Try Again: Overcoming Life's Challenges with Grace - Special Guests - The McCloskey's - Sunday Morning - October 6, 2024

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast

where we are proclaiming the truth to the

world.

My name is Pastor Josh and I want to thank you for listening to

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen

you in the word of God.

Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has

Not the same ever since the savior found me not the same since

he turned my life around my sins have

him I'm not the same not the same ever

Old things have passed away behold all things are new I'm a new

A change in me not the same ever since the savior found me not

by his blood praise him are not the same.

I will not be conformed to this world and its ways he renews

my spirit with mercy every day he gives

I won't be turning back I.

Tasted victory not the same ever since the savior found me not

by his blood praise him.

Up not the same, not the same ever since the savior found I dare

my sin, my sin has to have been covered

by his blood praise him, I'm not the

amenity.

Once there was.

A holy place, evidence of God's embrace I could almost see

with your name as the sky dark and the

a prisoner set free cast all my failures

I could not reach mercy mercy came

Me once there was a broken heart.

Way to human Brahma star.

All the.

Years left it tore my hopeless and afraid walls I never meant to

me Mercy came running like a prisoner

set free past all my failures to the

not reach mercy.

Mercy came running to me.

Sometimes I still feel so far, so far from where I really should

be.

He can be close to my heart just to remind me.

Mercy came running like a prisoner set free.

Passed all my failures to the point of my need.

Sin that I carry was all I could see when I could not reach

mercy.

Mercy came around into me.

Sin that I carry was all I could see when I could not reach

mercy.

Mercy came running to mercy.

Camera.

Mercy came running to me.

Amen.

Aren't you thankful for mercy?

Amen.

My goodness, I'm so glad.

I like that part where it's all I was bound by the chains of

Just when I felt like giving in all.

But then mercy came running.

Amen.

And set me free.

I'm so thankful for mercy.

If you don't have that mercy today, my friend, today you can trust

And I promise you, you'll have a better life than you ever dreamed

of.

You say, is it going to be perfect?

No, it's not going to be perfect.

But I'll tell you this much.

You've got somebody going through those imperfect times with

you.

Amen.

And I'm so glad for the times when it struggles and it's hard and

I've got the one who can calm the storm right on my side.

I'm so thankful for that.

Man.

It is so good to see you.

I always tell folks I love coming to Delaware because then I

You know what I'm talking about?

No, no, not really.

But anyway, last year had the opportunity to be here by myself.

This year, I am not alone.

Amen.

I've got this lady right here with me.

Everybody was saying to me, they were saying, hey, how come?

Why is your wife not here?

I said, because she's busy watching the grandkids and stuff.

And they said, well, why can't you be home and watching the grandkids

You know, sometimes you wonder what's going on.

But anyway, actually, she's going to be hopping on an airplane

early tomorrow morning because grandparents

day is coming up, and my son and daughter

in law are getting ready to celebrate

their 10th anniversary.

And so she is going to be grandma.

And that's wonderful.

That's the one thing I told her.

I said, we're going to settle to the point where at least you can

Amen and that is so very, very important.

And so we're grateful for that, and I'm thankful she's here.

And I remind her all the time how blessed she is to have all of

No, I'm just kidding.

I'm blessed.

She says you need to get a new line.

I tell her it every morning.

That's part of the problem.

No, but anyway, for those, how many of you all have never heard

the McCluskeys before?

This is the first time.

Raise your hands.

I want to see it.

Oh, my goodness.

Look at that.

Amen.

Praise the Lord.

I'm seeing new faces.

See all the familiar faces.

Amen.

And then new ones.

And this is wonderful to see the change we've been actually kind

of.

You remember a couple of years ago, we were looking at settling

in Indiana and working at christian

radio and things like that?

Well, some things fell through with that.

And really it was the hand of God, you know, I love it when God

Even though I may not like it all the time, I love it when he's

Amen.

And he re geared some things.

So we thought we'd relocate down to Tennessee, get a little closer

Really enjoyed that time.

But then my father in law last may had a stroke.

He's in Augusta, Georgia, not very far from Tennessee, but he is

Had a stroke.

