How Can I See God’s Perspective?

Welcome to Sabbath Services, as you've heard. It was a beautiful piece of special music by Jamie Miller. It makes me want to go back and read that passage, so it's really a blessing to have special music, and we thank all the people who work to prepare those pieces for us.

Well, I've spoken to you about a few subjects here which have been more along the lines of apologetics, similar to how Mr. Chance went through this discussion and the sermonette. And I think it's really important that we make sure that we dig into these topics. Mr. Crow talked about the Holy Spirit last week, but today I did want to take a break from that and talk about a subject that I think is important given the events of the last week. I think we all understand that we saw history being made this past week. Really, I think the word is infamy, as the capital of the United States was, I think some say, desecrated, certainly attacked, and five people died as rioters attempted to disrupt the Electoral College certification of the 46th President of the United States, Joseph Biden. January 6th will long be remembered as a date that will live in infamy when escalating divisions within our country led to bloodshed and the occupation of this nation's really symbol of the rule of law, which is the lawmaking body that there are the Senate and the Congress. And yet, sadly, the same underlying divisions persist. And I believe those listening today have divergent views on what we saw. That's, I think, the nature of where we are today. And I dare say that many hold those viewpoints with a certain degree of devotion. And as we consider our viewpoints, whether it be about the events of the last week or whatever they might be, I'd like to ask each of us as we begin this sermon to consider what our creator's perspective is on the week's events, or on whatever closely held opinion we might have. That is, what does God think about these things, and how does he feel about what he saw on Wednesday? And as you think about this, I'd like to read a quote.

This is from a San Francisco author. It's been sort of quoted in different ways, but hopefully this is the most accurate rendering of the quote. It's by a San Francisco writer named Ann Lamott.

I think she brings an interesting insight into this as we think about what our creator thinks. She says, you can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. And I think it would be fair to say that you could say the same thing about creating God in your own image when God hates all the same things you do.

So let's consider God's perspective for a moment. And when I say at least physically, I'd like to share a photo. But before I do, I want to say that this photo was shared during a commencement address given on May 11, 1996 by Dr. Carl Sagan. Dr. Sagan is probably one of the most influential scientists of the second half of the 20th century, and he gave this commencement address at the Claremont Graduate School in Claremont, California. I remember it well because it was given for my graduating class. Graduation was on the Sabbath that year, and our daughter, Sophie, had just been born, so I chose not to attend. However, the speech became relatively famous as what was called the pale blue dot speech. And as I read excerpts from the speech, I'd like to show you this photo. Let's see if I can do this without a problem here.

Doesn't look like much here, but I'll explain it as we go through.

This photo was taken by Voyager 1 from a distance, and I'm not reading the speech yet, but I'm just describing the photo. It was taken from Voyager 1, which you might recall was a spacecraft that was launched in the late 70s to explore the solar system. And it was taken by Voyager 1 from a distance of 3.7 billion miles, and it's a photo of the Earth. And I'm going to put my little arrow on it. Hopefully you can see that now. It's this little white dot. If you kind of zoom in on it, which I looked I used to have a photo that I could zoom in on. You can just barely make out the contours of the continents if you zoom enough in, but I'll leave this one here for now. And I think to give that distance some perspective, this is Voyager 1, which turned its camera lens, kind of like you imagine your camera phone. It turned it towards the direction of Earth, and it took this picture from 3.7 billion miles away. And to give that some perspective, if you owned a spaceship, you know, you can't get those very easily, but if you owned one, and you took your spaceship and you got on the 880 freeway going south from Oakland, kind of like you're going to San Jose, and after a little while you got tired of the traffic and see you kind of took that up to about 85 miles an hour, so you get just a little bit of lift and kind of get above the traffic. And instead of heading to San Jose on the 880, you decided to go to the edge of the solar system, you know, kind of to Pluto. Instead of it taking an hour, an hour and a half to get to the San Jose at, you know, 80 miles an hour, depending on traffic, and maybe get there sooner, it would take you about 5,000 years to get to the edge of the solar system. So it's a long ways, and you know, Voyager 1 travels a little bit faster than 80 miles an hour, 85 miles an hour, it travels at about 35,000, 38,000 miles an hour, and so at that speed, it took about 13 years for the spacecraft to get out to this distance and take this picture. But even at that speed, which is obviously much greater than speeds we could go in our cars, even at 38,000 miles an hour, it will still take Voyager 1. It's not actually headed to the nearest star, but if it was going to the nearest star, it would take Voyager 1, you know, give or take 70,000 years to get to the nearest star. So really, this photo is a fairly close picture of Earth in that sense, if we think of it in a cosmic sense. And so if you want to imagine God looking on the Earth, you can kind of imagine this perspective, this little tiny blue dot. And this photo was taken on February 14, 1990. If you were alive on February 14, 1990, and you have some memory, you can remember where you were, what you were doing on February 14, 1990, because this is your picture. This is a picture of you and of me.

