WHO SITS ON THE THRONE? // S03E08 (EPISODE 36)

Is it a lack of control that breeds anxiety, or a false sense of control that can’t compete with reality? This week, we sit down with Pastor John Love to talk about your throne, who’s sitting on it, and what that means for your daily life.

Check out The Grace Hour live at 1 p.m. EST on Facebook!

Find out more about Pastor John Love and Greater Grace World Outreach.

Questions we touch on in this episode:

How do I tackle anxiety as a Christian?

How do I give God control?

VERSES FROM WHO SITS ON THE THRONE?

Matthew 16, Psalm 115:3, Matthew 19, Job 12:10, Romans 8:28, Genesis 50:20, Luke 12:22.

QUOTES FROM WHO SITS ON THE THRONE?

But you can control what you turn on and turn off. And I think that that’s important. I like the gates. Christ is a gate. You know, we go in and out into the pasture. I’d rather be in the pasture. I’d rather be behind the safety of that gate, behind the safety of Christ and put Him in front. You know, it’s kinda like when we write something or we speak something from the pulpit is we keep it biblical. The only thing people can do is come back against Jesus. And that, and that is the safest place to be is in his protection.

Shea Watson, The Pantry Podcast, Who Sits On The Throne?

The Bible has a much better idea rather than seeking control, relinquish it. As you said, give it to God. You can’t run the world, but you can trust God to run the world for you.

Pastor John Love, The Pantry Podcast, Who Sits On The Throne?

When we try to take that control work coming at control unqualified, because we’re limited, we operate with our thoughts and not His higher thoughts. So we’re trying to control the situation without having all of the instruments, without all the tools. We’re like, “Well, I can’t control X, Y, or Z… So that can’t be part of the solution,” except with God those can be part of the solution. Cause He can control the weather! He can control the animals and the earth and time! And you know, He can move in our hearts in a way that we can’t even move ourselves so He can work something out and come up with solutions that are literally impossible for us to control.

Michelle Watson, The Pantry Podcast, Who Sits On The Throne?

ANNOTATED TRANSCRIPT

Michelle: It’s exciting, I’m excited.

Shea: We get to talk with Pastor Love and I’m going to just leave it on that because I know how you like to come in with your bio, but man, I’m excited. He’s one of our pastors from GGWO and it’s really exciting for me. I just love his messages. I love his word. I love how he unpacks it and brings it out to people.

Michelle: Yeah. And it makes sense. ‘Cuz Pastor Love is the youth pastor at Greater Grace World Outreach up in Baltimore and he’s been working with the young people for, you know, over 20 years. He’s also a professor at the Maryland Bible College and Seminary. He holds weekly Bible studies for professionals in downtown Baltimore—so he’s got that angle. And then I think one of the coolest things is that he is the host of Grace Hour, which is a live international Christian radio broadcast. That’s been going for over 50 years—not Pastor Love, but the radio broadcast—but he got to take that over. And then, of course, he’s also the chaplain of the New York Knicks.

Shea: I got one more thing that I just learned tonight: he plays hockey. That is awesome.

Michelle: We’re excited to have you here. Thank you so much for joining us. Welcome. Welcome.

Pastor John Love: My pleasure.

Shea: So tonight’s episode, we’re going to talk about who sits on the throne. I think this is really important in our Christian walk. We sometimes like to take that control away from God. I love the story where, you know, Jesus has just told Peter, “Look, I’m going to the cross. And pretty much they’re going to, they’re going to beat me. They’re gonna, they’re gonna whip me. They’re going to crucify me,” and Peter, you know, he’s that guy that’s always trying to jump into things. So Jesus turns, it was kind of like a reprimand. He says, “Get away from me, Satan.” This is in Matthew 16. “You are a dangerous trap to me. You’re seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from gods.”

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “if any of you want to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross and follow me. If you’ll try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world, but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul sometimes like to grab that control.”

