And so we've arrived at chapter 12, and now we are looking at verses 14 through 21. And as we look at verses 14 through 21, I chose to entitle this particular installment of our study, God's Beloved Servant. And you're going to see that in just a moment. I will be giving you some introductory remarks. It'll take a few minutes to develop a context, lay a foundation. But then when we get to a portion of scripture, especially in verses 17 following, I'm going to want to share with you some of the things about the Lord Jesus Christ that were prophesied concerning him by the prophet Isaiah over seven centuries before Christ was incarnated. And so we'll look at that in just a moment. Again, I'll begin at verse 14. I'll read to verse 21, give some introduction and move into our study. Beginning at verse 14, Matthew chapter 12, Matthew writes, then the Pharisees went out and took counsel against him how they might destroy him. But when Jesus knew what he withdrew from there, and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all. And he warned them not to make him known that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased, I will put my spirit upon him, and he will declare justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed, he will not break. And smoking flax, he will not quench till he sends forth justice to victory. And in his name, Gentiles will trust. So let me give you an introduction and a context. Let me lay a foundation. But we're going to be moving into God's beloved servant in just a moment. But I want to lay this down so we can catch up with where we've been and then move forward in our study. This chapter opens up with Matthew reporting that Jesus is now encountering hostility, resistance to his message and his ministry has been growing. And we know that it's been growing for some time and now it's getting greater. He's been accused of various things and the accusations had the intent of undermining the work that he was performing. And as we've already seen, they've been accusing him of blasphemy. They accused him of unholiness. They even went so far as to accuse him of being empowered by Satan himself. Now they're enraged at him because of his apparent break and of their understanding of the Sabbath. Now as we've already seen, Jesus allowed his disciples to eat grain that they had picked and he also had healed a man on the Sabbath. And Matthew told us that they had asked Jesus if healing on the Sabbath was permissible in order that they might find an accusation against him. And his answer as well as his action infuriated him because he told them that it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath and then he performed the healing. Now that was enough for them to conclude that he was a false teacher and that he should be dealt with. Luke tells us in chapter 6 verse 11, they were filled with rage and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus. Matthew tells us in verse 14 that they took counsel against him, how they might destroy him. So the opposition united and began to devise a plan that they might either render Jesus useless or they may kill him. So what is his reaction? Well verse 15 tells us that when Jesus knew it, he withdrew from there and great multitudes followed him and he healed them all. So his response to this was to withdraw himself. Now he withdrew not because he was afraid but because there was no need to further antagonize these people. He was simply putting into practice what he's already been teaching them concerning how you deal with this kind of hostility. Remember in Matthew 7 verse 6 how he had said, Do not give what is holy to the dogs nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you in pieces. Or how he in Matthew 10, 14 had said, Whoever will not receive you nor hear your words when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. He'd already told them to avoid confrontation, avoid antagonism, just continue moving and ministering. Now in spite of the growing and organized opposition, the crowds are continuing to follow the Lord Jesus Christ and at this point he is very popular and people want to hear him as well as receive from him the healings that he's performing. Mark tells us in chapter 12 verse 37 of his gospel that the common people heard him gladly. The common people speaks of the people in general, the general population and they enjoyed hearing him. They enjoyed listening to what he had to say. Though the scribes and Pharisees are rejecting him, the general population is welcoming him. And the reason they're doing that is they appreciate. They appreciate his teaching and they note that his message that he's giving is superior to anything that they've been hearing from the others. He spoke with a practical insight and he spoke with a spiritual depth and that was something they were unfamiliar with in John's gospel in chapter 7 verses 14 and 15. John writes about the middle of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and he taught. And the Jews marveled saying, how does this man know letters having never studied? Now they were not saying that Jesus was illiterate, unable to read. What they were saying is, where did he get his rabbinic instruction from? What seminary did he graduate from? Because they know that he didn't graduate from any of the rabbinic schools of his day. And so they were so impressed by this man because he spoke as an eyewitness of heaven and the common people would hear Jesus speak with an eloquence and power and authority that the Jewish scribes, the rabbis of his day did not speak with. And so as Jesus was going forth and speaking, many were now coming to listen to him. They wanted to hear him. They also wanted to receive from him because he was also healing people. And he did this. Often he performed a lot of healing. As a matter of fact, in John 21 verse 25, when John is writing, he said, there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. So Jesus was performing a lot of works and he was speaking some magnificent words and people are now in the multitudes following after him. Great multitudes of people are following Jesus Christ. They want to hear what he's teaching and they want to receive a healing. Now Jesus came, not just to perform miracles. Jesus came not just to heal people. Jesus came to deliver them from eternal suffering. He had compassion and he would heal their bodies but his greatest desire was to save them. You see, though they might be made physically well, if they remained unsaved, what profit would that be to them? In Matthew 5 verse 30, he said it like this. He said, if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It's more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell. He wasn't saying that if your right hand causes you to sin, literally go out and cut it off. Else all of us would have one hand today. He's saying, deal with sin brutally. Make sure that you don't minimize it. You see, Jesus' mission was to bring salvation to sinners. His mission was to bring people to faith in him and he made that clear. In Matthew 9 verse 13, he said it like this. He said, I didn't come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. Now these crowds are gathering around him. How did he react to crowds? Well, we've seen it mentioned several times already in the Gospel of Matthew. We see that in Matthew chapter five when crowds began to surround him, that he sat down in order that he might teach them. We saw in Matthew chapter nine verse 36 that when he saw the multitude, he was moved with compassion because they were weary, scattered and without a shepherd. In Matthew chapter 12 verse 15, when he saw the crowd, he began to heal them and he healed all manner of disease. So here Matthew tells us in verse 16 that he sees the multitude. Notice, he warned them. He warned them not to make him known. And so here Matthew tells us that he warned them. You see, this isn't, again, this isn't the first time that he's warning them not to speak of them. Matthew 8.4 tells us that when he cleansed the leper, he told that leper not to make him known. In Matthew nine verse 30, when he healed two blind men, he ordered them not to share about it. So this isn't the first time he's done that, but he is doing this in order to prevent them from missing the point, missing the point of his works. Again, Jesus is more than a miracle worker. Jesus is a savior sent from heaven to rescue sinners. He said in John 5.36, I have a greater witness than John's for the works which the Father has given me to finish the very works that I do bear witness of me that the Father has sent me. And so his miracles were intended to draw their attention that he might point them to the Father and be that mediator who brings to them salvation. And so he's saying, do not make me known. Now, Matthew goes on in verse 17 to say that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased, I will put my spirit upon him. He will declare justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break and smoking flax he will not quench till he sends forth justice to victory and in his name Gentiles will trust. And I want you to note this and I'm gonna lay a little bit of a foundation in the move in some practical application of these verses. But notice again in verse 17, how it says that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet. Matthew explains Jesus' reason for withdrawing from that place. It was in order to fulfill what was spoken by Isaiah. Each one of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, each one has a purpose for it being written. Mark was written to the Romans. Luke was written to the Greeks. John was written to combat a heresy that was entering into the church called Gnosticism. And Matthew's gospel was written as an apologetic so that the Jewish reader could come and know that Messiah had come and Messiah is Jesus. And so Matthew had Jewish readers in mind as his primary audience and that's why he would use the Old Testament as often as he did. One scholar noted that there are around 67 Old Testament references found in the gospel of Matthew. 