A little tired this week. We got back from Winter Camp and really haven't had a chance to recoup and I've been hearing that from almost all of our staff members. It seems like they were right back at it - those from ABC. We had half a dozen of the ABC students who were up at Winter Camp helping out. It ended a week ago tomorrow – last Sunday morning was the end of camp. We got snow at Winter Camp in Wisconsin. We pulled our luggage through it as we were leaving. It was all of an inch deep, too. The rest of the time it was kind of like this out there – a little brisker maybe – but one day it rained. I think it's La Niña that is the jet stream pattern that is blowing this year and it's bringing the weather south instead of through the northern climates as it normally does. But I've also heard that that ends in February and then it switches back. So we might get our nice, deep snow that some have been longing for here in Cincinnati later on in the winter time. We'll wait and see what happens.

Anyway, just to give you a quick report on the Winter Camp, this was a challenging year. We went into the calendar year without having a facility reserved because somebody else wanted to use it. So Dan Dowd who serves as the assistant director, he and I work as a team with the camp, he pastors the Milwaukee church and Oshkosh and Eau Claire right now. We looked, did Internet searches, went up and looked at a couple of facilities in May and then as we analyzed it, realized they weren't really suited for our kind of camp, especially in the winter. So I had to go back in September, the end of August or the beginning of September to look at another camp and that's the one we did end up renting. It's called Camp Timber-lee near East Troy. It's basically just off the Interstate, five or six miles. There's I-43 that runs between Beloit, WI and Milwaukee. It's about 2/3 of the way to Milwaukee.

Camp Timber-lee turned out to be a beautiful facility. We were very happy with that, I think all of the staff and the campers were. One of the particular items that we thought was terrific in addition to the better quality buildings and everything, was that the food was outstanding. It was like eating in a restaurant every day. Other camps we've been to for Winter Camp – the food was calories and we were burning them, so we ate it. But this place, you ate it with gusto. I mean, it was delightful. So it was a good thing.

We also ended up with a good sized Winter Camp in that historically Winter Camp for the past ten years or eleven years that we've had a winter camp, when Winter Family Weekends lands on top of when Winter Camp has to be, which is between the 25th of December and the 1st or 2nd of January, then we have a lower attendance at Winter Camp – usually in the 50's or someplace. And that's what we had this year, we had 57. Last year, the Winter Camp attendance was 69 so we really weren't far off the attendance from last year at all. We also had six mini-campers which were an enjoyable addition to the camp – preteens who were there with their parents – and 38 staff members. It seems like a high percentage of staff members for the number of campers, but bear in mind that we have to staff each of the activities plus the dorms and you end up with a fair number of basic staff that you need. We could have expanded out probably to 70 or 80 campers with only 3 or 4 more staff members. So this was a good representation of what Winter Camp has been over the years numbers-wise.

Activities were all able to be done – some of them had to be switched to an alternative. We had horseback riding. That was fine. Field sports – they like to play flag football in the snow. That's the idea for winter camp. It's a great game. I guess it's fun. When you fall down, it doesn't hurt so much because you 're in the snow. Well, we just played it on the grass because we didn't have any snow, but it still worked fine.

We had arts and crafts for the first time at least in a number of years if ever at Winter Camp. Team building, which we have had a good team building activity throughout the years. We had a music appreciation class that Peter McNair, an elder up in the Twin Cities, taught. It was very beneficial. We didn't have broom ball which is like hockey played on the ice without skates, you use little brooms to push the ball around in place of the hockey puck. It's a very vigorous game, but nothing was frozen. There are two lakes. The camp is 650 acres on the edge of a lake called Peter's Lake which is 60 acres itself. It's a beautiful, deep water lake. And then we have a pond or two that are scattered around this 650 acres and one of those was designated for broom ball, but we were unable to do that, so we had another odd game. They had a bank basketball court where you had to bank the ball off the backboard and into the hoop. But the backboards had been sick and they were deformed in all sorts of different ways so that it made it a really interesting challenge for the campers.

Instead of cross country skiing we had a high-speed hike to a 'capture the flag' area some distance from the main body of the camp. Wilderness skills were not affected. It was still wilderness and the skills were still necessary.

Song leading games instead of tubing and tobogganing. When we have a cold winter there, the tobogganing run will be exciting for those that like that sort of thing. They have a chute for the toboggan that goes down off the bluff where the buildings are in the camp. It goes down a very steep hill. You can't see the bottom of the hill from where you start. They have a traffic light and radio contact between the two people operating the toboggan run. So you start slowly and then you sort of drop off of the face of the earth and gain phenomenal speed - if everything goes well - and then it shoots you out across the lake for about a third of a mile. So the main part of tobogganing is the big rush of the fast ride and the long walk back dragging the toboggan. Hopefully we will be able to do that next year. If we had had one that would scoot out across cold water, I guess we could have done it this year, but that wouldn't have been so much fun.

The main body of the camp, though, was Christian Living, Life Skills class, Compass Check, and I taught a Bible Superhero class. Each of the dorms selected a Bible superhero – superhero in the broad sense – and then I customized the class for each of the dorms depending on who they had selected. We had Jephthah and Samson. They were superheros. We had three girls' dorms, the girls chose Esther and Miriam, the sister of Moses, and Eve. So we all sat down and I said, “So, you've chosen Eve for your hero. I have one question. Why?” And the girls looked at one another and said, “Well, actually our counselor chose it for us.” “So why did she chose it for you?” And then they had to answer the original question. “Eve was the mother of all living and we can learn from her example.” And I said, “That's right.” So we proceeded to have a class about that.

