time and these efforts into doing something for for your kingdom and and if it blesses other people awesome if it blesses a handful of people great i'm just gonna go out and and and start putting you know content out there and you know i was really surprised to to see how how god blessed those efforts uh you know with with some of my videos on different platforms like instagram and tick tock reaching over you know hundreds of thousands of views and uh an engagement with people commenting and asking questions and and and it was just exciting to see how you know when you step out of your comfort zone because that wasn't something that was easy for me to do um that god really came through and and blessed those efforts so yeah yeah i was really happy to to see how god worked even you know despite our our own limitations and and sometimes how we feel like we're we're just short we're not qualified but god blesses either way it is true josue it is true god does bless either way he never fails us and covet 19 though interrupted it did not detour when i was a child my father would would have a a saying that he would often tell me and when i was young i didn't capture its significance until much later you might want to grab a pen write this down meditate on these on these this imagery he would tell me son you ought to look at a gain and a loss mercy through sorrow and victory in an apparent defeat what should have been a tranquilizer to evangelism and to interest and to winning souls has actually served as an impetus in fact let me invite another friend benji how are you i'm glad you're with us uh tell us how kovid impacted your area briefly yeah what was awesome is this technology that we had whether it's zoom you know uh whatever video conferencing you you use it actually opened up a huge untapped potential of people being able to join us for sabbath school but also we we begin to grow our footprint where it wasn't just modesto central people and it wasn't just adventists showing up uh we have a lot of our our professionals that begin to you know hey give the links out to their friends and stuff and they had co-workers uh people that they worked with now watching actively our service and participating in our worship that actually never had before and because of that we actually begin to have conversations with our church members that they never had with their co-workers which was really exciting because you know a lot of times it's left on the pastor to make those connections and now our church members begin to you know give the link share the conversations and talk about the service because now their co-workers were able to hear the message and they begin to talk and answer questions to each other and it was really cool i was really excited about that so we had people from canada oregon washington maryland i mean all over begin to join our sabbath schools as well as our worship service so even though it was very difficult at first and discouraging i mean quite a bit even though that was a difficulty there was a huge blessing in it as well because it made my members like step up their game and begin to share uh more than they ever had before because now it's not just it's not the difficulty of inviting them to church and say hey come come to church on sabbath uh sit in our church you know learn our liturgy that's an uncomfortable uh step in some people's lives it's new to them they've never done that versus hey watch this video whenever you get a chance and and so that was really cool for our members to see and be able to utilize as a tool for evangelism absolutely pastor benji uh and that's exactly what we have intended to provide thank you so much that's what we are providing across the conference and beyond so evangelism has revamped it has launched new initiatives in order to not reach the immediate area but far wider great plans are in the works in fact i'd like to just briefly invite dr steenberg to share with us just briefly what evangelism has in store evangelism was scheduled to take place all over our conference our own conference evangelist pastor eddie perez was scheduled himself to conduct evangelism throughout our conference but as you know the pandemic shut everything down church is closed what are we gonna do surely we're not gonna stop evangelizing right especially in a time such as this so we quickly changed and went online for the first time in this conference's history we made camp meeting evangelism offering money available to buy equipment for live streaming the good thing about this was a the churches who used this offering for equipment purchases had to conduct an online evangelism because we want to make sure that the evangelism offering is only used for evangelism the good thing about this is that we're now prepared with churches ready to conduct evangelism in future physically in their local church but at the same time because of this equipment can now also be made online and the best of all it stays online forever it is our dream and hope that every church that does evangelism in future in the local church will also live stream this way it can speak on the internet forever and it might reach people that might not come to church from the get-go it is my sincere desire that your church plans active evangelism locally in your church this coming year but that you'll also use the equipment that we provided