We do live in tough times and you know that, but you know what an incredible future we have. One of the greatest things in life is to be able to make a difference in someone's life, to be a difference in that life. Nothing is more challenging, rewarding, rich, satisfying than that. And you know, you think about it, that's the way of exercising the giving way of life. You know, I've heard the phrase all my life since I was young, "give versus get." Well, that's in living action and it's an incredible activity and contribution.

I know we realize that at the beginning of the millennium, we're going to inherit the battered, bruised and broken remnants of the nations and we're going to begin to repopulate this planet with those broken remnants. And then after that 1,000 years, with the general resurrection of the masses of this age and the Last Great Day, we're going to help an entire mass of people into billions and billions that are going to need a helping hand. An extremely helping hand if we know anything about the six thousand years of this world, it's history, it's breakage.  And to be able to lend a helping hand, to be able to make a difference, to be able to be a difference, that's one of the greatest aspects of our incredible future, it's one of the prime things that's going to make it so incredible.

But behind that helping hand that is extended is a mindset, there's a mindset that produces and promotes that helping hand that reaches out, that operates off of that mindset. And the two go together like cause and effect, the two go together like hand in glove. The mindset that extends a helping hand is going to be maximized in the world to come, but it's also a mindset that is desperately needed in this day and time now and in fact, as we practice that mindset now, that's part of the preparation for the World Tomorrow. So I want to deal with that mindset this afternoon. I'm going to deal with it this way: In the winter of 1937, America was in the seventh year of the most catastrophic decade in its history. The economy had come crashing down, millions upon millions of people had been torn loose from their jobs, their savings, their homes. A nation that grew its audacity from the American belief that success is open to anyone whose willing to work hard enough for it was disillusioned by intractable poverty. The most rational people were seized by despair, fatalism and fear. People were in need of a hero as they always seem to be in times like that of a hero of proof that the little guy could make it, that the little nobodies had a chance if they were willing to work hard enough, they needed someone like them to make it big.

There was a vacuum there and into that vacuum and into that need, in the winter of 1937 rode their hope, a small horse seemingly from nowhere began to take the thoroughbred racing world by storm. At the time 2/3rds, 66% of the nation's homes had radios and by the time his racing career was over, he had ridden into the homes and the hearts of America. He had blistering speed and there was no quit in him.

On November 1, 1938 in what is still widely regarded as the greatest horserace in history, he beat the east's top horse War Admiral by four lengths. Anybody who knows anything about horseracing knows what that means. War Admiral was the Triple Crown winner. You know when a horse wins the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes and the Kentucky Derby that is quite an achievement. In fact, you can go years between Triple Crown winners. War Admiral was the Triple Crown Winner but nobody had ever seen all that War Admiral could give because he had never raced a horse that could push him hard enough. In this race he gave it all he had but it wasn't enough, he could not get ahead of the other horse. War Admiral ran the greatest race of his life that day, in all of his races, he ran his greatest race that day running by far his fastest time ever for that distance, but it wasn't good enough. But the small horse from nowhere ran into the history books that day. It was said this of him: "No horse in thinly closed fabled and lengthy history, through thousands of races, dating back to just after the Civil War, had ever run the distance so fast." In that same year of 1938 – think about history – in 1938 Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt, in that same year, with all of those subjects, the subject of the most newspaper column inches wasn't even a person, it was this undersized, crooked legged race horse with the unusual name of Seabiscuit. He would be named horse of the year in 1938, he would go on to win racings biggest money prize in 1940, the Santa Anita Handicap in California. And I would say this, if you haven't already done so, and I know many of you in here have seen the movie and maybe some of you haven't, it came out several years ago. But if you haven't seen it, see it sometime, but even better yet, little promotion here and giving a little credit too, if you like to read, get the book, Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand. A lot of the facts and information that I'm using comes from this book. It is absolutely quite a story.