Maurice and I had just been married a few months, and we were living in Southern California. And this is a picture of me. And it's a picture of you if you were alive at that time.

This is God looking really from that perspective. So I'd like to quote from the speech by Dr. Sagan, given on that day in May 1996. His speech was entitled, Reflections on a Mote of Dust.

He says, we've succeeded in taking that picture, and if you look at it, you see a dot.

That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being, whoever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines.

Every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. It's been said that astronomy is humbling, and I might add a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.

Now that's the perspective of an atheist, quite an outspoken atheist, and probably one of the, as I said, one of the greatest scientists of the second half of the 20th century. Even the greatest of our generation is humbled by this perspective. You know, when I think about a photo like that, I just optically, kind of sort of God's perspective of this tiny place that we live in. I'm reminded of Psalm 8 in verse 3 and 4, where David writes, when I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, and the stars which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him? What is man that you are mindful of him? What right do we have to our conceits and to our vanities? What do you or what do we think of our opinion? And is God really impressed with our little ideas apart from him? Is he really impressed with our individual wisdom and experience? From my SBS today, I'd like to ask everyone listening to step back from whatever opinions you have and ask if we have made God into our own image.

Now, I don't think anyone in God's church desires to knowingly hurt his or her neighbor. We don't desire through indifference or direct speech to say things that would be hurtful. That's not God's way, and I don't think anyone here would overtly want to do that or do that. If they did, perhaps it was in a moment of anger or whatever, and hopefully we would apologize. But sadly, our human nature is such that we often build, as we're often blind, we build into these things, we're often blind to our own biases and privileges, opportunities that we have. We didn't choose the time and place of our birth, and we can't walk in another person's shoes no matter how hard we try.

So we will naturally have different points of view. The key is to understand that our point of view cannot be, by necessity, God's point of view, because God is so much greater and beyond what we are. We can only seek to understand God's perspective through the tools he's provided, and then align ourselves to that view, and really take a very hard look at what our views are, and then even then realize that we see through a glass darkly, and that we should tread lightly in our opinions. I don't think it's an accident that the two greatest commandments, as described by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, are to love God and to love our neighbor. As Jesus said, on these two great commandments rests the whole law and the prophets. And I remember years ago the chairman of the Council of Elders of the United Church of God said that as a church and as God's people, we have preached diligently the observation of the first four commandments to love God, but we have struggled to observe the second six commandments to love our neighbor. And so loving our neighbor can very likely mean that we don't conclude that what we think, or what we might look down on, or who we might disparage, or have negative views on, in our casual conversations could be God's views. Do we feel empowered to share our opinions or take sides in political arguments or align ourselves with causes because we feel so confident in our point of view, even to the point that we feel God is on our side? The title of today's message is How Can I See God's Perspective? And we're going to look at the example of Job, a man who lived thousands of years ago, yet whose lessons, as recorded in the book of Job, I think are just as fresh and current today as ever. And then we're going to examine the story of how ancient Israel sought for themselves a king in their own image and rejected God and how he and how we may be at risk of doing the same thing. And when we're done today, I hope that we will be equipped to do three things. To re-examine our strong opinions in the light of God's Word, to spend time in prayer with God in our conversation asking him to reveal our blind spots, and three, that we would realize that we don't have all knowledge. We are not immune to the powerful distortions of reality that are at work in the world today. And therefore, in all humility, give time and respect to those who might have alternative points of view. We might actually learn something. So let's start by turning to the book of Job, chapter 29. The book of Job, chapter 29 and verse 1. Job chapter 29 and verse 1.

This section of Job in my Bible is called Job's Summary Defense. This represents Job's final viewpoints on what his three friends have told him and his view of the world and of his creator. Let's read this together. Job further continued his discourse. You might really call it a monologue, as you see here. He speaks for chapters upon chapters throughout the book.

