Ep. 000 Corps Values

Welcome to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast.

We are a Bible believing church located in beautiful British Columbia, Canada.

We are proudly part of the Christian Fellowship Ministries with 3000 churches around the world.

We are a church focused on world evangelism, discipleship, and church planting.

Here we will share recent sermons from P.H.S.A. Church and other sermons from throughout our

fellowship.

I am Pastor David Bigford and I will be your host for this podcast.

I thank you for listening today and we hope these messages are a blessing to you and bring

you closer to God.

Welcome to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast.

My name is David Bigford.

I am the pastor of the Potter's House Salmon Arm Church.

And today I am going to be giving a message entitled, Core Values.

This is something that is near and dear to my heart.

It has a lot to do with me growing up as a young man and joining the United States Marine

Corps.

I want to tie these core values obviously back to the scripture.

And so the core values of the Marine Corps are honor, courage, and commitment.

And with that, like I said, this is something that is near and dear to my heart.

When I was 14 years old, I read a book.

This book set me on a path that affected all aspects of my life.

And it still to this day has an effect on me.

This book was a mammoth impact within the structure or my ideology of the world.

And it helped mold my worldview.

It helped me to understand what was right and wrong.

It also began a process of self-revelation that has been with me ever since and even

to this day.

Now, I know what you're probably thinking.

You're probably thinking, this has got to be the Bible.

This has got to be something to do with the Word of God.

And if you're thinking that, I can understand why, but you'd be wrong.

Now with that, you're probably thinking, okay, well, what else could this be?

What could impact a young man as much as you're describing other than the Word of God?

So when I was a young teenager, I was pretty angsty.

I wasn't a particularly good athlete or anything.

I was a marginally above average student, but I also tended to lean towards laziness.

And I'd say I was part of a group of friends.

I had a good group of friends, but we weren't the cool kids.

We weren't the super popular kids, if you will.

So we were kind of uncool.

We were kind of on the fringes.

And yeah, we were a little bit geeky and stuff, but they were my friends.

And so anyway, when I was with this group of kids, I started reading this book.

And this book was titled Marine Sniper, 93 Confirmed Kills.

And it tells the exciting true story of Sergeant or Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock, who was

a legendary Marine and a Marine sniper, obviously, during the Vietnam War.

And kind of the caption to this book, or to sum it up, is that it says like about Carlos

Hathcock, it says, he's silent and visible.

He lies in one position for days, barely twitching a muscle, able to control his heartbeat and

breathing.

His record has never been matched at 93 confirmed kills.

This is the story of Sergeant Carlos Hathcock, a Marine sniper and a legend, a military lord.

But again, you're probably thinking, what does this have to do with Christianity?

What does this have to do with God, with Jesus, or with loving your neighbor, for example?

What does a story about a sniper have to do with the message of the cross?

What does it have to do with how one should live their life?

Let's look at our text, and our text this morning is going to be John 5, 19 through

24.

So, let's look at this before we circle back to this tale from Mayouf.

So, we pick up in verse 19, and it says, So Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you, The

Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees his Father doing.

For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.

For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing.

And greater works than these he will show him, so that you may marvel.

For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to who

he will.

For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.

That all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father.

Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father and the Father who sent him.

Truly I say to you, Whoever hears my word and believes him who has sent me has eternal life.

He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.

These are some really powerful words that come from our Savior Jesus Christ.

Right?

And these words exemplify a few things that we're going to dig into when we look at core

values.

The first of which is going to be honor.

We will dig into that idea of what honor is, what courage is, and what true commitment

actually is, and what it looks like.

So going back to the story of Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock and why this resonated with

me immediately as a young 14-year-old, is you see this young man who had very few options

in life.

He came from a poor family, and when I say poor family, I'm not talking about today's

poor family, but I'm talking about the poor families of 100 years ago.

What you would think of being dirt poor, meaning they got a dirt floor kind of dirt poor.

Right?

So they were so poor that young Carlos Hathcock would actually have to help put food on the

table.

Now, putting food on the table back then meant he had to go out and hunt stuff, and so it

usually came back in the form of squirrels or other critters that he was able to successfully

shoot and kill.

