August 30, 2025 • 30 mins
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(00:00):
Well it's my pleasure to be here.
Um it was in a country called Zaire, uh now Democratic Republic of Congo.
So back when we were meeting in the library, um
Uh one of the elders greeted somebody with jumbo, and so I said jumbo swana, barigani, mazurisana.
That's all the Swahili I know that I remember from my childhood, so that's about it.
(00:22):
But um
Um uh those were those were some precious years as a as a young boy growing up in Africa um as a missionary kid.
It's my pleasure to be here today.
Um the last time I think I I've been here many times for various communication events.
Um
Still serving as a communication director for the conference, as well as I've picked up the uh superintendent of education um position.
(00:45):
Uh just uh last week I was visiting our little school down here, Adobe.
If you haven't been by there recently, please do.
It's just a precious little school.
Robert's doing a phenomenal job.
Um, and they've painted it.
They put a new playground in, and it's just this they've really beautified the little campus.
um over there.
(01:05):
And during the summer he only had three students on the books and I was I was a little worried.
And uh he called me this week and said
Um that they're enrolling their ninth student.
I said, Robert, the Lord's bl tripled our blessings in the last uh month or so.
for the school.
So it's still a very small school.
Uh but Roberts did a phenomenal job there.
(01:27):
I sat in there as he was teaching um the the first and second graders math.
And just it's just fun.
It's fun to go visit the classes.
This week I'll actually be going down to Bisbee to visit the Cochise School, and then Friday I'll be there at the AZ Sunshine there in Wilcox.
Um so it's fun to go around the Arizona Conference and seeing.
(01:49):
It's fun to be here and be worshiping with you um here at Mesa Palms.
And uh as a teacher, as an educator, uh we always give pop quizzes, right?
And so I've got a pop quiz for you.
This is trivia, this is just basic
general information um because there's a lot of information in our world today right we're gonna talk about how some of that information how we interact with it
(02:14):
when it comes from um God and everything else.
But so we've got a um just a basic knowledge and and there's it's trivia.
There's no way, there's you know to uh there's no points here.
So the most consumed drink, this is a drink that you would prepare.
So it's not water.
It's something you would prepare.
So anyone have an idea of what would be the most consumed drink in the world?
(02:35):
Yeah, I heard it tea.
Yeah, I've had mint tea in Morocco, I've had uh tea in in Asia and of course I went to school in Newbold for a year and of course England is really big on their tea and so it is the most consumed drink.
Alright, here's a little fun one.
The first toy advertised on TV.
(02:57):
I like Slinky.
It's close.
Mr.
Potato Head.
Mr.
Potato Head was the first toy to be it's it's right on there with Slinky and those other the toys that we had.
And then this is my favorite one just because it's just kind of absurd.
The first webcam, now this is the University of Cambridge, right?
High academia, right?
(03:19):
So webcam.
What was the purpose of the first webcam stream they had in 1993?
Take a guest, University of Cambridge.
To watch the coffee pot.
So they rigged it up because the people in the office didn't want to walk and walk across and find an empty pot coffee pot.
(03:40):
So they put a webcam on it, and that was the very first webcam stream.
And now look where we've come with uh with webcams and everything else.
All right, so here's a little more practical information, all right, a little more practical life hack.
I love looking at life hacks.
So PVC.
Now for those that of us who maybe grew up in an area where you had to clean out your gutters, we don't do so much of that here in Arizona.
(04:04):
Um, but there's a little handy PVC tool you could create to blow out your gutters or organize your bathroom counters, as the case may be.
And I've I like this one.
Using pool noodles because I'm whenever you're like loading the the washer right and that that little hand towel or that little sock drops down by the side and you gotta get the broom out.
(04:26):
I'm like that's actually not a bad idea.
Fill in that gap, that space there.
It's kinda like the same thing in your car, you know, where you the key drops right between the seats and you're always always like find those you know, anyway.
So a lot of life hack, all right?
Information.
So I want you to go on a journey with me a little bit.
And what I'm terming, this is my own words, I'm making this up, but a f the Felix syndrome.
(04:49):
All right.
A diagnosis.
So we're going to gather some information in as we take a look at the Felix syndrome and what Baraka read earlier.
Thank you so much for jumping in last minute to read that.
And we're going to pick this up in the verse before this, in verse 22.
And it says, Then Felix, who was well acquainted with the way, adjourned the proceedings.
(05:13):
When Lysias the commander comes, he says, I will decide your case.
Now the background to this for those or we need a refresher in this is
Paul had come to Jerusalem.
Now he he had been warned not to come.
There are members of his church where he'd come from that even that said the Holy Spirit had impressed them to tell him, if you go to Jerusalem, it's going to be a problem.
(05:35):
Don't go to Jerusalem.
He says, No, I feel like I need to go to Jerusalem.
So he does.
And he brings with him some Greek friends.
And as they go to the temple, they stay outside as he enters into the courtyard.
But the word begins spreading that he actually did bring them in, which would be going against the Jewish law.
(05:59):
And soon he is surrounded.
by a very angry group of Jewish worshippers.
It turns into a mob.
And they begin beating him to the point the Roman soldiers who are in guard around the courtyard come down and pull him out.
of this mob, and at which point, as they're beginning to administer justice, he shows his um identification card.
(06:25):
He says, I'm a Roman citizen.
And this puts him into the Roman judicial system that he will then spend pretty much the rest of his life in.
So he's taken to Felix, who, unlike his predecessor, decided he did not want to live in Jerusalem.
