Seeing God in All Life's Circumstances

You look back on it. Actually, it inspires me to look back and watch that video and remember exactly what the blessings were that were mentioned on that day. We're all here at church because we believe in God. Somewhere in our life's journey, we looked around and we examined this creation that's around us. And it showed us that there is a higher power. Then over time, we began to more fully understand what the Bible said. We began to then look at those directions and choose to embrace the promises of God. And that's what makes this weekly Sabbath so beautiful. It's a chance for us all to come together and to reflect. To reflect on what God has done for us, what he wants from us, and what he promises to us. And so that's what you could look at this day as a perspective day. It's a day that helps us refocus. But with all of that, with all of the rejuvenation, the inspiration that this day provides, I can guarantee you that around the world today, there are several, if not many, in the churches of God who are facing serious life challenges that are testing their faith. And possibly even making it waver. And maybe that's even happening in our small flock here between Canton and Bloomington. And if you're not currently being tested, well, what about the next hard and seemingly insurmountable time in your life or in my life? Maybe that'll come some days from now, some weeks from now, within a month. It's coming. We all face tests. And as humans going through our lifelong growth process, we all face struggles that in the moment, in the moment we're experiencing them, they can seem greater than our faith in God to help us through them. And those insurmountable times in life are when it's hardest to see God in the face of all of our fears. Today we're going to reflect on our fears. And human fear, if you think about it, it's an emotion that God created in us. It was not there by accident. And it protects us from the threats we face in our surroundings, and therefore provides value. And all of us like to look at life and we like to say, eh, I'm a little bit different. But I'm sorry, when it comes to fears, we're not that different. What I'm going to share with you right now is a list that was put together by Katie Madrano. And it's a list of the 10 strongest human fears. And as you look at that list, I'm sure you can recognize things that you have experienced in your life. Is that rain from me, or where's that rain coming from? Okay. But as you look at this, it's hard for us to have faith in God when we feel, what, number one, failure. That despite our best efforts, nothing seems to go as we wish it would. That's a fear that can cause a feeling that we may not want to try anymore, to feel we're beaten down. We're beaten down because of failure. Or death. Where we have that helplessness that we feel when we either face our own death or that of a loved one. And so today I want us to spend time focusing on all 10 of these. And I'd like you, therefore, to take a moment and reflect on whatever you're currently facing, or what you face most often. Because I would argue Satan tackles us on some of these way more than others. So I'll give you like 10 seconds. I want you to think about that list.

I can certainly see the three that I tend to struggle with the most currently. Please turn to Psalms 139, verses 2 through 4. Psalms 139, verses 2 through 4. See, it's hard for us to have faith in God when we're feeling we've been given more than we can handle. It's that weight on the shoulder that starts pushing you down. And in Psalms 139, David definitely felt that. David emoted all the time in his writings. But he shared the perspective that helps him and the perspective that I would argue we should have. Psalms 139, verse 2 says, You know when I sit down or stand up, you know my thoughts even when I'm far away.

You see me when I travel and when I rest at home, you know everything I do. You know what I'm going to say even before I say it, Lord. So it's a fascinating Psalm. It says that God has perfect understanding of human beings. It's because he's our creator. And this is showing that God isn't only aware of our physical composition. He's also intimately aware of our thoughts and as a result of our fears. And so this and other verses are fascinating because they say that God knows our every thought. How many thoughts are we talking about? I'm just going to come back to that question.

But think about that one. The key for us to realize is that God knows all of our doubts, all of our fears. My theme for this message asks, how big is your God? How big is your God?

And is God the God of all your circumstances? And as we look at fear, that word all comes in. Because sure, we can all say, I believe in God when things are rosy, when I'm getting what I want, when I want, how I want. Life doesn't work that way. Is God the God of all our circumstances? A fascinating book in the Bible is the book of Job. And Job was described as blameless, as upright.

Now, he wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but God did describe him as without fault. And despite however high God thought of Job, he was allowed to be tested in a way that no person would ever wish to face.

And he faced all 10 of those top human fears at the same time. If you think about that list, he faced them all at the same time. And that would break any of us. It would break me. So while Job was facing all of these fears, he started raising questions to God. And one thing that's always fascinated me about that scenario is that, is how, is the way God responded to Job. God never directly answered any of Job's questions. He could have, very effectively. He did, but in a different way.

Instead of answering Job's very human, very selfish questions about all of his terrible challenges and fears he was facing, God pointed him to the power of God seen through his creation. He answered by giving perspective. Sabbath, perspective day. He answered by giving perspective.

And so I'd like us to use a similar approach that God used with Job and consider all 10 of the top 10 human fears. But give perspective. Today may feel like a different sermon than what you're used to, and that's intentional. And the way I looked at the top 10 fears is I grouped them into three groups. So the first group have in common, they relate to the sufferings we face. And so let's think about those. First, let's start with number eight on the list, which is pain. Pain is the way our brain tells us that there's something wrong, either with a part of our body, with an action we're involved in, but we associate pain with bad things, right?

