Living Under God's Pavement

Well, grace to you and peace be multiplied through Jesus Christ our Lord. It's a delight to be together again. Thank you very much for your prayer support. Appreciate it.

What do you think that North American Anabaptists like you and me fear the most in these days?

And I'm eliciting your input, soliciting it. What do you think that North American Anabaptists, Mennonite, Brethren, Amish, whoever, independent, like you and me, what do we fear the most? That we're going to lose our liberty spiritually. Okay. That we'll lose liberty spiritually?

Missed the mark. Missed the mark? Yes. Okay. Are you talking about fear? Yes. Oh, yeah.

I'm trying to stand for the truth, and then I guess when I'm tired or maybe when you don't want to see it, I don't know. Will I be able to stand for the truth if it gets difficult? Is that? The world's pressing influence. The world's pressing influence. Will it affect us? How might it affect us?

Loss of comforts, maybe? The fear that we're going to lose some comforts?

Lose some wealth? From the Sunday School discussion, we're not supposed to be wealthy people, but I have a lot of wealth anyway. I think just having an air-conditioned house is pretty wealthy, especially as summer marches on.

I think that one of the biggest fears we would face today is the loss of autonomy, meaning the ability to do things myself, the freedom to make my own choices, my own decisions, that somebody or something is going to impose itself on me or us. And I think that relates to Dad's comment about the loss of liberty.

I think there's a genuine fear of enslavement at some level or another among conservative Anabaptist people. And that may have some foundation. There may be some plausible reasons for that. The opposite of enslavement is one of the culture's buzzwords today.

It's the word empowerment. Empowerment. Which gives us the idea of having the power or the ability to make my own choices.

Personally, I feel like the rising prices at the gas pump are impinging on my ability to make the choice to travel wherever I wish, whenever I wish. It's affecting the wallet.

That feels like a loss of empowerment. And I think that a lot of people have this sense that we are losing this autonomy, this independence, this ability to make the choices that we really like having the opportunity to make.

The title of the message this morning is Living Under the Pavement. Living Under the Pavement. Now, am I advocating a new Christian catacombs? Should we take a page out of the early brothers and sisters from Rome and start burrowing underground? Shall we flee? I have friends of ours that are planning to move to Alaska. And I joke that he's planning to tunnel under the tundra to get away from some of these pressing issues in the lower 48.

What am I advocating? Well, hold that thought. The nation stood on the threshold of a decision. Would they accept a change of leadership? Should they embrace a radical and radically new agenda? Would they acknowledge a new administration?

Uncharted territory, scary possibilities, an uncertain future. They needed direction. They had to make a decision. They were facing a fork in the road.

And while that decision point, that crossroads, in many ways reflects where we find ourselves today, the moment that I'm speaking of actually took place over 3,400 years ago. Probably in the late spring or early summer of 1462 BC.

And as you've probably guessed, the account that I'm speaking of is the basis of our text today. It's found in Exodus 24. If you'd like to turn there, Exodus 24.

In the chapters leading up to Exodus 24, you'll recall that God had rescued his people. He delivered them from enslavement in Egypt through amazing displays of his power. He thoroughly trounced the gods of the Egyptians. He showed them up for the weaklings that they were. And he proved his power and might on behalf of the people that were in bondage. And of course, he used Moses then to lead them to Mount Sinai.

And already up to this point, God has given some direction to his people, various commandments. And it was now time for the people to decide. Would they respond to God's offer of covenant and to his call for this commitment? Would they accept his leadership and his requirements?

We're looking at the first 11 verses of Exodus 24, reading from the New King James Version. Now he, God, said to Moses, "Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and 70 of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar.

And Moses alone shall come near the Lord, but they shall not come near, nor shall the people go up with him." So Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments. And all the people answered with one voice and said, "All the words which the Lord has said, we will do."

And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, and he rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and 12 pillars according to the 12 tribes of Israel. Then he sent young men of the children of Israel who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins, and half the blood he sprinkled on the altar.

Then he took the book of the covenant and read in the hearing of the people, and they said, "All that the Lord has said, we will do, and be obedient." And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, "This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to all these words."

Then Moses went up, also Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and 70 of the elders of Israel. And they saw the God of Israel, and there was under his feet, as it were, a paved work of sapphire stone. And it was like the very heavens in its clarity. But on the nobles of the children of Israel, he did not lay his hand.

