Certainty in an Uncertain World

You have probably, at some time in your life, heard of the term the fog of war. It's what historians use to describe what individuals who are involved in battle often talk about. How you don't really know what's going on around you, you just know what's going on right in front of you. People's emotions and the mind, the way it's trying to work, and all that danger. People get very locked in on what's right in front of them. How many of you have heard of the Battle of Kiska? Oh, there's a few. Battle of Kiska is not one of the most famous battles of World War II. It's one of the Aleutian Islands. The Japanese had taken the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska. In August of 1943, a joint Canadian-American operation was launched to take back the Aleutian Islands. Kiska was one of the large islands, and they decided to land on that one first. 7,000 American and Canadian troops, many of them really under-trained, landed in one of the most horrible conditions imaginable for a sea landing. The island was absolutely covered with fog. In fact, that time of year, it's covered with fog all the time. A really thick, heavy, wet fog. The temperatures even in August were frigid, and the winds, just high winds, whipped around the island all the time. It was basically a rocky island. I mean, there's a little vegetation, some tundra, and some small bushes, but it's not much of an island. And they landed. 7,000 troops. There wasn't a firefight for the beaches, but once they started to move inland through that fog, the gunfire began to happen, firefights broke out, and they began to get pretty sharp. And both American and Canadian troops began to take casualties. Men got wounded, men got killed. One of the ships out in the harbor hit a mine and exploded and added to the casualty list. It took two days of heavy fighting to take Kiska in a fog where you could even see the enemy. At the end of the two days, and scores of casualties, both the Canadians and the Americans, they had two Japanese prisoners, and they interrogated them. And they found out that they were observers, that the Japanese had actually left the island days before. And the Canadians and the Americans had fought each other savagely over an island for two days. There were no Japanese there except two men who never fired their rifles, as far as they know. They just stayed in their hole until the whole thing was over, and they came out and surrendered. Now, that's the fog of war. They never saw their enemy. All they saw was shadowy figures shooting, and so everybody shot back.

The Battle of Kiska tells us something about when we can't see, when we can't see, and how that fog creates fear, it creates uncertainty, and it creates overreaction.

We live in a world of uncertainty. That term has actually been used two or three times now in different messages at the feast already. We live in a world of uncertainty. We don't know what's going to happen in the economy. People worry about their jobs. Some of the older people worry that, you know, that social security isn't going to stretch very far. Young people are worried what is it going to do with their careers, where their lives are going to go, and we have when's the next terrorist attack going to happen, and what is Ebola going to spread, and just thing after thing after thing. Of course, we heard Mr. Cubick talk about the uncertainty of the future in terms of how bad the prophecies get.

We talked about that in the Bible study when we went through the book of Revelation. And all that uncertainty causes people to live life in a fog. They can't see what's going to happen, and mentally and emotionally they live in a fog. So you know what happens when we do that? We live for the moment. Whatever fun of the moment we can grab, that's what we do. We know the Christian life isn't supposed to be that. But how can we have certainty in a world of uncertainty, in which things are going to just get more and more uncertain?

And of course, we tend to think, well, there's never been a time of uncertainty like this. Ever since Adam and Eve left Eden, it's been uncertain. It's been a fog. Humanity has always lived in danger. Humanity has always lived with catastrophe. We just know it's going to get worse. How do we as Christians survive in that? And more importantly, how do we thrive in that?

How do we thrive? I have the usual opportunity to speak multiple times at the feast this year, and my sermons are actually a series. Each one builds off the one before it. We're going to talk today about how to live in uncertainty, because actually there's a couple of things God gives us, guided by His Spirit. One, of course, is the Bible. We're going to talk about how to use the Bible to help us have certainty in life.

But you know the Sabbath and the Holy Days? The weekly Sabbath and all the Holy Days are lights through the fog. If we understand and observe these days properly, we will have light through the fog, and we can have certainty. You know, when I talked about the first Sabbath of the feast this year, I went through how to be a kingdom patriot.

And I gave five points that as a kingdom patriot, God's calling changes our allegiance. God's calling changes our expectations. God's calling changes our values. God's calling changes our motivations. And then eventually God's calling changes our lifelong mission. And those five points have been discussed over and over and over again throughout this feast. If you listen to the messages, I've been amazed at how those points have been brought up by all the different speakers in one way or another. That to really understand what God has given to us creates those changes.

