Here is Dallin's talk that he gave in church the Sunday before leaving on his mission. He did a great job and put lots of thought and preparation into his remarks. What a great kid!
Agency: a gift involving more than just choosing right
and wrong
The topic I have been asked to speak on today is Agency, and
how it’s more than just choosing right and wrong.
So, what is the gift of Agency??
Etymology: The
word Agency entered the English vocabulary in the mid 17th century
from the Medieval Latin word agentia, which is the plural form of “agens” which
means to drive, lead, conduct, manage and do.
Church definition The Strength of youth pamphlet says that
agency is the “ability to choose right from wrong, and to act for yourself.”
Or, as Nephi puts it, the ability and privilege God gives us
to choose and “to act for ourselves and
not be acted upon.” (2 Nephi 2:26-27)
But how does it work? Mechanisms
that operate Agency
1.
One important mechanism allowing us to operate
our agency is knowledge between good and evil, allowing us choice.
a. Scriptural
example is in Helaman 14:30-31 – “…for behold, God hath given unto you a knowledge and he hath made you free.”
b.
He hath given unto you that ye might know good from evil…”
c.
This knowledge between good and evil work as
opposites, which present us choices. Without this knowledge between good and
evil, then we would have no other choice then to choose righteously all our
days, and never choose wickedly. So this opposition is essential.
d.
In 2 Nephi 2:11, it reads – “For it must needs be, that there is an
opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness,
righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither
holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be
a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as
dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness
nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.”
e. So what is the opposition/good and evil,
that persuades us to act between good and bad?
i.
2 Nephi 2:16 reads “Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for
himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be
that he was enticed by the one or the other.” What does this mean
though?
1.
John V Vandenburg said in a 1973 conference
address that “These persuasions of the
heart are related to two opposing forces constantly at work within every human
being. They are the forces of good and evil, which the Master referred to as
God and mammon. Coupled with these forces is the individual’s power to reason,
which only man, of all God’s creations, possesses. This enables him to make
choices. It is man’s control valve of what he wants to be. The forces governed
by his own reasoning determine the nature and quality of the choice made. Thus,
that which we call character is formed. We refer to this privilege of choice as
the agency of man.”
2.
A second
mechanism essential for the gift of agency to work in our lives is the veil.
a.
Before we were born, we passed through the veil,
and entered this mortal life. By passing through the veil, we have forgotten
all that we learned in our pre-mortal existence. This is essential,
because if we had remembered all that had happened in the pre-mortal
existence, then making the choice between right and wrong would have been
easy. Faith would have been removed, and the gift of agency would not have
functioned properly. Had we remembered God, then following God would have been
easy, because we would have remembered him and his glory, and that would have
been the obvious choice to take here in mortality. But not remembering him
allows us to truly make a choice. Since we don’t know, are we going to choose
to follow his plan in faith, or follow the natural man within us and go our own
way.
Pre-existence
Now I just mentioned the pre-existence. What was it like in the pre-existence? and what specifically
happened then, that would have destroyed our agency on earth had we remembered
everything about the pre-existence?
Through the scriptures, we learn that the pre-existence was
where we all dwelt with god. However, we were all only spirits in the presence
of our father in heaven, without a physical body. Then God gave us the gift of
agency, and later explained what that gift was for, explaining how it was an
essential element in the plan of happiness. (Now remember that, God gave us
agency before he presented his plan.)
Robert D Hales states that God’s plan involved being sent
down to this earth “to receive a body, to
choose to act between good and evil, and progress to become like our heavenly
father… Our agency… was an essential element of this plan. Without agency we
would be unable to make right choices and progress. Yet with agency we could
make wrong choices, commit sin, and lose the opportunity to be with heavenly
father again. For this reason a savior would be provided to suffer for our sins
and redeem us if we would repent. By his infinite atonement, He brought about
“the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice.” But someone had to
volunteer so be our savior. So in this great council we were all gathered
before the lord…
“
And the Lord said: Whom shall I send? And one [Jesus] answered
like unto the Son of Man: Here am I, send me.” (
Abr. 3:22–27.)
And that one said, “
Father, thy will be
done, and the glory be thine forever.” (
Moses 4:2.)
“… And another
answered [Lucifer]
and said: Here am
I, send me.” (
Abr. 3:27.)