67 Old Testament references. You'll see that nine times he says that it might be fulfilled. You'll see that nine times Matthew uses the words it is written. Four times Jesus will ask the question, have you not read? And so Matthew wants to establish that Jesus Christ fulfills prophecy. In the New Testament it is recorded that Jesus fulfilled around 20 prophecies that were found in Isaiah alone. And here Matthew is saying that Jesus fulfilled Isaiah 42 verses one through four in order to explain why Jesus withdrew himself. Now Jesus has worked that he is continuing to do. It is not time for him to be exalted because we know that before he's exalted he first experienced humiliation. And it's necessary for him to be revealed as the servant as prophesied by Isaiah. And that's what we see here in this passage. Now let's look at it together and see what it's saying and how we can make proper application to our own lives. It begins again in verse 18 by saying, behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased, I will put my spirit upon him and he will declare justice to the Gentiles. Notice how he begins here. Notice how he begins by speaking concerning my servant. Look upon my servant, my servant whom I have chosen. He also says my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased. And so what we have with Isaiah is various characteristics of Messiah, various characteristics of Messiah prophesied by Isaiah 700 plus years before Christ and how that Jesus fulfilled this prophecy. So he begins by referring to Messiah as God's servant. Now when he says, behold my servant, if you study the book of Isaiah you're gonna notice that Isaiah uses the word servant fairly often. He speaks of the word servant in the sense of the way it was commonly used when you'd speak of a household servant. And so in the book of Isaiah you'll see that there are times that he uses the word servant to refer to a servant or somebody who was working for somebody else. You'll see that. But you'll also see that he'll speak concerning the word servant in different ways. Sometimes he'll speak of Israel, the nation. Israel he'll say my servant. And then sometimes he'll use the word servant to speak of those who are serving God personally. And so the word servant is used in various ways in its normal way or in the way of referring to Israel or in the way of referring to somebody who was serving God. But it is also used in reference to Messiah. It is what is called a messianic title and it is used in that fashion as it relates to Jesus Christ. And what he's saying is Messiah is God's servant. In Isaiah 53 verse 11 it reads, he shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied by his knowledge my righteous servant shall justify many for he shall bear their iniquities. And so the Lord Jesus Christ is spoken of as being God's servant, which is another way of saying he was Messiah. Now it is compounded when he says my servant whom I have chosen. The word chosen there in reference to servant speaks of somebody that was specifically called by God. But when he says my servant whom I have chosen that word servant going a little further speaks of an intimate servant, somebody that is completely trusted and somebody who is trusted and treated as the son. And so he was saying that the one who was chosen is God's supreme servant. And he's the only one who's been chosen to redeem the world. He is the one trusted to carry out God's program because he is the one who is completely obedient to the Father. That's what Jesus said concerning himself in John 6 38 when he said I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. That's what it says in Luke 12 50 I have a baptism to undergo how distressed I am until it is completed. Jesus came to fulfill the plans of his father and he came obediently to carry them out. And so one of the qualities that the Lord speaks concerning Messiah is that he's a servant. And Jesus is a worthy model to follow. He refers to himself as a servant and he calls us to also be servants. In Matthew 10 24 and 25 the disciple is not above his master nor the servant above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master and the servant as his Lord. When Paul the apostle was referring to Jesus and speaking of his obedience he said in Philippians chapter two verses five to eight your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing taken the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to death even death on a cross. Jesus is a servant.  My servant whom I have chosen. Now chosen is a title for Messiah. He is referred to as the chosen one. That speaks of his office as well as the task. Chosen is a word that speaks of a decision that is irrevocable. To say that Jesus is chosen is to say this is his final choice. And he's referred to as the chosen one because they recognize the term chosen as messianic. When Jesus was dying on the cross it's recorded in Luke 23 verse 35. The people stood watching and the rulers even sneered at him. They said he saved others let him save himself if he is the Christ of God the chosen one. And so Jesus is the chosen one Messiah. He is the only one qualified for the task of redemption. He is the servant and he is chosen. Now in verse 18 he says my beloved in whom my soul delights. When he says in whom my soul delights in whom my soul takes pleasure in whom my soul accepts. As a perfect servant Jesus completely pleased his father and is loved by his father. In Matthew 3 verse 17 it reads a voice came from heaven saying this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. In John 8 29 Jesus said he who sent me is with me. The father has not left me alone for I always do those things that please him. Those who love the Lord also desire to be well pleasing to the Lord. Our main motivation as believers our main motivation as Christians ought to be to delight the heart of our God. In second Corinthians chapter five verse nine Paul said it like this. He said we make it our aim whether present or absent to be well pleasing to him. That's what we want. We want to bring pleasure to God. In Matthew 25 23 Jesus speaks this way. He said his Lord said to him well done. Good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things. I will make you rule over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord. When our motivation is to delight the Lord we will have the joy of hearing him say well done. And so that auto motivate us. Now how are we gonna do that? Well notice he says in verse 18 again I will put my spirit upon him. I will anoint him. He is anointed by God for works as service. Now two things I'll share with you and then I wanna bring an application to this. God's spirit is upon him for two basic reasons. One is though he was conceived by the Holy Spirit his human nature was strengthened at his baptism. In Matthew 3 16 it says Jesus when he was baptized went up straight way out of the water and behold the heavens were opened unto him and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him. Now a second thing would be the anointing of the spirit was a witness to his mission because in Luke 4 18 and 19 it says the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted to preach deliverance to the captives recovering of sight to the blind to set at liberty those who are bruised and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. So he was anointed. I mean the name Christ is a Greek word that speaks of the anointed one. Jesus Messiah is the Christos he is the anointed one. And so let me develop something with you make it very practical if possible. If we're going to be servants like Jesus we need to be anointed by the spirit of God. Then normally comes through dying to self and asking God for strength. One of the biggest problems I think that Christians can have is that though we believe we're saved by the grace of God through faith it seems that sometimes we try to make ourselves into the image of God through our own efforts. We try and try and try to almost perfect ourselves. And the fact of the matter is is we can't do that. The work has already been done. What we're supposed to do is receive from the Lord by his grace and faith and just ask God to just infill us and to work within us. You know one of the things to make this practical if I can one of the things in my own spiritual life that has been a lesson that has taken a while for the Lord to actually teach me was to learn from the Lord that the work has been done that when Jesus died on the cross and said it is finished that there's nothing I'm gonna add to my own salvation outside of the sins that he has to forgive me concerning. I couldn't work for my own salvation and I cannot work to make myself righteous. What I wanna do is flow in his spirit and be free in Christ so that he might do the work. I have made a determination to pursue him but at the same time I realized that I in my own strength cannot perfect myself. When I was in the army a long time ago now I was stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. And every day outside of one day a week I would run. I had a course that I ran. It was through a forest. There was a road that had been cut out and it was a course that I would go and I would run almost every day except for Sunday. And I'd go by myself. Our barracks were close to a street. I remember crossing the street walking into this forest and I can remember doing this almost every day. I was 20 years old and I can remember going across the street and walking through it through this forest and then finding the place where I'd start to run and then I would run my distance and I would be praying and I would be saying God help me. God please teach me. And I used to ask the Lord and I still do. I'd say Lord please teach me how to love people because I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to love. And I would ask the Lord that as I was running and that was every day and to this day I still will say God teach me to love. Teach me to be a person with compassion and kindness and gentleness and all of that.  You see, when I grew up and I'll say this quickly and I don't wanna say it in a way that brings any kind of bad feeling towards my family but it's simply the truth. When I grew up, I grew up in a home where my father didn't know how to show any affection. My dad just didn't and that was common for the men of his generation. They were men who came out of the Great Depression. They were men who fought in World War II. They were men like that and so my dad was not an affectionate man until he got saved. My dad didn't get saved until he was 44 years old. And so when I grew up, I grew up in a home with a dad who felt that showing love was putting food on the table, putting shoes on your feet and putting clothes on your back. And that affection was something that he didn't need to show because that's what a woman was supposed to do and so my dad didn't show affection. So when I would be around my dad, my dad, if he wanted to show me affection, I'd walk by him and he'd hit me in the back of the head. That's what my dad did and I didn't understand that and so I remember asking my mom, why did dad hit me in the head? And my mom said because he loves you. And I remember saying, can you tell him not to love me so much? Because my dad, that's how he showed love and a lot of you may have come from a similar background where they didn't know how to show affection, where the man did not know how to say, I love you, where a man didn't show any physical affection. He didn't want to do that. And my father didn't want me to kiss him goodnight. My father would shake my hand.  That was my dad and some of you grew up in the same way. You just didn't know what love was. You were not taught. It wasn't something that was experienced freely in the home. There wasn't a lot of affection. There wasn't a lot of kissing. There wasn't a lot of words of love where they'd say, oh, I love you, I'm proud of you or anything like that. I didn't grow up in that atmosphere. I didn't. My mom got ill when she was 24 years old. My mom had epilepsy from the time she was 24 and she had one disease after another until she finally died of a collection of diseases that she'd been suffering all her life.  My mom grew up as an orphan. Her mother died when she was 10 months old and her dad died when she was around 14 and she was moved from place to place until she met my father at the age of 16 and married my dad one month past her 17th birthday. My mom did not know anything about love because she was moved from place to place and so my mom didn't know how to show affection.   That was my mom.   