He's 86 years old, and my mother in law, 83 years old, has

Just felt led.

Honey, is there any way that we can at least take the coach and

And I said, let's do it.

So we packed up the coach last August and we moved on down to Augusta

on.

So we're just moving here and there and everywhere.

Praise the Lord.

We got hit by the storm, I guess the area, I guess my sister

in law, where our coach is parked, we

I mean, tall, huge trees fell, all these pines and everything.

And the most interesting thing is in her yard, they all fell, but

not one hit my car.

And I got a car that's sitting in the driveway.

Nothing like that.

But the power is still out.

So we'd ask that you pray for them.

But anyway, we're just thankful that God's got his hand

on things.

We need to keep the people in west North Carolina in our prayers

They're going through an awful lot.

As a matter of fact, we've got some dear friends.

We're in their church there, and they're doing okay.

Their church is doing well, but they're actually taking in contributions

people.

And if you want that information, I'd be glad to help

you with that.

You just let me know.

Actually, what I'll do is I'll give it to the administration, the

And if that's a place you can trust, it's a church you can trust.

Community Baptist church, actually, out of Graham, North Carolina.

And so keep them in mind, if you would, if you really do that.

I'm so thankful for the healing hand of God.

Aren't you?

When you stop and you look at a lot of times we look at this physical

Sure, yeah, we might get sick or we might deal with some kind of

Michelle, you know what I'm talking about.

Or the things that might creep in there physically, and we don't

But I'm also thankful for the spiritual healing of the Lord Jesus

Christ.

You see, healing is more than just something that's physical.

It's something that's spiritual, something that's deep

And though there may be wounds that were there, things that you

wounds.

And I'm thankful for that.

But then you look at a scar, and there's nothing wrong with looking

This song kind of talks about that.

It's a brand new song.

I love it.

My wife's going to sing it.

It's a song that says, heal the wounds, believe the scars, amen.

I used to wish that I could rewrite history I used to dream that

I could just pretend I never knew the

you would take this shame away hide all

Heal the womb but leave the scars a reminder of how merciful

you are I am broken, torn apart take the

an altar with the rubble that you found

Heal the world but leave your stars a reminder of how merciful

you are I am broken, torn apart.

Take the pieces.

Of this heart.

Don'T let me forget everything you've done for me don't let me forget

I.

Am broken, torn apartheid the pieces of.

This heart you, the woman in the skies a reminder of how merciful

you are I am broken to the heart.

Take the pieces of this heart heal the world.

Amen.

Heal the wound believe the scars.

Amen.

How many of y'all can give a testimony of that?

You've seen the things that God has done in your life and how

I'm so thankful for that.

Let me ask you this question.

How many of y'all have ever been lost?

Oh, yeah.

You can't get saved unless you're lost.

You can't be found unless you're lost.

Amen.

I remember the time when I was lost.

I wasn't that old.

I was just a seven year old kid at a little good news club across

I would drive in Madison, Wisconsin.

I asked Jesus to be my savior, and I got from being lost to being

found.

Amen.

Rodney Griffin wrote a wonderful song.

Kind of talks about that just a little bit, but it talks about

And you say, how does that happen?

How does being lost and being lost.

Well, one thing, when you realize you're lost in your sin and

in his favor, and you become lost in

And this song talks about that just a little bit.

It talks about being lost.

Amen.

I'm so glad I was lost and now I'm found hallelujah.

At the crossroads of life I look within and did not like who

I had become.

Choices of mine betrayed me again I was so frightened because

I was a wanderer without cause we reward

I stumbled on a.

Long broken path I never felt so.

Alone praying for the dawn in a.

Midnight so glad desperate for all I was lost a wonder without crosse

But oh, what a merciful savior you are.

Dipping into the shadows to rescue my.

Heart.

Lifted me now that I forever I'll be in the wonder of your love

To come after.

Me I walk in the goodness of your strong grace knowing I forever

in the wonder wonder of your love for

me.

Lost in the wonder, wonder of your love for me.

Amen.

Praise the Lord.

I'm glad I got lost so I could be saved.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

Take your bibles, if you would, please, and turn to the book

Second kings, chapter five.

As you're turning there, I want to mention that we've got some

things.