The story of Seabiscuit is a saga and as a saga it is packed with lesson after lesson after lesson. Seabiscuit came from good stock, he was sired by Hard Tack, Hard Tack was his father and Hard Tack had been sired by Man o' War and again, if you know anything about racing, Man o' War is considered, not was but is, of course he's been long dead, but Man o' War is considered races greatest race horse that has ever lived. But whereas Man o' War and Hard Tack had all the beautiful lines of perfect symmetry in their pedigree, Seabiscuit didn't. His stunted build reflected none of the beauty and breath of his forbearers. Here's a description, "Since his body built low to the ground, had all the properties of a cinder block. Where Hard Tack had been tall, sleek, tapered, every line suggesting motion, his son was blunt, coarse, rectangular, stationary. He had a sad little tail, barely long enough to brush his hocks. His stubby legs were unsteady and unsound construction with squarish asymmetrical baseball gloves knees and didn't quite straighten all the way, leaving him in a permanent semi-crouch.  Thanks to his unfortunately assembly, his walk was an odd, straddled legged motion that was often mistaken for lameness. He had what some horseman called an egg beater gait. In his career, people who saw him and didn't know him (didn't know that's Seabiscuit) they sometimes mistook him for a cow pony, or simply a milk delivery horse. There was not a single thing about him that would make somebody look at him and say, wow, there stands a winner! Yet, this ugly little horse with an unusual name would go on to capture and heart and imagination of an entire nation."

But just as amazing as this horse, were the three men who were behind him. Without them, you and I would never have heard of Seabiscuit. He was just another lost cause; he was just another ruined creature. His potential had been buried away under wounds and bruises. Not so much of the physical but of the psyche, the mental, the emotional. Horses, for anybody who has ever been around horses, knows anything about them, horses are highly intelligent and social creatures and they can be damaged quite easily if not handled properly. Seabiscuit had been badly mismanaged. For any racing purposes, he had been ruined. Thoroughbreds were born to run, they love to run, it's their potential but that had been burned out of him. The top jockey of that time, the most famous jockey of that time said of him, that he was mean, rested and ragged. But his basic nature to start out with had been one of gentleness. He didn't have the fiery temperament of his grandfather, Man o' War, his father, Hard Tack, his two favorite pastimes were eating and sleeping. He became a horse that nobody really wanted, lost cause, broken horse and then on a sultry August Sunday in Detroit, in 1936, three men formed an alliance, recognizing the talent that was dormant in the horse and also in each other and they began the rehabilitation of Seabiscuit that would lift him and them from obscurity. These three men were the owner, who was purchasing him, C. S. Howard, the trainer, Silent Tom Smith and their jockey, Red Johnnie, or better known as Red Pollard.

They saw something there they could work with. The trainer Tom Smith said four sentences to C. S. Howard, he said, "Get me that horse. He has real stuff in him. I can improve him. I'm positive." Silent Tom didn't waste words. Silent Tom Smith knew there was something lying dormant. C. S. Howard later said, "I can't describe the feeling he gave, but somehow I knew he had what it takes. Tom and I realized that we had our worries and troubles ahead, we had to rebuild him, both mentally and physically, but you don't have to rebuild the heart when it's already there, big as all outdoors."

They had a broken horse to repair, a broken horse to fix, to restore, there was some healing that had to be redone and each of these men had some brokenness of their own, in their own life, to deal with. Maybe this is one reason they reached out to this horse and to each other. C. S. Howard had gone west with twenty-one cents in his pocket and he had parlayed that into a fortune. But tragedy struck when his fifteen year old son, Frankie, was killed in a vehicle crash. He never fully recovered from Frankie's death. Of course how does a parent ever fully recover from the death of a child? Many years later a teenage job applicant asked Howard about a picture of Frankie that Howard kept in his office. The teenage applicant said, "Is that you in the picture?" And Howard responded, "Do you think it looks like me?" The applicant said, "Yes." And when he looked up, tears were running down Howard's face. Losing a child is one of the hardest things that a person can ever deal with in this life. Howard had a concern and a compassion that came from a deep pain and then, partly as a result of Frankie's death, his marriage collapsed.

Silent Tom Smith was an aging cowboy. He had spent his life on the open ranges, it was a way of life to him, but that way of life had gone the way of the buffalo so he found himself basically disenfranchised. He found himself basically a cowboy without a range. What had been home was no longer home and like so many, he was displaced. He was a man without a place; he was a refuge from the vanishing frontier. But he knew horses, his whole life had been spent among horses and he went where the horses were and always would be, racing. There was a need for trainers, for those who really understood horses, could work with them and he turned out to be one of the best. Silent Tom had a basic philosophy that he lived by and it can be summed up in these words: you don't throw a life away just because it's banged up a little.