So they saw God, and they ate and drank.

About a year and a half ago, I was reading a copy of a magazine called Imprimis. How many of you are familiar with Imprimis? Okay. A couple of hands, several. It's a free monthly speech digest that comes from Hillsdale College. So it's not everybody's cup of tea. But it does offer some fascinating takes on particularly the nation at large, things related to economic policy, immigration, government actions, just current affairs, education, things like that.

In the September 2020 issue that I read, there was a speech by a man named Brian Kennedy, a man that has been working for a number of years researching national security issues. And apparently it's been published in national papers, things like that.

In his remarks, Kennedy began this way. He said, "We are at risk of losing a war today because too few of us know that we are engaged with an enemy that intends to destroy us. If we do not wake up to the danger soon, we will find ourselves helpless." And the title of Brian's speech was Facing Up to the China Threat. And he went on to talk about how China has a very well-known merit system whereby all the people under their surveillance, and that is almost literally all their people, can rack up either merits or face demerits depending on how they live their lives. If they do not go along with the official accepted party policy platform, then they face demerits, which makes it really hard to get a job or get a good job or to get education or to further oneself in Chinese society.

Furthermore, China has been developing a navy that is bigger and more formidable than America's. All of the Chinese students who come to America for education, and that's hundreds of thousands of them, all of them, every last one of them, is beholden to China for anything that they learn in their classes.

They can be called in at any time to give an account for what they are learning. And so that can be used in Chinese society. According to Kennedy, in the past decade, China has stolen almost $6 trillion of U.S. intellectual property, including tech innovations coming out of Silicon Valley and Seattle, entertainment coming out of Hollywood, which we don't care if they steal that, medical research and development coming out of New England and elsewhere. So the Chinese Communist Party is enslaving their own people through various means to harness all of this information for their own ends, ultimately for supposedly world domination or things along that line.

Now, naturally, reading this speech didn't put me in a very empowered frame of mind. In fact, I was starting to feel a little enslaved.

And maybe I should just cancel the free subscription to Imprimis. But I couldn't help thinking about these dear people in China and what they're facing. And of course, if we're pessimistic, our minds quickly go to how quickly could that happen, whether it's here or Canada or any nation through which we make our pilgrimage.

And there's just a lot of things like this going on in the world where people are being oppressed. They're being enslaved. Don't have to look too far beyond, say, North Korea. Even Russia. And the things that are happening in Afghanistan. Just so many various things that are taking place where people are being disempowered.

And then you look at the internal things, the national situations, the polarizing politics, the supply chain issues, the inflation, the corrupting of people's minds through media and the ever-increasing pornography. And I ask myself, where is empowerment when I need it?

I feel very helpless. I feel like I have no options. I feel like I'm very limited. And that tends to make me feel gloomy. How do we resist this enslavement? How do we live as overcomers in the world? Or do we dig holes and head for the catacombs again?

It was during these dark thoughts that God brought, I believe it was God, brought these considerations from Exodus 24 to mind.

As I've read through the Bible over my life, several times in my life, obviously I've read through Exodus. And different times as I've read this chapter, this one or two verses in here have really stuck out to me as being paradoxical or unusual or odd.

Particularly when I look at verse 11. It's got to be one of the strangest combinations of thoughts where it says, "So they saw God and they ate and drank."

It sounds very casual. In fact, the King James sounds even more relaxed. It says, "Also they saw God and they ate and drank."

This seems like such an interesting juxtaposition of thoughts. It's almost like the elders are there together and the one says, "It was nice to see God today. It wasn't Abihu. Would you pass the potato salad, please?"

Or one of the elders goes home that evening and his wife says, "Well, how was your day, dear? How was your time together with the other 73?" And he says, "Oh, it was nice. We had a good meal. And by the way, we saw God." "Oh, really?"

Now, I'm not making light of the passage. Okay. I'm not making light of the verse. I'm trying to make sense of it because it does sound fairly nonchalant. Obviously, it helps us to look at the bigger context of what is going on here to consider this matter of meeting with God and eating a meal.

The surrounding events show us that this was more than a casual encounter. This sentence here in verse 11, "So they saw God and they ate and drank," is a synopsis or it's a summary. It's just squeezing a whole bunch of things into one sentence of all that took place in that time frame.

