Minority Report #4 - God’s Compassionate Hand

Message Description

Dr. Kurt Bjorklund continues the message series "Minority Report" teaching from the Old Testament book of Daniel to show how God's compassion is present in times of trouble even after the trouble is the result of our decisions again and again.

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Message Transcript

We've been working our way through the book of Daniel taking large sections and trying to understand what they teach. And Daniel four comes obviously after Daniel three, after Daniel two, and so there's a context here, and here's the context to what you just heard. And that is, that Babylon was the great power of the world at this time. And King Nebuchadnezzar was probably the most powerful person of the world at this time. And Babylon is situated where modern-day Iraq is. Babylon, the city, is where modern-day Baghdad is, and so this was the center of power. And they would take people from other nations and conquer them and bring them back in order to take what they had to offer and build their empire to be stronger.

And so, when we come into the Book of Daniel, we're brought into this world of the exile, that's the biblical word that's often used for it, the definition of it because these Jewish people had been taken and put into a culture that wasn't their own, into Babylon and forced to live here, and this captivity goes on for 70 years. And we're right in the middle of this, maybe closer to the end of it, when we come to Daniel four. And this is why we've called this series Minority Report because what happened was, these individuals were placed into a culture that wasn't their own. And you may say, well, to talk about faith being a minority issue might seem remote to some of us, but I hope that what you're seeing is that the way of faith has often been, maybe always been and certainly is even in our day, a situation in which, if you are going to be faithful to God, you will have to swim against the culture sometimes that is around us.

And if you want to have a faith that's vibrant, it will not mean that you're always just with the majority in our culture. It's always been, probably usually been that way, certainly was in Daniel's day, and I hope that you can see some of those parallels. And so, when we come to Daniel four what you have is, and this is part of what we didn't read, you have Nebuchadnezzar, this most powerful man in the world, having another dream. He had a dream in chapter two that had to be interpreted by Daniel. In Daniel two, it was about the statue being smashed by a rock.

In Daniel three, he has the experience of telling everyone to worship this golden image and he tries to throw the young men into the furnace, and they survive. And he's like, God is God. And now he's living his life as if God isn't God, once again, as if he's the primary person. And he has this dream that disturbs him, it's a dream about a tree that is cut down. And this time he doesn't really need an interpreter because he realizes that the dream's about him. And so, he's disturbed, and Daniel comes along and confirms it. And this is part of what you heard. And here's at least the initial very quick thing that happens and that is, here you have a man who doesn't seem to learn his lessons. In other words, he keeps having these dreams, these experiences and going, "Huh, I'm still everything."

I remember when I was in middle school, one of the first times I learned a really humbling lesson, not that it was the first time or the last time, but one of the first times. I was in a science class, and I had been doing well in the class. The kids I was sitting around; we would always share our grades after we got tests. And because I was doing well, I was feeling really confident. And so, before one particular test, I decided that I was going to brag about not studying, even though I did study and that I would then do well, hopefully, and be able to say, "I'm so smart, I didn't need to study." This was what was in my mind and I proceeded to absolutely bomb the test, and have that moment where you're like, do I tell the other kids what I got? It's weird if I don't.

And my point is, I had a humbling moment where I had a choice to either learn the lesson of saying, from now on, I don't share my grades. I don't talk about what I did or didn't do. I just do what I do and let it go. And that served me well in high school, college, grad school, and throughout the rest of my life.

And so many times what happens is we don't learn hard lessons. Now, here's what I believe the lesson is intended to be in Daniel chapter four. And that is, it's a repeated phrase once again. And that is so that you may know or so that you'll come to understand who God is. Here it is, verse 17. You read it here. "The decision is announced by messengers, the holy ones declare the verdict, so that the living may know that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of people." Why is this dream given? What is Daniel four about? It's given so that people will know that it's God who lifts people up, and it's God who brings people low.