I don't want any feedback here.

We got some things here on the table.

I hope you'll stop by the table in the back.

Bunch of wonderful, wonderful things, as you're many of you are

familiar.

My wife makes these beautiful bracelets, and they're absolutely

gorgeous.

And she makes them all by hand.

All of this is made with her own hands.

She's been working on them this week, as a matter of fact, and

You can stop by and pick these up.

Portion of the proceeds of the bracelets help us to be able to give

So we've got that available back there.

And you can stop and get those if you so choose.

And then some of you, I saw somebody.

Where are you at?

You're here somewhere wearing one of these shirts.

I just saw someone wearing one of these shirts this morning.

Says, keep America Christian.

I need an amen from Delaware.

Amen.

And we've got this.

We got these now in Delaware colors right there.

I'm just kidding.

I said that last week in New York and then over in Wisconsin.

We were there.

No, seriously, I hope you'll stop by and pick these up and wear

We got an election coming up.

And that, man, I'll tell you, if anything, we need to keep America

Christian.

Amen.

And so we've got those back there.

You can pick those up.

A portion of the proceeds of this right here, of these shirts

right here are going right now, we kind

of shifted gears.

Normally we help wounded warriors, but we're.

A portion of the proceeds are going to help folks that are in western

We're concerned about them and praying for them, and so stop by

Now, listen, we don't have all the sizes.

We're out of small and we're out of medium, but I'm getting them

tomorrow.

So we'll have them, I'll bring them to the church.

You'll have them available for you and so you can pick those up

Oh, music.

I hope you stop by.

You haven't got, I know you don't have this cd yet unless you

This particular cd is brand new.

It's called our face still holds.

And we've got that back there.

You can get that.

It's my wife and I, and this time my kids didn't help us with

Normally our kids are singing.

You hear the third and fourth parts in the background.

Normally our kids help us, but they couldn't help us this time.

So a fellow by the name of Chris Ullman, he's a tenor for a

And we were just going to double up on our voices on there.

And because my kids couldn't do it, and Chris said, can I put

my.

Can I help you guys out?

Can I put it on there?

I said, yeah, absolutely.

So Chris Ullman is on here and he's singing the third part.

The song lost is on this cd along with heal the wound, believe

the scars mercy came running.

We're going to do a bunch of music tonight that's on this cd and

So I hope you'll stop by and listen.

You don't have a car yet that has a CD player.

It used to be the other way around.

You still got the eight track?

Okay.

What?

No, I'm just kidding.

Some people don't even know what that is.

But listen, if you don't have a CD player in your car, they've

Now we've got these thumb drives.

This particular thumb drive has five different McCluskey CDs

on it.

You can get it, plug it into the USB port, and usually it works.

I think it works pretty much every time.

I'm not run into any real issues yet, so we're thankful for

that.

It works great in my cars.

So anyway, I hope you'll stop by there and look at that.

We take Visa, Mastercard card.

And I used to take cracker barrel gift cards.

We still will if we.

If we need to.

But now we're taking Texas Roadhouse.

So anyway, so I hope you'll stop by and pick up some of the cds

help.

That would be a blessing.

The proceeds of the bracelets are actually, we're helping a dear

He has a.

He has a home, the orphanage there.

And he's a dear friend, so we're helping with that as well.

I hope you'll take a little peek back there.

Look at second kings.

Here we go.

Second kings, chapter five.

Second kings, chapter five.

I asked your pastor, I said, now, do I need to be done by 1130?

And he said, oh, no.

And I said, really?

He says, yeah, I'm long.

That's what he said.

He's just kidding me, of course, but I'm not so long.

He is.

I heard someone go, he is.

Hey.

It is what it is.

Amen.

No, I like it.

I like it.

It's good to have a.

Good.

Good to learn the word of God.

I'm thankful that y'all have a preacher who wants to teach the word

Can I get an amen on that?

Yeah, absolutely.

Praise the Lord for that.

Looking at two kings, chapter five.

We're going to start off with verse number ten.

Look what it says here.

It says, and Elijah sent a messenger unto him saying, go and

But Naaman was wroth, and he went away and said, behold, I thought

Are not Abana and fifer rivers of Damascus better than all of the

May I not wash in them and be clean?

