Authority, Control and Responsibility

This Sabbath message draws on aviation emergency training—declaring “my aircraft,” the V1 decision speed, and the priority of “Aviate, Navigate, Communicate”—to teach that God expects us to take deliberate command of the responsibilities He has given us. Through the accounts of Esther, Mary and Martha, the anointing at Bethany, and other scriptures, the speaker shows how we must act within our sphere of duty, prioritize rightly, know the limits of what we can control, endure to the end, and trust God to straighten our paths.

How do we faithfully own the responsibilities God has placed in our hands while fully trusting Him with the outcomes beyond our control?

Good morning and happy Sabbath. Split sermon format today, so I'll be up here for a little longer than normal.

There's a time when pilots are driving the plane down the runway that they get to a speed in which it is unsafe to stop. They have to take off. Imagine you're sitting in a plane and the plane starts accelerating down the runway, and the pilots get to this point, and all of a sudden a large explosion happens in one of the engines. Flames, you can see visible flames coming out of one of the engines, but the pilots take off anyways. This speed is called V1. And just recently, actually, this exact situation happened to American Airlines 1760, where a large bird strike hit the left engine right as they approached that V1 speed. The pilots had no choice but to take off, assess the situation, and hopefully land the aircraft.

One of the things that pilots are trained is that there is one pilot in command, and then there is a first officer that's supposed to be running the checklists and looking at the instruments. But in an emergency like this, one of the most crucial things that pilots are trained for, the one in command, is when any emergency like this happens, they loudly state “my aircraft.” This is to say who is in control of the situation, and I think that's pretty cool. I would very much like my pilot to be in control of the aircraft if an emergency happened.

But I have a silly question for you all. What if instead, would you feel safer if pilots were trained in an emergency, if the engine had a bird strike like this, they weren't trained to say “my aircraft,” they were trained to say, “Jesus, take the wheel.” Or maybe “Jesus take the yoke” in the pilot terminology here. Would you feel more safe or less safe if that was what their training was? I obviously think I would feel a little less safe. I want the pilot to be flying because that's his job. But just can you quantify why you would feel less safe if they just kind of relinquished controls and said, “Jesus take the wheel”?

Let's turn to our first passage in Esther. While you're turning, I'll kind of give you my title. I really want to talk about authority, control, and responsibility, and in this passage in Esther I think we mostly know the story, so I'm not going to read the entire thing. We're going to turn to chapter four, towards the climax of the story. I've titled this section, now I guess you could call this section one or point one, to take command of your responsibility or take control of your aircraft.

In Esther 4, we're going to read verses 12 through 17.

Esther 4:12-17

When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, he had this reply brought to her: “Do not imagine that you are safe in the king’s palace. You alone of all the Jews, even if you now remain silent, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another source, but you and your father’s house will perish. Who knows? Perhaps it was for a time like this that you became queen.”

Esther sent back to Mordecai the response: “Go and assemble all the Jews who are in Susa. Fast on my behalf, and all of you not eating or drinking night or day for three days. I and my maids will also fast in the same way. Thus prepared, I will go to the king, contrary to the law. If I perish, I perish.”

Mordecai went away and did exactly as Esther had commanded.

Most people know the story, but this was almost, just like our pilot example or airplane example, a true engine emergency for the Jews. And Esther was the one who could take command of the situation or take control of her aircraft. She didn’t shout that right away. She hesitated a little bit, but when Mordecai pushed her in the right direction she took command or took control of the responsibility that she had been given.

So the main point that I’m going to try and drive home through a couple analogies or kind of keep it aviation themed a little bit, but when something is within our responsibility, God expects us to act. Now that doesn’t mean we know plenty of stories that if you’re about to get into a car accident or something tragic is about to happen, I have plenty of stories where God intervenes, maybe He sends an angel on your behalf and He saves you, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have responsibility to fly your aircraft.

Alright, let’s turn to another passage here, kind of building up this analogy here. Turn to Luke, and I want to kind of give this section another title called prioritizing your responsibility. So we know when an emergency happens or when an event happens, it is your job to take command of the situation, of your responsibility, just like Esther did. But I want us to understand that there is a priority to how we go about taking that control. And in Luke 10 here is a little bit of a less dramatic example than Esther. I don’t think anyone was about to die, they didn’t need to land an emergency aircraft, but in Luke 10 we’re just going to read verses thirty-eight through forty-two for, again, a slightly less dramatic example.

So I’ll just kind of set the scene. So imagine Christ just shows up at your doorstep, and you haven’t cleaned the house, you haven’t done the dishes, the trash is piling up. And your roommate kind of just lets Christ in and just starts listening. You’re frantically trying to run around and clean the house, you’re frantically trying to get everything organized and clean the dishes and take the trash out, and you come and see, again, your friend, your roommate is just sitting there talking to Christ. Well, let’s read this in Luke ten again, thirty-eight through forty-two.

