The chief end of man is to glorify
God and to enjoy Him forever. That's the chief end of man.
He created us to glorify Him and not only that, not in a sad
and a downcast way, but to enjoy Him. The Apostle Paul said, we
joy in God. We joy in God. We say, Hallelujah! There's a God. We don't say,
Oh, I wish there were not a God. Oh, I don't want to face God.
I'm afraid of God. We joy in God. We're glad when He is proclaimed. Amen. I hope you feel that way
today. And let me tell you this. Anything
outside of thanksgiving is sin. Whenever you complain, whenever
I complain, whenever I murmur, whenever I grumble, the truth
is God is good every day. That's right. God is good all
the time. And I, as a child of God, have
nothing to complain about. Let me do that again. I, as a
child of God, have nothing to complain about. You know why? Because He's God and He's working
everything out for my good. Let the people of God's mind
be renewed in that aspect, and it'll change your life. Not until
you get to the place where you stop this thing of, my life sucks,
life's a bummer, oh God, it's mourning, So you get to the place
of, Good morning, Lord. Thank You for waking me up today.
This is a day the Lord's made. I'll rejoice and be glad, and
I'm glad to be alive. When you get to that place, recovery
has taken place. Recovery is in the house. As
long as you are moaning and groaning and disgruntled, and complaining
and conniving, you haven't surrendered yet. You know what worship is?
Worship is saying this, and knowing it to be true, Thou art worthy. Worship is contributing worth
to God. When you say, my life sucks,
you really say, God is not in control. You really say, I'm
not a Christian. You do say that, you know. Me,
you, all of us together, when we grumble, when we complain.
Attitude. Attitude's everything. Those
of you who are spending all of your days thinking about your
past and who hurt you and who's continually hurting you, you'll
never be happy. Get over it. You're loved of
God. You're a child of God. Working
things for your good. And then your mind begins to
have a new mindset. The old things are wiped away
and the computer begins to impute blessing, blessing, blessing,
blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing,
blessing. Pretty soon that frown goes to this. What are you grinning
about? People get real suspicious of
you. You ought to hear what's going on in my head. Blessing,
blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing,
blessing. And then somebody walks up to you and says, you know,
I knew you on the street. You're not really all you act
like you are. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute charge or accredit sin. Happy is the man. You know, the word blessed means
happy. Happy is the man that God refuses
to charge with sin. Why, the Bible even says, happy
are the dead. Whoa! Happy are the dead. Now
we're getting serious. Not all the dead. Blessed are
the dead which die in the Lord. So whether I'm alive, I'm happy. Or whether I'm dead, I'm happy. That's what it means to be a
Christian. That's what the Bible says. And
we are bound to give thanks. We're tied up. We're bound up. There is no way to get away from
it. 2 Thessalonians 2.13. We are
bound to give thanks to God. Is that your attitude every day?
Whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do you do it to the glory
of God? Come out of that wilderness,
that downcastness, that depression. Start to give thanks. I don't
care what your situation is today. It's not as bad as it could be.
I know Sharon's in here somewhere. Where are you? She went over
to see Joe in the hospital. Now, here's a young woman. Miss
Pam and I went to visit her in the hospital just before surgery.
Man, out looked bad. She typed me an email this week
or something like this. You know, went to see Joe. He's
talking. He's walking. He has a sense
of humor. He recognized me as soon as I
went in. And oh, by the way, I had my
last test and the doctors can't find any cancer. Whoa! Oh yeah, that's a good thing,
isn't it? What should we do? Praise the
Lord. And those of you who are around Sharon very much, she
is amazing in this sense. She just keeps on prepping. Amen. How you doing today? Good, good,
good. Praise God. I have often wondered in talking
to her if I was where she was, if I'd be acting that way. I
hope I would be. But I know this, there's something
healing about this when the doctor says, not good. Praise God, everything's
working for my good. I know there's something healing
about that. In fact, now medical science
is beginning to say there's something to prayer. You know, they're
telling people who are sick, you know, call your priest or
pastor or rabbi in. Let them pray for you. Miracles
happen now. The doctors are saying, you know.
