| Speaking Well of God Presentation 9. What God Really Wants |
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Speaking Well of God I was checking with Bernardo who was there in Rio when we were having some meetings and we had some conversations like this. I couldn’t remember which stories I’d told, but Bernardo was paying attention, he told me what I said, so that’s good! So let us start off with a conversation that I had with one ambassador there—I think it was in Geneva, because that is where I was often speaking at the Commission on Human Rights. And I was talking with this ambassador and he said, “So, who do you represent?” I don’t take the title of ambassador, please understand that. But that’s the kind of thing I was doing representing the Church there. And he said, “Oh yes! I know the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It’s the church of the ‘nots.’ You don’t smoke, you don’t drink, you don’t eat pork, you don’t go to church on Sunday.” And then he went down this whole long list of all the things that we don’t do. And he said, “See, I know you very well.” I wonder how you would have answered that. I said, “Well, you’re remembering us for what we don’t do. Maybe we could talk a little about what we do do.” So we started talking about the work we do in health, and in education, we have over a million students in our education system around the world. I said, “And yes, we don’t go to church on Sunday, but we do go to church on Sabbath. And most of all we do believe in a kind and loving God.” That led to a very interesting conversation. Because at the end of that he said, “Well, after all these don’ts what does God really want?” he asked?. I would like to ask you that question here today. What does God really want? What does He want from you and from me? I guess we could begin with saying some things like, “Well, he wants our tithe. He wants our money.” No, God doesn’t need our money. Okay, so what about God wants our time, he wants us to sit in church on Sabbath and he wants us to endure from Friday sundown to Sabbath sundown, and not enjoy anything! Don’t enjoy anything in that time in between Friday night and Saturday night. Some of us, actually, even though we might not say it quite like that, do think a little bit that way… I remember talking with a man over there in England who’d been a member of the church for 30 years. I asked him, “How did you join the church?” You know, that’s a good question for Pastors to ask members, “How did you join the church?” He said, “Well, I went to the Methodist church but they were talking about the love of God, so I didn’t join them. Then I went to the Baptist church and they were talking about the love of God. I went to all these churches and they all were talking about the love of God. I went to the Adventist church, they weren’t talking about the love of God, so I joined them.” Ow! Painful, huh? I asked him, “Well, what do you think the Sabbath is for?” “It’s to prove I’m a true Christian and God has to take me into Heaven,” he said. “I pay my tithes and my offerings so God has to let me in. That’s the contract.” You know, today even now as I share this with you, I’m so disturbed by that kind of thinking. Anyway, back to our ambassadors. I had the opportunity of talking to many of them. They weren’t all talking to me about what we don’t do, thankfully. Sometimes we had some real challenges, though, in terms of their understanding of what we stand for. “Oh, the Adventist church, that’s the one that doesn’t believe in blood transfusions.” “You’re that church that has that big temple place out there in Utah in the middle of the state.” “No, no, we’re not those,” I’d explain. They would associate us with others, and they would say, “Oh yes, you are a sect, I think.” I’d ask what they thought a sect was. In the end I think we managed to express the concept that we were a Christian church. But very often they would say, “But what are you doing here at the UN? Why are you here?” I’d tell them: “Because we want to talk about important ideas like freedom, and hope.” You don’t go to an ambassador and start trying to give him all the 28 fundamental beliefs. He or she doesn’t have the time, they say, to listen to that. So we have to help them get a vision of the God that we believe in. I remember going to the representative of Sri Lanka. I asked some questions about religious freedom in the country. They’ve been having a war between the Sinhalese and the Tamils in the country. It is also a war between two religions. He said, “Would you like to meet with the ambassador and talk with her?” I said, “Yes, that would be very nice.” He said, “Okay, in ten minutes we’ll meet you out front with an official car.” They brought me in this official car down to the embassy down there in Geneva, and they took me straight in to meet with the ambassador and their chief legal advisor. And you think, what an opportunity! Here am I in her office. What do you say? Where would you begin when she says, “I hear you would like to talk to me.” I said, “I surely would.” We began by talking about the issues of religious freedom in the country between the Tamils, who believe in Hinduism, and the Sinhalese who believe in Buddhism. We talked for quite awhile about this, and then she said to me, “What did you say, who did you represent again?” I said, “The