I Found Life! (Elder Bobby J. Mitchell, 08/26/23)

Good morning. Happy Sabbath. Is this a happy Sabbath for you today? It is? Is this a happy

Sabbath for you? Everybody say amen. Remember the song, if you're happy and you know it,

say amen. Amen, amen. My wife and I, we counted our privilege to receive invitations to come

and to share the word of God with you. We thank you for, we thank Sarah. Oh, that's

right. The Bible name, Sarah. Thank you, Sarah, for inviting us to be here today with you.

I've come to give you a word from the Lord. Not anything that I have concocted, but a

word from the Lord. I come to testify in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,

and to celebrate with you, my brothers and sisters. When Christ comes back again, he's

not coming to look for what title you wear. There will be no titles. He's coming back

for his children. When we get to heaven, he won't be calling us this, that, and the other.

It'll be his children. Welcome my children when we get home. The Bible says to as many

as received him, to them he gave the power to become sons and daughters of God. So we

are family. Doesn't matter where you came from, doesn't matter what color you are, if

you have received Christ into your life, you are a brother or a sister in the kingdom of

God. Amen? Amen. And so I've come to give a message to you, my brothers and my sisters,

if that's all right. Let us pray. Father, in the name of Jesus, let the word I express

be life to everyone that hear them. Let my heart be cleaned, my mind, dear Lord, be free

from any selfishness. But let the love of God move in this place now. In the name of

Jesus we pray. Amen and amen. Amen. Reading from my favorite Bible translation is the

Living, the New Living translation. And so I'm reading our scripture from that today.

The title of my sermon is called I Found Life. I Found Life. And the text is, as was read

before, but this time it's going to be from the New Living translation, John 1, verses

John 1:1–5

1 through 5. It says, in the beginning the word already existed. The word was with God

and the word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him

and nothing was created except through him. The word gave life to everything that was

created and his life brought light to everyone. That the light shines in the darkness and

the darkness can never extinguish it. Hallelujah for the light. The word of God, I don't know

if you noticed this in the Bible, but I have to learn this in my own life, how the word

of God has come to us on this earth. The word of God has actually came in three forms on

this earth. At first it was a spoken word. Am I right? The Bible says, by the word of

the Lord were the heavens made and all the hosts of them by the breath of his mouth.

So the word, when this earth was created, the spirit of God moved on the face of the

deep and the Bible said God spoke and said let there be light. And then God spoke and

brought creation into the world and then God kept speaking. We call it the oral tradition.

God kept speaking. He spoke to Adam, he spoke to Eve, he spoke to their children, he spoke

to Abraham, he spoke to Isaac, he spoke all the way up until Moses. God had what we call

the oral tradition that the word of God was passed on by from word of mouth. But then

God changed the word to a different form. He changed it to the written form. And on

the day when Moses went up to Mount Sinai and God wrote his law with the finger of his

hand, when God wrote that law, that law was the beginning of the written word. You hear

me now? You understand where I'm going, right? It's oral then it was written. And the written

word was what we call the Mosaic law, you know, and the Ten Commandments in which God

had written it. All these laws were written and then from the time of Moses until the

time of Jesus, they followed the written law. But then when Jesus came, it became the living

law, the living word of God. We are living in a time now where we're not controlled by

the written word of God, it's the living word of God. Ellen White called it a dispensation

of the Holy Spirit. So now it's the living word of God. I had to find this for myself.