But the bottom line was that the camp went remarkably well. We were very happy with it. It's a lot of energy expended on the part of the camp staff – the young adult staff and the old adult staff – we had an unusual ministerial presence for our camp. We had eight elders, seven of whom are pastors, that were there this camp. Nobody got away with much of anything in that sense, but it was also a benefit for the younger staff. They got to work with them and many of them had kids who were at camp, so that was another logical connection to have.

The amazing thing about our staff, especially our young staff that aren't employed by the church in some ways, that they dedicate a week of their personal time and come and supervise, guide and teach our teenage campers. And in return for that, we let them have very little sleep and make them run hard all day long. They each get a break of about an hour to two hours if we can arrange it – at least an hour. And they eat well. And they do have a lot of fun, but mostly it is a very challenging hard job and my hat is off to all of our young adult staff that volunteer year after year to help at camp. Without them willing to sacrifice their time, we really wouldn't have a camp program. We have them arrive at camp a day early so they arrived on the Monday night. Let's see, the Winter Family Weekend wrapped up by Tuesday afternoon, but Monday night the camp staff had to arrive and we got into staff training.

And I want to bring our one point about the staff training which then feeds into the sermon. It actually serves as a title. They come there, they get to do the activities with the campers, which is running, playing, climbing – whatever it is that they are doing, they get to do it with them. But we point out to the staff – to all of us – old staff, young staff – it doesn't matter – camp is not about us. It's Not About Us. That's the title.

It's not about us. It's about the campers. They are here. It's a learning time for them so we're going to work hard to ensure that they are safe and that they're well supervised and that they are given guidance and a lot of instruction – whether it's an activity or, primarily, Bible instruction. We had heavy dosages and I'll tell you that we had some superb Bible studies – Christian Living classes. On the Sabbath morning we had two Bible seminars that were as good as I've ever heard on the fact that God is calling our young people. Don't ever think that your kids, if you're an adult or parent, might be called by God. They are being called by God now through your family. I think we've been soft on that over the years or, at least, fuzzy on that, but it's very clear in 1 Corinthians 7:14 – not a part of the sermon, you can jot it down – that's extra credit, you can read it this afternoon. 1 Corinthians 7:14. Our kids are being called now and those two seminars, one by Frank Dunkle and the other by Leonard Martin, two of newly hired pastors, were just truly outstanding.

But the bottom line for the staff is that camp is not about us, it's about the campers - making sure that they are safe and that they are learning and that the camp is, therefore, serving their needs and helping them to grow. That's a good lesson, I think, for us in the church today. It's not about us. Too often we assimilate a sense of entitlement from this mixed up world around us especially in America. You know, on the heap of all the nations this last part of the 20th century and the beginning decade and a bit of the 21st century, America has been at the top of the heap of all the nations. It was the superpower of superpowers. And we try not to let that affect us, but it's like being the child of Bill Gates. Do they have children? I don't know if they do or not – I guess they do. Maybe they're doing it better in trying to keep those children from developing this sort of mentality that they have the wealthiest man in the world for a dad. If he's wise, he won't let them grow up that way. He'll want them to learn the basic things that he learned from scratch. But it's too easy to assimilate that sort of entitled attitude. For us in the church, it's very easy to begin to think that the church is all about us. 'The church is here to serve me.' That' something we want to avoid. It's easy, therefore, to develop an inward, parochial viewpoint where we just think about us inside and we don't look out and see what our responsibility is before God and what He expects of us. So in this sermon we'll see how we can reorient our thinking to look outward and to renew our desire to serve others and to see that we are called, actually, to serve others rather than merely to be served.

The clarion example – and I like that word, clarion. I though, well, what does it mean? I know sort of what it means: sticks out, something that stands out for excellence in some way. Technically it was a medieval trumpet with a high-pitched note or tone, a high-pitched tone. So it was a trumpet that you could hear over all the rumble of conversation and that sort of thing. The clarion example of 'it's not about us' is Jesus Christ. And there's a classic place – three times He had to do this – but Luke 22, we're going to look at that particular instance where He had to explain this principle to the apostles-to-be. Luke 22. The irony of it, you know this was during the Passover dinner, the final Passover of the Old Testament format for the church, that is, and the first Passover with the new sacraments of the wine and the bread and the foot washing. And so we find in chapter 22, verse 24, the beginning of it – I see my tiny verse numbers, here they are.

Luke 22:24 - There was also a dispute among them... them being, not Christ, but being the apostles-to-be ...as to which of them should be considered the greatest.

Now, in Matthew 20 that's addressed. That would have been a few days earlier than this, a week or so, maybe longer. It's covered in Mark once, it seems to be earlier, but part way through Christ's ministry they developed this, of all things, the twelve apostles – they're supposed to be the paragons of human examples of virtue and they're arguing about which one of them should be considered the greatest above all the others. “I'm #1 and you're #2 and you're #3, etc., etc., etc.” “No, no, no. I'm #1 and you're #3 and so-and-so is #2.” Back and forth they must have gone. And Christ, I marvel at the patience of God. You know, patience is not a quality of life that is intended to be infinite. Patience is designed by definition to run out. You don't be patient forever. You be patient for a wise length of time. So Christ had wonderful patience in working this lesson through them and it's a great one for us.