In other words, Nebuchadnezzar, you think you're all that? You aren't all that. That's part of it here. Here it is again, verse 25. It says this, "You will be driven away." Now it's speaking to Nebuchadnezzar. "From people, and you will live with the wild animals. You will eat grass like the oxen, be drenched with the dew of heaven. Seven times will pass for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all the kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes." So now not only is he told this idea about being cut down like a tree, but now he's told you're going to roam around like a wild animal. That's what's going to happen to you until seven times pass. And what? You know that it's God who's in charge. Then we see it again, verse 26, it just a repetition, "The command to leave the stump of the tree with its roots means that your kingdom will be restored to you when you acknowledge that Heaven rules." In other words, when you get the lesson and acknowledge that heaven rules, then the purpose of this will have come to fruition.

Verse 32 again says you will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals repeats this whole idea. Seven times you will pass by for until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all the kingdoms of the earth and gives to anyone he wishes. So, four times, at least in this chapter, we're told that this event, this drama is taking place so that Nebuchadnezzar and the people around him will say, it's God who rules. No matter how strong you think you are or what you think is going on. It's God who rules.

Now, Nebuchadnezzar was a narcissistic homicidal maniac. There's no way around it. When you read about, I'm going to cut to pieces and smash your homes if you don't acknowledge Daniel's God. I'm going to throw you in the fire if you don't worship my statue. One of the weeks I quoted one of the Psalms that talked about the oppression that they rot when they first sacked Jerusalem and how they would take babies and have them killed. I mean, this was not a man who was just simply boasting about his grade on a middle school test. This is a guy who was at a whole other level of narcissism, and God here comes along and says, "I want you to acknowledge that I'm God." But here's what else I think we see in this chapter, that in God's sovereignty, we also see his compassion.

And then what I want to do today is show you how we see God's compassion in three areas in this text that I believe are also true for you and me. And here's the first and that is we see God's compassion in our success. And here's how you see this in this chapter. And this is in verse 29 and following, and this is where Nebuchadnezzar now has had this dream, this prophecy that he's going to be cut down. He's going to be sent to live like wild animals, but he'll be a stump and all of this, and be restored basically.

And then we read this verse 29, "12 months later." So that's after he had had the dream before the wild animal thing, "12 months later as the King was walking on the roof of his royal palace in Babylon, he said, "Is this not the great Babylon that I have built as the royal residence by my mighty power and the glory of my majesty." I don't know about you, but I would think if I had had a terrifying dream and I knew I was the tree that was going to be cut down, I don't think I would walk around on my roof going, "Look at what I built. Aren't I awesome.”? But that's kind of what he's doing here. He's saying, "I did this."

And by the way, the hanging gardens of Babylon were considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. In other words, he wasn't all wrong to say, I did this. This is the most powerful. I was in charge. I made it happen. And he said, "Is not the great Babylon.", verse 30. Verse 31, "Even as the words were on his lip, a voice came from heaven. This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar. Your royal authority has been taken from you. You will be driven away from the people." And now he gets this whole statement about these seven seasons where he will in essence, live as an animal. Now here's the majority opinion in our culture. It's outside the church, it's in the church. Outside the church, it's the idea that if I've succeeded, I've done it. Inside the church, it's if I've succeeded, I've done it with a little bit of God's help. But the idea is still that basically whatever I've achieved in this world, I've done.

But part of the point of this story is so that we would begin to see that there's an element of which even the most, base success that we have is a result of the compassion or the goodness or the sovereignty, the work of God in our lives. Now sometimes that's an uncomfortable truth. And let me just make this point with an illustration that I know is dangerous to use, because if I mention the name I'm going to mention, half of you will go, "Ooh", and the other half of you will go, "Yeah, that's good." But when President Obama was president, you see what I just did there, I set you up for that. Don't tell us which group you're in. But when President Obama was president, one of the things he said to small business owners, do you remember this?

That if you've built a small business, you didn't build it. He said it was part of the whole community. Now there was a reaction to that and rightly so. There were people who said, "Yeah, it's our tax dollars that have provided the infrastructure and you had all kinds of help." And other people were like, "What are you talking about? Why are you attacking small business owners that drive the economy and the world in which we live?" And people had this debate about how much we're responsible for. Now, you can debate President Obama's statement and whether or not that that's a legitimate thing or not. That's something you can take up in your life group. Actually, don't because that will derail your life group. But here's what you can't debate if you understand what Daniel four is saying and what scripture teaches, and that is that God is the one who gives us gifts, gives us opportunities, and gives us success. And that part of the whole point of this story is for Nebuchadnezzar to say, I just didn't do this myself.