And like you, I wish there were a lot more details because it must have been amazing. It must have been fabulous.

Now, in the midst of my glumness about China and whoever else is going to try to take over the world in the next X number of years, I was really encouraged by verse 10. And this is the part where it talks about how these 74 men, it says they saw the God of Israel. And there was under his feet, as it were, a paved work of sapphire stone. And it was like the very heavens in its clarity.

What was that like? What was it like to see God, to experience this experience of looking up through pavement and seeing him?

The NIV renders verse 10 this way, "Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire clear as the sky itself."

Now, I realize that as plain and separated people, we may not be up on our precious and semi-precious stones and the qualities thereof. But just throw out some ideas. What do you think is the common color of sapphire?

Red?

Purple? Blue? Okay. I'm really glad to hear this variety of input because it means you're not out there shopping in the jewelry stores. This is good. According to my dictionary app, sapphire can be any color except red. So that was a guess. I would have guessed any color probably too. But however, it goes on to say that commonly it is blue. Okay. So it can be any color but red. However, most typically it's found in the color blue. Incidentally, how many of you would say that blue is your favorite color?

Okay. I think a little more on the men's side than the women's side. I read some years ago that blue is the most common favorite color of men. But interestingly enough, I know two ladies who dress almost primarily in blue day in and day out.

Neither of them are here. They live elsewhere. So when we think about this pavement, this manifestation of God through pavement, I would think of blue. I don't know exactly what the 74 saw. But it is from these thoughts that I derive the main point of this message. It's simply this. If you want to experience empowerment, get under God's pavement.

If you want to experience empowerment, get under God's pavement. You see, I think we've all been designed with this desire for significance, to matter, to make a difference, to effect some sort of change in this world. I know there are an exceptional few who don't mind going through this world as if they had never lived. And they die and pass on. But I think most every human being wants to count for something. And I think that's part of why it's so distressing to feel like power is being removed. Because how do we effect change? How do we accomplish something of worth and value and meaning and significance when it seems like all the rich people and all the powerful people and all the evil people have the wherewithal to make those changes?

And they're taking it away from everyone else.

What about little old me? I want to make a difference. I want to see good things happen. But I feel so powerless. Does God have any power for the dad who's just trying to make it through? For the mom who's just trying to get through another hour, let alone the whole day?

The older person who's wondering what life holds for them and the increasing years.

If God has power for me, how can I tap into that power? How can I connect to that sort of significance? I think we see four different facets of truth in our text here that would help answer that question.

The question of what does it take to experience empowerment? The first facet for us to consider is control. Control or God's power. This thought has to do with the sovereignty of God, the fact that he is overall his relationship to all things. In consideration of our text, God is the one who initiated this relationship with Israel. There's no way they could have gotten themselves out of the predicament they were in with Egypt. But God is the one who initiated and came through on their behalf.

Obviously, God's people found freedom in Egypt to begin with. But over the course of 400 years, politics and circumstances greatly changed to the point where they were not a free people anymore. And God was the one who led his people from enslavement to empowerment in just a very short period of time.

It's great to think about the fact that God is the power of the universe.

That's encouraging to me. God is in control. And what's so interesting to me is that God accomplishes this oversight, this entire control, without it feeling controlling. Isn't God amazing that way? He's got control of everything. But he doesn't look like or seem like a control freak.

In fact, he's so seemingly hands-off that lots of people don't believe he even exists. They think that there must not be a God. But the reality is God has all power.

The Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau is not the ultimate authority. The American President Biden is not the top person. Vladimir Putin is not the top ultimate authority.

Xi Jinping is not the most powerful person in the world.

That reality and that title belongs to God and God alone. It's his world. He maintains control over it.

We see this authority and initiative in our text in verses 1 and 2 where it says that God said to Moses, "Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron and Abinadib and 70 of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar.

And Moses alone shall come near the Lord, but they shall not come near," meaning the elders, "nor shall the people go up with him." God initiates this meeting with Moses, with Moses' brother, with Moses' two nephews, and with the 70. And God sets those requirements, those boundaries in place.

What we see for those people is still true for us today. If we will be empowered, we must bow to God's power. There is no other power available to us apart from yielding to the ultimate control of the Creator.