Luke 10:38-42

Now it happened, as they went, that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.”

And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”

I find this very interesting because I think we can relate to Martha’s frustration that Mary isn’t helping serve Christ, but it is interesting that the scripture says she was actually distracted with much serving. Distracted from what exactly? We all know that serving is actually a good thing. It’s not really an issue. So why was she distracted by it? Well, there’s a time and a place for everything, and again, this section is about prioritizing your responsibility. And so, imagine we come to church, and we come to church every week here, and there’s a potluck, right? We all love potlucks, but imagine someone just forgets to bring a meal, not that you’re required to always bring a meal, but imagine they just start, they go out to the kitchen out here and they just start cooking their entire meal. I’m not talking about checking on a crock pot, I’m not talking about just doing a slight thing, but they just start cooking the full meal and they actually come and try and interrupt the service by saying, “I need help cooking my meal.” There’s a priority to what we do when we come to church. One of the main priorities is you get to listen to, hopefully, pretty good sermons from the speakers up here. But another big priority is the fellowship and the food we eat together, not that cooking a meal is a bad thing or that it’s wrong to serve Christ, but in that particular moment, I think Mary realized listening and hearing Christ’s word was a little more important than making sure everything was correct in the house.

This is actually, I’ll tie this back into my aviation theme here. There’s a clear hierarchy, we’ll call it, of responsibility when a pilot is trained on an aircraft. So it essentially, I’ll kind of say it in plain English and then there’s a kind of a shorter, more memorable version. So the biggest and most important thing is to always be flying the plane. After you have the plane being flown, being under control, the second most important thing is to figure out where you should be going. And then the third is to let others know your plan. And the kind of fun, memorable version of this is: Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. And it highlights the importance that there needs to be someone always aviating the plane, and after you do that, after you have the plane under control, then you can look to navigate where you’re going, and finally you can communicate to your first officer, to the tower about what’s going on. And that is very similar to how our walk is with Christ and following God’s way, that it’s our job to almost aviate, if you want to say, or walk in our life. God isn’t going to force you to take that step. It’s your job to aviate. It’s your responsibility, therefore, you need to take command of that. Now we’ll read later clear passages where God will absolutely help you navigate, but that first step, aviate, is very important for you to take control, and there is definitely a hierarchy of responsibility.

Let’s turn to another scripture to highlight this. So if we turn to Matthew, we’ll turn to Matthew 26 here. I think this even more clearly states the hierarchy quite nicely. And I think I may have given this passage in a sermonette before, but I really like this passage. It’s Matthew 26, and we’re going to read verses six through thirteen. And my Bible has this section called The Anointing at Bethany.

Matthew 26:6-13

And when Jesus was at Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to Him having an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant oil, and she poured it on His head as He sat at the table. But when His disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? For this fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the poor.”

But when Jesus was aware of it, He said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a good work for Me. For you have the poor with you always, but Me you do not have always. For in pouring this fragrant oil on My body, she did it for My burial. Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.”

Christ never said that it was bad to help the poor. He just said that this is a good thing. I’m not going to be with you always, the poor will be with you always. It’s more important to honor My burial right now than to try and fix all of society. Even if it was a large sum of money, I think we understand Christ is the only one when He comes back the second time and the kingdom is established, that really that’s when poverty will be solved. I don’t think any one of us can solve the crisis of poverty. Doesn’t mean that we don’t help the poor, doesn’t mean that we don’t serve others, but it means that if you have the opportunity to prepare yourself for God’s kingdom and listen to Christ, that’s more important than going out and trying to solve the problems of the world.

Alright, the next section is titled Know the Limits of Your Responsibility. So this gets into the more—we’re going to go back to more dramatic examples here. I’ll go back to the aviation theme. One of the other main reasons that pilots state clearly “my aircraft” in an emergency is not only to establish control, but it’s also to eliminate the human shock factor of when something just suddenly happens. A lot of times, when we’re startled by something or if something unexpected happens, you freeze. I think everyone’s frozen before just what is happening. And sadly, there has been a couple plane crashes where pilots just freeze and they don’t fly the plane, and by the time they get back on the controls, it’s too late. So one of the things they’re trained for when they say “My aircraft,” is to kind of break that silence, to break the human factor, and know that someone is trying to maintain control of the aircraft within those first few seconds. In that case, decision making, taking control of your responsibility—time is of the essence.

