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Village SDA Church

Ron Kelly

Dear and Dangerous Occupations

Lord, as we open Your Word now, I pray open our hearts.

And I thank You for the prayer of our elder, and I pray now, Lord, that You'll bless us as We seek to truly offer up living sacrifices to you So, please guide us now on this journey in Jesus name.

Amen This morning I've entitled my message dear and dangerous occupations You know, there are some things that people do that are far more threatening to their well-being than others.

So I found from the Bureau of Labor Statistics the 10 top most dangerous jobs in America.

You can find the 20 top most dangerous jobs.

We'll start with number 10 and work our way down to number 1.

If you're a frontline supervisor of landscaping, lawn service, or groundskeeping, you actually have 1 of the 10 most dangerous jobs in the United States.

You didn't think that the people that were hauling their equipment all over the place and dealing with things that have lots of moving parts were in as much of a danger zone as they are, but that's number 10.

Number 2, front-line supervisors of construction trades and extraction workers.

So, when you get your car stuck along the side of the road.

Those people that come pull you out, they have a very dangerous job.

You need to thank them, not only pay them.

And those people that are building our buildings, if they're hanging off ladders and they're doing all kinds of other things, ninth most dangerous job.

Those structural steelworks that we go up create larger buildings.

Farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural workers.

Drivers of trucks and sales workers in cars.

And you didn't know this, that number 5, the individuals who take your trash away have the fifth most dangerous job in the United States.

You might think of setting something out for them, some way of encouraging them.

I know many of them don't have to get out of the truck anyway these days, but there is danger being on the road.

Also roofers, number 4, the people who keep us dry.

At number 3 are aircraft pilots and flight engineers.

Transportation composes probably the largest risk to everyone.

Number 2 you probably thought was number 1 and that's commercial fishery.

Number 1 is actually the individuals who go out and cut down the trees both for lumber and for other needs.

Logging workers find themselves in 1 of the most dangerous jobs, the most dangerous job according to the Bureau of Land Statistics, of Labor Statistics.

So this morning, though, my category is not just dangerous occupations.

Some people are dealing with things that are not as dangerous as others.

And this morning what I want to talk with you about is deer and dangerous occupations.

So if you have your Bibles this morning, open them up to the book of Jeremiah, chapter 13.

And I want to go on a journey that leads us to Christmas.

You may wonder why we're gonna start like this.

Jeremiah chapter 13, looking at verse 20.

It says in the New American Standard, lift up your eyes and see those coming from the north.

Where is the flock that was given you, your beautiful flock?

Jeremiah has the disadvantageous job of telling everyone in Jerusalem your security is momentary.

The suggestion to look to the north is a reminder that what he said from the beginning is going to come true.

It's coming from Babylon, from Nebuchadnezzar.

The idea is, do you know what the status of your flocks are?

Are you prepared to provide the spiritual leadership and where possible, the physical protection?

Ellen White takes this phrase and she applies it to a number of categories of caregivers.

This morning, I want to apply it to me and to you.

I'm going to start with a quote from Adventist Home, chapter, page 15, paragraph 1.

She says, society is composed of families and is what the heads of families make it.

She didn't say homes, she said societies.

Out of the heart of the issues of life and the heart of the community, of the church and of the nation is the household.

The well-being of society, the success of the church, the prosperity of the nation depend upon the home influences.

Now for the last 2 generations, our country and much of the Western world has been involved in a societal experiment.

And what we've done is we've flouted the laws that James calls laws of liberty, and we've determined that a new morality with a humanistic bent, the idea that man knows what's best for himself.

We've touted a whole new way of doing life.

What we find ourselves in right now is a very precarious position where we have a nation charged with people who are afraid, where we have very little risk-taking for the advancement of all that we've held dear before.

And we should ask ourselves, did we not expect this to happen?

If the home is truly the center of community, of church, and of nation if it's the foundation and the success of all these institutions?

What does it mean when we have a war on beginning back in the 1960s against fatherhood?

And what does it mean when we have a war on in that same decade against morality.

That war will morph over the years to where in the last decade we've seen a complete institutional redefinition of what marriage is.

That war goes on to be a war against parenting, where parents are no longer the final authority in the lives of their children.

I didn't have to look very hard to come up with this document, which is a legal document from the state of New Jersey.

First page, probably the first hit on my Google search.

I read a blog on fathering, and in the blog, it suggested that in this state, it wasn't imperative that the schools do anything to cooperate with the parents in regards to gender identity issues with their minors.

Turns out, it wasn't lore and it wasn't legend, it was just plain old fact.

And the public school system there, which of course these are the coast, but those things tend to find their way to the middle, The truth of the matter is, is that this public school system can work at complete odds against the will and the wishes and the best understandings of the parents.

The real truth of the matter is, is that when God deals with families, He creates this metaphor, this symbol.

What are you doing to shepherd your sheep?

And this quote from Jeremiah chapter 13 verse 20 is applied most often to the dynamic of parenting.

The reality is, is that when the parent is afraid and has no real sense of the obligations upon them or inner strength to know what's best for children, children are allowed to go astray in the name of parents feeling good from the first circle of feedback, which unfortunately is their own adolescence.

Lesson 101 from the scriptures and lesson 101 for all that are engaging this parenting dynamic, lay the laws of family love and order down strongly in the beginning so that when the bonds are being strained and stressed, everyone knows where the real line is that you don't cross.

There is a shepherding and shepherdess role for all parents that is to create a home of nurture, of love and support, and a home of liberty-giving law that most of all allows the child not to become a slave of their own desires, their own addictions.

The Christ we serve is a life-giving power, a joy-filling spirit, and 1 who makes our lives functional and successful.

The second group of people I'd like to address this morning are teachers.

Ellen White holds them in such high esteem as God does for sure, but she also holds them to a high standard.

Teachers must love the children because they are the younger members of the Lord's family.

The Lord will inquire of them as of the parents.

Here we go, Jeremiah 13 20, Where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock?

I realize that I'm standing here before you today because my mother was a true shepherdess.

I understood in my home that I was loved and I understood where the law and love came together for the well-being and the discipleship development of my person.

I also understood that my mother believed that the teachers were her best friends and that what was to happen at school was to be an extension of the authority established in the home.

I visited with somebody yesterday morning who it was interesting to hear him talking.

He said, basically, as many of you were told that are my age, if you get in trouble at school, you're going to be in trouble at home.

Our society would be a better place if we practiced Leviticus 19, 18, which says don't harbor any ill will in your heart, speak frankly with 1 another, and love your neighbor as yourself.

She had some encounters with teachers behind the scenes that I didn't know about, where she talked straight up with them and they talked by God's grace straight up with her.

But the teachers were her partners and the teachers held a responsibility for the discipleship not only of the mind but of the heart, of the soul.

These people, our friends, fellow ministers in our midst, are a part of the network of discipling the flock, and they will be held accountable.

She goes on to write in the Fundamentals of Education, page 222, those teachers who have not a progressive religious experience, who are not daily learning the lessons in the school of Christ, that they may be examples to the flock, but accept their wages as the main thing, are not fit for the solemn, awfully solemn position they occupy.

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Dear and Dangerous Occupations

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