My mom was like that when I grew up. So I didn't know what love was. I thought that love was just a spending the night with a woman, I thought that love was a word that you use to get what you want and then move on down the line. I didn't know how to have relationships with people. So I used people and I used the word love and then one day I got to the point where I said I'm not even gonna use the word love anymore. If they wanna be with me, fine. If they don't, that's fine too. And that was my life and that went on for a long time. That went on for years and then I got saved. And now I'm only a few months old in the Lord and I'm there in North Carolina and I'm walking through a forest and I'm saying to God, teach me how to love. I don't know how. I don't know what it means. I don't know how. Mama can't, my dad can't, but somebody has to. That's when the word of God became so dear to me. So I'd read it and they would bring Jesus babies and He'd hold them. And I thought, men hold kids? Because I'd never seen that. See, when the men got together, I have a big family and when the men got together, when my grandmother died, she left 100, I think it was 118 great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. Norwalk, that's my family, the whole city. Hundreds of cousins. I did a funeral for my uncle Ray with 200 in attendance, all of the blood relatives. We have a huge family. When I grew up, my uncle had died. I was doing the funeral, I see all these people and I'm realizing these people are my kin. These are people and I don't even know them. But I can remember we would go on the weekend to my grandmother's house and the brothers would come and sisters and the cousins would be there and all of that, like many of you. And I never saw any of my uncles with their children, never. The children would go play, the cousins would go off and mess around. The men would be in an area, the women would be in the kitchen. That's how I grew up, that's how I grew up. I never saw affection from any uncle for any of their kids, never. They didn't show affection. My family was not a kissy, huggy, warm family. My uncles are real direct, that was my upbringing. Now I'm saved and I'm walking through a forest and I'm doing it five out of, six out of seven days a week every day. God helped me to learn to love. I don't know how, I don't know what it means. I need your help.  And I read about Jesus holding babies and I begin to think, you mean it's okay for a man to hold a baby? Never seen it, never seen it. I was the guy, even when my nephew was born and they handed the baby to me, I was the guy that, take it back. The first baby I ever held and rocked and kissed and loved was my own. I didn't do that with other people's babies. I only did it with my own and the Lord began to teach me. Jesus loved him. He's there at a meal reclining and a man named John is reclining next to him and John leans against Jesus's chest and whispers to Jesus. I'm reading that and I'm thinking, oh, that's a, because see, I didn't know because when we got saved, you know, the Jesus people, we would go to a Bible study and afterwards we'd go to a home and we'd talk about the Bible study, we'd worship together and we would pray and I've got these guys, one on my right, one on my left and we'd hold hands and I don't hold hands with men. I was very uncomfortable with this, you know? I have a friend named George and George would kiss me. I just was uncomfortable with that. I, and I can still, this is true. Some of you have heard me say it, but it's true. I would hold hands with the guys because we had to, but I'd squeeze real tight so they wouldn't get any weird ideas about me.  No, that's not what I'm trying to communicate. I'm telling you, I asked the Lord, would you teach me how to love? I'm still learning. I'm still learning. God gave me a wife who is very loving to me. And when he did that, because of her goodness, I began to realize she deserves the best man she could possibly have. She deserves a man who will love her with all of his heart. And I did not know how to say I love you even to my wife. And some of you have, I've told you this before, but it's true. We got married and Marie wanted me to say I love you. And I would say, why do you have to hear that? Are you insecure? I mean, am I not doing enough for you?  She'd call me up at the office. And then she'd say, I'm going to hang up. And I said, all right. And she'd say, I love you. And I'd say, yeah. And she would say, tell me. And I'd say, what? Tell me you love me. I said, you know that. Well, tell me, why would I? And a boss who had been married 25 years sat next to me and he'd say, tell her you love her or she'll never hang up. That was his advice to me. But I saw that as insecurity. I said, you got to be kidding. Oh, we'd go shopping and she'd say, how does this look on me? And I'd say, do you like it? And she'd say, yes, then get it. Well, how's it look? I said, I don't know. What do I care? I don't wear those. Why are you asking me that? I didn't get it. I didn't get it at all for the longest time. And that's why I started saying, make it practical. And the Lord said, your wife is not insecure.  And you ought to tell her how beautiful she is. That's how I learned those things. Plus, I learned that if I say it quickly I get out of the shop faster. Love, Jesus Christ loves you, my beloved son. Well, Jesus loves you. I became a better man because I began to realize that I'm loved. I'm loved by God and I'm loved by my wife. I'm loved by my babies. That made me a better man. I don't try to be a good man. I respond to the love that's poured into my life that provokes me to want to deserve the kind of love, if you will, to be the kind of man. Be the kind of man that that woman and those children love. Not to try and win their love, they already gave it to me. That's what Jesus did. Jesus showed us his love. He made a full demonstration of his love. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, and Paul said, my daughter, Corinne's, read Cal Poly Pomona, she's a year and a half. I'm saying to her, do you love your daddy? And she says, yes. I said, how much do you love your daddy? And she says, it's all my heart. I said, how much is that? And she stretches her little arms out. She says this much. And I said, that's not very much. She says, well, I love you this much. She tries to stretch further. I said, that's not very much. Then the third time she does it, I have a camera and I take a picture of her straining and you can see her little face straining as far as she can. And then I kept that in my mind. And one day my mom gave me a plaque and it said on the plaque, I asked Jesus, how much do you love me? And he said, I love you this much. And he stretched out his hands and he died. That spoke to my heart because I had the picture of my baby showing me how much she loved me. And Jesus said, I love you more.  Changes your whole life. It stops you from trying to make him love you and it starts you just receiving his love. And then when you receive the love of this Messiah, this chosen one, beloved of God, your life is transformed. And a long time ago, I said, God, I need your spirit. I need your help. In Luke 11.13, if you then be an evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? And so I've said, Lord, pour your spirit into my life and may the fruit of your spirit, which is love, be demonstrated. He goes on in verse 18 to say, he will declare justice to the Gentiles. The word declare there means to openly proclaim. It speaks of him proclaiming or evangelizing. Now remember that Jesus initially had sent his disciples only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. We saw that in chapter 10. But this was not God's only plan just to reach the nation of Israel. Jesus brought salvation to all who would receive him. Isaiah 45.22 says, look unto me and be saved all you ends of the earth. For I am God, there is no other. In Psalm two, verse eight, it reads, ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, the ends of the earth for your possession. Psalm 22.27, all the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord and all the families of the nation shall worship before you. You see his mission was to go beyond Israel. It included us, we who are Gentiles. God loved the whole world and God made salvation possible for all who come to him through Jesus Christ. And where to go out and share this gospel? Where to make disciples? Where to encourage people to know Jesus Christ. And one of the things I love about God's family and this is something for us to remember is it's Jew and Gentile. The world was divided in the Old Testament into two groups, Jew and Gentile. In the New Testament, there's a third description of humanity, it's Jew, Gentile and the church. So those who are not Jews would be called Gentiles but both the Jew and the Gentile brought through Christ into the body of Christ make up the church. And so it doesn't matter what my ethnicity may be. It doesn't matter what I consider to be a race. What matters is that I am part of the body of Christ. And so I say this quite often. I'll say it again right now. In the kingdom of God, the only color that matters is red, the blood of Jesus Christ, which washes and cleanses us of all sin. And it's the Holy Spirit who brings us into this body, into the body of Christ.  And we're family, we're family. And by one spirit, have we been baptized into one body? And we've all been made to drink of that one spirit because we are His children. We need to understand that because sometimes people will go to church and say, there aren't any people like me here.  And there are plenty of other ones here too. And we all need Jesus Christ, amen. There are people like you here. We all need Jesus Christ. We need to understand that. And so He came and that's what He does. He brings us to Him. In verse 19, He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets. There's humility in Him. When it says He will not quarrel, the word quarrel speaks of hassling people. It speaks of brawling or even wrangling. To cry out means to shout and scream excitedly. In other words, Jesus didn't come to harang. He didn't come to inflame. He didn't come to intimidate like a carnival barker. He didn't come to use carnal means to gain a following and to stir up carnal emotions. It's interesting how Ecclesiastes 9.17 says, the quiet words of the wise are more to be heated than the shouts of a ruler of fools. You see, some ministers, some of us seem to do things so that others might give us attention. That's more like Pharisees who are interested in receiving recognition. Matthew 23.5 says, all their works, they do to be seen by men. And so sometimes we can get energized by the flesh and begin to scream or carry on or shout or whatever to draw attention to ourselves. Sometimes we say we're dancing in the spirit. Sometimes we say, well, the spirit was on me and I had to roll around in the carpet there. I've seen it. You have too, perhaps. The holy rollers. I've been there, I've seen that. It's a whoa, whoa. I was a new believer. I was in a, I went to a revival in some small church somewhere in South Carolina and it was put on my holy rollers and I'd heard the term but I didn't know what it was. There's this guy in a gray suit up in the stage and he's spinning around all over the stage and I'm like, whoa, I've never seen anything like that. How interesting. I was in front and I started charging people a quarter to take a ride. No, I'd never seen anything like that before and they blame God for that. So God made me do that. No, he