Whether it's health, illness, whatever. And most of us are afraid or intolerant of it. We tried to stay away from it. And you could tell how much people worry about it by going to a grocery store or pharmacy and go down that medication aisle. And look at how many amounts of medications are there targeted toward any kind of pain relief you can want. And then it gets into the comedy of the whole thing, where you look and you say, so do I want it fast acting or long-lasting?

I kind of want both. What's more important? Am I so bad that I need it to be high strength or do I need maximum strength? I mean, it's kind of overwhelming with all the different options. You're like, I don't know. Just what's the best? It's all about this concept of pain. And we fear it. We fear chronic pain. We fear limitations in what we're being able to do versus what we want to do. And so we do everything we can to stay away from causes of what gives us pain.

Number six on the list is misery. Misery is the inability to cover our own basic personal needs.

No one likes seeing or feeling human misery. And if you look at what happens around the world, you look at the worst that comes out about humans, and it's usually caused in one way or another by misery. Now, it's that lowest point in human needs that we fear so much. And a lot of times what we see it displayed as is most extreme cases of poverty.

It's interesting if you think that is the emotion that the media targets a lot by telling us that we need all these things. We really don't. But I need to go and have this and do this and feel this.

The media is playing with the concept of misery. The reality, I think, of misery was expressed in a movie 2006 was put out called The Last King of Scotland. And Dr. Nicholas Garrigan tells Uganda dictator Idi Amin that money is no substitute for anything, to which Idi Amin responded, you say that because you have never been poor.

Misery. So, okay, so how can creation around us help us when we face suffering like pain or misery? God gives us perspective to properly position what happens in our personal life. Not to remove it, but to position it. According to biologist Edward Wilson, there may be as many as 1.6 million species of fungi in the world. There are approximately 10,000 different types of species of ants, 10,000 different species of birds, 3,000 species of flowering plants, and between 4 to 5,000 species of mammals. But all of that pales in insignificance when you start to examine the heavens. You know the verse. David said, what is God that we are mindful of Him?

What is God that we are mindful of Him? And I think it's important while we read things like that to realize that David didn't have a clue about what we know today as modern science. He didn't know anything about light years and distance. He just saw all these stars out there. Granted, he could see the Milky Way better than we could because he didn't have all the light and pollution. But he didn't know a lot of the factors behind it. Yet when he pondered the heavens, he was overwhelmed by the glory of God.

And it put his sufferings in the moment into a bigger perspective. Please turn to Psalm 147, verse 4. Psalm 147, verse 4. For years, scientists estimated there were between 100 and 200 billion galaxies. You may remember that in some of Mr. Armstrong's writings.

Then came the Hubble telescope. It revealed that there were 10 times more galaxies than we thought. And if you start looking at NASA writing around the beginning of 2016, they consistently say we should probably refer to 2 trillion galaxies in this world. It's an amazing amount. Psalm 147, verse 4. He counts the numbers of the stars. He calls them all. All 2 trillion galaxies worth of stars by name. Ron mentioned this a couple weeks ago. But wait! I forgot to tell something to you. Because what we're learning now is that 2 trillion galaxies? That's actually way off.

Let me read to you a little bit. I'll put some of the high points on the screen. It's from an article that says we might even be a thousand times low with the number of galaxies out there. Here's a quote from an article in the Guardian.com. It said, even operating at a quarter of its eventual capacity, South Africa's Meerkat radio telescope showed off its phenomenal power on Saturday, July 2016, revealing 1,300 galaxies in a tiny space of the universe where only 70 were known.

Okay, so think that one through. If it's 200 times low at about a quarter of its eventual capacity, are we potentially 800 to a thousand times low in our estimate of the amount of galaxies in the universe? But let's just stay conservative. For this message, let's stick with a conservatively low estimate of two trillion galaxies in the universe. And if you multiply that by the 100 to 200 billion stars in the average solar system like the Milky Way, and I'll go conservative, and I'll go 100, that leaves you 200 sextillion stars. That is a two with 23 zeros afterwards. And so you don't want to attack David as exaggerating? Remember, God himself spoke to Abram in Genesis 15 verses 5 through 6, and he says, count the stars if you're able to number them.

In other words, I can count them. How are you doing with that?

The reason that you can spend $19, $19.95, and get a star named after you, is because the best science can do is number the ones they have time to focus on. And if you want to pay them to name one, sure, whatever. There's enough out there they can get very rich doing this silly thing.

God knows them all by name. Turn next to Luke 12 verses 6 through 7. And I can hear you say, but wait, Dan. You're not talking about my suffering and my pain. I don't get to hang out with my friend tonight. I don't get to do this. I'm feeling misery. This is terrible.

Yeah, I really am. Let me see if Jesus can help clarify the point for you.

Luke 12 verse 6. Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins?

And not one of them is forgotten before God, but the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Do not fear therefore. That's the phrase we have to remember. Do not fear therefore.

You are of more value to God than many sparrows.

I want you to take a second and think about what Jesus just said that was meant to give us perspective to realize what mattered.

The very hairs of your head are all numbered. What does that mean?

Okay. The average person has between 90,000 hairs for redheads, our new little baby that was just blessed, up to 150,000 for blondes. Okay? We have, well, let's just say 100,000 because I wanted to do simple math. You have 7.5 billion people, and this is only hairs on your head. There's hairs all over your body. You multiply that out, you get to 750 quadrillion hairs.