“
I will be thy son,
and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost,
and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.” (
Moses 4:1.)
“… And the Lord said: I will send the first.”
So the Lord asks us whom he will send to be our savior, and Christ
says “Here am I, Send me” Then
Lucifer spoke up and said the exact same thing “Here am I, send me”, However, right after he says that, he presents
a different plan, a plan where he would redeem all mankind, and where not
one soul shall be lost, and then he asks
god to give him his honor. The problem with this second plan was that it
would have robbed us of our agency, our
agency which allows us to “act for
ourselves, and not be acted upon”. Forcing redemption on all is defined as
being acted upon. Our heavenly father decided to send down the first, which is
our savior Jesus Christ, and not Lucifer.
Because Heavenly father did this, Satan became…
“
angry, and kept not
his first estate…” (
Abr. 3:27–28.)
“
And he became Satan… the father of all
lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even
as many as would not hearken unto my voice.” (
Moses 4:4.)
“Satan rebelled
against God and “sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God,
had given him…” (
Moses 4:3.)
Robert D Hales states that “because of Lucifer’s rebellion, a great spiritual conflict ensued. Each
of Heavenly father’s children had the opportunity to exercise the agency
Heavenly Father had given him or her.” In case you weren’t paying attention, I
said earlier that each of us were given the Gift of Agency before this council.
So what choice were we given? The choice we were essentially given was to
follow our heavenly fathers plan, or Lucifer’s plan. Those who followed God’s
plan “chose to have faith in the Savior Jesus Christ—to come unto him, follow
Him, and accept the plan Heavenly Father presented to us. Those who followed
Lucifer’s plan essentially “did not have faith to follow the savior and chose
to follow Lucifer or Satan instead.” They did not have faith that Christ
could do it, or they did not have faith in themselves that they would be able
choose righteously in mortality, and thus, never being able to return back to
Heavenly father’s presence.
those
who decided to follow Satan were “cast
down, and they lost the opportunity to receive a mortal body, live on earth,
and progress. Because of the way they used their agency, they lost their
agency.”
Now, From what we’ve learned about the pre-existence, Four very important lessons are shown
here about the gift of Agency.
1.
Is that it was a gift and a blessing from god. And
that the Gift of Agency is absolutely essential for the plan of Salvation.
2.
When Satan presented his alternate plan, it gave
us an opportunity to exercise our agency. Those who chose to follow the Lords
plan “kept their First estate”, and received a body, and came down to earth,
while those who chose to follow Satan where cast down, and are now here on
earth to tempt us in this mortality.
3.
The Gift of Agency allows us the opportunity to
progress and become like our heavenly father.
4.
Each of us here on Earth chose to follow the
savior’s plan and come to earth to experience this mortality.
In addition, I might add that our agency is so important,
that God, in this mortality, made ways in which we could never recover the truth by simply proving it to be true or
false with scientific methods.
David V. Dearden, A science professor at Brigham
Young University, stated in a devotional given on March 31, 2009…
“It will never be possible to arrive at a full spiritual knowledge by
purely scientific methods. I know this because if such a course were possible,
it would destroy our agency, and the lord does not work that way. Agency is
sacred. If we could prove the gospel true and always know how to act purely
through reason or logic or science only choices in accord with the gospel would
be reasonable or acceptable. Correct choices would become obvious with minimal
effort on our part”
Now that we know what Agency is,
how is it more than just choosing between right and wrong?
Well, I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “pick up end of the
stick, you pick up the other” So? Each choice we make has a consequence.
Agency is more than just choosing right and wrong, it’s how
each of those choices we make shape our
lives!!
And it is how we
shape our lives that determines our future
In order to understand this more fully, one must understand
the gift of the great atoning
sacrifice.
We learned earlier that in the pre-mortal existence, Jesus
Christ was the one who volunteered to be our Savior. “He humbly declared that he would do the will of the father in
fulfilling the plan”. (true to the faith)
But why do we need a
savior. What did he do that was so important for us! How does his atonement
save us? And how does it work in our lives?
In the scriptures, we learn that at the end of Christ’s
mortal ministry, Christ suffered all of our sins, and all of our infirmities.
By doing this, He satisfied the demands of justice, allowing mercy to appease the demands of justice.
What is the law of Justice?
And what is the law of
mercy?