didn't. The spirit is the spirit of self-control. Please don't blame God for your carnality and Jesus did not go out there shouting in the street like a carnival barker. He brought the word of life and people listened to him and came to faith in Christ because of that and he came to gently lead people to the truth because he brought attention to his father. It says in verse 20, a bruised reed he will not break and smoking flax he will not quench. He was compassionate. Jesus treated the hurting with great love and great compassion. He was gentle with sinners. He didn't bully. He didn't intimidate them for what they were. We read how he cleansed lepers, ministered to Gentiles who were outcasts. How he delivered demonized people. He allowed prostitutes and sinners to actually approach him. It's interesting to note that he saved his greatest anger for the self-righteous. And even so, if we're gonna be servants like Jesus, we are called to be gentle to those who are lost. Be very careful that you don't get into this mindset where you start saying things like, I don't know how they could do that. I don't know how they do that. No, you know how they do that. You were like that yourself. You just did things that were more pleasurable for you. And so I have to be very careful that I don't begin to scratch my head and wonder how did they do that? No, but by the grace of God, I probably could do that and even worse. And when you have compassion for the lost, you're gonna speak to them with love. Psalm 103 verses 13 and 14 says, as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. He knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. You see, God desires to restore the broken lives. He desires to deliver those who are drunkards, who are drug abusers. He wants to deliver those who are angry and those who are promiscuous. He wants to heal those who are bitter and those who have been hurt. And he can save anyone who comes to him. I was in a concert, a Christian concert, where they had a band playing and then a message. And in front of me was a motorcycle gangster kind of guy. He had a Levi jacket where the sleeves had been cut off and he had his colors and I'm seated right behind him. And when he stood up, he blocked the stage. He was huge. I couldn't see him. I couldn't see past him. All I could see was this big old guy and I'm sitting there looking. I didn't tell him I couldn't see. I just didn't want him to take my head off. But I try and look around him. He was huge. I still remember this. And then a guy came up and started sharing about Christ and how Jesus forgives sins. And I'm looking at this guy and I'm looking at his colors and I'm looking at him. His hair was past his shoulders, big old beard and huge arms. I remember this guy, he's a huge guy. And I start saying within myself, he can't get saved. This guy can't get saved. No, he can't get saved. And I'm saying that to myself. And so the invitation comes and the evangelist says, if you need to get saved, you need to get right with God, stand up and come forward.  He makes his way through the aisle, goes standing up there. He's towering over everybody else and he stood right in the middle. I still remember as I watched him and I was in wonder and the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart, something I've never forgotten. He said to me, I can save anyone. And I've never forgotten that. No matter how far you've run, no matter how deep you've gone, God is deeper still and God will hound you to the end of the earth. He loves you. Never forget that God that we serve is a God who loves us. And finally, it says he sends forth his justice to victory and in his name's Gentiles will trust. Weariness and discouragement is not something that he gives in to. In spite of opposition, in spite of persecution, in spite of rejection, Jesus wins. The Bible says in Psalm 13 verse five, I trust in your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in your salvation.  That's what Jesus will do. He is God's beloved servant. He is on fire, victorious and compassionate. He is loving and he loves you. And he'll restore you. Somebody wrote, down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter, feelings lie buried that grace can restore. Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness, cords that were broken will vibrate once more. The Lord can restore and he can heal because that's what he does best. And this is God's beloved servant.


back to Think Tech this four o'clock on Jay Fidel. This is Community Matters. We're talking about the sorry state of public information in Hawaii with Christina Jedra of Civil Beat. Hi, Christina. Thank you for joining us today. Hey, Jay. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. You had this very good article with Civil Beat a few days ago about the sorry state of public information in Hawaii. And, you know, you're covering it as a beat. This is what you do. You cover this kind of stuff as a beat.  We need this. Otherwise, it becomes what Ian Lynn calls a sacred cow that nobody touches. You touch it. So good for you. So, you know, the bottom line of that article is that in the time of COVID, perhaps using COVID as an excuse, David E. Gay has given political cover, if you will, legal cover to both state and federal authorities not to respond to requests for information, freedom of information act requests. And that falls right between the state government and the press. It's very disturbing. So can you summarize your article, where you were going with that and what you found? Yeah. So back in March, one of the first things that Governor E. Gay did was suspend the Uniform Information Practices Act, which is just our public records law. And that's really the greatest tool that we have as reporters and members of the public to see what the government is doing, how they're spending our money, you know, why they're making the decisions that they're making. And it's, you know, a great way for us to hold them accountable. And so that was one of the first things that went out the window when the pandemic started. And, you know, all these months later, we still don't have access so we can ask the city or the state to give us documents, but they, you know, don't have to adhere to any deadlines. And it's been tough. A lot of my requests have been ignored. And that's made my job harder, you know, in terms of getting information out to the public. Yeah, we've, you know, we've discussed this before, perhaps not in the same way that you have discussed it in the article with Tom Yamachika. He's the president of Tax Foundation of Hawaii. And one of his concerns about David E. Gay's proclamations is that the law only permits the proclamation to last for so long. I want to say 60 days. And then it's supposed to expire. But in this case, David E. Gay's suespanti has decided, well, we just keep on extending them and extending them and extending them. And along with the extension comes this provision, you know, relaxing the obligation of the government to respond to requests for information. I think it's just, don't you agree that it's especially important in the time of COVID? You can say that, oh, COVID is a good excuse not to respond. But at the same time, you know, government has to be functional. It has to deal with the public. It has to deal with the press. There's even a greater necessity, you know, to require government agencies to respond to requests by the press and the public. Don't you agree? I do agree. It's very important that we have access to these records. You know, as for the 60 day deadline, that's kind of a legal question I am not equipped to answer. But, you know, the larger question of whether the government is too busy at this time to be answering requests, you know, I think there are ways that we can be reasonable and work with them. And they can, you know, if it's a big request and it's a heavy lift, let's do it in batches, you know, but at this point, this is just a blanket excuse for government agencies not to answer at all, basically. And it's had some, you know, pretty upsetting results where, you know, there's just open questions that I have as a reporter that they won't answer in interviews and I can't answer the way that I used to force them to answer, which is documents. You know, I was telling you before the show that when I was practicing law, all too often we would ask for government information by way of a FOIA request or by way of a subpoena attached to deposition of written interrogatories or deposition of oral interrogatories. And and all too often the government would say, well, thank you for the subpoena, but we're not really sure we want to abide by that. So if you want to get these documents, you're going to have to go to court, you're going to have to get an order from a judge telling us to, you know, abide by the subpoena. However, that is not the law. The law is you get subpoenaed and you turn it over. That's that. And I think one of the problems you and I talked about before is that the sanctions are not specified and it's very hard to get sanctions against government if not impossible. So the result is that somebody at the at the information end of things can put you off with impunity. And that was the case with the subpoena, you know, scenario I described. And it's the case apparently here too. In the case of the subpoena and my experience and our experience in practicing, what we what we learned was there was a state subculture culture of not responding to requests for information of saying, you know, you want anything come after us, we're not we're not going to do it voluntarily. And you know, there was no good reason for that, except where we're us and you're you and we're on other sides of the fence and and we don't we don't serve you. The state does not serve you, you serve us. And it's a you know, to me it's a philosophical difference. And I think I think you're finding the same thing, proclamation or no proclamation. Do you feel that you are finding the same thing? Yeah, you know, it's the government really doesn't have much to lose when they ignore us or say no. They I'm not aware of any times when they've gotten a need to find or anything like that we can take them to court, but it takes a lot of years and a lot of resources and we may have to consider doing that more and more, given the situation that we're in, but it really shouldn't have to come to that. You know, these are taxpayer dollars, everything I'm asking for is things that are funded for by all of us. And I would hope that they would just proactively hand these things over, especially when it doesn't require any research or any kind of like detailed redaction. For example, one of the things I've requested from Governor E. Gay's office is his response to a California congresswoman who requested months ago some information about our pandemic response. So how many contact tracers do we have? And how are we spending our federal federal aid dollars, you know, things that are very much in the public interest, things that people have been asking for here, including us in the press. And his response was due to the congresswoman at the end of August. I soon after requested a copy of his response and I've gotten absolutely nothing. And so we just don't know. We don't know the answers to those questions. And I could request the response from the congresswoman side, except that Congress doesn't subject itself to the