Boy, that's exciting. Let's do that. Let's have our lifelong mission of being a Christian. Let's change our values. Let's have these things happen. And then it's like, yeah, but how do you do that every day?

You know, when you go home for the Feast of Tabernacles, you'll probably be fired up. And then you go back to the problems of everyday life. I'll never forget one time coming back to the Feast of Tabernacles. And I was so fired up, and I was getting ready to go to the radio station where I worked. And I was so excited. I don't know. I was even happy to be back at work.

I was so fired up from the Feast. And I walked in, and the general manager called me in his office, and I sat there for an hour with him telling me every bad thing that had happened while I was going at the Feast. And after an hour, I went back to my desk for a little bit, and then I left, and I had to go home for a half hour because I was so depressed. I just felt horrible! Oh, yeah.

This is what it's like to be back in the real world. I'm back in reality now. Well, how do we face this world of uncertainty? We're going to go through four ways that we can, or four aspects of our lives that can help us face the uncertainty of our lives.

The first one, and I'm going to present these as questions, how can we experience hope in a world of uncertainty? How can you experience hope in a world of uncertainty? Hope is an emotion. How do you feel hope? Well, first of all, let's look at what hope really is, especially the way the Bible uses it. Hope is not a wishy-washy sort of, oh, I hope things get better.

I hope things turn out, and it's sort of a wishy-washy emotion with no basis. When you look at hope, even what the word means, interestingly enough, in the Greek, the word hope in the Bible is based on expectations. Now, remember one of the five points we covered was your expectations change. Your expectations change. And so we actually expect a certain amount of suffering in life. We expect to be persecuted for living God's way. We expect to miss out on what appears to be certain fun at the moment, but that's okay because of what God's doing. We see this greater picture, so our expectations change.

It's very interesting that studies of people who are truly happy show that most of them have goals and dreams, and they're going through life with purpose, but they don't expect things to turn out well all the time. They expect bad things to happen. So they're not always discouraged. They're not always disappointed.

They expect good and bad. But as a Christian, we are to expect something that God promises us. There's an interesting set of verses in Hebrews 6. Look at this, Hebrews 6.

How do you feel hope in a world that just is going more and more insane? And it's going to seem more insane to us. You know why? Because the more you see God's way, the more this world seems insane.

So as you grow in God's way, the more out of touch you will be with the world around you.

Sometimes it's not the world that's changed, it's you that have changed.

You see, well, it's crazy. It's always been crazy. It's just getting crazier. But as God brings sanity into your life, you notice how insane it really is.

Hebrews 6 verse 13. Hebrews chapter 6 and let's start in verse 13. For when God made a promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, saying, surely, blessing, I will bless you, and multiplying, I will multiply you.

And then verse 15. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.

You know, God made a promise to Abraham that he would give him a son. His greatest desire at that point in life was to have a son, to have an heir. You see, back in Genesis, that his heir was his head servant. Since he had no children, when he died, everything he had, he was a very wealthy man, went to his head slave. Because Abraham was the head of a tribe of people. And his servants, his slaves, were part of his family. So, he didn't have a son. All he had went to his head slave. Because they were a tribe. It's a concept that's very different than anything we know today, this tribal concept that they lived under. And he wanted a son. And he desired a son. And God said, I will give you a son. And then he said he had to patiently endure. It was also mentioned already this week that endurance implies it's not easy. You don't enjoy sitting down in it just, oh, this is the best steak I ever had. I really hate to ignore this. Right? Endurance means it's hard. It's difficult. He patiently endured because God did not give him a son that year, or for the next five years. Or for the next ten years. For the next two decades, time would buy. Time would buy. And Abraham felt bad. And Abraham felt discouraged. And Abraham at times sort of doubted, are you really going to do this? But in the end, he expected God to do it. And because he expected God to do it, he had just hope. You know, hope is a very positive thing. Oh, no, I know it's going to happen. I expect it to happen. Now, we're always sort of discouraged or disappointed with each other as human beings because none of us ever meet the hopes that we place on each other. We can't. But do you hope in what God has promised you? Look what Paul writes in verse 19. Now, remember, he's talking about how Abraham patiently endured until he received the promise. He did get it. But between the point where the promise was given and the point he received it, he patiently endured. Abraham never ran off and worshiped idols. He didn't turn his back on God. All he had is problems. He had his sins. They're recorded in the Bible. He had all kinds of difficulties. But why did he stay the course?