And the reason why I'm bringing it out is because it has been good. God has shown me

this in his life. First he spoke it, then he wrote it, and then Jesus came down and

he lived it. The Bible says that, the Bible says, so the word became human and made his

home among us. He was full of unfailing, unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his

glory, the glory of his father, of the father's one and only son. Now watch this, the law

of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. That's

the written word. So God did what the law could not do. What did he do? He changed it

to a living word. He sent his own son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And

in that body, God declared on an end to sins control over us by giving his son as a sacrifice

for our sins. He did this so that the just requirements of the law will be fully satisfied

for us who no longer follow after sinful, our sinful nature, but instead follow the

spirit. It changed from oral to written and now it's living. And the spirit of God, the

Bible said the word became fresh and it lived among us. And God told Nicodemus, you must

be born again because without that spirit, you cannot have the life of God's word. I

hope I'm not trying to get too deep on you this morning as I bring this out, but I'm

telling you how I found God. It's the same thing. My mother raised me to love the Lord

and that woman saved my life many times through prayer. But she taught me, she took us to

church. I raised in the Baptist church and we sang in the choir and my mother taught

me and she prayed for me and she asked, always asked God to help me. So I remembered what

my mother's prayers were for me and then I start trying to find the God that my mother

was serving. And the first thing I did was I tried to follow him through the oral presentation.

I said, love to hear preachers preach. I said, always want to go in here with the word of

God. Somebody's preaching the word of God. And I was raised with preachers who could

just preach the paint off the walls, you know? And I said, always want to come and listen

to him. That preacher preach. I was looking for the word of God through the spoken word

of God. And I was trying to find life, but I kept listening, kept going, but it wasn't

changing me. It was not, I go to church boy, we shout and have a good time, everything,

but I still left, I still wasn't changed. So the word of God, I couldn't understand

what was happening. Then I decided to change, to change after the written word of God. That

means I decided to start going to different churches and following their doctrine, what

their teachings were, their written word of God. And I did that for every church you can

think of Catholics, Pentecostals, Baptists, every church you can think of. I went because

I was looking for God in the written word, in the doctrinal teaching. I didn't know,

I didn't know exactly what I was doing at the time, but I was looking. And I can remember

tearing for the Holy Spirit in the Pentecostal church all night long to try to receive the

Holy Spirit. And I remember I sat there and they kept telling me, they said, Jesus, Jesus,

Jesus. And I kept saying, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. And then I was hoping I would get it. I would

get God's Spirit. Well, about five o'clock in the morning, they ended the session and

I felt like I had the Holy Spirit. And so I went home and I told my mother, I said,

Mom, I have the Holy Spirit. She said, boy, you don't have anything. And I said, you're

right. And I went to bed. But I kept searching. And then out of the blue, I was raised in

South Bend, Indiana. A little short Caucasian man came into the neighborhood. He was giving

Bible studies to my sister, her family, and I think a couple of my aunts. I met this guy

on a Sunday morning and he was there representing the Dorcas Society. You ever heard of the

Dorcas Society? He had brought my sister a dryer, clothes dryer from the Dorcas Society.

I thought that was amazing. What made it so amazing, he was in a black neighborhood where

the police were afraid to come in. And I wonder, how could this guy come into our neighborhood

and how could this guy have the courage to do that? That marveled me at the first place.

And he was, and I asked him, could you give me Bible studies? And he said, yeah, I could

come. So I told him to come in two weeks. I have my house and he could come to the Bible

studies. And in two weeks he came. When he came to the house, he had with him a tall,

slender black man. And I called him Salt and Pepper. They had been preaching the Word of

God as late evangelists in South Bend, Indiana. And most of the people that was in the Missha

Walker Church, I don't know if you know what I'm talking about, but the Missha Walker Church

was a Caucasian church and the South Bend church, Baren church, was the African American

church. But these two guys were in the neighborhood preaching and teaching. And when they came

to give me Bible studies, the little white guy, and I'm going to call him Arnold from

now on. Okay, you know who I'm talking about. Arnold, he would ask me questions and he would

lead me and they would answer my questions about the Bible. And the black man, Arnold

asked a question, the black man always had the answers because he could quote the entire

Bible. I mean to tell you every word for word he could quote it. It didn't do anything for

me. You know, I could hear the quoting, but I looked at Arnold and the way Arnold treated

me, I saw the life of the word of God in him. I was attracted to that life and that's where