And something, you know, it's just true. As a man thinks, so
is he. And gratitude determines your
altitude. That's how I know recovery's
coming. When you shut up and stop complaining and start just
praising God. How is it today with you? Oh,
it's good, Pastor. I'm so grateful. I'm glad to
have a bed in the big dorm. I'm so thankful for the hot dogs
that come out of the kitchen. I'm just glad, even if there's
no mustard, I'm happy. There's just something to that.
But the entitlement you owe me, government owes me, You know,
everybody owes me. That won't work. Thankfulness to God. I mean,
is He a reality in your life? I mean, do you wake up? You know,
I love people to come and tell me stories. Myrna told me a story
about a broken doll over in the thrift store. We were trying
to get it fixed up, right? It had a broken eyeball, didn't
it, or something. I think she was telling me. And she had a
friend, and we're going to ask $40 for it if we can get it fixed.
And Myrna needed overtime, right? She needed some overtime to make
some extra money at her second job. Well, she knew somebody
that could fix the dial at the thrift store, so she took it
to work with her. And some lady bought it for 50
bucks. Plus, Myrna got overtime. I love that story. We got $50
for a broken dial with one eye. Myrna got overtime, and God got
the glory. That's a good story. I love stories
like that. And they happen around here every
day. They happen more and more and more and more and more. You
know, for the first time this week, we have Congressman Nolan
Burke sitting up here on this platform. And of all things,
we had Brooks Patterson standing at the pulpit. Now, that is America. in our church. Isn't that something? God is a God of miracles. He
is a miracle. And we give Him praise. You know,
and just a common sense type thing, you know, eight years
ago, they raided us. Eight years later, a congressman
is sitting on this platform with the head man of Oakland County.
And Charter Bank's giving us $25,000. I mean, that is a miracle. You know, when you hit a bump
in the road, don't begin to mumble and grumble about it. God is
still in control. When the sun's not shining, there
are not two cars in the garage, and all the kids are sick, don't
grumble, God's still God. I like Job's attitude. His wife
said, curse God and die. He had staph infection. He had
boils all over him. And there were no antibiotics. And they were gooing and all
kinds of mess. His kids were already dead. His
camels and asses and cattle were all gone. She said, you know,
why don't you just curse God and die? You're miserable and
you're making me miserable and we're all miserable. He said,
though he say me, yet will I trust him. I know my Redeemer liveth,
and though the skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall
I see God. I shall see God for myself and
not another." Have faith in God. Faith is the victory that overcomes
the world. Faith glorifies God. I'm not
trusting me, I'm trusting God. That's why I'm so careful around
here. And I think I'm extreme. I am
a bit. overboard. I'm careful about
things like this. I'm careful about signs. I'm
careful about pictures. About the only thing we got on
the wall is Romans 8 over here to the right-hand side. I'm careful
about putting my picture or anybody's picture up because, you know,
we're prone to make an idol out of things. You know why you can't
find Noah's Ark? Because people would buy a piece
of wood, put it on a chain around their neck and worship Noah's
Ark. You know, the brazen serpent,
God said, grind it up. You know why? Because if they
hadn't ground it up, we'd have brazen serpents around our neck,
on our lapel. I don't want a dove on my lapel.