You try to take a situation into your own hands instead of calling on the one who can get you through.

Pastor John Love: Amen. Well, it’s interesting too, when you think that, well, Jesus, in saying that to Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” just prior to that, Peter had acknowledged when Jesus asked the question to His disciples, “who do men say that I am?” And they came up with different ideas and different names and thought He might be John the Baptist or Elijah, and then He put it to them. “But who do you say that I am?” And then Peter came out and he said, “You’re the Christ. The son of the living God.”

Made this profound statement regarding who Christ was. And then the next thing you know, Jesus is rebuking him and saying, you’re speaking strictly from a man-made standpoint. You’re not even thinking with God at all.

Michelle: I don’t know if you say, oo-SERP or u-surp, but when you, when you start taking control from God, it’s second nature. It’s just something that you end up doing without even thinking. And sometimes you’re like, “Oh no, no God’s in control when things are hard.”

But you know, in that first knee jerk reaction happens to be this quick, what am I going to do? Not what is God going to do? What is God’s plan, but it’s, what am I going to do? And we have to remind ourselves. And so it’s often this dance for the believer of how quick do I bounce back from trying to pull Him off the throne there. I want Him there most of the time, but there’s these issues that come up and I instantly want Him to just kind of disappear for a second because I’m in control. And yet that never leads me to a fruitful place. It leads me down this rabbit hole of indecision and mistakes and tripping it up.

Pastor John Love: One of the basic fundamental foundational principles for every believer is this life is not in control. You have to begin there. Our lives are out of control. If you think that you can control your life, you are headed for a lifetime of anxiety. The most anxious people on the planet are the control freaks. The ones that they can control everything. These are the people that are most anxious in life and the big, why. Why is it so difficult for them to come to grips with the reality of this is because they just want to be able to control everything about their lives. When in reality, we can’t, you know.

Think about this. Here’s an interesting thought: gridlock in traffic—ultimate loss of control. You can’t go anywhere. You can’t move. And a team rather of German researchers found that in a traffic jam, your chance of a heart attack increases threefold because you can’t control it. You’re not anymore. You just have to sit there and you can’t do a thing about it. It would be so nice to think that we could control everything in our lives, but we don’t get to pick our storms. Right.

Shea: Right. I remember when I first came back, uh, you know, I had that little brief period between Christian school and living my life in the army and then coming back. And I remember when I first started driving and it would be in gridlock and the old habits would just want to come out and be in this rage. And I actually found a way to defeat it. I started playing Christian music all the time and I would tear that up and you don’t want to—when they cut you off and curse you out and you start to say something, song’s will be like, “Jesus, Jesus.” And you’re like, “Oh, let me reel that back in.”

But I love that analogy. I love the idea that it’s this anxiety, there’s no control. And if we, if we stay in that not having the control, basically in a worldly sense, being out of control and we don’t let God usher himself into the situation. You’re right. I agree. I agree with them. Germans, the German scientists, you will have anxiety.

Pastor John Love: We, we, we can’t take control because control isn’t ours to take. That’s such an important principle to keep in mind. I don’t know where this thought ever—I suppose it came in the garden with the fall of Adam where somehow, because things got chaotic and sin entered the human race, maybe we feel this responsibility. We have to take control, but it’s not ours to take. The Bible has a much better idea rather than seeking control, relinquish it. As you said, give it to God. You can’t run the world, but you can trust God to run the world for you. One thought that comes to my mind is the apostle Paul in the book of acts when they are on that ship. And they are traveling to Rome and Paul’s a prisoner, he’s a captive. But as it turns out, he ends up being a lot like the captain, because they are panicking because of this great storm that they are caught up in.

And they fear for loss of life. And they’re all thinking, you know, bailout, jump ship, let’s get outta here. Well, Paul steps up and he says, you know, don’t go, don’t nobody leave the ship. Everybody stay where you are. There will be no loss of life if you listen to what I say. I mean, at, at some points, some of these men must’ve been thinking, “This guy’s the prisoner. How is it? Does he get this authority? Where does he get this confidence that everything’s going to be all right?”

