Welcome to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. We are a Bible-Believing Church located
in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. We are proudly part of the Christian Fellowship
Ministries with 3,000 churches around the world. We are a church focused on world evangelism,
discipleship and church planting. Here we will share recent sermons from P.H.S.A. Church
and other sermons from throughout our fellowship. I am Pastor David Bickford and I will be your
host for this podcast. I thank you for listening today and we hope these messages are a blessing
to you and bring you closer to God.
Hello and welcome back to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. Today I've got a message
that we've heard before. It's actually would have been the first message that I put onto
the podcast. It was entitled Core Values and so I had ended up preaching this one a second
time. I revamped it a little bit and so that's what we're going to look at today. But I'll
use this opportunity to really dive into my testimony a little bit deeper hopefully just
to kind of give you an idea of where I came from, who I am and what the purpose of this
whole podcast is and why it's so important to me. We hope to reach the world with the
gospel message of Jesus Christ but really there's always a back story to whatever we
do and maybe I'll be able to divert and ad-lib a little bit for that as we go through this
message. I did change this a little bit from the first time I preached it in the church
so there are some changes if you were to compare the original episode to this episode but not
to begrudge the point. It's something that is near and dear to my heart as a Marine Corps
veteran, a United States Marine Corps veteran and having a couple brothers that are now
serving in the Michigan National Guard and the military is something that's very important
to me, the culture, the family atmosphere. I'd spent about a decade exactly in the service
to the United States government both in the United States Marine Corps, the United States
Navy as civilian and with the United States Air Force in the reserves. It's very important
to me so I've been touched by just about every branch of the military. I have two brothers
that are in like I said the Michigan National Guard, the Army National Guard. That's kind
of why this particular message is important to me is just the idea of having respect,
having proper honor, courage and commitment to a calling higher than ourselves. We obviously
elevate that above whether it's a military, a country, a government or anything earthly
because as Christians we are all called to be citizens of heaven. We are called citizens
of heaven and so with that in mind we should be living an honorable, courageous and committed
life to the kingdom of heaven more than anything here on earth.
With that let's go ahead and jump in. The text that we will use as a jumping off point
for this message is John 5, 19 through 24. If you have your Bibles you're following along
you can go ahead and turn there and we'll get to that verse of scripture here shortly.
When I was 14 years old I read a book and this book set me on a path that affected all
aspects of my life. It really changed my viewpoint just prior to this even. I remember a friend
of mine, we had just moved to a new town in California and so a friend of mine from the
old town we lived in came to visit and I remember there was this summer where I was being pretty
lazy and he came and he visited but I remember it got back to me word that he had said that
I was being pretty lazy. I didn't really want to do anything and so that really impacted
me in a kind of a negative way. I felt pretty bad about it and so pretty soon afterwards
this book came to me when I was 14 and it really set me on a very different path. This
book had a mammoth impact and influence on my life. It helped mold my view of the world,
what was right, what was wrong and it began this long long process of self-revelation
that has been with me ever since and even to this day we're constantly having to look
in the mirror and judge ourselves and today hopefully if you're a Christian you're judging
yourself against the Word of God not against your fellow man or anything earthly but rather
against what God has called you to be. But it's important that we do have that in our
lives that ability to look at our actions, look at our thought life, look at our prayer
life, look at everything that we're doing and really judged against the Word of God
but we're jumping ahead a little bit too quickly. So now you might be thinking that I'm obviously
talking about the Bible. You might be thinking oh of course you became a Christian at this
young age and that just dramatically changed your life and you were perfect from that point
forward. That of course would be your silly assumption and you'd be dead wrong. At this
point in my life I was about as far from a relationship of God as you could be. In fact
I was a pretty angsty teenager. I wasn't particularly a good athlete. I was only a marginally above
average student and I also tended to lead towards laziness as I kind of hinted at and
so I ended up in a group of kids that would have been the uncool group. Now most of us
were more academically inclined than athletically inclined and oddly enough this group of kids
we ended up being the core of a cross country team at this school that had never been there
before. So all the people who couldn't make the football or the basketball team would
end up coming onto the cross country team because it was brand new and there wasn't
really a clique of kids that were involved with it yet. Anyway, so if this book that