I want Christ in my heart. I don't have to wear medals for
you to know I'm a Christian. You get around me long enough,
I'm going to praise God. I'm going to say, we attribute
all this to God. When we're getting plaques, When
they're applauding us, we're going to say, Praise God! Thank
God! We're careful about that because
we know we didn't do it. And Thanksgiving is a day that
just kind of emphasizes again the fact that all of us have
so much to praise God for. You know, you could have woke
up in a hut in Ethiopia with AIDS today. Amen! But what sure
is that in that big dorm? You know, the stench, the, you
know, this and that, and the mattresses. You could have woke
up with AIDS today and no food in the house. You could have. But God has so blessed you that
you live in America where there are scientists and medical scientists
who are trying to find cures for AIDS. There are antibiotics
and all kinds of medical things that are provided for you. You'll have food today. Nobody
in here has any right to be ungrateful. So very true. And I know that the Lions are
playing at 1230. And I'm going to give you another
reason. I don't know, do we have any Lions fans? Why? All right, maybe today's the
day we'll give thanks. Because if today's the day, it
will be a miracle. We'll have to praise God if the
Lions win. And I'm going to tell all you
Lions fans, look, the Lions aren't going to be very good until they
have Men of Grace sing the national anthem. I want you to get on
to that. If you know anybody at the Lions
organization, flat out tell them. Tell them, Pastor Clark, our
prophet, prophesied that the Lions would lose until they have
Men of Grace there. All right. I want to read the
prayer of David, and then we're going to have a testimony or
two, and then we're going to go have dinner together. This
is in 1 Chronicles. 1 Chronicles 29. Now, here's the thing. I hope you will remember this
when I'm dead and gone, some of you younger folks. I hope
you will remember this. Grace Centers of Hope, Grace
Gospel Fellowship, is not a temporary, passing thing. In other words,
when I'm gone or you're gone, the ministry is still here. Because
this is not about one person or or the Clark family or, you
know, just a few staff. This is not about us. There's
a God thing going on here. And the Gospel is the Gospel
of God. It's the Gospel concerning God's
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the permanent thing. Right? That's what we're doing here.
Now, David is about to leave the scene and Solomon's about
to take over, but David is preparing things for him. They're going
to build the temple, and it's going to be a mighty house of
God. And David is getting all of the stuff prepared, because
he's not going to be here, but he's getting it all prepared.
And if you read the previous chapters, you will see what's
happening. In fact, in verse 2 of chapter
29 of 1 Chronicles, David says this, Now have I prepared with all
my might for the house of my God." In other words, and for
three or four chapters previous to this, you can see how he's
preparing to build this massive house of worship. But here's
what I want to read. This is the closing prayer of
David, and it's a thanksgiving prayer, beginning with verse
10. Anytime you see a wherefore in
the Bible, you need to find out why it's there for. Wherefore,
David blessed the Lord, and he blessed God before all the congregation. David saw all the preparations
was made, and he kind of foresaw out there in the future exactly
what was going to take place after he was gone, and God had
promised that. So he blessed the Lord before
all the congregation, and David said, now here's his prayer,
Blessed be Thou, Lord God of Israel, our Father, for ever
and ever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness
and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty. For all that is in heaven and
in the earth is Thine. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord,
and Thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor
come of Thee, and Thou reignest over all. And in Thy hand is
power and might, and in Thy hand it is to make great and to give
strength unto all. Now therefore, our God, we thank
Thee and praise Thy glorious name." And I love the next four
words. But who am I? Is that your attitude? Oh, you're a mighty good God
today. You're a great God. You have blessed me today. You
have chosen me before the foundation of the world. You have bought
me with your own precious blood. You have called me. You have
justified me and you will surely glorify me. You have loved me
with an everlasting love. Every good and every perfect
gift comes down from the Father above. I must praise you. I am
what I am by the grace of God. Thank you for all of your blessings.
But who am I? In other words, David goes like
this, Why on earth would you even look my way? See, right
in the middle of his praise, a question mark comes. But why? For you know you're on track. when that question is constantly
crossing your mind. When you're like this, hey, is
anybody noticing me? Hey, I deserve, hey, I want,
hey. You're not there yet. It's only
when you come to this place, who am I? I had a place to sleep
last night, nice and warm and comfortable, but who am I? I didn't deserve it. And let
me tell you this, because some of you are without Christ and
lost. Let me give it to you. We're
not about 12 steps. We're really not about rehab. We're about regeneration. We're
not about turning over a new leaf. We're not about substituting
one drug for another. We're not about keeping drug
addicts alive. We're not about that at all.
Who am I? Some of you's attitude is, let
me tell you who I am. Some of you have destroyed your
life for 20 or 30 years with crack addiction, and you're still
so demanding. You are so demanding. You know why? If my name wasn't
on the Christmas list, I wouldn't say anything. You know why? Because
if I just have a place to stay and some food to eat, I'm mighty
thankful. I can't believe they left me
out. Did we leave you out? Where did
you eat today? Where did you sleep last night?
Do you have counselor? Amen. I can't believe you said
that, Beth. I did, and I'm not taking it
back. I always look at the Christmas list every year, just kind of
pick some out. I want an 18 karat gold chain
and a colored TV. What are you going to do with
it in a homeless shelter? Somebody's going to steal it in a big dorm.