Freedom of Information Act. So that's an even larger story for another day. But, you know. Yeah. That was a representative as Shu. And you don't know for a fact that she actually got a response from the state of Hawaii. That's true. It's possible they never answered. I can't say for sure since they didn't answer my main records request. Yeah. What's interesting is that they wouldn't even give you a copy of what they had given, if anything, to her. And that would certainly be, you know, something they should share with you easily, instantly. It's so easy to do that. Right. So that's a good example of a subject that's very important. We're in the middle of COVID. Contact tracers are critically important. Are they still critically important? And we haven't solved the problem at all. And we have it embarrassed at various junctures along the way about how little the state has done. In fact, we had this whole musical chairs in Department of Health with epidemiology and that precise function. So it seems to me the public has an abiding need to know about that. And yet they never told you anything. That's the case. And that's just one example. I mean, there's things that are related to the pandemic. And there's things that are related to just our everyday crises like homelessness that have also gotten the same non-response. I mean, the city council budgeted $23 million a year and a half ago for all council districts to be able to address homelessness. And the council members were supposed to decide the best way to do that back in June. So a year after that allocation, I requested information, documents on how that money was spent. You know what? I want to see what the impact has been. Follow the money, right? They just basically said, we'll get to this when we get to it. We're really busy and that's it. And I followed up several times and I haven't received a single document now almost six months later. Any answer at all? Just the, you know, we'll get to it when we get to a kind of response, not a single bit of actual information in response to the question of how this money was spent. And again, these are taxpayer dollars that people have a right to know how it's spent and they're not getting answers. Yeah, that's really remarkable. Don't let them go. That's my reaction. Christina, don't ever let them go on that. They have an obligation. You have a need. You represent us, the people. You know, you're our agent in this matter and we need to know whether we realize it or not. And what's also interesting is that homelessness is a critical issue. So many politicians, you know, run on that issue. So many politicians make speeches on the issue all day long. That's one element. The other element is the state is going to be behind 1.5 how many billion, how many 1.5 billion in the budget this year, at least according to the council on revenues. And, you know, that we're going to be underwater. So every penny counts. If we spend 23 million on this, let's see how it was spent because there remains the logical possibility, which is louder all the time because of the silence. It's deafening silence that there was something wrong about the way it was spent or not spent at a time of COVID, at a time of homelessness, and at a time when every penny means something. So it's quite remarkable that, you know, that you don't get an answer. That's very troubling. Right. Right. And I rather would be writing stories about how the money was spent, but considering this time and again, they have not answered my request, the story became this week, the fact that they're not giving information. But we usually don't like to be the story as journalists. We, you know, we don't want that. We want to be writing about what's going on. But when the story is, we can't figure out what's going on. This is the result. So unfortunate. Well, let's let's turn to the police department because I think the police department is such a good example. And you covered that in your story. I was really fascinated with that. There were lots of things we want to know about the police department. But the police department is notoriously secretive about its records and about misconduct records. And she was about overtime records. Can you talk about that for a minute? Yeah. HPD is tough to get information out of on a good day and good times, pre-pandemic.  I've made several. One, for example, you know, we had all of this, all these protests about police brutality after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis. And the department launched a use of force committee to look at, you know, whether their policy looks okay. And that committee has made recommendations. I filed a request for the recommendations. The department strangely enough said that there weren't any, even though a police commissioner that's on the committee said that there are in a public meeting. And I followed up several times. They won't give me the recommendations. I've asked for the union's input on those recommendations and whether the chief has weighed in at all in writing. Nothing. So we don't know what's going on with use of force. I used FBI and attorney general data to report on HPD's crime solving rate, also known as the clearance rate, the rate at which they're closing cases. A very important story, especially now. Yes, absolutely. It goes to, you know, the core effectiveness of our police department. And so after I reported that story, for which Chief Ballard declined to be interviewed, she publicly said in a police commission meeting that my reporting was wrong and that, you know, the numbers couldn't be trusted. So I filed a request with her department for the records or the numbers rather that she believes are correct. She has not responded. So I don't really know what to do with that. She has, however, given numbers to councilman Tommy Watter's office, which are pretty darn similar to what the FBI was saying. So do it that way. You will. They have actually answered my request for overtime data. I asked for information on how much officers you're making in 2019 versus this year. They declined to give me the record citing officer's privacy concerns. Not sure how individual officer privacy outweighs the public's right to know how this money is being spent, but that's their argument. I've also asked for disciplinary records for officers that were sued recently and others who my sources say have problem records in our high ranking. Zero response to that. Names and badge numbers, you know, I just asked for that to have on hand. Also, we did a story about officers giving criminal citations, particularly to homeless people. And there were some officers just giving the same people tickets over and over again, sometimes more than once in one day. So we wanted to know who they are. Their handwriting is practically illegible on the ticket. So we wanted to see the numbers. They haven't given us that either. So it's just, it's like pulling teeth sometimes to get information out of HPD and it's really frustrating. They have a general excuse or is it just come and get us? It's just they don't respond. So I don't even know what to do with that. I mean, if they said that they were really bogged down, again, I'm reasonable. I'll work with you. I'm patient. I'll take it in batches. Fine. But in the meantime, they've used federal care's money to expand hours for gun permitting and gun registration, which is interesting. They're willing to go above and beyond to accommodate gun owners in this time. But when it comes to government transparency, it's, oh, we don't have time. We don't have the resources to do it. Yeah. And with comments like the chief of police made about your information being inaccurate, it almost sounds like what we hear from Washington with fake news. It really does. And without cooperating with you, without responding to you. Yeah, that's troubling about the police. It's troubling about the police commission. Let me only say that my perception, you may know more about this, of the police commission is that they represent the public. They're supposed to be oversight on the police. And what they do to make recommendations to the police is totally a public matter. We need to know what they're talking about. We need to know their agendas. We need to know their discussions. And certainly we need to know their recommendations. And to find that the apparatus here has has kept you away from their recommendations or even denied. They made recommendation. That's quite extraordinary. They're supposed to be representing us. What happened? Something is wrong in the culture now. It's tough to say, you know, what goes on in people's minds. I don't know at this particular committee. It involves members of the police department itself and also one of the police commissioners. So it's not a public body that has public meetings. So it's not as if I could go and they've posted an agenda in minutes and see what they've been talking about. All I could do is file a records request and see what they've recommended after the fact. And I can't even get that.  Maybe the members of the committee, you know, recommended one thing, but the union influenced it in a different way. And, you know, we need to see how it was deliberated and how it was made. And we have a right to see that. And right now they're not denying us that right. Yeah, I think there's another sacred cow here. And that is the union, the police union, Chopo. It's very powerful, very powerful. And they flex their muscle all the time. And I think it's not unreasonable to assume they have a tremendous amount of influence on the chief and the police in general. And on this issue, they want to protect their members. They don't want their members to be embarrassed with claims of harassment and misconduct. So they take all the steps they can to keep you away from that information and protect their people. I have seen that. I have seen that myself. And so it's all the more important, the issue is all the more important that we find out what's going on. And we not let the union determine what information we can give. I suspect that's your right to refer because that is an element of what is happening here. I'm particularly interested in that request you made in June. I guess that was for the data on crimes, solving crimes in June. And you haven't heard yet. And they say they're still working on it, but it's like six months already. So that's the one on the homeless data. The homeless data, right? Yeah. Crime, solving rates, I can't even remember. It's a blur when I filed that one. But it's been longer than the law would normally allow for sure. Yeah. But there is no specific time in the law to require a response. And with David E. Gates' proclamations, that's thrown into a cocktail also. So nobody knows. Yeah. Right, right. There's no deadlines that we can hold them to. And as you stated, in each extension of the proclamation, it just has the same verbiage in it as it relates to the public records law.  