There’s not going to be any loss of life. We’re going to lose the ship. But when we’re not going to lose a single person, well, he put his trust in God. And he said, God has shown me. He’s made it very clear to me that we are going to make it through this. There’ll be no loss of life. And, uh, once they, you know, trusted in his words, they realized my gosh, he was right. This guy. He is, even though he’s a captive, he he’s a lot like the captain. So he, he relinquished it. He put it in God’s hands. He knew all along that everything about his life was being ordered by God. And imagine if he tried to take control on his own, well, it would have been a disaster

Michelle: And it’s says it in Psalm 115:3,
“Our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases.”

And it also says in Matthew 19, that,
“With us, it might be impossible. But with God, it is possible.”

On just those two verses paint this picture of a God that can do absolutely any good thing. When we try to take that control work coming at control unqualified, because we’re limited, we operate with our thoughts and not His higher thoughts. So we’re trying to control the situation without having all of the instruments, without all the tools. We’re like, “Well, I can’t control X, Y, or Z… So that can’t be part of the solution,” except with God those can be part of the solution. Cause He can control the weather! He can control the animals and the earth and time! And you know, He can move in our hearts in a way that we can’t even move ourselves, so He can work something out and come up with solutions that are literally impossible for us to control.

Shea: When you talk like that, it makes me think of Job 12:10,
“In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.”

That is that control without being in His hands, we wouldn’t exist. We wouldn’t have breath. We wouldn’t have life. And I like the idea of Him being in control, being, being a—Oh man, I grew up my whole life seeking control from my military days to 41 years old. When I came back to church, when I ran into Greater Grace Christian Fellowship and I had to relearn and, and reformat who I was because it wasn’t who I thought I was, but it was who he was telling me. I was. And I really loved that in myself. I always came up short, but in God, we always are ahead of the game. It’s like we’re ahead of the culture. We’re ahead of society. We’re ahead of ourselves.

Pastor John Love: Yeah. It would be so easy for us, especially in the times in which we’re living. So it would be so easy to rehearse all of the chaos going on in our world. God has a better idea rather than rehearsing the chaos let’s celebrate and rejoice in the sovereignty of God. He can be trusted even when the world is spinning out of control. And I remember shortly after September 11th, 2001, there was a pastor who felt compelled to get up in front of his congregation and to say to them, God didn’t have anything to do with the events of September 11th. I think he felt compelled to do that because so many people were asking the question, well, where was God? Why didn’t he stop? He intervened and on and on the questions go. But that’s a dangerous way to think because you know, if you say that God wasn’t in control on that day, seated on his throne, reigning sovereignly over the earth.

Then at some point in our own lives, we’re going to say, Hey, where was he? When my tragedy happened? Where was he? When this difficulty faced by my life and my family. And we can’t think like that, we have got to believe what the scriptures teach. And that is that God is a sovereign God. And that word sovereign is the word reign. He reigns, he controls everything. And the question is, do we trust him to do that? So here’s an interesting thought to put back what you said, shake about being in the traffic jam and turning on the worship music. I think that gives us some insight into what God would have us to do because we want peace. We want peace in the midst of all of the things we can’t control. Right? Well, he reminds us in Philippians chapter four, verse four starts up by saying rejoice in the Lord, and then he repeats it.

And again, I say rejoice because I think at first with all the chaos in our lives would be easy to say, no, no I can’t. There’s too much going on. There’s too much tragedy, too much heartache, but this is God’s answer. Start out rejoicing. And that’s inevitably going to lead to not being anxious about everything or anything for that matter, bringing everything before God, by prayer supplication with Thanksgiving, don’t forget the gratitude. And then the peace of God which passes understanding is going to umpire guide God govern our hearts. We can stabilize our souls with an understanding of the sovereignty of God.