Now, to be fair if you just say, well, God did it. It sometimes sounds like we absolve ourselves of any responsibility or as if we don't have any part of it. I love the story about the old farmer who was working his field, and he had had a beautiful crop ready to go. And a pastor came to visit him, and he said, "Wow, you and the Lord really did a beautiful job getting this field ready." And the farmer said, "Yeah, you should've seen it when God had it by himself." I mean, there's a truth to the fact that what we do matters. And so, to simply stand back and say, "Hey, God did it" is sometimes absolving ourselves of real responsibility and sometimes even a sense of satisfaction of saying I had a significant part of that. But the point of this chapter, at least this part of it, I believe, these verses, is that Nebuchadnezzar's pride, his hubris, his belief that he was everything led him to say, "I don't need God. I'm responsible for me."

Psalm 75, verse seven in the New Living translation says, "God decides who rises and who falls." For Nebuchadnezzar, he didn't believe that. He believed that he had succeeded. And because of that, there's an arrogance in him that leads to a kind of oppression. Because what happens when you're arrogant is you start to believe that you have earned it and anybody who doesn't earn it, isn't like you. And this can start in a middle school science class where you start to say, I earned this grade and everyone else isn't as smart as me. And it can show up in our workplaces, it can show up in kingdoms. It can show up in board rooms. But when we understand that what we have is a result of the compassion of God, then we become compassionate.

Here's how you see this, verse 27. "Therefore, your majesty." Now this is when Daniel is saying to Nebuchadnezzar, kind of the interpretation of the dream. "Therefore your majesty, be pleased to accept my advice." This is before he walks around on the roof and says, I did all of this. "Be pleased to accept my advice, renounce your sins by doing what is right and your wickedness, and be kind to the oppressed." Now, why is that there? Probably because in the midst of his life, what he was doing was he was saying, you know what, the strong deserve what they get. The weak, it's their problem.

And so sometimes our success, especially if we believe we're the ones that are responsible, can lead us to at a minimum, turn a blind eye to people who are hurting. And sometimes it can lead us to be active oppressors. And what's more is when we understand that our success is a result of the compassion of God, when we believe it, what happens is we become less fearful about what will happen in the future. Less anxious, less driven, less prideful, less indifferent to the needs around us because we start to say, it is God who has given me what I have. Now, again, that doesn't mean that you didn't play a part, an important part, but it's a recognition that everything comes back to the source, and it's God who decides who he lifts up and who he brings down.

Since I quoted a Democrat, let me quote a Republican. This way I can try to keep all of you happy or none of you happy, whichever works. This is Abraham Lincoln. This was at a prayer event in 1863. He said this, "We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no nation has ever grown, but we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserves us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us. We have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom or virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us."

Here's what he's communicating here is he's saying, as a nation, and you can debate the nation's history and where God fits into it, but what he's saying is, as a nation, we have thought that we're the ones that produce the wealth and prosperity and peace that we've had, and we need to continue to acknowledge that there's a God who has given this to us. You see, what is true personally is true corporately. It's true in a broader sense of being able to say, if we have good things, God has had his hand in it. Now, I know just from my own life that saying this and saying, yeah, I can give intellectual ascent to that doesn't mean that it's true inside our heart. And what I mean by that is, is that you can say, well, I might give intellectual ascent to that, but I feel kind of like that farmer who says, yeah, you should have seen that before God had it by himself, when that was it.

But sometimes our words or our commitment to not saying certain things can help our heart. In other words, simply refusing to take credit for something completely on our own, without at least acknowledging God's hand, not boasting, not taking implied credit, not doing the kind of humble brag. Do you know what the humble brag is? It's where you don't actually want to point something out because you know it's kind of socially unacceptable. And so, you do the thing like, I'm blessed to have had this opportunity. And what you're doing is you're saying, I just want to tell you about the opportunity, but I'm kind of blessed so I'm making it God's thing. It's the humble brag, or we don't speak in derision about what other people have done.

