Share the Vision

Mr. Nick, good afternoon, everyone. I almost said good morning. I'm losing track of where I am and when I am. And when he started to announce the pastor of the Portsmouth, Ohio congregation, I started looking around for Gary Smith. Of course, he's got his own camp coming up in about two weeks, so there's feverish preparation going on everywhere. And I want to thank all of the staff members who are here. I've seen some of you in person earlier before services start, and some of you I haven't had a chance to say hi to. Some of you are getting to see my face for the first time. It dawned on me that I've seen pictures of you that came with your camp applications, but all you've seen is a name on a screen attached to emails and such, in many cases. Sorry, this is the best looking I can make myself. But that's okay. I know you didn't come to see me. Although it brings to mind, there are a couple, I'm trying to think, one or two people that didn't send me pictures. So, I just want to let those who didn't know that I had pictures of you I put on your applications, Dave. And you might not like the ones that I put in.

I want to...well, I've got some interesting things to talk about. Of course I've got things to talk about, but... I wanted to thank Mr. McCready for giving me the opportunity. He deferred to me, he said it's customary to let the camp director take the services here, so...

He deferred to me, and I decided to then defer to Mr. Bornhorst for next Sabbath. So I let him give the sermon at camp. Which is good, because it's custom for me to lose my voice by the time we're halfway through camp. It's not a custom that I've been trying to keep up, it just happens that way. One note of something I didn't necessarily intend to mention, but I do want to talk about some of the legacy and things that carry on and how they affect us.

And hearing about Mr. Smith passing, it strikes me, he's one of those people, like most of you, I first knew him as the image of the man who led songs when we'd have a video hookup from the general conference or something like that with that strong booming voice. I then first met him in person when I started dating the woman that would become my wife. She was in the Cincinnati area, and she introduced me to him, and... little did I know that he would know my name in an instant from then on. And any of you know him, if he met you 20 years ago, he knows you on site. But it was special getting to meet him, and then my wife knew him from the time she was a little child. He was in the paid ministry then, and he actually asked the blessing of little children on her when she was a little girl. And with that connection, we asked him to preside at our wedding. And then, it's been about a year and a half ago that he asked the blessing on our son, the one running around causing trouble here. So, as I said, it's interesting that legacy of things that from prior generations, those who paved the way, and what it does for us in the future. And of course, we want to be the ones doing that. So that does lead into the topic of my sermon. I brought something here to show you. This is an old Good News magazine. Some of you who are younger might have thought we only had the Good News for about the last 15-17 years. This one goes back to...I'm looking for the date. July-September of 1973.

And on it, this one features a story called The Early Crew. There's a little photo spread. Not a long story, but inside this story about The Early Crew, it's talking about people who would come early to set up for the feast. And I want to thank Mr. Hemsley. A sermonette, I think, fits very well into the message I had today. Because this was back in the days when the church...we had feast sites that were considerably larger than they are today. And in some cases, we owned the facilities where we met. And I'm saying this for the younger people. A lot of you are saying, well duh, we know that. If you've been around very long, you know that we had that. And so, to keep the feast in those places would take considerably more work than it does now when we rent an auditorium and we just show up and we put our books down and get ready to have services.

And some of those sites, like Jekyll Island, or the Poconos, or Lake of the Ozarks, I was going to say Branson. Same lake, different feast site. Eventually, we put up these large buildings, because in the old days, of course, they would erect a tent. That's what this picture is on the front if you're close enough. All those are large tent poles. They erected a tent large enough to hold several thousand people.

And putting the tent up and taking it down got to be enough work that eventually we put up metal buildings that we called metal tents. And they stayed there year-round, but we still needed a large number of people to come to get them ready for the feast. These people were called the early crew. I'm going to stop holding this up in a bit, but...

When you get nervous, you like to rely on props. And I'm not nervous about speaking. I'm nervous about what's coming up ahead. And not really nervous, but it's been a lot of things on the mind. These metal tents hold ten or fifteen thousand people. My very first feast site was at Lake of the Ozarks. And I remember going in and it was... You walk in as dark as a cave, and then there's this vast expanse of thousands of chairs just like these. And somebody had come early, swept the floor, and set up those chairs. Sometimes they had to set up the...

as I said, erected a tent. They had to set up a sound system that would go that far. Sometimes actually string up lights from the ceiling. It was a huge amount of work. Now, those were the days largely before me. I was a kid when I first went to that feast at Lake of the Ozarks, so I knew nothing about the early crew. And that's part of my point, the fact that I didn't know about it.

I learned a little bit more about it when I was a student at Big Sandy, Texas, at Ambassador College. Because we had one of those big metal buildings, and it was there all the time. And we used it for various things. I see Carolyn Packlub looking at me. I remember being there late at night drawing murals and building decorations for dances.

But when the feast time would come, we'd have to start getting that place ready. And they called on the student workers, clear the floors, set up the chairs. And we had to go in and clean the bathrooms. The bathrooms were sound, but it's interesting. When they only get used about once a year, Texas spiders like taking advantage of that situation. They would move in. And some of us had special jobs. We had to look for the Black Widows. Black ones with a red spot on the back.

Now, we did all that. And then I wanted to bring to mind, I had a special additional job, because I worked for the water and sewage plant there. So we actually purified our own water, treated our own sewage. And we had the job of making sure that the Piney Woods campground was ready. Anybody here camp at the Piney Woods? I'm curious. So, some of you are only a few.

Smaller? Did I see Jonathan's hand up there? I didn't think you were old enough for that. Very pretty. Yeah, you just look younger than you are. What am I saying? I remember the Piney Woods. I'm not much older. But there were all those hundreds of campgrounds, there were about a dozen bathhouses that also sat and waited for that one time of year when they got used.

We had to clean the spiders out of those, make sure the water was running, and of course, make sure the toilets would flush. This is where that job at the water plant comes in. Because not only did we have to make sure everything above ground was working, but the two or three of us on that crew had the job of making sure that what was below ground would work. Because the pine trees for which the Piney Woods is named have roots that just love to go and find openings in the sewage pipes and grow into them. So this hearkens back to my first day on the job.

I'm a freshman student, I'm excited, I'm at Ambassador College, I've got a job here to help do the work. Well, I'm sent out to the Piney Woods to join a couple other fellows running this big gasoline-powered rotor. You know, basically if you call a Roto-Rooter to fix your plumbing at home, it's like that only bigger, and we snake it down into sewage lines and it goes through and rips out the roots that have been growing in all year.