And that's why most people in the world are enslaved today to one level or another. They want to be their own person. They refuse to yield to the power of God.

So what does it take to experience change in my life and to effect positive change for the kingdom of God? I believe that our success or failure in this regard as to whether or not we are empowered is largely related to whether or not we are willing to accept reality.

Whether or not we are willing to agree with the way things are and the way that God has designed them. Every person who's trying to live against God's grain, against the grain of reality, finds that life is not going to work out well and that they will be enslaved.

The ability to make a difference in my life and in the life of others does not happen because I decide I want to be my own person. It doesn't happen that way. Because here's the reality. The reality is that none of us gets to be our own person.

Not a single one.

Every one of us is an owned person. We only get to decide who owns us.

Either the devil owns us or God owns us. But nobody owns themselves.

And so it's only when I acknowledge God's person, God's position, and my place as an owned person of God that he then empowers me and empowers you to carry out kingdom commandments.

So we're looking at this matter of control, the fact that God's relationship to everything is sovereign and he is over all things. And if we reckon with that, if we yield to that, that will bring us into a place where we can experience this ability to make choices that matter.

Another beautiful facet or aspect of receiving power is in this matter of closeness, closeness or God's presence. It's not just this austere God out there controlling everything issue. But there's a sense in which God wants to be related closely to you and me. Oh, he has the control. No question about it. He does it without being controlling. But he's seeking for that personal connection to you and me.

And I think about how close God got to those elders here in our text. And what a beautiful thing that was. I think of my own life. And I'm sure you could share testimonies as well. When you have sensed God coming in near, it's such a beautiful thing.

You may have felt like you were at the end of your rope. You may have simply felt like there was a distance and you were seeking to close the gap. And God, in his mercy, came near. When God comes near, I'm a different person. I feel like I can take on the world. It doesn't matter what China's thinking and Russia's thinking. And you know what? It's the kingdom of God all the way.

Because God is near. And when God is near, who cares what other people think, what they're scheming?

Some time ago, I was reading or I started to delve into Dallas Willard's book, The Divine Conspiracy. I figured it was probably the best conspiracy book I could read in these times. And he starts off with a quote by Julian of Norwich who said, "It is God's will that we believe that we see him continually.

Though it seems to us that the sight be only partial, and through this belief, he makes us always to gain more grace. For God wishes to be seen, and he wishes to be sought, and he wishes to be expected, and he wishes to be trusted."

And Willard goes on to note that seeing is no simple thing, of course. Often, a great deal of knowledge, experience, imagination, patience, and receptivity are required. Some people, it seems, are never able to see bacteria or cell culture or cell structures through the microscope.

But seeing is all the more difficult in spiritual things where the objects, unlike bacteria or cells, must be willing to be seen. Persons rarely become present where they are not heartily wanted. Certainly, that is true for you and me. We prefer to be wanted, warmly wanted, before we reveal our souls or even come to a party.

The ability to see and the practice of seeing God and God's world comes through a process of seeking and growing in intimacy with him. I like that thought. And like you, I really believe that God has created his world in such a way that he wants us to see him through it. To see him, to see his attributes, his power, his love, his creativity, his desire to relate closely to us.

And I think that learning to see him everywhere is probably a lot akin to the process that children go through, and we all did, in learning how to read. We are now entering into that phase with our oldest, who is five.

And I don't remember those years of learning to read. I love to read. But it's been a surprise to me how difficult it really is. You realize that there are a lot of steps that one has to go through to read. Reading is not just seeing.

There's a lot more involved.

If you've been involved in teaching children to one degree or another, a lot of you are and have been, one of the first things we have to teach them is to see letters. They look at a page like this, these pages, and what is it?

There's marks. Okay, well, you have to distinguish the B and the D. And there's different letters.

Then we have to help them see letter groups. You put two or three letters together, and it makes a word. And there's individual words. And then these words have meaning by themselves. They have meaning. And then you put these words into groups. And these groups of words have meaning. And you can have the same words. But if they're arranged differently, they mean different things.

You know, you have the dog bit the man. But you have the very same words. The man bit the dog. It means two different things. And one is a bit more shocking than the other.

And then they get to learn that there's different kinds of not only do you take these groups of words, but there's different kinds of groupings of words. There's poetry, and there's narrative, and there's allegory, and there's parable. And reading takes a lot of work, doesn't it? There's a lot involved to it.

