Proclaiming God’s Faithfulness // Pastor Bobby

I've chosen for this morning.

We're not in Hebrews this morning.

We're not going.

See, they even took my little picture off here this morning.

But we're in psalm 145.

I want to share with you the passage.

And then we've got a couple things I want to do this morning.

This is the last psalm of David that we find in the book of psalms.

It's a collection of hymns that David wrote,

psalm 138 through 145.

And I'm going to read the first seven verses to you.

Here you go.

I exalt you,

my God the king,

and bless your name forever and ever.

I will bless you every day.

I will praise your name forever and ever.

The Lord is greatness highly praised.

His greatness is unsearchable.

One generation will declare your works to the next and will proclaim your

mighty acts.

I will speak of your splendor and glorious majesty and your wondrous

works. They will proclaim the power of your all inspiring acts.

And I will declare your greatness.

They will give a testimony of your great goodness and will joyfully sing

of your righteousness.

See, several years ago,

15 years ago almost now we got to come to surf city.

God, we distinctly felt that God was moving our family here.

And we're going to celebrate God this morning and what God's done.

So.

Alrighty, I want you to pray with me.

Father, we thank you and praise you again for today,

the opportunity we have to celebrate and worship,

but together,

because God,

we can celebrate and worship anytime,

anywhere. We are.

And indeed,

I agree with those folks say I don't have to go to church to be a

Christian. No,

you don't.

But the truth is,

God, you call us together as the body for the encouragement and

accountability and worship together so that we draw strength as the body

when we come together to worship you and God.

That's what this psalm's about.

It's worship.

Praise God.

We gather to exalt your name.

We gather to bring you glory.

And so,

God, as we talk about some things this morning,

God help us just to praise you in them.

We pray it in Jesus name.

Amen. They say,

I love the gathering.

The gathering.

And I always use small letters,

small t and small g.

And that sort of messes with people sometimes because the gathering is

not. We got a letter yesterday that was addressed to the gathering

church. Y'all realize that's a redundancy because the word,

the word,

the word church is the people.

And when the people gather,

that's the gathering.

And so I love the gathering.

And 15 years ago about this time,

actually, I got a phone call from.

From Marianne Lane.

And some of you will remember Marianne.

She passed away recently.

She was the chairman of the search committee.

How many of y'all know what that is?

Bunch of baptists in the room.

I see that.

All right.

Chairman of the search committee.

And she called me and said,

we have your resume and we'd like to call your references.

And I said,

well, if they're on there,

then you can call them.

And so that began the conversation that took about two and a half months.

Well, three months,

maybe. And then we moved here in September of 2009.

But the word rebirth was used back then,

that surf city Baptist church needed a rebirth.

And I laughed.

I said,

well, we can do that.

But two things.

It's not going to look like you think it's going to look,

and it's harder than you think it is,

right? Because,

I mean,

a lot of times we'll put a whole lot of faith in a pastor to sort of be

the catalyst for church growth or church expansion and all that kind of

stuff. Well,

I'm the first one to admit to you that I'm a clown.

And I know I'm a clown,

but God,

you know,

I'm about to celebrate 42 years in ministry,

and that's just because God decided so,

all right.

And so I love it.

And so the gathering just has become this thing that I'm just like,

yay. Do y'all know what was going on in here yesterday?

Anybody know?

Yeah, they had a fashion show yesterday,

and I am just amazed that they didn't ask me to model.

But it was a fun time for the ladies ministry,

and there was a devotional time,

and there was a time of fellowship and a time of just loving on each

other and enjoying coming together around that thing.

And if you had said that 15 years ago,

we're going to have a fashion show at Surf City Baptist Church,

first of all,

you'd have to walk on top of the pews.

So things have changed.

We've seen God do some incredible things,

and God has built this gathering,

this body of believers,

this gathering of saints,

this, you know,

all of this that we enjoy.

So I think through the events of the years and we began years ago,

I.

We kind of hit upon this idea that the two great commandments love God,

love your neighbor.

I said,

all right,

we're going to make those our priorities.

We're loving God,

and we're going to live Jesus in the community.

We're going to love our community.

So we began doing the worship in the park.

Long before there was a crowd,

we'd go to the park,

and we'd hold worship down there in the park,

and we'd feed people hot dogs and stuff like that just to love the

community, because God told us that that was one of the things they will

know. You are my disciples if you love each other.