So he lives out on the beautiful coastline overlooking the Mediterranean.
(06:48):
They take him there, they hold court.
And I love how Luke writes this where he says, well acquainted.
We're going to get into this in a minute, but what Luke is specifically saying is.
Felix has the ability to decide the case.
He's well acquainted with the way with Christianity.
We'll see that he's also well acquainted with Jewish traditions.
(07:10):
But instead of deciding the case, he's putting it off.
We'll see a character trait here.
So then we get to the text that was read.
Several days later, Felix comes with his wife Drusilla, who is Jewish.
So now we know Felix does have an insight into the culture and what's happening.
(07:33):
He's well acquainted with the proceedings.
He sends for him and he wants to speak about Jesus.
What an opportunity, Paul.
What a great opportunity to witness the gospel, the message, the good news.
And Paul hits them with
(07:54):
Righteousness, self-control, and judgment.
What?
And Felix was afraid.
And then this line (08:06):
when I find it convenient, I will send for you.
Now, to understand what's going on here, we have to understand who Drusilla is.
Prisilla is a Herod.
She's a sister to the kings who had been married to somebody else, and Felix had seduced her away from her husband.
(08:31):
Now you understand why Paul preached righteousness, self-control, and judgment to Felix and Drusilla, and why Felix now is not a happy camper.
And he's afraid.
And so instead of taking this moment to identify what he needs to change in his life and to do differently, he says.
(08:54):
When it's convenient.
And so this is going to be the first symptom in what I am terming the Felix syndrome.
Brothers and sisters, if we wait for a convenient time, what is going to happen to that time?
It will never come.
If we wait for that perfect moment when I've got my whole life in order, right?
(09:15):
When I get everything like, when I get all my bills paid, when I get whatever the list is, that will never come.
As we've seen this week in that little Catholic school up north.
Our lives can change dramatically in the matter of seconds.
(09:42):
If we wait for convenient time to put off what we know we should be doing.
I want us to turn to 2 Timothy.
Now, if you've if you got your Bibles there, you'll see in verse 6 that this little segment right here is sandwiched between
(10:04):
Two different s ideas, different stories.
It's always interesting to me how Paul's writing this to Timothy
And so this phrase, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth, is sandwiched between what comes right before that is Paul is talking about the prevalence.
Of ideas that were coming into the home, and particularly the women who were the homemakers and the caretakers of the house were being affected greatly by this ideologies that were coming in their home.
(10:36):
That sound familiar maybe?
But not to just pick on the wives and moms and and the mothers.
Right after that text is a reference to what happened with Moses, where two of the men who led some of the rebellion in Moses' camp and how they too had been.
(10:57):
filled with some false ideas about what they should be doing.
So in between this ideas that he's telling Timothy is there are people who are always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of truth.
And it really strikes me as we live in a world of information.
There's information everywhere.
(11:18):
And there's, I open up my social media feeds and there's reels telling me all kinds of things.
And someone just sound wonderful.
They're wonderful.
They got a pretty picture of an ocean.
It has a pretty little text and is talking about finding ourselves.
And
Self-care and self-love, which is so important for us to take care of ourselves, but if it's based on us
(11:43):
There's a consistent message that we're seeing today that there's no truth outside of ourselves.
So we can learn and we can learn and we can learn, become so educated, we can be academic and so intelligent and yet so dumb.
We can learn and learn, but never come to God's eternal truth because we're not basing it, we're not grounding it.
(12:05):
On him.
So another thing we see that I'm terming this Felix syndrome is searching for the latest religious fad, but it's based on self.
And it could be religion, it could be philosophy, it could be Christianity.
I see some of the stuff that I see pastors, and I'm not talking Seven the Abbas uh specifically.
I'm talking about, you know, the whole spectrum of Christianity.
(12:28):
Pastors who put videos out there and I watch it and you first hear it and you're like, wow, that sounds really good.
And then
But then you start realizing what exactly it is that they're saying.
Is it based on God?
Do we know people who are bouncing from
One ideology, one philosophy to another and search.
And they're searching and they're learning.
(12:50):
But it's based on I can change myself.
If I just do this, I can change myself.
In Philippians, Paul writes to the church, the Philippi.
And I love the action words here, the verbs.
(13:13):
Whatever you have learned, received, heard, and seen.
Covering a lot of our bases there.
Put it into practice.
So the word practice that is used there, the Greek, I love this picture here by the way.
I don't know how many of us, when we go for a jog in the morning, are smiling at each other like this.
(13:35):
I saw the picture.
I'm like, that's just too good.
I'm going to put it up there.
But that's definitely not me in the morning if I'm out jogging.
But practice is the same word as exercise.
Now, if I want to learn to play the guitar, um, like Dave here and how well he does, and or Dennis, how well he does on the bass.
(14:00):
Like I can watch YouTube videos.
I can I can even understand how I'm supposed to put my fingers on the strings to make different, but until I pick that instrument up and actually exercise playing it.
I'll never learn how to play the guitar.
Uh my son's here today and I'm super proud of what he's done the last few years.
(14:23):
He got into powerlifting a few years ago.
And when he started, he set these goals for himself.
And and some incredible the amount of weight that a human body can lift is pretty incredible.
But if you just went into the gym today, if I went and say I want to deadlift uh 400 pounds, it's not likely that's going to happen.
(14:46):
So Mason set up set a schedule.
He did a new nutritional plan.
He set up where he was going to keep building and building and building and building until when he got to competition he was able to lift the weight.