He became known for being able to take ruined and broken down horses and restore them, he had a human touch, he had a healing hand. It started with that healing philosophy, that mindset he had. His philosophy, his mindset drove his actions, his philosophy underpinned all he did. He approached each horse as a distinct individual and he took time to study it and to get to know it. He believed with complete conviction that no animal was permanently ruined, every horse could be improved, he lived by the maxim, learn your horse. Underneath all he did was that bottom line philosophy of his, you don't throw a life away just because it's a little banged up.

Red Pollard, the jockey, was abandoned by his guardian when he was 15. From that point on, he was on his own, he was alone and on his own and the world of horses became his own. They filled a certain need, a certain vacuum in his life. Red developed and became known for a niche as a miracle worker for tough and neurotic horses. He seemed to have a very deep insight into them, to understand them, it was almost like a kinship and well, maybe it was. They had no face or future if he couldn't reach them or work with them. Unless they could be healed, they had no future. Now Red had a problem, Red had a problem that he kept to himself because if it ever got out, he had no future, not as a jockey. And there was no way to heal it, he was totally blind in his right eye. You know what that means as a jockey? It means you don't jockey. A blow on the head over his visual center had taken his sight in that eye. If you looked at him, that eye looked normal but no light printed from that eye on his brain. And he lived with that secret knowing that if it ever got out, he was finished. Did he carry a certain special personal empathy for the horses that were broken and needed help? He developed a special bond which Seabiscuit and he knew how to get the best of him. Nobody could ride him quite like Red and that's saying something because Red was kind of a giant of a jockey, he was 5'7" which was around the average height of a man at that time and other jockeys used to kid him about, maybe you should carry the horse for a while!

Three men, each broken to some degree in his own way, each one by something in his own life, working with a broken and wounded horse to restore it and through their efforts, slowly but surely the horse was transformed and they were helped too in the process.

I know the story of Seabiscuit, it's a story of healing, it's a story of rehabilitation, it's a story of restoring, it's a tremendously powerful physical example of such. In the annals of human history, there are a few classics, there are not a lot of them, but there are some classic stories, accounts, examples that bear out so much and this is one of them. It's a story of hope and come back and it's primarily because of three men who wouldn't give up, who refused to quit. It was not in their vocabulary, they brought the horse to life and through him they were brought to life. They put into practice that bottom line perspective, you don't throw a life away just because it's a little banged up.

See when you take that philosophy, that's a keeper philosophy, that's a keeper attitude, that's a committal attitude and it's only within that mentality that healing can take place. It's only within that attitude that one refuses to quit and it's only within that attitude that opportunity will continue to be extended, that the helping hand will continue to be extended, it's only through continually extended opportunity that true healing will take place because it's a slow process. And why is that specific philosophy, perspective so important for us?

Brethren, and I include myself in this, how many of us who are here today and who are hearing my voice, how many of us would be here today if God and Jesus Christ didn't carry that philosophy and perspective toward us? I wouldn't be, and I'll just say, you wouldn't be either. Because you know we have all banged up our lives to one degree or another, we're all banged up to one degree or another. I'm not going to turn there, to Romans 3:23, but you'll recognize it when I just quote it:

Romans 3:23 – For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

But I would like for you to notice with me, Psalm 103:10, and yet God has been very merciful to us. Psalm 103:10-14. God has been very merciful to us, He has a keeper attitude. It says here in the words of the Psalmist:

Psalm 103:10-14 – He has not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers we are dust.

We are dust; we are wonderful, wondrous, living dust but dust. We are weak, we have banged ourselves up and sometimes we continue to bang ourselves up and if God threw our life away just because it was a little banged up, or a whole lot banged up, there would be none of us around. But God doesn't, He doesn't. He's got us on the road of rehabilitation to restoration, to healing, He's healing that which is broken and you know what? He is able to work with us because we are able to recognize we are not whole. Read with me please Matthew 9:10-12. He's able to work with us because we are able to recognize we are not whole, that we need some restoring and we need some rehabilitation. In Matthew 9:10-12 it says:

Matthew 9:10-12  - And it came to pass as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came…now there was no problem recognizing that hey, they're not whole, they're broken, they're banged up, oh yeah, they need help…and they sat down with Him and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto His disciples, "Why does your Master eat with publicans and sinners?" But when Jesus heard that, He said unto them, "They which are well…and He could have worded it, they who think they are whole don't think they need a physician…need not a physician but they that are sick."

We have recognized and acknowledged that we are broken and need healing. Now you think about it, the Pharisees did not seek, did not acknowledge that they were broken in any way, therefore as a result, they could not be helped. They could neither be helped nor could they be of any true help to anybody else. They could not be healed and they could not help heal.