So they were arguing about which of them should be the greatest.

V. 25 - He said to them, "The kings of the Gentiles... the other two renditions say the rulers of the Gentiles - same thing ...exercise lordship over them... they throw their weight around, they use their egos to impose their will on others ...and those who exercise authority over them are called 'benefactors.' You know, these big weight-throwers, the ones who throw their weight around are called benefactors so they have these great, exalted titles about how wonderful they are.

V. 26 - Not so among you; on the contrary, he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves.

Abraham Lincoln had an inkling of this. America and the government has probably the best inkling, I think historically in human governments, but toward the end of the Gettysburg Address he spoke about government of the people, by the people and for the people. It was the preposition 'for'. In other words, the government was to serve the people, which when you read the Founding Fathers, you know that that was one of the fundamental premises of the American constitution and American way of life.

So there was an inkling there, but Christ makes it very clear that in the government of God, that in the Kingdom of God, in the church of God as well. ...he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger... Usually the younger ones were considered less important and the older ones, they got served their coffee first and that sort of thing. ...and he who governs as he who serves. Government is supposed to serve.

V. 27 - Who is greater, he who sits at the table, or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at the table?... You know, that's what most people think. One is sitting at the table and the waiters are bringing around the food. He's the one, that's why he is being served all this stuff. Here Christ pointed out the contrary viewpoint. ...I am among you as the One who serves. 'It's not about me.' It's about bringing along others. Christ was not into Himself in the way that we tend to use that term in our time. Christ was there to serve. Now, there's a clarion example when we stop and think about where our position is and how we should think of ourselves and what we do. It's not about us. There's a greater purpose than us. A greater purpose than me or you or anybody.

Now let's notice Christ and the work of ultimate service. Let's go to John this time, chapter 5. It's a pretty interesting read, this occurrence here in John chapter 5. You can start at the beginning. It was during the Feast, and Christ went up – you know the story – to the pool of Siloam and the waters stirred and an angel went down and stirred the water, so that whoever stepped into the water first would be healed. So the sick were all there. So Christ went down and He was squatted down on one knee talking to somebody - a man who was obviously very crippled - and asked him how long he had been there. Thirty-eight years he had had that infirmity. He said, “The water was stirred and I'm right here, but I don't have anybody to carry me into the water.” He couldn't get himself in there.

And so Christ asked him in V. 6 - "Do you want to be made well?"

And he explained that he had no one to put him in there, V. 8 - so Christ said to him, "Rise, take up your bed and waLuke"

V. 9 - And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. And that day was the Sabbath. It was on the Sabbath during the Feast.

V. 10 - The Jews therefore asked him who was cured, "It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed."
Bear in mind the Jews – this being the Pharisees or perhaps the Sadducees as well, the Pharisees seemed to have excelled at, - though it seems when you look at it and weigh and consider the four gospels, the Pharisees worshiped the day more than they worshiped the God who made the day. It was an idol to them. The Sabbath was an idol to them which is a great pity. They missed the beauty and the restfulness of the Sabbath by doing that.

So they had this conversation and when they found out that it was Jesus who had healed him, then they were after Christ. So now we come down to verse 16.

V. 16 - For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had healed a man on the Sabbath. So they were going to kill Him.

Now I wonder if it was still on the Sabbath when they were trying to do that. Would it have been legal for them to kill Him on the Sabbath? You know, they would have had to pick up stones to throw at Him. That's a good question and that is one of the great conundrums perhaps – the Pharisaic mindset. Because He had done these things on the Sabbath they were upset. There were times when Christ knew when to give the soft answer. There were other times when He was into confrontation and this was a little bit confrontive, so we're talking about the Sabbath and Jesus says to them:

V. 17 - "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working." That's in New King James. I think occasionally the older way of phrasing English has much more power and carries the sense of what was happening. The King James says, My Father works hitherto, and I work. It's that hitherto. I love that. It rolls out so nicely. My Father works hitherto, and I work.

And then they were really angry and they wanted to kill Him because He made Himself equal with the Father, you know, claiming that He was the Son of God.

But the point is, the Father works. Christ works. They serve others. They serve the entire creation. So even when we look at my Father works, in that sense even God, the Father – it's not all about Him. It's about what He's doing and who He's bringing along and what the Kingdom of God is going to be. Likewise, our Savior works for the same reason. Therefore we work. Our Father works, our Savior works, we work. We do the work of God. We serve others with the one commodity that we have that the world doesn't understand yet, and that is the true gospel of the Kingdom of God. Oh, we do other things too, but that is our main product, the main thing that we have to offer in very many ways.

We go on to read further just a little ways down.

V. 18 - Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.

V. 19 - Then Jesus answered and said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does... whatever the Father does ...the Son does in like manner.

Well when we follow the logic of that, if the Father does it and the Son does it - Jesus does it – then we do it because we follow their example.

V. 20 - For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.

V. 21 - For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will. And it goes on elaborating on additional aspects that they needed to understand at that particular moment.

The Son does what the Father does. We want to do that, too. But what do the Father and the Son do or are they doing? Let's go to Hebrews chapter 2 for the answer to that. What is it that the Father and the Son are doing ultimately? There are other passages, perhaps, that would summarize this. This one does an admirable job although. We'll begin in verse 9 of Hebrews 2.