So he turned and went away in rage.

And his servant came near and spake unto him and said, my father,

if the prophet had bid thee to do some

How much?

Rather than when he saith to thee, wash and be clean?

And he went down and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according

And his flesh became.

And his flesh came again, like unto the flesh of a little child.

And he was clean.

Now, this message really is very interesting, some of the scripture

this fellow's name was Naaman.

Naaman was known.

If I were to read verse number one, the Bible says that now, naaman

He was a great man.

As a very honorable mandehead, he was a very well known man.

He was considered a man of stature.

Naaman was a great warrior.

A lot of people would look to Naaman and they would think, look,

Here he comes.

It's Naaman.

Wow.

Can I shake your hand, Naaman?

Can I talk to you for a minute?

Can you just spend a little time?

People would want to be around him because of his stature.

He was some.

But you know what happened with Naaman?

Naaman became a leper.

Now I don't know if you know what leprosy is, but leprosy was

an awful disease.

Leprosy was the kind of disease that would eat away at your

It would eat away at your body and it would begin to deteriorate

the body and it would begin to eliminate even

Just recently my wife and I were in, where were we?

We've been in a lot of places, but we were in Little Rock, Arkansas.

We were in Little Rock, Arkansas.

And we've got, she's got one of these electric scooters, you know,

The thing really zips along.

It's really awesome.

And I've got an electric bike.

I'm not getting on a regular bike.

I've got an electric bike.

And although you can pedal it and everything like that, but I'm

And we have our little dog Rooney in the little basket in the

We said, hey, let's go on downtown.

We were actually in the area for about, oh, roughly a little over

And so we said, let's go downtown and get an ice cream.

So we did that.

We hopped on the scooter and on the bike and went on down and

we got some ice cream and we came back

through.

Well, little Rock, Arkansas has these trolleys that move along

on these railroad tracks all through

the roads and they've got intersections

and everything.

Well, I riding along on that intersection and all of a sudden

I'm looking at one of those intersections

with all of the train tracks that were

Well, I'm thinking, okay, which way do I want to go to cross?

Well, by that time I was on it and it grabbed hold of that bike

and it threw me down onto the ground

and I could hear my little dog go.

That was about it.

My wife's running up the road.

She actually threw her scooter down running up the road.

Rooney, are you okay?

Rooney?

No, I'm just kidding.

She asked if I was alright.

She, she, she really did.

She, she asked if I was all right.

Go race it to the dog's rescue.

You know what I'm saying?

No, but I remember telling her, Kyle, there's another, I remember

to look and say there's another dog

coming.

Our dog freaks out when I other dogs come.

And then, so I told her, I said hey, I said hey, there's another

Grab hold of Rooney.

So she got Rooney and she's checking on me trying to see if I'm

Well when I fell I think what I did is I did something to my elbow

or something.

You ever get that?

And it's like on a nerve.

You ever had that where you set your elbow down you go a, you

No, I think that kind of I got there, I'm thinking about what happens

He didn't want to be able to put himself in a position where he

He had leprosy that was eating away at his nerves, eating away at

But he didn't want to have to do anything to fix it.

He thought the man of God would just come out and wave his

be completely healed.

But he had to do some things, didn't he?

And I find it interesting what the prophet Elijah said, or the prophet

Elijah said, he said he needs to go down to the Jordan.

Now the Jordan was known as one of the most dirty rivers.

The Jordan has still been over to Israel several times and the Jordan

river.

If you were to go there, you'd see it.

You'd see a lot of sand and a lot of dirt in that river.

And he didn't want to go down to Jordan.

He wanted to go to the cleaner rivers.

He wanted to go to the place Abana and Farfrae.

And he wanted to go to those rivers of Damascus and that's where

But that's not what the servant said.

He said you've got to go down to Jordan.

So what did Naaman have to do, Naaman had to humble himself.

In order to be clean, he had to humble himself.

I'm going to tell you something right now.

A lot of people today in the world that we live in don't want

to humble themselves to be saved because

I got to looking at what happened here.

Naaman goes down there.

And what I found interesting too.