God, count them all. So let's have fun with numbers. 200 sextillion stars, 750 quadrillion hairs, and if you really want to get to silly math, you still have 27,027 stars for every hair on Earth.

Whatever that's going to do for you.

But again, remember my theme for the message. Is God the God of all your circumstances? When fear hits you, when depression hits you, when hard times hit you? Is it still most important to do God's way because God is God then? Or is the chronic sadness in the moment something that overwhelms your priority for God? Now I'm going to leave this concept about here, but I challenge you to think about another verse I'll share, and then I'm just going to move past it, but I want you to just think on it. Psalms 1.96 verse 16 says, Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed, and in your book they were all written. The day fashion for me, when as yet there was none of them. So every part of your substance is all written in a book. Your hair is only one part of your substance. Rather than debate what all makes up substance, because that would be even a bigger number, I'm going to have us look at two other verses that relate with sand. Genesis 22, oops sorry I didn't go to this, that's Psalm 139 verse 16. Let's advance now, and we're going to read two verses about sand. Genesis 22 verse 17 says, In blessings I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven, 200 sextillion plus of them, and as the sand which is on the seashore. Psalms 139.17 says, How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand. God thinks more about you than the sand. How many sands are there?

All right. If a grain of sand has an average size, which they all don't, but roughly if you took one and averaged it, that would mean there are 7.5 times 10 to the 18th grains of sand.

And I'd look up what I even say these silly numbers every time we came here. So this is seven quintillion, 500 quadrillion grains. All right, so we'll go back again. 200 sextillion stars, 700 quadrillion hairs, 7 quintillion, 500 quadrillion grains.

I'd like to go back to the first verse I pointed you to. Psalms 139 verse 2 says, God knows all your thoughts. Okay, what about that? It's estimated we have between 35 and 48 thoughts a minute. That's between 50 to 70,000 thoughts a day.

And over a course of a 78-year average lifespan, currently, that means it equates to 1.4 to 1.9 billion thoughts per person. If you want to times that out by all the people on earth, you're currently talking between 10 quintillion, 800 quadrillion, and 14 quintillion, 800 quadrillion thoughts. That's a crazy amount. But don't worry, there are still way more stars than that.

There are still at least 1,350 named stars that God knows the names of for every thought humans may have on earth. What are you struggling with? Okay, okay, fine, Dan, fine. I can hear you say, I get that my pain and my misery and what I can't do tonight or what I'm having to suffer in life pales in comparison to that. But there's another suffering that we face that you're not mentioning.

Number two on the list, death. Okay, let's go to death. Let's talk about death. I'd argue death could be number one, but somewhere in the back of people's minds, they realize no matter how scared they are of it, everybody's going to kick the bucket at some point. So that's probably why it's two. But we also passionately resist, we avoid the thought of it ever occurring anywhere within our foreseeable future. That's what we stay back away from. And you could tell the interest in the concept of death by simply looking that every religion has some kind of a belief of what happens after death. That's how much people worry and fear death. So we've all learned to respect it, fear it, to be humbled by it, either what happens to friends or to family, and especially when they're way too young, like Renee. So death is scary. It's daunting. So let me now tell you about the immortal jellyfish. We can look around at the animal kingdom, and there's all sorts of cool things. I mean, I could spend all day, and you guys would then take the next day, and we keep going about the crazy parts of creation. So this is fun to study. But there's animals that have phenomenal survival skills in the harshest of environments. But it's another thing for a creature to be able to basically hit the reset button whenever there's some kind of an imminent threat. And there's only one creature on this earth that's known to be able to do that. It's this jellyfish known as Turritopsis doerni. Good enough. It was first discovered in 1880s in the Mediterranean Sea.

Now, like all jellyfish, the basic pattern that Turritopsis doerni goes through is it starts as a larva called a planula, which develops from a fertilized egg. And that little planula swims at first, and then it sticks to the seafloor, and it grows in the colony of polyps.

Then, ultimately, they spawn free and they swim around as the animal that you and I recognize as jellyfish. This little guy grows into adulthood in about, well, in a matter of weeks.

And if you were to see a full-size Turritopsis doerni, it would only be about 4.5 millimeters, or 1.15 of an inch, so about the size of your small fingernail.

It has this bright red stomach that you see in the picture and about 90 white tentacles.

So what's so amazing about this guy? Well, it has an extraordinary survival skill.

In response to physical damage or starvation, God created this thing to take a leap back in its development process and transform back into a polyp. So if it's hurt or scared, it turns back into a polyp. And then in a process that looks remarkably like immortality, the born-again polyp colony then eventually buds and releases genetically identical jellyfish to the entered parrot. And it just starts this little loop.

The only thing that stops this little guy from living forever is that there are other predators out there and illnesses that can kill it. But it's called the immortal jellyfish because God created with that ability. Amazing! If you'll turn to Hebrews 13 verses 5 through 6.

What I'm showing you with this jellyfish is it is a classic example of how creation shows even death isn't a limiting factor to our amazing God. But it's perspective. No matter what we're suffering with, God's power makes it pale and insignificant. Hebrews 13 verse 5, it says, Let your conduct be without covetousness, be content with such things as you have, for he himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, I will not fear. What can man do to me?