And then he told us to go out and love one another.

That doesn't mean we agree with everything that goes on there,

but we are called to love people.

And so that's one of the greatest things that I enjoy about what the

gathering does,

is to love on people.

I can remember the first ocean baptism.

It was a Wednesday night.

We had this crotchety old man.

His name was Thomas.

What was Thomas's last name?

Who remembers?

Head of the Boy scouts,

Thomas and Sarah.

I haven't talked to them in years now,

but they were here for Boy scouts.

And Thomas,

he said,

well, he'd never been baptized before.

He was an older gentleman.

He said,

if I'm getting baptized,

I'm getting baptized in the ocean.

And I was like,

okay, we can do that.

And so that Wednesday night,

we crossed the street,

went over there,

and I baptized Thomas and his wife in the ocean.

That was the first time I'd ever baptized anybody in the ocean.

We've baptized so many now,

I can't even count how many people we've baptized in the ocean.

Now. See,

God's blessed.

God's done this.

I want to praise God this morning.

I want to sing his praises.

I exalt you,

my God,

the king,

and bless your name forever and ever.

I want you to do something this morning.

Everybody in the room.

Cause I'm gonna call on you.

I know enough names in the room that I can call you by.

Write a hymn right now.

A hymn of praise.

Write it in your mouth.

Grab one of those cards or one of those pens.

But I want to know what your psalm would sound like if you were gonna

write a psalm of praise to God for all that he's done.

Okay. What would your psalm sound like?

What would you praise him for first?

How would you exalt him first?

What would be the first.

I'm gonna get Mark in just a minute,

but here you go.

What if somebody said,

what is the first words of your praise of God?

What would they be?

All right.

You'd be thinking about that.

Because I not only remember the first ocean baptism,

I remember the first time we took a group to Camp Carraway.

Remember that,

Jennifer? It was me and Jennifer.

We were the only.

Were we the only chaperones the first year.

All right.

We took 15.

About 15 people to Captain Carraway.

Mark, come on down here.

I want to tell y'all about Mark Moore.

I was pastoring in Pisgah Forest,

North Carolina.

And you can tell Mark and I are about the same age,

right? Oh,

wait a minute.

I'm gonna give you a mic,

Mark. All right,

here you go.

It's on.

All right,

there you go.

Same age.

Got it.

Same age,

right?

Got it.

All right.

No, actually,

I'm closer to Mark's dad's age.

His dad,

Stephen, was a pastor in Pisgah,

in Brevard,

actually, technically in Brevard.

And so I was friends with his dad,

and then I came down here.

But I had met Mark and his brother Matthew,

and they had been around PiS de Forest Baptist church.

That's when you used to do backflips in the church.

No, that was a cartwheel.

Cartwheel, sorry.

Yeah.

Right. So I asked Mark this morning,

I said,

mark, I said,

what are the most important things in your life?

I said,

because that's what I'm going to interview about this morning.

All right.

Because I told him,

I said,

all right,

Mark, you know,

the most important things to you.

What were the first praise you would offer?

So that's what I'm going to ask you.

What's the first praise you want to offer this morning?

Mark? Thank God for his goodness that his.

That our.

What happens in our life,

our circumstances.

His goodness never changed despite our circumstances.

Okay. His goodness never changed despite our circumstances.

Right? Cause anybody go through rough times?

Of course.

God's still good.

God's still good.

All right.

What else would you praise God for?

My wife and family.

Those relationships are critical.

They're huge.

And I think that God uses my family and uses our family to bring him

glory and share the love of Jesus with other people,

by the way,

we live our life as a family.

All right.

Is your family involved in what God's called you to do?

Yes. Are they?

Sometimes, yes.

Sometimes. Occasionally.

So what is that then?

What is.

What is it that God's called you to do?

I think God has called me to invest in people.

I think God has called me to and my family to care about community.

And that community changes from time to time,

I think,

about every week.

Yeah, right.

This is Mark Moore.

He is the director of Camp Carraway.

And so 2013.

Cause I knew.

Mark, why did you call me the first time?

Why did I what?

Why did you call me the first time you embarked on this trajectory for

Camp Caraway.

That was a long time ago.

2021. I honestly don't remember I called.

The way I grew camp that year was I felt like God told me to do it

through relationships.

And I called hundreds of churches.

I started with the people that I knew and worked my way down into people

that I didn't know.

