And I pull out, and here comes this man. He's six foot eight. He's got a beard down the middle of his belly. And he's got a, looked like Paul Bunyan. His name was Bill Bunyard. I didn't know that time. Look at Paul Bunyan. He actually was a mountain man. He actually traps, and that's all he does. He's a mountain man. He comes out, he's got a voice to match his body. He's got a hand that looks like a ham hock. He grabbed hold of me. Hey, Bruce Smith, this is Pastor Roach. They were setting me up. Practical joke. From the very second, and he grabs my two 100-pound bags that I was taking in to take literature over to Russia, and picked one up in each hand. Let's go. I've got a truck out here. And we walk outside for a one-ton Ford F-350 diesel power stroke, a crew cab. And he takes each bag, lifts it over to the side, and sits it in the truck. And I'm going. And he grabs my bag and throws it. Let's go. And he got his cowboy hat on. I'm going, welcome to Alaska. You know and we're driving through there and and we go to and I'm asking the question how the church going anybody getting saved and pretty soon He goes Oh Smith. He says I can't keep this up. He says they wanted me to make a joke with you, but he can't do it. Ah He pulls over. I'm Bill Bernier I'm thinking what have I got into? You know, he said I'm not the pastor. I'm just go I go to the church He said they want me to take you up preacher couldn't come right this moment He had both of them come something came up the last minute things like that happen when you're the pastor. I Pull up the church, get out of the parking lot, door opens, Rob Wright comes out. This guy is what, 6'5"? Everybody in this church is a monster. I feel like a midget. And this guy goes, hey! And Rob Wright, everything about him is big. He's got a big chin, got a big nose, got a big, I mean, just big bowl of hair, Air Force guy. And he was in the Air Force at the time. And he comes out, hey, Air Force man, Rob Wright! I said, good to meet you, Rob. He goes, what's going on? He said, well, I'm here for church tomorrow. I said, you got people running everywhere. They were in a, like a industrial area, kind of like meeting a school, you know, you understand? And so, and he said, we're remodeling. I said, well, you need a hand? Yeah, that'd be great, you know. He says, what can you do? I said, well, I usually do electrical work. Mostly I can do other stuff, too. Well, what do you know about carpet? I was joking. I said, I saw my uncle install it one time. Great! No! He turned around and says, hey, we got a carpet lair! So they laid the carpet. That's the kind of people. They were pastored by Pastor Stan Roach. Pastor Stan Roach was a three-time Vietnam veteran, three Purple Hearts. The guy volunteered for a tour. They wouldn't let him. And so he decided to go be a mercenary. He liked killing people, and God saved his soul, changed him from mercenary to missionary. He went up to Alaska and planted this church. There's still a few edges that did never get rubbed off. He carries everywhere he goes, you know, and recently he shot a black bear in the camp there with his nine mil. And when he got there, the warden, the inmate warden came up and said, did you shoot this bear? He says, yes. Did you shoot a warning shot? He says, yes, sir. That's the one right there, right behind the left shoulder. That was the warning shot. He's like, I've got five-year-old kids running around here. That's my warning shot. He says, what'd you shoot it with, 9mm? You can't kill a bear with a 9mm. Don't tell him that. Passer's hand motion's a little different. Now, I'm driving to the airport. We're getting ready to go to Russia, and we're driving in his big Ford F-350 Power Stroke Crew Cab four-wheel drive, blue and white. And he was driving pretty soon. He looked at me. What's wrong? And he's driving around, looks at me, looks back. And we come up to a light, right down on Tudor Avenue. And he just goes, light turns red. Pulls it in the REI, sporting goods store. Get out. We get to the door, he grabs me, he turns, you don't have a Leatherman, do you? I said, no, sir. Opens the door, comes in there, buys a Leatherman, turns and he hands it to me. Put that on your belt. Back then, you could fly an airline with a Leatherman on your belt, nobody cared. You should still be able to today. Who in the world's gonna hijack a plane today with a knife? You'd get killed. That's one reason they happened on 9-11, because they were going to hijack the plane, go to Havana, smoke a few cigars, no big deal. Then they realized they were going to kill everybody, and they jumped the guys in Pennsylvania. That's what's going to happen today. If you pull a knife on a plane today, they're going to kill you. Let them wear a knife, what's going to stop them? If everybody had a knife, they would be hijacking, but that's another story. He hands this thing to me, and he says, every good missionary I know has to have a Leatherman. And you don't say no, this guy. