Testing one, two. I think we have power. There we go. There we go. I wasn't saying anything nice about you, Pastor. No, in all seriousness, I'm thankful for the privilege of being here. I'm thankful for the friendship of your pastor. Called after I was here last, and I appreciate a pastor who checks in on things when he's away. And we had a discussion before I came last, and we hadn't met, really, except maybe in passing at a men's meeting, but I don't even know if then. And so he had the chance to connect then, and then we spoke for, I don't know, 45 minutes, an hour after I was here last. and led to this, but I'm thankful for the opportunity to reset. I have found that the messages that are often most impactful are the ones that speak to me, and so that's my desire this week, is to be transparent, but to speak as the Lord has me to. I'm gonna sing, I enjoy heaven songs, I'll be singing a good bit this week, but I'm gonna sing this song, and I hope it's a blessing to you. I dreamed of a city called glory, so bright and so fair. And when I entered the gate, I cried a holy. The angels all met me there. They carried me from mansion to mansion. the sights I saw. But I said, I want to see Jesus. And as I entered the gate of that city, my loved ones, they knew me well. Oh, but the scenes, they were too numerous to tell. I saw Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Mark, Luke, and Timothy. But I said, I want to see Jesus, cause he's the one who died for me. Then I bowed on my knees and cried, I am, it's a privilege to be anywhere serving the Lord. It's a privilege to be here with you folks today. And in just a moment, we'll turn to the book of Psalms right there in the middle of your Bibles. I'm going to get everything together. It probably would be good if I had my Bible near at hand while preaching. But my name is Michael McCurry. My wife, Rebecca, is here with me today, and my two girls, Emmy and Lucy. We had a good drive down this morning thankful for beautiful weather and the fall We had we have had I have had an eventful weekend already. I was telling pastor I Had the chance to fly down to Florida and down near Pensacola on Friday preaching a men's meeting Friday and Saturday and And I was supposed to take off about 3.45 from Pensacola or Fort Walton Beach yesterday. And I had a connecting flight. And I have flown enough to learn that I do not like connecting flights. Direct flights are what I prefer, but a small regional airport like Fort Walton Beach, there's not many options. And so I flew to Dallas-Fort Worth. And my layover was only about 50 minutes. Now, that already had me trepidatious. And when we took off 45 minutes late at Fort Walton Beach, I knew I was going to have a problem. And long story short, Dallas-Fort Worth is massive. And the airport there, everything is bigger in Texas, as they say. And so we landed a little bit before I thought. I hustled through, got to the gate about four to five minutes before they were supposed to take off. And American Airlines closes the doors 10 minutes before they're supposed to take off. And I missed it! And so I flew instead of into Bloomington, I flew into O'Hare. We made it, though. And all's well that ends well. And this Sunday hasn't ended yet, so we're going to see how it goes, all right? But in all sincerity, I'm thankful for the privilege. The Lord knew what was going on yesterday. You know, nothing surprises God. I was thinking, God, you knew what my plans were supposed to be. You ever done that to God before? Told him what his will is supposed to be for your life? It cost me three hours of sleep, Lord. But all sincerity, God already knows. And that is such a trite and trivial thing, relatively. I am here. I was able to sleep in my bed last night. We got in about midnight to O'Hare and came on down this morning. But the Lord already has everything laid out this week that's going to happen. What we get to do is be a part. And I've heard it said, a wiser man than I said, you and God make a majority. But did you know he doesn't even need you? He's got a majority all by himself. Aren't you glad for that? But we get to be on his team, and I'm thankful for that. In the book of Psalms, we'll find our place in Psalm 107 in just a moment here. While you turn there... I'm gonna tell you about just a few things that are on the table back there, if that's all right. And everything that you take off that table is less that I have to take back with me. All right, and so that'll be helpful to me. Unfortunately, my wife and daughters, they'll be heading back tonight after the service, and my youngest, Lucy, she's in kindergarten, and so she's right there in those first couple of weeks of school, and so she'll be in school tomorrow. but appreciate your prayers for their safe travels back. Let me tell you about a few things that are back there very quickly. Probably more than anything else on that table, I'd like you to grab our prayer card. Every time that we have put an emphasis on prayer, With our ministry, with Bible Tracks Incorporated, we've seen God do great things. God hears his people's prayers. So I'd encourage you, if you would, to grab that prayer card and pray for us. We greatly appreciate that. There's