You can't do that unless you are actually implementing and exercising a plan.
(15:06):
Felix was called by Paul.
He was reminded.
He knew the way, he knew Christianity, he knew the Jewish traditions.
So he had the knowledge.
But not practicing or exercising that knowledge then puts us in a position where we're not we're not equipped.
(15:30):
I go to lift that weight and it's just gonna sit there on the floor.
I'm not gonna be able to lift it up.
The guitar looks pretty on the stand.
I can pick it up.
I could
Maybe strum a few notes, but I'm not gonna be able to play a hymn.
Because I'm not exercising or practicing that knowledge.
(15:52):
We come to Luke 15.
This is this is one of my favorite parables.
It's a lot of people's favorite parables.
Who was at camp meeting and the second week of camp meeting?
Anyone here of second week of camp meeting or watched it?
Well, you missed, so the speaker we had, he's he grew up um in what we would call Nineveh.
(16:14):
Um he's Iraqi by birth.
He's been a professor at at Andrews for many years.
And he told the story from a d much different perspective, g infusing the cultural identity of the
prodigal son.
And it was powerful to hear that version of it.
But for me, I'll tell you, as much as we have our prodigal son moments of where we have run away from the father, we've we've asked for our inheritance, etc.
(16:41):
I identify with the older brother many times.
I work for the church.
I have a long history of working in Adventist Education.
I've done the work.
Where's my reward?
I'm waiting for my reward.
(17:03):
It's coming, right?
Because I've done I've done everything.
I've done the checklist.
I've done everything I'm supposed to be doing.
When I love this, the father goes out.
You notice in this story, when the prodigal son he sees them, he leaves the house and goes out to the prodigal son.
When the older
Son, his son is outside refusing to come into the party, the father leaves the house, and so both sons, he goes out to meet them where they're at.
(17:29):
And I have this vision in my head of the son when the father's coming to him, poking his finger almost in, look you.
All these years, and I use this, I don't remember I think which which version this is that I use.
I use obsclusive for this language.
All these years I've been
(17:50):
Slaving for you never disobeyed your orders.
And you haven't even given me a young goat that I could celebrate with, my friends.
When I was looking at this um reviewing, you know, this language it's it
(18:13):
We focus so much on the prodigal son on this.
Um the the how many of us are sitting here looking at this and going,
What's the purpose for what why we do what we do?
The Father's response is a powerful one.
(18:36):
The father's response is, everything that's here is yours.
If you wanted a goat, you could have had the goat.
Like this is yours.
Your brother already took his inheritance, so that means all of this is yours.
And your I'm parent.
(18:56):
Paraphrasing, obviously.
And you're standing here asking me about a young goat.
I've already given it to you.
The fourth symptom I see is are we serving out of expectation of reward, not love?
(19:18):
When Jesus came and he he was talking to the people and and you know the the Beatitude, the Sermon on the Mount, and
and other times.
He kept coming back to this idea.
The the Pharisees had created this whole world by which you did this so you got this.
You did this or you didn't do this and go
This whole system, this legalistic system, and Jesus is trying to tell them it's not about the reward.
(19:46):
He tells the son, Your brother has come home.
Come in and celebrate with us.
Celebrate the joy of your brother coming home.
But instead, he's focused on where's my reward?
You never threw me a party.
(20:12):
The last one, um, I'll say this.
If you if you if you want to do a deep dive into Jewish theology, Jude is where you go.
You notice most people don't quote Jude a whole lot.
And there's a good reason when I was looking up some of the text for this.
Um you can get lost in Jude real quick and understand
This was written for the Jews.
(20:33):
Now we we obviously know the first five books of our Bible is the basis of the Torah, but there were so many other books that had been written by the prophets, by everyone else.
Um, and they had their own theologians and their own people in their history.
And so Jude refers to a lot of these people.
If you look through the book of Jude, it makes mention of names that we have no context for.
(20:55):
But in the middle of Jude, here is this phrasing that's used talking about how people will use information.
Yet these people slander whatever they do not understand, and the very things they do understand by instinct, as irrational animals do, will destroy them.
(21:24):
One of my favorite things, I was given a children's story up at Wendow Rock Church last last Sabbath, and uh um one of my favorite stories I tell to kids is the story of a giraffe.
I love giraffes because they're gangly.
They're not necessarily the most beautiful animal out there.
(21:44):
They're quirky.
Um and yet they're magnificent in their own way, particularly as a boy walking I remember this one time we were driving on this long road in Botswana and all of a sudden these heads popped out above the trees and they came walking across the road and
I always had this visualization of giraffes.
But there's a reason why giraffes to me are so important and and I'll just briefly, you know.
(22:09):
Giraffes have a biological device within their neck that when they bend down to drink, it constricts blood flow.
Because otherwise if they didn't have that, how many of us it's been a while s for some of us doing headstands, for me too, but if you do a headstand, you feel it pretty instantly, that blood flow, right?
The uh the giraffe brain would actually hemorrhage out.
(22:31):
The blood pressure would increase so much on their brain.
So if you follow the evolutionary thinking of an antelope whose neck, the longer necks survive
starvation and so eventually over however many millions of years, you know, and you go down this train of thinking and go, all right, so a giraffe has that and then um but
(22:54):
So let's just give several million years for that to happen or whatever, even a couple hundred thousand, all right.
We'll give them that.
Um so where you finally had they've been down to drink.
At some point they're they've gotten neck long enough that they're going to hemorrhage out.