Or I'm going to try to get it and melt it down and get the
cash. Who am I? Is that the way you
feel? Who am I? I hope you do today
because you will be highly honored and blessed. God will supply
your every need. And let me tell you this too.
I'm going to preach on this one of these days. The more God blesses
you, the more He honors you, the lower you ought to get. Ooh,
God's blessed in me. I'm going to stay out of the
way. Some of you go, you know who
I am? When God begins to bless you,
if you're not careful, you'll get haughty. Get down! He must increase, I must decrease. Here's what Jesus said, and this
is what He meant. You know, it's easier, He said, for a camel
to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to go to heaven
who's haughty, who thinks he did it all by himself, like Nebuchadnezzar. Is not this great Babylon that
I have built with my might? and my power and there was a
voice from heaven, Nebuchadnezzar, the kingdom has departed from
you and you're going to go out into the field and for seven
years you're going to grow claws and hair and eat like an oxen. Those that walk in pride, Nebuchadnezzar,
I am able to abate. God hates a proud look. God blesses
you and blesses you and then you say, I deserved it all. by
my might and my wit and my power. Even after you've cracked and
you're a crackhead for 20 years and you get over there in a program,
you're still cocky and think somebody owes you. You know next
month $500,000 has to come in to Grace Centers for us to make
it next year. $500,000 in the month of December. You know where that money comes
from? People that don't know any of us. It's a miracle. $250,000
this month has to come in for us to make it next year. Where's
that money come from? People who do not know you. So
how can you deserve? How can we deserve? How can this
organization deserve? Amen? You know, thousands of
gifts are going to be under the tree over at Grace Centers. Your
children, some of them you haven't seen, are going to get gifts.
You haven't seen them for six, seven months, eight months, a
year. They're going to get gifts. You didn't buy them. Your kids
are going to be made happy if your kid doesn't get 85,000 gifts
like some other kid. In fact, one of the things that
bugs me, I watch your kids do this. There'll be some kid kind
of looking at their toys after they open them, and your kid
who has 27,000 gifts there, that he still hasn't unwrapped, and
this one little kid comes up and kind of looks like he wants
it. Yah! Mine! Little rattlesnake. You know where he got that attitude?
From you. Teach your kids to share. Teach your kids to give
back. Teach your kids that every good
and perfect gift is a gift of God. Teach your children that.
And the best way to teach them that is for you to be grateful.
Amen. Who am I? Who am I? And what is my people that we
should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? For all things
come of thee, and of thy own have we given thee." I love that. Have you ever had, when your
children were little, did they ever wrap up anything that belonged
to you and give it to you for a birthday present? And you go
like this, oh, thank you, baby. They gave you back something
that belonged to you to begin with. And that's what God says
here. That's what David says here.
We're just giving back to you what you gave to us. It wasn't
yours to begin with. You don't have anything. God
just gives it to you. Watch how you use it. Don't give
it to the crack man. God didn't give it to you to
give to the crack man. God gave it to you to supply
your need and to help other folks. Amen. That's why I said God loves
a hilarious giver. Look at my kid. I'm giving him
all this stuff and he's just giving it away, giving it away,
giving it away. I love to give away. Just give, give, give,
give. I'm in a contest. I want to see
if I can, you know, give it away faster than God. Give it away.
I do secret stuff. I'm a secret giver. I love it.
And you know what? I don't know whether you're in
here or not, but there's somebody who has tried to steal some of
my power in this giving thing. There is some person that sends
me $150 every month to do with whatever I want to do with it,
and has been doing it for over five years now. You sorry rascal,
you. You're stealing my stock. But
I want you to know if you're here, I give it back. You know
I'm kidding, if you're here. I don't know you. Write me little
notes. Some lady sent me $700 two weeks ago. Just do with it
whatever you want, pastor. Well, I gave it to the mission,
but I'm telling you, you can't out-give God. And I always think
this. That's not mine. That's just
a gift of God. I love it. It's a great way to
live. It's a great way to live. Is that the way you see things?
