then sings my soul, my savior
God to thee. How great thou art. I trust that we'll have some
soul singing and have had, I think we did. Our souls were singing. Common and unclean. I've seen so many things that
God has done that certainly are not common. In fact, whatever
God does is not common. I was thinking this morning on
the way over, it's not common to receive a 1,700,000 square
foot General Motors building packed with stuff. That's not
common. Have you ever heard of that happening?
I've only heard of it happening one time, and it happened here. Several years ago, we sent out
an acquisition piece, 100,000 mailing list people. On that
mailing list was David Mardigan. We bought the list. So we're
sending it out, asking them to support Grace Centers of Hope.
David Mardigian received that letter. Out of 100,000 of them,
David Mardigian received that letter. Called me on the phone
and said, your acquisition letter says you receive no government
funding. How does that happen over there?
I told David how it happened, it was a God thing. David Mardigan became a major
donor to Grace Centers of Hope. We held his memorial service
here in this building. It was the most amazing thing
I have seen. An 18-wheeler led the funeral
procession and all kinds of very expensive cars lined up out here. Not a common thing. David Mardigian. bought the two
parking lots on the left side of me here from the city and
gave them to us. Tore down the warehouse that
was out here that I bought for $10. Took the steel and sold it. Got $7,000 and sent
us the check. He tore down innumerable crack
houses. Debbie Martigan remodeled our
first house on Seneca Street, 53 Seneca. That's not a usual,
those are not usual things. Those are not common things.
I really want you to get this, that we really do have a great
God. We applied for a million dollar
grant. They called me and said, you can't do this gospel thing
in your grant request. If you take that gospel stuff
out, we'll give you the million dollars. I said, no, we will
not take the gospel out. And the next morning, they put
us on the list of recipients for $1 million. That's not usual. I have a friend that he and his
daughters volunteered in our daycare. Unbeknownst to me, he
owned a billion dollar company. He sold it and bought this building
and gave it to us. That's not a common thing. That's
a very unusual thing. That's a God thing. Bill Davis, I met in TCF Bank,
and he wanted to know where I got my haircut. That's how we started
our conversation. He asked me to play golf. He
said, can you play golf? I said, no. He said, that's great.
I'd like for you to play golf with me every Thursday morning.
We became great friends. And of course, he bought several
houses and gave them to us. Was a major contributor. He also
passed away and we had his memorial service. He said he wanted to
have his memorial service in the bar. And we had it. We had his memorial service here
in the bar. That's not common. Danny Davis
and I were standing right up there in the balcony. About where
you guys are sitting there, Ryan and Sarah. And he said to me,
what would it cost to get my father's name put on that women
and children's shelter? I said, well, development's telling
me that they'll sell the name for a million dollars. He said,
you got it. He gave me a million dollars
sitting right up there with his dad's casket and body here in
the front. You see, that's not common. 33
million pennies. 33 million pennies, $330,000 one
penny at a time. Well, maybe 12 million at a time. Fill my garage with pennies.
We sold those pennies to banks for two and a half cents a piece.
That's not a common thing, folks. That's not a common thing. Not too long ago, I got an invitation
to come and do the prayer in the House of Representatives
in Washington, D.C. It's not common that hillbilly
preachers like me, pastoring a church, inner city church,
get a call to pray in Washington. It's not common. But we serve
a great God. Some of you don't know it up
the street. We bought that church building
with quarters. Not common that you would raise
a million 40,000 quarters. Nor is the story common that
a little girl hears me on radio and she brings her piggy bank
and it had 15 quarters in it. And the next morning, I said,
Susie brought her piggy bank. It had 15 quarters in it. We
need 999,995 more. And quarters began to pour in.
It's not common for the bank to call a pastor and say, hey,
could you tell people to write checks instead of giving quarters?
We can't keep up the count of the quarters. And in one year, we paid cash
for that building up the street that's now a $6 million building. Say, pastor, well, what's the
point? We've heard your stories before.
Well, you haven't heard this one. This is a new one. On Friday, We closed on this church building
that will help us get our elevator and filled the downstairs where
we can serve kids and have children's ministry. Cliff and I were walking out
the door, Mark was there with us, and we were walking out the
door, and as soon as we went out the door, I looked at the
shrubs, and I was thinking, oh, we gotta, the grass needs cutting.