Instead, what we do is we acknowledge that the good things that we have in our lives are from the hand of God. In other words, your health, the opportunities the education that you have had in this world are from the good hand of God. The support that you have had from family and friends, the resources, the physical strength to press through are from the good hand of God. Yes, you worked with them. You are the one who stayed up all night working the business, getting through college, getting through grad school, applying yourself to learn a trade so you could do it, but even the skill and ability to do that are from the good hand of God.

And here's, again, the point that I think is happening is Nebuchadnezzar didn't buy it. And so, God says, I'm going to cut the tree off. I'm going to leave a stump, but I'm going to cut the tree off. And here's what you're going to experience. Years ago, Johnny Cash wrote a song that in some ways could have been based on Daniel four, I don't know that he had any thought of Daniel four when he wrote this, but it's called, God's Going to Cut You Down and here's how the song went. It was kind of a foreboding, depressing song, but he said, "You can run on for a long time, run on for a long time, run on for a long time, but sooner or later, God's going to cut you down. Sooner or later, God's going to cut you down." And then the first verse says, "Go tell that long time liar, go tell that midnight rider, tell that rambler, that gambler, that back biter, that God's going to cut them down."

I don't know what was all in Johnny Cash's mind, but what Daniel four is talking about is that when there's an arrogance and a belief that we've done it, that God says sooner or later, I'm going to let you see that all of your success has a deeper source than you know. And when we acknowledge that it's a source from God, that is his compassion, then we've learned that lesson. But that's the only thing we see here. I think we also see God's compassion in our troubles. And I say that because again, in this text, what we see is we see that God is the actor who brings about the hardship that Nebuchadnezzar is going to experience.

Verse 25. "You will be driven away from people and you will live with wild animals. You will eat grass like the ox and be drenched with the dew of heaven. Seven times will pass." He says again here. "By you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all the kingdoms of the earth and gives them to anyone he wishes." And then again, verse 32, which I already read, it repeats this, the sentiment again and says, this is true until you acknowledge that God is there. You see the majority view again, outside the church, inside the church, is that if things go wrong in my life, it's evidence that somehow God is against me.

In fact, this is one of the reasons a lot of people have struggled to have faith. As they say, "If there's a God, if God is good, then I wouldn't have this hardship. I wouldn't have this difficulty. I wouldn't be experiencing life the way I'm experiencing it." And so that's a reason for some people to struggle with faith on a whole. And then for some people you may say, "Well, I'm in the church, but I still don't understand why God let me have this trouble." Well, what we see here and also in the New Testament is that sometimes God allows hardship in our lives so that we will see something bigger than our hardship.

Here's second Corinthians, chapter 12, verse seven. This is the Apostle Paul writing who had had a lot given to him. He was one of the most influential people of the early church. He had had unique revelations from God that gave him standing and access to who God was. Here's what he says. He says in the middle of verse seven, "Therefore in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me, but he said, 'My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness so that Christ's power may rest on me." Do you see that? He says I was given this hardship, so I wouldn't become conceited, so that I would acknowledge God's strength in my weakness. So, I would acknowledge the greatness of God.

You know, we've titled this series Minority Report and each week has a different aspect of God's hand. But if I were to have just given this message a single title, I would have called it, Don't Waste Your Humiliation, because what we're seeing here is that God is gracious in allowing us to go through hardship because it points us to something that isn't temporary to something that's ultimate. And when we see that what we do is we begin to see who God is. I love how CS Lewis wrote about this years ago in the Chronicles of Narnia. There's a point in one of the books where the lion comes on the scene. And if you haven't read the books, the lion is the God figure. And so, the lion comes on the scene and little Lucy, who's the little girl in the drama is like, "A lion, is he safe?" And the response from the older person who had had more experience around the lion and the things that had gone on had this classic line, this was CS Lewis's way of saying, here's how you understand God a little bit. He said, "Of course, he's not safe. He's a lion, but he's good."