You know sometimes we speak of a healing of our nations, which we know is going to take place and when we speak of healing, it goes beyond the physical. Any elder, any minister can tell you and anyone of you can say it if you think about it, that when we talk about healing, it goes far beyond just the physical, it goes into the spirit, the mind, the emotions, the psyche. You know some of the Pharisees may have been the picture of health, you may have looked at some of the Pharisees and they may have just glowed with perfect physical health, I'm sure some of them did. Some of them may have just been some of the best examples you could ever see of physical health but there was a whole lot of breakage that did not show on the surface. And you know the greatest breakages are certainly just as much of the mind and the spirit than the physical but frankly, I think they're greater. I know it's a whole lot harder to heal them. God can heal any physical ailment just like that, instantaneously. But those breaches and brokenness of the mind, the spirit, that takes longer. And we talk about the healing of the nations when Christ returns, that's going to be the time of the restoration of all things and we know the scriptures that speak of that.

Christ will heal the nations and there are plenty of scriptures that will testify to that. But has that healing already started taking place in some important way, form or fashion, and if it has, where and how so?

You're ahead of me, I know that, and that's good. If you'll see that healing, that rehabilitation, that restoring has already started with the firstfruits, with you and me. It's already begun with us. We as the firstfruits are the first ones to experience God's philosophy and practice of, you don't throw a life away just because it's a little banged up – or a whole lot banged up! We're the first recipients of His keeper attitude, we're the first beneficiaries of His committal mentality and you know what? He is restoring us so that we can help restore others, He is healing us that we may help heal others, He is rehabilitating us so that we may help rehabilitate others.

Jesus Christ has a number of titles; some are very familiar to us. I think one or two I should say, that are very familiar to us is Jesus Christ is referred to as "King of kings and Lord of lords" – King of kings plural, Lord of lords, plural and it doesn't take much guess work does it, to figure out who those lesser lords or those lesser kings are. We're very familiar with scriptures like Revelation 5:10, no need to turn there, but you recognize it:

Revelation 5:10 – And has made us unto our God kings and priests and we shall reign on the earth.

We know that we are those lesser kings, those lesser lords that are going to rule with Him and if we're going to sit with Jesus Christ as we are, doesn't it make sense, isn't He concerned what kind of mindset is sitting beside Him and helping Him to rule this planet at a future time?

But I want to add a couple of other titles, I don't think you will find them listed this way in the Bible per se, but along the order of King of kings and Lord of lords, we know Christ is the Healer, we know He is a Redeemer, so we can say, Healer of healers, we can say Redeemer of redeemers because He's going to heal and He's going to redeem and we're going to assist in that healing process and in that redeeming process and I won't ask you to turn to Obadiah because I can tell you what page it is in my Bible but that wouldn't help you probably unless you've got the same Bible, by the time you found it we would be moving on, but if you want to write it down, Obadiah 1:21. You know part of our job is going to be assisting in healing and redeeming. Obadiah 1:21 makes this statement:

Obadiah 1:21 – And saviors (plural) shall come upon Mt. Zion to judge (or rule) the mount of Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord's.

We're going to function in those roles. But even as Christ has and is working with us, so it is how He wants us now to learn how to work with each other and with others. Christ is healing us now that we may help to heal others later. And it's not just for later; it's obviously for now, that bottom line philosophies of you don't throw a life away just because it's a little banged up. That philosophy is good for all time. The Millennium, the Last Great Day, need it then; absolutely need it now just as much. Such attitude that is taken on by the firstfruits and exercised in this age is part of the preparation for being part of the coming Kingdom of God, in a very important way.

I know by the time Christ returns to this earth, by the time the Millennium begins, can we imagine the shape that the remnants of the nations will be in? They will be shell-shocked, they will be in a state of shock, they will have gone through the Great Tribulation. I said remnants – those are the ones who survive through that time. They're going to be totally banged up, they're going to need help from people who share a kinship with them, an identity with them who have also been banged up to a degree, but who have been healed and can now help with their healing. And obviously, as I said, we don't have to wait till that time to begin to both see and practice in this age, in regard to broken conditions and broken people.