or that we reimbursed to beam it online that everything we do in church should go online to preach and continue to preach until jesus comes that is what evangelism is focused on providing new creative dynamic engaging ways to do modern evangelism modern in the sense that we have to adapt and adopt new methods as a wise prophet once said methods out of the ordinary what can you do reach out to the central california conference evangelism department let us partner with you perhaps give tips and help find resources together let's take full advantage of all the resources that we have let us labor for the master let us prepare a people for his soon return god bless you and god bless his beloved church we will now have and enjoy a special music offering from the visalia praise team arms of grace god bless you [Music] come for he's waiting hands of kindness welcomes come to the arms of grace he has [Music] bring [Music] of grace of grace [Music] we will join with heaven salvation come as you are he is [Music] of grace of grace [Music] jesus comes as you are he is your battle scars of [Music] to the grace of grace to the arms of grace we're going to have mark jones get baptized and mark is not only a candidate for baptism he's a good friend we've got to know each other over the course of a year and a half on these zoo meetings he's someone from the very beginning was participating and being involved in the zoo meetings he's one of our leaders what i like most about the zooms about the ccc zooms is that it was bible-centered and everything was just focused primarily on god scripture and and fellowship um because all the churches were closed down i was looking for a place to fellowship and have bible studies and um just i was searching for god's word just more of god's word and truth and so a friend of mine said hey mark i know you like bible studies try the ccc the central california conference and i said who's speaking they said it's a nail conda i said oh i've heard him speak a few times right around the beginning of kobe there was actually a group of us young adults that my some of my closest friends we just started doing 10 days of prayer we're like hey let's let's pray together something is going on in our world and we don't know what's going on so we started coming together to pray and at the end of 10 days of prayer that's the day that kendra and anil announced they had a zoom program for young adults apartment runs anywhere from 11 to 12 zoo meetings per week one of the reasons why we have so many meetings is we wanted to provide opportunities for young adults to study to grow to participate we have bible studies we have ellen white book studies we have young adult prayer meeting friday night vespers sabbath afternoon and even social activities for young adults we wanted to provide something for young adults to be able to participate in uh during this pandemic we have created a new form of evangelism we have young adults coming out of the woodwork we have young adults that stopped going to church that started participating um in the zooms as well the cost actually was very minimal instead of doing things in person having to buy resources everything was just online so in addition to upgrading the zoom there was very minimal cost to the transition our evangelism department did allocate some money for our department and for this period of time and we were able to use some of the funding to help reach out to young adults i noticed young people would stay longer than just for the bible study in fact no one wanted to say goodbye where would we go to we're stuck at home right so i felt this need for fellowship and community and it just turned into conversations and then it started turning into real conversations about what people are struggling with what jobs people are losing just how kovitt is changing their life it's like the axe to church that's how i feel about this community and why i say that is there's a verse that talks about no one had any needs because we everybody was giving of what they had and we do that you know we've given towards people who need groceries we've given towards people who don't have rent next month when we did ministry just for central california conference young adults we reached young adults within central california and sometimes some of the other areas like norcal and southern california but when we opened up the zoom ministry for young adults we had people all the way from the philippines africa india you name it all over the us joining us on a daily basis you know when i first met mark i i didn't even know he was an adventist i just talked to him hung out with him we talked a lot on zoom with the group and uh we just got to know him and love him and when he wanted to be baptized i was like oh okay well that makes perfect sense all the messages every single every single bible study it was just there was something small detail that would just hit me and i'm like i can't believe i never noticed it and it would every single time i was just being fed then it would it would cause me to just research and so from that i said okay i think i need to ask anil maybe if he could consider baptizing me and so um i wanted to connect with someone whoever was going to baptize me i wanted to connect with them so i i got offered to be baptized from different people and i said you can just go in my pool my backyard