changed my life wasn't the Bible, then what was this book? What could have been such a
dramatic shift in one's life? Well for me this book was entitled Marine Sniper 93 Confirmed
Kills and it tells the exciting true story of Sergeant Carlos Hathcock, a legendary marine
sniper in the Vietnam War. And part of the heading of this book or the description of
this book is he is silent and invisible. He lies in one position for days barely twitching
a muscle able to control his heartbeat and breathing. His record has never been matched
93 confirmed kills. This is the story of Sergeant Carlos Hathcock, a marine sniper, a legend
of military lore. Now since the writing of this book because this book is a Vietnam era
book there are others who can say that they can claim matching 93 confirmed kills. We're
not going to get into that. Who cares? That's not the point of this message. This message
is not even about his capability as a marine sniper or the fact that he was a marine at
all. It comes to a different point of the message. When we look at this book about a
sniper you're going to ask yourself what does this have to do with Jesus? What does this
have to do with the cross? What does this have to do with God? Why did this book have
like this impact on my life? So as we jump into our text we'll be able to dig into the
purpose of this message but then also we'll be able to circle back around to this tale
of this book from when I was a child. So in John 5 19 through 24 it says, So Jesus said
to them, Truly, truly I say to you, the son can do nothing of his own accord, but only
what he sees the father doing. For whatever the father does, the son does likewise. For
the father loves the son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works
than these will he show him so that you may marvel. For as the father raises the dead
and gives them life, so also the son gives life to whom he will. For the father judges
no one but he has given all judgment to the son and that all may honor the son just as
they honor the father. Whoever does not honor the son does not honor the father who sent
him. Truly, truly I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal
life. He does not come in judgment but is passed from death to life. So as we look at
the tale of Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Halfcock, we want to really hone in on the ideas of
having core values within yourself. And we'll reference back to the Marine Corps with this
because in the Marine Corps we have set standardized core values that are based off of honor, courage
and commitment. So Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Halfcock's story resonated with me immediately
when I read it. He was a young man with few options in his life. He was from a poor family
from the South. He even helped put food on his table by having to shoot like squirrels
or whatever he could find. What other little critters were running around in the South
there that he could shoot in Arkansas and Mississippi. It wasn't his hard life that
spoke to me so much. It wasn't the valor of his battlefield accomplishments, which there
were many. The real story of Carlos Halfcock is that even though he mostly served alone
as a sniper, he also served his brothers. So you have to conceptualize this because we
oftentimes think of snipers today as just long distance shooters, whether it's on a
law enforcement or whether it's in a unit like the Navy SEALs or it's part of a battalion
or it's a part of a larger group. So you have designated marksmen. That stuff's all good.
Those guys all have skills. But Marine snipers were typically sent out either alone or in
a team of two, a sniper and a scout. And they would spend most of their time not moving,
sitting very quietly in the field in the bush serving out their mission. So it's important
to understand this isolation can cause some people to turn very inward and to lose themselves
in the mission. I've had friends that luckily have gotten saved. I've had friends that were
part of the sniper group in the Marine Corps. And one of those guys who did luckily became
quite on fire for God. And he's been miraculously healed and set free from what he went through
during his time of service in the Marine Corps. But I remember hearing stories from him and
about him where when he first came back and got saved, people would have to wake him up
with like a stick because he would just go right into kill mode if someone woke him up
because of his time in the service. He was so worn out because he had spent 12 years
deployed primarily overseas in the function of being a Marine sniper. So what resonated
with me about Carlos Hathcock was this commitment to service of others despite the role that
he was playing in the military. So on September 16th, 1969, Hathcock's career as a sniper
came to a sudden end along Highway 1. North of Landing Z Zone, Baldy went an LVTP, which
is just a troop carriers riding in, struck an anti-tank mine. This anti-tank mine blew
the truck, flipped it, it was destroyed. Hathcock pulled seven Marines from the flame engulfed
vehicle suffering severe burns, some of them third degree burns to his face, arms, legs
before someone else pulled him away from the wreckage and placed him in the water because
he was unaware of how badly he had been burned. While recovering, Hathcock received a Purple
Heart. Nearly 30 years later, they upgraded him. They gave him a Silver Star as well for
his service and action. So Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock and the seven Marines he pulled
from the vehicle were evacuated by helicopter to the USS, or to the hospital ship USS Repose.