So I called hundreds of pastors and children's pastors and people like

that, and most of them said,

I don't.

What?

What are you wanting me to do?

But a couple of them were like,

whoo. And there you go,

you know,

he said,

we're gonna do a co ed week at camp this year because Camp Carraway was

always the RA camp royal ambassador boys camp.

Mike, were you there?

He went to Ra camp.

Nice. See?

So. But he said,

we're going to.

He's closer to your age.

He is closer.

He said,

we're going to do a co ed camp this year.

He said,

would you be interested in bringing a group?

And I was like,

I don't know.

I mean,

you know,

in the early years,

Eli was the only kid here,

and so.

But we had about 15 that signed up to go.

And so we went to camp care.

I'm not a camp guy.

Matter of fact,

you put me in the woods.

I'm looking for the cafeteria or something.

Cause I'm not.

I don't hang out in the woods a whole lot.

Alrighty. But anyway,

Mark was doing this and it was an experiment.

Was it?

Sort of.

I mean,

we wanted it to work,

but we knew we had to have a successful year.

We had to have people say,

we want to come back.

So we put it in the Lord's hands and said,

lord, we're going to try give it our all.

Because we did have a 40 plus year history of being a boys only camp.

And there was a camp munda vista at the time.

Across the road from us was a girls only camp.

So we were like,

okay, is this what God wants us to do or is this what we want to do?

So based on leadership,

teamwork, and a lot of prayer and a lot of faith,

we're like,

we're going to do it.

We had 60 people and you brought 15 of them.

We brought 15 of them.

And I actually got to chaperone part of some other churches group because

it really was experimental in a way.

But, you know,

Mark, trusting God with vision and that sort of thing.

And now,

what does co ed camp look like?

Now we have five and a half weeks of over 200,

right?

Around 200 each each week.

And you don't come anymore very often.

We try.

We try.

Okay.

I come from one afternoon every week.

We scared him off that first year.

And God has used that.

God has blessed us with growing our staff and our leadership team so that

I can kind of not do everything.

That's really cool.

That's awesome.

You've done that here.

And God is still.

It's the same gospel message that happened so long ago.

It's the same gospel message that we're living out through fun.

We're using fun to share the gospel.

We're using fun to connect people together.

We're using fun to create life change.

We're using fun to serve on mission together.

Cool.

And we get to take over 100 kids.

Yes. July 15,

we're ready.

And they put things like hatchets in the hands of children.

Or worse,

chaperones.

Or chaperones.

Bb guns.

It's a blast.

And so Mark gets to come down and hang out with us every year,

at least one week a year.

We try to get to bring his family down.

His family will be.

Are they going to be here at 925?

Yes, that's the plan.

His family will all be here at 925.

I told him,

I said,

I want to interview you.

I said,

so you need to be here early.

So he came early.

But Mark and I have been friends.

And I mean,

from that first phone call,

obviously we had a relationship through his dad and his family.

And so we take 15 people.

We took 15 people that first year.

And, yeah,

it was a challenge.

But then the next year,

I think we took a few more.

And now it has grown to what it is in 2024.

Wherever we are now,

and kids are signing up from all over the community.

We need adults to go.

We need chaperones.

We need men and women.

We need men.

If you've got an available week,

Monday to Friday,

July 15 through the 19th,

that's not the way you say it.

What? Nobody has an available week until they make it available?

Okay, thank you.

That's arm twisting.

No, no.

Just kidding.

No, it's prioritizing.

Right? Prioritizing.

That's what I asked him.

I said,

if you were gonna praise God,

what was the first thing you would praise God for?

Folks, if you want to pour your life into other lives and share and just

be the love of God to a bunch of kids,

sign up.

You know,

if you can do it,

do it.

Alrighty. If you can give,

give.

Because we don't.

We don't want the cost to ever exclude a kid from going to Camp Caraway.

Alrighty? So that's part of the morning.

I'm just praising God because of what God's done.

Cause if it were still based on me going,

thank you.

Mark appreciated that.

All right.

He didn't know what I was gonna do to him this morning.

So.

So he's calling all over the state saying,

we're going to do something.

We're going to try something.

Camp care.

You know what?

We've got some things to celebrate.

What are some of the things you've decided you need to celebrate this

morning? Hang on just a minute.

Since everything requires a microphone,

people say,

oh, people can hear me.

Not on the Internet,

they can't.

Who wants to share one line of their praise?