It's not just seeing, but it's apprehending. And reading the Bible is like that, isn't it? And I think that reading the nature around us is a lot like that. Learning to see with eyes that don't just see, but actually apprehend and comprehend what it is that the book of nature is designed to teach us.

We're talking about learning how to see God everywhere, recognizing his closeness, and drawing near to him as well. And maybe the question is, how close do we want to be? If God wants us to always see him, am I putting forth the energy, the interest, the effort to see him?

I'm sure that we've sometimes asked ourselves the question, well, how close does God want to be? There's a bit of apprehension there. It feels like at times God is satisfied with a gap. And what do we do about that? I think sometimes it's God testing us. How much do we want to press in to really get to know him, to seek him? I see this here in verse 2. There's a bit of a gap here. It says, "God was saying that Moses alone shall come near the Lord. But they, these 73 chosen men, shall not come near, nor shall the people." Well, does God want to be near?

Absolutely.

Obviously, we see the restrictions here in our text. But what is great is, obviously, we have the context of all of Scripture. And we know from all of Scripture that God wants to be close to us. In fact, today is a very special day in the life of the church.

We could say happy birthday to the church today. Today is Pentecost Sunday. And what does Pentecost reveal to us? It reveals that the God of heaven wants to be so close to us that he wants to be in us. He wants to dwell within us to help us live as he's designed us to live. That's how close God wants to come to us.

So God takes the initiative, but he doesn't force the relationship. William Law was the English writer, very influential in many people's lives, like John Wesley and others. His book about a serious call to a devout and holy life. I think the premise of the book, if I'm right, Dad, is that you can be as close to God as you want to be, pretty much. In other words, we can be distracted by our smartphones and technology and other things. Or we can press in to really seek God with full devotion.

How serious are we about seeing God? And I remember as a boy that there was a wooden plaque in our hallway. I grew up in northwestern Ontario with my parents at a boarding school for First Nations children up there. I went to school with them and all that. And I remember in the hallway of our house, my mom had a plaque there that said, "If you don't feel close to God, guess who moved." Do any of you have a plaque like that at your house, that saying, that motto? If you don't?

Okay, have you seen it? Anybody seen that statement? Okay. "If you don't feel close to God, guess who moved." And it's humorous to me now because my thoughts about that plaque illustrate how dense I can be and how hard it is for me to see the obvious sometimes. Sometimes I'm just way too overly logical.

I know for a number of years as a boy, I puzzled over that question, how many three-cent stamps are in a dozen? I was like, how many? It is four, right?

That's my logicality. So this question on the wall, if you don't feel close to God, guess who moved? Well, I'm 8, 9, 10 years old, 11 years old. I'd look at that thing and I'd think to myself, guess who moved? Well, to my logic, it seemed like maybe I was being too loud and noisy and I need to be listening for God. So I was like, okay, I'll be quiet. Did I just hear God move? Was there a rustling over there in the corner?

What about over here? Okay?

I was taking guess who moved literally, right? Okay? As a sense that if I didn't feel close to God, I wasn't being quiet enough to hear his movements. And so I just needed to calm down and be quiet. And it's kind of funny because that illustrates what we're talking about. You can see things without seeing them or apprehending what they are intended to mean. Obviously, now that I've learned to see that motto, I don't listen for God rustling anymore. I think about the things in my life that are perhaps causing distance. Is there unconfessed sin? Is there something I'm hiding? Have I just not been very serious about pursuing God? Is there a reason why I feel like there's a gap between him and me?

I believe he wants to reveal himself very clearly to me, just as he did to the elders and even more so as we see through Jesus and through the giving of the Holy Spirit. So we've thought about this matter of control, this matter of closeness. We also see, I think, a third aspect of experiencing empowerment. And that is covenant, God's promise.

This has to do with my response to God whereby I enter purposefully into a committed relationship with him. We were able to witness that yesterday here with the wedding of Elijah and Megan. Here were two people who said, we want to enter into covenant together. We are going to be committed till death do us part. There's something very beautiful, very powerful, very important about doing that sort of thing.

There are a lot of people in this world who are willing to recognize God's imprint, recognize that God is very knowledgeable. He's very intelligent. But they're not willing to unreservedly commit themselves to him, to make that commitment, that unreserved covenant.