The prophet said, when you go down there to the Jordan, you need

Seven times.

He didn't say once.

He didn't say five times.

He didn't say two or three.

He said seven times.

Naaman didn't like that.

As a matter of fact, what did Naaman do?

He said, I don't want to do that.

He was full of anger.

And the Bible says.

Says what he did is he walked.

He went away in rage.

Why would he not heal me?

Why wouldn't he take care?

And sometimes we look at God and we say, God, why don't you do

this?

And why don't you do that?

And why can't I be more comfortable here?

And why won't you give me this?

When really God's just saying, hey, look, I'm just letting you be

When God is really relinquished the will.

God won't infringe upon your will, friend.

Why did my friend have to die?

He won't infringe upon your will.

Everybody's going to have to die.

But what's interesting to me, you've got Naaman here who goes away

Isn't that kind of the way we are?

We look around and we deal with this problem and that person.

And this where I've often said this, it's amazing how I go around

and I see how everybody else has issues

I say that when it comes to driving, everybody else is a bad

I mean, how many times have you been going down the interstate

and there's a person just lagging in

Oh, you're feeling it, aren't you?

You know what I'm talking about.

And inside it begins to build up inside of you.

And there's a car in front of you and they're just staying right

Hey, listen, ask my wife.

My wife knows that.

I sit there and I become quiet and I become pace.

She's shaking her head no, right now I get upset.

You see, I think everybody else has the issues.

I think everybody else is strange except for me.

That's usually the way it is.

That's the way Naaman was when it came to this particular situation

in his life where he's got this leprosy

But there's a way to do it the right way.

You got to go down to the Jordan and dip seven times.

Not one time.

You know what?

I named this sermon?

I named this sermon.

Try again.

Because I get to thinking about what happened with Naaman as

down.

I'm sure he went inside of that filthy, dirty water.

And when he came up, he stopped and he looked to see if the

But it wasn't, was it?

You know what he had to do?

He had to try a again.

So he dips down into the Jordan again and he looks up.

I'm sure he looked at his hands and looked at where the leprosy

And all of a sudden he realizes it's not cleaned up yet.

So he's got to try again.

He dips down a third time and then it comes up.

Can you imagine maybe if this would have happened, if he would

have looked and said, oh, this is ridiculous.

Oh, my goodness.

Come on.

I ought to at least see some results.

I should see something happening right now.

I should see some kind of a change right now.

But you know what he had to do?

He had to try again.

And so he went down a fourth time and he's thinking, come on.

And he could have said, enough is enough.

I'm done with this.

I'm leaving.

I'm not going to deal with this anymore.

But you know what?

According to the prophet, he had to try again.

The 6th time, he goes down and he comes up and says, why?

But then the 7th time, he dips down and look what verse number 14

says.

And he went down and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according

And his flesh came again, like unto the flesh of a little child.

And he was clean.

He had to try again.

You know what I find in my christian life and all these years

Many times I just got to go and try again.

Sometimes when I catch myself failing or I catch myself in a temper

going through something, or my wife and

I have a disagreement.

Disagreement.

And she doesn't realize how right I am all the time.

No, I'm just kidding.

Sometimes I catch myself under this circumstance or that circumstance

or this circumstance, and I can't figure

You know what I've got to do?

I got to get back up, wipe myself off, and try again.

And sometimes we as believers, can't just lay there all the time

we think we deserve.

Because, can I be honest with you?

You know what we deserve?

We deserve hell.

I heard a preacher say it like this one time.

We deserve hell with our back broke.

I don't like that.

I don't like the thought of that.

But that's what I deserve.

But by the grace of God, you can get up and try again.

We sing a song called when God ran.

I love that song.

And I often think about that song.

When God ran to me and he runs a again.

Then he runs again, and I fail, but he runs to me again.

God never pushes me away.

He always opens up his arms and he says, just keep on coming

back.

You could try again and try again and try again.

I gotcha.

I've got a God that's willing to do that for me.

Man.

What a wonderful thing it is.

You think about David, King David, in the life of David.

Can I tell you something?

David was an interesting person.

Studying the life of David and looking over the life of David.

I mean, we know all about the time when he killed the lion.