Seventh-day Adventist Church.” Then she said to me, “Why do you, as a Christian, care what happens between Hindus and Buddhists?” Maybe you are asking the same question. The answer is because we believe in the human right given to us by God, to choose what we believe and not to have anyone to force anybody else as to what they should believe. She looked at me suddenly very strangely, and I think with some respect that this Church would stand up for religious freedom. Then she asked, “But why do you do this?” I said, “Because of the God we believe in.” We’re not always thinking about ourselves. Sometimes we are, it’s true. But to stand up for religious freedom everywhere in the world speaks so well of the Church, but most of all about the God that we love and that we worship. I could tell you many more stories—let’s talk about the Irish delegation. I was speaking with one of the diplomats from Ireland, and we were concerned about religious discrimination, and particularly with the whole idea of religious persecution. The Irish permanent mission to the UN was chairing a committee that was looking at this. And the diplomat said to me, “I can see you’re very interested in this. Let me offer you something. Why don’t you come in and share together in the discussion with the committee.” And then, as we were meeting in that room, they went round introducing themselves. “I am the Second Secretary from the permanent mission of Germany.” “I am the Third Secretary from the permanent mission of Spain.” “I am the First Secretary of the permanent mission of Bolivia.” It went all the way around the room. ThenI said, “Well, I’m from the Seventh-day Adventist Church.” Some said, “What are you doing here?!” I said, “I was invited.” And they said, “Well, if you have something to contribute, then good!” So I was sitting there with all those diplomats. Do you think that’s a good opportunity? Do you think that’s something we should be doing? When they come up to me and say, “So, why are you here in this committee? And what do you believe?” You know, we would pay for that! To be able to share that with all these different people—these are important people from these embassies from these different countries. We met together with some church leaders, too, with the General Secretary of the Church of England. He runs the Church of England. He told me, “I’ve completely changed my view about Adventists now.” Now that is something. I also spoke at the same meeting with one of the leaders of the Salvation Army. I was able to correct many misconceptions that she had. What does God really want? What kind of person is he? How do we speak well of God? Tell, me, do you think we should be talking to cardinals of the Catholic Church? Wouldn’t that be a great thing to be able to share with a cardinal? I don’t know whether everybody’s convinced, Pastor. Listen, I believe we should talk to anybody everywhere if you can speak well of God. I was there at the invitation of the Pontifical Commission for the Promotion of Christian Unity. I’m invited there, and many religions were represented. We were given some incredible privileges. I have been down in the catacombs underneath St. Peter, in Rome, and I had a cardinal as our tour guide. We went to places that folk never usually have the opportunity. I even saw the “bones of St. Peter.” But I remember, most of all, having a conversation with one of the other cardinals there, and this relates to speaking well of God. We had become quite good friends, so I wasn’t really being offensive when I said what I said. I’ll tell the story, and then we’ll see. We were having a conversation in the corridor. I said, “Cardinal, it is so important, isn’t it, to have a good picture of God?” He said, “Oh yes, that is very important.” He was from Germany and had a strong German accent. Then I said—I thought I would just drop this little thing into the conversation—I said, “But Cardinal, it must be so hard to have a good picture of God when you believe in hell.” And then you wait... Then he said, “Ha, ha, ha, we know what you Adventists think.” I said, “But you believe in it.” “Well”, he said, “God is not in charge of a concentration camp.” I said, “Good answer, Cardinal, but you still believe in hell.” Then he said, “As the Holy Father recently said in an encyclical, hell is not so much a place as a state of mind.” What do you think, Pastor? Pastor Luis: “It’s your sermon.” I said, “Well, if that’s true I think you should tell your members.” We went on talking about speaking well of God. For I cannot conceive of how you can speak well of God if you believe he’s going to torture you forever. That is not the description of good in anybody’s dictionary. We had many other conversations that were similar. I remember speaking with the Prime Minister of Bermuda. We were there for some religious liberty meetings in the island of Bermuda. I saw this lady standing in the corner of the room; I didn’t know who she was at the time. So I go over… I’m not very shy, not any more—I used to be shy. I just go up and say, “Good evening, madam, I’m here with the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Might I ask who you are?” “I’m the Prime Minister.” I should have known that! And then she says, “Ah, the Adventists. Let me tell you what I know about the Adventists. I even have Adventists in my cabinet, in