So you still got to develop that biological device in there that's going to constrict blood flow.
So let's just say, all right, that finally happens.
(23:14):
Finally, after all these
Um, by happenstance, you still need what to create baby drafts?
Need two of opposite gender
Who are in the same place at the same time to be able to biologically create a baby giraffe, right?
I'm just saying mathematically that doesn't
(23:36):
For me, and I'm not a I'm not a creation scientist, I'm not a biologist, I'm just saying logically to me, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
I've heard in the science community, I've heard people in in academia, um, in Hollywood, etc.
, and there's people I respect.
I there's physicists.
(23:57):
Uh Neil ties to Greece, whatever.
I I love a lot of his stuff.
But they talk about Christians as being uh weak-minded.
Because we believe in a fable.
All right.
It's easier to believe in a fable than a science.
People will slander what they do not understand, and then in the end, what they are not understanding will actually destroy them.
(24:21):
Because they're basing it on human perception.
We mock truth
When it doesn't fit the human paradigm, whether it's sociopolot political philosophy, whether it's scientific ideology.
If it doesn't fit our human construct, we mock it because it can't that can't be right, right?
(24:45):
That doesn't make sense.
It's not scientific.
There can't be a God.
So, with any medical diagnosis, right, we need to have a cure.
So, this this these are just my thoughts as I put them together.
(25:06):
For the first one, waiting for convenient time.
When I was teaching in um
Sacramento, we had a young lady.
She was a junior at our school and um
Super Bowl Sunday.
Um several they had a party at one of the houses up in the hill foothills outside of Sacramento and the party was over, the game was won, and everybody packed up to go home and the bunch of
(25:34):
young people piled in the in a car and they started down the hill and the young driver, a deer, jumped out in front of him, and there's nothing, there's no fault of his.
He tried to swerve, he
Obviously overcorrected, the car started rolling, and two young young ladies in the backseat were thrown out and were they died at the scene.
(25:58):
17-year-olds.
I remember sitting there in that we act they actually had the family had to, they didn't rent it out.
It was offered to them, one of the big non-denominational churches.
It was a 3,000-person
seating and it was it was pretty full.
I don't know if it was full 3,000 people there, but it was a lot.
(26:18):
Morgan had touched a lot of lives.
At 17 years old, it touched a lot of lives.
I remember sitting there thinking, what a waste.
I don't know what God's plan is.
We got parents up in Minnesota right now trying to figure that out too.
But what I do know is in being raised in the Adventist Church, a lot of emphasis on the end days, which is appropriate.
(26:41):
I'm not knocking that.
I think at times we focus so much on the end day, we forget that when we leave church here, there's no guarantee that we're walking back in those doors.
So waiting for that convenient time.
And my cure for that is today is the day.
Don't wait.
(27:04):
Searching for ideas based on self, religious ideas.
Recognize the truth and accept it.
Stop bouncing around.
Bouncing from one idea to another.
I have I have friends, I see it on social media and all the all the the things that they post.
And it's clearly they're I don't know if they're trying to convince themselves, convince other people.
(27:26):
And they're beautiful, they're beautiful little sayings and little cards you can put up and signs and motivational.
But if it's focused on self, if it's not grounded on God, go to the Bible, recognize the truth.
Not practicing or exercising.
Make an exercise plan.
(27:47):
Implement it.
If you want to make your family better.
Then create a plan for your family to communicate, to talk to each other, to do things together and implement it.
You can put that plan on the wall all you want, but if you don't ever do it, it's not going to change.
If you want a better relationship with Jesus Christ with our Father, our Savior, make a plan and implement it.
Actually, do it.
(28:09):
That morning devotional, if that's your plan, the Bible journaling, if that's your plan,
Do it.
I'm guilty.
I'm guilty of it.
I go to work and all of a sudden I realize it's noon and I haven't spent any time with God that day because I didn't implement.
I didn't make it a priority.
So I have to take a step back and try.
To say, all right, I need if I need to change, I want to exercise.
(28:33):
Changing our mindset from servitude to celebration.
Am I serving as a reason why I go visit the schools, why I talk to our teachers, why I've taught?
If if the reason for that is I'm expecting some type of reward for that, other than my
Bimonthly paycheck, which is nice to get.
(28:53):
But if I'm expecting some other ethereal award, are we doing it out of love and out of celebration for serving our God?
And finally, it just all comes back to this.
The world and I say world Satan.
Satan wants us to be distracted from God.
(29:16):
Anything he can throw at us to distract us from our attention with God.
So everyone's different.
It could be completely different for you than it what it than what it is for your neighbor.
But mocking the truth that's in front of us, focus on God and not our human perceptions.
As the praise team comes back up for a closing song.
(29:40):
In Jude, back in Jude, he writes this beautiful analogy about clouds.
And in this time of season, the monsoons, we see these beautiful, massive clouds.
Up along the rim.
And here in Phoenix, where we look at, and now we have had rain the last couple of weeks, but up to this point, we've seen those clouds and there's been no rain.
And Jude talks about the waterless clouds.
(30:02):
They're useless.
He refers to Christians as this, as waterless clouds, that we spend this time on looking at looking big and important as clouds, and then we have nothing.
to offer the earth.
(30:25):
But I look at those clouds, I see something else too.
I can't help but look at those clouds and I think, what is it going to look like on that day that Jesus returns?
My prayer for everyone is that we are there looking up at those clouds, that we have spent our life focused on God.
(30:49):
And that we are waiting every day, every moment for our Savior.