He was a shepherd.

We know the time when he took care of Goliath.

We know when he was king and when he would go to battle and the

But you know that David was a lousy husband.

He was a terrible husband.

Do you know David was a lousy dad?

I mean, look around.

What does he do?

He's on the roof.

One day, he sees somebody by the name of Bathsheba.

So what does David do?

He calls, and he ends up in an inappropriate relationship with that

Hey, can I tell you something?

David couldn't just stop and just go ahead and throw himself.

Hey.

Then you look at his children.

Oh, my goodness, Tamar.

You look at Absalom.

You look at Amnon, all of his children, and how they failed.

He actually had one child that took advantage of another.

His half sister Tamar, had Amnon take advantage of his half

And then you had Absalom, who actually wanted to try to destroy

his dad.

And I could go on and on with how lousy of a father he was.

But can I tell you something I don't see in here where David just

David just gave up.

David just said, nazareth's not working for me.

I might as well die.

You know what I see?

I see David getting up and trying again.

And he try again and he try again and he try again and he try

again.

And you know what happens?

It says it right here in the book of acts.

Or chapter number 30 or 13, verse number 20.

It says, I have found a man after God's own heart.

God said that about David.

Notice it's in acts.

That's a long way from the book of Samuel.

That's a long way from the book of Psalms.

David just kept on trying again.

Even though those failures might come your way.

And those things might enter your life.

And there may be difficulty.

Can I tell you something?

Don't stay down.

Get back up and try again.

Try again.

I grew up at a drunkard's home.

Many of you know the testimony of the McCluskeys and what we went

through.

Seven brothers and sisters and a mom that just stuck it out with

us when my dad was on skid row.

Just recently had the privilege of being in Madison, Wisconsin,

church.

My nephew pastors church had a privilege of going there.

Then I drove around to some of the sites where I grew up.

And I remember a little house.

Actually, it wasn't a house.

It was an apartment building where we lived on the second floor

on Gorham street in Madison.

And I remember as a kid the roaches that used to run across the

Because we didn't have any money and we had nothing.

I actually took pictures of the alley that I played in, in the

I took pictures of that because I want to remember, lord,

I remember those wounds, and I remember

But hey, don't leave the scars.

Because I can see how merciful you are.

And I can look back and I can see how my dad, even though he was

drunk.

I'll never forget when he trusted Christ as his personal lord

savior.

Then he gave his life to Jesus.

And he got rehabbed and he got changed, and he went to church.

And he started living for Jesus.

And I don't remember all of a sudden those memories of the roaches

My dad would be all of a sudden it's filled.

Where?

He's the best man in my wedding now.

Yeah.

Because he tried again.

Even though there were failures, he got up and he tried

again.

You say, I'm having trouble in my marriage.

Can I tell you something?

Try again.

I'm having trouble with my family.

Can I tell you something?

Get up and try again.

You say, I'm having difficulty at the job.

Hey, try again.

Try again.

Try again.

Don't just walk away from it.

Get up and try again.

I got to thinking about some things that we can do to help us

Number one, we need to hate the sin.

We need to hate the infringement that's going on.

Naaman knew that.

He looked at what was going on in his body and he hated it so much

He hated it.

The Bible says in James chapter four, verse number seven,

Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Hate the struggle, hate the sin.

Hate the difficulty.

Get up and try again.

Pride issue.

Throw away your pride so you can try again.

And, man, I'll tell you what, this thing called pride, it's awful.

I understand.

I'm proud of my kids.

I think my son today is singing at First Baptist Church of

Now, Anthony George is a pastor there.

My son's there.

My daughter's in church where her husband's a pastor there.

I'm thankful.

In Kalamazoo, Michigan.

I'm thankful for that.

I really am.

But can I tell you something?

I'm proud of him.

I am.

But can I tell you but by the grace of God that they're able to

We need to realize that it's him and it's not us.

We need to start getting rid of the pride.

Naaman had to get rid of the pride.

But Naaman was wroth and he went away.

So behold, I thought he would surely come out and stand and call

He thought it was going to be easy.

It's not easy.

Sometimes it's hard.

We got to throw that pride issue away.

Number three, unselfishness.