By the way, we got a new riding lawnmower for our, to mow our
50 yards that we have here. It was in the shed, I saw that.
Anyway, When I walked out, I looked, I mean, it was right as soon
as I walked out, I looked down and I saw a piece of concrete
there with writing on it. And here's what it said. And
we know that all things work together for good to them that
love the Lord, to them who are the called according
to his purpose. When God speaks, he speaks in
unusual ways. I'm often asked, do you believe
in miracles? Absolutely, I am one. I'm a miracle
of the grace of God. Common and unclean. I want you
to think about this. Simon Peter, an apostle, somehow
he had grown cold. He was always a blunderer. He
was always, you know, saying something crazy. Like, you know,
all of the rest of the disciples may betray you, they may leave
you, but I'll never leave you. And Jesus said, before the rooster
crows three times, you're gonna deny me. I think there are great
lessons here for us in the book of Acts and in this story. First
of all, I want you to understand this and know that if you leave
here just with this, God only does wonders. God doesn't do
common and ordinary things. Everything God does is a miracle. It's miraculous. It's awesome. And you and I are supposed to
be enjoying it. I am come that you might have life and have
it more abundantly. So the story here and the great
lesson here in the book of Acts 10 is that God is no respecter
of persons. God doesn't love you more because
you're black or love you less because you're white. He is no
respecter of persons. See, I knew that. I know you
preach that doctrine of election that God chose who was gonna
be saved. The Bible is clear that he's no respecter of persons.
That means, what that means when it says God is no respecter of
person, it means God doesn't have respect to your anything.
your works, whether you're white or black or purple or green,
God came into the world in the person of Jesus Christ to save
sinners. Not so, Lord. I've been thinking
about this for weeks. Not so, Lord. That's what Simon
Peter, the apostle, called. The apostle said, not so, Lord.
The Lord told him something. The Lord told him, slay and eat. And he was so religious. Think
about this. This is such an odd expression. If Peter would have just said,
not so, I think there'd been more clarity in my mind. But
he goes, not so, Lord. No, what you said, Lord, I will
not do. It doesn't make any sense to
say, not so, Lord. But many of us find ourselves
with the same inconsistencies in our language. Actually, not
so, Lord, is a jumble of self-will and reverence and pride and humility
and contradiction. And that's kind of the way we
live. One minute we're so proud of ourselves, the next minute
we're saying salvation is totally by grace of the Lord. If it wasn't
for him, I'd never make it. And then we find ourselves in
our flesh doing this not so Lord thing. I know some of you have not as
yet grown enough in grace since your conversion that you think
your mother wouldn't be able to recognize you. after you went
home. I mean, you think you have been
so changed, need to be careful about that, that mom would just
see you so holy, but not so, your mother will still recognize
you. All of the heroin, crack folks, and you know, all of the
drunks that have been saved by the grace of God in here, don't
think your mother won't recognize you when you get home, because
you is still you. In my flesh dwells no good thing.
Are you getting what I'm saying here? Are you understanding?
You, I hear this sometimes. I would never do that. I just
would never do that. I mean, I hear it from some of
the folks who've had a pretty rough life. I mean, they've lived
some real trash. I would just, you know, I might
smoke a little pot, but I would never use crack. I mean, that's
kind of our fleshly talk. Simon Peter was kind of that
way. Not me, Lord. Do you know Simon Peter never
enjoyed a ham sandwich? And imagine how holy that made
him, because he never ate pork. Oh, what a great guy. What a
holy guy. I have heard so many people say
this. I've heard this from the pulpit. I've heard preachers
say this. I would never, I would never do that. I heard a preacher say at a Bible
conference, liquor has never touched these lips. I thought,
well, how do you do? Some of you have heard me tell
this story about Tootsie who came to the Brinesville church.
She was the town whore and she came to our church and we had
a person in the church who was mayor of one of the little cities
there in Pontiac. And he said to me after church,
if she's going to be accepted here, I'll never be back. by, common, and unclean. We've got to get back to this
place where we can sing from our soul, how great thou art.
