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Village SDA Church

Ron Kelly

Vitamin D3 and the Healing of the Church

You have already, and I'm asking that your Spirit would continue to impress and teach.

As we open the word, may we open our hearts.

I'm holding in my hands this morning a bottle of D3, 1, 000 international units.

And you know, most of us are aware that it has an antiviral benefit to the body.

So if you're struggling with COVID, I'm not a doctor, but I have watched Dr.

Wes Youngberg's presentation from the Fallbrook Church in California, and they actually were giving out liquid D3 to all of their members as a missionary event.

And I think they might have been encouraging their members to share it with others.

There's something about this that unleashes a very powerful part of your cell to combat viral infection.

And I know there's people even today as I talk that are battling COVID.

And of course, D3 also comes not only in a pill, where else does it come from?

And this morning I wanna reflect on 3 attributes of Jesus that are a part of a life of discipline and a life of every Pathfinder now I Am a Pathfinder as well, and I looked at my uniform this morning I only have the shirt.

I do have my nice little patch on the arm that shows the accomplishments that I made in this organization.

I didn't join Pathfinders till I was in the seventh grade because that's when I went to church school.

Now my mom tried to get me involved in Pathfinders earlier and it was a bad first introduction.

So if you've tried, folks, and it hasn't worked with your kids or grandkids, don't give up.

I lived in a green pup tent made of canvas, that tells you how old I am, and it leaked.

And they dug a hole and made some beehole beans and put the ash and the coals underneath them and some on top of them, and I can still remember everybody was anxiously waiting to see what those bean hole beans looked like.

Well, I want to tell you, the ash on the outside was no greater in consistency as pure ash than the ash on the inside of the pan.

They were burned beyond recognition almost.

On that weekend, I can remember a big, long Sabbath afternoon walk.

And I just want to say to all you Pathfinders and people in Sabbath schools, seek out the stranger in your midst.

Every time you come to church, pay attention to the person who doesn't look like they fit or doesn't look like they belong.

I was later at a campery, the 25th anniversary, so 1975, in Crete, Illinois.

It was a union campery, which was as big as camperies got back in the day.

And I was there, again, I was not yet in church school, so I was not really part of the group, but I was starting to get a little acquainted.

And on 1 afternoon, could even have been a Sabbath afternoon, I don't know, I was not a Seventh-day Adventist yet.

My friends or acquaintances were, we had found a big hill.

And that big hill had bunches of rocks and boulders on it and lots of dirt clods.

And boys and dirt clods go together like nothing should go together.

And we grabbed those dirt clods and started throwing them at each other.

And a friend of mine or an acquaintance, we were at the bottom of the hill, and 2 guys that were a little more cool than we were, and certainly better friends, found their way to the top of the hill, and it was a sizable hill.

Now, none of the leaders were around, so this made it a free-for-all with the dirt clods, And as they're flying and bursting into clouds of dust all around us, the guys at the top have a distinct advantage, which was twofold.

1 was they could kind of lob their dirt clods And they would go farther and come down even behind our boulders and stuff like that and the other was they could see the club directors walking up behind me at the bottom of the hill and That moment when they had quit throwing dirt clods And I was still throwing and I hear the voice of our club director was 1 I still remember to this day.

Finally, I joined the Pathfinder Club as an explorer.

And I made a journey deep into the main card and the extra work.

And I went far enough to where I decided I wanted to get my friend and my trail friend and my companion and my trail companion.

And so in 1 year, I started putting my arms around an awful lot.

Back when I was a Pathfinder, they did not have the Voyager class.

You went from a Ranger to a Guide, and by the time I was 15, I was working on my Master Guide, which at 16, which you, The rules have changed just a little bit, but at 16 I was inducted as a master guide.

Pittenger and Vernon Franklin and the people that nurtured us in this club, I realized that they did an awful lot to shape my person.

And for all of our village students and their parents who have gone on a Boundary Waters trip, that is a legacy of the things I learned as a boy.

Not to be afraid of the dark, not to be afraid of the woods, not to be afraid of being beyond a telephone, not to be afraid of the beautiful places that God created to connect with us.

When I think about the books that I read, I read the Bible through because of a Bible reading plan that was a part of Pathfinders.

I read a book called Rudy the Reckless Russian, who was a basketball player, very good, but he left his career off because of a conflict with the Sabbath.

And then I read an amazing book called China Doctor, which was about Harry Miller, who Graduated in Battle Creek in 1902 from the American Medical College, and he went to China where he transformed nutrition by creating something called soy milk Seventh-day Adventist man he died in 1977 the first year I would have been in the Pathfinder Club, and the New York Times, he was a man of such significance that the New York Times carried a long obituary on this man.

This morning, I realize that there is so much about who pathfinders are and what pathfinding is that we ought to reconsider its role in our homes, our schools, and our churches.

For it has the power to make us into a different kind of people.

Now, I'm going to start this morning with a story of David Livingston.

David Livingston is probably the most famous missionary from Great Britain that ever lived.

You understand that he went to the continent of Africa, Not only was he an intrepid explorer, but he was an amazing man of God.

Livingston was born in Great Britain, and of course as a physician he could have enjoyed a wonderfully easy life.

As a matter of fact, when reflecting upon the death of his wife, he writes, O Mary, O Mary, how often we wished for a quiet home since we were adrift in Kohlberg, and now you've gone to a better home, our home in heaven.

And while Livingston did not understand the truth about the state of the dead, he did love his dear Jesus.

And when Livingston died, he died kneeling by his bed with his Bible open to Matthew 28, verse 20, where Jesus said at the end of the Great Commission, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the ends of the age.

When Livingston died, the natives carefully took the heart from the body and buried it in Africa.

The body is interned in Westminster Abbey.

If you ever have the privilege of going there, you can see where this amazing missionary lived.

After 16 years in Africa, he was called to the University of Glasgow where he was to make a speech.

As he stood there before the university, he had 1 arm that barely worked because it had been mauled by a lion.

His face was a dark brown, leathery consistency.

A hush fell over the students who listened to this man, realizing he was no ordinary person.

"'Shall I tell you what sustained me amidst the trials "'and the hardships and the loneliness of my exiled life?" And then he gave them the answer.

It was a promise, the promise of a gentleman, of the most sacred honor.

It was this promise, "'And, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Perhaps the most famous quote attributed to Livingston is this 1, when people talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much time in Africa, can that be called a sacrifice Which is simply giving back a small part of the great debt owing to our God which we can never repay Is that a sacrifice which brings its own best reward in?

Helpful activity the consciousness of doing good peace of mind and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter Away with the word in such a view and such a thought.

It is emphatically no sacrifice, rather it is a privilege.

When Livingston's body was carried through the streets of London, there was a man standing there weeping.

And another said to him, were you personal friends of Livingston?

And he went on to say, I am grieving a man who gave his life for something great, but I am a man who have lived for nothing.

I want us to think about this in the 21st century, for there must be a revival in Adventism.

And let the revival begin with our youth.

I can tell you this the messages that were Spread abroad whether it was in a Pathfinder song or a pledge or a law by the grace of God I will be pure and kind and true.

I will be a servant of God and a friend to man.

That Pathfinder Law says that I'm to keep the morning watch.

If more people were studying their Bible morning by morning and staying true, We hear about scouts honor.

But God is blessing indeed the pathfinders.

If more people stayed true to their word, their sacred honor and the sacred honor of Jesus would be carefully protected.

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Vitamin D3 and the Healing of the Church

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