Stop making it all about you.

I was sitting in the place where we're staying last week and

to myself, man, I'm looking at some

of these tragic things that have happened

Now.

I'm looking at people that have lost their homes, lost loved

They don't even have water they can drink.

They can't.

You can't even get there in that area of Asheville, North Carolina,

And I began to think about how good God has been to me.

I began to think, I've got my children, my wife and I get to serve

him.

We're in a very comfortable place to stay.

I can open up the refrigerator and pull out some water and drink

it.

If I so choose.

We can go to a restaurant and grab us a bite to eat.

We're so blessed.

God has been so good to us.

What we need to do is get rid of those issues of selfishness, sinking.

Hey, you know what?

I deserve more than that.

You ever see somebody who's like that selfish all the time walking

around?

I deserve this and I deserve that.

And you can just see the joyous joy on their face.

You know as well as I do that it doesn't make you happy.

What makes you happy is when you get the opportunity to help someone

else.

What a blessing that is.

Unselfishness number four, become dependent on the Holy Spirit

That's a biggie, because when I got saved, I got sealed by the

He came into my heart, came into my life.

Ephesians, chapter one, verse number 13, in whom ye also trusted

that after ye had heard the word of truth,

ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of pride.

Promise.

Become more dependent on the Holy Spirit instead of you.

You say, I fail, try again, you say, I messed up.

Try again, you say.

But I keep on trying.

It seems like I keep on failing.

Hey, listen, the fail.

Hey, what.

Hey, what is that word?

I think I've got it in here.

This is, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

Try, try again.

Sometimes it's try, try again.

Sometimes it's try, try again.

You just got to keep on trying, man.

Don't just throw your arms up, say, that'll work for me.

Become dependent on the Holy Spirit.

And lastly, have accountability.

Find somebody that you can be accountable with, with the things

you struggle with in your.

Your life.

Find, hey, some of you men, find another man that you can call

And then that person that you're talking to, hey, if somebody

be there for that person.

The Bible does talk about that.

You know, in proverbs 20 717, it says that iron Sharpeneth iron.

So a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

We can just try and again.

We can just try again.

You know, I found something really interesting.

Had the privilege.

When we were in the holy land, we went down to the sea of Galilee.

And we were at a little spot.

It was early in the morning and it was kind of misty a little

bit.

But we didn't care.

We were down there at the sea of Galilee, man.

And we were in the spot where what happened was, is Jesus.

They believe this is the spot where Jesus had already ascended

into heaven, came back down.

And the disciple, you remember when Peter said, I go a fishing.

And they went out and they went fishing that night there was

a person on the shore and it was Jesus.

And he's cooking breakfast.

And they come in and Jesus says, children, have you any meat?

They didn't have any.

Peter realized who he was.

And Peter, by even there being embarrassed, jumps inside of the

And they go and they sit down with Jesus.

In John chapter 21, verse number 15 says, so when they had

John 21 · chapter mention

these?

And he saith unto him, yea, Lord, thou knowest I love thee.

And he said unto him, feed my lambs.

Then he says it again.

He saith unto him again, the second time, Simon, son of Jonas,

And he saith unto him, yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.

And he saith unto him, feed my lambs.

And then he says it again.

And he said unto him, he said, peter was grieved at this time when

Peter was grieved because he said unto him a third time, lovest

And he said unto him, lord, thou knowest all things.

Thou knowest that I love thee.

And Jesus says unto him, feed my sheep.

Jesus had a dump eater to try again.

Try again.

Try.

Listen, I don't know what you're going through today.

I don't know what your situations are dealing with today.

In just a minute, we're gonna have the Lord's supper.

I'm not sure what's happening in your life today.

Maybe you're struggling with your family.

Maybe you're struggling with the job.

Maybe there's some financial things.

Maybe there's some physical things.

I don't know.

But I want to encourage you.

Middletown Baptist churches try again.

To try again.

To try again.

Can we stand together, please?

Our heads are bowed, our eyes are closed.

No one is looking around.

I'm just wondering if what we need to do is to try again.

It's kind of quiet in the room right now.

I'm thankful for these children.

They're doing such a great job.