some music CDs and things like that. And I recently had the opportunity to record with some friends of mine. I've been wanting to do a quartet style CD for a while. And if you ever are gonna do a music group or things like that, do what I did. Here's a wise thing to do. Go get some actual good singers to sing with you. And then you just put yourself in the picture on the front cover and act like you were a part of it and just organize the thing a little bit. That's what I did. But in all sincerity, this group, a group of younger men. All of us grew up in, we were blessed, all of us grew up in Christian homes. Mothers and fathers that took us to church. Many of us saved at a younger age. In thinking about what to title the group, we landed on the name Goodly Heritage. We have a good heritage, don't we? Of course, we have a good heritage in this book right here. But none of us, as I mentioned in the young people's class this morning, none of us are islands under ourselves. We've all had people invest in us. And that's what we wanted to allude to with the title. Kids music back there as well, and I also ask you on that left side of the table by the prayer cards We have our latest newsletter and in that newsletter is a gospel tract folded over the top of it It's titled your decision 2024 Now, the goal with this, and we've already succeeded because I've had multiple people tell me when they picked it up, they're thinking, that's just some more political junk. We got enough of that on the mainstream news, got enough of that in my social media feed, don't need more. You know what this gospel tract tells you? It tells you more important than who sits in the White House is who sits on the throne room of your life. And you need to know for sure that that person is Jesus Christ. And yes, there are important decisions facing our nation, November 5th, but there's an eternal decision facing each and every one of us. I encourage you to grab that gospel tract and grab that newsletter as well. And the last thing I'll mention for now, just ask you to pray with and for us. We normally, the main thing we do at BibleTracks is we print gospel tracts. And we had the opportunity, though, not long ago, to partner with a missionary friend of mine in New Zealand. And he is starting a church in a town called Mata Mata. Mata Mata. They think that sounds odd, but maybe in New Zealand they think Taylorville sounds odd, I don't know. But over there, town's name is Matamata, smaller town, about 3,500 doors, 3,000 or so doors, about 10,000 people total, so not a massive metropolis or anything like that. He's starting a church there. You gotta realize, there in New Zealand, many of the people are very atheistic or agnostic. And they have guards up when it comes to things of the Bible and things of God. And so in thinking about it and praying about it with this partner of ours, we put together, this is a Gospel of John. But a Gospel of John, like maybe you've not seen before, you've often seen John in Romans and things like this, but this one here, every single page has pictures of Matta Matta in it. And so he's gonna go door to door, and he's going to take this, and here's, let's see, John chapter six and verse number 16, beautiful, obviously it's New Zealand, beautiful scenery. And when even was now come, his disciples went down under the sea and entered into a ship, and there's a lake here and all that. But this, he's gonna give it as a gift to each home in the town, and it's gonna be kind of a coffee table edition of the Gospel of John, with the hope being that this won't just get pitched out. they're going to recognize the pictures in here and have to look through it. So I'd ask you to pray with us about that and the first scripture portion that we've done. Let's see, the book of Psalms, book of Psalms 107. We'll find our place there. And I do not know the tradition, but if it's all right, would you mind standing with me for just a moment while I read? I will not keep you up long, I promise. As you're physically able, I just want to read, I think, two verses for now. Book of Psalm 107. I am not the biggest fan of personal illustration. I don't have any problem with personal illustration. I mean for me. Because I've found that as a younger man, I don't know that I have enough road to look back on, to share some anecdote. And honestly, I'm not a funny person on purpose. It normally happens by accident. Today, though, I do feel led. There's a few personal illustrations that the Lord's led me to, but we're going to look at it through the lens of the scripture. I'm going to invite you to do something with me in just a moment. Psalm 107. I don't know that I have what you would call a life verse. I've heard folks say, you should have a life first. And I don't dispute that. I don't know that I do. But on occasion, here and there, depending on the context, a young person might come up and ask, hey, at a camp or something like that, if we got to know each other, would you mind signing my Bible? And again, I mean, there's so many good words in here. I don't know why you'd want to have my name in there, too. But I'll sign it, and I'll put underneath it, PS, Psalms 107. Because if I had a life verse or life