Verse 2, O that I were, as in months, past, as in the days when God watched over me.

When his lamp shone upon my head, and when his light, and when by his light I walked through darkness, just as I was in the days of my prime, when the friendly counsel of God was over my tent.

See, Job is basically lamenting the good old days, the good old days of his life, and he spends the rest of the chapter in a kind of nostalgic daydream. Nostalgia, you'll remember, is a word that means a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place of happy personal memories. It's something that people do as they get older.

And in this monologue for us, recorded for us, Job appears to think that God has somehow changed. That things were good at some point, and now they're bad because God has withdrawn his favor. We see in verse 5, when the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were around me, when my steps were bathed with cream, and the rock poured out rivers of oil for me. Wow! What poetic language! Right? I mean, this is, oh, the time when God was with me. But take note, as God is going to rebuke Job in chapter 38 for this kind of thinking, indeed, when we start down the road of nostalgia and self-pity, we reimagine and warp reality to fit our own narrative. We bend reality and who God is to fit our thinking. And Job is creating an image of God and an image of himself. Notice in verse 21, men listened to me and waited and kept silence for my counsel. In my words, they did not speak again, and my speech settled on them as do.

In modern times, Job is saying, I peaked. Those were the good days. But it's a little, there's a little twinge of a little self-righteousness there if you pick up on that. And now in Job 30, verse 1, he says, but now they mock at me, men younger than I, whose fathers I disdained to put with the dogs of my flock. Ouch! There is some bitterness here and upset that these people who mock him, even their fathers, of course, in that culture, and even today, the father would have more respect than the son. Even the fathers were not worthy to be dogs among his field. And he goes on for 19 more verses about this. And when things become overwhelming for us, our attitude towards God can also change. Notice verse 20, chapter 30, verse 20. I cry out to you, you as capitalized, meaning God, but you do not answer me. I stand up, and you regard me. But you have become cruel to me with the strength of your hand you oppose me.

Really? Is God cruel? Does God oppose his servants? Or has Job created an image of God based on his personal circumstances, based on his personal trials, or the difficulties of his country, or his circumstance? And after many verses, then Job moves to reassure himself of his own righteousness, despite this oppression from God. Look at Job 31, verse 1. I have made a covenant with my eyes. Why then should I look upon a young woman? Yes, Job is a faithful man, faithful to his wife. He's not like other men around him. Notice verse 5. If I walked with falsehood, or if my foot has hastened to deceit, let me be weighed in a just balance, that God may know my integrity. Oh, yes, he's not a liar. His character is solid. Notice verse 16 to 18. If I have kept the poor from their desire, or caused the eyes of the widow to fail, or eaten my morsel by myself, so that the fatherless may not eat of it. But from my youth I reared him as a father, and from my mother's womb I guided the widow. If I had seen anyone perish for lack of clothing, or any man poor without covering, if his heart was not blessed, has not blessed me if he has not warmed with the fleece of my sheep. Oh, yeah, Job took care of the poor and the needy. He's a good person. And this justification continues for the entire chapter of verse 31. It's actually a very interesting read, after which, at the end of chapter 31, he concludes his three-chapter monologue.

I hope we're beginning to get a picture of Job, a man who had an image of himself of being a good person, and an image of God opposing him despite his goodness. He had imagined God based on his own life experience and his own view of himself. And in chapters 32 to 37, we see Job confronted by Elihu for this view. Now, we won't read those passages as I want to concentrate on God's response to Job's viewpoints, beginning in chapter 38. Turn over a few pages to chapter 38, and verse 1 to 4. Let's read Job 38, verse 1 to 4, and let's see how God feels about what Job said about himself and about God. Chapter 38, verse 1. Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

Now prepare yourself like a man. I will question you, and you shall answer me.

Oh boy! There is some trouble here. Job has crossed a line. He has misunderstood, and he has created God an image that is not God. And God is going to set the record straight. Verse 4, Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding.

Who determined its measurements? Surely you know. Where were you, Job, God says? Job, can you imagine that you are on a mote of dust? That you are a mote of dust, floating on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam? I mean, even for us to imagine this tiny speck is hard to believe as we look out our windows. How patient was God with Job, and how patient he is with us when we dare to say and imagine things that are just our own imaginations? Let's continue. To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? The creative genius of God, the creative power of God, the unimaginable size and scope of our Creator. We are really, to say we're ants, is really just hardly even a metaphor to imagine that even in this, our wildest imagination of flying at 38,000 miles an hour, it would take us 70,000 years to get to the nearest star, which is just one star among trillions and trillions. And so for two chapters, God chides Job on his arrogance and his insignificance.