We will absolutely face suffering in our life. Some of us will face more than others.

But every day we're going to face some kind of suffering or we don't get what we want.

Hebrews 13 tells us the perspective that we should have. If our suffering appears as misery, we need to avoid being covetous. But I want. If it appears as pain, we should remember to be content with what we have. I hurt, but I'm blessed because I'm still alive. And even if we're faced with death, we should confidently know our loving God will never leave us nor forsake us. Jesus is the example in this. He was tested in all ways that we were, right? He experienced all of our sufferings, is what we're told, including being put to death. But he kept the perspective that throughout all of that suffering, he never caved into it. And he never stopped loving us as a result. He gave his life. And he now is resurrected, living the eternal promises that are there for our future perspective. I'd now like us to consider some more fears. The next group I've put together with the theme and the core characteristic of us fearing how we're treated by others. Number three on the list is rejection. And now this social fear is one of the main reasons that people act the way they do. People go to crazy lengths to avoid dealing with the rejection from society. And there's a push, a constant push, to behave correctly and in accordance with cultural norms. And I feel for Drew, because I see him struggling with that like crazy right now. It is what happens as a teen. It is what you're getting bombarded with.

But it's this area where the ethical infrastructure of society, especially when we're young, trying to figure out where we're at in life, forces that it's not about right or good or bad.

It's not about right or wrong. It's about socially acceptable.

And if not, there's labeling and there's scrutiny and there's stigma and there's rejection that follows, whether in school or the media or peer pressure or wherever. Number four on the list is ridicule. And this fear, I would argue, links very well with rejection. It's caused by our social fear of not projecting the right image of ourselves for others. And this fear is most often experienced in some version of stage fright. It's that concept of us doing something in front of an audience of people where people respond negatively, right? Whether we're mocked, whether we're laughed at, whether we're booed or way worse. And even though people practice to avoid it, to avoid criticism, everyone has this fear because everyone doesn't like being in the spotlight for a negative reason.

Matt Lauer. I figure whoever else are the celebrities that are having their sins revealed publicly. We fear being at the mercy of the opinions of others.

Number five on the list is loneliness. The fear of being alone is that just that dreadful emptiness when you lose the interaction with somebody you treasure.

I can relate to this one. This is one of my three that I struggle with with the loss of her name.

And the reality is we were created to want company, to want intimacy.

And so when we face a loss, it's devastating.

And the fear is also linked to the feeling that in order for our actions to be meaningful, there's a desire to have someone notice it. That sounds selfish, but if you think about it, it's kind of an interesting... When I saw that phrase, I'm like, yeah, I guess so. Think about it this way. If you made a groundbreaking discovery, but no one else ever found out about it, does it still count or does it still feel special?

Look, I made the wheel! No one cares. Oh, well, you know, it's interesting.

So how we're treated by others can make us feel overwhelmed. It can make us feel helpless.

So to these and all other overwhelming fears that stem from how we're treated by others, I would like to introduce you to what I think is one of the most amazing creatures God has ever made, and that is the peacock mantis shrimp. On the fifth day of creation, God created this very colorful four to six inch mantis shrimp that has the fastest punch on earth and probably the most complex set of eyes God ever created. These are an aggressive relative to the crab or to the lobster. They prey upon other animals by crippling them with this amazing punch they have, and it can accelerate its fist, its club-like fist, at the speed of a 22 caliber rifle bullet. That's how fast, and I'll explain a little more about that. In captivity, it's been known to break fish tanks, so they have to figure out how to even store this thing if they try to bring it into captivity. When a lady named, a researcher named Sheila Patek at UC Berkeley tried to study this this little heavy hitter and put a video on it, she couldn't. And so she explains, none of our high speed, not as high speed, video systems were fast enough to capture the movement accurately.

Luckily, a BBC crew offered to rent us a super high speed camera as part of their series, Animal Camera. With that cutting edge equipment, Patek managed to capture footage of a smasher's strike by slowing it down over 800 times. What she found was staggering. With each punch, the club edge travels at about 50 miles per hour, over twice as fast as scientists had previously thought.

The strike is one of the fastest limb movements in the animal kingdom, and it's especially impressive considering the substantial drag imposed by water. As you know, I mean, everybody's tried to do things in water, and it's so much more dense. Even the fastest things you try to do just seems slow. Not for this guy. So the mantis strip finishes one of its strikes in under three thousandth of a second. That's why they couldn't capture this thing well enough. They saw it happen. They were like, what in the world just happened? So if the animal was just to flick its arm out like humans, it would never achieve the speed that it does. Instead, it uses this ingenious, complex energy storage system. Once the arm is cocked, a ratchet locks it firmly in place, and it's building up all its energy, and then where the latches released, it comes out even faster. You can think of kind of revving the engine when you see these drag racers about to take off, kind of a concept along that line. But Patek found that even that wouldn't account for the speed.

And instead, the key to the punch is this small structure that God created in the arm that looks like a saddle or a Pringle chip. And when the arm is cocked, this structure is compressed and acts like a spring, storing up even more energy. So when the latch is released, the spring expands and provides the extra push to help it accelerate up to 10,000 times the force of gravity.