Well it's my pleasure to be here.
Um it was in a country called Zaire, uh now Democratic Republic of Congo.
So back when we were meeting in the library, um
Uh one of the elders greeted somebody with jumbo, and so I said jumbo swana, barigani, mazurisana.
That's all the Swahili I know that I remember from my childhood, so that's about it.
(00:22):
But um
Um uh those were those were some precious years as a as a young boy growing up in Africa um as a missionary kid.
It's my pleasure to be here today.
Um the last time I think I I've been here many times for various communication events.
Um
Still serving as a communication director for the conference, as well as I've picked up the uh superintendent of education um position.
(00:45):
Uh just uh last week I was visiting our little school down here, Adobe.
If you haven't been by there recently, please do.
It's just a precious little school.
Robert's doing a phenomenal job.
Um, and they've painted it.
They put a new playground in, and it's just this they've really beautified the little campus.
um over there.
(01:05):
And during the summer he only had three students on the books and I was I was a little worried.
And uh he called me this week and said
Um that they're enrolling their ninth student.
I said, Robert, the Lord's bl tripled our blessings in the last uh month or so.
for the school.
So it's still a very small school.
Uh but Roberts did a phenomenal job there.
(01:27):
I sat in there as he was teaching um the the first and second graders math.
And just it's just fun.
It's fun to go visit the classes.
This week I'll actually be going down to Bisbee to visit the Cochise School, and then Friday I'll be there at the AZ Sunshine there in Wilcox.
Um so it's fun to go around the Arizona Conference and seeing.
(01:49):
It's fun to be here and be worshiping with you um here at Mesa Palms.
And uh as a teacher, as an educator, uh we always give pop quizzes, right?
And so I've got a pop quiz for you.
This is trivia, this is just basic
general information um because there's a lot of information in our world today right we're gonna talk about how some of that information how we interact with it
(02:14):
when it comes from um God and everything else.
But so we've got a um just a basic knowledge and and there's it's trivia.
There's no way, there's you know to uh there's no points here.
So the most consumed drink, this is a drink that you would prepare.
So it's not water.
It's something you would prepare.
So anyone have an idea of what would be the most consumed drink in the world?
(02:35):
Yeah, I heard it tea.
Yeah, I've had mint tea in Morocco, I've had uh tea in in Asia and of course I went to school in Newbold for a year and of course England is really big on their tea and so it is the most consumed drink.
Alright, here's a little fun one.
The first toy advertised on TV.
(02:57):
I like Slinky.
It's close.
Mr.
Potato Head.
Mr.
Potato Head was the first toy to be it's it's right on there with Slinky and those other the toys that we had.
And then this is my favorite one just because it's just kind of absurd.
The first webcam, now this is the University of Cambridge, right?
High academia, right?
(03:19):
So webcam.
What was the purpose of the first webcam stream they had in 1993?
Take a guest, University of Cambridge.
To watch the coffee pot.
So they rigged it up because the people in the office didn't want to walk and walk across and find an empty pot coffee pot.
(03:40):
So they put a webcam on it, and that was the very first webcam stream.
And now look where we've come with uh with webcams and everything else.
All right, so here's a little more practical information, all right, a little more practical life hack.
I love looking at life hacks.
So PVC.
Now for those that of us who maybe grew up in an area where you had to clean out your gutters, we don't do so much of that here in Arizona.
(04:04):
Um, but there's a little handy PVC tool you could create to blow out your gutters or organize your bathroom counters, as the case may be.
And I've I like this one.
Using pool noodles because I'm whenever you're like loading the the washer right and that that little hand towel or that little sock drops down by the side and you gotta get the broom out.
(04:26):
I'm like that's actually not a bad idea.
Fill in that gap, that space there.
It's kinda like the same thing in your car, you know, where you the key drops right between the seats and you're always always like find those you know, anyway.
So a lot of life hack, all right?
Information.
So I want you to go on a journey with me a little bit.
And what I'm terming, this is my own words, I'm making this up, but a f the Felix syndrome.
(04:49):
All right.
A diagnosis.
So we're going to gather some information in as we take a look at the Felix syndrome and what Baraka read earlier.
Thank you so much for jumping in last minute to read that.
And we're going to pick this up in the verse before this, in verse 22.
And it says, Then Felix, who was well acquainted with the way, adjourned the proceedings.
(05:13):
When Lysias the commander comes, he says, I will decide your case.
Now the background to this for those or we need a refresher in this is
Paul had come to Jerusalem.
Now he he had been warned not to come.
There are members of his church where he'd come from that even that said the Holy Spirit had impressed them to tell him, if you go to Jerusalem, it's going to be a problem.
(05:35):
Don't go to Jerusalem.
He says, No, I feel like I need to go to Jerusalem.
So he does.
And he brings with him some Greek friends.
And as they go to the temple, they stay outside as he enters into the courtyard.
But the word begins spreading that he actually did bring them in, which would be going against the Jewish law.
(05:59):
And soon he is surrounded.
by a very angry group of Jewish worshippers.
It turns into a mob.
And they begin beating him to the point the Roman soldiers who are in guard around the courtyard come down and pull him out.
of this mob, and at which point, as they're beginning to administer justice, he shows his um identification card.
(06:25):
He says, I'm a Roman citizen.
And this puts him into the Roman judicial system that he will then spend pretty much the rest of his life in.
So he's taken to Felix, who, unlike his predecessor, decided he did not want to live in Jerusalem.