And then later on, they came to Tokyo and eventually made their way back to the States
where Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock spent time at the Brooke Army Medical Center in
San Antonio in their burn unit. I remember reading the details of his experience in the
burn unit. If you haven't heard about what happens in the burn unit, oftentimes burn
units in hospitals are put at the very bottom level basement of the hospital so that it's
surrounded by several levels of concrete between the burn unit and the rest of the hospital.
If you can't imagine why they would do this separation, it's simple. Being burned is one
of the most painful experiences that anybody can have. But the way that they treat burn
victims oftentimes is they have to scrape away the dead flesh off of the body. And so
they keep the people who are being treated from burns like this in the basement so that
people can't hear them screaming. Because the excruciating pain that they go through,
there isn't really an effective way, especially at this time, to medicate or to anesthetize
them in order to do this treatment. So they would have to scrape away the dead skin. And
this wasn't something you could just do once or twice because oftentimes the skin that
might have been alive would die after the first treatment or second treatment. So they
would do this over and over again. It was while I was reading this book and this part
of the book that I knew I wanted to become a Marine. Now you're probably thinking that's
insanity and you're probably a little right. Most of us who served in the Marine Corps
are a little bit off kilter. And that's why I thank God for being saved, getting saved
early in my time in the Marine Corps. But the reality is that that is what I came away
with from reading this book was this man's bravery, his courage, his ability to pull
himself together after the most horrible of defeats in some ways and to come back and
be of service to his brothers again. It was absolutely amazing. The sacrifice, the life
of sacrifice that was poignantly depicted in this book challenged me to my very being.
Now I'm going to preach about the core values from this launching point. And the Marine
Corps, like if you go to even their website, they say this, the values born from our nation's
ideals. So this is the way the Marine Corps identifies their core values. Marines live
by a set of enduring core values that form the bedrock of our character. These values
guide our actions and bolster our resolve. Honor, courage, and commitment leads us to
victory over the physical, mental, and moral battles faced during combat or while serving
in our communities on behalf of our nation. These are the values that ensure every fight
and the current and past battles support our common moral cause. And I can't emphasize
this enough. This message is not a recruiting commercial for the military or life in the
military at all. It's definitely not a call to go join a sign up in the Marine Corps.
It's a very challenging thing to be in the Marines and to keep your faith in the Marine
Corps because it is where you're still part of the world and you're seeing some of the
worst stuff possible to humanity. The reality is that when we refuse to submit to the Lord,
we will always look to mankind for leadership and worth. The children of Israel did this
when they cried out for an earthly king. And we often see it today when people call out
for political leaders that are going to lead them to the promised land. So what I'm really
trying to express this morning is that we have to honor, we have the honor of serving
a living God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. And we should find courage in our Lord. And
when we abide in him, we can find the strength to remain committed to his message. At this
point in my life, I was not saved and I was not serving the Lord. So I was doing exactly
what I said. I was clinging to something bigger than myself, something tangible that I could
hold to that I thought would make me a better person. And, you know, not to not to jump ahead
too far, but the reality is I did become a Marine and I'm proud to have served in the
Marine Corps, but I almost didn't make it. There was a time before I got saved where
I was destroying what I'd worked so hard for. And I'll get to this later. But I want to
emphasize this point. You are not going to be saved by the things of this world. You
can only be saved by Jesus Christ. We will look for things in the world to save us or
to give us purpose, but they're all for not. That is not the things of the world that will
that will set you free from a life of sin or a life of struggle. You will only be able
to find freedom and joy and service to the Lord. And I do believe that wholeheartedly.