I found life. He was giving me Bible studies and of course, ladies and gentlemen, the Adventist

church does have the truth. I'm not the authority to say that, but it does have the truth and

I've searched them everywhere, but it does have the truth. This man would invite me to

his house and I'll be honest with you, it was a rough time during that time. It was

back when Martin Luther King had gotten killed and Detroit, Burn, Baby Burn was going through

all those things. He invited me to his house for dinner every Sabbath and my wife and I

would go. This is the one who had my first six children. It's another whole story. We

would go to his house every Sabbath. His wife, they were vegetarians, so his wife, she could

make some of the best dishes. She could cook better than my sister-in-law. I'm just saying

that, it'd be funny. That's my sister-in-law over there. Every Sabbath, I look forward

to going to church with them. That's how he got me to church. We would come to their house

and I would ask him questions about the spirit of prophecy and he would answer questions

about the Bible and he would answer all these hard questions I knew nothing about and would

find the answers. I enjoyed doing that, but what I was doing was I was finding life. I

was opposed to just good preaching, life in studying the Word, no, life in the living

reality of God being in me. It started a friendship because I was estranged from my dad at the

time. We did not talk. In fact, early part of my life, I did not like him at all because

of what I've seen him do to my mom. I did not like my father. Arnold would invite me

to his house every week. Pretty soon, after a year of going to the house, he knows good

vegetarian meals, I joined the church. When I joined the church, it was the church in

Michigan, it was an all Caucasian church. There wasn't but a few of us in there. Arnold, he

wasn't afraid to invite me to his church. A lot of prejudice was going on in the world

then during that time, but he invited me to his church. After a while, I would go on Bible

studies with him and he taught me how to give Bible studies before I was baptized. Then

I would go with some of the church members out every Sabbath to spread the good news.

You see, ladies and gentlemen, the Bible says life is found in God. It's not in the academics

of the word, it's the life of the word. The word became flesh and dwelt among us and we

saw his glory, the glory of the Father full of grace and truth. That glory is his presence.

When God told Nicodemus, you must be born again, that's no joke. In order to get out

of this world, in order to overcome sin, in order to be saved, in order to be born again,

you have to be born again. That's what the Holy Spirit has done for us in these last

days. It becomes living. It's not enough just to know about God. God, you must accept God

and have God living in you. It's called a born again experience. Everybody who's going

to heaven, everybody who will leave this earth will have that born again experience with

God where the Spirit of God has now changed their lives. Even if it's in a moment and

a twinkling of an eye, it's God's Spirit will change their lives. This man kept giving

me Bible studies and I began to go around and saw being with him and I went back to

my friend, guys I grew up with, started giving Bible studies to them, guys I used to do things

with and smoking and drinking and all those things. I went back to them and after a while,

in Bible studies, five of those guys found the Lord and six of us went to Oakwood College

at the time to become ministers of God. One guy was about to cut a record to go to Motown,

gave his life to the Lord. Another guy was Muslim and believed and did not believe in

the white man and everything and all these guys, it wasn't me, it was a living word that

was in me. You can't just convince people about God, you have to have some power within

you. That power must change the lives of someone. God came into my life, he came to these men's

life. To this day, I'm retired, went to Oakwood, graduated, went into ministry, stayed in ministry

for 31 years in the Pacific Union Conference the whole time and worked in the Union Office,

worked in the Conference Office, moved up the rank, but it was because of the life that

was in me. Ladies and gentlemen, my father could not read or write. I came from a very,

very astute background. It was very, very hard on me to go through life. Even when I

went to Oakwood College, I had never seen someone think they were teaching me before,

but I went on anyway because I was led by the Spirit of God and those that are led by

the Spirit of God are the sons and daughters of God. When I went to Oakwood College, I

was married, I had five kids at the time, and while I was there, my wife had another

child and it was six kids that my wife at that time left me with six kids while going

to school at Oakwood College. I had to have something supernatural in me to handle that

situation. That's how I met my darling over here at Oakwood. God gave her to me. She didn't

have the background I had. She was raised Adventist. Her father was an Adventist minister.