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And I put on my belt. And I'm thinking to him, one thing, I didn't tell him this, I knew better. I don't want it. I don't need it. You see, I was raised, and I worked after the Marine Corps in aerospace, I was the chief engineer for aerospace company down in Southern California. I had tools. I had real manly man tools. You know, good tools. You know, I had a tool for every job, and every job had a tool. You know, and then this Leatherman thing, he's got all these little doodads and trinkets and stuff. I don't want play tools. I want manly man real tools. And so my wife that very year had asked me for my birthday, did I want a Leatherman? I don't know where she got the idea. Oh, the kids want to buy you a Leatherman. I was like, I don't want a Leatherman. I don't need a stupid Leatherman. They're stupid. I want real tools. I don't want that. But when Pastor Roach bought it for me and put it on my belt, my tools were in those bags. We fly to Russia. My bags never made it. And we landed in Siberia, Russia. I didn't have a tool to my name except my Leatherman. And there was no tool stores. You gotta understand what it was like in Russia. You remember the Y2K threat? We were laughing. Y2K, your toilet paper is going to revert to a serious robot catalog. We do that now. You know, we were in Russia. You couldn't buy light bulbs that worked at the time. You could not buy a single tool, not a single store sold tool. Okay, if you wanted to buy a tool, you had to go on the street and hope somebody had stolen some when he was working at the factory and had some for sale secondhand as he's getting, he's retiring now, he wants some vodka. That's the only way you could buy tools. And we lived there, and I ended up using every single tool on that Leatherman. And I learned something. That's what I'm going to talk about this morning. First of all, I would have never used any of those tools if I had not acquired the Leatherman. You see it had to be purchased and given. The Bible says that we are bought with a price. The Bible says we are purchased by the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without blemish, without spot. The Bible says you are not your own. You see, we were purchased, we were bought by the blood of Jesus Christ. But not only that, Jesus Christ himself says my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My father which gave them me is greater than all and no one is able to pluck them out of my father's hand. I and my father are one. My father which gave them me. You getting that? So we have to be bought, but we need to be bestowed. We need to be purchased. We need to be acquired by God. Now, my question I have for you this morning, does Jesus know your name? Are you one of his? You see, there's a lot of people that claim the name of Christ, but have no idea. how to be one of his children. You see, salvation is not in what we do. Salvation is not how good we are. You know, I've heard a lot of people say, oh yeah, yeah, you know, in heaven one day, God's gonna put your good works on one side of the scale and your bad works on the other side of the scale, and he's gonna weigh them up, and the good works, if they outweigh the bad works, you get in. Well, okay, I'm good with that. I'm okay with that. Let's have a look at that. What are your good works? And which side of the scales, good or bad, do your good works go on? Because the Bible says our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. They would go over here on the bad side. What are you going to put on the good side? The best you can do is on the bad side. It's like taking a filthy rag from the mechanic and handing it to your children and saying, I need that window washed. Go at it. And he's going to wipe all day long. And it's not going to get any better. Because our righteousnesses, our own righteousnesses, are as filthy rags. And we need to be cleansed and cleaned by the blood of Jesus Christ. And then our righteousness, which is his righteousness, can be put on the good side. Until then, we had nothing to put over there. So yeah, go ahead, stay with the scales idea. That's fine, because everything's on the bad side. You're in trouble, okay? So how do we get saved? Salvation is so simple. It's because God does the saving. This is where most religions get off. They tell you what you have to do. But it's not what you do, it's what you allow God to do. Because the Bible says, if any