True to the faith
states that “Justice is the unchanging
law that brings consequences for actions… it also requires that no unclean
thing can dwell with God”, because of this law, if we sin at all to any
degree, we are unclean, and will not be able to dwell with God in the final
judgement. No matter what we did, if we sinned once, that would be it!, and we
would never be able to return to God’s presence ever again.
So this is why an atonement was needed, to satisfy the
demands of justice. Christ had to pay the consequences of our sins, so that we
could return back to the presence of our heavenly father.
Without this payment, we would forever feel the effects of
the fall of Adam and Eve.
So, this atonement was the act of mercy which appeased the
demands of justice.
But why was Christ
the only one who qualified for this sacrifice? Because he was perfect
True to the Faith
states that, “Having lived a perfect,
sinless life, he was free from the demands of justice. Because he had the power
of redemption and because he had no debt to justice, he could pay the debt for
those who repent”
So now we know why the atonement is essential in the plan of
salvation.
But there’s more…
Alma 42:13
states… “according to justice, the plan of redemption could
not be brought about, [except] on conditions of repentance”
D Todd Christofferson said in a general conference address
that “Christ died not to save indiscriminately
but to offer repentance. We rely
“wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save” in the process of
repentance, but acting to repent is a self-willed
change. So by making repentance a condition for receiving the gift of
Grace, God enables us to retain
Responsibility for ourselves. Repentance
respects and sustains our moral agency.”
So, God demands something of us still, which makes sense,
because “A God who makes no demands is the functional equivalent of a God who
does not exist”.
In consistency with the gift of agency, we are now free to choose whether or not we want to accept the
atonement. Because God will never rob us of our agency! the choice still
remains to be ours! We made a choice to follow God in the pre-existence, and we
still have that same choice here in mortality.
I’m going to explain this using a little analogy,
which I stole from a talk called “Learning heaven, not earning heaven” given by
Brad Wilcox. If any of you have listened to
any of Brad Wilcox’s stuff, then you will recognize this immediately.
“Christ’s arrangement for us is similar to a mom providing music lessons
for her child.
Because Mom pays the
Piano teacher, and because mom pays that debt in full, she can turn to her
child and ask for something…
What is it?...
Practice!
practice! practice!
Does the child’s
practice pay the piano teacher, does the child’s practice pay mom back for
paying the piano teacher.
So what does the
child’s practice do? The Childs practice
is how the child shows appreciation for mom’s incredible gift. It is how
the child takes advantage of this amazing opportunity to live his life at a
higher level. Mom’s joy is found, not in
seeing her gift repaid, mom’s joy is found in seeing her gift used, seeing
her child get better. And so she calls for practice,
practice, practice.
Now if the child can’t
see that, if he sees the requirement of practice as being just way too
overbearing, way too much to ask, if he just can’t quite see it,
it’s because he doesn’t quite see through mom’s eyes. And he doesn’t see
how much happier he can be, how much better his life will be if he will choose
to live on a higher plane.
Well, in the same way,
because Jesus paid Justice, He can now turn to us, and He can say, follow me,
keep my commandments.
If we see his requirements as being way too much to ask, maybe it’s
because we don’t yet see through Jesus’ eyes.
A God who asks nothing of us, is making nothing of us!” and I might add “A God who asks nothing of us,
is the functional equivalent of no god at all”
One of our modern day
apostles Elder Dallin H. Oaks said
“The repenting sinner
must suffer for his sins, but this suffering has a different purpose than
punishment or payment. Its purpose is change.”
The miracle of the
atonement of Jesus Christ is not just that we can live after we die, but that
we can live more abundantly.
The miracle of the
atonement is not just that we can be cleansed, and not just that we can be
consoled.
The miracle of the
atonement is that through all of that, we can be transformed, we can be
changed.
Scriptures make it
clear, that no unclean thing can dwell with God, but no unchanged thing will want to.”
Did you hear that?
No unchanged thing
will even want to dwell with God!
So the atonement is not a means of allowing all to go to heaven freely. Rather, it’s a gift, just like the mother in this example, a gift
available to every single person who ever lived on this earth. And because it’s
a gift, we are Free to choose to accept
this gift or not, and apply it in our lives or not. We are free to change
or not.
Everyone still has that amazing gift of agency, allowing us
to be agents unto ourselves.