And the government workers are still working every day. There's nothing that's really stopping them from accessing certain records. I mean, within, there might be some legitimate reasons why maybe they can't go to a certain warehouse where records are stored. Might be unsafe for some reason, I don't know. But there's a lot of records that are easily accessible that they could be sharing that they're not. You know, this morning, I was going for my walk in my neighborhood and a woman approached my walking buddy and me and she gave us a whole story about her house had been robbed and the police had been completely useless. And they hadn't even looked like they were going to try to solve this crime. And, you know, that's very troubling, especially now in the days of robbery, burglary, you know, cat burglary kinds of things that are happening. Luckily, she wasn't in the house, but there have been cases in the newspaper where people were in the house at the time the burglar came into the house. And I think that changes this severity of the offense. But everybody is interested in my neighborhood and all the neighborhoods in exactly what can the police do for you to protect you at a time when people are hungry and they come into your neighborhood and they go through this process of stealing things and breaking in and what have you. And I think that's probably, I think that the stats would show it's probably increasing. It's increasing in all neighborhoods. And therefore it's very important that you and other people, you know, seeking information for the media be able to get that information now so that we either be comforted or not, or we can call for action by the police department. But if we don't get the information, she was, that's a deafening silence, isn't it? Right. We haven't really gotten any explanation from the chief on the low crime solving rates. I mean, as I reported, and as she, her office told Councilman Waters office, they're only solving about 5% of property crime. And that's the biggest category. I mean, between 20 and 30,000 cases per year, and they're only solving about 5% and solving, meaning it results in an arrest or as they know who did it, but you know, the person died or, you know, it's called exceptional means. I think she needs to answer for that, but she's in this place of not even acknowledging that the data is accurate. And you know, we haven't gotten any explanation as to what exactly is going on. How many detectives does she have? Do they have the resources they need to do their jobs? It raises all of these other questions. And, you know, I've been working here for a year and a half, and I've never had an interview with her. Don't give up. I'll keep asking. Well, we have a question. Let me interrupt us and ask the question. Is there any way to solve this problem without dismantling? Listen to this question. This is a tough question. Is there any way to solve this problem without dismantling the entire system? See what you can do with that. I hope that's not necessary. I don't know what that would even mean. I just want it restored to the way it was. And there were ways to make it better before, but it's just we've taken such a step back. What we could really do is, you know, restore it to the way it was. The way the law was actually allows a lot of flexibility for the government. So it's not asking for anything unreasonable. You know, no one's asking for them to put aside the public health response to respond to my records request. That's, you know, we need them to do their jobs to keep everyone safe. But part of keeping people safe is keeping them informed. So that's all I'm asking.  To city employees, I guess it's specifically city employees who have been on administrative leave of some kind and who get paid. I mean, not for a week or a month, but for years and years. And they sit at home relaxing.  And yet they are paid in full. They get their benefits in full. It's the sweetest life imaginable. Some of them are paid very well. And you looked into that here and in, you know, in other writings, I guess, in Civil Beat. So what's the story there? How can we, how can they, for one moment in time, justify this? I'm so glad you asked about this, because this is one of my most fascinating requests, actually. So a while back, I wrote this story about city employees that were getting paid administrative leave. So one example is the prosecuting attorney, Keith Conashiro, one of the more famous examples. But in the process of that, I thought, well, I might as well ask the city, you know, if there are other examples of this, people lower down on the totem pole who are also staying home because they are under investigation for some kind of misconduct. And they gave me a full list. And there was, there were two that really stood out to me, both in the Department of Planning and Permitting, one more than the other. The one person was accused of quote, serious ethical violations, having to do with the issuance of building permits. And this is something I've heard since I moved here, that people always suspect there's some bribery going on with DPP. And, you know, I've never really seen any hard evidence of that, but it's something that people suspect.  So I filed what I had, where I got that information was just a letter, very basic from the city. And so I asked for the full investigative file to find out what exactly this person did and how it is that they ended up on pay leave for two full years. And then once I reported my story on it, they abruptly resigned. They were ordered back to work all of a sudden, and then asked for vacation time. And then a few days later, they quit. So it's almost as if it feels as if the city like forgot about them or something. And we're like, oh, we thought in civilry, we need to bring them back. I don't know. I don't know what happened. But it's so unusual to me. And the same thing happened with the other DPP employee. They were accused not of ethics violations, but of some kind of physical encounter with somebody else. They caused someone bodily harm and allegedly. And also we're on pay leave for two years. I mean, there might be some reasonable explanation for this. I always try to think of, you know, give them the benefit of the doubt. But, you know, I've done my job, I've asked for the records, and they haven't provided them. So who knows what happened there. I'm waiting eagerly for DPP to respond to that one. Yeah. So you haven't had answers on any of that. And you did find that when you start tallying up what we do know about, there may be others, right? It was over $800,000 that was paid to people like this. These identified people that you found. $800,000 for people who sit at home and do not work and yet are paid in full. And that may not be the full amount because there are benefits, right? There may be retirement benefits that come into play. Who knows what. At the end of the day, it's costing taxpayers a fortune for people who don't work for reasons that are never expressed and never provided to you as a member of the media. It's really, really shocking. I was shocked with Keith Conashiro. Now, he's paid, he was paid. I'm not sure he's, I don't know if he's still being paid, but he was paid a lot of money. Is he still being paid? I think so. I think he's making 170 some per year, and it's been almost, in March, it would have been two years. So it's, you know, 22 months, something like that. Yeah, start doing the math. That's a lot of money.  That's extraordinary. It's like you want to ask who's in charge here, but they never explain it to you. Again, I hope that you follow that through and never let, never, ever let go of it, Christina. I will keep nagging them, I promise. Well, you may have to go to court after a while, but I think you'll succeed in court. You'll absolutely succeed. I guess a lot of this depends on where we are in COVID. I mean, what are you seeing to the future? Do you see this resolving itself? Or do you see, you know, a kind of custom and culture reaction that is always going to be putting you at arm's length? That's a tough question to answer. I don't know. I just know that Civil Beat since its inception has had difficulty getting access to public records, and we've really made it part of our mission to keep fighting, including in court. And I think we have made some headway, but it's still tough. I mean, I came from a job in Delaware, and I thought it was hard to get information there. And now it seems like a breeze looking back, but, you know, I could just request things and they'd give it to me. Or sometimes, you know, I had to write a letter to their version of OIP, the Office of Information Practices, and you could appeal and they would put pressure on the agency. But it would happen within, you know, weeks or months. Here it can go on for years.  The issue is moot, or, you know, it's so outdated that you need to do it all over again to get the updated version. So it's like they, it almost feels like they try to exhaust you until you go away or quit. But we got to keep fighting. Yeah, and that's an interesting point to dwell on that for just a moment. If they can hold you up long enough, they know that it's no longer in the news cycle, that it's no interest, and that you can't make much of it because, you know, it's overtaken by events. That's got to be part of the delaying, kicking the can, you know, strategy on this.   He has a certain amount of cloud and every legislator has cloud. So although, you know, in some cases, maybe in many cases, you can only really be sure of an answer here by going to court and forcing them down with an order, which I think you could get, it's just time and delay. But also, you know, if you go to a legislature, later, or city council member and say, can you help me out on this? Can you use some of your twist? Maybe you can, maybe you can get it that way. The problem with that is it shouldn't have to work that way. It shouldn't have to do that. Right. And I think you're right that we may have to get more creative that way and kind of ask other offices if they have access to this information that we're seeking. Or, you know, it's just become my personal goal lately to become so well sourced at City Hall and at the police department that I don't need them, that I don't need them to confirm anything. You know, hopefully people will send me things, you know, within the rules, hopefully, and I don't want anyone to get in trouble. But this is information we're entitled to. And if they're not going to give it to me through official channels, well, maybe I'll have to ask people to tell me things off the record and just, you know, continue to do my job. I can't let them get in my way. You know what I enjoyed most, to close on this, what I enjoyed most about your article was that the media and your efforts were the story. And you can imagine, you can imagine how much pressure that puts on all the individuals involved in the state and the police force department of health, what have you, because they essentially become the, you know, the other side of that equation. And by implication, we know what they're doing. And so if you can't get it, Christina, you've got to keep on writing those articles about every effort you make and every, you know, point of resistance you find. I think we may very well do that, given the trend. And I know my editor is encouraging my colleagues to document as well, you know, on their own beats. I only cover really the city usually, but we all are coming up against these walls. And yeah, I think we will be documenting it more. So stay tuned. Maybe that won't be necessary if they wake up and decide to actually cooperate with us. But I don't know. Well, in the meantime, Christina, you represent us all.  Thank you so much for that. And thank you for coming on Think Tank. We really appreciate it. That's a privilege. Thanks so much for having me. Aloha.