Oh, what a wonder that Jesus found me. Out in the darkness
no light could I see. He put his great arm under, and
wonder of wonders, he saved even me. I'm telling you, Religion
is flat out boring and mean without the miracles of God, without
the wonder of God. Tusti came to know the Lord. The first day she was there,
first Sunday morning she was there, she shook my hand and
said, preacher, I think I'm a sinner. I thought, well, amen. That's a good thing. If I can
find a sinner, I got some good news for sinners. Christ Jesus
came in the world to save sinners. Ralph Barnard tells the story
of being in a meeting in Texas, and this church, it was a Baptist
church, but it was just going down, down, down. It was in the
process of dying. And Barnard said, let's go out
and visit the community. And I'd like all the deacons
to meet me here and we're gonna go out and invite people to come
down to meeting. Barnard said the next day they
met, went out into the neighborhood and they came to this little
house that had a white picket fence. And he said one of the
deacons said to him, no, no, we can't go to this house. She's a harlot and everybody
in town knows it. He said, now, come on, deacon,
we're gonna invite her to church. They went up, knocked on the
door, Barnard did, and this beautiful lady came to the door and said
to Brother Barnard, Hello, big boy. Brother Barnard said, I said,
hi there. I'm the evangelist down here
at the Baptist church. We're just out inviting folks
to come to church. She said, if I were to come to
church down there, the roof would fall in. He said, well, that
would be more excitement than they've had in a hundred years.
Come on down. That night the power of God fell
on that church. She came and the Spirit of God
quickened her and gave her life. She walked forward to confess
faith in Christ. Barnard said you could hear a
pin drop in that place. Nobody moved. He said finally
there was a An old mother in Israel, way in the back, came
and threw her arms around that harlot lady and said, welcome,
my sister. That's what God can do. That's
just like our God. Sinners are welcome. No respecter
of persons. I say all the drunks in Pontiac
are welcome here. All the streetwalkers are welcome
here. All the religious folks that are self-righteous, come
in here that you're not. Here. And trust Jesus Christ. You see,
what legalism does, what legalism does, you think about this, you
think about Simon Peter thinking that he was accepted by God because
he didn't eat ham sandwiches. I was looking for a particular
article that I'm going to tell you about. And I found this. The Hindus say cow killing is
the end of humanity. You can't see it because it's
faded. I cut this out of the Detroit News years ago. How silly
we are when it comes, how are we going to go from here to heaven? How are we going to get there?
Well, we're not gonna kill any cows and we're not gonna eat
ham sandwiches. And some of you, some of you
in here, I am positive that you actually think because you've
been dunked in water that you're going to heaven. Well, I'm gonna
let you in on something. The water didn't get all of it.
You're still full of yourself. It is not there is a fountain
filled with water drawn from the city main and sinners plunge
beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. It's this,
there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins and sinners plunge beneath that
flood, lose all their guilty stains. Legalism. Do you understand God saved you
without a cause in you? You aren't worth saving. I hear
preachers on TV saying how great we were, how good we were, how
God needed us. God never needed you or me. I am so honored that God would
take somebody like me and permit me to preach the gospel of his
free grace. Common. I was watching television
yesterday, the news or something, something on television, and
somebody made this statement. If he marries a commoner, he
cannot inherit the throne. Do you understand we are all
commoners? You saw the wedding a week ago,
right? What a bunch of malarkey. I mean,
it was all, I mean, it was exciting. I watched it two or three times.
I mean, there was a lot of money. But there is no difference. All
have sinned and missed the mark. It doesn't make any difference
if you're Prince Harry or Queen Susie. You have missed the mark. To be prejudiced. You know, when
I said we were going to have an inner city church here, Preachers
actually said to me, it never happened. You're not gonna get
white people and black people and Chinese people and it just
isn't gonna happen. It's already happened. It has
happened. Common and unclean. The God of
the Bible is the God of wonders. You know what common means? Routine.