chapter, I think it would be this one here. Psalm 107, verse number 23. The Bible says this. They that go down to the sea in ships. that do business in great waters. These see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. I'm gonna invite you this morning, and really actually this week, I'm gonna invite you to come and see. Come and see. You think of Thomas. what we call, it's such a sad thing. You do one thing. How would you like it if one episode from your life story got pulled out and you were known by that one thing the entirety of your life? Doubting Thomas. He was probably a great guy the other 75 years he lived, but one time he's like, no way. And all of a sudden he's doubting Thomas for the rest of his life. For the rest of eternity, it seems like, but Remember, he didn't see, but when he did, it all clicked, right? I'm going to invite you this week to come and see. Now, I'm going to pray. While I pray, though, I'm firmly convinced that God can hear more than one person at a time. Did you know that? He had that ability. He could multitask like that. So while I pray, I'm going to ask you to pray silently. I'll pray audibly aloud. I'm going to ask you to pray. Ask God to speak to you today. Father, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for the grand privilege it is to serve you. Lord, I ask that you would sanctify, that you'd set apart these next brief moments. May you use me, a poor conduit though I may be. God, I ask that you would allow me to say only what you'd have me to, nothing but. God, I ask that in every heart and every mind that they'd be tender, they'd be open to your words today. We ask all these things in your son's name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. Thank you so much for standing. You know, other places in scripture, the Bible tells us to taste and see. And I think I saw even in the bulletin, you might be having a conference or a ladies' meeting, a taste and see that the Lord is good. But I'm asking you today to come and see. You know, I found that Yes, we should have faith, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, correct? But I have found that oftentimes it is a whole lot easier when you do get the opportunity with your own God-given eyeballs to see God at work. What do you like to see God at work in your life? Wouldn't you like to see God at work in your church? Wouldn't you like to see God at work in your nation? I remember... It was a few years ago now, I was an associate pastor in Akron, Ohio. Akron, Ohio, right there near Cleveland, Northeast Ohio. And we were standing, actually, the auditorium that we were in, it was not my church's auditorium, the church that I was assistant pastor at, but we were working on a gospel crusade. We were gonna be doing a gospel outreach, an evangelistic crusade there in the Akron-Canton area. And we were at one of the other churches that was a part of this, or seven or eight different churches that were going in together on this, working together for the sake of the gospel. It's what a great thing when brethren can dwell together in unity. And we were standing in one of the other churches in a building very similar in size to this, and a platform very similar. We were standing up there. There was no one else in there. We were planning the rally, the crusade. We were planning the pre-rally, the opportunity to engage Christians. I mean, you think about it. If you're going to have four, five, six hundred people in a room, and you're going to ask them to accept Christ as their Savior, You might need to have some people ready to respond. If people respond, you might need someone that can sit down and show them from the scriptures what a sad thing it would be if a hundred people came forward and no one could show them from the scriptures. So we need to engage Christians evangelistically. And on this side of the platform, were the five or six or seven pastors that were really leading the charge. And this one was the youngest one at about 55, and 62, and 67, and I think 75 or thereabouts. And the average age among them was about probably 64, 65 or thereabouts. And they were in a semi-circle on this side of the platform. We were like right off behind the pulpit. They were in a semi-circle. One of the evangelists that was really kind of spearheading the thing was right here in the middle of this semicircle. And on the other side, with our mouths shut and our ears open. was myself and another young man. We were both about 24 or so. On that side, I mean, it was almost, it looked like an equation to me. You know, one of these things is not like the other, right? You had 300 years of ministry experience, and over here you had like a paltry maybe eight or something like that together. But they're talking How do we engage Christians? And then one of the men said, wisely, I believe, he said, we've got to engage everybody. We've got to engage the young people. They've got energy. They've got vision. They've got excitement. We've got to engage young people. And how do we do that? And they're talking amongst themselves. And the evangelist, he almost shushes them. He was an older man himself. He said, Hold on. And he does a crisp, almost about face and looks at us. And he