This is while it's 95 degrees outside, 110% humidity, dirty, sweaty work. And I'm not doing this to say, oh, how great I am because I did that dirty, sweaty work. What I wanted to point out is, once again, that the early crews, whether it was doing that, setting up the folding chairs, cleaning the cobwebs, whatever was done needed to be done for the sake of the feast going well.

It was the type of job, if it was done well, nobody ever knew that it had been done. It's just you come in and you have a great feast. If it's not done well, then people notice. As I said, if the sewage lines are blocked up, people notice that in a hurry. Now, this is where we might have a pause, and I wrote it in different colored ink in my notes, because you might be wondering, well, the feast is still several months away.

You know, in summer camps, it's starting tomorrow. So why is Dunkle up there talking about the feast? And cleaning bathrooms, for that matter? Well, the answer is, I think there's a valuable lesson to be learned from the early crew. There must be because somebody put it in the Good News magazine. Somebody, you know, was doing it long before me.

But I want to talk about the symbolic nature. We can draw an analogy with the early crew and God's Church today. What we're doing. Now, I think we all have an understanding of how the Feast of Tabernacles is symbolic of the 1,000 year reign of Christ. That's going to come, we hope, not very long from now. That's been a subject of speculation among many of us.

How long is it? If you watch the news in the evenings, it seems not that long. We're looking forward to a wonderful time. It's so good that it doesn't hurt. Let's take a little side trip and look at a couple of Scriptures to remind us of what we're looking forward to. If you turn to Isaiah 2, and we'll start in verse 2. Let's get a clearer idea of, as I said, if we're part of the early crew before what's going to come. I'm going to address that analogy a little further, but let's look at what is to come. As I said, when I was running that hot, sweaty router, or cleaning those bathrooms out of the Spiders, in the back of my mind was, I hate this, but the Feast is coming soon, and I love that.

What is it that we love about it? Starting in verse 2.

Many people shall come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He'll teach us His ways. We'll walk in His paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, the word of the Eternal from Jerusalem. He'll judge between nations, and rebuke many peoples, and they'll beat their swords to plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

Now, we look forward to that amazing time, and we think there's going to be a thousand years of that of peace. If you want to flip back to the book of Revelation, Revelation chapter 20, I want to look at this verse for a couple of reasons. One, to remind us of why we call it the Millennium. Why the thousand years, but also to bring in another very important point.

Revelation 20, and we'll start in verse 6.

Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. We like to stress the thousand years, but I also want to stress the they. Who is going to reign with Christ for a thousand years? Well, we expect it to be us. We're being called and planned for that time now. Jesus Christ is going to be the king of kings, but there are going to be other kings working with him, beneath him to help him do that work. Let's read an important promise Jesus made to his disciples in Luke chapter 22. Luke 22, and we'll start in verse 28.

I say, usually while I'm waiting for people to get to the Scriptures, when I avail myself of the water. So, if I seem like I'm going ahead too fast, just remind me to pause. Luke 22 and verse 28. But you are those who have continued with me in my trials. This is Jesus Christ talking to the twelve apostles. And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as my father bestowed one on me, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, but on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Jesus told these twelve relatively young men, I'm going to make you kings. I'm going to give you positions of great authority. You're going to serve with me in my kingdom. Now, think about this. At the time that they were apostles, as he was telling them this, they didn't know that he was speaking of a time in the distant future. I doubt that they were thinking dozens of years, or hundreds, certainly not thousands of years in the future. They were expecting it to come soon. Matter of fact, we know that. If you turn just a few pages over to Acts 1, Acts 1 and verse 6, we'll see what happens after... Remember, they were dismayed at his crucifixion. They thought, well, we're on the way to taking over the kingdom, and setting things up, and overthrowing Roman rule, and suddenly their leader gets killed. And they didn't quite comprehend everything he'd been telling them about how, I'm going to die, but I'm going to rise again. When he did rise again, they started to believe, especially if you remember when they ran to the tomb, Peter looked and saw the clothes folded, and he didn't know what to think, but John believed. But even after that, after he appeared to them, and talked to them many times, they still had this one burning thought in their mind, Acts 1 and verse 6. Therefore, when they'd come together, they asked him, saying, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? They were thinking, will you at this time... Oh, thank you, Mr. Nick. I tend to get a little dry. It'll help me pause, too. They'd been learning from Jesus for over three years now, but they'd failed to grasp much of what he was teaching them. Now, they heard the words, and they understood the words, but of course, they did not yet have God's Holy Spirit in them. They were waiting for that first Pentecost, when God's Spirit would empower them, help them to understand something much greater than they had.

So these relatively young men were focused on the time right then. They knew Jesus would be king of kings. We just read how he said, I'm going to be king, and you're going to be sub-kings. I'm going to give each of you a throne ruling over a tribe of Israel.

Sure, they were excited about that. They were looking forward to overthrowing the Roman Empire, getting rid of Pilate and Herod and these people. So when they asked him, Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom now? What did Jesus tell them? Or you could say, he answered in perhaps the kindest way he could. He said, it's not for you to know the times or the seasons that the fathers put in his own authority.

He said, it's not for you to know right now. He didn't tell them, no, I'm not going to restore the kingdom. You've got to wait 2,000 years. They weren't ready to hear that. They were still excited about what they knew was coming. And he said, but you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

Now when he had spoken these words, while they watched, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked up steadfastly towards heaven, as he went up, behold, two men stood by them, and wide apparel, who said to them, men of Galilee, what are you doing looking up there? Now, it doesn't say it exactly like that, but that's the way I envisioned and think, what are you doing looking up there?

Well, he's going to come back the way he went. But, there's a job to do in the meantime. So, don't be looking for it right then. But just think of it. I wanted to focus on this because a lot of us, we have a substantially younger age here in this group today than most of our congregations.

I think I passed her three congregations, and the two smaller congregations... What? I'm thinking... I'm not good at doing math. Jared, I wish your dad were here. He could do it just like that, right? Well, I was going to say, when I go down to Prestonsburg, most of the members there are old enough to be either my parents or grandparents. And there's one other couple that has a baby the same age as Connor. So, we normally have a lot of older, wisened, experienced people. But we younger people tend to think, oh yeah, those apostles, they were old.

We think of those pictures we've seen of them with the long gray beards and the wrinkly and their patriarchs. But let's remember at this time when they're saying, Jesus, are you going to restore the kingdom? They were probably maybe around 30.

