What Do I Do With Injustice? | The Memoir of Nehemiah

Ever find yourself wanting to fix the world but having no idea where to start? Pastor Andrew McCourt shares some stories—from his childhood in Belfast to taking random Uber rides just to hear people's life stories—to show us how to handle injustice. It turns out, changing things doesn't always require moving across the globe. Sometimes, it just means crossing the street and listening. 

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At Sandals Church, our vision is to be real with ourselves, God and others. This channel features sermons and teaching from Pastor Matt Brown and other members of the Sandals Church preaching team. You can find sermon notes, videos and more content at http://sandalschurch.com/watch

Vivi Diaz: 00:02

This is the Sandals Church Podcast, a place for real people with real struggles learning to follow Jesus. Wherever you are right now, driving, working, or trying to make it through the day, we are really glad you're here. Let's get into today's message.

Andrew McCourt: 00:19

Hey Sandals Church, it's Andrew here. It's so good to be with you and also to take part in your summer series on this incredible book called Nehemiah. And today, I'm gonna be talking about a incredible thing called injustice. And we're gonna try and answer this simple question. What do I do?

Andrew McCourt: 00:37

What do you do with injustice? Let me start on a personal note. As you can hear by my melodious tones, this is not a SoCal accent. This is actually the voice of God. It's an Irish.

Andrew McCourt: 00:51

Yeah. It's an Irish accent. And I come from the North of the island. And I was born into a lot of conflict, and it was kind of crazy. Can anyone remember the nineteen hundreds?

Andrew McCourt: 01:04

Anyone remember the nineteen hundreds? Some older people can still raise their arms. But when I was born in the nineteen seventies, that literally Northern Ireland, Protestants and Catholics started to fight and it was just like murder and mayhem. But I'm gonna talk about that later in the sermon. But let me bring you to a beautiful town in the North Of Ireland and it's called Mowville.

Andrew McCourt: 01:29

And one day I was just walking there with my family and the children were younger and we were just having a nice day. It wasn't a sunny day. It wasn't like SoCal. There's only one sunny day every year in Ireland and it's cold summer. That's it everybody.

Andrew McCourt: 01:42

But it was just nice to be there. And then suddenly, I saw someone. And he didn't recognize me. He didn't know me. But I immediately recognized him.

Andrew McCourt: 01:51

And I grabbed my kids and I shouted at them, kids come over here. And we got a photograph that I took that day of this gentleman in the meet that's the a very young me. Look at that, the Irish moisture. I I look great. Okay.

Andrew McCourt: 02:05

All the family are there, and there's my wife Isabelle. But that gentleman that you're seeing there in the blue coat, his name is John Hume. And that man is a Nobel Peace Prize winner. He's incredible. And that's the man with another guy called David Trimble, a Protestant and a Catholic that came together and worked so hard to bring a peace plan to the country of Northern Ireland.

Andrew McCourt: 02:33

And what I said to my kids that day, and I teared up. I looked at my children and they're like, the little duh. But they, I looked at them and I said, kids, this man, you owe him so much. The reason that you've had a childhood that is so different from mine, you've had a childhood without the bombings, without the shootings, without the mayhem, it all comes down to this man here. And I remember he looked at me and he said this, thank you so much for saying those words.

Andrew McCourt: 03:08

What did he do? He committed his life to bringing justice to everybody. What was Nehemiah doing in his book? Well, we always think about this and it's been so beautifully covered for the past few weeks. Pastor Alfredo, pastor Matt, everyone's been teaching it and we've been talking about what it is to build.

Andrew McCourt: 03:27

But suddenly Nehemiah turned around and said stop the building. Stop the building. Because in chapter five what he needed to do was rebuild lives and rebuild justice before they could complete the walls. You see material things are very important but human beings are way more important. How many people believe that today?