and i'll do it i was like i actually want to be able to talk to someone that i you know that's going to baptize me that i can actually connect with and it was actually reach out to me and things of that nature so um i reached out to anil and uh he was gracious enough to say yeah i'm actually a pastor and so he said yeah i'll be happy to do it we have to do some baptism studies i said that's fine and so again he was gracious enough to do that and just connect with me but the seas has been they've been there and when i didn't know someone would be there yeah we i don't think it's slowed down in fact during the baptism there was almost 70 people at the same time from all over the world wanting to see mark get baptized i wish you guys could all be here why did you guys be coming on for him that's so nice yeah yeah but they really wanted to see me [Music] so i i think something that i've learned in this whole process is that there are a lot of young people who really want to be part of a church they want to be part of the church they want to learn about what we're doing who we are what is our true identity we've been studying um every i feel like we've studied almost every book of the bible we've gone through nearly 10 books with the spirit of prophecy it's just been it's like the acts 2 church that's how i feel about this community and i think this really goes in line with just the theme for camp meeting the return longing for home because god is awakening the hearts and minds of many young adults to come to him during this special time i think that god has an interesting way of leading us and so what i think my future holds to be honest i don't know but what i do see is opportunity because through the ccc and just the bible studies we're being equipped with information with knowledge with um an understanding of how to to communicate with people to connect with people even if it's not face to face physically and so the zoom has been a huge way to connect with people from all over the world and so i think that my future is going to be connecting with people in some way shape or form i'm not sure exactly what that is but connection would be it wow what an amazing testimony you see mark and many other young adults have been blessed by the ministry of central california conference young adult and senior youth ministry since the start of the pandemic and all the way to now there has been close to 1 000 zoom meetings that have taken place you see the church didn't shut down during the pandemic it went online there has been conferences and bible studies and panels and vespers and worship programs that have taken place you see when you give to evangelism you are giving to youth and young adult ministry now there are three ways to give if you look up at the top of the screen you'll see a qr code all you need to do is take out your camera and scan that and the adventist giving website will come up and you're able to give there now you might have received a mail out also and there's a tithe envelope that you can fill out and mail out in addition there's a qr code that you can scan as well and it leads you right to the giving website in addition you can take your church tithe envelope and you can mark it camp meeting evangelism offering and turn it in it is amazing what god is doing during these times this is a special opportunity to give to the future of the church would you pray with me father in heaven thank you so much again for this time thank you for your goodness and your mercy lord we pray a blessing upon the offering and may it be used for your glory and honor in jesus name amen amen the next song that will be sung is watchy saints and the words are [Music] on-screen returning [Music] jesus comes [Music] yes [Music] redemption [Music] jesus christ [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] right is [Music] jesus [Music] is [Music] jesus christ [Music] don't you just love our theme song this year it is derived from my thing this year the return longing for home and tonight pastor henry wright will be the chosen vessel to speak this evening pastor henry wright is a minister professor and family counselor elder wright began his ministerial career in 1964 after earning a bachelor of arts in religion from oakwood college further education included a master of systematic theology degree from andrews university in 1965 a master of divinity degree from methodist theological seminary in 1978 and post-graduate studies in church administration at vanderbilt university university arguably one of the most gifted preachers in the church today it is his intimate personal rubber meets the road experience with jesus that shines through every sermon elder wright's passion and greatest joy is to share jesus restoring power and the endless possibilities to each surrendered life hey this is a fact you may not know but you may know this is pastor wright's eighth appearance at socal camp meeting i invite you to sit back as god's chosen vessel this evening speaks to the heart of god's people [Music] [Applause] [Music] what a joy to be with you again at the central california camp meeting better known by many a socal camp meeting it was wow 1980 the first time i came i was 37 years old i'm 79 now so time has passed for a lot of us um things have changed i've changed gray beard hardly any hair some of you have made changes as well but god