She didn't have a, but God did for me what he did for Adam. Amen. He touched my life

and brought her to my side. We've been married now 40 years. She met me. I was raising six

children by myself and God. I better say God and myself. I was raising those children.

All those children are grown now. My wife Melden today has given me two more. We've

raised eight children. We have 30 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. I guess she told

you all this. She corrects me all the time. Why do men forget those things? I don't know

why. 17 great-grands. It was all because of the life that was in me, the life that God

had given me, the life that I can't explain to you how it was and what happened. I can't

tell you that God made a difference. This is what the Bible says. It says, all who believe,

and I'm reading from first John five, 10 through 12, all who believe in the son of God know

in their hearts that this testimony is true. Those who don't believe this are actually

calling God a liar because they don't believe what God has testified about his son. This

is what God has testified. He has given us eternal life. This is God's testimony. He

has given us eternal life and this life is in his son. Whosoever has the son has life

and whosoever does not have God's son does not have life. God, when Christ comes into

you, you have life, life eternal. I don't care how broken down or messed up you are.

When he starts working in you, he who has begun a good work in you will perform it until

the day of Jesus Christ. He will never stop. That's why a lot of people die. A lot of my

friends who gave themselves to the Lord still had habits and they died with those habits

and everything. I knew they were saved. You know why? Because when God comes in and starts

working in you, God does not leave you. Do you believe that? That gave me great comfort.

They met him. They accepted him. The Bible said to as many as received him, to them he

gave the power to become the sons and daughters of God. I watched a lot of guys. I grew up

in the streets of South Bend smoking weed and what have you and doing those things.

I watched a lot of those guys die, but I also watched God save them before they die. I know

somebody else. Amen. It is God himself that does these things in our lives. Then he says,

one day, let me finish you with Arnold. When I decided to go to Oakwood, I went away for

a weekend with the Lord. During that weekend, I had a vision and the Lord told me to go

to Oakwood College. I had no high school diploma. I had quit school to join into the black movement

and cause the white man to die. I had quit school, but then when I decided to go back

to school, I had no diploma, no education. I said, Lord, give me the strength. Help me

to make it through school. I went away for the weekend and he showed me. I have so many

stories I can tell you. I can get all these stories in, but in that weekend, I saw God

come to me and touch me that I was going to be a pastor. It encouraged me to go to Oakwood

College. I loaded up my family, come and listen to a story about a man named Jeb. Poor mountain

here. He barely kept his family fed. Then one day, he was shooting. God told me to pack

up and we moved not to Hills, but to Oakwood. We moved to the woods. I had three girls,

three boys. We had two girls and three boys. Three girls and two boys. We got to Oakwood

and I didn't know what to do after I got there, but I followed him. I can tell you so many

stories. When you have these experiences with God, I remember we got there. I didn't have

any money to get in school. I didn't have any diploma, but guess what? That August before

I went to Oakwood, I decided to go take my GED. I went to take the GED. It took me five

days to get five different tests. I don't know if anybody knows what I'm talking about.

Five different days, you would take tests. I took those tests Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,

Thursday, and Friday. When I got to Friday, it was time for math. I was pitiful in math.

Because I quit school, I really didn't get into algebra. When I took that test, it had

things that I had never seen before on there. How you can get an answer to a question by

using a negative. I had never seen that before. You call that? I had never seen that before.

I sat there and looked at that paper and I said, Lord, I don't know what this is. The

Lord spoke to me. I'll lead you. You see, ladies and gentlemen, once Christ is in you,

he leads you. He don't expect you to do things without him. He don't try to pay you back

for the things you have not done. He leads you. He guides you. I sat there. I looked

at that paper. He told me, write. I began to write. Ladies and gentlemen, when the test

came back, I passed the GED. I was in the upper 10% of the nation. My score was in the

upper 10% of the nation on the GED. I don't know how I made it through the math. I really

don't know, but God brought me through. When I went to Overwood after being there a month

or two, I got my GED and I went on through school. Let me tell you one other quick story

on this. I was in a math class trying to take, again, algebra. This time was in college.