Heb. 2:9 - But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. Christ sacrificed His life for us and for everyone.

For it was fitting... in V. 10, and this is the key, this is the key verse we are after, the target verse ...For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. To bring many sons and daughters to glory. 1 Corinthians 6 talks about sons and daughters of God so it includes both, 'sons' is sometimes used as the general term for all. But the God family is bringing many sons to glory, that is, bringing humans through their human lifetimes and then ultimately through conversion, preparing them to be resurrected into the Kingdom of God. That's where they inherit their salvation and they come under their captain of their salvation, which is Jesus, Himself.

Now let's journey back to John again. Chapter 9 this time and let's look at how Christ focused on doing the work of God. We've got an inkling already from chapter 5, but in John chapter 9 we see another reference to it.

John 9:4 - Now as Jesus passed by... I'll give you the context starting in verse 1. saw a man who was blind from birth.

V. 2 - And His disciples asked Him, saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" They assumed that every pain or every agony or every disease was caused by somebody's sin and often that is the case, but not necessarily in every time.

V. 3 - Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. Specifically the work there was going to be a miraculous healing.

V. 4 - I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.

V. 5 - As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

So Christ talked about the fact that His focus was to do the work that the Father sent Him to do. And He had to do it while the opportunity was there. He had to focus on getting that done and that living His human life wasn't about Him personally, it was about serving, doing what God, the Father, wanted Him to do.

Then very close to the end of His human life in John 17, the extended prayer that He delivered after the Passover service before He got to the garden, the Garden of Gethsemane. Chapter 17 and we'll pick it up in verse 1.

John 17:1 - Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: "Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You,

V. 2 - as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him.

V. 3 - And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ... well, that's interesting. Eternal life isn't about us, either. It's about knowing the Father and Christ. ...whom You have sent.

V. 4 - I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.

V. 5 - And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. To go back to His throne at the right hand of the Father where He had always been.

Christ finished the work that the Father had given Him to do. So we might ask, so what is the work of God for us today? You know, I think we have an inkling. We've talked about this a lot. I remember Herbert Armstrong used to say that a person is converted to the degree that he has his or her part in God's work. And when we see the view of what God's work is - I think the apostle Paul was inspired to marvelously expound on the breadth of it - then we can see what we have to finish, what we have to accomplish, what we have to be doing while the opportunity is there. It's in 1 Corinthians chapter 9. Paul makes a startling statement. It's in the middle of a conversation that he is having in writing the letter with the brethren at Corinth addressing some issues that some of them had raised. But we'll jump into the middle of it because it carries another meaning all its own.

1 Corinthians 9:16 - For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of... I might ask what gospel is he talking about and in the church of God we all intuitively know, we had that drilled into our minds – it is the gospel of the Kingdom of God that Christ brought. In Mark 1:14-15 He makes that clear. Christ came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel." So ...if I preach the gospel... Paul says, ...I have nothing to boast of, for necessity is laid upon me; woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!
Well, you know, that was true of Paul and it was also true of Peter. It was true of John, it was of Bartholomew and Phillip and Andrew and all of the other apostles who were scattered around the Roman empire and out into the barbarian territories where the Israelite tribes were located. They all could have made that same statement: woe is me if I do not preach the gospel! That was their duty. That was their calling. And in those days without mass communication they had to preach it loud enough that they could be heard without amplification like we have here in this hall today. So Paul recognized that he had no choice if he was going to follow God. He had to preach the gospel.

V. 17 - For if I do this willingly, I have a reward... and I think we can fairly say that the apostle Paul very willingly preached the gospel. ...but if against my will, I have been entrusted with a stewardship. Even if I didn't want to do it, I have to do it because it's my duty. I have to do it.

You know, the church today carries on the work that Christ gave the apostles to do and so we have the duty to proclaim and preach the gospel in that sense.

V. 18 - What is my reward then? That when I preach the gospel, I may present the gospel of Christ without charge, that I may not abuse my authority in the gospel. That was addressing what some of the Corinthian brethren had issues – a number of issues, which is why he wrote them the letters.

But then we have something else to think about. Let's pause, though, when Paul said, “I have to preach the gospel, but woe is me if I don't do it”, there's an old saying that we use in English in America. It is common, maybe it came from England, one of those country or folk proverbs that come up. There are a lot of good ones. One of my favorites is from Africa – I think it's from Uganda – it's this: 'If it wasn't for the elephant, the buffalo would be a great animal'. So that's a good one, too, but there's another one that we often use: 'Don't get the cart before the horse'. Now, all the Amish people understand that. Today we don't understand that because some perverse automotive companies over the years have put the engines in the back of the car, you know, and then you would be the first to arrive at the scene of the accident rather than the engine. Volkswagen has changed their ways, however, and they have the engine out front nowadays as far as I understand. But, don't get the cart before the horse.