man is in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things are passed away. Build all things are become new. That's what happens when you let God save you. And when you let God save you, everything changes. I knock on doors. And you talk to them, and they all say, oh, I did that. I did that. You did what? What did you do? It's not what you do. It's what you allow God to do in your life this morning. Have you been acquired? Does God know your name? Have you ever turned to him and said, I'm a sinner, man, I'm going to hell? Please save me. And when you really honestly do that, things are gonna change. If you think you can get saved and live the life you left before, if you think that, you're not even repentant. There's no repentance in that. You gotta realize things are gonna change. When we get people, we tell them that they're going to hell, and you show them they're going to hell, and then they say, I wanna get saved. You say, are you sure? This is not what the Bible, this is not what most churches teach. This is what the Bible teaches. Look at Jesus Christ and how he deals with the woman at the well. When she says, give me that water, he says, go get your husband. Basically, are you sure? Do you know what you're asking for? Because we, you need to try to talk people out of getting saved. Try it sometime. Show them they're on their way to hell. Let them realize that and then try to talk about it getting saved. Are you sure you want to do this because your life's going to change? Yes Those people when you talk to them say, you know when you once you become one of God's children He expects you to be obedient. Are you sure you want to be saved become one of God's children a father who loves you? Are you sure about that? Yes Please don't wait any longer. You might come back the next minute. I'm missing Okay? You get people like that, so you know what God's expecting from you? He's expecting you to join the church. He expects you to get right with God. He expects you to stay right with God. He expects you to get baptized. He expects you to tithe. He expects that of his children. It's not going to get you saved. But if you are saved, you're going to want to do it. It's like saying to a husband, are you sure you want to get married? Yeah! Why? If you get married, your wife's going to expect you to kiss her once in a while. Okay. No problem. Right? That's what it means to be acquired. God wants to save you and change your life. Will you let him? I beseech you by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, which is a reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may be approved with a good and acceptable and perfect will of God. God wants to transform you today. Have you let him? That's the question. Once you become his, then, and only then, can he truly use you. If you've been acquired by God, the next question for you is, are you available? Are you available? You know, there's a Russian expression called podrokoi, which means underhand. Not underhanded, as some preachers I know, but underhand. Not you, preacher. Boy, that is a nice place over there. You know, man, that bed is so huge. My wife had to give me a map to figure out where she was at in the thing. I didn't know. I mean, it's huge. It's amazing. It's so beautiful. I got that bathtub. My kid's looking for the springboard to do the dives into the pool. You know, no, honey, no, guys, it's not a pool, it's a bathtub. I mean, it's amazing. I love that bed. It's gorgeous. I'm thinking about how to get my luggage and take it with me, but I'm not sure I could fit it. Are you available? God will use you if you be available. You know, I carry a Leatherman everywhere but the airplane these days. I feel naked when I go on there. You know, my first Leatherman, I used every single tool, right down to the ruler on the side. You got a dual ruler, you got metric and centimeters as well. I'm sorry, metric and standard, sorry. And I used even used both of those. I used everything. Why did I use it? It was available, you know. It is not the best tool I have ever owned. I have better, bigger knives than this. And I have, this one's nice because it's serrated. You can cut ropes with that. But I've had better, I've had K-bars, that's a pretty good knife. I've had better files than this. You open this thing up, I even got scissors in this thing. They're pretty good scissors, but I've got better scissors. I do. But I use these. uh, better, uh, little Phillips and flat blade screwdrivers. I've got better, uh, um, can openers. Um, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring. Those are better. But, you know, and I've got, I've got better saw. This is a pretty good saw, though. It does have the tip that goes