Everything I got, God gave me. And everything I got belongs
to Him anyway. Look at verse 15. For we are strangers before
thee and sojourners, as were our fathers. Our days on earth
are as a shadow, and there is none abiding. O Lord our God,
all this store that we have prepared to build thee a house for thy
holy name cometh of thy own hand. and is all Thine own." I hope
that's your attitude today. And as your attitude of Thanksgiving
grows, God will lift you up. Not in a haughty way, but God
will just bless you. And a lot of times the blessing
is, you're like this. You know, often times I'm asked
something like this. Okay, what do you want for your
birthday? I don't need anything. I didn't
ask for this. Miss Pam got me this. Looks pretty
good, doesn't it? You can't have it, no. Not for
a while. Miss Pam gave me this. In fact,
I think everything I got on was given to me. Almost everything. You can't out-give God. It's
a great place to be when somebody says, what would you like? I
don't know. Sometimes people ask, And if
I know they got money, I'd say like the rest of Seneca Street.
Amen. What do you want for your birthday? I'd like to have that old nursing
home and put 50 kids in it. Do you have $150,000 you could
give me today? Now we're talking about birthday!
You notice our church is growing? You think about it. I remember
one little Thanksgiving service we had here with about 30 people.
This place is almost full on a Thursday morning. That's pretty
good. You look at Sunday morning, why clutch cargo is in danger. I mean, if we can't see folks,
we might have to rent it, or something. Why are you all looking
at me that way? I think it would be great on
Saturday night, they're singing 99 bottles of beer on the wall.
On Sunday morning, we're singing, oh, how I love Jesus, from the
same place, and we run the demons out. Wouldn't that be something? I wouldn't be opposed to meeting
over there on Sunday morning. You know, if we just pack this
place out and pack it out and pack it out, finally we have
to move over there in the bar. Oh, I'd love to preach the gospel
in the bar! Wouldn't that be something? Oakland
Press would have a heyday with that! Because God's worthy. And you know what? While we're
serving the Lord, it's not a drag. I'm having fun. Every day is
just a fun day. I get tired. I do get stressed,
but for the most part, I have fun. I'm glad to be alive. Like this week, I am so, so on
my mind, Don, is those three or four trees coming down in
front of Seneca Street. I just can't wait until they
come down, because that's progress, you see. We've got to take the
trees down in order to do the roof on Seneca. We've got to
put a new roof on 70 Seneca. We just bought that house. And
I'm excited about that, about that roof starting to go on there.
I think about that. I was thinking about that coming
over here, those trees coming down, that roof going on, that
house being transformed. And then immediately my mind
moved on to 84 Seneca that we don't own yet. I'm excited about
buying that. Where are we going to get the
money? I don't know. The YMCA building. You know we
turned away over 2,000 women and children in the first six
months of 2004. I don't know how many we turned
away in 2005, 2006. But I do know this, I don't want
to turn them away anymore. I know we need the Y building.
Then we can double our numbers there. We own all of Seneca Street. We become the first homeless
campus, like a college campus, in the whole world. Wouldn't
that be something? Yeah, I get up every day with
those kind of crazy thoughts. And I remember when we bought
a little yellow house, 53 Seneca, for $30,000. I remember when
I began to say to about 30, 40 of us here, we're going to buy
the street. Anybody here when I began to say that? Some of
you were here. I began to say that. We bought
that little yellow house. And then the next one, 69 I think, That's exciting stuff to watch
it, to watch it. I remember when this house was
full of garbage. Forty dumpster loads came out
of here. We bought it with quarters. I remember two years ago when
I wrote our donors and I said this, I know you're going to
think that I shouldn't be doing this, but God's put it on my
heart to have our first children's home. They want $120,000 for
it. I want to raise six million pennies.
And on my birthday, you presented a check for over $63,000 in one
year. And we put the down payment and
bought it. And sometime next week, we're going to take $43,000
to TCF and pay off the children's home in two years. That's what I'm talking about.
Hey, get it together, man. Don't live for the heroin in
your veins and the crack up your nose. Live for something better than
that. You know, I've got something to show. I can show you 16 houses.
Amen. I can show you a church building.
I can show you a learning center. I can show you a little diamond
in the rough who's here today that we're influencing, even
though she's a far off. heart okay you got twenty five
minutes for the game begins