So in the role of us in the church and the gospel, you know, carrying on the work the apostles were given to do, which is the horse and which is the cart? If you stop to think about it, which came first, the preaching or the proclaiming of the gospel or the church? Jesus said, “You are Petros,” to Peter “and upon this petra,” this massive rock meaning Himself, “I will build my church.” But it hadn't been built yet, He was just preparing to. The preaching of the gospel came first. So the gospel in the proverb – the gospel is the horse and the cart is the church. So we have to keep the horse in front of the cart, not the cart in front of the horse as far as what our inclinations are - to realize yes, we have the Church of God, we prepare a people, but that preparation is done by serving. Our young staff that come to help at Winter Camp or any other of our United Youth Camps, are gaining experiences that are going to enable them to serve in their congregations in many ways. And our older campers – they are the ones in this transition stage, ages 16 and 17 and 18, where they have assimilated more of the entitlement thinking through high school and that sort of thing that goes along with society, so they have trouble sometimes getting a grip on it. But they eventually do, the vast majority do, and then they, within several years, start coming back to serve at the camps. When they have matured past that point when they realize, you know, it's not about me, it's about serving others. It's about doing God's work. We have a motto up here on the seal in front of me and it's “Preaching the gospel, preparing a people”. Preaching the gospel is how the work originally was built, the church was built, so it's the horse. The cart is the church. It comes behind, but the work doesn't stop just with the preaching the gospel, but we preach it internally as well as externally.

In another way of looking at it, preaching the gospel of God's kingdom, the good news of God's kingdom, is to teach a way of life at all levels. Christ taught God's way of life, the apostle Paul certainly did.

Now let's stop and think about it from this point of view: the gospel of the kingdom is our cause. There are people in this world who will join causes. They are looking for some meaning in life. They don't have any clue what it is, because they don't have their roots in the scriptures and God hasn't opened their minds yet, but they are looking for meaning. They know that they lack meaning and purpose in their life and they look for something that they can invest themselves – or if they are wealthy, they can invest their money in, which is in the sense to invest themselves. And then they support that cause and some of them are the craziest causes you can imagine. Other ones are actually pretty sensible, it all depends. But the greatest cause of all is the cause of the gospel of the kingdom and then proclaiming that gospel is our mission. On the one hand, the cause is the gospel and then proclaiming it is our mission.

Now how do you proclaim the gospel? There are various ways. We need to understand them because Paul is going to illustrate it in a moment. First of all, we proclaim it verbally whether it's on the mass media or in person like the Kingdom of God seminars, you know, where it's official preaching that's verbal preaching of the gospel that is proclaiming it. Then we publish it. That's proclaiming the gospel. And as long as there's been publishing, I mean, when Paul was writing the Corinthian brethren, he was explaining the gospel to them.

Then there's another kind of proclaiming the gospel that I borrowed the word 'relate' – the relating of the gospel, not relating as in necessarily, you know, I relate to you or I understand where you're coming from – although that's part of the process. This is relating as in telling somebody. “Relate to me the story again.” Tell me the story again. We personally proclaim the gospel by relating our conversation, relating it through our conversations with others. Somebody asks us, “Why do you believe this?”
And then we say, “Well, because of this.” “Why don't you keep Christmas?” “Because it has bad origins, not from the Bible, but I do keep Holy Days - an entire system of them. You'd find it very interesting that our Christian Holy Days are meant for us, to be kept today.” And then sometimes you get to elaborate on them. You are good at relating the message. Others might ask more detail and you have the opportunity. That happens to us.

You know, over the years, historically for the past – what is it, our modern experience – it has been 70 or 80 years of the church of God, the statistics that I have seen, and they kept those statistics pretty thoroughly. We've kept something similar in the past decade and a half plus. 50 to 70 percent of the people in the church came into the church because they knew somebody who already believed. Now that was either a parent, or a relative, or a co-worker, or a neighbor, but it was a personal relationship that introduced them to the truth. The other third to a half came in through our public proclamation. So the impact that we can have by being able to personally relate through conversation with others, the gospel of God's kingdom, some element of it - but you don't have to unload the whole wagon load, you unload only a little – is a very powerful tool. The other way we do it is through our conduct, it is our example - conversation and conduct. It used to be that conversation covered both back in King James' day, but now we have conversation and conduct. Our example shows something about the Kingdom of God and that's why Paul went on to say after he said, woe is me if I don't preach the gospel, is that famous section that goes from verses 19 to 23.

1 Corinthians 9:19 - For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all... I know it's not all about me. It's about what I have to do, that God has given me to do. ...For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more... that by my conversation and example others will want to come and learn God's truth, that God can call them through my efforts in some way.

V. 20 - and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews... It was easy for Paul in one sense because he had been one of the fire-breathing whiz kids of the Pharisaic school of thought among Judaism. So he understood that one backwards and forwards. However, the irony of it is that Paul was also able to understand the Gentiles which is why he was the one sent to the Gentiles. You have to admit, he was a versatile tool in Christ's hands once He got him tamed. ...to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law... I can relate to where they're coming from and what they're thinking of so you can use 'relate' in other ways, as well. ...that I might win those who are under the law... You know, they don't understand God's law, they don't have a heritage of it. They're in the Gentile nations or maybe some of the Israelite elements of the tribes that were scattered about the edges of the Roman Empire at that time who didn't have the law anymore.

V. 21 - to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law... I can understand where they're coming from. I can talk their language and I try to do that. It's not about me. It's about helping them to understand the gospel of God's kingdom.

V. 22 - to the weak I became as weak... and there are many weak people in the world. There are many in the church who were weak and, by the process of conversion, are in the process of growing strong. They have a knack, they have a head start where they have a particular weakness that they had to overcome – whatever it might have been, alcoholism, drug addiction, whatever it might have been. They can talk the talk and help people understand. ...that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.