You see one of the things that happens when we come to understand that even our troubles are from a gracious hand of God, part of his compassion, is then we begin to say, somehow, God is good in this, even if I don't see it, it doesn't make sense to me today. Elizabeth Elliott lost her husband who was martyred in Central America when she was in early twenties and she went on to write a lot after that. He was martyred as a missionary where the people he went to serve took his life. Jim Elliot is his name, but Elizabeth wrote this. She said, "God never withholds from his child that which is love and wisdom called good. God's refusals are always merciful, severe mercies at times, but mercy's all the same. God never denies us our heart's desire except to give us something better." God sometimes will, in his compassion, use troubles and we'll see his compassion in his troubles because God's at work doing something that's even better than we understand. But from our perspective, sometimes that's really hard to see or believe.

So, we've seen that God's compassion is seen in our successes. His compassion is seen in our troubles, but I also believe it's seen in his patience. And here's where we see this in this passage. A few times we see this idea, verse four, Nebuchadnezzar was at home in the palace, contented and prosperous. So, he's living this great life in this sense. And then we see this in verse 23, it says this, "Your majesty saw a Holy one, a messenger coming down from heaven, saying, 'Cut down the tree and destroy it.'" And then here's the patience piece. "'But leave the stump bound with iron and browns in the grass of the field while its roots remain in the ground, let him be drenched with the dew." So even as God is saying, I'm going to deal with this, he's saying, leave a stump, leave a stump.

The idea is repeated again in verse 29, which we've read. And then in verse 34, we see this. It says at the end of that time, so this is after the time of Nebuchadnezzar kind of going around as this animal, kind of his mental illness, whatever you want to call it. "I raised my eyes toward heaven and the sanity was restored. My sanity was restored. Then I praised the most high. I honored and glorified him who lives forever. His dominion is eternal. His kingdom endures from generation to generation." And so, what you have for Nebuchadnezzar is that God continued to show patience year after year. At this point, he's 40-50 years into this rain, this homicidal narcissistic rain, and Daniel had been a faithful witness, which is a reminder by the way, not to give up and not to lose heart when you continue to give yourself to caring for other people.

But you see, for our majority, again, what we often think is if God is God, if there is a God, then this God is harsh, or if there is a God, he'll never hold us accountable. But what we have here is we have a picture of a God who both holds accountable and is incredibly patient and gracious. In other words, we don't have a God who's just a celestial policeman who's out to get an exacting result from his subjects. And we don't have a God who is just a grandfather who is kind of past his prime and doesn't have a lot to do, except invite the grandkids up to tell him a story or two. What we have is we have a God who is one who will hold accountable and will also act with incredible mercy and incredible grace.

I read the Johnny Cash song earlier. There's another verse to the song. Here's what Johnny Cash said at one point. He said, "I've been down on bended knee talking to the man from Galilee. He spoke to me in a voice so sweet I thought I'd heard the shuffle of the angel’s feet. He called my name and my heart stood still when he said, 'John, go and do my will.'" Now you may say, well, that's just Johnny Cash on drugs and it may have been. But do you see what he has here in a sense. Again, I don't know if he had Daniel four in mind, but he captured it. God's going to cut you down. God's going to cut you. But then there's this man from Galilee who extends grace. And that's where my heart sang.

It's easy sometimes when you read an Old Testament story like this to, if you're a person who's been around church to identify with the hero of the story, which from our perspective, a lot of times is Daniel and not really to identify with Nebuchadnezzar. And if you've heard me teach, especially in the Old Testament, you know that I don't believe that we're to just say, here's the hero of the Old Testament story, let's emulate it, that the point of Daniel isn't dare to be a Daniel and have something to say. But here's why this is important because sometimes, especially if you've been around church for a while, you might start to say, you know what, as I live my life, as I do what I do, I don't ever experience the need for God's patience anymore and therefore we don't see his compassion and then we start to forget that his hand is also active in our troubles and in our successes.

I had a chance just to see this myself this last week when I was trying to run some errands. I had an agenda for my day, all planned out this week on one of the days. And I went to do it, and I got frustrated because when I got to the one place where I was going to take care of something, I couldn't take care of it because the store had changed its policy and not told me. And so, I got there and all of a sudden, I got irritated because I was inconvenienced. And then later in the day I get home and I am going to sit down and go over my message notes for today. And I'm going over my message notes and I'm thinking, yeah, that Nebuchadnezzar, he really had some with being all about him.