There's anybody who wants my PowerPoint. You're welcome to it. If this wasn't a two-location area, I would show you some videos. There are links to videos in the notes section, and you're welcome to look at them or just look the animals up. It's fascinating. See them scaring away octopus and breaking shells and doing all sorts of things. But if our God is big enough to create this, how much more should we push away fears of how we're going to be treated by others?

But I'm not done. I'm not done with the peacock mantis shrimp and just its punch.

What Patek then revealed on camera is even more surprising.

Each of the smashers strikes produced small flashes of light, and they couldn't figure out why.

What they realized is it was being emitted because the club moved so quickly that it lowered the pressure of the water in front of it, causing it to boil.

Causing it to boil.

It released small bubbles which collapsed when the water pressure normalized, unleashing this tremendous amount of energy that's called cavitation.

And it's so destructive that he can pit the stainless steel of boat propellers, but just the water bubbles alone. So you combine the force of this strike, no animal can stop this little guy.

We should be grateful. You know, if you want to just go in a pool and try to see how fast you can punch and try to manage this. But imagine if God would have made this crazy little animal four to six feet large or bigger. It'd be terrifying to get in the ocean anywhere near this thing.

But it's four to six inches. If God created this ability to protect itself, how much more can he do for us who are his adopted children? If you'll turn to Isaiah 54 and verse 17. Now, I mentioned one other thing which I want to reference because I left out one of the important parts of the Manish shrimp, and that is about its eyes. The shrimp's eyes have a remarkable 16 different photoreceptor pigments. We could take the whole sermon talking about that part. Humans only have three. It's like a satellite. If you think of all the things they set up with the satellite's capability to do, the eyes of this thing can perceive infrared, ultraviolet, polarized light, and so many other things. Just amazing. Isaiah 54 verse 17, No weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall confute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their vindication for me declares the Lord. You see, it doesn't matter how small or how helpless we see ourselves as. God showed us through that little tiny four to six inch Manish shrimp that He has the power to do whatever we need to do. Okay, I can hear you say, but damn, you don't get it! People are making fun of me! At school, they're picking on me. I don't fit in, they're ridiculing me, they're rejecting me, they're leaving me in isolation. I can't fit in.

I can't adapt. Okay, let me introduce you to the shape-shifting frog.

This species was found in a park called Reserva las Grilares in the Andrian cloud forest in Ecuador.

And when it was first discovered, there was a husband and wife researcher that founded Catherine and Tim Krinac. They pulled out this little frog that had spines on his back.

When they then put it in a white cup, they turned around, did a couple things, came back, and all of a sudden they looked, and the texture was smooth and light-colored.

The texture changed, the color changed. God created this frog with the ability to change the texture of its skin in a matter of minutes to resemble its background.

What are you struggling with to fit in? This animal is able to blend in and to hide from predators. Their epidermis was described as being able to take on the texture of smooth wood, fuzzy moss, and even spiky sticks. Again, there's videos in here on this one.

As humans, we can feel overwhelmed by our limitations.

And people love to ridicule. It's a sad part of humanity.

And make fun. Anything they see as a weakness is a target. I get it. But what counts is where we look for our strengths and our confidence. It's about who we're most interested in being accepted by. How many stars does God know the name of? Is that who's a priority for us to know, or is it the people around us? Or is it our wants and needs? Because God isn't constrained by the little silly limitations that we feel we can't overcome. I'd like for a moment for you to picture an arrogant, bragging, taunting person in a red sports car. Way more powerful than my red car outside. And putting you down because of how superior they are by having that versus what you do.

Let me now tell you about the bacterial flagellum, the world's most efficient motor. It performs like a rotary propeller on a bacteria. You can kind of picture an outboard motor and you're kind of getting the concept of what this thing does. The flagellum is a long, whip-like strand or whatever that's made up of proteins called flagellin. And it attaches to a drive shaft by a hook protein which acts like kind of a universal joint. And it allows this propeller and drive shaft to rotate. So, is it effective? Well, yeah, crazy effective. Remember that high speed car that somebody was taunting us about? Probably that guy was real proud that it had an RPM that could get around 9,000. Well, the propeller of the bacterial flagellum can spin at 10,000 revolutions per minute. Oh, but I forgot to mention one thing. Not only that, the propeller can stop spinning within a quarter turn and instantly start spinning the other way at 10,000 RPMs. We don't have a machine that can get even close to this thing. But what makes it even crazier is the size of it. It's in the size of microns. It's one twenty thousandth of an inch. And most of that's the propeller. The size of the motor part of it is one one-hundredths of an inch.

Friends, that makes me think about a verse in Romans 8 and verse 31 that says, What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Alright, let's keep going on. Let's go to the next group of fears that I grouped from the top ten. And I themed these as challenges that overwhelm us.

Let's start with the number one fear, failure. And I think this deserves the top spot because it rules all our actions and all our decisions. There's so many things we do because we don't worry about, if I do that, it might fail. It might not work. I don't want to do that.