V. 23 - Now this I do... for my sake? No! ...for the gospel's sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.
The proclaiming of the gospel must be accompanied by living the gospel, partaking of it in that sense. Paul knew it wasn't all about him. He looked outward and he's a wonderful example of that.
Now, let's talk about sheep in the minutes we have left. I always like to come back to the farm whenever I can. Matthew, chapter 10. We'll, come back to the farm. We never grew sheep on a large scale until after I had gone to Ambassador College, my brother began to do it then, but we had a neighbor who was a sabbath keeper – in another denomination. We were good friends and so we had the same work schedule there, we didn't work on the Sabbath, but we did work on Sunday so we could trade equipment and help him out - when he needed and couple or three lads to go and chase down his sheep, which we often had the opportunity to do.

In chapter 10 of Matthew, Jesus – we have the listing of the twelve apostles or primary disciples who would be eleven of the apostles to come – Judas Iscariot excepted, of course. So Christ is then giving them marching orders. Notice what they are.

Matthew 10:5 - These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: "Do not go into the way of the Gentiles... not then, at least. They were later, but not then. ...These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: "Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans.

V. 6 - But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

V. 7 - And as you go, preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.'

V. 8 - Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. If you haven't underlined that last line, please do or mark it in some way. ...Freely you have received, freely give.

Christ sent His church by sending the apostles, He sent His church to the lost sheep of the world – the lost sheep of the Israelites first, they have no idea who they are, and then the lost sheep of all the other nations. That's what 'Gentile' means. In Hebrew it is gôy (go'ee) which means 'the nations' and Israel is 'the nation'. So there's 'the nation' and 'the nations' and that's everybody. So that's who we are sent to reach – everybody – the lost sheep of the world.

Notice this, though, that last line that he had tagged on at the end of verse 8: Freely you have received, freely give.

The apostle Paul quoted Christ - it is a saying that we never read in the gospels, it's in Acts chapter 20, I believe, that He said it is more blessed to give than to receive. Well that principle is right here, freely you have received, freely give. So He must have restated it for the apostle Paul's benefit at one point and then he remembered and quoted it for us so that we know Jesus said that as well.

We have been given the knowledge of God's way. We have been given the understanding of the gospel of the kingdom. So few people in this world have the calling and the understanding of the depth of what we know. We feel, we have empty chairs out here, we've got room to expand. Even before the building might be expanded, we have room to expand here today. There could be others that could be here with us and could be in every one of our congregations as God might call them. And I don't know that there's a cap on how many God might call based on our yieldedness to Him and our striving to understand the principle is not about us, it's about God and the Father and Son and about what they're doing and the work of God which is the proclaiming of the gospel not only through a preaching and publishing, but through out conversation and our conduct. We have been freely given this calling, this knowledge, this precious commodity that is a part of our heart and part of our lives. We are also to freely give. We have received it, we share it. It isn't just about us. We have it now, we treasure it, we treasure to be a part of the church of God, but we must focus outward, looking forward.

Notice this, we're still talking about sheep. Let's go Luke, chapter 15. Sheep are rather defenseless. We raised cattle and we had some horses, too. Neither one of those are defenseless. But I'm going to tell you a story about a cow in a minute. We had a name for her. We called her The Bug-eyed Mean Cow. That doesn't sound like a complementary name, but we had to rescue her one time. It was after that that she developed her name. This is the parable of the lost sheep in chapter 15 of Luke. Notice the setting.

Luke 15:1 - Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him.

V. 2 - And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, "This Man receives sinners and eats with them."

V. 3 - So He spoke this parable to them, saying: That was why He said this parable. After I'm talking about the parable, I'll show you two others. There were three parables all carrying the same message.

V. 4 - "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? He goes out and looks for that lost sheep.

V. 5 - And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

V. 6 - And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'

V. 7 - I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.

The Pharisees and the Scribes were claiming to not need to repent. Tax collectors, on the other hand, they needed to repent based on the Pharisees' attitude. So Christ was mocking them if you got the humor here toward the end of this parable. But the point is when you lose one of your many, you go after it. And when you find it, you're so happy that you have it back. And the very next parable is about a widow, a little woman that had ten silver coins and she loses one coin and she'll turn her house inside out to find that one coin so it can go back into the collection of the coins that she has. And then the next parable is the parable of the prodigal son, the lost son, and what a joy it was when the father got him back. So you see the theme of chapter 15 is quite remarkable. But when you stop and think about it, we have the duty to go after lost sheep. It's exhilarating.
Now, let me tell you the cow story. I'll come back to the sheep. Since we didn't have sheep, I have to tell a cow story. One day I was out, it was in the late winter or early spring, calving time and it was nasty cold. Not like a balmy day like here in Cincinnati today. This was in South Dakota. The wind was blowing, blowing spitting snow. Chill factors were nasty. For South Dakota the humidity was high which made it worse. And I had to go down and check the pasture where the cows that were going to be calving were kept. It was right across from where we had our silage pits and I was loading silage for a feed wagon that would go down to a little feed lot that we had about a mile away. So Dad told me, “Always check the herd. Look for any animal that is not amongst the herd. They are either having a calf or they're sick or dying. Because they are herd animals, they like to be together.”