Michelle: Amen. I was thinking about something that one of our pastors has said, Pastor B, when he says guard your eye gates, your ear gates, you know, your heart gate…guard what you’re consuming. And as someone who studied media literacy in psychology and marketing and advertising, I can’t help, but see how strong of a pull the media of this world has on a believer’s desire to control because what does marketing do? It has to detect a need, whether overtly by saying, this is what you need. And we have the answer or covertly by leading you to a conclusion that you need something and leading you to this determination that they are qualified to supply it.

And in that it reminds me of Luke 12, where it says,
“Don’t worry about where your food’s coming from. Don’t worry about what you wear because God will supply it for you.”

And yet in the world, the marketing alone is saying, what are you going to wear? You gotta wear this. What are you going to do? How are you going to spend your time? This, this idea of ultimate control of every iota, every combination. And what’s funny is that there’s choice overload. And so some of the reasons why there aren’t that many options for certain things, why does the iPhone only come in four colors at a time, for example? It’s because if you have too many choices, you’re more likely to freeze, but if they show you just a few, you’ll move forward and complete a sale. They’re telling you, “You have control,” but they’re controlling the options to give you a fake sense of control. And that’s what we do to ourselves. We have a fake sense of control. We don’t have a complete set of options.

And often it’s because we’re sitting there, we’re allowing things in all day long that aren’t godly. I’m not saying that you’re a center for watching commercials, but I’m saying, is that the wisest thing? Because I know the effect that the compounded number of advertisements a year has on a person. And yet we sit here being inundated with it all the time and don’t see the correlation to our control issues and our anxiety. When we then turn to God and say, “Wait. Oh, yeah! You’re in control. Sorry. My bad! I was too busy picking furniture colors and, and, and my job track, you know? Sorry, God! What, what, what did you say?”

Shea: Right? That reminds me of Grace Hour the other day with Pastor Stephens talking about movies. And he came out kind of rough on that. And he’s like, you can go, I’m not going, I got other things to do. He has a good point in it and I’m not—you and Pastor Schaller were saying, you know, we’re not beating people up to do it. But what we’re saying is the more options—like Michelle is saying, too—the more options we allow in, the more we sit there and kind of like, well, conform a little here, you know, look in the world today. You can’t go anywhere by anything from anyone that is perfectly aligned with our Christian principles. I mean, it just, it just doesn’t, it’s just not there. But you can control what you turn on and turn off. And I think that that’s important. I like the gates. Christ is a gate. You know, we go in and out into the pasture. I’d rather be in the pasture. I’d rather be behind the safety of that gate, behind the safety of Christ and put Him in front. You know, it’s kinda like when we write something or we speak something from the pulpit is we keep it biblical. The only thing people can do is come back against Jesus. And that, and that is the safest place to be is in his protection.

Pastor John Love: Yeah. And that’s always why it’s important as ministers preachers, teachers preach the word plain and simple reach the word. As you said, the problem with the word, they have a problem with Christ. Amen.

Michelle: Um, my favorite verse is Romans 8:28 because it reminds me that I don’t want to be in control because I can’t spin things and redeem things the way God can. Romans 8:28 is the famous verse. But that same concept was thought of before in Genesis 50:20, it says,
“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

Although Romans 8:28 gets all the credit. You know, this is not a new thought to the New Testament. My self-esteem doesn’t utterly plummet when I admit the fact I’m not qualified. I am ridiculously unqualified. If my daughter came to me next year, she can say full sentences and said, “I want to be president tomorrow.” I’d be like, “You’re not qualified.” And it would—and no one on earth would be like, “Hey, give her a chance!”