For some of you, you might still be thinking, that's old and wrinkled. I remember when I thought that. When you get to this side of 30, you're looking back and saying, that's not very old. That's barely old enough to know what's going on. They were young and energetic, and they had dreams of freeing their country. They were going to change the world. They were on fire for their cause. They couldn't wait to get out there and carry this message.

We've known this guy named Jesus. He's going to be king of kings. He's got this great power. He teaches what's right. Remember, even before he had the Holy Spirit, when Jesus asked him, are you guys going to leave? And John 6 and Peter said, no, you've got the words of life. Where else would we go? They had a vision even then, and it got stronger.

For three years, they'd been traveling with Jesus, tramping up and down the roads, probably many times camping out at night. Imagine they grew close to each other. They were sitting around a fire. Now, many times, Jesus taught them, and they listened carefully. Other times, they probably sang songs, told stories, laughed and joked. They built a bond, a friendship. They were part of an early crew, tying it back to our introduction. Remember, the early crew who has to go beforehand to do the work, to set the stage for what's coming.

Of course, they did also work. It wasn't all just fun and games. They had to do a lot of things as part of this ministry. Here's where I appreciated Mr.

Hemsley's sermonette. I thought, maybe I just cut this whole part out of my sermon. Imagine, remember when 5,000 people came to see Jesus and be healed, and somebody couldn't all just crowd in. He probably had various men stationed. Go see this again. They do a little triage. We'll put you near the front of the line so you can see him early. You can talk to him if you had to answer questions.

Then Jesus tells him, oh, by the way, we're going to feed him all dinner. Get him organized in groups of 50 and have him sit down. Here I'm going to hand you a basket. When I read through the story, it sounds pretty easy, but watch back in that kitchen when we're done with services and see, just feeding a group this size is a monumental task.

I imagine they probably thought, who were done when it was finally done? Jesus said, no, go pick up all the scraps. I don't want any of it to go to waste. They're thinking, oh, great, now I've got to do that. I'm kidding a little bit, but I want to make the point.

They were on an adventure. They were excited. They were fired up for their cause, but they did put in the work. They knew there was a job to do, but they didn't mind. They were happy to do it because what they were doing was going to make a difference. They were in the vanguard of what they thought was a revolution. They were catching a vision of a better world ahead.

And by the way, I forgot, I'm never good at giving titles, but if you want a title for the sermon, I call this one, Share the Vision. As I said, they caught the vision. They understood that they were what might be called an early crew. They just didn't understand how much later it would be. They didn't know how early they were. But they were looking ahead, what it is because they were looking ahead to just, at first, they were looking ahead to a physical kingdom. They thought Jesus Christ was going to overthrow Herod.

And as I said, kick Pilate out of office, and he'd set up his throne in Jerusalem right then. They didn't realize that it was going to be much bigger than that. They didn't realize that they were the advance guard of a spiritual kingdom that was going to rule the entire world. And then eventually, all the universe, all creation, to prepare for such a kingdom, a larger early crew was needed.

There were a dozen of them. They needed more than that. That's why they said about this work. Let's go ahead a couple pages. It's chapter 2 in Acts. Acts 2 and verse 37. You know this story. It's interesting. I gave a sermon just last week where I quoted from this, and I said, you know, we just read this on Pentecost. But it's an important message. Of course, we know they were told, what are you looking up there for?

He's going to come back, but you're going to have power. Wait here in Jerusalem. So they waited. And they were gathered on Pentecost. And this Holy Spirit came down. Suddenly they had that power, and their minds opened to understand much more of what their real calling was. And Peter gave a fantastic sermon that moved people.

For all we know, the others might have spoke also. But at the end, after Peter spoke, people were cut to the heart. And let's pick it up in verse 37. Instead of me telling you this, I'll read it. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart. They said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? What do we do now?

And Peter said, repent. Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God would call. And it says those who received it that day, those who received His word were baptized, and about 3,000 were added.

Now the early crew got substantially bigger. There was more to do, though. I like to focus on that. We often cite this to remind ourselves that our children are called. We didn't always have that understanding in the Church. I say we. I was young enough that I didn't have that understanding of much of anything at that time. But we grew to understand from this that it's not a matter of, God has called us adults, and we hope maybe He'll call our children.

Now we see in His word, our children have that calling. But it's more than just that. Here Peter said, the calling is to you and to your children, and as many as God will call. There's going to be many. Now many are called, but few are chosen. We can get into that later. But whoever God calls will have that opportunity to prepare to be kings and priests in God's kingdom, and to be part of the early crew. It didn't stop with the apostles.

It didn't stop with the 3,000 of that day. It extended to us. We've been called to prepare the way. To prepare for what's coming. To prepare for Christ's return. To prepare to serve with Him in the kingdom of God.

Okay, we're going to be serving in the kingdom of God. What do we do now? We're waiting. Okay, new watch. I've been trying to figure out. But I don't think He's going to come by the end of services. Well, wouldn't that be nice, though?

Well, the most obvious answer, and I didn't realize, I didn't intend it, because I don't script out everything, but I've been saying, we've got to get ready. Our first job is to get ready. You don't just walk into a job of being a king or a priest. You have to prepare.

You've got to get some knowledge in your head. I'm just going to cite 2 Timothy 2, verse 15, where Paul told Timothy, study to show yourself approved. Study to show yourself approved. You want to be a king or a priest? You've got to do some book work first. We need to learn God's way. We need to practice it. We need to develop holy, righteous character. And of course, that's why Paul said in Acts 14, 22, I'm just going to read this one also, he said, We must through many trials, or through much tribulation, enter the kingdom of God.

We're not going to get there the easy way. Broad is the way, and easy is the path that leads to destruction. It's that narrow path and the difficult way that leads to the good thing that's ahead for us.

So in this line of thinking, of course, we want to consider, we're preparing now. We're part of the early crew. We're getting ourselves ready for the job that we'll have in the millennium. But it's worth thinking, even then, when Christ returns, we've had the resurrection of the firstfruits, and all that the death and destruction has passed. We're still then going to be part of an early crew. Are we not? We're going to be preparing for what happens after the millennium. At the end of the millennium comes the second resurrection, when millions, or more likely billions of people, will rise up. And they won't know what's happened all this time since then. Their last waking moment was probably lying in their bed, dying, or being killed in battle, or whatever it was. They're going to need a place to live. They're going to need clothes to wear. They're going to need to be taught God's way. Let's turn to a prophecy in Isaiah 61, if you will. Isaiah 61, and we'll start in verse 4.

