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Village SDA Church

Ron Kelly

Adventist Education: Respectable and Conventional

Now Lord, as we take a journey, Make us Bereans.

It wasn't right because he said it, And it wasn't wrong because it went against their narrative.

So wherever we start here today, may we end up farther down the journey.

I'm asking, Lord, may we rise up and fulfill the prophetic call in this hour of destiny as a people of destiny.

Title of my message this morning, Adventist Education, Respectable and Conventional.

Take your Bibles if you would and open up to the book of 2 Corinthians, chapter 11.

This will be the first of 3 messages on Adventist education.

I'm going to start Like Paul was finishing in the second book to the most challenging church in the New Testament.

A group of people with whom he strained his relationship and strengthened their experience with Christ at great personal expense.

Verse 16, 2nd Corinthians 11, again I say let no 1 think me foolish but if you do receive me even as foolish so that I may also boast a little.

Now I want to put a little word of encouragement out to all of you who are involved in learning in the school of life.

For it is the ultimate school to learn in.

And should you reject your daily opportunities to learn in the school of life, it doesn't matter to me how many degrees you attach to your name, they mean little and might be an impediment to your usefulness to God and your own happiness.

Having said that, I'm starting a series on Christian education and I love and value Christian education.

What Paul is effectively saying, if you won't hear me as a messenger of God, at least hear me through some human credentials.

If you won't accept that the Spirit's moving through Paul, Think about what he's done.

Some people won't listen no matter how much evidence you have.

Other people's spirits are tuned to truth.

And they are convicted and confirmed by the inner witness.

What I'm saying, I am not saying as the Lord would but as in foolishness in this confidence of boasting So he says I will digress at some level and I'm going to use a human form of reasoning because some of you are not sensitive to the Spirit.

Since many boast according to the flesh, I will boast also.

For you, Being so wise, tolerate the foolish gladly." Now this must have been so hard for him to write.

I would like to talk to you spiritual to spiritual.

Of course, in the first book of Corinthians, he tells them, you're still drinking milk, you're not converted.

And then this most painful treatise, full of hope, but challenging in the spirit of the gospel, which is the glorifying power of a merciful God who lives truth.

But since you've tuned yourself to being focused on the human side of the equation and Moving according to human wisdom.

I'm gonna go there Paul says a little bit.

But it appears that they are held in some kind of honor.

Verse 20, For you tolerate if anyone enslaves you, anyone devours you, anyone takes advantage of you, anyone exalts himself, anyone hits you in the face.

To my shame, I must say that we've been weak by comparison.

Paul doesn't have the spirit of the world.

He's not appealing to that naturally affirmative and confirming mentality of the world He's not coming with a message.

It's easy to hear He's not coming in a way where he's going to receive kudos from the unconverted To my shame First 21 I must say that we've been weak by comparison.

But in whatever respect anyone else is bold, I speak foolishly.

If we must establish human credibility He says I'm gonna do this Are they Hebrew So am I Are they Israelites?

And now he interjects parenthetically, this isn't how it should usually be done.

All right, so we've just left the comparison of what they are that He is.

We're just getting ready to leave it behind.

Because all that they say they are in the spirit of the world, which allowed them to be spiritually enslaved, he's now leaving the similarities behind, and he's going to show them that if you don't have enough discretion to recognize what's going on, even as they slap you in the face, and enslave you with wrong spiritual understandings, now I'm going to show you why you should listen to me not them now this is not the way to write a gospel treatise unless you have to and that's what he's doing Verse 23 are they servants of Christ I speak as if insane I more so here we go In far more labors, I work harder than they do In imprisonment I've been in jail more than they've been suffering from fists and rods Beaten times without numbers.

I've been beat up more than they have and often Death is hanging over my head 5 times I received that which could kill a person.

39 lashes with the metal and bone infested whip.

Can you imagine what this man's back had to look like?

He was a scar-riddled servant of the Lord.

By the way, that's an intended capital punishment procedure.

A night and a day I have spent in the deep.

I've been on frequent journeys in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, and I won't have any of us faced any of these things, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren.

I have been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights in hunger and thirst often without food in cold and exposure and apart from such external things there's the daily pressure on me concerning all the churches." Now, why do I read that at the beginning of a series on Adventist education?

Because the church in this division finds itself in exactly the same place.

We have determined that inspiration is substandard data compared to empirically derived information.

We have found ourselves with the mentality of the Corinthians And so somebody has to say, really?

Somebody has to deviate from the dynamics of an inspired covenant conversation where we could just talk about it, because the infatuation with the modern culture that has to see it before it believes it has left us disadvantaged and taken advantage of, and it's as if the devil is slapping us in the face while so much of what we believe in just Loses health and vitality and goes down the tubes and it appears that it's all okay As long as nobody upsets the apple cart Let me get more pointed.

I received my salvation through a seventh-day Adventist church school and it was not an ordinary journey and I won't go into all of it now, but a backslidden little firstborn in a family of 4 children was forced to go to a church school, and I met Christ.

Lots of you listening to me today were encouraged in your church school, but very few of you were plucked as a brand out of the fire through a church school teacher I was.

Not only did I receive my salvation at the feet of a God-fearing seventh-day Adventist teacher in spite of all the influences of my home, some of which were good, certainly have heard me speak very favorably of my parents, and yet, through eyes less gracious, there were many challenges in my home that could have put me on a trajectory to self-destruction I owe everything to Jesus who worked through my church school teacher glory hallelujah and if you go in my office today you'll see a picture of Spirit Island, a big beautiful nature picture, and if you look around, the only other picture you're gonna see is of a man with jet black hair, a big round face, Right in the center of my bookshelf, that, I don't have many pictures up of people that aren't related to me in my house or in my circle of influence, but the church school teacher who won me to Christ, whenever I walk into that office, there he is, Carlisle Bennett, a Michigander, implanted in central Illinois, who walked with Jesus and was a living fountain of everlasting life.

And this morning, I'm starting a series where I'm gonna challenge the system that brought me to Christ.

Certainly not plexiglass 30, 40 years ago.

And on the next Monday at school, my teachers pulled me aside, Carlisle and Linda Bennett, and they said, we think you may be called to the ministry.

I wanna tell you, what looked amazing in its affirmation from the 2 adults I've respected most, lost its beauty as I navigated through life in the church, and eventually I said, no, that's not for me.

And there are people listening to me here today who have been called to the ministry of teaching, and some called to the ministry of pastoring, and if you're being called, let the Spirit confirm what others will affirm.

I owe the first understanding of the path of my destiny to my Seventh-day Adventist church school teacher.

I'm standing before you because of a Seventh-day Adventist church school teacher.

My career, no, my calling is a gift of Seventh-day Adventist education.

They discovered it by giving me an opportunity to discover it.

My wife of 35 years is not here today because she's caring for her mother.

I met her on a blind date at Andrews University and in spite of doing the best I could to ruin everything God wanted to give me in the first date.

I had to work about a year to change her mind.

I stood with my hand in hers in a seven-day Adventist church, And we pledged ourselves in the presence of God and our family and witnesses to love each other.

I Owe my wife and My joy as I head for year 36 to seventh-day Adventist education More than that all kinds of confidence My first car was that purple and white American Motors Gremlin, which you'd have to be a little old to remember what those look like.

American Motors produced another fantastic razzle-dazzle car called the Pacer.

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Adventist Education: Respectable and Conventional

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