And what's so vital for us to remember as a people is that our God is a covenant-making, covenant-keeping God. He wants to enter into that commitment. He wants us to come in and make those promises to him, to bind ourselves to him. And that's what we see in our text here in verses 3 to 8. The people of Israel were free to exercise their free will. God was not dominating or forcing them. But they of their own free will chose to make a covenant with God. And when you look at these six verses here, verses 3 to 8, I want you to see if you can see or hear two very clear declarations that the people make saying, we will be committed.

We're going to do this. Okay? Listen to what's going on. So Moses came in verse 3 and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments. And all the people answered with one voice and said, all the words which the Lord has said, we will do. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. And he rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and 12 pillars according to the 12 tribes of Israel. Then he sent young men of the children of Israel who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins.

And half the blood he sprinkled on the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant and read into hearing of the people. And they said, all that the Lord has said, we will do and be obedient. And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, this is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to all these words.

In many ways, I think we could say that this was the birth of Israel as a nation. This is where they came into their own. This is where they covenanted together with God. And did you catch those two phrases, those two statements?

They're there in those two different verses where they said, all that God has said, we will do. And the second time around, they added, and we will be obedient.

God had delivered Israel from Egypt for the purpose of entering into covenant with her. He didn't deliver them just so they could go out there and wander on their own and make their own decisions. He purposefully wanted to bring them together as a people covenanted, married, if you will, to him.

And in truth, that's probably what the meal was about in verse 12, that question mark that I raised earlier on. I like how the New Living Translation renders verses 11 to 12. Under his feet, under God's feet, there seemed to be a surface of brilliant blue lapis lazuli, which is a semi-precious gemstone, as clear as the sky itself.

And though these nobles of Israel gazed upon God, he did not destroy them. In fact, they ate a covenant meal, eating and drinking in his presence. And there's an exclamation point there. I know that's the translator's decision. But I like that emphasis there that they had this covenant meal and they did all of this in God's presence. There's something amazing there, something striking.

Interestingly, Dallas Willard, I think, presents a good argument that in the New Testament, Jesus came preaching that the kingdom of the heavens was at hand. Therefore, we must repent. I like that thought. With the elders, we see the heavens opened a little bit. Somehow, God manifests himself.

And then with Jesus, we see this or we hear this call to repent because the kingdom of the heavens are here or at hand. To me, it emphasizes the closeness of God, the nearness of his rule, and the desire that he has to enter into that covenant with us. Think about the model prayer that we pray quite regularly here. And I'm glad we do.

Our Father, which art in the heavens.

God is not just out there somewhere. God, I believe, has actually given us a visual to remind us that he is near. And I think most of you sitting here this morning are able to see a bit of that visual. There's a large picture window behind and above me here that shows a good portion of God's pavement. That's a beautiful thing.

God has put that there on purpose, not the window, but the pavement.

Something to remind us of what God is about, his closeness, his kingdom, his desire to enter into a fuller covenant with us. If you want empowerment, get under God's pavement.

We've looked at control, closeness, covenant, a final, a fourth and final aspect of empowerment, or being able to do things, I believe, is community, God's people. If control is about God's relationship to everything and closeness is about God's relationship to me and covenant is about my response, my relationship to God, then community is about my relationship to God's people.

Obviously, the idea of yieldedness to a community is a very hard truth for American people to accept, even North American conservative Anabaptists. A very hard truth for us to accept. This idea of giving in, of yielding, of blending, of not standing out, of not being different, of being part of a bigger group, a bigger body, does not sit well with the culture through which we are making our pilgrimage at this time.

But the truth is, God typically operates through individuals who are in groups. As counterintuitive as that may seem, that's typically how God operates. Do you want self-fulfillment? Do you want to find some identity? Do you want belonging, satisfaction, significance, purpose, meaning, something that outlasts your brief life? Then bind yourself to God and to others who have bound themselves to God. And that's where we find empowerment. It's counterintuitive. I would think that if I go off and do my own thing, then I would be empowered. Then I'd be my own person. Then I'd make a difference. Then I'd leave a mark. But that's not how God typically works.

Now, I realize that you could probably present some exceptions about so-and-so who lived like John the Baptist and did an amazing thing. And the other so-and-so that lived like John Wayne and did just amazing things. There probably are some exceptions out there. However, somebody did point out to me that John the Baptist even lived within a community sense and was calling a community of people out to be prepared for King Jesus.