But with us here in this room right now, I'm wondering if there's

Say, brother Pat, that's me.

I'm just gonna be honest.

Some things I struggle with and I'm gonna just.

I'm gonna try again.

You raise your hand, say, I'm gonna try.

Oh, my goodness.

Hands are going up everywhere.

Oh, my goodness.

Praise the Lord.

Thank you.

You can put your hands down.

Maybe you're here today.

Heads are bowed, eyes are closed.

You don't even know Jesus as your savior.

You've never trusted him as your personal lord and savior.

Say, brother Pat, I don't know if I'm saved.

I don't know what it means to be saved.

I don't know what salvation is.

Would you pray with me about my salvation?

I want to pray for you.

Can I do that?

I won't embarrass you.

I won't call you.

I won't come to you.

I won't put you in a very uncomfortable spot.

I just want to pray with you about your salvation.

You say, I don't know if I'm going to heaven or not.

Pray with me about that, would you?

You'd raise your hand, say, pray with me a about that.

I see a little hand.

Praise the Lord.

I see another hand.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for being honest with the Lord.

There's others.

I'm not sure if I'm saved.

Would you pray with me about my salvation?

I'm going to pray with you.

I'm not going to embarrass you.

Can I pray with you?

Raise your hand, will you?

I don't know if I'm saved.

I saw a couple of hands go up.

I see another one.

Thank you.

Thank you for being honest with the Lord.

Another one.

Thank you so much.

I saw four hands go up.

I'm not going to embarrass anybody.

Anyone else.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for being honest with God.

Thank you.

I see another one.

Praise the Lord.

Thank you.

You can put your hand down.

I saw six hands.

Here's what we're going to do in just a moment.

I'm going to pray after I'm done praying.

I got some music here.

I'm going to play some music.

Now, you do as the Lord leads you, but I want to encourage you

to talk to somebody about this salvation

thing.

Nobody's judging, I promise you, nobody is judging, but everybody

is loving.

Pastor Josh is right up here in the front.

He'd love to grab, hold your hand and say, I can show you in the

Maybe you'd like to get that done today.

Others of us, you raised your hand, said, I just want to try.

I'm going to try again.

Can I ask you, those of you who raise your hand said, I'm going

I am.

I'm just going to keep on trying.

Oh, I know I fail at things, but I'm going to try again in a minute.

After I'm done praying, the music will begin to play.

Would you be ones that would come up and just kneel down for a

and say, I'm trying again?

Got some areas.

I just want God to have control in my life.

I want him to be there.

I'm going to dip myself in that Jordan.

I hope you will.

And I hope that others that need to come and trust Christ as

I'll take the Bible, show you how you can be saved.

I hope they don't come by themselves.

Heavenly father, I thank you for the privilege.

We have to be able to open up our bible and have the word of God.

Thank you that we can look right now and have an invitation

where people can come.

I pray for those that raise their hands and I'm trying again.

I'm just going to do it.

I pray for those that say, you know what?

I'm not saved.

I want to be saved and would like to be saved today.

And they come grab hold of the pastor's hand.

Say, preacher, what does the Bible say about salvation?

I'm just curious.

God, I pray that you will bless this invitation in Jesus name.

Amen.

As the music begins to play, maybe you need to come, folks are

Listen, you need to be saved.

You need to trust Christ.

You won't come alone.

Come on up here, grab my hand.

Pastor Josh is right up here in the front.

Front.

Come up here and grab hold of his hand and say, pastor Josh, I'm

I'm not sure about my salvation.

I don't know if I.

I don't know if I'm going to heaven.

I want to.

I saw people being honest with the Lord that meant a lot.

Folks are the at the altar right now.

You won't come up alone.

You won't come alone.

How precious this is.

How incredible this is.

See, people say, and be honest with the Lord.

I don't care about my pride.

Mandez.

Pride gets in the way.

I get it.

I just want to try again.

I'll try again.

God's dealing with people.

It's all right.

Let's try again.

Turn the service over to the preacher.

As God deals with your heart, you come.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church

podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

If you would like to find out more information about our church

or this sermon, you can find [email protected]

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Thank you so much.

God bless.

Have a wonderful day.