People will try to argue with it, but until you've come into a direct personal relationship
with Jesus Christ, it is nearly impossible for you to understand. It is only by the Holy
Spirit that you could possibly understand. Because it doesn't make on its face logical
sense. But when you come to a place of of utter destitute, you know, utter destitudiness
in your life, and then Jesus meets you there and lifts you out of it, then you have something
worth serving. You have something worth honoring, something worth showing commitment and courage
to. And that's Jesus Christ. And that's our Lord. So as I go forward, I want to get to
my first point, which is honor. Honor guides in the Marine Corps are honored guides Marines
to exemplify the ultimate and ethical and moral behavior. The Marine Corps believes
that you should never lie, never cheat or steal. You should abide by an uncompromising
code of integrity, respecting human dignity and respect for others. Honor compels Marines
to act responsibly and to fulfill their obligations and to hold ourselves and others accountable
for every action. So let's take a look at how you could, you know, how you define honor.
That was the Marine Corps definition of honor. But other, you know, the dictionary definition
is that honesty, you know, is honesty, fairness or integrity in one's beliefs and actions.
A source of credit or distinction, high respect, merit or rank. Some other words that can be
used similarly to honor is dignity, faith, prestige, trust. You show honor to the things
that you have faith in. You show dignity to the things you have faith in. You put your
trust in the things that you have faith in. You honor. The opposite, of course, would
be disregard, neglect, ignorance. Now let's challenge our thought process here. Ignorance
can be easily explained. It's the idea of not knowing, right? But neglect is something
that we all deal with as Christians. Are we neglecting our soul? Are we neglecting what
we were sent on earth to do? To be, you know, stewards of the gospel, to be representatives
of the kingdom of heaven. Are we neglecting our own spiritual life? Are we neglecting
our prayer, our prayer time, reading the word, washing ourselves in the word? Are we neglecting
the gathering of the brethren, going to church? And you don't just go to church to hear the
preaching. Of course, the preaching is extremely important, if not one of the most important
parts of going to church. But it's the fellowship of the brethren. It's the idea of iron sharpening
iron and everybody else, you know, working together to be what they can, everything they
can be for the Lord. In Ephesians six, one through four, it says, children obey your
parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother. This is the first
commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in
the land. Fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up and discipline
and instruction of the Lord. With the scripture, we can put honor in a more biblical context.
And when we look back on the text in John five, 22 through 23, we can see the importance
of honor with the word of Jesus Christ. For the father judges no one, but has given all
judgment to the son that all may honor the son just as they honor the father. Whoever
does not honor the son does not honor the father who sent him. This is kind of a startling
idea that, you know, people who will say, well, they, they, they believe in the general
idea of the Bible, but they don't, you know, there are certain, you know, sex or different
religions out there that minimize the importance of Jesus Christ. And so that's an important
thing to, to understand is that you need to put Jesus first. You need to give him as much
honor as you're giving the father. But as we go back to that Ephesians six, one through
four, it's also important to understand. I left in verse four for myself. Fathers do
not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up and discipline and instruction of
the Lord. I love that that whole verse or a section of scripture one through four chapter
six first, you know, one through four Ephesians. But I find it very interesting that he puts
it in there for fathers. Do not provoke your children to anger because oftentimes as fathers,
we like to do that. We think it's just toughening up our kids. And there is a difference between,
you know, raising our children and bringing them up and discipline as it says in instruction
of the Lord. And there's another thing about antagonizing them. So as we go back to the
tale of Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Halfcock, I moved to enlist in the Marine Corps. I had
to wait a number of years before being able to join. In fact, I tried to join at 16. They
said, come back a year later. My dad during that period of time tried to talk me into
joining the Air Force. And so I tried to go to the Air Force. But you know, lo and behold,
the Air Force recruiting office was closed the day that I tried to go join them. And
so bam, now I am right back where I wanted to be, which was with the Marine Corps. And
you know what, my dad went out anyway, because in the Marine Corps, they ended up getting
me a trade working on an aircraft. And my dad had worked in aviation, you know, for
decades already. So we kind of got the best of both worlds. I ended up getting to be a
Marine and I ended up getting to work in aviation for a number of years. Nevertheless, I was
remain I, I remained focused on this idea of service. So I was able to enlist at 17,
but you're not actually able to go to boot camp in the Marine Corps after until you
have a high school diploma. And I had to wait till finishing, you know, finishing my my
last year of high school before I went. And so they call that the delayed entry program.
