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Village SDA Church

Ron Kelly

My Top 20 - and Yours

Thank you, Lord, for a beautiful Sabbath with the sun shining.

I'm praying, Lord, may it be reborn again in this moment, in testimony and in your word.

I'm asking now, Lord, that you would bless us as we enter into a special time of year while we're here in America, perhaps citizens, perhaps guests or students.

I'm praying now, bless the words that I share.

May your spirit anoint us and guide this journey.

Entitled my message this morning, my top 20 and yours, we're coming up to a time of year in which the devil would like to drag us away from the blessing.

With an amazing appeal to discontentedness.

It used to be that Christmas didn't start till after Thanksgiving.

Then Christmas started starting on Thanksgiving, And now Christmas is starting before Thanksgiving.

I can remember as a boy going down to the parade in Peoria, Illinois.

But now we're bombarded with the capitalistic and consumeristic mindset, and those things that ought to be sublime and reflected upon are run over in the race to get ahead.

Now, I just told you about 10 basketballs.

But I wanna make certain as we come up to Thanksgiving and Christmas that our lives are properly focused and that we realize that someday soon the order of life is gonna change and we're gonna need to be in an experience with Christ that gives us the peace we need, knowing that we're gonna go over to that Beulah land, to that better place, to heaven.

I don't want us caught up with the roots of our life down into the things that are shallow and superficial.

And so we're headed up to what used to be the quintessential American holiday, Thanksgiving.

It was the time and the place to stop with no financial entrapments and remember what really matters most.

And this morning, I want to make sure as we approach Thanksgiving, that we're approaching it in such a way that we aren't robbed of the blessing.

We spent the fall focusing on prophecy seminar material, looking into the amazing themes and the efforts going on between the forces of good and bad, light and darkness.

But this morning I want to do something just a little bit different.

I want to have a little bit of a family moment with everyone and I want to encourage you to be very family with intentionality as we approach Thanksgiving.

Life is not about how much you can get done and how hard you can work.

Life is not about filling every second with something to create security or significance.

Life is about filling the divine purpose of God, and he himself said, come ye apart and rest a little while.

So my hope and prayer, as I reflect this morning with you, is that your life will have the highest quality because you're processing according to the leadership of Jesus Christ.

Take your bulletins out for a moment and let's read this quote.

I want you to highlight part of it and I want you to live by it, not because it's my will, but because it's God's.

Too many cares and burdens are brought into our families.

And too little of natural simplicity and peace and happiness is cherished.

Everything we do is tied to so many other things, but simplicity, peace, and happiness are to be cherished.

Our lives are constantly drawn away from them because the devil knows there's an internal reward.

There's an intrinsic cycle of satisfaction in living simple and peaceful.

There should be less care, the quote goes on to say, for what the outside world will say.

How much does it matter to you what everybody else thinks of you?

Does it matter enough to fritter away what makes for happiness?

There comes a point in time when somebody's got to say, I don't care what the Jones are doing ideally it ought to be mom and dad That comes a point time when people have to say I'm okay with me This is what God made me to be.

I'm not supposed to be her Less care for what the outside world will say, and more thoughtful attention to the members of the family.

Maybe you don't even want that promotion.

Maybe it's going to take you away from really living out your calling and living a life that's joyful.

It's not that everything you want is 1 step beyond you and you always need to be focusing on it.

God said that today is the day to live without worrying about tomorrow.

Less display and affectation of worldly politeness.

In other words, let's do away with the polite courtesies and much more tenderness and love, cheerfulness and Christian courtesy among the members of the household.

Many need to learn how to make home attractive, a place of enjoyment.

This last sentence is my favorite 1 in the quote.

Thankful hearts and kind looks are more valuable than wealth and luxury.

And contentment with simple things will make home happy if love is there." Thankful hearts and kind looks.

Now, it's hard to have a kind look if you don't have a thankful heart.

But this morning, friends, I want to tell you, the most beautiful celebration of family and God's provision is just in front of you, if God has permission to arrange the way I think and the way I live.

It's not very often that I take the time.

I've never done it since I've been your pastor here to talk about Thanksgiving.

But I don't preach next Sabbath, and I'll be gone celebrating Thanksgiving with my family the weekend after that.

So this morning I wanna talk with you about my top 20.

You may not get to hear them all because I'm not gonna keep us very long, but I'm gonna share with you some of them.

When I was rehearsing after the first message, some of the things that I'm most thankful for, 1 of the things that comes to my mind is all the stories of all the people who have encouraged me.

Thankful, let's get it down, thankful hearts and kind looks.

I'm thinking back to that time in Cicero.

Wouldn't you know it, the devil wants to run you over.

It's like he's got this big steam roller.

You know, 1 of those vibratory rollers they flatten the asphalt out with?

And here you come in, you're a new young pastor and you wanna do something.

They owed more money to the revolving fund than they had in their bank account.

So they were upside down, they were broke.

And wouldn't you know it, not too long after being the pastor there, I find out that we have probably about as many shingles on the roof of that church as there are on the roof of this church.

And so the idea is brought out, why don't we do this ourselves?

Well, every time you try to do something that's going to advance God's cause, by the way, friends, why would we try to do it ourselves?

And number 2, doing it ourselves would save money.

And bigger than that, number 3, doing it ourselves would turn us into a high-functioning team.

And that's 1 thing the devil doesn't want.

And so here we are having discussions about whether or not we can do this ourselves.

The pitch on the roof was 312, so it wasn't a very steep pitch.

We had 2 layers with over a hundred squares of shingles.

So this is thousands and thousands of square feet of shingles.

And I can remember after the board meeting was over, you know, they had never done anything like this.

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My Top 20 - and Yours

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