So he's putting a little bit of food on the table in Arkansas, Mississippi area, but it

wasn't his hard life that spoke to me because we all have a hard life.

We all have different things in our life that make it hard in one way or another.

It wasn't the valor that he accomplished on the battlefield, and he was a very successful

Marine, but it wasn't those things that resonated with me.

The real story of Carlos Hathcock and what set me on a different path was that he was

there in country to serve his brothers.

Now if you know anything about being a sniper, snipers are usually in the Marine Corps anyway

at this period of time.

They were a two man team, so you'd think, oh, he's not really serving anybody because

he's out there almost all on his own, which would be wrong.

His motivations were very much about service to his brothers.

Using a skill or a talent that he had in the protection of others.

And this is exemplified towards the end of his time serving in Vietnam.

So we look at September 16th, 1969, Hathcock's career as a sniper came and took a sudden

turn.

As he was traveling down Highway 1 north of Lanning Zou, Baldy in Vietnam, his LVTP-5,

which is an armored personnel carrier he was riding on, it struck an anti-tank mine.

So it's his ride, it blew up.

So here he is, they're blown up, thrown into a river.

And here he is.

What does he do?

Well, Hathcock pulled seven Marines out of this flame engulfed vehicle suffering severe

burns over a good portion of his body.

Some of them were third degree burns, his face, his arms, legs.

He kept pulling people away out of this burning wreckage until others pulled him away and

placed him in the water because he was unaware of how badly he was being burned.

While recovering, Hathcock did receive a Purple Heart and nearly 30 years later, he finally

was awarded a Silver Star for his actions.

Hathcock had pulled those seven Marines out of that burning vehicle.

They were evacuated to the USS Repose, a Navy hospital ship, and then eventually to Tokyo

and then eventually back to the States.

But this story, this is what resonated with me more than anything.

Yeah, sure, he did some amazing feats.

And we'll talk about some of those.

But it was while reading this book that I knew that I'd wanted to become a Marine.

This is the first time I'd seen or read anything and it talked about a life of sacrifice and

this poignant life of sacrifice depicting these pages challenged my very being.

What was I living for up to that point?

And so I'm I am going to preach about the core values and I'm using this as a launching

point, but we're going to tie this into the Word of God as well.

So let's look though at what the Marines considered these values.

And this is what they actually have up on the on the website for the United States Marine

Corps.

It says the values are born from our nation's ideals.

So now you're looking at values that are an idyllic value, something that is necessary

for servicemen to carry with them in order to be an example or be the best representation

of our nation.

And I know we're in Canada today, but these these ideals should be international.

They should cross boundaries.

So Marines live by a set of enduring core values that form the bedrock of our character.

These values guide our actions and bolster our resolve.

Honored courage and commitment lead us to victory over the physical, mental and moral

battles faced during combat or while serving in our communities on behalf of our nation.

These are the values that ensure every fight in the current and future battles support

our common moral cause.

These values mean something.

And when you're a young Marine, these values are pounded into your head and they're actually

used as part of a sifting process that if people can't conform to these values, they're

out failure to adapt.

So the first of these values is honor.

And this is what they say about honor.

Honor guides Marines to exemplify.

So honor guides Marines to exemplify the ultimate and ethical and moral behavior.

Never lie, never cheat or steal.

Abide by an uncompromising code of integrity.

Respect human dignity and respect others.

Honor compels Marines to act responsibly to fulfill our obligations and hold ourselves

and others accountable for every action.

So let's look at what this honor means.

Like if you'd like where to just take the dictionary definition.

The dictionary defined it as honesty, fairness, integrity, and one's belief in actions, a

source of credit or distinction.

High respect as far as worth merit or rank.

Some synonyms or similar words are dignity, faith, prestige, trust.

But let's look also like what are the anonyms?

What are the opposing words to what honor is?

When someone lacks honor, what are they doing?

They have disregard, neglect, ignorance, or condemnation.

In Ephesians 6, 1 through 4, there's a call to children's and parents.