What's the story of mankind? Let's throw out a couple of verses that kind take the story of mankind in a sense. Proverbs 14:12 – remember what it says? It's important enough that God repeated it in chapter 16:25 of Proverbs. We recognize it in Prov. 14:12:

Proverbs 14:12 – There is a way that seems right to a man…how many times have we seen people do what they think is right and if you follow them, you see all the wreckage in the way and you see them being broken as well as time goes along and they travel the way they travel…but the end thereof are the ways of death.

That means a lot of breakage, that means a lot of banged up lives. And I always think of the words – when I think of Proverbs 14:12, I always think of the words of Jeremiah also, in Jeremiah 10:23. You don't have to live very long but if you're observant, to see the truth of these things and statements.

Jeremiah 10:23 – O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself, it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.

You can express the great tribulation indifferent, well, you can use different words to describe it, express it different ways, but one way of describing is that the great tribulation is simply the culmination, just the coming to a head of all of what Proverbs 14:12 talks about, what Jeremiah 10:23 talks about and other verses. The culmination, but all coming to a head because man doesn't know how to prevent breakage, the story of man is one of breakage, of broken people and broken things.

Take Seabiscuit again, take the name, it's Sea – SEA, as in water, it's not See-biscuit as you see it and you eat it. I have thirty-year-old son, my youngest is thirty, he's not able to be here this weekend and at the Feast in St. Petersburg in 1985 he was three years old, little shaver, three years old. My wife and I left him and the other children with a babysitter between services on the Sabbath and when we got back, of course mothers are inquisitive and she asked Loren, all of three years old, "Loren, what did you eat?" She was curious what he had for lunch, what did you eat and he looked at her like, what do you mean? I ate what I saw, that's the way it was, what he saw, he ate. We should have named him Mikey! For those that remember Mikey many years ago.

But Seabiscuit, this is not your light fluffy, tasty hot biscuit on your mama's biscuit platter, this is a hard tough biscuit of the sea, it was commonly called hard tack and it was literally one tough cookie. You could eat it but it wasn't very palatable, it was part of the sea going rations and it was made to last for weeks and months at a time. It had to; they could be at sea for months at a time. Hard tack, sea biscuits, so in reality when you think about it, Seabiscuit carried the same name as his father, Hard Tack. Sea biscuit and hard tack are synonyms, they mean the same thing and how perfectly named because his life became one big hardship of breakage. Hard Tack's father was Man o' War. The British man-of-war was a war ship, the British man-of-war were warships in their day upon the tossing waves of the sea. They would come broadside to another ship and then try to blow it out of the water and in our way of speaking, in our day and time and to our vocabulary and communication have come phrases such as, "Wow, he got hit with a broad-side" – it goes back to those men-of-war or "He got blown out of the water," it goes back to that time. Or, "He's a loose cannon," the cannons were anchored with ropes and such and sometimes in battle one would get blown or torn loose and it drove all around inside that ship there and wrecked tremendous damage before it could be secured again.

The terms "Man o' War," "Hard Tack," "Seabiscuit," those names conjured up tough hard times and how fitting, how appropriate. Man o' War had inherited a certain flaw from his father Fair Play who had inherited from his father, Hastings, he was temperamentally uncontrollable and he became a prolific sire, populating the racing world with beautiful man eaters. A typical example was his son War Relic, who while just a youngster stomped a groom to death. Fortunately this particular flaw didn't pass on to Seabiscuit, he was different, but this flaw was so typical and fitting of the breakage in human affairs. What really made the difference with Seabiscuit were men who wouldn't give up, men who wouldn't turn loose, men who wouldn't throw him away, their philosophy wouldn't let them have a keeper mentality, "He's worth the effort, I believe in him, I'm going to stay with him." They were gentle, they were patient, they took time and it was all founded upon that special mindset that you don't throw a life away just because it's a little banged up.

That's the approach God has with us, it's a healing, helping approach. I'd like you to notice with me Isaiah 42:3. Have you ever thought about this verse and what it's really saying?

Isaiah 42:3 – A bruised reed…a bruised reed is a weakened reed, a bruised reed will break easier than a sound healthy unbruised reed and a reed doesn't seem that important anyway, does it…a bruised reed shall He not break…you can put more pressure on a totally healthy reed and not break it, you can put less pressure on a bruised reed and still break it…a bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax…that old saying where there's smoke there's fire, the smoking flax, doesn't say it's a flaming flax, it says smoking, there's smoke rising…the smoking flax shall he not quench; He shall bring forth judgment into truth.