So he lives out on the beautiful coastline overlooking the Mediterranean.
(06:48):
They take him there, they hold court.
And I love how Luke writes this where he says, well acquainted.
We're going to get into this in a minute, but what Luke is specifically saying is.
Felix has the ability to decide the case.
He's well acquainted with the way with Christianity.
We'll see that he's also well acquainted with Jewish traditions.
(07:10):
But instead of deciding the case, he's putting it off.
We'll see a character trait here.
So then we get to the text that was read.
Several days later, Felix comes with his wife Drusilla, who is Jewish.
So now we know Felix does have an insight into the culture and what's happening.
(07:33):
He's well acquainted with the proceedings.
He sends for him and he wants to speak about Jesus.
What an opportunity, Paul.
What a great opportunity to witness the gospel, the message, the good news.
And Paul hits them with
(07:54):
Righteousness, self-control, and judgment.
What?
And Felix was afraid.
And then this line (08:06):
when I find it convenient, I will send for you.
Now, to understand what's going on here, we have to understand who Drusilla is.
Prisilla is a Herod.
She's a sister to the kings who had been married to somebody else, and Felix had seduced her away from her husband.
(08:31):
Now you understand why Paul preached righteousness, self-control, and judgment to Felix and Drusilla, and why Felix now is not a happy camper.
And he's afraid.
And so instead of taking this moment to identify what he needs to change in his life and to do differently, he says.
(08:54):
When it's convenient.
And so this is going to be the first symptom in what I am terming the Felix syndrome.
Brothers and sisters, if we wait for a convenient time, what is going to happen to that time?
It will never come.
If we wait for that perfect moment when I've got my whole life in order, right?
(09:15):
When I get everything like, when I get all my bills paid, when I get whatever the list is, that will never come.
As we've seen this week in that little Catholic school up north.
Our lives can change dramatically in the matter of seconds.
(09:42):
If we wait for convenient time to put off what we know we should be doing.
I want us to turn to 2 Timothy.
Now, if you've if you got your Bibles there, you'll see in verse 6 that this little segment right here is sandwiched between
(10:04):
Two different s ideas, different stories.
It's always interesting to me how Paul's writing this to Timothy
And so this phrase, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth, is sandwiched between what comes right before that is Paul is talking about the prevalence.
Of ideas that were coming into the home, and particularly the women who were the homemakers and the caretakers of the house were being affected greatly by this ideologies that were coming in their home.
(10:36):
That sound familiar maybe?
But not to just pick on the wives and moms and and the mothers.
Right after that text is a reference to what happened with Moses, where two of the men who led some of the rebellion in Moses' camp and how they too had been.
(10:57):
filled with some false ideas about what they should be doing.
So in between this ideas that he's telling Timothy is there are people who are always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of truth.
And it really strikes me as we live in a world of information.
There's information everywhere.
(11:18):
And there's, I open up my social media feeds and there's reels telling me all kinds of things.
And someone just sound wonderful.
They're wonderful.
They got a pretty picture of an ocean.
It has a pretty little text and is talking about finding ourselves.
And
Self-care and self-love, which is so important for us to take care of ourselves, but if it's based on us
(11:43):
There's a consistent message that we're seeing today that there's no truth outside of ourselves.
So we can learn and we can learn and we can learn, become so educated, we can be academic and so intelligent and yet so dumb.
We can learn and learn, but never come to God's eternal truth because we're not basing it, we're not grounding it.
(12:05):
On him.
So another thing we see that I'm terming this Felix syndrome is searching for the latest religious fad, but it's based on self.
And it could be religion, it could be philosophy, it could be Christianity.
I see some of the stuff that I see pastors, and I'm not talking Seven the Abbas uh specifically.
I'm talking about, you know, the whole spectrum of Christianity.
(12:28):
Pastors who put videos out there and I watch it and you first hear it and you're like, wow, that sounds really good.
And then
But then you start realizing what exactly it is that they're saying.
Is it based on God?
Do we know people who are bouncing from
One ideology, one philosophy to another and search.
And they're searching and they're learning.
(12:50):
But it's based on I can change myself.
If I just do this, I can change myself.
In Philippians, Paul writes to the church, the Philippi.
And I love the action words here, the verbs.
(13:13):
Whatever you have learned, received, heard, and seen.
Covering a lot of our bases there.
Put it into practice.
So the word practice that is used there, the Greek, I love this picture here by the way.
I don't know how many of us, when we go for a jog in the morning, are smiling at each other like this.
(13:35):
I saw the picture.
I'm like, that's just too good.
I'm going to put it up there.
But that's definitely not me in the morning if I'm out jogging.
But practice is the same word as exercise.
Now, if I want to learn to play the guitar, um, like Dave here and how well he does, and or Dennis, how well he does on the bass.
(14:00):
Like I can watch YouTube videos.
I can I can even understand how I'm supposed to put my fingers on the strings to make different, but until I pick that instrument up and actually exercise playing it.
I'll never learn how to play the guitar.
Uh my son's here today and I'm super proud of what he's done the last few years.
(14:23):
He got into powerlifting a few years ago.
And when he started, he set these goals for himself.
And and some incredible the amount of weight that a human body can lift is pretty incredible.
But if you just went into the gym today, if I went and say I want to deadlift uh 400 pounds, it's not likely that's going to happen.
(14:46):
So Mason set up set a schedule.
He did a new nutritional plan.
He set up where he was going to keep building and building and building and building until when he got to competition he was able to lift the weight.