Verse 19. This hope. This hope that Abraham had. Abraham was able, even when the difficult times came, to be encouraged because I expected. God said he would do it. He's going to do it. I expect it. I don't know when. I don't know how. But I expect it. This hope, this emotion that Abraham had, this hope we have as an anchor of the soul. You know, when you're in the fog of battle, which we're all in a spiritual battle all the time, we're lost. We're uncertain. You'd need an anchor, something that you're attached to, something that doesn't move. And our hope, our expectation that these days really will be fulfilled. Our expectation that God is going to be involved in our lives as he said he would be involved in our lives. That hope becomes an anchor to our lives. If we have no hope. If we have no hope. We just run through life shooting at shadows, hoping not to die. I've never met someone that fought in the battle of Kiska, but it must be horrible to find out you've been shooting each other the whole time.

This hope we have as an anchor to the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the presence behind the veil. The reference here, of course, is to the tabernacle. The presence was the very presence of God. Where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. We just celebrated this on the day of the tote. Jesus Christ, our high priest, entered the presence of God for us. And he says that hope, that reality, we expect. No, people, we get discouraged sometimes. How can God continue to love me? I am not perfect. I fail. I struggle. But you look at what God has done for us, what he's already done for us. Why would he give up now? Why would God give up on us now, after everything he's done? We have to expect. We expect him to do what he said. And many times that's in spite of ourselves, in spite of our failures. Romans chapter 5. Romans chapter 5.

He was mentioned already today, and it's mentioned throughout the feast, about God's grace. God's grace is his favor. Everything we get from God is a favor. It's his grace. Does God do anything with us because we deserve it? Or is God obligated to us in any way? Think about that. Oh, yeah, God's obligated to me. Everything is an act of grace. You know, when people say that the law and grace are opposite, no they're not. The law is an act of grace. Did you make it up? Did you give it to yourself? God gave it to us. These holy days when people say, oh, why are you going under those obligations of the law? That's so harsh. This is an act of grace. They don't understand it, do they? When you say, but it is a wonderful experience, it's an act of grace from God, they say, well, no, that's an obligation you have to do. What's your problem? God gave us this. God gave us this. And here in Romans 5, verse 1, therefore, having been justified by faith, we're allowed to go into the presence of God. We expect, we trust, we believe in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, so we go into the presence of God. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into His grace, in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. You can expect when you pray to go before the very throne of God. His favor is offered to you. He says, come, child.

If we don't expect that, we'll never go, we'll never pray. So we have this expectation and that hope, that feeling, I can go to God, not because of who I am, because I'm a failure. I can go to God because of who He is, because He gives that to me. He asks me to come. He grants me this favor, and He grants all of us this favor. And not only that, because of this favor, what happens? This hope. We'll never have a tribulation. We'll never have a problem. No, He says, and not only that, but we also glory in tribulations. I have trouble with that statement. Oh, this is fun. This trouble, this trial, this difficulty, I'm supposed to glory in it. I'm supposed to say, hallelujah, I've got another trial today.

But notice how He finishes this sentence. This is a brilliant sentence here, where Paul puts together these thoughts. Not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance. And perseverance, character. The Greek there means approved character, godly character. You know, this thought, well, guy has good work ethic, he has good character. No, this is godly character. Godly character, and what does godly character produce? Hope. I expect God to do what He says. I expect the rest of us to fail much of the time. The muddle through it, to try real hard, to fall down. That's what we expect of ourselves. But we expect God to succeed. We expect Him. And because of that expectation of Him, we have hope. Because if our hope is in each other, if my hope is in myself, that's really weak hope.