So there may be exceptions for individual contributions. But as a general rule, that's not how God works. He works by blending people's lives together to accomplish something amazing. And we all know that there are problems amongst the Amish. But how many individual Amish can you think of that are really making a difference for God out there? Off the top of my head, I know a number of Amish. I can't think of any. But as a group, they're actually making a bigger impact on America than the Mennonites are.

And I'm just using, that's anecdotal from talking with Dad, who answers some of the calls that come in on the CAM billboards. And so often when he asks people, you know, what do you think of this kingdom message? Well, yeah, it's great. But is there anybody that lives it? Well, do you know anything about the Mennonites? Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't. Do you know anything about the Amish? Most of the time they do. Am I right, Dad? Most of the time they have some concept of what Amish means. Okay? Well, they may not be living it just right. But as a group, they're making a pretty big impact. They're not even trying. It's not fair, is it?

Lots of people out there by themselves, preaching on the street corners, holding up signs, trying to change the government, trying to effect change, not making a bit of difference. And here are these Amish going on about their life, making a bigger impact than all of this fuss and hubbub out here on the street corner. It's not fair. But I'm using that to illustrate the fact that God tends to work in groups to carry out the king's commands and to demonstrate the kingdom to people around.

So if you want empowerment, get under God's pavement by binding yourself to other people who are under God's pavement. So how do we incorporate these thoughts into our lives here in 2022?

As you go through the next several days, weeks, years, I'm pretty confident that somewhere along the line, probably even within the next 24 hours, you're going to hear something alarming. You're going to see something alarming. You're going to experience something devastating or gloomy or sad or unfortunate. It's just the nature of this constantly connected, globally aware, always on culture amongst which we live.

And there are lots of other things that happen too. I mean, your gloominess could be related to relationships, could be related to church family, could be related to friends. You just find yourself feeling a little lower than a snake's belly, Nebbie. What do you do? You feel powerless to change anything. You can't accomplish anything.

Here's what I'd like you to do. Just very simple. I'd like you to think about the blue sky. Think about the sky of blue that God has placed all around us, around his world. And remember that there is a God who wields all the power, who has all control, who desires relationship, who calls us to covenant.

And he does so within a group of believers.

I think he's purposefully made the sky sapphire to remind us of these truths.

And I recognize that there is a sense in which nobody can get out from under the pavement. Okay? The astronauts get away temporarily, but they always have to come back under the pavement. So everybody has to be under the pavement. But when I say get under the pavement, I'm talking about being willing to acknowledge that God is the one who is in control. I mean, he's the one that is in power.

I think he's made us limited to living under the pavement because it does illustrate that we're dependent on him. We have to yield at one level or another, whether we want to admit that he exists or not. And so I think what he's calling us to do is just rejoice in the fact that he is the one in charge.

And so if you're a mother and you're dealing with cranky children, maybe you can't get outside and even look at the blue sky. Maybe you can look through the kitchen window, just find a patch of it if you can.

Maybe you're stuck inside working all day, or maybe you're outside working and it's cloudy all day. My encouragement to you is just think about and remember the sky that is there. Whether you can see it or not, it's there.

And particularly the God that manifests himself as controlling all things and desiring relationship with each and every one of us. It's so good to look at the bottom side of God's pavement and realize his presence, his promises, and his power.

And for you children, how many of you here are between the ages of 4 and 11? We have some of you here between 4 and 11. Okay, I have a special assignment for you. In the next week, every day, I want you to run outside and see if you can be the first one to see God's pavement. Okay? See if you're the first one, and especially if it's a cloudy day, that could be that could take several trips outside to see if there's any patch of pavement up there, any blue sky. And then you run back inside and tell your family that you were the first one. If you weren't the first one, that's okay.

Okay? But if you see a patch of blue sky, you just you can say, "Thank you, God, for that patch of pavement that I get to see. Thank you that you are in control and that you care about me."

In closing, no matter what happens in Russia or China or any other nation on earth, living under the pavement is a beautiful and blessed place to be. The blue sky reminds us that God reigns. He is in control. He is close. He is calling us into covenant with a community. If you want empowerment, get under God's pavement.

Are there any thoughts related to the message?