my group of ministers.” I’m glad to say she had a very positive view. It’s good when other people speak well of us. To illustrate, let me tell you this story. When I was in my first church in Cambridge in England, I went to the ministers meeting. I had asked where this ministers meeting was for all the different ministers from the different faiths met, and I went there. As I went into the meeting everybody looked at me, and I wondered if I was growing horns on my head or something. They all looked at me, and they said, “Well, it’s good to meet you. We’ve never seen and Adventist minister before.” I said, “Here I am.” And I signed them all up for the Ministry magazine—that program of giving our magazine to these ministers of other faiths. Quite a while later, they asked “Is it you sending these magazines?” I told them, “Yes.” I was hoping they would like them. They said, “Oh, yes, yes, we really like them!” In fact, one of the Church of England ministers said, “I took the front page out and put it above my secretary’s desk.” It was a picture of the pastor telling his secretary what to do! So we became quite friendly. A little while later there was that terrible, terrible disaster in Waco, Texas. Do you remember Waco, where all those people followed David Koresh? It didn’t come here, okay; let me explain a little bit. There was a man called David Koresh, who really was a false prophet. He brought many people into a compound, a group of buildings, in Texas. In the end, the FBI went in, the buildings were set on fire, and everybody was burned to death. Then the word came out that this was Adventists—and there was some truth to it because some of the people who were there, who died, were members of the Adventist Church. But the problem was, the news would say, “This is what Adventists believe, this is what that Adventists do, this is the Adventist Church.” This was just before the ingathering campaign where you go out and collect money for missions. I thought, “Oh my, we go out there, nobody’s going to give us a penny.” But then these other ministers wrote to the local newspaper saying, “We don’t know about these people in Waco, but we know the Adventists here, they would not do this. We know the Adventists, they are good people.” When other people speak up for you like that, it’s worth more than gold. So we had no problem as we went from place to place collecting money for the ingathering program. But we had to make friends with these other ministers first. Let me tell you about another case there in the United Nations. How many people know where Eritrea is? It is a country in Africa close to Ethiopia. And if you don’t know where Ethiopia is, you have to go back home and do more geography! So there’s this little country called Eritrea. In that country they closed down all the religions except for three. The Muslims, the Catholics, and the Lutherans were allowed to operate. Everybody else was forbidden to worship. So I went to the ambassador, and asked, “Mr. Ambassador, I would like to talk to you.” I said, “I represent the Adventist Church, and you have closed us down in your country.” He said, “Well, it’s not really against you, we quite like the Adventists. But we have to close down all these other religions, so you got included.” I said, “But this is terrible.” He says, “Well, you know, this is the government. We can do what we want.” So then I met with him a little later, and talked with him again. I said, “You know, you’ve closed down the Adventist Churches and others—this is against religious freedom and human rights.” He says, “But I told you, it’s not against you. In fact, my brother went to an Adventist school.” I said, “But you still closed our churches.” He said, “Well, I will get in contact with Asmara, the capital, and see what happens. Next time I was at the meetings, he came looking for me. And he said, “We are working it out, so you get registration too. So please don’t complain anymore to the Human Rights Committee.” I told him, “I will still make my speech, but I will put in a footnote and say that I’ve talked with the Ambassador and he says that they will work it out, he will resolve it.” So I did that, and he replied publicly, “We wish all the other religions would work like the Adventist Church.” He said this to all the 700 people at the Human Rights Commission. We’re still waiting for the registration, but let me tell you a little secret. We didn’t have any trouble working in our churches, having church services, even though the churches were closed. After our talks with the Ambassador we were even able to have the Division President come in on a visa to go and visit the churches, even though we were not an officially recognized church. There’s a lot more background that I can’t share with you, even now, but if you want to ask me more questions afterwards privately, we can talk about it, because these things are so important. People’s lives are at stake. We are very close friends of the UN person who’s in charge of freedom of religion or belief. She’s called a special rapporteur, a French word meaning like a reporter, a special reporter. She is an independent person, she is not paid by the United Nations, but she goes to the different countries and makes visits and reports on their human rights records in religious freedom. We provide her with a lot of