This is stock number 10719. We are here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. You're new and use Chrysler and Chrysler Pacifica headquarters. Today we are checking out this Super Clean 2018 Chrysler Pacifica Limited. This vehicle has the award-winning 3.6 liter Pentastar V6 motor. It has been fully safe and inspected by our service shop. It has a fresh oil and filter change. All the fluids have been checked and topped off and this van is 100 percent ready to go. Bright white is the color we shoot all of our videos in 1080p 60 frames per second. So if you have HD capabilities on your computer tablet or smartphone device turn them on right now because it is definitely your best way to check out the quality and condition of the vehicle before seeing it in person. If you want to check out all the photos on this van in the upper right hand part of your screen is a link right to our website. Click that and check us out there. It comes with the 20 inch painted and polished aluminum rims and it has Falcon ZX 24550 R20 tires with right around I'd say 50 to 60 percent of the tread left on them. Front fender is in really nice shape. It does have the HID headlamps, the LED running lights and the LED fog lamps. Front bumper is in excellent shape. I didn't see any dents, dings or cracks on that. Headlight lenses are nice and clear and that hood is in excellent condition. I didn't see any dents or dings on that. Passengers side front fender no dents or dings on that and the passengers side front rim no scuffs or scrapes on there. As you go down this side of the van take a note of how clean the body is, how reflective and mirror like that paint is. We take these HD videos so if you're far away or even if you're close by and just can't make the trip down but you're still interested in purchasing the vehicle you can see the vehicle, hear the vehicle and have confidence in what you're looking at before you even get here. So then when you do get here there's absolutely no surprises. You can see it does have the power vista roof as well as the third row skylight, the hideaway roof rack. That's why we do the videos and that's why we offer the Summit Auto Fastpass option in the upper right hand part of your screen. I link right to our website where you can apply for financing. Get pre-approved, see a payment quote, even praise the trade off from the comfort of your own home so when you get here all you got to do is drive the vehicle, love it and you'll be all set to go. Back tires have just as much try to as front tires and it does have four-wheel disc brakes. As we come around to the back of the vehicle rear bumper really nice shape I didn't see any major dents or dings on that and the rear gate is in nice shape as well. That is a power lift gate just press a button right there and she'll come up on you. Back storage area is very very clean. No rips or tears in the carpeting. It does have the stow and go or stow and vac system and it does have the power fold down seats.  Do you get these side window shades and that third row skylight right here like so. A couple USB ports or one USB port back here and to get these seats back up you just put them press the normal button and they'll both go up or you can do one side or the other pretty simple to do that and to close this rear gate you press this button right here it'll beep at you three times and then come on down shuts nice and solidly and as you go down this side of the van just as clean as that passenger side it's going to have the capitalist fuel fill which is really nice that rear quarter all looks really good you can see and denser dings in there and for full disclosure this back rim is in excellent shape as well down the rest is side of the van really nice and clean doors all look really good you do get the blind spot monitoring heated mirrors and LED side directional mirrors signals inside the limited package gives you the black leather interior with the gray piping no rips or tears on there power seats in front mumbar factory floor mats throughout this one does have auto headlamps power windows power locks power mirrors these mirrors also power fold in I always like showing both sides on a used vehicle make sure that all the features are working properly which they are memory driver's seat and as we hop inside the vehicle here you can see that this one has 26,892 miles so it's going to have all the remaining factory bumper to bumper warranty till 36,000 miles digital speedometer you got a clock up there you can put your you got compass and temperature on the bottom you can change that stuff to whatever you want it to read leather wrap steering wheel cruise controls on the right blue tooth and information center controls on the left and audio controls on the back this one comes with the 8.4 4c radio and FM and serious XM radio capabilities you also saw that it did have the navigation system on here from the factory you also have your heated and cool seat buttons I'm going to turn those cool seats on because it's a kind of hot today and your heated steering wheel button as well you also have your climate controls here unless you do get the dual climate controls this is also where your backup camera is going to show up you also have your projection manager so you can do Android Auto or Apple CarPlay and project your cell phone to the screen and then if you have Google Maps or Waze or some other navigation program you can use that if you don't like the factory one down here you have your nine speed automatic transmission more climate controls if you don't like using the radio and you also have volume and tune controls start stop parking sensors you can turn those off stability control you can turn that off you got a mute and a screen off button as well down here you get an AUX and a USB jack and the passenger side seat is an excellent condition as well no rips or tears and that smells very clean inside this vehicle I don't think it's ever been smoked in you do get that panoramic sunroof up here in the front got all your controls for your side doors gate and then your controls for that sunroof and my camera just decided to flip on me sorry about that up here you get your home link buttons as well and SOS and assist buttons in that rear view mirror we'll take a quick look at the back seats and then we'll check out under the hood so you got the power sliding side doors and see they open up nice and smoothly second row quad seating these seats are heated back here you also get the latch child safety system the captain's chairs the side window shades and you also have the rear air controls up there that's what that third row skylight looks like from the second row and these seats do stow into the floor it's pretty easy it has the stow and go assist so basically you just press this button here you'll notice that that front seat is gonna go forward on you so then you just pull this up it'll go right where it needs to go and then you just press or pull the stow and go strap right here it'll fold that seat right into the floor pull this up like that and you can see it took me about five seconds to do that with one hand which is pretty awesome to get that back out you just grab that strap again pull it back like so it's gonna lock into place put the backrest up pull that and you're all set to go very simple very easy there's your stone vac hose right there and to get these doors closed you just press this button right here and that'll come on shut like so we'll take a quick look under the hood I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today and hopefully from this HD video you'll be able to tell just how clean this van is all the way around inside out under the hood we have the award-winning 3.6 liter pentastar v6 motor engine base very clean runs very smooth this van has been fully safe to get inspected by our surf shop has a fresh oil and filter change all the fluids have been checked and topped off and this van is 100% ready to go see more pictures of this van or one of our other 450 new and used cars trucks SUVs minivans wranglers halftones you name it we got it go to our website www.summitauto.com full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle from two locations all at summitauto.com if you'd like to check out more HD videos you can go to youtube.com slash summit auto remember to like subscribe and share on this video and all the videos that you see there in fact in a second you will see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel on your left a link to more Pacifica minivan videos like this one on your right if you have not been to our website on the bottom link to this vehicle on our website click those check us out and we really look forward to helping you with this super clean 2018 Chrysler Pacifica limited in bright white thanks again


It really is great to see that open infrastructure really is used by companies like Deutsche Telecom in combination. So it isn't enough to just look at cloud in isolation or containers in isolation because the users are combining them together. Another important area of open infrastructure that's still very early in its evolution is 5G. And one of the reasons this is so interesting is that 5G involves so much more softer than the earlier generations and especially so much more open-source software. So up next we have two speakers, Haseeb Bhaktar is an expert in the evolution of 5G and Chris Price has been actively transforming the way Ericsson participates in open-source projects. Please welcome Chris and Haseeb. Hi everyone, I'm extremely excited to be here. Not just because it's an open-stack conference but because for the first time in conjunction with AT&T we have bought 5G to open-stack. We have created a 5G lounge, we have radios, we have calls, we have everything. It's a fully functional 5G network, one of the very few sites in the US today which is running one and it's available in the marketplace. What we're going to do very briefly is geek out a little bit and we're going to tell you exactly what that means and Haseeb is going to talk us through the technical side. All right, thank you Chris. Ericsson and AT&T have brought some cool things for you. Let me first start by saying that the 5G systems that you will see in the 5G lounge is exactly the same network that's being deployed in AT&T today. Basically Ericsson and AT&T have launched the same 5G systems in 12 cities last December. The 5G system that we have in the lounge is actually integrated 4G and 5G radios. The 4G supports control plane such as call setup signaling and 5G obviously delivers high data user plane. Put it another way, we're