And it says in verse 1, children obey your parents and the Lord for it is right.

Honor your father and mother.

This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you

may live long in the land.

Fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up and discipline and instruction

for the Lord.

That is a very powerful scripture, both for the children, but even as a father, this is

what hits close to home.

Because how often do we allow our anger to cause us to be dishonorable to our children,

trying to egg them on?

With this scripture, we could put honor into that more biblical context.

And we would look back on the text in John 5, 22 to 23.

We can see the importance of honor with the word of Jesus Christ.

In verse 22, it says, for the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the

Son, that all may honor the Son just as we honor the Father.

Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

This overlays nicely when it talks about we know that Jesus Christ is God incarnate.

He is the human representation of God on earth, and it is this relationship that because of

the sacrifice, the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ, that we can go to

Christ and be saved and be put back into right relationship with our Lord God.

But we go back to our story about Gunnery Sergeant Hathcock.

I moved to enlist in the Marine Corps.

I had to wait a number of years before I was able to join because again, I read it at 14

and they don't even let you join until you're 17 on what they call the delayed entry program.

But nevertheless, I remained focused on this service.

But it wasn't until I finally made it into the Marine Corps, finally made it through

boot camp and everything else, that I came to fully understand that the honor that I

was searching for was not the Marines at all.

It was a relationship of Christ that I needed.

But before I could be saved, I still had some hard lessons to learn.

At this point in my life, I was a drunk and angry young man, but I was focused on being

a Marine.

So when I made it through boot camp and I made it through my training, it was hard for

me to come to the realization that something was still missing in my life.

I came to that realization that in order to be truly honorable, I too had to honor the

Father and the Son, Jesus Christ.

So let's look at the next core value though and see what else we can learn.

Courage is that next core value and it's the Marines can call it this.

When you look at how they interpret what courage is, they say courage is the mental and moral

and physical strength ingrained in Marines.

It carries us through the challenges of combat and AIDS and overcoming fear.

It is the inner strength that enables us to do what is right and to adhere to a higher

standard of personal conduct and make tough decisions under stress and pressure.

In Psalms 27-14, it says, wait for the Lord, be strong and let your heart take courage.

Wait for the Lord.

This is repeated again in Psalm 31-24.

See let's think about the way that this is described.

Courage is a mental, moral and physical strength ingrained in Marines.

It's what carries us through challenges.

It's that inner strength that enables us to do what is right, to adhere to a higher standard

of personal conduct and to make tough decisions under stress and pressure.

This has to be ingrained into your being.

It has to become interlaced or interwoven into your soul.

So where do you take your courage from?

Do you take it from being part of a group called the Marines?

Or do you take it from something else, external?

I can tell you as a Christian, you have to learn to take courage in your faith in Jesus

Christ.

Some definitions of courage are the quality of mind and spirit that enables a person to

face difficulty, danger, pain, etc. without fear or bravery.

Some synonyms are audacity, determination, gallantry or grit.

You might have heard that before.

That guy has grit.

That means that he has the courage to continue to push forward.

Even with this being the first podcast on this channel, there has to be an element of

courage to put this forth, not knowing how it will be received, not knowing if I've done

what was necessary to make it look of reasonable quality, reasonable content.

But the alternatives to courage, the anonyms are cowardice, fear, weakness.

And none of us want to fall into those realms.

But oftentimes what we'll do is we won't do anything and we'll pretend that it's not

cowardice.

But it's definitely a lack of courage.

In Acts 23, 11, the following night, the Lord stood by him and said, Take courage for as

you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem.

So now you must testify also in Rome.

This is the apostle Paul getting ready.

He's been arrested.

He's getting ready now.

He's already, you know, looking towards going to Rome.

He's preached the gospel in Jerusalem.

But now, now his call is to go to the seat of power for the world and to do the same.

He knows this is a one way trip, but he takes courage in the Lord.

And we know that he fulfills his race with courage.

Now in the Marine Corps, courage and integrity were often used together because integrity

is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

But it takes courage to do the right thing when everyone is looking.

But most people don't believe in doing the right thing or what you're doing is right.

That's when courage really takes place.