And so I worked with, you know, my recruiter and Marines to try to be in shape and be ready,
you know, mentally and physically for boot camp. But it wasn't until I was a Marine that
I came to fully understand that honor that I was searching for was not in the Marines
at all. It was this relationship that I alluded to earlier with Jesus Christ. But before I
could be saved, I still had some hard lessons to learn. My my first, you know, little bit
in the Marine Corps, and even in the delayed entry program, I was drunk and angry. I was
an angry young man, but I was focused on being a Marine. So I was able to push aside some
of my angst, some of my anger. And I was able to make it through basic training and make
it through all my training, which I had quite a bit of because of the trade I was in, made
it through boot camp, made it through, you know, combat training or Marine Combat Training
MCT made it through water survival school, which is like NACA. It's a Naval Air Crew
candidate course. And I made it through seer school survival evasion resistance escape
school. That's where they beat you up and treat you like a POW. I made it through my
technical schools, both aviation, like my mechanic school as an as an aircraft mechanic,
and my flight school, which was being a flight engineer flying on board and crew. I did all
this, I made it into the fleet. But then I was let down. I had recognized that I was
missing something important. I didn't know what it was at that point. But I understood
that there was something big missing in my life, and it was destroying me. So in order
to be truly honorable, you know, I had to recognize I had to come to a place to recognize
and give honor to the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. And first Peter 2 17, it says,
for the Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor
the Son just as they honor the Father, whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the
Father who sent him. So let's take a look at the next step of our the next core value
and see what else we can learn. And the next one is courage, courage is the mental, moral,
physical strength ingrained in Marines. It carries us through the challenges of combat
and AIDS and overcoming fear. It is the inner strength that enables us to do what is right
to adhere to a higher standard of personal conduct and make tough decisions under stress
and pressure. In Psalm 27 14, it says, wait for the Lord be strong and let your heart
take courage wait for the Lord. This is repeated again in Psalm 31 24. So what is courage then?
The quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, something that
helps you to face danger and pain, and to do it to do so without fear or to do so with
bravery. Some other words that can be used obviously for courage are audacity, bravery,
determination, gallantry, or one of my personal favorites is grit. Obviously, the the opposites
of that can be fear, weakness, cowardice. These are all things that we think of when
we think of either you know, the idea of courage, or we think of those who lack courage. In
Acts 23 11 says, the following night, the Lord stood by him and said, take courage,
for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so now you must testify also
in Rome. Think of this, you got Paul, who used to be Saul used to be persecutor of the
church of the Christians. He has this miraculous experience in meeting Jesus Christ on the
road to Damascus. He gets baptized immediately and starts to preach immediately. Now you
fast forward, he's done all these amazing things in his missionary journeys. And now
he's back in Jerusalem and he's he's fine. He finds himself in bondage again. But this
time he's in bondage is not of the law. He's not in bondage of his life as Saul. He's in
bondage because he's being arrested for being a Christian and one of those that he persecuted.