right up to the corner so you can get in this area. But I've got better saw. I've got a chainsaw at home. I guarantee I can cut faster wood than this. But I use it because it's available. You know, you go to a man's toolbox, and you can see the tools he uses. Which ones are available? You know, you ladies know all about, you know what a lady's Leatherman looks like? Just like this. Maybe not that size. Maybe it has a little more of a heel, but it's on the bottom of her foot. Now, you ladies know what I'm talking about, so you're going, ooh, me? Oh, no, there's a bug. Right? That's not a fly swatter. But boy, it works for one when you got a bug around and ain't no fly swatter handy, amen? Them little creepy crawlies don't want to get them away. My wife hates spiders. I love them, man. I don't take them out. No, no, no, no, no. We had a pet tarantula when I was in the Marine Corps. I loved it until the OD came in and stuck his head in the ferrari and didn't know it was a spider. Bought a case of beer and kind of lost the end of that. These things work for bugs. I mean, a child across the room misbehaving. If you get it just right you can ricochet it off his head and comes back. It's like a boomerang But you know, I mean you ladies know you use these things. I mean nails coming out of the wall Come on you know, I'm telling the truth Why do you do that It's available. That's the number one ability God's looking for It is I mean, you know I Look at missionaries and I go man that guy's got it all I look at me and go. Oh boy. I You know, why does God call us and put us where he's put us? Not because we're the best. We're available. My speech was so bad in fifth grade that I had to go to speech therapy. And the ladies in speech therapy telling us how to talk, you know, and this is a true story. My mom will attest to this. They gave me up. Forget it. Just don't ever let him get in a job where he has to talk. Because they'll never make it. You know, get him someplace where he's out in the boondocks and never meets a person. He'll be just fine. Make him a farmer. They don't need to say anything. True story. I give God the glory. Oftentimes, I try to take the glory. You know, we do that, don't we? But honestly, the reason God's used us is because we're available. The reason God used Paul, because he was available. You go back and look at Paul's resume. Nobody would have wanted to pick Paul. But Paul said here am I send me God said you're available I'll use you my letter, but not the best tool in the job, but it gets used Because it's available Number three Why Do people not let themselves be available Well, are you acquired do you belong to God if you are have you made yourself available If so, what stops you? You know, being used of God does not mean being a missionary. It does not mean being a pastor or deacon. It means doing what God asked you to do. You know, we need, one of the saddest things the pastor has told me since I've been here is how few people are here that were here when we were here last time. And the bittersweet of that is, the bitter part is, I hear that everywhere I go, the sweet part is you still got the same pastor. Amen! That's great! My brain is so small, I can only put so much information in there, and I don't need to memorize any more pastors, amen? I love it! I love when my pastors stay in their churches, I want to keep trying to remember. Where is he at now? Who's the pastor now? You know, that's not the reason, but I am so happy to see you here. That blesses my heart. That encourages me to keep going. If pastor can stay here in this place, oh boy, you know. As hard as it is here, man, God bless you. I'm so glad God didn't call us to Prescott, Arizona. God called us. where he put us, because we were available. And you know, the Bible talks about these verses. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. You know, my wife says, God, I hate hot weather. And so God's been real gracious and sent us someplace cold all the time. You know, her only complaint last winter was there's not enough snow. I'm serious, she likes it. She doesn't realize I gotta shovel the parking lot. It was nicer when I had the boys. They're moving away, so who's gonna do it now? My point being is you don't have to worry. We don't have a God who sits in heaven like a Marine Corps career monitor and says, oh, you wanna go to Okinawa? Ha, ha, ha, I'll send you to 29 Palms. You wanna go to 29 Palms? I'm gonna send you to Okinawa. They did that to me, okay? That's not how God treats us. God says, I want to give you the desires of your heart. It's when you delight yourself in the Lord that maybe your desires change. See, when I went to Bible college, I'm driving across country, you