This is our walk with Christ.

We are challenged to live a life of courage and to live according to the word of God,

even when it is not popular and even when it is really hard.

That is why the apostle Paul means or that is what the apostle Paul means when he says

he's a slave to Christ.

So in Romans 1, 1, it says this is a letter from Paul, a slave to Christ chosen by God

to be an apostle and sent to preach the good news.

He understood that there was a responsibility that he had on his plate, a responsibility.

So even when it's hard, he had to rely on his faith in Christ and he had to move forward

in with courage in order to honor the father, the son and the Holy Ghost.

This takes courage, but we're not left to find this courage on your own on our own.

Throughout the Bible, we're told to rely on God and then rely on Christ for our strength.

Fear the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom, but that but with that we can rely on the

father, the son and the Holy Spirit to support us in all things.

That is why we're called to put on that full armor of God in Ephesians 6, 13 through 20.

We see the armor of God explained to us.

Therefore put on every piece of God's armor so that you will be able to resist the enemy

in times of evil.

Even after the battle, you will still be standing firm, stand your ground, putting on the belt

of truth and the body armor of God's righteousness for shoes.

Put on the piece that comes from the good news that you will be fully prepared.

In addition to all these hold up a shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil.

Put on salvation is your helmet and take the sword of the spirit, which is the word of

God.

Pray in the spirit at all times and on every occasion, stay alert and be persistent in

your prayers.

For all believers everywhere and pray for me too.

Ask God to give me the right word so I can boldly explain God's mysterious plan that

the good news is for Jews and Gentiles like.

I am in chains now still preaching this message as God's ambassador.

So I pray I will keep on speaking boldly for him as I should.

As I should.

I like the way that that ends because it's it clearly lays out the re the expectation

is that you fulfill your call.

That you continue on with honor and courage.

In one of Carlos Hathaway's more renowned stories.

He shot a sniper, an opposing sniper through his scope.

But the way that this came about was a kind of an interesting story because what was happening

was this other sniper, this Vietnamese sniper was was killing off Marines at this base,

trying to lure Carlos Hathcock out so that he could be killed as well.

So Carlos Hathaway, because he was an honorable man and because he had courage, he left the

base camp to try to hunt down the sniper.

So there he goes.

He's out.

He's outside the wire.

He's crawling on his stomach.

He's moving around slowly trying to out, outmaneuver this enemy sniper.

And at one point during this battle, he sees a shimmer of light off in the distance, recognizing

this glimmer was the enemy scope.

He's able to aim in on that flicker of light and from 500 yards away, he shoots.

And it just so happens that it goes into the enemy scope, which is just a few inches wide.

And then it kills the enemy sniper.

The courage it took for Carlos Hathcock to go out into this clear ambush, but to get

up every day and perform at such a high level is nothing short of remarkable.

But again, we have to remember why he did this.

He did this to save the lives of his brother Marines.

There's similar feats in the Old Testament with King David and his mighty men, men that

had courage to go do the unthinkable in service to their king and service to their brothers.

It's easy for us to get caught up with the thought that courage is for the battlefield

though.

The reality is that courage is for every day.

Witnessing and preaching the gospel to strangers takes courage.

Serving Christ takes courage, but we can be strong and courageous as we throw our yoke

upon the Lord, throw our burdens upon the Lord.

This brings me to my last point, which is commitment.

The Marine Corps defines commitment this way.

Commitment is the spirit of determination and dedication found in the Marines.

It leads to the highest order of discipline for individuals and units.

It is the ingredient that enables constant dedication to the Corps and country.

It inspires the unrelenting determination to achieve victory in every endeavor.

The dictionary defines commitment similarly as a pledge or a promise, an obligation, dedication,

allegiance.

Of course, if you're not going to be committed, then you're going to be someone who breaks

trust, someone who breaches confidence, someone who refuses to do what was required of them,

or denial.

When we look at Psalm 105a, it says, He remembers His covenant forever, the word that He commanded

for a thousand generations.

At the root of commitment is discipline.

We can see in our text that discipline is necessary to grow in all these core values.