So now he's able to testify to the leaders in Jerusalem about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And he's told, take courage because just as you just did this really difficult thing,
now you must do an even more difficult thing in Rome.
And the Marine Corps courage and integrity were used together very often. It takes integrity
to do the right thing, even when nobody is looking. It takes courage to do the right
thing when everybody is looking, but it doesn't believe in doing the right thing. Right? So
let me say that again. It says it takes courage to do the right thing when everyone is looking,
but doesn't believe in doing the right thing. This is our walk of Christ. We are challenged
to live a life of courage, to live a life according to the word of God, even when it
is not popular, even when it's really hard. This is what the apostle Paul means when he
says he is a slave to Christ. In Romans 1, 1 it says, this is a letter from Paul, a slave
of Christ, Jesus, chosen by God to be an apostle and sent out to preach his good news. This
takes courage, but we're not left to find this courage on our own. Throughout the Bible,
we are told to rely on God and Christ for our strength. Fear of the Lord is the beginning
of all wisdom, but with it, we can rely on the father, the son, the Holy Spirit to support
us in all things. That is why we're called to put on the full armor of God. In Ephesians
6, 13 through 20, it says, therefore put on every piece of God's armor so you will be
able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle, you will still be standing
firm, stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God's righteousness
for shoes, for shoes, put on the piece that comes from the good news so that you will
be fully prepared. In addition to all these things, hold up the shield of faith to stop
the fiery arrows of the devil. Put on salvation as your helmet and take the sword of the Spirit,
which is the word of God. Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert.
Be persistent in all your prayers for the believers everywhere and pray for me too.
Ask God to give me the right words so I can boldly explain God's mysterious plan that
the good news is for the Jews and the Gentiles alike. I am in chains now, still preaching
this message as God's ambassador, so pray that I will keep on speaking boldly for him
as I should. So let's take another look at Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock as we're
coming to the end of this message. During his time in Vietnam, there was a point where
he had a bounty placed on his head. And this is one of the more renowned stories. You might
have heard a similar story, but this is actually attributed to Carlos Hathcock as a true story
that has been used in countless other movies and stories since. And I'm sure that it could
have happened. Right? And I believe that it did happen for Carlos Hathcock. So he was
being hunted by an enemy sniper. And during this attack or this fight between two snipers
rounding each other out, going around in circles, trying to outwit the other and get a bead
on the other, Hathcock purposely took the bait of this rival sniper after this rival
sniper had taken several shots at fellow Marines. And so Hathcock said, okay, I'm going to go
out and deal with this. So he went out crawling on his stomach and Hathcock moved slowly until
he finally saw a small shimmer of light. And he recognized that this glimmer was the enemy
scope. So Hathcock took a shot from 500 yards away. And even though rifle scopes are only
typically a couple inches wide, he was able to beat in on the site, shoot, and it's a
fluke. Nobody denies it's a fluke, but the bullet that Hathcock shot passed clean through
and hit the enemy through his scope. So he shot the guy through the eye and he killed
him. The courage that it took Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock to get up every day and perform
in such a high level is nothing short of remarkable. And again, though, keep in mind that he did
this not out of a desire for his own glory, but out of a desire to save the lives of his
brother Marines. There's similar feats in the Old Testament with King David and his
mighty men, right? But with Carlos Hathcock, you got to understand, like, this is an exceptional
guy. He was an exceptional guy at the time. And even with the job he had, the stuff that
he had to endure seeing other fellow Marines being tortured and him being able to keep
his compassion was just something that overwhelmed me as a child. It's easy for us, though, to
get caught up with the thought that courage is for the battlefield. But the reality is
that the courage is for every day, every day. Witnessing and preaching the gospel to strangers
takes a huge amount of courage. Serving Christ takes a huge amount of courage. But we can
be strong and courageous as we throw our yoke upon the Lord. And as we can, we rapidly race
towards the end days, we have to understand that it's not going to be easier to share
the gospel. It's only going to be more challenging. But we have to take courage in the Lord and
know that we can throw our yoke upon him and he will help us carry the load. This brings
me to my final point, which is commitment. The Marine Corps defines commitment this way.