But if I expect it from God, then I have hope. Verse 5, now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who was given to us. I'm going to give you an action point on each one of these. Action item. Like I said, this is just a continuation of the sermon from the beginning of the feast, and this will be the link to the sermon that I'll give at the end of the feast. Hope. Do an in-depth study. Now, write this down as an action item to do throughout the next year. Do an in-depth study of the biblical promises God makes to those who follow Him. There's a lot of promises in the Bible that God thinks. And when you do, ask God then to stir up the hope of those promises, to expect those promises. Do an in-depth study of the promises, biblical promises God makes to His people, and then ask God to stir up your hope that you can expect those promises. Second question. How can we face the uncertainty of the future with courage?

You know, in uncertainty, what we try to do is live in the moment, as I mentioned earlier. It's difficult for us to believe that there is something worth suffering for. In fact, there is something worth dying for. How many times have we read the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were brought before Nebuchadnezzar, and he said, you will fall down and worship the image. And he said, they said, no. No, we will not.

And he said that you will die. And what they said is so interesting. If God decides that we die, then we die. And if God decides to save us, then he saves us. But let it be known we did what he wanted us to do. If was an important word there. See, you and I know they were saved. They didn't know they were going to be saved.

They did not know the outcome. And so they said, if. It did not matter the outcome. That's courage. It did not matter the outcome. We will do what our God expects of us. See, we have these expectations of God. We have to learn them to zero in on these promises and have trust and faith in those promises. You know, God expects the things of us, too. And in a world of uncertainty, one of the most difficult thing is, it's courage. Courage.

How do we build courage? Now, sometimes, sometimes it takes more courage to live than die. Sometimes it takes more courage to face every day. To live the way God wants us to live. There's a very interesting little lesson about courage. In 1 Samuel 17. 1 Samuel 17.

Here we have the situation we know where David was about to go and face Goliath.

Every young boy wants to believe he would be like David. You know? That is to be great. I go out in front of all the armies of the Philistines and all the armies of the Israelites of me and my stone and my slang. I'm going to take on a giant.

It's one of the greatest stories of all time of great courage. Saul looks at this young, very young man and says, You can't do this. This guy's not only you. He's a trained warrior. He's killed men all his life. He will just eat you up.

What David says is very interesting here. Psalm 33.

He is the fight. The armies of the living God. Now this is an important point. David said, You know why I know God is with me? Because every day I stepped out on faith. Here's what you and I do. We wait till the great crisis comes and say, I have no courage. I have no faith because faith and courage are bound together. You have the courage to follow God because you trust Him. You have faith in Him. God will not send us that enormous trial without first teaching us courage day by day. The problem is we don't step out day by day. And so the big trial comes and we're not prepared.

We're not prepared. This is a very important lesson. Every day you and I face situations where it takes courage to follow God. Every day. Most of the time we ignore them. We don't even know they happen. Many times we don't do what we're supposed to do. This is the training ground. That day by day stepping out, doing what's right, following God and faith, having difficulties because the teacher doesn't want you to come to the feast, standing up to your boss and say, no, I won't do this because it's dishonest.

Doing what we have to do every day. Those are the little things.

And if we don't learn courage are the little things. Eventually we'll have the big trial, in which we will face without courage, without faith.

When it comes to learning faith or learning courage, here's your action item for this year. You say, well, I don't have a lot of courage. I don't know. I don't know. I go, you know, pray to God for courage. Oh, good. They don't put me in a bad situation. You know, what? How do I learn courage? Well, there's a number of things. I just want to bring up one point in Judges. Judges chapter 7.

Judges chapter 7. This is Gideon. And Gideon would have been asked by God to do something, and he said, wow, I just don't have the courage to do this. And Gideon, a couple of times, would face with the situations when God said, I don't have the courage to do this. So here's what's interesting. Judges 7 verse 9.

And it happened that same night when the Lord said to him, Arise, go down against the camp, for I will deliver to your hand. But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Pura, your servant, and you shall hear what they say. He reads through the rest of the story, and Gideon went to his servant and said, God wants me to sneak into the Midianite camp as a spy in the middle of the night. Will you go with me? And his servant said, sure. God's with us.

When you struggle with courage and faith, lack of courage, lack of faith, ask God to send you a Pura. Ask God to send you someone with courage and faith. In addition, God said, okay, I know, Gideon, this is a scary thing. There's only tens of thousands of these guys, and you're going to sneak in as a spy by yourself. Take him with you. Well, you know, if you realize that God's not with him, taking not one other guy doesn't mean anything. Right? It's only two against tens of thousands. It wasn't the issue. He needed some support. So God told him, get this guy, because this guy's not afraid of anything.