It is through being discipled and growing in self-discipline that you can grow in honor.

By honoring the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, you can grow in courage to stand and

preach the good news that you receive, the truth of salvation in Christ Jesus.

By giving honor, we find courage that will solidify our commitment to Christ.

It is in this committed place that we continue to grow in honor, and the cycle starts again.

These values become embedded into who you are.

But it starts with Jesus.

When we look at our text at 519-24, we are shown the truth that Jesus Christ is the way,

and that the Father has given Him the right to judge, and the Father has given Him the

right to place honor.

In verse 23, it says that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father.

Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.

Truly I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life.

He does not come into judgment, but is passed from death into life.

Just as a young Marine enters into the service lacking many of these values, they are built

over time, but in time they become involuntary.

The same way that we can rely on Christ, it can become second nature and reflexive.

That doesn't mean it doesn't come without challenges over time.

But the reality is that when you build your life upon these core values, you become a

more honorable, courageous, and committed individual for Christ.

Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Habcock was blown up in that armored personnel carrier while

literally on fire he climbed back into the burning wreckage to save his fellow Marines.

He didn't stop until he was forced to stop by others.

He suffered severe burns over 40% of his body.

So such were the burns on his body, he became a marksmanship instructor, a rifle instructor

later in life.

And if he shot too many rounds on the firing line, on the rifle range, the skin grafts

that held his body together would split open.

So he was still, even after this, giving his body and sacrifice to train other Marines

so that they would be able to survive going over to Vietnam.

This self-sacrifice more than anything else is what called me to serve in the Marine Corps.

But who else sacrifices for others like this?

He didn't know these men, not well.

He was primarily alone.

No direct ties to any of them other than their bondage of service.

So again, I ask who else is willing to die for us?

Do you know anybody who's just willing to die for strangers?

I know one person who died for all of humanity's sins, and that's Christ.

Christ died for all of us in an act of self-sacrifice because you're worth it.

And through his sacrifice, you too can grow and honor courage and commitment to his cause.

Later on, after I was in the Marine Corps, I was led to this place of decision in my

own life because I was again an angry, drunk Marine.

Not having found what I wanted in the earthly things of men, I had turned to God because

there was one guy in my unit who was saved, who was born again, and he had joy, abounding

joy.

And it didn't make sense.

It didn't make sense where this joy came from until I chose to honor the son, to honor Jesus

Christ, to give my life to him.

You know, with that, I'm going to bring this to an end.

But before I do, unless you're driving or whatever, I want you to close your eyes and

just listen for a second as I give you an invitation.

This is basically an altar call.

You can make the altar wherever, but basically all it is is it's an invitation that if this

message is resonated with you, if you feel convicted in your spirit and you know that

your heart is not right with God, it can be very easily.

All you have to do to be saved is to recognize that you're fallen, that you're a sinner,

that you're not perfect, basically.

And to turn from that to say, I will strive to do better as I accept you, Lord, into my

heart to be my savior.

So you give honor to the son, to Jesus Christ.

So if it was a prayer, it just sounds something very simple like this.

Dear Lord God, you can repeat this after me.

Dear Lord God, I know that I'm a sinner.

I know that I'm not perfect, but I repent.

I turn from my sin.

I accept you, Lord Jesus, to be my savior.

I accept you into my heart, into my life.

I thank you for washing me clean of all my sin, of all my wrongdoing as I give my life

over to you in Jesus name.

Amen.

That simple prayer moves you from for being unsaved to say.

And it now makes you part of the family of Jesus Christ.

And he will honor you in the play in the face of the father.

And it brings you into direct relationship into the father.

So I tell you to find a church and lock in.

If you're in Salmon Arm, come to come to church.

If you're in Chilliwack, go to our church in there.

If you don't know where to go, reach out to me.

We have fellowship churches throughout the world.

But Jesus Christ is moving and he wants to move in your life.

And he wants to help you to be an honorable, courageous and committed person in Jesus name.

I thank you for listening to me.

And I pray that this message has resonated with you and that you'll come back next time.

Thank you.

Thank you for listening to the P.H.S.A.

Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast.

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