Commitment is the spirit of determination and dedication found in Marines. It's the
highest order of discipline for individuals and units. It is the ingredient that enables
constant dedication to the Corps and country. It inspires the unrelenting determination
to achieve victory in every endeavor. The other ways you can define commitment is a
pledge or a promise, an obligation, dedication or allegiance. And then if you wanted to use
similar words, it would be engagement. Obviously, if two people are going to get married and
they get engaged, they are making a commitment to the fact that they're going to be married.
And here's an aside. This is just something totally off the top of my head. I saw this
really cool thing because in Christian marriage and Jewish marriage, any marriage that puts
God first, there's an interesting idea that you can conceptualize. You think of it as
a triangle, an isosceles triangle, meaning every side is the same length. I'm pretty
sure that's right. My geometry is old, so if I'm wrong, you can blast me in comments
and emails and everything else. So anyway, you have a triangle with all the sides being
the same length. Then on one side you have the husband, the other side you have the wife
on the bottom. And then you have God at the pinnacle at the top. And so the closer the
husband and wife are to God, the closer they are together in relationship, the more committed
they are together. But the further away they are from God, the further away they are from
each other. And it's a beautiful picture of that idea of engagement. As you come together
in marriage, you're coming together in Christ. And so in a Christian marriage, there's always
three individuals. There's always God the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, the Holy
Trinity, and then you have the husband and wife. And the closer you remain to God, the
better your marriage will be sustained. And I thought that was a really interesting thing
that I saw recently. And so it kind of fits in here with the idea of commitment. So it's
just a free one I'm throwing in. Because in that situation, in all these situations, if
you're committed to something, you're going to be dedicated to it. You're giving a guarantee.
You're giving a pledge. I'll go back to the marriage idea here. You're guaranteeing to
love and to hold till death do you part. You're pledging your love, your undying love. You're
exchanging rings. Right? There's a promise. There's a responsibility. And so when we look
at our relationship with Jesus Christ, we need to be committed as well. Just like in
the Marine Corps, they expect you to be committed to the Corps and to the country. They're used
to say, you know, God, country, Corps, that was the way that you were supposed to, you
know, give a hierarchy of your commitment, even in the Marine Corps. So obviously, like
if you're going to do the opposite of being committed, you're going to create a break.
You're going to create a breach in the agreement or refusal or denial. And we don't want to
do that with our soul. We don't want to do that with our relationship with Jesus Christ.
And Psalm 105, eight, it says, he remembers his covenant forever. The word that he had
commanded for a thousand generations. God does not forget his commitment to us. He sent
his son to die for us, which was proof of his commitment to, to bridge the gap, to do
something to cover the sin of Adam and all of our sins that we could enter back into
direct relationship with him, the father at the root of commitment is discipline though.
We can see in our texts that discipline is necessary to grow in all of these core values.
It is through being disciplined and growing and self-discipline that you can grow in honor
by honoring the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. You can grow in courage to stand and
preach the good news that you have received. The truth of salvation in Christ is in Christ
Jesus. That is what we're, we're, we're always talking about is that you are saved by grace
in Christ Jesus by giving honor. We find courage and that will solidify our commitment to Christ.