Now, I know some of you are going to get upset with me, but honestly,
I could not go to some churches every Sunday. I could not hear
the... Say, Pastor, I don't think that's
very nice. I'm not trying to be nice. I'm trying to preach
the gospel of Jesus Christ, that you are not saved by your work,
that you're saved by a God of wonder and marvel. Well, there's
nothing about our God that's common. You ought to read this
verse and believe it. He's able to do, He's able to
do exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we ask or think. A few years ago, the state came
in to inspect our boilers over there and blew both of them up. They were put in 1930. And so
I began to ask on radio, you know, we need $500,000 for boilers. And that was in June, June passed,
July passed, August passed, September passed. October 7th, I get a
very unusual call. When I see unusual things happening,
I began to smell God. So this attorney calls me and
he said, Pastor, there's some people from out of state, they
don't know you, but they've hired me to come and see if you're
still one of us. I said, I probably am. To this
day, I really don't know what they meant by that. So the lawyer
came, I'm showing him through, and of course took him down to
the boiler room. And he goes, Pastor, you know,
I can appreciate what you're asking for, but these guys, they
may be thinking $50,000, but not $500,000. I said, well, will
you tell them about our boilers? He said, I'll tell them. A week
later, the phone rang. I picked it up. Hello, this is
attorney so-and-so, so-and-so. He said, you're not going to
believe. I said, I believe. I believe. He said, They're going to buy your boilers. They'll hire the company to come
in and put them in. They're going to buy all new
hot water heaters. And they're going to air condition
the entire building across the street. This is a true story.
But it even gets gooder. So they put in the new boilers
and they said, now, November 27th, we'll have no heat in the
building. All of you wear your long johns
and dress up warm because all day there won't be any heat.
We set an all time record in the state of Michigan that day.
It was 76 degrees. When I tell that story, people
go like, now pastor, You don't believe that God had
anything to do with that. And I always, well, who makes
the sunshine? Who brings the heat? Who brings
the storms? Of course God did it. God speaks
to us in wondrous ways. Have you ever thought about creation? Just what an awesome God it is. I was thinking about it this
week and in 19, let's see, 1989, I cut this out of the Detroit
News. And I'm telling you, I have thought
about this article thousands of times over the past 30 years. Why would I even keep it? And
it's just been on my mind because it impressed me so much. The
title of this, Fantastic Voyage. Let me read just a little of
it to you. Now remember, this is 1989. After
12 years and a journey of 4.4 billion miles, did you hear me?
You see, One day, whenever it was, I get
totally lost here, God walked into space and said, let there
be light. How great is our God? And it
was true. And we think about God creating
the animals and, you know, we tell the story of creation and
it's such a, it's gotten mundane to us in such a small thing.
And when I read this, after 12 years and a journey of 4.4 billion
miles, Voyager 2 has acquainted us with Neptune, a planet at
the outskirts of our solar system. The stunning success of its mission
is a powerful reminder of the importance of unmanned space
exploration. I said to myself, no, it's not.
It's an explanation somewhat of how big God is. So here's
this spacecraft. It's already traveled 4.4 billion
miles. 4.4 billion miles. And now let me
read this. because I can't read the whole
article. This is the end of that article. Voyager 2 probably will
cross the helipause around the year, I don't even know what
the helipause is. But it's out there somewhere.
And this thing that left in 1989 is still traveling. Voyager 2
probably will cross the helipause around the year 2012. Well, it's already crossed the
helipause. According to mission planners'
estimates, after that, riding on its momentum, it will continue
its silent travels through the Milky Way, eventually nearing
Barnard's Star in 6,500 years. You know, it must have took a
pretty big god to make all of this. We think about this little tiny
earth that God made, but there are millions and millions of
planets bigger than the earth that God made. And think about,
oh, I'm getting happy by myself. Think about how great that you,
a little insignificant nobody on the little planet earth, God
chose you. Then you can sing it from your
heart. Then sings my soul, my Savior
God to thee. How great thou art, God in creation. I was thinking about creation and
then I thought about this verse in the Corinthian letter that
says this. 2 Corinthians 4. Verses five and six, for we preach
not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your
servants for Jesus' sake. For God, did you hear me? For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, you know, in the beginning, has shined
in our hearts. Oh, when the light comes on.
