<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

David Wright

As Long As I’m Better Than You

Here we have 2 goldfish wondering which one's better.

Well he looks like he's got a bigger bowl.

The Mars Climate Orbiter, anybody remember hearing about that?

I realize some here weren't even born in 1999, makes me feel old.

But this Probe was sent off to go to the planet of Mars and to gather data and all kinds of things But much of that is not even talked about what's talked about is something quite different in terms of this here They are building it it was 327600000.0 for the orbiter and the lander.

How do you have student loans you could use a little help with, right?

That wasn't all the cost, $193.1 million for the spacecraft development.

Maybe you're adding some of these numbers up.

You didn't know that all this cost so much, did you?

Well, you should be aware, because again, you're paying for it.

And then 42.8 million just for mission operations.

So all of that came, and here they're building this thing that you can see here on the screen.

You can't go visit and see unless it's a replica.

But The total cost to put this together was $563.5 million.

I hope you are going to benefit from all of this technology.

Here is kind of a depiction of what it's supposed to look like as it's hovering around Mars and all the stars behind it.

And it was supposed to do, I don't know how familiar you are with space, but they oftentimes have all these little rockets on the sides.

Once they get it launched and they get it in outer space, that's the hard part oftentimes, and then they might orbit around the Earth, and then they get up a little bit of speed and fire just a little bit to leave our orbit in the right direction.

I mean there's a lot of math involved here, right?

Exactly the right direction because if they're off just a hair and they have to make a few course corrections but they want to get as close as they can and they're traveling super fast to get to some of these destinations.

And then they try and match the orbit or line up with the orbit of the other, whether it be the moon, whether it be Mars or another planet, they want to get into that orbit.

And If they get in there too quickly or too aggressively, they'll go into the atmosphere and burn up.

This would be a very expensive shooting star.

And then if you go in too lightly, you kind of bounce off like a rock skipping off a pond.

And so you had to get all this math just right.

Well when they were, you know, they had the launch, they were up in space, they left our orbit, they were on their way to Mars, and I believe it was what, 286 day journey to Mars.

I didn't calculate the speed they'd have to go to get there, but anyway you can do that this afternoon.

So on September 23, 1999 it fired its engines to enter orbit of Mars, but there was a problem.

And before they could figure it out, this thing was lost.

This is the projection, the actual trajectory, and the planned trajectory.

And so what happened to this nice $500 and whatever million dollar thing that you paid for?

Well, it all had to do with a tiny little detail.

Because Lockheed Martin used a program on their computer that used English units and NASA used the more customary around the world metric units and they didn't realize, is that a big oops?

Do you think that was a little bit embarrassing?

And so a waste of $563 million because the wrong Measurement tool was used.

I want to talk this morning a little bit about measurement tools.

Maybe some of you work in a workshop, and you have a jig.

If you know what a jig is, It's not where I stand up here and do the diddly diddly.

A jig in a workshop is where you cut something exactly to a certain length or width or whatever.

And you, oftentimes I will recommend you write on it, jig or something so it doesn't get confused with all the others.

And you use that 1 over and over and over to know exactly the length, let's say.

But has anybody ever somehow on the job site, maybe you're not in your workshop or wherever, and you think this is the jig but you're not quite sure and you keep getting it mixed up, Or you somehow grab something that's not the jig at all.

And you make all of these slats for a railing, or all this, or all that.

And all of a sudden, you find out when you're putting something together, it's 2 inches short.

And in fact, you made them all 2 inches short.

You're making chocolate chip cookies and it calls for a teaspoon or maybe 3, I don't know how many, teaspoon of salt, something like that, and you put in a tablespoon of salt.

I heard a story the other day where someone confused salt and sugar.

But I wouldn't want to taste that, would you?

The wrong measurement tool can make all the difference in the outcome.

So if you brought your Bibles, I encourage you to look in Luke chapter 18 at a parable that Jesus tells.

Looking at this idea of what measurement tool are we to use.

So we're in the Gospel of Luke, we're in chapter 18, and we're beginning in verse 9.

It says, He also spoke, he being Jesus, this parable to some, " and notice this little detail, "...who trusted in, " who?

"...themselves." Good, you found the passage, "...that they were righteous and despised others." Now stop right there.

Here you have a group that he's telling this to that trust in themselves.

But they're not trusting in God, they're trusting in themselves, their righteous works.

The fact that they know how to follow the rules.

I mean after all, I'm a Seventh-day Adventist.

In fact, I hate to talk about this because I'm so humble, but I pay a double tithe.

I have perfect attendance at prayer meeting.

In case you don't know what that means, it means I've never missed.

The very first 1, I was 2 days old, my mother brought me, I haven't missed 1 since.

I'm a vegan, by the way, I never fudge on that.

There's no exceptions, even on my birthday.

Back to Menu

As Long As I’m Better Than You

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Path to the Heart

4-Jesus, The Argument

33m

Loss

41m

GYC SE 2012 Seminar: Lessons in Warfare

Special Forces

51m

Unlocking the Mysteries of the Sanctuary

14 The Good News of the Judgment

58m

Elijah

03 Willing to Give Up Everything

55m

Are You Sure You Are Lost?

43m

The Face of Jesus Christ

The Face of Jesus Christ- Part 2

27m

The Parables

The Two Worshippers

36m

Whose Side Are You On?

1h

ABC's of Prayer (with Video)

6 - There’s Joy in Trusting Him

49m

Revelation

02 Revelation’s Exhortation for Half-Hearted People

1h 33m

History and Heroes - Those That Stand: Part 3

1h 6m

Sound Doctrine