Hymn?

Okay, got two right here on this side.

Makes it easy.

I think Jesus and I thank him that no matter how low and how bad you are

and how much you get down in life,

that Jesus is right there.

If you just trust him,

if you just look towards him.

He pulls me out.

He pulled me out of the gutter,

folks. I mean,

he pulled me out of the gutter.

I had a great life.

I was a working alcoholic.

I never,

always kept a good job.

And then I got in the car wreck last year and almost got killed.

I'm walking today without a cane.

And I'm Jesus.

Jesus. I think that's already a song.

Jesus, Jesus Lord to me master savior,

prince of peace,

ruler of my heart today Jesus,

Jesus Lord to me.

How about that?

I like that,

Sherry. How about you,

Sherri? I just thank you,

Lord, for your forgiveness.

All right.

I needed it.

You don't want to sing too?

Somebody else want to share the first line or so of their praise?

See, you thought I was going to call you by name.

All right,

Mike. I always say to myself,

Jesus is my everything.

I mean,

without him,

I wouldn't even be here.

So that's my song.

There you go.

All right.

Somebody else.

It's your opportunity.

I bet sometimes when I'm preaching,

some of you go,

I just had that microphone.

Here it is.

Oh, I'm going close this time.

He's a God of reconciliation.

Reconciliation, yes.

I had a prodigal son return.

Prodigal daughter return.

Oh, very good.

All right.

Yeah. Someone else.

There we go.

Somebody else.

No. All right.

I do like a friend of mine used to do at town council.

Going once,

going twice.

All right.

See, you know,

I did this once before in suggesting that we write a psalm or a song or a

hymn of praise.

Because I believe that one of the things God's given us for our own

emotional, spiritual health is praise.

If you're having a bad day,

praise God.

Maybe you're not going to praise him for the bad day,

but praise God in the bad day.

You see,

see, I've looked at David's life a number of times through the years,

and David had some bad days.

You know,

David was chased by Saul.

Saul wanted his life.

David, David was a sinner.

Look at,

you know,

his psalm,

the prayer of forgiveness.

And I look at this and I'm thinking psalm 145,

the last psalm of David,

the last hymn of David that we have in the English Bible and as well as

the Hebrew Bible.

And look at what it says.

It's a celebration of God's faithfulness.

Cause David's looking back,

or whenever he wrote this,

he's saying,

I exalt you,

my God,

the king.

David's the king.

But David acknowledges God's kingship,

his rulership over his life.

And bless your name forever and ever.

I will bless you every day.

I will praise your name forever and ever.

The Lord is great and is highly praised.

His greatness is unsearchable.

Man, I looked at that word and I was like,

you know what?

We can talk about God's greatness,

but the truth is,

in our finite capacity as human beings,

we don't even know the greatness of God.

It's unsearchable.

We look around us and I told somebody that,

you remember I said this last week.

I look at the world around us.

I look at trees and animals and out on the beach,

I ran on the beach Friday morning and just thinking about the ocean and

the creation.

And every time I walk out to the beach,

I think about job and I think when I'm running.

Cause I don't want my shoes to get wet,

I run at the edge of the water because that's where the ground's most

packed, you know,

it's solid.

So I'm not hurting myself as I run on the beach right there and then I

think for 6 miles,

I think God told you to stop right there.

So it says in job,

God told the ocean where to stop.

You see,

I guess that means that when a hurricane comes,

he tells it to go ahead.

I remember asking the question,

once upon a time after I moved here,

I was asked what I felt about beetree nourishment by one of our political

leaders. What do you think about the beach renourishment program and the

new recommendation for taxation?

My answer was,

if the ocean wants this island,

the ocean will take this island.

I said,

besides, it's biblical.

The foolish man built his house on the.

Our mayor at the time said,

but you see,

we look at what God has done and we recognize the detail and the

intricacy of this creation.

And folks,

we cannot stop and consider the perfection of the way the systems all

work together and deny God's greatness.

His greatness is unsearchable.

And then verse four through seven goes into one generation will declare

your works to the next.

How do we declare the works of God to the next generation?

See, this is why I wanted to interview Mark.

I want to send as many kids as we can find to Camp Caraway because I want

to hear,

I want them to hear about God's greatness.

At Camp Caraway,

they do crafts and they do classes and they do classes that I don't want

to take.

They do a baking class.

They make cookies.