information. I used to go to many of the countries and do research myself, and we could ask all our church leaders in the different countries, “What is the situation in your country?” This lady, her name is Asma Jahangir, she’s from Pakistan, and she has spoken of us so well. She says, “You are one of the few groups who are really committed to religious freedom.” She goes around the world telling everybody this. Here is somebody who is not an Adventist, but speaks so highly of what we do in this area. Is that something that is worth doing, making friends, making friends for God? Okay, let us go to the Bible and read a couple of texts before my time runs out completely. I want to read John 15, verse 15, because we’re answering the question: What does God really want? Jesus says this to His disciples, “I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything I learned from my father I have made known to you.” Not servants, friends. What does God want? God is looking for friends. That’s what I believe he wants from us. So when I talk to these ambassadors, diplomats, and UN staff, and when they ask me, “Well what do you think God is really looking for?” I say, “He’s looking for you to be his friend”, because when you’re a friend of God, what happens? Don’t you do what your friend wants? Don’t you love your friend? Don’t you share in what your friend does in every aspect? They can understand those things. I’m not going to talk about justification, and sanctification, and expiation, and propitiation, or any other “ations.” Just talk about being God’s true and trusted friend. There’s another text that sometimes we even misread. John 16 and verse 26, beginning in the middle there, “I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf.” In the Portuguese it begins with “Não” (Not). But we read it without the “não.” We read it and we leave out the “não,” we leave out the “no”, the “not”. We think that Jesus is asking the Father for us, but Jesus very clearly says here he is not going to do that. Why not? Read the next verse. “No, the Father loves you himself.” He doesn’t need to be persuaded to love us. Jesus doesn’t have to say, “Father, please be their friends.” No, the Father already loves us. God loved the world that He gave his only son. So when it comes to explaining to people I would ask you to be ambassadors here today. Doesn’t Paul say that we need to be ambassadors for Christ? You might not be able to go to the United Nations in New York or Geneva, but you are ambassadors for Jesus Christ. “We,” says Paul again, “are a spectacle to angels and to men.” People are looking at us, and the whole of the onlooking universe is watching. What are we representing? What are we saying? Are we speaking well of God? We need to come to the end and wrap up some of our stories. I’ve met with so many interesting people, and I wish I could share all of them with you. I’ve met with the Prime Minister of Trinidad, the President of Romania, with the leadership in Papua New Guinea. The great thing is that we have a line in there because the ambassador of Papua, New Guinea to the United States is an Adventist. He invited me to go to his country and travel with him. You know, it’s very interesting when you travel with an ambassador. We had three armed policemen with us. And they were all Adventists. We didn’t have any trouble, thank God. When you travel with someone like that, you meet with people, you talk with them. I’ve met with the Vice President, who’s kind of the one who runs the country. I spent an hour and a half in the office of the foreign minister, discussing what we could do together to improve religious freedom in Papua New Guinea. Then I had a wonderful opportunity to go around the Pacific Islands and visit all the leaders in the, okay, I’ll give you a list: Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Raratonga in the Cook Islands, Vanuatu… Pastor Luis: I don’t the names or how to say them in Portuguese! That’s right… you’ve probably never even heard of them, but here we are traveling around and telling these people in these little countries how we are looking for them to support religious freedom. It’s been my privilege to do that and to be able to speak at all these kinds of different levels. But I want to encourage you again today, to recognize what God does really want from you. He’s not looking for your money. He’s not looking for any legal observance of a day or anything like that. He is looking for a relationship with each one of you. He is your friend, and he wants you to be his friend, and not just now but forever. And he is the one who can, as we saw this morning, heal everything and change it, so you can be there with him forever. How many people here, want to be God’s friend this evening? Amen, amen. Let us pray as we close. Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful chance to speak together, to be your friends, to be truly part of your family, sons and daughters, whatever we want to say. We thank you that we are your ambassadors here on planet Earth that we are a spectacle to angels and to all the people around us. Lord, may we speak well of you because we know now what you really want. You want us; you want us to be with you now and forever. May this be true for each one who is here today. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen. -end- |