And so we do or avoid things in order to avoid failure. And it's ambiguous. It's subjective because what you see as failure may be different than what I see as failure. Some people are naturally athletic, some people aren't. You just pick whatever. Some people are good at it and others aren't. Others fear of failing in certain areas more than the person next to them might. But the outcome of failure is very similar. And that gets to the disappointment that follows that despite our best effort, nothing seems to go as I wanted to. Right? And it causes us to feel that we might not ever want to try again because I just I failed.

Life's not worth trying again. And that then causes people to procrastinate. How many people are procrastinators in this room or in Bloomington? It causes people to give up, causes people to say, why bother? I'm just not good enough. Failure. And of course, there are other parts of the top 10 lists that talk about overwhelming challenges. Number nine is the fear of the unknown. And this is where the mind tells us that in order to move forward, we must know what's waiting for us.

Because if I know, then I can control. And if I don't know, and I'm not in control, and that concept to control is the key part. Because control helps us guide our actions and limit the danger and avoid the challenges and the bad things in life. Because we're kind of like, oh, had I known there was a drop off in the road and I was going 50, I'd slow down and weave around it. But oh, fear of the unknown. Number seven on the list is disappointment.

And this fear is somewhat hard to explain as well because there are two different types of fears of disappointment. One is me disappointing you, disappointing others. The other is disappointing ourselves. So we all as kids somewhere along the way had that moment we were growing up and we did something wrong. We misbehaved. And we were expecting a punishment from our parents. But instead, we got this unpleasant sight in their eyes where they just stared at us and kind of welled up. And they just said, I am so disappointed in you. That single sentence hurts a lot more than a punishment. And it's that fear of disappointment that's part of why we avoid the unknown.

It's that feeling of dissatisfaction with our expectations not being met or regret and wondering what we could have done differently. And number 10 on the list is losing our freedom. Now, again, each person might see this differently. What exactly is a definition of freedom? Is debatable. People see freedom in different ways. Maybe the freedom to be able to actually walk out of your house without fear. Maybe the freedom to go and spend the night with a friend. Whatever it is, freedom is going to be different to each of us. But the point here is that even though it's not something that is the same for everybody, what plays through in each of us as a result is fear. We feel great fear about what's going to happen if we lose the power to control in our lives. Whether it's you're isolated to your room until you get your homework done, or you're scared of the commitment of marriage, or I see in some of the wonderful people we even have in our congregations here, that terrible fear I've seen in my parents with aging, and not being able to do all you did before, not being able to contribute in the same way that you did before, and things that you had power over are going away. And I can only empathize knowing I'm going to face that exact same thing. But it's absolutely real. Well, God indirectly answered all of Job's questions by redirecting his focus. So let me see if I can do the same as it relates to things that can overwhelm us. And I'd like to start by turning to 2 Peter 3 in verse 9. 2 Peter 3 in verse 9.

When we're terrified by the fear of failure, or disappointment, or the lost freedom, or the unknown, our focus is where? It's on self. It's about me and what I am struggling with and what I don't know about. It's not on the amazing promises and the lengths God has gone in order to give us peace, in order to give us perspective. 2 Peter 3 in verse 9 says, The LORD is not slack concerning his promises, as some count slackness, but is long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, in case we don't get that point, but that all should come to repentance.

Perspective reveals that whatever overwhelms us as human fears is trivial to God. It's trivial. The battle is always the Lord's, and so let me give you some evidence. And I'm going to work for this area along the science of physics. You will see so much evidence that proves a creator when you look at physics. And the fundamental laws, the parameters of physics, have a ridiculous level of exactness that is way, way, way, way beyond chance, and frankly, way beyond imagination. I think by I get to my final part, you realize it's way beyond even imagination. There is no fundamental reason why the value of physics have to be the way they are.

Yet they're all constraints and combine this mathematically inconceivable way that makes life on this universe possible. The result of all of this is a universe that has just the right conditions for life to exist. And the coincidences are way beyond anything you could try to rationalize. I mean, the people who try are just fighting ridiculousness to try to get there. There was a physicist, Paul Davies, summed it up when he put, it is hard to resist the impression that the present structure of the universe, apparently so sensitive to minor alterations in numbers, has been rather carefully thought out. The seemingly miraculous occurrence of these numerical values must remain the most compelling evidence for cosmic design. Over the past 30 years or so, scientists discovered that just about every part of the basic structure of the universe is balanced on a razor's edge. It's not like you have a lot of ranges that these things can be. There are tiny little options to make life survive. One scientist said there are more than 30 separate physical or cosmological parameters that require precise calibration in order to produce a life-sustaining universe. So it's like an astronaut. We haven't sent anybody to Mars yet. Suddenly they land on Mars and what they happen to see is an enclosed biosphere, kind of like the one that was built several years back in Arizona.

And at the control panel they find 30 plus different dials that are all set exactly right for life.

The oxygen ratio, perfect. The temperature, 70 degrees. Humidity, 50 percent. There's a system to replenish the air. There are systems for producing food. There are things that generate energy. There is a way of disposing waste and on and on and on. Each dial would have this huge range of possibilities, but it's set on the one perfect thing that would work. You would come and you would see that and you'd say, all right, there is obviously a wise and powerful creator here at work that made that thing possible. Remember, topic is the fears that overwhelm us and we will not get past things overwhelming us in life, but our God is bigger than our fears. That's the point.