It is in this committed place that we continue to grow in honor. And the cycle starts again
and again and again. These values become embedded into who, who you are, who we are, but it
always starts with Jesus Christ. As we saw in our text, the authority rests with the
son, our text, John 5, 19 chapter 5, 19 through 24. Everything was given to the son so that
we would honor him as we do the father, right? That's the core of the message is we show
honor to the father by giving honor to the son. We do it with courage despite the world
being against the father and the son. And we remain committed to him for the, even unto
death because we know that even in the death, we will not have to taste the second death,
the death of the soul. So just as a young Marine enters into service, lacking many of
these values, but they're built over time. But eventually the idea is, is that they will
become involuntary. They're ingrained in your, they become your character. Now I can't tell
you that you're going to be able to ingrain it in your character without Christ. I know
for myself that living in the Marine Corps, I was far from those ideals and it wasn't
until I gave my life to Christ that I was challenged in a way that I started making
changes. We have to rely on Christ. We have to constantly rely on Christ so that these,
these, you know, values become second nature and reflexive. Guider Sergeant Carlos Hathcock
was blown up in an armored personnel carrier and while literally on fire, he climbed back
in to this burning wreckage to save his fellow Marines. He didn't stop until forced to stop.
He suffered severe burns. He sacrificed his body. He sacrificed his career. He sacrificed
a lot, but this self sacrifice more than anything else is what called me to serve. Who sacrifices
themselves for others like this? He did. He didn't know these men. He was on his way back
to Vietnam for his second voluntary tour to Vietnam and he was just driving along with
these guys. They weren't snipers. They weren't part of his unit. Again, he worked primarily
alone and he had no ties to these men other than their bondage of service to the Corps.
We have something far better than this. Christ died for all of us in an act of self sacrifice
because you are worth it. You're worth it. And through the sacrifice, you too can grow
in honor, courage and commitment to his cause because he already sees your worth. He already
sees your value in the kingdom of heaven. Everybody's a sinner, but he calls us and
says to turn from our sin and accept him as our Lord and savior. That is what led me to
get saved. And if some dirty crayon eating drunk Marine can get saved, then I know that
you can too. So with that, as we close, if I could have every head bowed, every eye closed,
if you're listening to this, if you're obviously driving, keep your hands on the wheel, eyes
open and don't blame me for hitting a pothole. But I want to take a moment to invite you.
Take courage and honor God. Give your life to the Father. Accept Jesus as your savior.
If you want to do that, if this message resonated with you, you can do that by signifying that
with an uplifted hand. I can't see it. This is a podcast, but God sees it. And if you
mean it, then that matters. So just repeat after me a quick prayer. Dear Lord, I know
that I'm a sinner, but I know that you sent your son, Jesus Christ, and that he died for
me on the cross. I repent of my sin, which means I turn from it, turn from my sin and
I accept you as my Lord and my savior. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen. That simple prayer
is a recognition of your sin, a turning away from your sin, accepting of a higher power,
which is Jesus, and moving forward in the new grace that you have that only comes from
the Father. So I welcome you to the family. And so as we close, the last thing is, what
do you do next? Well, I recommend, you know, get a Bible. You can download. There's tons
of apps out there. Get a good translation. I like the ESV, the NIV, the, you know, King
James, the new King James. There's quite a few and read the word. If you're new to the
Christianity, you know, start with the New Testament, the Gospels and the Psalms, or
if you're tend to be a cynic, you could start an Ecclesiastes. It's a good one for cynics.
And read the word cry out to God in prayer. It doesn't have to be hard. Just tell them
what you're feeling, ask them for help, and then find a Bible believing church to lock
into and to, you know, find brothers and sisters in Christ to serve Christ with. Now, with
the Christian fellowship ministries, with the Potter's house, the door, Victor Chapel,
we have 3500 plus churches globally. So if you're in salmon arm, please come and visit
us. We're a new church or a baby plant. We come out of the Chilliwack Church and we want
to touch the world for God. But if you're not from around here, that's great. We have
tons of churches. Reach out, reach out either on Instagram or through Facebook or through
our email, which will be in the show notes. And I'll find it. I'll help you find a church.
It's not a problem. I want to thank you for listening. I can't wait for you to come back
next time. And I just pray that God blesses you and that this message has impacted you.
And please share, like, or like share and subscribe to the podcast. It helps us to grow.
And God bless. Have a great day. Bye.