Take him with you.

So when you struggle with that lack of courage facing the uncertainty of life, and you're worried and you're upset, you've watched too much Fox News, you know...

Ask God to send somebody, a Pura, into your life. Someone to support you and help you, because we're all going to have to learn some courage. We're all going to have to learn that level of faith. The third question is, how can we experience a life of dreams and achieve those goals and not become worldly?

Young people ask this all the time. Okay, I'm not supposed to become worldly. But does that mean, can I have a career? Well, yes, you can have a career. Okay, how can I have a career and not become worldly? Is it okay for me to have a nice house and a nice car? Yes. Okay, how can I do that? Then, you're a servant that says, well, if you're too zeroed in on your car, if you're too zeroed in on your boat and your house and your clothes, you're worldly. Okay, is it wrong to have good clothes? No. Well, okay, if I have good clothes, am I worldly? How does this balance out? First of all, understand something. Your happiness is important to God. All of our happiness is important to God. Of course, what we think of happiness sometimes is actually very self-destructive. It's temporary. It's temporary fun. Fun is good, but life isn't fun. It's about happiness, about joy. And if you expect life to have rough times, then you understand. There's going to be sadness. There's going to be grief. There's going to be anger. There's going to be all kinds of things happen to you in the course of a lifetime. It's not happiness. You know, this high level of happiness every moment of every day. That's not what life is. So, okay, you have a proper expectation. But then we can get to the place where, okay, I expect now to have nothing.

So, I expect to just hide in a hole and wait for Jesus to come back. Well, that's not the way it is either. Let's look at James. James chapter 3.

It's all about perspective. Remember I said in that first sermon, it's a change of values. What we're actually going through today is the practical point of those concepts I talked about and how to apply these things in daily life.

James, because we're waiting for the Kingdom. It'd be nice if it's here, but it's not. So, we get this vision of it. Well, what does that mean when we go home? James chapter 3. Let's start in verse 13.

The more you obey God, the more you love God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul, and the more you love your neighbor, the more of the values of the Kingdom begin to be lived in you.

And so, you find happiness in helping others, not just getting for yourself. You actually find happiness in obeying God.

Like I said about the Holy Days of the Sabbath. Try to explain someone who does not love the Sabbath as a gift from God how much it means to you. Try to explain what happens Friday night when that sun goes down and you feel this great sense of relief. They don't get it? They don't understand it.

So, we learn that we must do good. In doing good, we become happy. But that's not what we think, as he says in verse 14. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast a lie against the truth. The problem is, we think, I want what everybody else gets.

We look at each other, we judge each other, and we think, well, that person got away with something, or this person has what I want, and we judge each other, we want what each other wants, this selfishness. Now, it was mentioned already during the feast. Selfishness. We're driven by this self-seeking. I want everything from me, and what we become as a God in our own minds, where everything in the universe is supposed to revolve around me. Right? But my wife teases me all the time. Hey, it's not about you. Oh, yeah. I guess, I wish everything was about me, I'm a firstborn. You know, it should be about me, but it's not.

He goes on, For this wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly sensual demonic. I find that very interesting. Well, we are driven by envy, and we are driven by selfishness. Selfishness is demonic. We are acting like the demons do. That's an incredible statement, isn't it?

Demons are filled with bitter envy, and they're filled with selfishness. It motivates everything they do.

He says, let's understand, James says, where that comes from. For where envy, verse 16 is very interesting, where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. If our life is filled with confusion and chaos and fog, one of the things we have to ask ourselves is that because I'm selfish, because the more selfish you are, the more confused you become. Verse 17, but the wisdom that is from above is pure, the peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now, the fruit of righteousness is sowed in peace by those who make peace. You know, verse 17 is an entire sermon in itself. Actually, verse 18 is an entire sermon in itself. It's an entire sermon just in those two verses.

As we go through and begin to realize that to have this purpose and have this peace, you and I have to give up this selfishness. This is the value system that we have to change. Expectations have to change, values have to change, motivations have to change.