And I could take the whole sermon again talking about different parts of physics, but I'm only going to focus on two. Let's first talk about gravity. You went a little bit there a couple weeks ago. Gravity is this fascinating thing. Imagine one of these old-fashioned linear radio dials like you used to have. So few people have those type of radio dials anymore, so I've had to put a picture so people knew what I'm talking about. But one that is so huge that it goes all the way across the universe. So you're going to have to work with me there. Crazy long dial, a lot of radio stations to choose from. And it'd be broken down into one inch increments. You're with me? Length the whole universe? One inch increments. That means there are billions upon billions upon billions of inches. Okay? The entire dial represents the range of force strength in nature.

And if you put gravity toward the weakest forces and the strong nuclear force that binds protons and neutrons together in the nuclei as the strongest, what you're going to find is a whopping 10,000 billion billion billion billion times stronger at the one end versus the gravity end.

Okay? Now, if you were to move the dial from where it's currently set one inch from what we have is gravity. One inch. The impact on the life in the universe would be catastrophic. One inch compared to the entire universe. It would increase gravity a billion fold. One inch. Animals anywhere near the size of a human would get crushed. Insects would have to have thicker legs. No animal would get bigger than an insect. Gravity has this crazy narrow range for life to exist. Okay, let me put let me put another example for for you and that's what's called the cosmic constant. I'm sorry, the cosmological constant. This just blows my mind. The cosmological concept or constant is part of Einstein's equation from general relativity and it could have had any value negative or positive.

Either way, life would lose. But that's not what happened. The stunning precision on this setting of the cosmological constant is widely regarded as the single greatest problem facing physics and cosmology today because the fine-tuning has conservatively been estimated to be at least one part and a hundred million billion billion billion billion billion. That would be a 10 followed by 53 zeroes. If you want context, that's twice as many stars as there are in the universe based on our current projections.

That's inconceivably precise. That's your creator.

And to put it in perspective, it would like being in far, far outer space and throw a dart toward the earth and then successfully hit a bullseye that's one trillionth of a trillionth of an inch diameter.

That's less than the size of a single atom. Does that show how ridiculous it would be to try to recreate that?

And if that's the only example of fine-tuning, it would show a creator.

But then let's add gravity with the cosmological constant and the fine-tuning would be one part and a hundred million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion. Didn't even try to put that many zeroes on the screen. It would have been ridiculous.

That would be equivalent to one atom in the entire known universe of the chances. And that's not even counting the other 28-plus variables that make life on this planet possible. Remember the fear of the unknown? That's why, rather than waste his time on Job's complaints, God said, let me give you perspective. Let me give you a little more perspective. Job, I'm going to get to you. Let me give you a little more perspective. I'm sorry, did you want to say something to me? Let me give you a little more perspective.

Please turn to Matthew 28 and verse 18.

The question I want you to reflect on as you turn there is, how big is your God?

Do we truly see our God as greater than all our challenges, all our frustrations in the moment, all our circumstances? Or do the moments when we're overwhelmed cause us to lose focus, to cause us to lose perspective, to say, my wants are greater than God is?

Let's read a very familiar verse, but I want you to take it literally, because I don't know if we always take this verse literally. Matthew 28 verse 18 says, and Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. When Jesus said the word all, he meant all. That includes authority over Satan, over our challenges, over our fears.

But we have to truly believe and have faith in that certainty.

I recently heard a quote by a Houston minister who was helping the community after the floods in his city, and it struck with me because of how profound it is. And I think it ties in very closely to the lesson of the sermon about perspective. Perspective when we face fears, perspective when we face trials. And the quote said this. He said, if I know the who, I can endure the what without knowing the why. If I know the who, I can endure the what without knowing the why.

Friends, we fear the scary what's that challenge us in life, and we don't always know the whys for the what's we're facing that are really difficult and overwhelming us.

But the key to life and faith is perspective.

Maybe some of you are suffering more because God has the highest positions in mind for you.

In the kingdom. You ever think about it that way? Maybe that's why you're suffering more than the person next to you. Possibly your fears are being challenged or you're currently suffering now because God sees you as a potential spiritual stud, and he wants to keep shaping you.

Turn to Hebrews 11 in verse 6. The key is to know the who, and the who is Jesus Christ.

That awareness surpasses all understanding. Hebrews 11.6. But without faith, it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

Okay, so we have to believe that God is. What in the world does that mean?

Well, it means we believe that God is omnipotent, which means all-powerful. It means we believe that he is omniscient, meaning all-knowing, and that he is omnipresent, always there. Okay, we've heard those phrases.

Link those to the three grouping of fears I just gave you.

God is all-powerful. Should we be worried about how we're treated by others?

God is all-knowing. Should the suffering we face overwhelm us?

God is always there. How much should we be overwhelmed by the challenges that overwhelm us?

You see, it's a perspective thing. And if we stop at just this intellectual knowledge, though, that's great to know, but actually I would argue that's where people just lose sight of, lose patience with God. It accentuates our problems, that we just know that intellectually.

Because just intellectually believing there's a superior God that exists has to infuriate us because we know that same God can fix our trials, right?