And you can read through it. It's, you can imagine if you were being spoken to by your Creator in this way. And then in chapter 40, in verse 8, God says something that should stop us dead in our tracts, as I'm sure it did Job at the time. Look at chapter 40 in verse 8. Would you indeed annul my judgment? Would you condemn me that you may be justified? See, this is what Job was doing in that model. We just read a portion of it. He was annulling God's judgments. He was condemning God so that Job himself would be justified. Job was heading down the path of annulling and canceling out the significance of God's judgments because Job had his own views of greater importance. He was so sure, that his perception of events was accurate, so sure that God obviously had the same opinions he did. It was Job's views first, and then through Job's views was the lens through which he saw God, when it should have been the other way around. Job should have been seeking to view the world through God's eyes so that Job's life could be evaluated for the way it really was. Of course, this is the great lesson of the book of Job, which was recorded for us. Job was not a degenerate. Job was a righteous man, and that's why I think this story is all the more powerful, because I think I'm speaking to people who are dedicated their lives to following God's way. People who want to do the right thing, people who have sacrificed for this way of life. And that's why I think this book is so much more powerful, because I think he's speaking to me.

I think he's speaking to you. I think he's speaking to those he calls, and he says, even though this might be the way it is, there are things, Job, you still have to learn. This is the lesson of the book of Job, and I think he's saying the same thing to God's people today. There are still things, although you would do all these things, although you have shown yourself righteous, there are still things that you must learn. You see, we live in an age of arrogance, at a scale unprecedented in human history. We have YouTube influencers and people on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter with followers in the millions. You know, the size and scope, you know, we talked years ago about the two witnesses, and Mr. Chance made reference to sort of the technology we have today that gives us a sense of being in the end times. You know, when we talked about the two witnesses decades ago, I don't think people could have imagined that you could literally speak to the whole world, and yet now we take that for granted. You know, when these influencers, when these great celebrities of our day get on social media, they speak to a worldwide audience, and the world ebbs and flows based upon these words. The events that took place last week, yes, we are United States of 300 plus million people in a world with seven billion, but the whole world was watching, because the United States is the preeminent economic, political, and cultural power in the world today, and the whole world was watching, and that's how it is. And when people have that kind of power and influence, the arrogance is just beyond what we can imagine, and it flows down, all the way down. You see, I think we take to ourselves privilege and power that prior generations would not have dared to pretend they deserved. We speak as if we are experts on theology or politics or medicine or family dynamics because we watch YouTube videos or have at our fingertips news feeds catered to our particular psychographics. Psychographics, that is our particular profiles, which are based on our age and race and gender and religious and political preferences, our particular predictable opinions based on what our internet profiles and interests have. And if you have an account, you know this, and it's been well documented. There's very interesting studies around how whatever we click on or whatever our interests are, and frankly, even if you're really not active, we're targeted. We are targeted by advertisers. We are targeted by people who want to influence us. As I've said before in a sermon, our attention, our, you know, me, you, individually, our attention is the most valuable commodity in the world today because people want to influence us. And we shouldn't be surprised because that's what Satan was, isn't it? That's the great conspiracy that Satan is looking to destroy this world, and he's looking to most of all destroy God's people because he hates what God is doing. And we claim those potentially of different opinions are ill-informed, or we put them in a box, or we label them. And you know, that is no fun. That is no fun to be labeled. I don't know if you've ever been labeled. I've been labeled. It's no fun to be labeled. Nobody wants to be put in a box, and we shouldn't be putting people in boxes or labeling people either, but it is our age. Oh, they're this way or they're that way. You know, everybody wants to put a label on everybody else.

This is the age we live in, but you know what? God is unchanged. He was all-knowing before Job was born, and long after Job is dead, and I don't think he's particularly impressed with what we think or what we can learn from a Google search engine or Google search results. Like Job, we need to take to heart that God laid the foundations of the earth and his plans will prevail. This is what we saw, as Mr. Meese mentioned, from Mr. Kubik's personal. What I have observed is that sometimes we as God's people will of course acknowledge this. I doubt there's a few people who are like, yeah, no, I disagree with this. I think I'm saying things hopefully that are obvious. We know God is in charge. We know that he is leading things down a path that is of his choosing.

