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Sacramento Central SDA Church

Chris Buttery

Eyes Wide Shut

Chesterton, you've probably heard of him, read some of his works, or at least heard of or read some of his quotes, and 1 day he quipped, he said, without education we're in trouble or in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.

Similarly, Derek Bok, who was a former Harvard president, it's called Derek Bok's Law, And it states, if you think education is expensive, try ignorance.

Now, I'm sure that if I asked you which person had 1 of the people that had the most profound effect on your life while growing up, apart from your parents.

Some of you would probably say or tell me that it was a teacher of yours, probably at elementary school, probably in high school, maybe even in college.

Probably like me, A certain 1 or 2 stand out because they made just a real impression on your life, an influence that's been with you and that's allowed to, you've allowed to positively impact your life.

2 teachers that I learned some things from were my high school teacher, math teacher, and my geography teacher.

My math teacher, his last name was Wadke.

I don't even know what his first name was, to be honest.

In Australia, we call our teachers by Mr.

And Mrs., and even if they weren't your teacher, even if they were just an adult or a friend, neighbor down the street, it was always Mr.

Wadki and he was an impressive math teacher.

We actually had the privilege of sitting in a classroom next to another classroom where very occasion, very often rather, you'd hear the teacher in that classroom raking the students over the coals because they didn't understand the problems he was putting on the board and they should know it by now.

We could hear all of this taking place And we thought at that time, you know what, how blessed we are to be sitting in Mr.

He doesn't yell at us, he doesn't scream at us.

And this was in public school, I'll just give you some reference here.

Wadki was an inspirational math teacher, inspirational.

Rombalo, he was our geography teacher and Mr.

Rombalo would carry around a big meter rule that you would use on the chalkboard you know so he'd draw straight lines with his big meter rule and it was about this wide and it was about that thick and he called that thing Bertha And if you were ever talking in class to someone next to you, occasionally that big Bertha stick would come now, whack, on the desk right next to you, and it'd jump out of your seat and have nearly a heart attack and you'd never want to do that again in Mr.

Rombalo was inspirational, great teacher, loved the students and he decided he saw in me a little bit of an athlete and he tried me out in some hurdles and got me out early in the morning and tried to train me for some track meets for the state.

But if you were to think why that particular teacher positively affected you in your earlier years, it probably had more to do with the fact that they just taught well.

While that's important, it may be more than just the fact they taught well.

Perhaps it was because they inspired you.

Ward when he said the mediocre teacher tells, the good teacher explains, the superior teacher demonstrates, the great teacher inspires.

And for me, not only did Wadke and Rumbalo teach me, but they inspired me toward excellence, you see.

Have you ever wondered why Jesus had such great following, a great crowd that would follow everywhere Jesus went.

Jesus had come to Galilee on 1 particular occasion for 1 of those great annual feasts.

You can read about this in John chapter 7.

And as would often happen, Jesus found himself in just a spot of trouble.

Now it wasn't anything that he did per se, it wasn't because of anything he'd done, but because purely, simply because of the vile envy of the religious leaders of that time.

Now this particular moment at this particular scene they're hot under the collar and and they've sent off some officers to go and arrest Jesus.

Go get him, bring him to us, bring him to trial.

They want to get him really literally out of their hair.

They've tried undermining his influence, causing people to question his authority.

But when the officers returned to the religious leaders, they returned empty-handed.

And the religious leaders wanted to know why.

When pressed for an explanation as to why they hadn't followed their specific orders, they gave an interesting reason, and you read about it in John chapter 7, verse 46, they just simply said, the officers answered, "'Never man spake like this man.'" Man, that's impressive.

1 very clear explanation as to why Jesus had crowds follow him was that he spoke or taught like no 1 else.

They were fascinated with his message and they were enamored with the man.

He inspired them then, He inspired people all throughout history and He continues to inspire men and women, boys and girls today.

And he did this overcoming a major, major challenge.

Jesus did this overcoming a major challenge.

How do you explain to a fish that has been submerged in water its entire life what dry means or what dry is.

How do you explain to a, well, you probably don't wanna be talking to a fish anyway, and if you were, something wrong with you.

But if you were to explain to a fish, how would you, that's been submerged in water its entire existence?

And when we were growing up, they didn't last long.

Just 1 morning there, next morning belly up.

If you would explain to a fish, submerged in water its entire life.

How do you explain to a fish that knows what wet is, what dry is?

Because a fish in reality doesn't have any comparison.

When you're dealing with 2 unequal worlds, how do you effectively communicate?

And Jesus faced a very similar problem when he came here to planet Earth.

Jesus' huge task was to take the subject of his kingdom and communicate it to those who had no concept of it whatsoever.

He had to help people understand the nature of his kingdom, who had no idea what his kingdom was like.

Christ had to take the unknown and he had to make it known.

Now they say Awareness is largely a product of comparison.

Those that have traveled, if you've traveled out of this city, out of this state, and you've gone somewhere, and you've been impressed with the place that you've gone, how do you tell a person?

How do you help that person appreciate what it is you've experienced when that person has never been there, has never done that?

You do that by using some form of attachment, isn't that correct?

Something that they might be familiar with.

You use what is familiar to those you're talking to to explain to them the unfamiliar.

Now when I was 19 and just about 20 I traveled and left Australia and with every intention to go back home but then I met Jennifer and that was the end of that.

It was a good thing, it was a very good thing and happy to be here, no doubt about it.

But when I was 19, I left home and on the way to America to come here to study, I stopped in to see my father and my stepmother, my second mom, they're in Bangkok, Thailand, where my dad was working as an insurance man.

And we did some things in Bangkok, traveled around a little bit, got to see some sights, and on 1 particular day my dad took me in a boat, and I can't remember what they called those things, but he wanted to take me down the river, and it was an impressive tour, impressive venture, And then it went from impressive to very depressing because up along the side, the edge of the banks of that particular river, there were these really dingy shanties where people were living.

It was a very depressing sight and just unreal, truthfully.

And what was interesting is as I would look at those shanties and those places where people were living, just beyond that you would see where they parked their cars.

And it wasn't just any car, these were state-of-the-art, the newest, the latest, the best-looking cars you could imagine.

And I looked at my dad and I said, I don't get it.

Folk are living in cardboard boxes and they've taken these boxes and formed them into some semblance of rooms in a house and they live in that and yet they...

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Eyes Wide Shut

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