And yet, and yet we sit here all day, encouraging one another in these, these ideas, like, “No, you pick, you pick, you pick,” and we don’t remind one another and encourage one another to consult the Lord. The more you encourage others. “Hey, have you prayed about it? Have you spoken to the Lord about it? What does God’s word say about what you’re thinking now?” You’ve solidified it for yourself the next time you’re alone and have something across roads and there’s nobody around except for God.

Pastor John Love: And I like when you say we’re unqualified, right? And there’s only one kingdom that I know of that you become qualified when you say I do true. Yes. And when we say I do, you become qualified and He works in you and changes you, you know, God’s answer for troubled times is always the same. Heaven has an occupied throne and you just set it in the shell. And you would’ve thought that you just were listening to the grace hour today. I mentioned Romans 8:28 when I mentioned Genesis chapter 50, verse 20.

Michelle: Wow.

Pastor John Love: Genesis 20 is the Old Testament equivalent of Romans 8:28. But if you could have sat down with Joseph, when he was a 17 year old and God was getting in these dreams, you know, he was a Joseph, what do you expect for your future? Oh, I expect my brothers to hate me, throw me in a pit. Think about killing me, but then I know God will rescue me, send me to Egypt, raise me. I’ll be mistreated in Potiphar’s house, betrayed by Potiphar’s wife, maybe appropriately referred to as predator and I’ll go jail. I’ll be forgotten, but God, no, he wouldn’t know any of that. He wouldn’t know any of that. He would just have to trust in the sovereignty of a God who he knew loved him. And the key verse, the key verse over and over again. And the story of Joseph is simply this, the Lord was with Joseph. And if we know that we’re going to be able to get through anything in life.

Michelle: Amen. Amen.

Pastor John Love: Final thoughts. Well, just, I want to just share this with you. Uh, it was the time was eighth century BC anxious. Judah enjoy the time of really relative peace as far as the nation was concerned. And it was all because of the steady leadership of a King in Judah. His name was . He was the King and he kept Israel safe for, I think about what over 50 years, maybe 52 years. And then he died. And Isaiah, the prophet who lived during that rain was left with a lot of reasons, to worry, ample reasons to worry, you know, what’s going to happen now, what will become of our nation? Will we enjoy the peace and the prosperity that we experienced under King use Aja well for you and I, you know, what’s going to happen when the job is gone, what’s going to happen. When the finances dry up, what’s going to happen.

If we run into some kind of a health crisis, you know, uh, what happens when these things happen or the economy takes a pledge, which we hear about almost on a daily basis, God’s answer was found in Isaiah chapter six, verses one through three. What does it say? And I saw the Lord, this is what the prophet Isaiah said. I saw the Lord high and lifted up and his train filled the temple. Can you desire off the throne? God, not off of his, and that comfort that brought him strength and desire is thrown empty gods occupied. His eyes. Rain had come to an end. God’s never, and, and Hosea’s voice was silent, but God’s voice was strong and he kept Judah and he kept his nation just as he, as always promised to do, you’ll do the same for us. We will never be able to eliminate anxiety completely from our lives. You can’t do that. Try and it’ll be like a new FA a new form of control, right? So you can’t be free from anxiety and you can’t re free from its presence, but you don’t have to become its prisoner.

Pastor John Love Amen. Amen. What a, what a beautiful, what a beautiful time with Pastor Love. Again, thank you so much. Keep that on the throne. Y’all that’s where we, where we need to stay. We don’t want that control anyways. Yeah. Amen?

Michelle: Amen. This has been an amazing, jam-packed episode, just full of amazing things to consider. So we want to hear your prayer requests as always remember to drop them to us at thepantrypodcast.com as well as The Pantry Podcast on Facebook and Instagram. And then remember to rate, review comments, subscribe all those fun things that help us spread the word even farther. And in the show notes this week, we’re going to have a little bit more information about pastor love and links to the Grace Hour. If you ever want to check it out, it is live online. You get a special, extra 30 minutes after it goes off the formal radio broadcast. So until next time, bye.

Shea: bye.