We acknowledge this, but then the degree of conviction—I think that's where the problem comes—the degree of conviction with which we say things that we have no knowledge of, or we think we have some knowledge of, that are unprovable, or the degree of disparaging comments we might make about certain groups of people in this world because of their divergent views. It illustrates and it contradicts what we might believe. Why is that so unusual? We are complicated, confusing people as human beings. We say we can't hold two opinions at one time, but in actual fact we may say one thing and act another way. That happens all the time. I do it, you do it, we all do it. But God doesn't do that. God is unified. What he is and what he says, it's one thing and it's all unified and cohesive and it makes sense. That's what we're seeking to align to—God's perspective. Let's turn to a key scripture in Isaiah 55 verse 8. We've quoted it before, but I think it just illustrates this so powerfully. You think about Isaiah 55 verse 8.

Isaiah, as a prophet, recorded so many things of what God told him. Isaiah just must have been profoundly influenced as he was writing these things down. He says in Isaiah 55 verse 8, from my thoughts, my capital M, God, God's thoughts are not your thoughts nor are your ways my ways says the Lord. See, this is this making God into your own image. This is not a unique 21st century phenomenon. This is a phenomenon that we as human beings do this. Verse 9, for as the heavens are higher than the earth—and I think I just went through the 3.7 billion mile example. So when you think about the heavens being higher than the earth, think in those terms, how long would it take you in a little spaceship going 85 miles an hour to get to the edge of the solar system? Well, about 5,000 years. How long would it take to the nearest star, even if you could travel 38,000 miles an hour? Well, 70,000 years. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

And so this is our dilemma. Understanding how to align with God's plans. See, that must be our lifelong goal. That goal is about learning to love Him, to love God, and to love our neighbor, because God created our neighbor just like He created us. Aligning ourselves with God requires of us that in all humility, we do not decide or predict for God how and what group of villains will bring about God's plans. Satan is the devil's the villain. God's word is cleared, not other groups of people who have diverging views from our own.

Satan and his very subtle dissemination of falsehood, half-truths, divisions, and hatred is not only affecting one segment of the population who happens to believe differently from us.

This is what we think. Oh, he's just deceiving all those people out there.

Now, it very much can affect all of us, including we in the church as well, because the Bible is clear. All have sinned. All have come short, and our thoughts are not his thoughts. Again, Isaiah 55, you might say, oh yeah, that's right, all those other people. Yeah, their thoughts aren't God's thoughts. No, it's my thoughts.

God's perspective. This is what we're trying to align to, and this is what Job was chastised because he failed to understand that he had created God in his own image. He had created an image of God, which was not who God was, and God had to set him straight. He had to set the record straight. Let me turn down to my second point, a subject that I've discussed before, but I think we'll inform our thinking on this, and that is the lesson from the story of when Israel wanted a king and decided to reject God as their king. Let's turn to 1 Samuel 8 in verse 1. 1 Samuel 8 in verse 1 talks about how Samuel had become old, and he had made his sons judges over Israel, and his sons were problematic characters, and they didn't do what they were supposed to do. They took bribes, and they were corrupt politicians, basically.

And so in verse 4 we read, Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel in Rama, and said to him, Look, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make for us a king to judge us like all the nations. You know what's interesting about this is that the elders of Israel were justified in the sense that they had a legitimate concern about the integrity of their leaders. Their leaders were corrupt. Their leaders were ungodly, and they had a serious concern, and they wanted to have appropriate leadership over the nation. And yet, despite that legitimate concern, they took it one step further. Instead of going to Samuel and saying, Samuel, your sons are perverting justice, what would God have us do in this situation?

What does God want from us as His people in this situation? No. They took that legitimate concern, and they created their own solution. They said, Give us a king. But the thing displeased, Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. So Samuel prayed to the Lord.

Samuel was like, Well, yeah, you know, my sons are, I guess I haven't done a good job, and I'm not overseeing that. But this thing just bothered him. Why go one step further? Because we've never had a king. God has worked through the prophets. God has had them be the representatives of His godly government. In verse 7, And the Lord said to Samuel, Heed the voice of the people, and all they say to you, For they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.

Yeah. And so God allowed Israel to have a king. But Samuel, but in that process, God wanted to warn the people. And so He told Samuel to warn them of how a king would behave.