He would see the bruise; He would notice the tiny flame that was there, the spark that was there, He would deal easy with a wounded situation, He wouldn't crush any spark that was there, He would deal in hope, He would exercise a healing touch. Now go forward to Luke 4:18. In light of that, Luke records this:

Luke 4:18 – "The spirit of the Lord…Christ said…is upon Me, because He has anointed  Me to preach the gospel…the good news…to the poor, He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised."

And He wants you and me, us, who He has dealt with in that way and continues to deal with in that way to copy that and to learn to practice that. You know, in His way to Jerusalem, one of those famous stories in the Bible where He was on His way to Jerusalem and here He came with the disciples to this little village of the Samaritans and because His mind was focused on Jerusalem they could see that He, you know, Christ is going there for the last time as a human being, He was going up there to die as a sacrifice, He was focused. They picked up on that and they wanted to just keep moving, keep moving, we don't want you here. Remember James and John? "Lord, let's call down fire from heaven and burn them out!" He turned and He told them, He said, "You don't know what manner of spirit you are of, for the Son of man has not come to destroy men's lives but to save them" and they just simply went on to another village. Christ could have looked at them and said, "James, John, you sons of thunder, you don't throw a life away just because it's a little banged up. You don't burn out a whole village just because there are some things that aren't quite what they should be."

And Jesus Christ wants again, you and me to copy His way. Notice Hebrews 12:12-13. Hebrews is the book written by – I don't think there's too much doubt it was the apostle Paul, but it was written roughly 3 decades or 30 years after the Church was founded, specifically to the Jerusalem congregations with the sister congregations in Judea, a veteran church. The first congregations and her sister congregations and Paul was instructing them, he says in Hebrews 12:12-13, and of course the times they were currently living in with rebellion about to explode with the Jews against Rome and of course in 70 A.D. the ransacking and destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, they were in tough times. Notice, there were people that were going to have to have extra help, but notice the philosophy, the approach of what was admonished:

Hebrews 12:12-13 – Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down…you ever see somebody tired and dejected and discouraged, what happens, talk about reading body language, when somebody is discouraged usually they're just sagging, their shoulders are just sagging, their hands are hanging down more than usual because they're sagging with discouragement, you don't usually see a discouraged person with his shoulders squared off, they're sagging,                           talking about discouragement and helping people lift up the hands that hang down because people are depressed or discouraged, they need uplift…and the feeble knees…and there are situations and times when literally the knees are weakened. You ever see people have to face something and all of a sudden they just sit down because they can't stand, their knees get weak…and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed.

The whole concept, again, is not just for the world to come and dealing with people then, it's needed now in our time, in the congregations, in the Church, in neighborhoods, with family, with friends, needs to be practiced now and in so doing, we're training for the kingdom and being beneficial in the meantime and we're learning a healing way, it becomes our MO and as it truly becomes part of our make-up, it's going to drive all of our functioning and it is a powerful aspect of agape. Remember Barnabas? He functioned that way, in fact, that was one of the strongest parts of his make-up, he functioned that way so much so that his name, which was Joses, was changed in one sense, or let's say he was surnamed by the apostles, his surname was Barnabas, which means the son of consolation or consoling or in other words, the son of encouragement. We're familiar with that account, it was very fitting to his make-up and that in his make-up paid off so richly in terms of healing and rehabilitation.

Remember when Paul first came to Jerusalem as a converted individual and he wanted to join up with the brethren? They were afraid of him, maybe this was a ruse, maybe he just wants to find out whose with this cult, the way he sees it, maybe, is this sincere? I can understand it from a human standpoint. They kind of doubted the sincerity of the situation but Barnabas took him, who stood with him, who took him? It was Barnabas and he brought him to the apostles and he stood for him and Barnabas was there with him when Paul really needed somebody to stand with him.

You know, we won't turn to this but in Acts 12 there is the account in Acts 12 where it tells how Barnabas and Paul left on a trip and they took John Mark with them and then Acts 15 contains the account later on, at a later time, when Paul and Barnabas were going to take another trip and you know what I'm referring to because again, it's another one of those accounts that we're so familiar with.  Barnabas wanted to take John Mark with them again and Paul didn't and you know, probably in this life we will probably never know fully why, you know, what the issue really was, we can guess that and we can speculate, but evidently something had happened at a previous time where John Mark had let them down, there was something that had happened that Paul didn't want to take a chance again, whatever. Maybe he had gone back on them, whatever, whatever had happened it was something that he did and in Paul's eyes, and there was a lot riding on the trip, there was always a lot riding on those trips but whatever the reasons, Paul didn't want to take him but Barnabas did and they both felt very strongly about it and the feelings were strong enough that they separated and each went their own way.