It's exciting looking out over this big crowd. Sometimes we're close to this big in Portsmouth, but the hall is more dim. Isaiah 61, verse 4. Looking ahead, it says, This sounds like some major reconstruction projects going on in the millennium. We're not just going to be sitting around and saying, Whoo, we made it, we're done. There's going to be work to do. Now, most likely we'll be in more supervisory roles at that time. Spirit-born children of God will be directing and leading and teaching, rather than doing a lot of the actual labor. Well, I'd better...maybe I should hedge my bets. I don't think we're going to be too good to pick up a shovel at that time. But we're going to be part of that crew, preparing. It's a big job. That's why I think we're going to need more people to join in it with us. We want to have as big an early crew during the millennium as possible. And thus, we have another job. Besides getting ready, studying to show ourselves approved, we also have something to do. We need to recruit others. Because this calling isn't just about getting us ready. And I made a note, it occurred to me, when we used to go to Camp Heritage, we had a motto there that, it's not about you. It's not just about us. What we're doing now isn't about us. Jesus told His disciples to go and make other disciples. Okay, I've been teaching you now. You go teach others. Pass it on. His instructions are found at the end of Mark and Matthew. Two different versions, and we combine them. We sometimes sing them in song, right? Go ye therefore into all the world. Preach the gospel unto every one. Teach all nations to observe all things. I have commanded you. I could almost... In other words, if we in the church are the early crew, which I think we are, we're here to prepare for what's ahead. We need to recruit and train more people. Now, we don't get to choose, necessarily. We need to put the message out there. God will call. It's up to the Father to choose whom He'll draw. But we've got to do the preaching. If we're like the young revolutionaries that the apostles might have thought themselves to be, then we need to share the vision. Share the vision of what's ahead, of why we're doing this, of why we live the way we do. Because we live a way that's different than most people. The reason is because we have an understanding. We have a vision of a better life, of a better way of life. I think Mr. Hemsley said, the way of give, not of get.

When God opens a mind to His truth, He gives us a vision of a better life, and He wants us to share that vision with others. That leads in, I think, those two things I've been saying. The motto of the United Church of God is, preaching the gospel and preparing a people. I thought, boy, if I had to shorten it down to two words, I could say, okay, prepare and share. Preparing a people and sharing the vision or preaching the gospel. That might not be too much, but at camp we like to have catchy little things. We need to prepare ourselves and our fellow Christians for our role in the kingdom of God. By preaching the gospel, we share that vision of what's ahead with others. We prepare for God to call some of them to join us in this work. So we share the vision.

Now I want to relate all this into summer camp.

There's this double challenge when you give a sermon on this day because you want to excite everyone for summer camp and inspire them for what's ahead. But we've got a lot of members here at the church who support camp and pray for it, but aren't going to pack up and go up to camp. So I hope you see that we're all part of this early crew. And I wanted to share how I first started seeing some of this connection of how we're the early crew and what we're preparing. I hope a lot of you are seeing the connection. Many of you probably are way ahead of me and thinking, when's dinner going to be? Well, that's okay. I don't mind that because I've been telling people... I figured the sermon was going to run a little short and I think I mentioned that to Mr. McCready weeks ago when he said, nobody's going to mind.

So that's okay.

But you know, keep in mind, our work with the young people at camp is, in part, we preach the gospel to them.

Now, we're going to open up the Bible. Mr. McCready is going to be opening up the Bible with them and talking about planning their lives and how to live a certain way. And all of us on staff, we're hoping to share important messages. We're going to have Christian living class every day. So we're going to preach the gospel in that way.

But we're also trying to build a special environment. We're trying to build a model of God's kingdom. What it would be like to be in the kingdom of God here. Now, we've developed a shorthand for that. We've started calling it the zone at camp. I'll come back to that thought later.

But if that's the case, then we have something in common. Being the early crew for camp has something in common with being the early crew for the feast, right? If camp is sort of like a model of the kingdom of God, it's similar to the Feast of Tabernacles. I want to share the story of how I came to see that.

Well, I first came to see it, and it's partly an excuse to tell stories about camp. But I thought, if they let me be camp director, I'm going to tell old stories about camp.

But this goes back to between my junior and senior years at Ambassador College, when I finally got accepted to go to summer camp on staff. And some of you know what it's like. You hope you get to go. I was in the tough position this year of having to send the letters out to tell people that some of them weren't accepted. I think we've got about 54 or 55 people coming on staff.

We had about 78 apply. And it's great to have so many people want to support and be part of the program. And if we were like some of the camps, I think out in California they'd pay a flat fee for using the facility.

And as many as they can squeeze in can come. But it doesn't work that way at Katubik. We pay a certain amount for each person. And I'm wondering, why am I telling you that? Now, what I was getting at when I first served at camp, I'd been turned down the first three times that I applied. I had applied and got turned down.

I applied and got turned down. Finally, I heard about this SEP over in Scotland. And I found, they're not as picky there if you can get there. Well, it wasn't. Maybe not as predictable. But they loved to have ambassador students. And they weren't going to pay us like they did up in ore. So they said, if you can get here, we'll put you to work. And then when I did, I found that this camp had more in common with those old fee sites than I had realized. Because what happened, unlike the facility at ore, where we owned the land and we put up buildings and all that, what we did for the SEP in Scotland was we rented a sheep field.

So, nice field, but most of the year it had sheep on it. Not a summer camp. So we needed a crew of people to arrive early and start turning it into a camp. We called this set up. Instead of the early crew, we could have called it that. But for set up, it started two weeks before the start of camp. And to me, in some ways, that's mind boggling, because now we're only going to have one week of camp.

There we spent two weeks getting ready for camp. But when you think of the job that had to be done, as I said, a relatively small number of people would show up and there was this big barn structure. They'd let us build one permanent building. And so we came and we unlocked the barn and we started pulling stuff out and it was full to the top of everything you could imagine.

There's canoes and things like that, but also scaffolding. Metal pipes. And we had to pull it out and then people said to work with wrenches to build a tower. And we hauled these big plastic buckets. This was going to be our water tower. If we wanted water at camp, we had to run a hose from the lake, pump it up and put it in this tower. And of course, then we fed that water into the bathhouses that we had to build.

We had modular structures, well, if you want to call them modular, walls prefab with the toilet tanks on them. And we lay down the floor and then we put it up and boy, was it work. We had to assemble the bunks, wooden bunks with the cots. We had to pull them out, put them together, waiting for the tents to come that we put them into. We had large floating docks that we had to bolt together and then float them out into the lock.