The verse has two parts to it for a reason. After all, he sees us suffering.

He knows we want him to help, and we both know that he has the power to fix it.

How many stars are there? The final part of the verse says we have to believe that God is good.

We have to trust that he will reward those who seek him, not in this moment, according to our ways, and I want this, or I'm not going to do what you say.

We have no right to say that to our God. Our anchor has to be that God loves us and has our best interest at heart, no matter what we're experiencing in the moment.

And that lets us view life and all of its realities very, very differently.

It gives us confidence, knowing God knows what I'm facing.

And there is no doubt that he sees and that he cares because we're sure he has a reward for us.

It's a perspective thing. It's a perspective thing.

As we look at the natural protections that God has created in our solar system, in the universe, in all of the mind-blowing parts that are around us, it's critical that we remember that all of creation is put there for us. All of that intricacy is for you and me. It's personal to God. Those blades of grass aren't coincidental. They're personal.

And that awareness is intended to give us a higher perspective that carries us through, no matter what life puts in front of us.

If you'll turn to Romans 1, verses 18 through 22, another verse that Ron mentioned when he started going down his path, I was like, I wonder which way he's going to take this message. But I think they actually compliment each other from a couple weeks ago. But God doesn't usually appear to you and I supernaturally and say, here I am, Dan.

He uses preachers, and sometimes he just simply uses natural means like what's around us every day to look at. Romans 1.20, we'll get there, but it tells us that God's eternal power and divine nature can be seen and understood through things that are made, and that is the reason humanity is without an excuse. Romans 1, verse 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God. That's that intellectual part, first applicable part.

If we're just intellectualizing God, my own needs are going to come first, and I'll just get angry at God because he's not fair, because he didn't do X in my life.

Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful.

Goes back to the sermon end. But became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools. The heavens and God's glory and his creation does declare the glory of God. And even more than what David everyone had a clue of, because he didn't understand about physics and science and all the things we know today, this earth isn't a random creation. It was created for a purpose. It is personal, and God is completely focused on our spiritual success. That's what matters to God. But that success isn't always what our human fears are based on, because their fears are based on us, and are based on the moment, and our human desires want pleasure and happiness. Now, I want to do what I want tonight. I want what I want to happen this week. When our pleasures are focused that way, then we feel fear when our challenges, when life challenges us. What God wants in contrast, the end goal for God? Repentance.

That's the goal for this life in his area. You can have hard times. I'm going to give you whatever you need to get to that end. Repentance. I can give you blessings along the way. I can give you cursings, too. I want you to get to repentance. Perspective. To conclude, please turn to Deuteronomy 31 and verse 6. Deuteronomy 31 and verse 6. The trials and the fears we face are real. Please don't let me make light of that at all. I struggle with these things, too. They do feel daunting, but our God is greater than anything we can imagine. God is the God of all our thoughts, and all of our circumstances, and we need to have the long view like he does to realize that.

And we shouldn't get to the point with our God where we say, God, show me you love me by healing me, providing me something, doing something for me, getting past whatever that fear of the moment is. Because if we approach God that way, what he's going to say is, Dan, I already did show you I love you. I already did that. Just look around. Anywhere. My creation. What do you want to look at? The blade of grass? Let's talk about it.

Any part of creation. Pick one. I'll tell you all about it. He said, I told Job a bunch of stuff. I'll tell you stuff you have no clue about. Science doesn't even know, but I'll tell you about it if you really think you're that superior. I'm telling you about myself and every part of creation around. And if that wasn't enough, I gave my life for your sins.

And if you don't think my sacrifice was good enough, then you really don't know me well enough.

Friends, it is natural for us to question if God loves us at our hardest times when we're feeling fear. But we have an anchor point in humanity, the who, that gives us perspective. What Jesus gained through his sacrifice was really you and me. That's what he gained. And he surrounds us with his creation to never let us forget that he cares and that he's supreme to anything that we could face. I'm going to leave you with one final analogy. And I could try to use a basic approach that I think will work the same for here and Bloomington in perspective. Imagine there was a rope that went all the way around this room, starting right behind me, right behind the speaker, the lectern, if you want to do that in Bloomington. Now, imagine that 1 32nd of an inch, picture the smallest little line on a ruler for an inch, 1 32nd of an inch represents your entire 78 year average lifespan. Okay? That rope keeps stretching along. Comparatively, that fractional part of an inch is completely insignificant to the whole of God's plan. For perspective, far corner over here, my best guess, probably back in the exit of the doorway, if not to the bathrooms in Bloomington, probably just estimate in your mind whatever 70 feet from behind me is by wrapping its way around would be 2 million years from now. 1 32nd of an inch. Do you think we're going to remember today that far in the future? Do you think we're going to struggle with what we didn't get to do tonight, or we didn't get to do in our life, or the pains we're struggling? Perspective.

God wants us to get there and way, way, way, way beyond. But we obsess in this moment.

God loves us personally, and He very strongly desires that we make the kingdom.

But that part then comes into what we do with it. Deuteronomy 31, verse 6, Be strong and have good courage. Do not fear nor be afraid of them, for the Lord your God, He is the one who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.

See, God isn't worried about the size of the threats we face. The battle is always the Lord's.