They didn't all go off and start doing a different work, that wasn't what they did. Paul went in and took the trip he was going to take, he took Silas with him, Barnabas just simply went in a different direction and he took John Mark with him. Whatever the situation and the reasons, Barnabas stood by, the son of consolation, the son of encouragement stood by John Mark.

Let me read you the words of Paul to Timothy at a later time because this is interesting that years go by and  years later when Paul writes Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:9, 10, 11, here's what Paul says to Timothy:

2 Timothy 4:9-11 – Do your diligence to come shortly to me, for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world and is departed for Thessalonica – Crescens to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Take Mark…that's John Mark…take Mark and bring him with you…Timothy…because he…John Mark, who I didn't want with me that other time, that second time…he is profitable to me for the ministry.

He is profitable to me for the ministry! He panned out! Whatever his problems, whatever the breakage, he got healed, he came through and we have to wonder how much of that was due to Barnabas. Barnabas wouldn't turn loose, he had a keeper attitude, a committed mentality. John Mark turned out to be very profitable to Paul and brethren, he's turned out very profitable to God as an instrument and very profitable to us because when we read the book of Mark, we're reading what John Mark was inspired to write.

If we truly want to be an effective instrument in God's hands later, then we must also now be allowing God to plant that deep operational concept in us that can best be described in those words, you don't throw a life away just because it's a little banged up. That's absolutely needed as operational bedrock because again, we're going to inherit an awfully banged up world.

Just like us, God is calling banged up lives into His Church who need help and support and rehabilitation and healing. The firstfruits are being developed, they're being rehabilitated and sometimes those God calls are very banged up. Remember the scripture; if you want to turn there with me you can, I'm going to read from 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. In 1 Cor. 6:9-11, it says this:

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 – Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Don't be deceived, neither fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate…you talk about a list…abusers of themselves with mankind, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. And rightly so, they shouldn't and they won't.

1 Corinthians 6:11 - And such were some of you. Just like in this room there are some of us in every one of those categories somebody in here can fit in one of those categories, but see when he says, And such were some of you but you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God.

And such were some of you – that's always been the case and even more so as society grows worse and God continues to call firstfruits and be saved. But there's been a healing and there's a healing that continues to go on and take place. You know whether we get banged around due to our own fault or not due to our own fault, you know what people need? They need somebody in their corner who will not give up on them, who will not quit on them, who won't turn them loose, people who believe that they are worthwhile, that they are worth fighting for, who believe in them. It's an aspect of agape that's a very powerful force, be that for someone.

When United began back in 1995 there was a lot of walking wounded. The apostasy had done a number on people, there was a lot of breakage, there was a lot of banged up people, we recognize that, we acknowledge that, we saw that, that was partly what we bore in mind when we established our attendance policy that anyone is welcome to attend with us as long as they do it peacefully, we established that partly because of what we understood and that's why we still have that policy, that anyone is welcome to attend with us as long as they do it peacefully.

You know as a pastor working with people and using a scale of 1-10 to measure their receptivity to me working with them. I would like to have a ten with them but if all they give me is a one, I will work with a one and hope that eventually it will be a two and then a three and a four and move on up, because they're still worth it, they're still worth it.

Sometimes a hand that still reaches out makes all the difference. At what point do we give up on somebody? At what point should you give up? Is it when it looks hopeless? When as far as we can judge it is hopeless?

On the morning of June 23, 1938, Red Pollard was helping a friend with a horse when he had a riding accident that almost sheared his right leg off below the knee. Both bones of his lower leg were splintered. As summer turned into fall, Red was still in the hospital, he was not getting any better. The doctors had operated repeatedly on the crushed leg, re-breaking it and resetting it but it would not heal. In mid-November, after five months in bed Red finally got out of the hospital but shortly thereafter with a misstep, he re-broke that leg. A different doctor dealt with the leg, this time it helped but he was told he'd never ride again.