is good we're still involved in and hooked to the longing for whom the return of the lord as i was thinking about what to do for you i remember when i first came in 1980 i believe i spoke for the whole week all the evening meetings and i preached a sermon entitled trying to fit some of you might actually remember that sermon based on john 14 1-3 and the lord led me back to that passage for this sermon no apology no apology at all it's not the same sermon in fact i actually think forgive me it's a better sermon than it was 40 some years ago and i've named or entitled the sermon displaced displaced let's pray father speak to us in this word in jesus name amen john 14 1-3 let not your heart be troubled ye believe in god believe also in me in my father's house many mansions if it were not so i would have told you now i go and prepare a place for you and if i go and prepare a place for you i will come again that where i am ye maybe also those words they still send chills running through my body er these words spoken are are some of the warmest and most meaningful words that ever came from the mouth of jesus to us these words were spoken the week of his crucifixion he's just had the first lord's supper before there was even a christian church he will soon be leaving this place where they had the supper and going to the garden of gethsemane sweating blood due to his passionate prayer to his father the supper with his disciples has revealed some serious fractures listen to me listen to me some serious fractures in the relationships of these apostles these 12 apostles with whom he's having the meal and with jesus at the moment the words are spoken in john 14 1-3 jesus has one concern hear me it's the spiritual welfare and stamina of his closest 12 apostles he knows that all hell forgive my french is about to break loose on these 12 men they're going to be shaken as they've never been shaken before just as just as we're going to face some tough times before jesus comes the second time several several of these apostles these disciples that are with jesus that that thursday night this is a thursday night quote i go and prepare a place for you jesus said this on a thursday evening but several of those with him in the meal had been with him for three and a half years they've they've witnessed some awesome healing through jesus the power of god lame folk jumping up and walking and blind people instantly seeing and the death hearing the dumb speaking and yes even the dead coming out of their graves and some of these 12 have seen all this and heard every sermon and one of them is peter keep that in mind he'll be key to the sermon these familiar words i go and prepare a place for you these familiar words let not your heart be troubled have special meaning to the apostle peter we'll come back to that toward the end of the sermon the words of john 14 1-3 came to be referred to as the promise what did i say the promise uh the book of hebrews refers to the promise in chapters four and and six and nine and ten and eleven uh the writer there speaks of the promise it is no accident that the apostle peter who was very central to the words of john 14 uh later in his book refers to the promise ii peter 2 19 and 3 4 and verses 3 4 19 and 13 and chapter 3 peter refers to the promise the promise of the second coming hear me became no matter how tough things got no matter how challenging things got no matter how alienated early christians became these words i will come again hey kept them going thank you jesus many of us can quote john 14 1-3 from heart but i want to focus on one key phrase i go and prepare a place p-l-a-c-e for you those words hang there now what's the issue well over the years of my bible reading i've i've switched from the uh six chapters a day you know trying to read the bible in a year i i now read the bible one chapter a day i love it one chapter day allows me to kind of put things in context to connect one thing with another i think in a more effective theological way i begin to see the wholeness of scripture as i've been reading it one chapter they started back before the 2015 general conference elder wilson is the one who planted that idea in my mind yes the bible is written by 40 different people we know that its author is the holy spirit paul the apostle paul talks about it second timothy 3 16 and and peter chimes in in first peter uh ii peter 1 20 and 21 talking about all scripture from god and holy men moved as they were spoken they removed we we we know that we know that but because of the divine author one person we should not be surprised i'm laying the groundwork now for where i'm going we should not be surprised that some of the concepts and ideas and themes of scripture run throughout the entire bible yeah and and one of the ideas that that does that is this concept of a place a place i want you to think about that i go and prepare a place why is he preparing a place for us don't we have one um or all the major translations use the word place in the greek it's the word topan or tapos and it has no excessive meaning it simply means place so it's it's it's a good translation all the translators agree place now the issue of the sermon it's why do we need a place well getting back to this idea of a single theme that runs through the bible if you treat the bible as one book and not 66 the need for human beings to have a