turns to us younger men and says, how do we do that? You gotta realize, I'm sitting here and I learned as a young person that it was better to be seen and not heard. I was raised in a military home. My dad was career army, 20 something years. And we learned discipline, and yes sir, yes, to this day, my stock response when I'm talking to a gentleman that's anywhere near my age or older, yes sir, and people, don't call me sir, call me Dave, or call me whatever. It's ingrained in me, because I think my dad's going to just pop out of somewhere and backhand me, you know, if I don't. So it's ingrained. But he looks at us and says, so Micah, how do we engage your generation? I was thinking. And you want to give something that has like a little bit of wisdom to it. And what the Lord brought to mind in that precise moment was, Sir, you've got to show us because we haven't seen what you're talking about. Because over here, on this side of the equation, they were talking about baseball stadiums full of people back in the 70s, here in the gospel. They were talking about bus routes, a 66 passenger bus with 135 people on it. Try that today in Illinois, see how that goes for you. But they were talking about this, and you gotta realize, four years into ministry, I had never seen that. And what I ask you today is maybe, quite possibly, to come and see something you've never seen before. I'd like you to, the first thing I'd like you to come and see is a perspective of a personal Savior. I'd like you to come and see your personal Savior. You know, there are so many good songs and so many scripture references that allude to this, about how Jesus is the pilot of my ship. He's the captain of the vessel, right? That's a wise way to be. You think about the fact that, you ever seen those bumper stickers that say, Jesus is my co-pilot, right? And you've heard the phrase, you know, why is he your co-pilot? He shouldn't be the co-pilot. He should be the captain. He should be the man in charge. And I've thought, take it one step further, you or me, I shouldn't even be in the cockpit. I should be sitting back in economy where I belong and just let him come on with his calm, cool, collected voice. Now, folks, we'll be traveling at 45,000 feet today, and you know, just keep your hands and feet in the vehicle. Jesus should be the one completely and totally in charge, but for that to happen, to see a personal Savior, you have to relinquish some things. They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see. Question for you, do you trust him enough to get in the ship with him? I want you to think about this. If you were to stand on a dock, if you were to stand there on the pier, and you put one foot in the boat, and one foot on the dock, and the boat casts off and starts to pull away at some point, you've got to make a decision, don't you? My wife and I were in Kenya. Actually, the picture on the front of that newsletter is a picture of my wife with like seven or eight Kenyan children around her. And we had the opportunity to go into a very remote area and preach and see some folks saved. And we're putting 100,000, Lord willing, 100,000 gospel booklets into that area of the world here soon. Appreciate your prayers about that. But over there, not everything works quite the same way as here. We were in a hotel in a very, this was not a touristy area, not Nairobi, it was eight, nine hours outside of that, maybe 10 hours outside of Nairobi, and we got on the elevator. Now here, if you want to hold the elevator for someone, what do you do? You just put your arm there, and that elevator, through some sort of magic of some kind, I'm not sure how it works, it bumps into you, And it decides there's something in the way. We can't leave the first floor yet. We are going to wait. And it'll just do that all day long. This I can't speak for all Kenyan elevators. I can't speak for this one. This one was missing the magic. This one was missing whatever sensor we're missing what however that works. It didn't have that, and so our dear, I was not the one that put his arm there, our dear guide, my assumption is that not all Kenyan elevators work this way because he wouldn't have done this, but he put his arm there and he almost left his arm on the first floor while we were going to the third floor because that door was closing and there was nothing you could do to stop it. And he like pulls it, you know, scrapes some skin off and gets it, but that elevator was moving. Far be it from me, to put one foot in the elevator, that elevator, and one foot on the first floor and say, beam me up, Scotty. Take me to heaven. No, with that particular elevator, that wouldn't work very well, would it? We're used to the American kind where we can just be indecisive and just let it bounce off of us. And then we hear a gospel message, and it bounces off of us, and we think, Hold the elevator, just hold up. I'm gonna wait a little longer. Friend, if you've never come and seen a personal savior, may I remind you, it is appointed unto man once to die. And no man knows, life is but a vapor, appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away. I think of a young man, his name was Fred. He was sitting in a church, actually a different