It's nice to be able to say lock instead of lake. It's just still a lake, but... And then, matter of fact, I remember the first year we did the floating docks. I was there for some of the transition. In the old days, we put the scaffolding down into the water and bolted things onto it. Then we got the floating docks, but we had to put anchors out in the bottom. It was about 12-15 feet deep there. So I was one of the ones that said, Okay, let's put these plastic buckets in. Frank, you keep diving down and fill that bucket with rocks, so it'll stay there.

Then get another breath and tie the rope to it. But it worked. Then we put the dock out. We could do water skiing from those docks. And on the other side, we'd get ready to launch the canoes.

I had the job for several years... I'm getting excited. I can't get the words out. For several years, I got to build the obstacle course. Our sheep field was at a corner of the lake, where there was lake here and lake here, and we had a corner where there's woods. They would give me the odds and ends that were cast off that they didn't use anymore. Eventually, we stopped having to build the water tower because we put a permanent tank up on a hill. So I took the scaffolding and said, what can I do for the obstacle course? Let's build some platforms and have a rope that they swing from one platform to the other. I grew up watching Batman on TV and reading comic books, so I was keen on that.

None of this is in my notes, by the way.

I want to paint the picture now. I'm trying to paint a picture that it's hard work. As a matter of fact, that first year I went, I didn't know what any of this was getting into. I was assigned by the person in charge of setup to what he called his heavy gang. The heavy gang were the guys who had to carry heavy stuff. When we were done carrying heavy stuff, he said, the long gravel lane that comes in here has a lot of potholes, and all those campers will be coming in. So they hooked a trailer to the back of one of the tractors and backed it down to the beach. Now, the beach is there. I don't know if many of you have been to Scotland. It wasn't a sand beach. It was gravel, all these rocks about. Yay big! So we had to shovel this big trailer full of gravel. Then they tow it down the road and we shoveled it back off to fill in the potholes. That was being part of the heavy gang. I don't want to brag about my strength. I was the smallest guy on the heavy gang. Why me? There's these big bruiser guys. I'm just a skinny American. But it got me out of the other special task. There was two special tasks for us. The heavy gang had to do the heavy lifting. And then there was the pooper-scooper crew. Remember I mentioned the sheep field? The sheep removed off a couple days before we got there, but the sheep didn't clean up after themselves. So preparing for camp was a lot like preparing for the feast. And the fact that if we did our job well, the campers would come in, have the time of their lives, and everything would be great. If we messed up, or if we didn't do our job well, if you didn't fasten the bolt on the bunk properly and someone came through and landed on their neighbor, they would notice. Or, of course, if they're playing soccer and the pooper-scooper crew didn't do their job well. But I want to say, as hard as the work was—and it was hard—I've never been as tired and dirty and just sore in my life as I was during those days. I mean, it was tough. But I was having a blast. Because there was a small group of us doing it together. And we had a vision of what we were doing it for. We were getting ready for the campers to come. And we knew how wonderful camp was going to be. Most of us had been campers in the past. And we said, if this is what it takes to get ready for camp, to be for them what it had been for us, we're willing to do it. And I hope those of you that aren't involved in the camp, you're thinking at times when it gets tough being part of the church and preaching the gospel and being part of a small and scattered group, that's what it takes to prepare for life in the kingdom of God. We're willing to do it. And at that time, that's when I started to see an analogy that I thought was profound. If you don't think it's profound, keep it to yourself. Let me keep my illusions.

I said, during these two weeks, there's a relatively small number of us Christians working hard to build a new, like a mini world, for a whole bunch of people that aren't yet converted to come here and live so we can teach them about God's way. And I thought, you know, I think that's going to be kind of like the millennium. There'll be a small number of converted people, relatively small, building a new world for all these people who aren't yet converted, but who are going to want to be, to come and live in this great new world that we built, and we can start teaching them God's way of life. Teaching them about living and about God's way, so we're going to be giving them book work, but teaching them how to plant crops, how to build things. I don't know what all will be teaching them.

But, as I said, perhaps it was the importance of that job, I began to see this parallel to the bigger, more important job that lay ahead in the Church. As I said, we're part of the early crew preparing. And it's carried on, many of us through the years have said, camp is kind of like the millennium. It's a small group, and we try to live by God's way, and we're going to prepare for others. Now, I hope no one thinks that I'm being sacrilegious, because, you know, they... Let me say that again.

This happens all the time in Portsmouth, by the way, so those of you who think it's just here, now I do this. I don't mean to be sacrilegious by saying camp is like the millennium, because I know the Feast of Tabernacles is what God set aside to picture the millennium. Nothing takes the place of the Feast of Tabernacles, and that's great. We love the Feast. I'm excited about the Feast already. So I have two main highlights of the year for me, a summer camp and then the Feast. Summer camp is almost over. I hate to say that, but I've been living in camp longer than most of you now for this year. But can we get too much of the meaning of the Feast of Tabernacles? I don't think so. So if we can share that meaning with the Feast and still have it at camp, or share that meaning with camp and still have it at the Feast, that's great. Now, getting ready for camp today is not the way it was back for me at SEP Scotland. We don't have to go and pick up sheep droppings. I'm sure some of you showing up at camp for the first time tomorrow are glad to hear that. Now, we're going to move into a nice camp that's been prepared. As a matter of fact, I think even as we speak, hundreds of people are leaving the camp now. That's part of why they asked us to keep our staff here for a good part of the day, and we'll show up later so they can clean up and get rid of them and catch their breath, and then we'll move in.

And it's like that for the Feast. We don't have to come and clean spiders out of the bathrooms and set up 10,000 folding chairs. And I'm sure Mr. Crady is very happy about that. I don't see Mr. McCready. Oh, okay. I thought maybe you ducked out.

Now that I know what it's like to prepare for a camp, I don't really want any part of being a Feast coordinator, so...

That's a whole other story.

We can rent nice carpeted auditoriums that are going to be great for the Feast, and we get nice facilities ready for camp. But we have been doing vital preparation, and we're going to spend this afternoon and some of tomorrow preparing.

But we're privileged, I think, that we can focus more on the spiritual things to prepare for. And that's all the better.

Now, of course, we want to have decent fields and courts for playing ball. We want to have the swimming area all prepared.

But the most important job that we're going to have this next week is teaching about God's way of life.

We can focus on doing that. Now, as I said, putting together bunk beds and scooping up poop and shoveling gravel was a good preparation, and I didn't mind doing that. But it's great that we can spend most of our time thinking about how we're going to share the excitement about God's kingdom and God's way of life. Talking about the way of give.

We, in a sense, we've been preparing ourselves. Now we get to preach the gospel.