You can't do that unless you are actually implementing and exercising a plan.
(15:06):
Felix was called by Paul.
He was reminded.
He knew the way, he knew Christianity, he knew the Jewish traditions.
So he had the knowledge.
But not practicing or exercising that knowledge then puts us in a position where we're not we're not equipped.
(15:30):
I go to lift that weight and it's just gonna sit there on the floor.
I'm not gonna be able to lift it up.
The guitar looks pretty on the stand.
I can pick it up.
I could
Maybe strum a few notes, but I'm not gonna be able to play a hymn.
Because I'm not exercising or practicing that knowledge.
(15:52):
We come to Luke 15.
This is this is one of my favorite parables.
It's a lot of people's favorite parables.
Who was at camp meeting and the second week of camp meeting?
Anyone here of second week of camp meeting or watched it?
Well, you missed, so the speaker we had, he's he grew up um in what we would call Nineveh.
(16:14):
Um he's Iraqi by birth.
He's been a professor at at Andrews for many years.
And he told the story from a d much different perspective, g infusing the cultural identity of the
prodigal son.
And it was powerful to hear that version of it.
But for me, I'll tell you, as much as we have our prodigal son moments of where we have run away from the father, we've we've asked for our inheritance, etc.
(16:41):
I identify with the older brother many times.
I work for the church.
I have a long history of working in Adventist Education.
I've done the work.
Where's my reward?
I'm waiting for my reward.
(17:03):
It's coming, right?
Because I've done I've done everything.
I've done the checklist.
I've done everything I'm supposed to be doing.
When I love this, the father goes out.
You notice in this story, when the prodigal son he sees them, he leaves the house and goes out to the prodigal son.
When the older
Son, his son is outside refusing to come into the party, the father leaves the house, and so both sons, he goes out to meet them where they're at.
(17:29):
And I have this vision in my head of the son when the father's coming to him, poking his finger almost in, look you.
All these years, and I use this, I don't remember I think which which version this is that I use.
I use obsclusive for this language.
All these years I've been
(17:50):
Slaving for you never disobeyed your orders.
And you haven't even given me a young goat that I could celebrate with, my friends.
When I was looking at this um reviewing, you know, this language it's it
(18:13):
We focus so much on the prodigal son on this.
Um the the how many of us are sitting here looking at this and going,
What's the purpose for what why we do what we do?
The Father's response is a powerful one.
(18:36):
The father's response is, everything that's here is yours.
If you wanted a goat, you could have had the goat.
Like this is yours.
Your brother already took his inheritance, so that means all of this is yours.
And your I'm parent.
(18:56):
Paraphrasing, obviously.
And you're standing here asking me about a young goat.
I've already given it to you.
The fourth symptom I see is are we serving out of expectation of reward, not love?
(19:18):
When Jesus came and he he was talking to the people and and you know the the Beatitude, the Sermon on the Mount, and
and other times.
He kept coming back to this idea.
The the Pharisees had created this whole world by which you did this so you got this.
You did this or you didn't do this and go
This whole system, this legalistic system, and Jesus is trying to tell them it's not about the reward.
(19:46):
He tells the son, Your brother has come home.
Come in and celebrate with us.
Celebrate the joy of your brother coming home.
But instead, he's focused on where's my reward?
You never threw me a party.
(20:12):
The last one, um, I'll say this.
If you if you if you want to do a deep dive into Jewish theology, Jude is where you go.
You notice most people don't quote Jude a whole lot.
And there's a good reason when I was looking up some of the text for this.
Um you can get lost in Jude real quick and understand
This was written for the Jews.
(20:33):
Now we we obviously know the first five books of our Bible is the basis of the Torah, but there were so many other books that had been written by the prophets, by everyone else.
Um, and they had their own theologians and their own people in their history.
And so Jude refers to a lot of these people.
If you look through the book of Jude, it makes mention of names that we have no context for.
(20:55):
But in the middle of Jude, here is this phrasing that's used talking about how people will use information.
Yet these people slander whatever they do not understand, and the very things they do understand by instinct, as irrational animals do, will destroy them.
(21:24):
One of my favorite things, I was given a children's story up at Wendow Rock Church last last Sabbath, and uh um one of my favorite stories I tell to kids is the story of a giraffe.
I love giraffes because they're gangly.
They're not necessarily the most beautiful animal out there.
(21:44):
They're quirky.
Um and yet they're magnificent in their own way, particularly as a boy walking I remember this one time we were driving on this long road in Botswana and all of a sudden these heads popped out above the trees and they came walking across the road and
I always had this visualization of giraffes.
But there's a reason why giraffes to me are so important and and I'll just briefly, you know.
(22:09):
Giraffes have a biological device within their neck that when they bend down to drink, it constricts blood flow.
Because otherwise if they didn't have that, how many of us it's been a while s for some of us doing headstands, for me too, but if you do a headstand, you feel it pretty instantly, that blood flow, right?
The uh the giraffe brain would actually hemorrhage out.
(22:31):
The blood pressure would increase so much on their brain.
So if you follow the evolutionary thinking of an antelope whose neck, the longer necks survive
starvation and so eventually over however many millions of years, you know, and you go down this train of thinking and go, all right, so a giraffe has that and then um but
(22:54):
So let's just give several million years for that to happen or whatever, even a couple hundred thousand, all right.
We'll give them that.
Um so where you finally had they've been down to drink.
At some point they're they've gotten neck long enough that they're going to hemorrhage out.