church, in the Akron area. He was preaching there not long ago. And he was sitting right here on the front row. He had, it's easy to remember Fred, because he had the curliest red hair I've ever seen in my life. Just a mop of red hair. And he's sitting on the front. He's a teenage boy. He's got kind of a platty type shirt on, but he's got a tie on with it. It clashed a little bit, but I wasn't judging. And Fred's sitting there, and he had just a beautiful smile on his face. He was having a great time. I had a friend that had been in that church for a long time and said, hey, Joe, tell me about Fred. What's the deal? I haven't seen him before. I've been to that church multiple times. He said, well, Fred, he's actually new to the church. Fred, he's 15, he's been in foster care since he was about five or so. He's bounced around a lot, but he's moved five times in the last 12 months alone. We think we have it bad. Fred, though, God be the glory, about four months ago, he landed in a Christian's home that attended that dear church. When Fred first came to church, he sat all the way back. If he could have sat on that cameraman's outpost right there, he would have done that as far back as humanly possible. And he would have his hoodie up. He was a foster child, foster young man. There's only so much authority you can and force, if you will, and the fact that he came to church at all, didn't kick and scream and lock himself in his room there at those dear folks' homes, foster parents' homes. They were going to take it as a win. He sat all the way in the back, hood up, earbuds in, listening to just trash music all through church. But then God's people started loving on him. Don't you love it when God's people show God's love? Hey, Fred, how you doing? get a little bit out of it, and the oyster would start to just open up just a little bit. Here, four months later, Fred, he's a new person on the outside, but he is not a new person on the inside. Fred came, and he's sitting right here. He's enjoying church, but he knows he's missing something on the inside. And I realized, please understand me, I am a firm believer that evangelists get to come in and pick other people's fruit. Know what I mean? A pastor labors in an orchard for weeks and months and years, and then a guy like me comes in and people go, I've never heard preaching like that in my whole life. Your poor pastor, 51 weeks just laboring. But in all seriousness, sometimes the Lord blesses a second witness. I think there's a biblical principle there in the mouth of two or three. And Fred, that day, Lord convicted his heart, and Fred accepted Christ as his Savior. He came and saw a personal Savior. But you know how I know, not to judge any man's heart, people can be introverted, extroverted. I got to be at summer camp with Fred just a week or so after that. His church was coming to the summer camp I was at. And at that summer camp, we would sing a song titled, Somebody Touched Me. Maybe not the one you know, it goes like this. ♪ Glory, glory, glory, somebody touched me, glory. ♪ And you sing that through once or twice, and then you say, ♪ It was on a Monday, somebody. ♪ And if you accepted Christ on a Monday, you stand for that verse. And then you go, you know the days of the week, right? It was on a Tuesday. Everyone on Monday sits down for Tuesday, and then Wednesday, Wednesday's my day, Monterey Bay, California. Church there, my dad was stationed in the, he was in the military at the Naval Postgraduate School getting his master's degree, and I accepted Christ on a Wednesday, you know people can accept Christ on a Wednesday night, did you know that? I accepted Christ on a Wednesday night of a church service. small church, they're a military church, and I got saved. And so I'm already, I'm leading the singing for this camp, so I'm already standing up, so I just have to get up on my tiptoes to sing about Wednesday, right? Then we go Thursday, Friday, of course, we get to Saturday. Lots of folks stand up on Saturday because of the outreach programs of a church. Lots of folks, except Christ, are on Saturday. You may be thinking, hold up a moment, what if I don't remember the day? Am I saved? What if I don't remember the color of the carpet? What if I don't remember exactly the three-point alliterated outline of the pastor? We got a verse for you. Because after Sunday, we sing, it was on a some day. So if you don't know, but you know, if you don't know the day, but you know for sure, we sing that verse. But we got to Sunday. Guess when Fred got sick on Sunday? Man, he's singing along already. We get to Sunday, everyone else stands up. Fred stands up way high. I believe that young man. He came and saw a personal savior. Can I ask you, that verse there, they that go down to the sea and ships, look at that for just a moment here. They that go down to the sea and ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. I want you to think about the fact, think about the mariners and whoever does the arranging and the flowers, beautiful. I hope I don't offend you. I'm gonna move this over for just a moment here, all right? Think about the mariners that sit there on the side. You couldn't even call them sailors. You couldn't even