letting 5G deliver high bandwidth content and using 4G to control it. We're using 39 GHz millimeter wave spectrum and a cool technology called 4x100 MHz carrier aggregation. Make sense? Well, we're basically taking all of the spectrum and aggregating it together to deliver very high bandwidth data, which is in the upwards of 1 Gbps. Ericsson antenna integrated radio, Air 5331, which you will see above your head in the 5G lounge, supports massive MIMO. But it means it has hundreds of antennae elements inside it. Our baseband 6630 running in the back room can support radio signals from both 4G and 5G technologies. How cool can that be? We actually have two systems here. The first system is N2 and Ericsson, including the core network, all located in this convention center, delivering gigabits of throughput. The second system has Ericsson radios integrated with AT&T's live core network in Dallas, delivering up to 900 Mbps of throughput to the internet. Well, what that means, we have taken a big fat transport pipe out of this convention center and connected to AT&T's live core network and to the internet. Well, we're not done yet. Of some cool user equipments, these are Netgear, Nighthawk, Wi-Fi devices that has Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipset into it. In the gigabit system, we have connected a test tool to the Wi-Fi UE, to the Netgear UE, so that we can display the throughput. In the second system, the Netgear Wi-Fi device will allow you to connect your mobile phone to our 5G system, powered by Ericsson and AT&T, so that you can experience it yourselves. Well, at this time, I'd like to take and I'd like to thank all of the AT&T, Ericsson, OpenStack, folks who have worked tirelessly to make this 5G lounge a reality. So thank you, everybody, for all of your hard work. I know some of you guys are up here till midnight. Thank you again. All right. Thanks, Asif. So if that sounds complicated, it is, because it's pretty complicated. What I also want to do is I want to thank everyone involved in OpenStack, because what you'll find in the lounge is we have one antenna, which is showing gigabit throughput. That's terminating on an OpenStack hosted MME, HSS, VPG, all the telco words that you used. Everything's running on a little OpenStack data center right on site, so you can actually see gigabit throughput over the wireless running on OpenStack, and that's built on all the work we've done with this community over the last four or five years. And the other one is straight out to the network. That's running on the airship project, on OpenStack, on Kubernetes. You have that running in the AT&T data center, but it's all based on the work we're doing. The reason it's all based on the work we're doing and we're not doing it in-house, it saves money. No, not really. The real reason is soon we're going to have a massive global network which is running gigabit throughput to your handset, to your computer, to whatever, to your car, to trains, and it's all going to be running on a massive distributed data center across the globe in all the operator networks. We're all going to be running OpenStack, we're all going to be running Kubernetes. What this provides is a huge opportunity to the OpenStack community and other communities to be able to access that technology for the first time. 5G is the first time that we get an open infrastructure across our entire mobile network, and that's really exciting for us, and I hope it's really exciting for you. I beg you, go to the lounge, check out, look at the radios, they're sitting up high, go check out the Wi-Fi. You can get a couple of hundred megabit throughput on the Wi-Fi if you're fast. As soon as everyone else jumps on board, that pipeline's going to get fat, or less fat, I should say. But to talk a little more about the 5G, I would like to invite the VP of the network cloud from AT&T, Amy Willis. Thanks, Chris. Good morning. It's great to be back with you. Chris and Hasib talked about what we have set up in the 5G lounge. I'm going to talk a little bit more about our 5G packet core. In Berlin, we talked about what we were doing in our 5G packet core, and if you remember, for those of you who are in Berlin or saw the video, we had Gus sitting in a Faraday cage, and we actually demoed our 5G packet core live. Well, I want to update you on where we've been since then. In December, we launched the first standards-based mobile 5G, and now we're live in parts of 19 cities across the United States. We'll be nationwide in 2020, and this is our 5G Evolve packet core that's running on our network cloud, which is deployed and managed by Airship. I know y'all are all familiar with Airship, and I have the great pleasure today to congratulate the Airship community on Airship 1.0, which is Enterprise Ready and Powering 5G today, and that 1.0 releases live now. It provides enterprise-grade security, improved resiliency, and expanded documentation along with a lot of other things. We encourage you to get involved in the community and learn more about it this week. There are a lot of talks and things to learn from so that you can elevate your infrastructure. You can go to airshipit.org and learn more about it. So let me just ask that we congratulate the team on the 1.0 release. In Berlin, I talked about the 5G revolution and what that would bring. Massive device connectivity, ultra-reliability, ultra-high speeds. Today we're going to talk about the ultra-low latency, and to do that, we're going to have a little fun. Are y'all up for some fun? Okay. So for our fun with Ericsson, we've worked with Ericsson to bring a game to the stage, and this game will simulate for you the differences between 5G latency, 4G latency, and 3G latency. And to do that, I'm going to invite up Mark Collier and Sunil Sood. Mark thinks that he can beat me at this game. I don't know if that's true or not yet, but we'll see, and Sunil will explain the game and make sure that we don't cheat. Thanks Amy. So Strike Alight is a competitive two-player game which requires the fast reaction time to win. Okay. To highlight low latency, the two players are going to wear the VR headsets. The camera on the top of the headset is going to feed video to the encoder, and encoder is going to transmit the video packets, the data packets to the decoder, and decoder is connected to the video of the VR headset. So basically on the top half of the screen, you're going to see what Amy and Mark are going to see in their VR headset, and on the lower bottom, what you see is going to be the live video feed. So while Amy and Mark are going to be busy, you know, immersed in their video feed, blacked out from the surroundings, and hitting those lit buttons to get the points to win, guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to change the latency of the video data packets to give them the experience of 5G, 4G, 3G latency. That's not cool. I can bet it's going to be fun to play, and it's going to be more fun to watch. So Amy and Mark, any questions? No, it's good. Let's go. All clear. So let's start the game. All right. All right. Do you promise this is going to be lit? Yeah. Amy, are you ready? I'm ready. Mark, are you ready? Of course. This is crazy. So ready, set, and go. All right. So 5G, 2 to 5 millisecond latency. Ah! Here comes 4G, up to 100 millisecond latency. All right, Sunil, I need that cheat code, but remember we talked about this. And 3G, up to 250 millisecond latency. Give me 5G. Oh, my goodness. This is a nightmare. That cheat code, remember? First one. Oh, my goodness. What happened? Is it over? Okay, the game is over. And guess what? Player two is the winner. Oh. And? I don't know if that's true. He gets a special prize.  All right. Wow. Okay. Well, I'll tell you what. I can't wait to get 5G. In real life, because that 3G was not cutting it. No, it was not fun. So I don't know if you all could pick up on this, but when the latency went up, I mean, your hands were just all over the place. And it was, it was crazy. You couldn't tell where your hand was. You could see the light, but the hand was not in the same spot. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what. One of the greatest things about 1G, 3G, 3G, 4G, 4G, 4G, 4G, 4G, 4G, 4G, 4G, 4G, 4G, 4G, 4G, 4G, 4G, 4G, 4G, 4G. One of the things about what they've done here is that 5G is really rare right now. And there are very few places on this planet where you can actually experience 5G. And one of them is right here in this Denver Convention Center. I believe they mentioned that earlier. So you can go to the 5G lounge. You can experience it for yourself. You can play this game. And win prizes. And win prizes like this beautiful unicorn. And of course, in addition to checking out the 5G, which again, they actually got permission to use the licensed spectrum with real live radios. So it's pretty awesome to be able to go see it in the marketplace. Check out some prizes. You can also learn more about all this week with a number of sessions. All right. Thank you very much.


For the live fire exercise, there's a scenario where there is a friendly force that has been trapped behind enemy lines. We're moving forward to rescue the friendly forces, and as the SAPRA unit here, we're breaching that minefield, allowing lanes for the friendly forces to maneuver through, link up with the friendly forces on the far side, and then together press forward and engage and destroy the enemy. I think our soldiers are doing great. We just got done with one of our live fire exercises.  It's a pretty big morale booster to see all of your hard work and all of your training come to fruition with these training events. Everything from the terrain to the rain that's coming in right now to maintenance on our equipment. It really replicates the stress of an actual combat environment. I think it's a good opportunity for soldiers to train just like this in preparation for future missions. The great part of the training time gives us a chance to figure out the kinks and our command nodes and communication systems as well as sharing our tactics, and that just improves readiness. The U.S. being more than willing to deploy our forces to Eastern Europe to participate with the multitude of NATO countries that inhabit this area which shows our commitment to defending Europe in the event that our forces would be called to answer and support our NATO allies. The best part is that the professionalism between all NATO countries allows us to address issues and concerns that we may have in terms of safety and fighting capability, and we're easily able to resolve those as we fight for one common mission.