and you're able to know there is a God, not simply know there
is a God, but know him intimately and personally. And you know
where you came from and you have some idea of what you're doing
here and where you're going when you die. And it just gets better
and better that this God is a managing God. He's an architectural God
who has a plan for your life. Has shined into our hearts to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. I want you to think about that
just for a minute. How great is our God? He's this great. You would never have known anything
about unmerited favor. You might've known something
of the 10 commandments, maybe, that God is holy and righteous,
but the glory of God is this. Remember the woman that was taken
in adultery and thrown at Jesus' feet? And the Bible says he stooped
down. Think about that. Everybody had
rocks in their hands, all the guys. Last time I heard in the
sexual experience, it takes two, a man and a woman, but the guys
had the rocks. They were going to stone this
woman. She was guilty of adultery and the Lord stooped down. Now
you got the Lord on her level, their eyeball to eyeball. What
a magnificent thing for him to say. Neither do I condemn thee,
go and sin no more. What an awesome God he is, that
he reveals it. How would you ever, ever, you
know, I'm just telling you the truth today. I'm telling you
my own experience. I would go to hell for sure were
it not for grace. I am 100% convinced that hell
would be my home for eternity were it not for the unmerited
sovereign grace of God who came to me. When I would not come
to him, he came to me and revealed that he was a gracious God. I
see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Well, one more
little thing here. By the way, we are his workmanship
created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before
ordained predestinated that we should walk in them. What a wonderful
thing it is every day I get up thinking I'm predestinated today. Wonderful things that God has
planned for me, coming out of his storehouse of blessings just
for me. He planned for all eternity blessings
he has for you. The God who leaves nothing does
nothing that's common. Also, Peter said, the God said,
I have never partaken of anything common or unclean. Oh, you filthy rag, you. common or unclean. You ever thought
about this? Have you ever just really thought
about your sins? I mean, really. I thought Joe's
prayer was interesting today about the awfulness of sin. Sin
is against God. And see, sin is not what we do,
it's what we are. We were enmity against God. Sin had left the crimson stain.
but he washed it white as snow. You ever thought about it this
way? Just think about the ugly things
you've thought while I've been preaching. Just think about the
thoughts that's gone through your mind today. But the blood of Jesus Christ
washes them all away. There is therefore now no condemnation
to those that are in Christ Jesus. Don't ever get past that folks.
Don't ever get to the place where you're talking about, you've
never partaken. Never. I have never. I hear self-righteous people
talk that way. I have never, but you're not dead yet. You
probably will. Be careful what you say you will
never do. Be careful about judging other
people. Here's what, Here's what the Lord wanted the Apostle Peter
to see. Don't call things common and
unclean. When I tell you to kill and eat, it's all right for you
to have a ham sandwich. It's okay for you to do that.
Prejudiced? Prejudiced? How can you be prejudiced? How can you, whether it's white
prejudice or black prejudice, how can you, a child of God,
think you're better because you're white? Or better because you're
black? God doesn't know anything about
that. Peter said, I'm a Jew, I never
eat catfish. Common and unclean. I had catfish
at Cracker Barrel Friday. And it was good. Hang on to passages like this
in 1 John. Behold, What manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the
sons of God. You're a son of God. I'm a child
of the King. I'm a child of the King. With
Jesus my Savior, I'm a child of the King. You're a child of
the King. Behold. That's what's happened to the
church. We've lost the wonder of it all. Oh, the wonder of
it all. The wonder of it all. This church actually, and I don't
want to get, you know, I'm not saying that, you know, I was
kind of raised where we didn't get too emotional or if you got
a little happy, I'll tell you a story. I never
know what, since we're on the computer and people are watching
us all over the country, I never know which stories I should tell.
But that's what I'm gonna tell. Some of you know this person. Ms. Austin at Grace Baptist Church
in Warren. was, I would call her well-to-do. They had some money. And she
wore mink to church. I've seen her even as a little
boy, I remember this, but pretty sophisticated, sat about, I don't
know, three rows back. Spirit of God descended on Grace
Church one Sunday. We weren't used to it, and it
was a happy, wonderful service. I mean, where the glory of the
Lord was seen. And Ms. Austin was sitting there
in her mink coat. I'll never forget it. I was just
a little boy, but she went like this. Whoo! You know, it would be wonderful,
wouldn't it? that if you got so happy, you
just couldn't stand it. I mean, you're just filled with
the joy. The joy of the Lord is our strength. I'm come that you might have
life and have it more abundantly. Joy. A lot of mess in this old world
and in this life, but you can have a little heaven on the way
to heaven. It's in Jesus Christ rejoicing in the grace of God
and knowing Him. Let's stand together and praise
our God.