So I came down and glanced and immediately I saw a cow that wasn't where the others were. She had come down this slope. It was kind of a swamp with a little stream at the bottom. We had used that stream to fill up the tank for them to water at. And she was coming on one of the paths down and laid down on the slope above the path – with the cattle walking, they made a little bank about 2 ½ feet high. She laid down on that slope to deliver her calf. I don't remember if The Bug-eyed Mean Cow was a first-calf heifer that year or not. I think she probably was and we always were watching over them. We were the crazy people in our neighborhood which most of you won't appreciate this, but I'll say it anyway. We bought two-year-old bred heifers. Nobody wanted to buy two-year-old bred heifers because you had to deliver the calves for them in so many instances. But we did it. They were cheap. It was a way to build a herd. So I had pulled dozens of calves. That's what it means by delivering them, you get ahold of their front feet when they start to be born and you pull them out. And if you can't do it with your hands, you put a little cord around those feet and pull them. And if it still doesn't come, we had a ratchet that we would push against the back end of the cow that would slowly ratchet the baby calf out. We saved the lives of scores and scores of calves that way – and the lives of a lot of cows.

Well, here's this cow, she had tried to have her calf on the slope. I have no idea why she did that, probably a first-calf heifer. She rolled in the process and landed in the mud of that cow path against that bank and she was stuck with her feet in the air – and cows don't live long with their feet in the air. It addles their brain and then they die. So I don't know how long she had been there, but the calf was dead. It was partly born, not all the way. This was when we kicked into overdrive to try and save that cow. It was a lost cow laying there, so I got ahold of my dad. We got the tractor around there. The only way to get her up to anywhere that was halfway level was to put a log chain around her neck. She didn't have horns. And then we pulled her up slowly with the tractor until we got her to a level spot. We delivered the calf. As I said, it was dead. But now we wanted to save the cow's life and she had hypothermia. She was dizzy from being upside down and she was very, very cold. So we didn't help her mental state at all, but we saved her life. We went and got a bunch of bales of hay and put them in a ring around her and torched them. So she was right in the middle of a haystack for all she knew, and cattle don't like fire. You know, most animals are afraid of it. She was afraid of it, but she couldn't go anywhere and her eyes bugged out after that. I don't know if it was because of the fire or if it was from being upside down or whatever it was.

I think she probably saw triple of everything, but we sort of had an affection for these cows that we rescued and so every calving time we would sort her and two or three others out. We'd bring them up to our corrals where we kept our milk cows and that's where they would calve out every year. The Bug-eyed Mean Cow was not mean normally unless she got confused and I think it had to do with probably double or triple vision from those eyes. They literally bugged way out. But she raised, because of our attention, she raised a healthy calf for twelve or fifteen years after that. You know, she was a good cow. We invested a lot in her. We just had to watch out for her while we were milking. We trained our cows to stand still wherever they were – we didn't put them in barns and make them soft. We would walk up and sit down and milk the cow and walk away. Well, if she had a calf – there were numerous times, you are milking your cow and you've got your eye on The Bug-eyed Mean Cow over your shoulder because if she saw you there - she was always moving her head from side to side and I think that was the vision thing – and if she decided you looked like a dog (she hated dogs especially when she had a calf) or if she just decided you shouldn't be in the pen, she would chase you out. That meant a full charge. Fortunately she had no horns, but you didn't want to run into her skull anyway. We liked her. We would just bolt the fence with the bucket of milk and when she calmed down and wandered off to another part of the corral, we'd come back across and finish milking the cow. It was good exercise for us and we were blessed with healthy calves from this cow that we had to rescue. She was like our lost sheep.

You know, we have a lot of lost sheep out in society who used to know God's truth – quite a lot of them. Kingdom of God Seminar #1 actually brought some of them to the church and they are now attending in various areas. I wonder what Seminar #2 will bring, and #3, #4 and so on. We have old lost sheep. That's what I call it, because in days of old, as it were, a few years ago they were part of what we were doing. There are new lost sheep. Those are the ones who are hearing the truth. Christ sent the disciples to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and later to all of the nations. So those are the new lost sheep. Then we have the young sheep. That's our youth. That's where our camp program comes in. You know, when you get down to it, camp is an evangelism tool to bring our young people to a relationship with their savior, Jesus Christ, and with God, the Father.

Pretty exciting stuff, this sheep business. Let's go to John chapter 10. Christ is the Good Shepherd. Now, a shepherd could herd sheep or cattle, either one, but He's talking here about sheep. In the first part of chapter 10, He talks about robbers and thieves that break into the sheepfold. The sheepfold was a pen fabricated out of upright stakes where at night the sheep were brought in. Sometimes in Israel because of the geological limestone, there are caverns. There are lots of caverns and sometimes those were made into barns so you could use them that way. My brother was raising sheep there in South Dakota. In the area where we were, we had a serious wolf problem. They were little wolves, we call them coyotes. But they were a problem. They ate a lot of sheep so he had to bring his sheep in every night into the corral at the barn. So they were in the barn and in the little pen that they could get outside the barn a little bit, but with a fence around them that the coyotes couldn't get through because they would try. He never went anywhere without his rod. You know, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. His rod was a varmint rifle. He could reach out and touch a coyote at a significant distance – standing still or running at full tilt, it didn't matter. He could do it at night as long as somebody had a light on it, he could do it in the daytime. But he was death on those things that would damage the flock. So is Christ. He didn't like the robber. He didn't like the hirelings.

John 10 - Now we drop down, though, to verse 7 - Then Jesus said to them again, "Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

V. 8 - All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.

V. 9 - I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.

Christ is the doorway into the Kingdom of God. And this all gives such meaning to the 23rd Psalm that was alluded to in the sermonette.