Now I'll eat them.

I want to cook them.

You know,

they've got this.

I don't know.

Anyway, they got all kind of activities.

But more than that,

they have worship,

they have Bible study,

they have a missions time where they learn about going around the world

and going other places to tell people about Jesus.

How will this generation proclaim to the next generation the works and

mighty acts of God?

Verse five says,

I will speak of your splendor and glorious majesty and your wondrous

works. I'm challenged in that.

How many times a day do you just simply speak the works of God?

What do you talk about most often?

What's your favorite?

All right,

grandparents, I'm about to be one,

right? How many times do you talk more about your grandkids than you do

God? Look out.

Right. You see my point?

See, the point is that if God is the greatness that we proclaim God to

be, then that will be our conversation.

That will be our praise.

That will be the.

I exalt you,

my God,

the king.

I will speak of your splendor and glorious majesty and your wondrous

works. They.

Now look,

David's changing to third person.

Now.

They will proclaim the power of your all inspiring acts,

and I will declare your greatness.

See, we have an opportunity to celebrate God's faithfulness,

your songs of praise.

If you wrote something in your mind,

I hope you'll write it down one day and refer back to it.

What does your first praise look like?

What does it look like when you speak words of exaltation to God?

Because the last verse,

I think,

is the one.

We celebrate God's faithfulness.

We proclaim God's faithfulness.

I think we're called to share God's faithfulness.

They will give a testimony of your great goodness.

What was Mark's first praise?

That God is good no matter what.

They will give a testimony of your great goodness and will joyfully sing

of your righteousness.

See, I look back and I remember July 20,

1982.

I was sitting at camp meeting where I was a counselor.

God called me to ministry that night.

I didn't have a clue what that meant.

I just knew I didn't want to be a preacher.

I knew my preacher.

I didn't want to be like him.

But the point is,

is that I knew that God called me.

I've had the privilege of serving in youth ministry and worship,

leadership and administration.

That's not the best thing.

Education Ministry,

I've served with senior.

I took.

I was part of taking 40,

40 senior adults to Greece.

And I've been a youth pastor for 14 years.

That was about as challenging as being a youth pastor to take senior

adults to Greece.

All right,

see, I look back over my life,

and, folks,

part of what I love as a pastor is being able to stand up and tell you

just how good God's been.

God has been so good.

Doesn't mean everything's been perfect.

Doesn't mean there haven't been challenges,

you see?

And you guys are praying for me right now.

Like, I can't imagine,

but it's the only thing that keeps me moving.

So thank you.

God's good,

y'all.

God is so good.

And I will proclaim his great goodness with every breath of my life.

I hope you will tell the people around you of God's greatness,

his goodness.

Tell the people you run into about what he's done in your life,

how he's accomplished great and mighty acts.

See, David wrote that psalm.

I mean,

we're looking back thousands of years to words that David put down for us

to sing and proclaim God's goodness and God's faithfulness.

The gathering,

we're blessed.

I know some pastors.

We're blessed.

Let's enjoy God's blessing.

But more than that,

let's proclaim God's blessing and faithfulness.

Okay? Do you know Jesus this morning?

Thank you for singing for us,

Don. By the way,

if you don't know Jesus this morning,

that's where it starts.

It starts with knowing Jesus.

It's a relationship.

So if you don't know Jesus,

we want to introduce you.

Maybe you want to be a part of what God's doing here at the gathering.

You can do that,

too.

You just obey God this morning.

Let's stand as we sing.

No, I got to get the band up here,

don't I?

We got to pray first.

Y'all know I pray so they can get in place.

No, I pray cause we're supposed to pray.

Let's pray.

God, thank y'all for today.

And for God.

Thank you for your love for us.

Thank you that you have done great and mighty things.

And thank you,

God, that this is not a regular orthodox kind of presentation of your

word. God,

we want to stop and recognize and acknowledge that you have indeed done

great things.

But more than that,

God, that you are great.

I remember that's one of the lines my mom and daddy taught me.

God is good.

God is great.

Thank you,

God, that you loved us and you let us be a part of what you're doing.

God, for the folks who are in this room,

there's even one person here this morning that doesn't know Jesus.

We want them to know Jesus.

We want them to know you.

We want them to be able to sing your praises even in the midst of

difficulty. God,

we sing to you.

Thank you for your love.

God, help us to love you back.

And we pray it in Jesus name.

Amen.