place shouts yes screams out of the bible record the concept is so clear so prevalent we hey listen to me we as a human race though we live on planet earth which we call home we are a planet of displaced persons i'll say it again the entire human race displaced not misplaced displaced because god knows where we are but we're displaced we're not where we ought to be let's put it in a single simple phrase we are homeless oh yeah yeah we got property in mansions some of us ranches town houses bungalows in the country houseboats yachts private jets but we you me homeless now there may be someone listening to me really is homeless and i don't want to make light of that state but i would say this even to the homeless if you got a quotes home tomorrow in the context of john 14 1-3 you would still be homeless displaced how did this happen well again the theme running from the beginning running from the beginning of scripture to the end genesis 1. the whole chapter god gives us a home but genesis 3 verses 22 to 24 we're evicted hey we're evicted from our god-given home displaced in genesis three chapters after the first chapter we have no home i go and prepare a place for you genesis 6 5 and 6 god starts thinking eviction again remember he says there i wish i hadn't made them i wish i had not made them had greed the heart of god that he had made man those words still just do something to me and in genesis 6 13 and 14 sure enough god gives them temporary housing eight of us in a vote there we are displaced again in fact one of my favorite authors ellen g white describes the world before the flood i'm reading the earth was rich she writes and beautiful in the gifts of god's providence the hills were majestic trees on the hills were majestic trees supporting the fruit-laden branches of the vine all the lady can write the vast garden-like plains she writes were clothed with verger and sweet with the fragrance of a thousand flowers the fruits of the earth were in great variety she writes and almost without limit the trees far surpassed in size beauty and preferred perfect proportion any now to be found gold and silver and precious stones could be found in abundance the book patriarchs and prophets page 90. the arthur goes on uh in a later paragraph to describe some of the fabulous homes these ancient people who lived hundreds of years built for themselves no one his family displaced left all this behind have you ever been evicted or had your home foreclosed because you could not meet the mortgage requirements have you ever been a refugee forced to flee from the country of your home of your birth because of war and injustice or racism or opposing political views or some unpopular religious practice have you ever been evicted have you thought about how noah and his family felt as they came out of the ark and saw for the first time the resultant devastation of a world that that an entire planet had been flooded and again the author of the book patriarchs and prophets that i just read from speaks again this time page 108. she says talking about the earth that noah and his family saw she says the entire surface of the earth was changed after the flood see a place i prepare for you a place i want that to sink in the earth presented an appearance of of confusion and desolation impossible to describe and she's a great writer the mountains once so beautiful in their perfect symmetry have become broken and irregular in many cases hills and mountains had disappeared leaving no trace where they once stood patriarchs and prophets 108 on and on the description goes can you imagine can you imagine how displaced noah and his family felt it kind of gives you some sympathy for the old man when the bible says in genesis 9 20 and 21 that he got drunk over and over this theme of mankind displaced occurs in scripture tara's babel got chased away abraham leaves for a city he knows not where genesis lot has to leave sodom and gomorrah genesis 27 jacob has to leave his home in palestine and go to egypt jacob's entire well jacob genesis 27 jacob has to flee his home running from his brother and then in genesis 48 jacob jacob's entire jacob's entire family has to move to egypt in exodus 12 the hebrew nation has to leave egypt after 40 some years to the wilderness and then again the entire nation of israel and judah at the end of the old testament are carted off to babylon now this is interesting to me the old testament begins with mankind being displaced and the old testament ends with mankind being displaced again oh the words of jesus all of a sudden the words of jesus i go and prepare a place for you why we ain't got none we have no place lord help us why is this important well there's a deeper meaning to this idea of place i i want you now to think of place in the sense of fitting in you know that goes back to that first sermon i preached in many ways the journey of every human being who lives on on earth is to is to grow up and and it's a journey of finding a place you're born you must learn to find your place in the family you are born and may be abandoned you you you you may be left to be adopted or grow up in the social service system foster parents and so on trying to find a place you have to go to school and fit in there trying to find a place later go to college and fit in their armed services fit in there get married fit in there how do you fit in how