For those of us going to camp...and I hope that's not intimidating. I was thinking, boy, if I were a 19-year-old my first year on staff, I'm not sure if I'd want to be told, you're going to go preach the gospel.

But that's okay, because you're going to do it more by who you are and by what you do than by what you say.

So don't think of it as preaching the gospel. Think of it as sharing the vision, because I believe you have that vision. That's why you're here.

Now, there are others who have the vision, too, that aren't necessarily with us, and of course I hope everybody in this room has the vision or is catching it.

Serving a camp isn't for everyone, but sharing the vision is. We can preach the gospel.

Most of you wanted to serve a camp because it's special to you. You've experienced the joy of doing things God's way, of that special environment.

You know the way of give is better than the way of get. You know that God's way works. That it's not about you.

I started listing slogans here, and I started running out, but you know it's true.

Now, I hope those of you that are sitting here that won't be going to camp next week still see yourself in this picture.

That you still see the value of being ready to share that vision because it comes up in our everyday lives.

People are watch what we do. Sometimes people ask.

All of us as Christians preach the gospel more by what we do and by who we are than by the things we say.

But of course sometimes we do get a chance to use our words to share, too. As I was thinking of this, I thought there's a fellow in the Portsmouth congregation that just exudes his excitement about God's way of life.

Matter of fact, I remember once I was at his house and he told me, Yeah, yesterday I spent an hour in the driveway talking to this fellow about God's way in the kingdom of God.

I was like, wow, I'm in the paid ministry and I don't get to do that in my driveway.

And what was interesting, he said the fellow that he was talking to asked him the questions.

They noticed the way he lived and the way he conducted himself and his business and people would ask him.

And that will happen to more of you. I bet many of you have had that happen to you before.

And if you haven't, you probably will. They'll notice. People notice you're different.

Or even if they don't ask, they watch and they see, hey, this person has something about them.

And they also notice that there's something about you that makes you happy.

They've got a happiness in their life that comes out of them and people are curious.

And if they don't ask you now, you can bet that after Christ returns, when they either come up in the resurrection or they survive in the millennium, they're going to ask and they're going to say, you are one of those people.

I knew there was something about you. I thought you were weird, but now I know that you knew something that we didn't.

So at camp, we have more opportunity and we want to focus on that and take advantage of it.

We're going to have a captive audience. And we don't have to wait for them to ask the questions.

For those of you who are counselors, you're going to be sleeping with them in the same cabin.

And you can sit them down and say, I want to talk to you about stuff.

That reminds me of the old days. I continued serving as a counselor many years past, really, when it was appropriate for the age.

But I was immature, so I got away with it.

But I convinced Mr. McNeely to let me do it one more time.

And I told him one of the reasons I liked being a counselor is I get to preach at the kids.

And he looked at me funny and said, well, I don't really preach, but I can talk about God's way of life and try to share it.

And I had many good times doing that. And the thing is, I wasn't the best by any means.

I'd sometimes, when I stopped being a counselor, I loved walking.

At Camp Heritage, we were out camped in the woods, various campsites.

And it's amazing how the dorm meetings can be different.

I remember walking along and I'd see one dorm meeting was just about done.

The other one was just starting. And this counselor was going to talk for an hour.

Well, actually, I should say, he didn't talk. He had this way of getting kids to ask him questions.

And the discussion would go on. And the security would say, hey, Ted, you've got to go to bed.

You can turn the lights out. And others would do it in other ways.

But you have that opportunity to preach the gospel because you live with them.

And it just exudes out of you. We can share the vision.

Okay. Now, it's easy... I've got it in my notes. It's easy to say, share the vision. Well, how exactly do we do it? And what exactly do we share?

Well, I've got to back up and I'm going to be repeating myself, but I want to emphasize, most of all, that what I just described is the fact that if we live according to our beliefs, if we're motivated by the Word of God and by wanting to be like Him, that comes out.

We have a hope of God's Kingdom. We're excited about that. Have you heard the phrase, living the dream?

I hope so. And it's become a catchphrase.

What are you doing? I'm living the dream. You know, it could be a joke, but we're living the dream.

We've got that vision, the dream of the world tomorrow.

Think back to those young apostles. Remember, they were on fire.

And as they were sitting around traveling, sharing the good news of the Kingdom, I wanted to go to a passage in Jeremiah. Jeremiah 31.

When I thought of the idea of living the dream, this scripture came to mind.

Because I think Jeremiah, now his life wasn't that much of a dream.

He had a very rough life, but he had a vision of why he was going through it, and he was willing to do it.

We're often familiar with a lot of the millennial prophecies in the book of Jeremiah, and especially in chapter 31.

I want to read some of those and focus on a scripture that it's easy to just read right over.

It jumped out at me when I was thinking of this. Jeremiah 31, beginning in verse 23.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, They shall again use this speech in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I bring back their captivity, or it could be translated, bring them back from captivity.

They'll use this speech, The Lord bless you, O Helm of Justice and Mountain of Holiness, And there shall dwell in Judah itself and in all of its cities together, farmers and those going out with their flocks.

For I have satiated the weary soul, I have replenished every sorrowful soul.

That's something, replenish the weary soul, satiate, or replenish the sorrowful soul, satiated the weary soul. God's going to lift up the tired and replenish those who are drained.

And in verse 26, Jeremiah writes, After this I awoke, and I looked around, and my sleep was sweet to me.

Now, when I first read that, I was like, what in the world? That doesn't sound like part of the millennium.

It occurred to me that probably he was dreaming, and God was giving him this prophecy and a dream, a vision.

And so he was having a dream of this vision, and apparently he went back to sleep, but he noticed, boy, this is sweet.

I love this dream.

And behold, the days are coming, says the Eternal, that I'll sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah, with the seed of man and the seed of beasts.

It'll come to pass, that as I have watched over them, to pluck up and to break down and to throw down and to destroy and to afflict, because I've done all that, so I will watch over them, to build and to plant, says the Eternal.

And those days, well, actually, yeah, I don't want to go any further there.

I want to skip down to verse 31.

Behold, the days are coming, says the Eternal, that I'll make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, and the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Eternal, but this is the covenant that I'll make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Eternal.

I'll put my law on their minds, I'll write it in their hearts, I'll be their God, and they'll be my people.

No more shall everyone teach his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, no, the Eternal, for they'll all know me, from the least of them even to the greatest, says the Eternal, for I'll forgive their iniquity and their sin, I'll remember no more.

Jeremiah saw this in a dream, and that motivated his life.