Many of you have heard the atonement Christ referred to as
“the great atoning sacrifice”
“The English word for sacrifice comes from two Latin words, sacer, meaning sacred, and facere, meaning to make. So Jesus’s
sacrifice is to make us sacred.” (Brad Wilcox)
“The scriptures make it clear that our works are a
significant factor in where we end up. However, this is not because of what our
works earn us, but how they shape us” (Brad Wilcox)
It’s not about making us perfect, it’s about making us
better. The child in the analogy I shared was asked to “practice, practice, practice”. Not to earn the child something, but
to make the child better.
OOHH! It’s such a perfect plan!! And it makes so much sense!
We are here on this earth to grow, to become better, to reach a fuller
potential. Isn’t that what we are all striving for?, Progress in some way or
another.
Now, how do we apply the atonement?
What do we need to “Practice”?
We need to practice
being like our savior, and follow his example. We do this by obeying his commandments, reading the word of God, Praying to Heavenly father, becoming
baptized, and “exerting ourselves, repenting,
and choosing God for him to be able to act in our lives consistent with justice
and moral agency”.
Basically, try our best to become more like our savior.
Another one of our modern day prophets Elder Neil L.
Anderson stated that “Faith in Jesus Christ
is a gift from heaven that comes as we choose to believe and as we seek it and
hold on to it… By the grace of Christ, we will one day be saved through faith
on His name. The future of you faith in not
by chance, but by Choice”.
James 2:27 says
that “Faith without works is dead”.
Thus you cannot have faith, without acting on faith. And in Ether 12:6 it states that “faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute
not because we see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your
faith”.
So practicing to become like our father in heaven is having faith in him and his word,
(which is things which are hoped for and not seen), and acting on that faith, because we know that faith without works is
dead. So if we don’t act on what we hope for to be true, then it is all in
vain.
There’s been a recurring
theme here, have you noticed? First
we act, and then God answers. We first have to pick up one end of the stick
in order to pick up the other. Understanding the gift of agency has brought me
to the knowledge of how we attain truth.
Hoping for a grand glorious experience to convert us is most likely not going
to happen without our effort. We must act, and put forth some effort, to search
the scriptures, and then ask god if it’s true. Then you will receive your
answer. You must first pray, and talk to God if you want to know if he’s there. You must DO something before you can KNOW
whether or not it works. And you must do it with real intent, seeking
sincerely to know if it’s true or not.
So what about those who do not accept this Gospel? Is
everyone who does not hear about the gospel or does not accept the gospel of
Jesus Christ screwed? Are we the lucky ones?
Interesting question Dallin… and the answer is NO!
We will all have
the chance to hear about this gospel, whether it be in this life, or in the next.
We will all have a chance. After all, That is one of the eternal blessings our
temples offer us.
The missionaries will not teach an investigator who does not
want to hear the gospel. They will only teach those who are ready and willing
to learn. How come though? Well, because that’s just part of our agency. We
must respect each other’s agency just like how God respects our agency.
Because God respects our agency, Mankind are free to do what
they want. this results in calamity, starvation, wars, pestilence, feelings
hurt, and all sorts of sad tragedies all over the world. Is it because God has
deserted his children? No… wars and rumors of wars have been going on for as
long as we can remember. Even in the Bible there were wars and rumors of wars.
Like I said, it happens simply because God deeply respects our agency, and will
not violate that sacred Gift. But that doesn’t mean our actions will be
consequence free.
And when we find ourselves asking why? Why does this have to
happen to me? Think of Frodo Baggins, and when he asked the same question to
Gandalf when he had just learned about the evil which was in the One Ring.
Gandalf replied saying. “so do all who live to see such times. But that is not
for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is
given us.”
So what are we going to do with the time that is given us?
Close with Testimony
I’m going to leave on a mission and teach the word of God to
those who will listen, and I can’t wait to do that. Because it’s brought me So
much joy, and peace, and it makes perfect sense to me. The more and more I
learn, the more I understand. I am going to serve a mission is because I am
choosing to be like my Savior, Jesus Christ. I want to serve as he served, I
want to teach as he taught, I want to love as he loved. I want to follow his
perfect example, and use his atonement in my life, so that I can become better.
And I want to share the gospel with others so that they can have the same
blessing.