And so in verses 10 to 18, after some discourse, we see the answer. You know, you can read that, you know, that the king says, verse 13, He's going to take your daughters to be perfumers. Doesn't sound very good. Cooks and bakers. And he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and have given to his servants. He describes what we understand about how society operates when people are put over other people, and the inequities that inevitably result when too much power is accumulated into the hands of individuals.

And after this discourse, we see the answers from the leaders. These are the same leaders. Because remember, these are the elders of Israel who went to Samuel with this request. And this is what they said. Nonetheless, the people, the elders and, you know, perhaps there were others around who said, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel.

And they said, no, but we will have a king over us. We'll have a king over us. That we also may be like all the nations. See, it's interesting. They wanted to be like the other nations. They weren't looking to God for solutions. They weren't looking to godly government. They weren't looking to see what God thought about this. Then we're looking around them to see what solutions other nations were using for these issues. That we may be like all the other nations.

And that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles. What a slap in the face to God. Our king is going to fight the battles. Don't worry, we got this one. And of the judgments, yeah, our king will judge us. And our king will go before us. See, this is what people want. People want to fight the battles. People want their leaders to solve their problems.

But often the king is not going to solve their problems. There's nothing in this discourse in verse 10 to verse 18. There's nothing about the problem-solving capabilities of the king. There's nothing about intelligence. There's nothing about that. It's just abuse. But even more so, I'll tell you my problems, and I think your problems, are not going to be solved at the national level by a king.

My problems are going to be solved at the individual level in my prayer closet, in where I pray, with the word of God before me. They're not going to be solved by executive orders or repeal of laws. There is great division in our country over the role of government, and sadly, many views about the legitimacy of this election. But the entire premise of the great leader to solve our problem is faulty. That's the message of 1 Samuel 8.

So whoever is in sort of positions of power, God is in charge. This is the message of 1 Samuel 8. Fine, you can have a king. You know, God did not advocate from being the God of Israel when God allowed them to have a king. God was still the God of Israel. He was still the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He still directed the paths of Israel. He just allowed them to, okay, fine, have your king.

You're going to regret it. God will fight and defend his people according to his plan. When God opens the door, it's for us to walk through. When he closes the door, it's for us to ask what's next. And I know that if we place ourselves in God's hands, we will not be disappointed, no matter what happens.

Our champion, even if our champion doesn't win or things happen that we disagree with, because frankly, getting wrapped up in any of these things is just going to lead to disillusionment. This is God's perspective. God's in charge. God is judging. God will go before us. And this is the message of 1 Samuel 8.

Now, there's, I think, a New Testament equivalent to 1 Samuel 8 in Hebrews 12, verse 1 and 2. Let's turn over to Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12, verse 1 and 2 follows the faith chapter, and we know it well, where we see all of these individuals of faith, men and women, who put their faith and trust in their Creator, regardless of their circumstances, Moses in Egypt, or Abraham in Canaan, or Samson with the Philistines, whatever it might be, they put their faith in God.

Hebrews 12. And again, these characters were flawed individuals, just like us.

Hebrews 12, verse 1, therefore we also, just like those people, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

It doesn't end there, because running that race on our own is just making God into our own image. It says, verse 2, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Jesus Christ is the finisher of our faith. He's going to carry us across the finish line.

Let me add something important here. Jesus Christ is the founder and head of His Church, and He's given us His Church to be a part of, the Ecclesia, the assembly to be part of it. It's a unique, powerful word that was used to describe who we are.

He's given us His Church, and He's given His Church authority to make decisions, administrative matters, and questions of administration and doctrine.

Looking unto Jesus, the author and finishing of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

This is an important image, because what that means is that Jesus Christ is the favored one. He was God, He is God. He is with God there, and God's throne, looking with that same perspective of this pale blue dot, this mode of dust floating in a sunbeam, and us as little just specks of dust, and yet giving us care and concern, and not a distant God, but a God who can zoom in and be there and be with us.

We are part of this ecclesia, and this ecclesia is not perfect, and it makes mistakes, and hopefully it learns from those mistakes. But we are to look to Jesus as the finisher of our faith. Christ has founded His church to nurture and gather together those who would follow Him. We're not independent Christians. It's a non-sequitur, independent Christian. His church was given authority which we need to look, because this is where we live. This is where we operate. This is the community that we're in.