call them mariners because they're the ones, they talk a big game, but they're always sitting there on the side of the dock with their legs dangling. Who do you think has better stories? the sailors that sit on the dock, or the ones that go down in the deep and go over the horizon? The ones that get on board with Jesus, which ones have the stories? I wonder for you this morning, if you've ever seen a personal savior. See, here's what happens in context. Try to be careful to keep it in context. Look what happens. Psalm 107, verse number 23. Look here. They that go down to the sea in ships, we'll wrap up here, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. This doesn't sound great. They mount up to the heavens. They go down again to the depths. Their soul is melted because of trouble. I thought you told me this was going to be a good thing. They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man at their wits end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm calm. so that the waves thereof are still." Now, you know as well as I, whether you're in the master's boat or not, you're still going to go through storms, right? But wouldn't you like to be able to call on the master of the sea and know that not only does he command the winds, but he commands your ship as well? Look at verse number 30. Then are they glad because they be quiet. So he bringeth them unto their desired haven." Come and see a personal Savior. Come and see a perspective of, if you will, separation. When you follow Christ, there are some things that separate. We won't take the time to flesh that out. But come and see the payment for your service. God always, in this life or the next, always takes care of His own. This is not some health, wealth, and prosperity gospel. I'm not telling you, it'd be real easy, maybe could raise some money for Bible tracts if I sold you a prayer rug or something like that for easy payments of $19.95, but I don't see that in Scripture. I do see the fact that yes, there will be tribulations, there will be circumstances, there will be difficulties, but I know I know that there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. And I know he'll never leave me nor forsake me. And I know when I come and see a personal savior, if I can trust him for eternity, I can trust him for the here and now. So I wonder this morning, God forbid, I pray not, but God forbid something were to happen to you. if you were to step off into eternity. At the men's conference yesterday, there's a young man that was supposed to be there, but Friday morning, before the Friday evening service, he and a friend were driving. They were not driving recklessly, they were doing what they were supposed to be doing, and a woman pulled out in front of them. Now, praise God, the young man, that's a member of that church, he had minor injuries. That lady, who did not look before she pulled out, Her life ended. Now, I don't know this lady. I don't know her family. It's just a victim of circumstance. But you know as well as I. Insurance companies tell you life comes at you fast, right? Can I tell you? It's pointed, a man wants to die. That by itself would be sobering enough, but after this judgment. So I wonder, should you take your last breath, I pray it's not for many years, but should you take your last breath, are you still going to be standing one foot in the elevator, one foot out? Will you be one foot on the dock, one foot in the ship? Because if you stay there long enough, pretty soon, I'm not very flexible, I can't do the splits. Pretty soon, I'll either have to make a decision or I'll end up wet. That's of little consequence versus the real consequences, versus what heaven or hell, the choice between those two. So I'd ask you this morning, have you seen a personal savior? I would love to be able to sing that song. Glory, glory, glory, somebody touched me. But every time I sing that song, every time I talk to those teenagers, I'll end with this. I always make mention of this. Before we jump in, while the piano just starts. I ask you, if we were to sing that song this morning, Would you be thinking about what verse you're gonna lie on because you know you don't have a day? Maybe you think you'll just get lost in the crowd on Sunday and you'll stand, it was on a Sunday, but you know that you don't know because you've never met a personal Savior named Jesus Christ. He's not yours and you're not his. God forbid something were to happen to you, do you know for sure where you would go? Every head bowed and every eye closed. I ask you this, friend. As we conclude a service, truly we get to a time that we often call an invitation. But, truthfully, the invitation started well before this moment. because it could well be that the Holy Spirit has been speaking to you. So I ask this, if you're here today and you know for a fact that if you died today, you would go to heaven, you know that, know two ways about it, you know, you're not trusting yourself, you're trusting him. If you know that, just in praise to God, the Bible says, let the redeemed of the Lord say so. If you know Christ as your Savior, no one looking around, would you lift your hand in praise to God for just a moment? Thank you so much.