know, my my my my pastor today was my soul winning partner then. And we were friends. We were best friends. And we got together soul winning. What a bad thing to get together over. Amen. And he is now my pastor. He wasn't the pastor then. So we're running across country. And hey, Mike, what does God want for you? I said, man, I have no idea. God called me to preach. God called me the mission field. I mean, I think she'll go to Bible college. And that's all I know. Well, what do you think I want you to do? I said, I have no idea. No idea. Okay, what don't you want to do? This is not a dangerous thing. This is not, oh, oh, don't ever tell God what you don't want to do. No, no, no, no. Just the opposite. I said, well, I really don't see myself being a missionary. Fair enough. Okay. And a few other things. I said, I hate buses. I don't want to do bus ministry. And I get to Bob College. They say, um, here's your ministries. We want you to work in ministries. Okay, take a pic. I could done old old, you know, old folks home I could have done about anything. They say if you do bus ministry, it counts as two ministries. Economics is, you know, I think I have some Jewish blood. I really do. Okay, it's two for the one. Okay. bus ministry it is. I was a driver. I can do that. No problem. Eventually, guess what? You're the bus captain And I remember, you know driving again, you know driving my own bus I'm bus captain have to drive my own bus and a little Demetrius behind me Demetrius was named Demetrius because his brother Domingo or Dominique one of those other D names We could never get it right. We always put Demetrius on his name, because he couldn't pronounce his own name. And so we called him Demetrius. And it got stuck so much that his dad finally said, forget it. That kid was born named Demetrius, just so we'd know what his name was. True story. And little Demetrius is sitting on the bus. And he's behind me. And I got a tan suit on. And he's tapping me on the shoulder. I look back, and he's got this big old grin. He's a cute little kid. He's tapping me on the shoulder. I didn't know he was tapping me with his Red Sucker on my tan coat. Those are the things I didn't want to deal with. But when it happened, I just couldn't help but laugh. I mean, here's a kid that's going to church. He's named because of the bus ministry. I mean, buddy, I can remember his name to this day because God touched my heart. God broke my heart. When I came to Mission Field, I had a guy preach and says, does anybody not want to go to Mission Field? You know, I was the only one courageous enough to raise my hand. He said, okay, I got one telling the truth and the rest are a bunch of liars. All right, okay, that's okay. He says, would you be willing to pray a prayer? Come down forward and pray and say, God, I don't wanna go to the mission field, but I'm willing to want to go. Okay, if you want me to go, make it so that I'll want to go. It's not hard to do something you want. I don't have to struggle going, well, I says, kiss me. Again. I enjoy that. It's not hard to do what you enjoy. Is it not true? Last night, we were at this Mexican restaurant. The absolute best chimichanga I've ever eaten in my life. I am not kidding you. Yeah, I know, hush. I've eaten a lot of them. I haven't had any recently. I know I haven't forgotten. One bite, that was the absolute best prepared chimichanga. It wasn't greasy, it was fried just right. I mean, it was perfect. I've never had a better one. I didn't have to struggle with taking a second bite. I'm like, oh man, do I wanna do that, right? My wife had started looking at mine. I said, don't you look at me, okay? It goes so far. My point being, it's not hard to do what you wanna do, because people do what they wanna do, always. You always do what you wanna do. Okay, well, preacher, I'd make it on Sunday, but it's kind of early. Come Monday, I'd have no trouble getting up at 7 o'clock and going to work. Come Saturday, I'd have no trouble getting up at 6 o'clock to drive down to visit her buddies to go golfing. But church at 945, oh, man. Come on. We do what we want to do. And so I pray God changed my wonder. He did. When we went to the mission field in Estonia, I prayed for six months that God would call us to that field. And when God said, you can go, it was with joy, it was with relief. I had been begging God to let us go. That's where God wants you to be. The reason people aren't available, they don't want to be altered. I came down to God change me if you need to change me change me And that's so simple because man it takes all the burden off you and puts it all on him cast your burdens on the Lord Amen, that's what he talks about. I said God if you want me to go change my