He wanted to live that dream. No matter how tough it got, remember Jeremiah later was dropped into a pit and sunk up into the ooze up to his armpits.

Thought he was going to starve to death.

Had armies overrun the city, but he had this vision of what was ahead, and that kept him going.

I'll say, think of that, those of you who are out on the high ropes course, and it's 90 degrees, and you're thinking, boy, I feel like I'm being persecuted by the heat.

Think of the dream, think of what's ahead.

This is the dream we want to live all of us, whether we're at camp or elsewhere.

There is a better world coming, something much better, and we have an opportunity to have the blessings now, and to prepare for greater in the future.

Let's consider one more example of the vision, if you'll go to Revelation.

Revelation chapter 1, I want to talk about what vision do we have that's motivating us.

If we're living the dream, what are we living by, and what is going to be so fundamental and exciting to us that it shapes everything we think and do?

Now, this might seem an odd place to start, but we're going to move on from there, but I want to establish John having a vision.

Revelation 1 and verse 9, I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation, and of the kingdom, your companion in the tribulation and kingdom, and patience of Jesus Christ.

I was on the island that was called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.

So, John, by this time, was old and wrinkly.

I was saying earlier, he was this young guy on fire.

Now it's near the end of his life, and he's been persecuted.

He's shared in the worst of it, and now he's exiled to this island.

He's dropped on a deserted island, you know, without the professor and Mary Ann to help keep him company.

That's not in my notes. Some reason that just popped in.

He's out there being persecuted, but he has a vision. As a matter of fact, he goes on, he says, I was in the spirit on the Lord's day, or the day of the Lord.

I heard behind me a loud voice as of a trumpet, and it says, saying, I'm the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last.

What you see, write in a book and send it to the churches.

I'm not going to continue reading this, and I'm certainly not going to read all of Revelation.

But I want to make the point, he had this vision of what was coming.

And, of course, we know that he saw the great tribulation.

He saw all these great plagues, the seven seals and the seven trumpets and the seven great last plagues.

But, at the end, he saw something marvelous.

Revelation 21. Revelation 21 will begin in verse 3.

After all that, the thing that motivated John, remember he saw all of it before he wrote any of it. So, as he's writing about all these horrible plagues, he had this in his mind of what was going to come at the end.

He says, I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle or the dwelling of God is with men.

He'll dwell with them. They'll be his people.

God himself will be with them and be their God.

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

There'll be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain for the former things that passed away.

That's a vision. That's the dream.

God is coming, and he's going to put an end to sorrow and crying.

All that's going to be put away because we're going to learn to do things the right way, to live the way of life that makes us happy.

We have a chance to start doing that now, and to share it with others.

So, as we need to be living the dream, and especially for those of us that'll be at camp this week, we want to be motivated by this hope. It'll affect all that we do, and the young people with us will notice.

Now, we aren't necessarily going to go around talking about everything that came before this in Revelation.

Now you can if they have questions, but I wouldn't suggest opening your dorm meeting by saying, let's talk about the seven trumpet plagues.

Although, don't be surprised if they have that on their mind.

It might have come up and they won't say, I want to know about this. What do you know? Be willing to share.

You're all here because you have knowledge.

But, knowing that we're going to be motivated, what do we talk about?

If you're not going to open up with the trumpet plagues, what do you talk about?

Well, there are a lot of things to say, and you'll notice this is a pretty thick book.

So, God's Word gives us a lot of stories, a lot of lessons. There's lots of things to talk about.

When we talk about living God's way now, as I mentioned, we sometimes use the term zone.

And now, I'm going to be a little honest, I guess.

Well, I can be honest because I reached the point where...

Well, I'm going to say I reached the point where I'm the camp director.

That doesn't mean that much. I was going to say I reached the point where I don't mind if they fire me and let someone else be the camp director, as long as I can still come back to camp. What I was going to say in honesty is, when they first rolled out the sermon and started talking about the zone, after my years of summer camp and what all it meant to me, I said, that seems kind of hokey.

The zone? Well, we have a camp that's so much bigger than that one word.

And it is, in a way, but if we can introduce the word zone and say, now let me tell you what it means, and we can start showing the motivation we have, and we can build this...

We can build the zone, an atmosphere where we do things God's way, where we're motivated by love, where we don't hurt each other, where we do help each other, and we create challenges that are fun, and then we succeed in overcoming them.

I'm trying to remember all those elements of the zone, but they're there. That's not hokey at all. That's very exciting and fun.

We can talk about the zone and then expand from there and what it means. Those of you on staff, don't be like I was, where I let my own personal taste get in the way and say, oh, I thought that's kind of hokey.

I had to overcome that and learn better. And hopefully all you will, too. If I say something up here that seems hokey, just remember, he's just the camp director.

And I say that, and I'll tell you again at the meeting, I've been saying for months, the biggest thing, if I want to have a successful camp, my first and most important job is to get a good time.

Get a good staff together and let them do their job. So, I told people, I'm nervous about today and tomorrow because I've got a big ball that I've got to push and get rolling.

Once it starts going down that hill, it's all on you and you'll do a fabulous job and you'll share this.

God will work through you to have the right words to say, as long as you have the vision.

And I'm talking about camp, but all of you that aren't going to be at camp. If your neighbor happens to ask you about how come you're coming back here on a Saturday afternoon all dressed up, God will help you have the words to say.

They'll notice that you don't mow your lawn on Saturday or that when you talk to them you don't have a lot of those four-letter words mixed in that other people do.

And you can go from there. We can explain things.

I want to mention also, of course, we had a theme we set for the summer. Calling, honor, and faith.

Calling, honor, and faith. Talk about that a little more with the staff, but it occurred to me that I felt this compulsion in the last few months to talk about the calling that our young people have. And it's come out for me in sermons and some of the articles I wrote, and just talking about what it means.

We already quoted the scripture in Acts 2, where Peter said, the calling is to you and your children. We're not shy about quoting that to our children. It could be a little intimidating to be a 13-year-old and have somebody read to the Bible and say, this is about you. But still, they need to hear it. I needed to hear it at that age. Let's also look at 1 Corinthians 7. 1 Corinthians 7. I've noticed when I lean in like this, I get louder.

Sorry, you've got to get used to the different facilities and different halls.

1 Corinthians 7 and verse 14. I just want to remind us, again, of the calling that we have and our children have. And I'm more...well, it just occurred to me. One of the reasons maybe I'm so focused on the calling that our young people have and our children is because now I have a child. Two years ago, I was looking at a bump on my wife's belly that was going to become a child. Now he's here, and I think, wow, he has a calling from God, and he doesn't even know it yet.