do you fit in society puts enormous pressure and some of you listening to me has succumbed to the pressure of finding a place fitting in those of us born latino african-american asian and other nine groups have recently over the past year seen the brutal reality that even though we were born and helped build this country we don't fit in we don't have a place and so we do things silly things embarrassing things you know some black folks pass as white some latinos work hard at losing their accent self-destructive things in order to find acceptance some folks lie about their background pretend to be rich when they're poor uh to prevent to have when they have nothing but tend to be educated when they don't pretend to have doctor's degrees of have never been to a university cars neighborhoods running up debt compromising principles telling lies or at least exaggerating the truth about ourselves and accomplishments accomplishments just hoping to be welcome into some elite group or job or club whatever desperate desperate to find a place am i talking to you you see jesus understands you john declares in john 1 11 listen to these words man he came unto his own and his own did not did not receive him luke says and she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room i'm going to substitute the word room with place because there was no place for him in the end jesus understands what it is matthew records jesus saying in 8 20 the foxes have holes and the birds of the heirs have nests but the son of man does not have a place to lay his head let me let me rephrase it the son of man has no place jesus understands what you're going through i got a place for you you don't fit i got a place for you you don't belong i got a place for you you don't know who your parents are i've got a place for you you live under a bridge i got a place for you you can't read or write i got a place for you mark has an interesting story about jesus and a place in mark 6 3 he says is this not the carpenter's son the son of mary and brother of james and joseph and judas and simon are not his sisters here with us and then the bible says and so they were offended of him and if you read the story the leaders of the church the leaders of the local government the leaders of the ruling government in fact matthew 8 34 talks about a whole village told him get out get out get out of here with that miracle killing our pigs get out no place it was as if it was as if the entire life of jesus is an allegory of my sermon jesus listen jesus came to illustrate what it means not to have a place so when jesus says i go and prepare a place for you he's talking about himself i don't have one and if you're close to me you don't have one the difference is i can fix the problem says jesus i know you're longing for a place in this planet stained by sin corrupt with imaginable vileness we're displaced in the universe and yet jesus came here to identify with the displaced please get that i like the way paul puts it that this mind being you which was also in christ jesus who being in the form of god did not consider it robbery to be equal with god but made himself of no reputation let me translate but gave up his place taking the form of a bond servant coming in the likeness of men and being found in the in in appearance as a man he humbled himself and became obedient placeless to the point of death even the death of the cross philippians 2 5-8 get it get it are you feeling it now permit me to close by linking the apostle peter with our passage the words a place for you let me take you back now to the to the beginning of my sermon if you return to our primary verses john 14 1-3 they follow some important events and words at the end of chapter 13. here's the record in john 13 36-38 now listen simon simon peter said to him lord where are you going see verses 31-34 jesus answered him where i'm going you cannot follow me peter but you shall follow me afterward peter was not satisfied his response lord why cannot i follow you now i will lay down my life for your sake jesus answered well will you lay down your life for my sake peter most assuredly i say to you the rooster will not crow that you have denied me three times now it's important for you to remember that everything recorded by john in the gospel in chapters 13-17 occurs in the context of the lord's supper the lord's first lord's supper it is jesus and the twelve it is a sad scene not just because jesus is about to die but due to the disappointing spiritual caliber of these 12 men judas has already contracted to betray the lord james and john have had their mother come and request that they have special status when jesus comes to his kingdom the disciples as a whole have yet to accept the prime teaching of jesus that he did not come that he did not come to establish an earthly kingdom they they want their place here and now just like you don't criticize them don't mock them just like you they they wanted it all now they want the jaguar now the bmw now the lexus now the mercedes now the house now the the the swimming pool now the they want it now they don't want to wait so there's tension in the room sadness in jesus sad character in his disciples and now jesus drops the bomb on peter and he does it right in front of the eleven in fact he's already unsettled the 12 of them in chapter 13 by saying one of you will betray me and