As I said, we live in an age where we take to ourselves, whether knowingly or unknowingly, privilege and power, including over questions of doctrine and administration that I believe has been duly appointed to the church. That's a subject for another sermon in itself, but I bring it out here because the mindset of this world, which includes thinking we know better or are better informed of taking too much authority into ourselves, has affected, I think, us in the church and how we view church authority and the matter of doctrine and the administration of doctrine. There's a very interesting verse I think that fits in here. Matthew 28, I'd like you to turn there with me. Matthew 28 and I'd like you to look at verse 16.

When we turn to Matthew 28 at the end of Matthew 28, we invariably go to verse 18.

But I want us to look really at the beginning of the thought, because the beginning of the thought is in verse 16, but we always break into the middle of the thought. Look at Matthew 28 verse 16. It's such an interesting beginning to this most amazing commission to the church, which is spelled out just a few words later.

Matthew 28 verse 16, if you turn there with me. Matthew 28 verse 16, it says, Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them.

And when they saw him, now again, you can almost imagine they saw him from afar off. You can kind of get this picture. They saw him. They worshiped him. Now, I think that would be our approach too, if we've been there. But some doubted. Did you catch this? Some doubted. Wait! What? Some doubted who? The eleven? They doubted in what? Well, I think the context here is that there was doubt in Jesus's resurrection, power, and his plan. If you look at the commentaries in verse 17, you'll see that scholars write volumes about this phrase, some doubted. Because it's very difficult to argue that the some here was referring to people other than the eleven apostles.

And that's what you want to go to. Well, it's not the eleven. I mean, you know, the eleven. I mean, this is these are the people, right, who were with Jesus three and a half years, and they saw amazing things. This must be referring to other people.

But it's hard to argue that it's not referring to one of the eleven apostles, one of the eleven disciples. And if we think about it, why should we be surprised? This is our natural human state apart from God. They doubted, which is why I think verse 18 is so important, and is the pivot verse in this entire section. Then Jesus came and spoke to them. Again, we think this is the eleven, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Just pause and think about that for a moment. This is the end result of the temptation of Jesus Christ in Matthew 4, when Satan told Jesus that if Jesus would just bow down and worship Satan, that the earth would be given to him. Jesus was triumphant over evil, and he had received all authority, and he is the head of his church. They didn't need to doubt. He had all authority given to him. We, as his followers, have nothing to fear. Nothing. Nothing to fear. Nothing to doubt. No civil unrest. No national elections. No lockdowns. No viruses. No loss of liberty. Nothing. Nothing can stand before the power of Jesus, and we, as his followers, are plugged into that power, if we are.

We do our part clearly. We're not like Jesus. We're not going to throw ourself down from the temple, because we think, Well, God said that I wouldn't even let me drive 100 miles an hour through stoplights, or I'll go ahead and expose myself to all sorts of disease and problems. No, we're, we follow Jesus's example. We understand that what that means to be plugged into his power, nothing to fear. And so there is no reason to doubt. Jesus was reassuring his disciples, and when we become discouraged by what we see happening around us, it's time to step back and ask if we are doubting that Jesus has authority over events on this earth and within his church. That's right. You know, when Job was confronted with God's majesty, and I think this is an interesting part, let's go back, and in conclusion, let's go back and wrap this up. When Job was confronted with the majesty of God's perspective, what did he do? Go over in Job 42. Job 42, verse 1 to 3. And I think we wrap this up and we think about how we should proceed, how we should think about our opinions and our views. This is what Job says, Job 42, 1 to 3. Then Job answered the Lord and said, I know that you can do everything, and that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you.

You asked, Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore, I have uttered what I do not understand. See, if we could begin to understand that sometimes we say things and we don't understand the meaning and impact and significance or lack of significance of what we're saying, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Job concluded with the thought that what he had said, he did not understand. Could we imagine that the words that come out of our mouth or the words which we type on our phones or computers might be words we don't understand? And secondly, as we think about wrapping this all up, I think we should consider the words of Micah 6. I ask you to turn there in conclusion.

Micah 6 and verse 8, very famous scripture. Because I think it gets back to this point of understanding that we must align ourselves to God's perspective. Matthew 6, sorry, Micah 6, in verse 8, He has shown you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you? What does He require of me and require of you?

To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

God's perspective is that we walk humbly with Him. Moses was meek and stuttered, and yet God used him to defeat the greatest power on the face of the earth in his day. Humility is not weakness, and God's power is not mocked for those who trust in Him for deliverance.