heart, man It wasn't hard when your heart is changed Because if you don't have a changed heart when problems come and you're not gonna say God you called me to do this I didn't want to do it, but I did it anyway, and then look what the problems are. It's all your no It's like oh, I know I'm here because you want me to be here and I want to be here That's a blessing. So if you're here this morning and you've been saved, you've been acquired, you need to be available. But don't let the alterations that are gonna come scare you away. I'm saying, God, here am I. Send me. When I look at my Leatherman, this is not my original, but I still use it. I can look at the knife blade and I can see, there are marks on there. I can, with my old one, I can look at the, Matthew's here, I'll tell on him. I can look at the, I have a diamond file. It files diamonds. I think it's what I call a diamond file for, right? No. Anyway, Matthew is about two or three and he's climbing up. We have a metal ladder. We had a 840 square foot apartment in Russia with all my kids. Okay. Yeah. Five kids. And we always had visitors. And the kids had to have, we had to build multiple bunks. You know, don't sit up in your bed. Okay, it was like the Navy, you know, hot bunks, everything, 18 inches, that's what you get. You know, we had storage underneath, we didn't have room for storage, we had no closets, so you had to have storage underneath the bottom bunks, the bottom bunk was already in the air, it was high, it was just high enough to get our action packers underneath it, and that was the first bunk, and then the second bunk, and don't sit up in bed, okay? And then we had to put a curtain in the same room, because my daughter had to share the room, and so Matthew's goofing off, and he wants to get up in the top bunk, he's not supposed to be there, rascal. And he's climbing up, and it's all metal. It's a metal pole. It's made out of pipe. And he's climbing up there, and he slips and falls and, boonk, busts his front teeth. Looks like one of those horror movies, I guess, you know, zombie apocalypse or something. So, and I want, you know, he's like, ah, and he's cutting himself with his teeth. So, I just promptly laid him down and told him to lean back, and I used my diamond file to file off his teeth. Do you know teeth are hard? And it left marks on my file. Hey, now it works so well. Years later, my wife had a problem. She said, can you not file my teeth? I've done it three or four kids. I have a pair of pliers that when I cut into the wrong electrical wire and got a hot one, it popped a hole through it. Just the exact diameter of that wire. Some men make great wire strippers after that. I can go to my toolbox, and I can look at the screwdrivers I use for pry bars. You're not supposed to use screwdrivers for pry bars. You guys all know that, right? They're not chisels. But how many of you guys have hammer marks on the backside of your screwdrivers? You're rascals. I could go to your toolbox. I could tell you the tools you love The tools you love the ones you use and the ones you use have the marks of the master's hand And we have people today. I don't want to be is a guy. I'm afraid what's gonna happen You don't want the marks of the master's hand on you You get in God's hand and you will change the Bible tells we're predestinated to conform to the image of his son and And God will change your life. He will alter you. Do not be afraid. You know, life changing events happened all throughout the Bible. Often they were preceded by an announcement from an angel. And I cannot even think of a time when an angel appeared to tell them about this, that the first words out of his mouth were not. Fear not. Fear not. Don't be afraid. This morning, are you in here this morning? Do you know Jesus Christ? Does he know your name? My sheep hear my voice and I know them. Does Jesus know you this morning? Have you been acquired by the master? If so, are you available for service? You don't have to be the best. You don't have to be the strongest. Thank God. You don't have to be the smartest. Praise the Lord. You don't have to be the best looking. Amen. You just have to be available. That's it. God wants to use you. What a privilege that is. What's hindering you? Are you afraid? to be altered for the Master. If you were here this morning and said, Mike, I am, I'm afraid, would you be willing to come forward? And somebody said, God, these are things I don't want to do, but if You want me, then Help me to want it. God, change me. Help me delight myself in you. So you will give me the desires of my heart because my heart's desires have changed. That's simple. If God doesn't change it, the responsibility is on him. Amen. Amen. Preacher.