I didn't know what to do with that stuff. I really didn't know what to do with it. I

remember going to the complex at Overwood there and talking to the Lord. I said, Lord,

I don't know how I'm going to do this. I ended up, it was time for the finals. I had a D

minus in math. I sat there in that room that day and said, Lord, what am I going to do?

That guy walked in. He said, hey, Mon. He was from Africa, but he sounded like he was

from Jamaica. He said, hey, Mon. How you doing? He said, got some problems? Yeah, I have problems,

sir. What are the problems? I said, I can't understand this math. He said, all you need

to know is the principles. Once you get the principles, you can do anything. That's what

the word of God is. You can do anything. I sat there. He showed me what the principles

were. I came back the next day. I got a 96 on that test, the final. I see my way through.

Amen? Because of the moving of God. That's life. This God came and gave me life. Not

just eternal life, but how to live. I got to quit. I know I'm getting late here. I have

to live. He taught me how to live. Every aspect of life, through a divorce, through my wife

leaving me, through raising the children by myself. He was giving me life. He led me through

everything. When the Son of God begins a work in you, he will perform it until the day of

Jesus Christ. He will not let you go. He will not turn you down. I had some terrible times.

What am I going to do when this woman left me with six kids at Overwood? How am I going

to handle this? God gave me an Eve. She came along. We've been married now 40 years in

October. I tell you, every morning is the same. I wake up and say, is this really real?

It's really real. It's because God gave me life. Every one of you, God gives you life.

You don't have to be like HMS Richards or Ellen White. You have your own life. God will

take you through that life. You have a testimony of what God has done, of what God is doing

in your life. Now, I'm a testifying preacher, so I'm going to close with this. This is what

it says in 1 Corinthians 15. What I am saying, dear brothers and sisters, is that our physical

bodies cannot inherit the kingdom of God. These dying bodies cannot inherit what will

last forever. But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we all will

be transformed. It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet

is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever.

And we who are living will also be transformed. For our dying bodies must be transformed into

bodies that will never die. Our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies.

Then when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, the scripture

will be fulfilled. Death is swallowed up in victory. Ladies and gentlemen, I will see

my father in honor when I go to heaven. I will see my mother when I go to heaven. I

will see my father, who had a rough life, but before he died, he gave his life to Christ.

I will see him in heaven. When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that would

be. When we all see Jesus, we all shout the victory. Arnold died while I was at Oakwood.

He sent me $50 a month while I was in school for 10 years. When he died, his wife asked

me to do his funeral. And I must say this before I finish. He said, one time I came

home from school from Oakwood, he said, Bobby, he says, I never had a son. You're my son.

He says, Bobby, I won't get a chance to stand before thousands of people and speak the word

of God. I'm just, I'm local, local around here in the area. He said, but one day you

will stand before thousands of people. Ladies and gentlemen, all over the world, I have

stood before thousands of people. And Arnold told me, he said, Bobby, he says, and he kissed

me on my cheek. Only God could have done that. And he said, Bobby, I hope to see you. You

know, when Christ comes, you know, you'll have one of the stars in my crown will be

yours. You know, your star will be in my crown one day. And I'm looking forward to seeing

him again. I did his funeral and at his funeral, he had been an elder there for 50 years.

And at his funeral, a lot of the young people who had left the church came back for the

funeral because they knew him when they were young growing up in the church. They came

back and at that funeral, at that funeral, I made an appeal. And those kids came down

in groves and we dedicated their lives to the Lord and came back to the church. That

was because of the work Arnold did, because of the work God did in me and Arnold. Ladies

and gentlemen, when we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing there will be. We

all see Jesus. We will sing in what? To victory. Amen. Thank you.