So you still got to develop that biological device in there that's going to constrict blood flow.
So let's just say, all right, that finally happens.
(23:14):
Finally, after all these
Um, by happenstance, you still need what to create baby drafts?
Need two of opposite gender
Who are in the same place at the same time to be able to biologically create a baby giraffe, right?
I'm just saying mathematically that doesn't
(23:36):
For me, and I'm not a I'm not a creation scientist, I'm not a biologist, I'm just saying logically to me, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
I've heard in the science community, I've heard people in in academia, um, in Hollywood, etc.
, and there's people I respect.
I there's physicists.
(23:57):
Uh Neil ties to Greece, whatever.
I I love a lot of his stuff.
But they talk about Christians as being uh weak-minded.
Because we believe in a fable.
All right.
It's easier to believe in a fable than a science.
People will slander what they do not understand, and then in the end, what they are not understanding will actually destroy them.
(24:21):
Because they're basing it on human perception.
We mock truth
When it doesn't fit the human paradigm, whether it's sociopolot political philosophy, whether it's scientific ideology.
If it doesn't fit our human construct, we mock it because it can't that can't be right, right?
(24:45):
That doesn't make sense.
It's not scientific.
There can't be a God.
So, with any medical diagnosis, right, we need to have a cure.
So, this this these are just my thoughts as I put them together.
(25:06):
For the first one, waiting for convenient time.
When I was teaching in um
Sacramento, we had a young lady.
She was a junior at our school and um
Super Bowl Sunday.
Um several they had a party at one of the houses up in the hill foothills outside of Sacramento and the party was over, the game was won, and everybody packed up to go home and the bunch of
(25:34):
young people piled in the in a car and they started down the hill and the young driver, a deer, jumped out in front of him, and there's nothing, there's no fault of his.
He tried to swerve, he
Obviously overcorrected, the car started rolling, and two young young ladies in the backseat were thrown out and were they died at the scene.
(25:58):
17-year-olds.
I remember sitting there in that we act they actually had the family had to, they didn't rent it out.
It was offered to them, one of the big non-denominational churches.
It was a 3,000-person
seating and it was it was pretty full.
I don't know if it was full 3,000 people there, but it was a lot.
(26:18):
Morgan had touched a lot of lives.
At 17 years old, it touched a lot of lives.
I remember sitting there thinking, what a waste.
I don't know what God's plan is.
We got parents up in Minnesota right now trying to figure that out too.
But what I do know is in being raised in the Adventist Church, a lot of emphasis on the end days, which is appropriate.
(26:41):
I'm not knocking that.
I think at times we focus so much on the end day, we forget that when we leave church here, there's no guarantee that we're walking back in those doors.
So waiting for that convenient time.
And my cure for that is today is the day.
Don't wait.
(27:04):
Searching for ideas based on self, religious ideas.
Recognize the truth and accept it.
Stop bouncing around.
Bouncing from one idea to another.
I have I have friends, I see it on social media and all the all the the things that they post.
And it's clearly they're I don't know if they're trying to convince themselves, convince other people.
(27:26):
And they're beautiful, they're beautiful little sayings and little cards you can put up and signs and motivational.
But if it's focused on self, if it's not grounded on God, go to the Bible, recognize the truth.
Not practicing or exercising.
Make an exercise plan.
(27:47):
Implement it.
If you want to make your family better.
Then create a plan for your family to communicate, to talk to each other, to do things together and implement it.
You can put that plan on the wall all you want, but if you don't ever do it, it's not going to change.
If you want a better relationship with Jesus Christ with our Father, our Savior, make a plan and implement it.
Actually, do it.
(28:09):
That morning devotional, if that's your plan, the Bible journaling, if that's your plan,
Do it.
I'm guilty.
I'm guilty of it.
I go to work and all of a sudden I realize it's noon and I haven't spent any time with God that day because I didn't implement.
I didn't make it a priority.
So I have to take a step back and try.
To say, all right, I need if I need to change, I want to exercise.
(28:33):
Changing our mindset from servitude to celebration.
Am I serving as a reason why I go visit the schools, why I talk to our teachers, why I've taught?
If if the reason for that is I'm expecting some type of reward for that, other than my
Bimonthly paycheck, which is nice to get.
(28:53):
But if I'm expecting some other ethereal award, are we doing it out of love and out of celebration for serving our God?
And finally, it just all comes back to this.
The world and I say world Satan.
Satan wants us to be distracted from God.
(29:16):
Anything he can throw at us to distract us from our attention with God.
So everyone's different.
It could be completely different for you than it what it than what it is for your neighbor.
But mocking the truth that's in front of us, focus on God and not our human perceptions.
As the praise team comes back up for a closing song.
(29:40):
In Jude, back in Jude, he writes this beautiful analogy about clouds.
And in this time of season, the monsoons, we see these beautiful, massive clouds.
Up along the rim.
And here in Phoenix, where we look at, and now we have had rain the last couple of weeks, but up to this point, we've seen those clouds and there's been no rain.
And Jude talks about the waterless clouds.
(30:02):
They're useless.
He refers to Christians as this, as waterless clouds, that we spend this time on looking at looking big and important as clouds, and then we have nothing.
to offer the earth.
(30:25):
But I look at those clouds, I see something else too.
I can't help but look at those clouds and I think, what is it going to look like on that day that Jesus returns?
My prayer for everyone is that we are there looking up at those clouds, that we have spent our life focused on God.
(30:49):
And that we are waiting every day, every moment for our Savior.
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