And I realized, once again, that I was more like Nebuchadnezzar than Daniel, because I let my irritation at an inconvenience, cause me to be a little rude to somebody for no good reason other than I was inconvenienced and said, "I need to get this done because now my day's not going to go the way I thought my day should go." And here's what happened just in a moment because I know better than to let something like that get the better of me. I don't want to be that kind of a person. Like, I know that. And it was like, God was saying, do you believe that sometimes you're going to still have the experience of being cut down and know that it's the stump of my grace that is still at work in your life.

I remember years and years when I was first pastoring, I was pastoring a church in Michigan and the church that my wife and I went to when we first finished seminary was literally in a cornfield. There was nothing around it except cornfields in every direction. And so, there were big farms all around and the way that the roads worked is the ditches were huge because that way, when it would snow, the snow could blow in the ditch and you could get the road plowed. And the church was set on this little curve. And I was sitting in my office one day working on a message and I'll never forget this. It was Psalm 86, verse 15, which talks about God being gracious, slow to anger, abounding in his loving kindness. And I was doing the Hebrew, studying it, getting the concepts down, and I'd come to a really great outline. And it was that God's grace, and his mercy is something that you can never earn, and you can never exhaust.

I mean, that is good stuff, that'll teach, alliterated, easy to remember. That's what you do when you're a young pastor, you always start stuff with the same letter. And so, I was like, I'm doing this. And all of a sudden, I hear this commotion outside. I go outside and one of these semis that was carrying all this corn and stuff had literally gone into the ditch. Now this was a big ditch. This truck, he wasn't backing it out. They weren't just getting a small wrecker. And the driver was just bereft with a sense of grief because as I started to talk to him, he had made several mistakes, a couple of them, because he had been drinking and his boss had been very gracious to him. And he said, I'm going to be out of a job. I can't support my family. He's justified, all of this is going to come down on me.

I remember just talking to him for a while, trying to connect him with some help and going back inside to my Hebrew and my little outline that said you can't exhaust God's grace. And as I sat there writing, I thought, what does God's grace really mean? Here's what it really means. And that means you can go in the ditch and God's still gracious. And can go in the ditch, and you can go in the ditch, and you can go in the ditch, and you can go in the ditch, and you can go in the ditch. And did I mention, you can go in the ditch, but sometimes what's true for me, maybe for you is I want to think no, no, no. This time I went too far, I was irritated. I was inconvenienced. I was proud. I blew it once again. Now to be fair, there's a day when God will hold accountable, I'm not saying there's not that day coming, that is clear in scripture, but while we're living, God's grace is always saying, "Come back. You can go in that ditch and come back." When we get that, when we see what Jesus Christ has done on behalf of people, which is his power is made strong in our weakness, then what happens is we're moved because of that compassion.

And one of the things we talked about earlier in this series was this idea of being a creative minority, this idea of saying as people, if you're part of the community of faith, you're not just to hunker down and be angry and frustrated and scared about what's going on in our world, but to live with compassion. And one of the ways that you live with compassion is knowing the compassion that God has for you and saying his patience demonstrates it. And because I've seen it with things that are ultimate, therefore I can believe that his compassion and his sovereignty are at work, even in my troubles and in my successes. And both of those things will help me to live with more compassion. And that becomes the group of people who speak into this world and say the world in which we live, that is full of merit, that is full of judgment, that's full of one chance and out and being canceled are the people who will say, you know what, I'm going to live differently in this world. I'm going to live with a sense of one who's been loved, even when I didn't deserve it. And because of that, I can love, even if I don't think somebody else deserves it.

Sometimes that's hard because the truth is sometimes, we drive in the ditch and we'd beat ourselves up for days, weeks, sometimes, years, instead of saying, there's a God who is compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness. And it's demonstrated with Nebuchadnezzar, 40-50 years of arrogance and hubris. And God says, "I'm going to cut you down, but I'm going to leave a stump until you acknowledge who I am." Can you acknowledge who God is? What he's done? Can you look to that God and say, that's where compassion is?

Father, we thank you for a chance just to gather today here in Wexford, in the Strip District, in Butler County, online, those watching later, and God, I pray for my heart, for the heart of each person who's part of Orchard Hill today that you would help us today to see and to savor your sovereignty and your compassion in all the things that are happening in our world and in our lives. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.