V. 10 - The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy... but notice the last part of verse 10 ...I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

You see, the thieves that would steal the sheep - it was all about them. It wasn't about the sheep. They didn't care. It was just about them. Their ego, their wealth, their reputation, their whatever. It was just about them. We don't want to have that mentality. We want to have the mentality of the second sentence in verse 10. Christ came that they, the sheep, may have life and that they may have it more abundantly. He was there to serve and to give them something – something that is of greater worth than anything else they could ever have.

We notice V. 11 as well - "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. I am the good shepherd and the good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.

It goes on talking about that. If you want an assignment, read that section of chapter 10 as well. But if the shepherd gives his life for the sheep, it's obvious that the shepherd does not think it's all about him. It's about his sheep, those he is caring for and serving and looking after – like it was for our staff. It was all about the campers that they were supervising. The ones that have the toughest job in my opinion are the dorm counselors. They're on 24/7, if we have seven days of camp, 24/5 – I think we had at Winter Camp – they're on duty constantly. We have to double team them. There's an assistant counselor and a regular counselor and they did an incredible job. Those were the finest jobs of counseling that I think I've seen in any of the camps that we have worked at. We haven't been at all of them over the years, but we've been to many, so we were truly proud of them.

1 Peter chapter 2. We talk about Christ as the shepherd giving His life for the sheep knowing it's not all about Him, it's about them. He wants to bring them to be the sons brought to glory, to enter the Kingdom of God. 1 Peter chapter 2. We're still talking about sheep, by the way. Even in this section. I don't want to pull the wool over anybody's eyes, I want you to know exactly what we are talking about here. It's talking about servants being submissive to their masters in verse 18.

1 Pet. 2:18 - Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh.

For this is commendable... in V. 19 now we get into the discussion that the shepherd gives his life for the sheep. ...this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully.

V. 20 - For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently... aah ...this is commendable... because it's not all about you. You know that something greater, bigger, more marvelous ...this is commendable before God.

V. 21 - For to this you were called... this is our calling. This is who we are. ...because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:

Normally we just focus on the example, you know, how we live God's way of life, etc. and so on, obey God's laws, but the specific context is His suffering for us. The shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

V. 22 - "WHO COMMITTED NO SIN, NOR WAS DECEIT FOUND IN HIS MOUTH";

V. 23 - who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; and when He suffered, He did not threaten, but He committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; He looked to God.

V. 24 – who Himself... Christ ...Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree... where He was crucified ...that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.

And notice V. 25 as I said, we are talking about sheep - For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

The shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. We were lost sheep, all of us, even before we were born because of the way society was going. But now we are sheep that have returned. We've come back to the flock, back to the shepherd. We heard His voice. We responded to that voice and it is the voice of the shepherd and you think, well, sheep don't respond to a human voice. Oh, yes, they do. They can learn it as well as any. My brother had, I don't know, two to three hundred ewes in his flock so it was a fair production come lambing time. One of them was the queen ewe (ewe is a female sheep for those who aren't aware) and her name was Jamie and she came to her name. So he would call her in the morning and she would come talking through the flock, she would sort of shoulder her way through the flock in the pen there by the barn before they would go out to pasture and she would start sort of vocalizing – not a 'baa', but it would be kind of deep in her throat. An affectionate sound like our cat comes in the door and he trills – not a purr – it is a “Good morning, where's the food.” You know, it's all about him. We've got to have a talk with Winston when we get home. But Jamie comes along and the flock will all follow her. So he's talking to the sheep, she's talking back, he opens the gate and out they go. And she walks right beside him like a puppy dog – and the dog will be along, too, because he had a sheep dog, that goes along with – and they would walk down across the pasture to a series of fenced pastures, whichever one he wanted them to graze for the day. And he would turn them loose and out they would go and they would look after their business of getting fat, which was part of the great purpose of having sheep in those days. And then in the afternoon, before dark he would go back out to the gate of that pasture and he would call Jamie again. And wherever she was, she would swing her head up and respond to that voice and all the other sheep knew the voice, too. And they'd fall right in behind her, come to the gate and follow them all the way down – a parade of 300 sheep – back down to the pen by the barn and he would lock them in for the night.

So they know the voice. We know the voice of Christ as well. We know the message. We know the gospel of the Kingdom of God. That's what we live for. We know that it's not about us. It's about the gospel of God's kingdom – opening that door. The lesson for the staff at United Youth Camps is just as applicable for us today – it's not about us. The Kingdom of God seminar Sabbaths are not about us. Oh, it's just a Bible study for us. We get a review of the Kingdom of God scriptures. It's fantastic. But, the purpose of those Sabbaths when we hold the meetings for the new people to come, it's about them, the ones who are coming. That's what it's about. And so our focus should be for that and our prayers should focus on the impact it will have in their lives just like the gospel had an impact in our lives when we were called or when our family was called if you are a second generation or third - or fourth generation in the church. The Kingdom of God seminars are all about proclaiming the gospel through preaching, through personal conversation and conduct – our examples. It's not about us. And it is a relief not to be about us because it would be pretty pathetic if it was just about us. God's way of life is about serving and loving God the Father and Jesus Christ and in doing their work. And it's not about us. In fact, what it is about, it's about helping to bring as many of the masses of mankind into the Kingdom of God to be the sons of glory as we are able.