as the disciples listen to him they're wondering is peter the betrayer and so at this moment follow it follow it feel it at this moment peter stands naked exposed shattered peter at this moment is a displaced person even amongst the disciples he cannot go with jesus and he's embarrassed in front of the church now all of a sudden the words in john 14 1-3 are they special for when he says let not your heart be troubled i picture jesus eyes boring into peter peter it's gonna be okay man you me the words are personal not general he's saying to peter to you to me yeah you're going to make some mistakes you you're going to fail in some deep personal ways peter but i'm so confident that in my strength you ultimately will ultimately will prevail i'm already hey peter going to go i'm already going planning to build and prepare a place for my believers for you peter there will be a mailbox in a heavenly cul-de-sac where your name will be there and you will never be evicted i go thank you jesus i go i know you feel real bad right now peter embarrassed but i'm going to prepare a place for you you can never really belong on this earth but i prepare a place for you it is no coincidence that it is the apostle peter when the last chapter of the book of his book called second peter writes knowing this first that scoffers will come in the last days walking according to their own hearts i'm closing now listen and say where's the promise of his coming for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation and then he goes on in the next four verses reminding the believers of what happened during the ark during the flood and the mistake that those before the flood made in the time of noah and then peter drives home his point in verse nine the lord hey is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness but his long suffering to us word not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance peter is remembering as he writes that the effect the promise had on him he's remembering how he wept bitterly after he betrayed his lord just as jesus predicted and in my imagination help me jesus i see peter kneeling in shame as he weeps and the words of jesus are pounding his brain let not your heart be troubled peter i got plans for you i go and prepare a place for you you know we've become delusional in this modern world particularly in this country we we seem to be living in a country where lies have more power than truth [Music] conspiracy conspiracy theories abound people believe things based on how it satisfies what they hope is true satan has raised a conspiracy against the second coming he says fire smoke the elements melting in fervent heat really mountains moved out of their places come on all this that i love and cherish gone yay i have no intention as i close this sermon trying to convince you what jesus says is true i will just say it one more time [Music] he's prepared a place for you you ain't got none and you will not have one until you were with him if there's somebody listening to me right now who's lost their hope who's lost their conviction when you accepted jesus you gave up your place here he's got one for you and if you're listening to me and you've never said yes to jesus and your life is in turmoil turmoil and there's not peace and satisfaction and joy this worry and stress and strain it's because you're still trying to fit here we've lost this time there's going to be a new heavens and it'll work he's preparing a place for you i beg you to accept it let's pray father they've heard the word it could have been better preached and better written but they heard it and now you work on somebody's heart right now and give them fresh determination to make it to the place you have prepared in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit amen wow did not our hearts burn within us thank you pastor wright for such an exciting and powerful word reminding us that god has a place for us i'm so glad i came to the camp meeting this evening to hear god's word let's pray as we close our worship service for this evening father thank you so much for reminding us that this is not our home that indeed you're coming back again to take us to a place that has been being prepared for us now father i ask in a special way for your holy spirit to abide upon us all though we're separated physically keep us one spiritual and father bring us back together again in the morning as we come on the holy sabbath day to worship at the so-called camp meeting in the name of jesus we pray for christ's sake amen amen amen amen what a good word that was a good word i want to remind you that tomorrow morning the last day of socal camp meeting 2021 will take place we don't have a sabbath school program but we will begin at 10 45 a.m on all of the selected platforms that we've been streaming on this week so we invite you to get a good rest we've got a full day of camp meeting tomorrow this saturday god bless with you and have a good rest [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so 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Channel: Central California Conference of SDA

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Keywords: soquelcampmeeting, henry wright, sda, cccsda, campmeeting, central california conference

Id: B2P5uRStEfA

Length: 104min 40sec (6280 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 16 2021