A short time after this in February 1939, Seabiscuit was entered into a race. In the race he injured his left foreleg. A vet examined him, the injury was in the suspensory ligament, if it was ruptured the horse's career was finished. The ligament was ruptured. Over the months that followed, Red and Seabiscuit limped over the ranch together. Red believed that both he and Seabiscuit would be back and he was slowly but surely working toward that – he was planning a comeback when word got outside the ranch, went beyond the ranch of what he was planning, it was outlandish. The comeback, if successful would be unprecedented. No horse had ever returned to top form after such a serious injury and lengthy layoff. Few great horses have competed beyond age five or through more than 40 races. In a couple of months Seabiscuit would be a bewhiskered seven years old, more than twice the age of many of those he would be racing against and he'd already raced 85 times. But slowly and painfully, both began to heal. And there was something new that was very interesting, Seabiscuit was developing a new stride. No longer did he step out with a poor leg as he ran producing the curious choppy duck walk gait that so many observers had mistaken for lameness, he now folded his legs up neatly, under him when airborne, directing all of his motion forward and back not side to side. He was a beautiful smooth gait and probably a sounder one.

Then on the morning of March 2, 1940, the jockey who would never ride again, climbed on the horse that would never race again and together they clocked a new track record that would stand untouched for a decade. One mile and one quarter in two minutes, one and one-fifth seconds. In American history at the time, it was the second fastest ten furlongs that had ever been run in American history. There was only one time in America that was faster for that length. And the Santa Anita Handicap put him over the top as the biggest money making horse of the time.

When do you give up on someone? It says even the righteous falls seven times but they get up. They can fall but just because you see a person down doesn't mean they're going to stay down. And are you there to help them get back up? When is it time to give up on someone?

In 1937 when thousands were thousands were crowding the rails to see Seabiscuit, my mother was standing on a stool crowding the kitchen counter. She was nine years old, the same year Seabiscuit came on the scene, the same year my grandmother left the scene. The years that Seabiscuit was healing, those same years, my grandmother was breaking. In the year Seabiscuit found his mind, my grandmother lost hers. She became another victim of the breakage of this society. My mother, who was nine years old, but the oldest child, had to take over all the housekeeping responsibilities and look after the younger siblings. My grandmother was, as they said in those days, crazy, she had lost her mind. We may never know fully why until the kingdom of God but it was evidently a combination of things until something snapped. You know, there were some who told my grandfather that he ought to put her away, divorce her. "Jesse, she's crazy." My grandfather keeping my grandmother didn't make any sense to some but it did to others, they would say, you know, Myrtle's crazy and Jesse's crazy about Myrtle.

He had a keeper mentality, he wouldn't turn loose, he was committed. He could have used those words, you don't throw a life away just because it's a little banged up and hers was a whole lot banged up. Very early on in the early years of her mental illness, my grandfather made a statement to his niece one day, that niece is still living, she's almost 90, he walked off down into the woods to have a private place, she figured, to pray and when he came walking back up – and by the way, that grandfather of mine listened to Mr. Armstrong in the early '40's. When he walked back up out of the woods he told her, he said, you know, Myrtle is going to be healed, I don't know when, but someday God is going to heal her.

I had never known her any different and then one Sunday when I was about twelve years old, after about 26 years mental illness for her, my grandfather drove up in our yard and there was somebody in the car with him and it was my grandmother. He'd gone down to the State Mental Hospital to see her and he brought her back with him. She rolled down the window; she talked with me and the rest of us just as clearly as I'm talking with you now. She was healed. My grandfather died October 8, 1997 at the age of 94. My grandmother died March 3, 2000 at the age of 97, they had 73 years of marriage together. God healed her and I always believed that God honored them with long life together in great part because of my grandfather's sticking by her and not giving up on her on her, I firmly believe that was one of the reasons. Think what would occur if we all had more of a keeper mentality, think of how much more healings could take place if we wouldn't give up on someone so easily. Think what God could do with us and through us.

When I read God's assurance in Hebrews 13:5 where He says:

Hebrews 13:5 – Let your conduct be without covetousness and be content with such things as you have for He has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

I will never leave you nor forsake you. And when I read His reassurance in Philippines 1:6:

Philippines 1:6 – Being confident of this very thing, that He which has begun a good work in you will perform it…will finish it, the margin says…until the day of Jesus Christ.

I find myself wanting to copy that in my dealings with others, that when I go to my knees in prayer and I say, Thank you Father and Jesus Christ, at the Father's right hand, Thank you for Your coming kingdom, thank you for Your calling and Your training, thank you for the incredible future ahead of me and thank you for not throwing my life away because it was banged up.