But he will, and it's my job to help him to understand it. Verse 14. The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife. That means set aside for a holy purpose. And the husband...sorry, I lost my place here. I didn't bring my reading glasses. The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean. They would be, but they're not. They're not unclean. Now they're holy. They're holy to God.

So those young people that are going to come in tomorrow afternoon, each one of them is holy to God. We need to remember that. I need to remember that. To me, they've been images, and they've been forms that I'm trying to get their parents to send, and all that. I'm speaking to you, but I'm speaking to myself. I have to put those thoughts out of my mind. Now they're not numbers, they're not forms, they're not obligations. They're holy to God.

They have that calling, and we want to help them understand their calling. That's very wonderful and good. But we also, as we teach them that, we want to remember they're not dummies. I made a note, well, I didn't make a note saying they're not dummies, but young people, teenagers, tend to be sensitive to hypocrisy.

They might look and say, oh, you keep telling us we're so special and you're so special. Now I know people that aren't in the church. What makes you think you're so much better than them? And we have to stop and wait and say, no, we're not better than them. We're not better. God has given us a special calling, but He gave it to us, not because we deserved it. Let's turn to the front of 1 Corinthians. Let's read this just because it's important and it's good for us to remind ourselves of it.

And we can remind the kids of this when we tell them you're holy, you're special, but let me tell you something else about yourself. 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 26. For you see your calling, brethren, you can almost say campers, not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. Now, I don't know if any of you used to be kids and say, yeah, not many, but God called me. And then you do something stupid and say, oh yeah, I am one of those not many, I'm not too wise either, but God called us, not because we were worthwhile.

But God has chosen the foolish things of the world. He chose us, the foolish things, to put to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, the base things of the world, and the things which are despised.

God took those, the simple, the base, the absolutely, utterly ordinary, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are. Why? So that no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. That as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord, or in the Eternal. There is where we focus our attention. We're not better, but we're better off because God is better, and he's working through us.

He chose us, the most common ordinary, to show that if he could do it with us, he could do it with anyone. You know, in the millennium, or in the general resurrection, then the mighty and the wise, we're probably going to look at them and say, wow, they learned so quick, they're so good. If we'd have had them back in the day, we would have preached the gospel so much more effectively.

Maybe, I don't know, but as I said, we want to keep in mind, we're going to talk about our calling, about the calling our young people share, but we don't have to be full of ourselves. We can realize that it's God doing the calling. We're only special because of what God does through us. I guess maybe that was clear in my mind, and I've been not shy at all about talking to people about camps, saying, if this camp's a success, it'll be because God makes it one. I want to do my part, because he'll make it a success if he's got to push me out of the way.

I'd rather him be a useful tool, and I hope all of us will look at that. We want to be a part of helping God make it a success, not an obstacle. But it's God that gives us the success. That's why we all want to pray. I ask all of you that aren't going to camp, please pray for that success. Pray that the campers will learn.

Pray that we'll help teach them. Pray that God will give us cooler weather. That's my request. I lived in Texas for about 15 years or so, and I told people I had enough heat and humidity to last a lifetime. But I know some campers love hot weather, so while I'm praying, God, give us weather in the 70s, they're probably campers saying, God, give us weather in the 90s!

And he probably likes them better than me. Now I'm losing track of my notes, and I was going to end early anyways, but... Okay, we could go on. I just talked about our calling, honor and faith. Well, I'm going to leave some room to talk more about honor and faith, but it's worth remembering that we can't take our calling lightly.

We do have to honor that calling. Remember, honor and honest come from the same root word. So, another way of saying it, we have to be true to the calling God gives us. He's given us a calling, we've responded, we've got to be true to it. And we've got to honor God and honor His people. Likewise, there's so much more that could be said about faith. And I'm not going to say a whole lot.

As a matter of fact, you could give many sermons on the subject of faith. I've been debating whether it's time for me to start launching into those in Portsmouth. Because there's no end to the subject, necessarily. We could talk about faith as our religion. Remember, faith of our Father is holy faith. We want to be true to that. We can talk about being faithful. We know without faith it's impossible to please God. So we need to have faith in Him and believe that He's doing this work.

Hebrews 10, verse 38 tells us, But just shall live by faith. We want to be just and we want to live by our faith. And that ties into what I've been saying, that we need to do as far as being a living example of the Gospel, and as far as camp staff, sharing that vision. To share the vision, we have to live by our faith.

When we do that, we'll be living the dream. Our greatest work lies ahead of us, then. As members of God's Church of the Body of Christ, we're preparing ourselves for greater service in God's Kingdom when He sets it up. And we're helping to do the great work of preaching the Gospel to the world. That's our way of sharing the vision. So, as I said, we're part of that early crew. So we preach the Gospel and we make disciples. As staff for summer camp, we've got a great work ahead of us, too. And here, I'm not speaking as much symbolically, we've got a great, we've got a big job to do, starting tonight and tomorrow. We're the early crew. Today is our day of being the early crew. Tomorrow, the rest join in and we want to try to recruit them to be part of this movement. So the days of coming two weeks early to build a camp are past. Which is, I feel sad for some of you because it was a great experience. I'd love for you to have that opportunity. But I've had a lot of wonderful Sabbaths like this, where I drove into town, I had this journey and I started seeing old friends and meeting new people, and it was exciting.

I mentioned to someone earlier, I used to come in and say, oh, I want to see the camp director and say hi and let him know I'm here. Those days are over.

But, you know, we are the early crew. We're not as early. But think, all of you who are serving, you are early to coming to the understanding of God's calling. Maybe some of you are early in the sense of being ahead of the camp, or some of you are many years ahead of them. Some of you may only be one or two years ahead of them.

And we've got some older campers. Some of them might be right there, breathing down your neck. And that's not a bad thing. That's a very good thing. We want them to catch up.

Our greatest work, though, remember, is not in preparing ourselves, at least in this week. We've been preparing ourselves for camp. Now, we've got to focus on that sharing the vision.

We have many teens coming to spend this week with us. And we might be helping them to play softball. We might be helping them to build wooden race cars, learn to line dance, spike a volleyball. Whether we're doing any of that, all of us will be sharing a vision of God's purpose for mankind.

So we have different physical jobs, and I left some of them out, but you all know what you're doing. But all of us have that one job, sharing that vision of the kingdom of God. We have it. We want to be children of God. We want to bring them to it. So, my friends, let's do it. Let's share the vision.

Thank you.