But once you’re back on the path, we could say, so if we want to make an analogy from that, where if an event happens in your life, or maybe you’ve stumbled and you’ve fallen away from God, your primary responsibility is to get back on the path, control your walk, immediately get back on the path with God. But once we’re back on the path, once the plane can be under control or it’s being flown, at that point it’s time to do some more aviating. We’re not to the navigating part quite yet, but we can be a little more deliberate in our actions, in our decision making. So once we’re on the path walking in our Christian walk, we want to stay on the path and we want to make sure our actions are deliberate and that we’re not moving too quickly at this point. So before time was of the essence when there was an emergency, now that you’re flying the plane, we can take a little more time to plan our decisions.

One of the emergency checklist that pilots go through when an engine failure happens, one of the steps is to shut off the failed engine and to put more power to the only good engine you have. And there, again, sadly, has been crashes because pilots rushed this checklist and they shut off their only good engine and they put power to the only bad engine. I think if we can realize that in our life once we’re on the path with God, it’s not about moving quickly, it’s about moving deliberately and exerting your control, knowing that God is going to help direct your steps, but we don’t want to get off that path. That’s the worst thing that we could do, is get off the path with God. But again, if an emergency happens, if something goes wrong, immediately get back on the path with God.

But even after all of that, after you’ve flown the aircraft, after you’ve shut off the bad engine and you’ve turned on the good engine all the way, the outcome is still not determined. So this is the part where it’s a little serious, but I do want us to know the limits of our responsibility, that it isn’t on us to make sure the outcome is what we want. If we go back to the idea or the passage of Esther, she clearly stated to Mordecai, “If I perish, I perish.” She didn’t not take matters into her own hands, though. She definitely did what she needed to do responsibly, but she understood I don’t have complete control of the outcome of the situation.

A famous passage we use for this, and we don’t need to turn now, I’ll just kind of state the story. We know of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, it’s been stated many times, where they clearly stated, if I’m going to perish in this fire, I’m going to perish in this fire or the furnace, but I’m not worshiping your fake god. And I think that’s just a powerful message for us that even if we can take full control of our responsibility, we don’t have full control of the outcome of the circumstance. You know, you could, and we’ve had many members in our congregation here go through health crisis. You know, you don’t have full control over your health, over your body. You know, we can take steps to turn off the bad engine. Maybe that looks like you’re trying to take some medication or you’re trying to turn up the good parts of your life, but at the end of the day, God is in complete control of the outcome. You are in control of your walk, of taking ownership of not sinning, following His commandments, following His path.

I’ll just reference, actually we can turn there, Matthew 24. I think this is another important point that we need to maintain that full control until the very end. So another thing pilots are trained for is that even if they think it’s futile, it doesn’t matter, they try and control the plane until the very end. And Matthew twenty-four, and we have many other verses we could turn to, but just verse thirteen.

Matthew 24:13

But he who endures to the end shall be saved.

It’s not about a sprint, as we’ve heard in many sermons, it’s this race to the finish line with Christ is a marathon. It’s he who endures to the very end that shall be saved, even if other things go wrong in your life and your aircraft, you always maintain control or try and maintain control, endure to the very end.

Alright, let’s turn to one more scripture. Let’s turn to Proverbs 3. I want to highlight kind of the second part here, the navigate part. Remember we got aviate, navigate, communicate in our little pilot analogy? And this is where a good scripture to kind of show you that if you can maintain control and aviate your life or aviate your plane, God will absolutely help navigate. So reading Proverbs three verses just five and six.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.

I don’t think it can be any more clear than that. If you are walking, obviously, I like using the pilot analogy here, if we’re flying our plane and we’re trusting God. We’re doing all that we can to aviate the plane, even if it’s an emergency, even if we have just fallen off the path and we’ve gotten back on, we’re walking, we’re aviating the plane. God will make our paths straight. We need to understand that God is in full control. We don’t have full control of the outcome, and sometimes I think we get caught up in wanting, I think Martha got caught up in that, wanting a certain outcome to happen in the situation, you know, not letting Christ do His good thing of teaching, talking to Mary. You know, she was thinking, not, I want to serve to do a good thing for Christ, but this serving, these tasks must be completed. I need these completed, and maybe then we can talk to Christ. I think it’s very important though that we accept our responsibility, and again, God will make our path straight.

So in conclusion, I just want to wrap up here. Remember to always accept your responsibility, as I just stated, and God will make your path straight, but we’re the ones that have to walk it. God will never force you to take that step forward. We all have free will, and within our free will, we have responsibility, and within that responsibility, we need to take control. Once you’ve taken control, remember to prioritize your responsibility. Not everything is under your control, and not everything is the most important at the time. Remember the fun little slogan, Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. And then once you’ve done that, remember the limits of your responsibility. Maintain control until the very end, but know that God is the one who is ultimately in control of your life. So do what is yours to do, and trust God to do what is His to do.