Here's your action item for this. Take the book of Proverbs and the book of Ecclesiastes, and get your family or get some friends in the church, and get together on a regular basis and read. Just take turns reading from the book of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, just passages. Sure, passages may be one proverb. And then have each person say, you know how I apply that to my life? Many times we read through the Proverbs and we never think about how it applies to our lives. Wisdom from above. You want wisdom from above in a practical sense? Read Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. There's the practicality of how to live life.

The last question is, how can we interact with an unrighteous world while remaining righteous? How do we interact with an unrighteous world and remain righteous ourselves? And this is one of the great challenges that faces all of us. How do we live in the world and have become like the rope? They had that problem in Corinth. Paul actually has the right to them and says, no, don't create a commune. They were creating a commune and all sort of living together and withdrawing from the world. And he says, no, don't do that. I'm not telling you to do that. You know why we're not supposed to create a commune? Would it be easier if we just created a commune? Actually, it wouldn't. We all just live together.

Because it's not our lifelong mission. Remember one of the things we talked about a few days ago was our lifelong mission? You and I also have a mission that we have to live. That mission is in James chapter 5.

I'm sorry, Matthew chapter 5. Let's go to Matthew chapter 5, part of the Sermon on the Mount. Christ says, in verse 14, you, I'm talking to His disciples, and we are His disciples. That's been mentioned here also a couple of times. You are the light of the world, a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. In this dark world, each one of you is supposed to be a light shining for God. Our mission is to live for God.

That means you and I can't hide our light. We're not supposed to hide our light. We are supposed to be a light. Every place you go, at every restaurant you go, at your motel, with your family, with your workers when you go home, your coworkers where you work, with your neighbors. We are to be the light of the world. That's your mission, part of your mission.

Christ says, Jordan and they light a lamp and put it under a basket. Put on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine. We haven't always done that. Sometimes we try to hide our light through the church. Will you persecute it? Yes. Change your expectations.

Change your expectations from life is to be to live in a whole, being safe and warm and no problems.

Life is to be lived as a challenge given to us by God to go out and change our mission. It is to get up every morning and have a mission. And every one of you should have that mission. It is to be a light to the world. This is how you remain, how you live in an unrighteous world and stay righteous. Because you remember why you're there. If you don't remember why you're there, you'll just become like everybody else. If we remember why we're there, oh yes, I am a light. I represent God. The family name was talked about, right? We had a sermon on the family name.

How many times I've worried, I've prayed many times, God, please do not let me bring shame on your name or on the name of Jesus Christ.

I pray that a lot because I know it's easy for me to do it. Please do not let me bring shame on the family name.

Verse 16, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works. Why? So they'll say, wow, what a great guy you are. No, then glorify your Father in heaven.

Whatever we do in life, when it's all said and done, people should say, what was that guy's name that lived next door? I don't know what he was, but you know, he was a good Christian. That's the best thing anybody could ever say about you. I don't remember what that guy's name was, but boy, was that a good Christian. They glorified God. If we understand the grace that's been given to us, we want to glorify God. And we understand the favor that has been offered to us by God that we did not deserve. He gave it to us. Remember somebody already asked once during the feast, why did God call me from up here? He gave it to us.

So we want to glorify His name. Your action item, rededicate your life as a disciple of Jesus Christ. Remember, you are to be a light to the world every day. Think about that.

Look for those opportunities, not the proselyte, not the show off, oh look, I have a big light. Just to live it. Just to live it. So instead of hiding it.

You and I are engaged in a spiritual battle. Sometimes it feels like the battle of Kiska. We spend more time shooting each other than fighting the enemy. Does this. We've mentioned about how we're a dysfunctional family, the church. We spend more time shooting each other sometimes in the fog of uncertainty than we do fulfilling our lifelong mission.

Well, remember, when we struggle in this uncertain certainty, God will get us through.

The weekly Sabbath and the Exmanuel Holy Days, guided by God's Spirit, gives us vision. And in that vision, it ignites our expectations and gives us hope. And in that vision, it gives us the courage that God is with us. God is with us. With that vision, it fills our life with purpose and joy, even in the present world.

With that vision, it inspires us to live righteous lives as righteous lights in a very dark world.

Thank you.