Andrew McCourt: 03:48

That actually looking after people is super important and he he he recognized this. It's way easier to rebuild physical walls than it is to rebuild and realign human beings. But what he does in chapter five, he gives us some steps on what we should do with injustice. So are you ready to jump into God's word today? Yeah.

Andrew McCourt: 04:14

Here we go. So in chapter five, it says this. It says in verse one, now the men and their wives raised a great outcry. They're working hard, they're grafted, they're on the wall, but there's a great outcry against their fellow Jews. It's against their countrymen.

Andrew McCourt: 04:31

It's against their team. We all support the raiders. If you're that sad, you support the raiders. We're all on the same team. But they weren't looking after each other.

Andrew McCourt: 04:41

And some were saying, we and our sons and daughters are numerous. In order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain. They were just asking for basics. Others were saying, we are mortgaging our fields and our vineyards and our homes to get grain during the famine. And still others were saying, we had to borrow money to pay the king's tax and on on our fields and our vineyards, although we are the same flesh and blood as our fellow Jews and though our children are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery.

Andrew McCourt: 05:17

And some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless because our fields and our vineyards belong to others. Wow. If you're taking notes today and you're going, I wanna help with injustice. What's the first step? The first step simply is this, is to listen up.

Andrew McCourt: 05:37

And when we listen up, it develops a thing called empathy. What we just heard there was an inventory of extortion and exploitation on fellow countrymen. It wasn't even like an enemy and that is still injust. This was on fellow countrymen. These were the worst of times for the Jews.

Andrew McCourt: 05:57

They had come back from exile, but literally they'd come back to poverty and now they were facing extortion. In a nutshell, the strong and the wealthy Jews were exploiting the economically weaker members of their own community and all of this led to what? Anxiety, fear, desperation, and actual enslavement. And there was an outcry from the people. Verse six says this, that Nehemiah, he said, when I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry.

Andrew McCourt: 06:29

How many people agree with Nehemiah? And then when you heard all of that, you're going, this is just wrong. But the important word there is, he says, when I heard. So for six verses, he spends the time just listening. And if you and I wanna make a change in our family, if we wanna make a change in our community, if we wanna make a change in our nation, and let's go for the world everyone.

Andrew McCourt: 06:54

If we wanna make a change in the world, we need to learn to listen up. First of all, we need to just listen up locally. And all around our campuses, 14 campuses. I love Sandals Church. 14 campuses, soon to be, I believe a 100 campuses.

Andrew McCourt: 07:11

This is a growing church, and it's a church for the community. And I wanna thank all the campuses for what you do. But I'm gonna keep saying to everybody in your own world, learn to listen up. So as I said earlier, I'm Irish and I'm an immigrant. Okay?

Andrew McCourt: 07:27

I have an old journey. It's eleven years this month that we came to The US of hey, come on everyone. And we're not American citizens and there's all this whole blend that's coming in. Our kids actually have four passports. Four passports.

Andrew McCourt: 07:41

And they're like Jason Bourne, they don't know who they are some days and who they wanna be, you know. And and it's pretty cool. But what I do, I'm often in Ubers as I travel around, I'm always getting Ubers. And if you wanna meet the world and your local world and how the world has come to your location, get an Uber. Just get in an Uber.

Andrew McCourt: 08:00

And when I get in an Uber, it's usually someone who's an immigrant like me. And this is what I always say. I get in the car. I always say this here. Hi.

Andrew McCourt: 08:09

I'm Andrew. I'm from Ireland. Where are you from? And I immediately try to identify with them. And I just go, I've got a story.

Andrew McCourt: 08:18

And I've no doubt you you've got a story and it is the best fun in the world. And now, I just take Ubers because I just enjoy Ubers. I don't even have to be going. I just put in fake destinations, get out and order another Uber. Do it.

Andrew McCourt: 08:34

The whole world is on your doorstep. And do know what I find when I say to them, I wanna hear your story. They tell me their story. Some of them are in tears. Some of them are excited.

Andrew McCourt: 08:45

A guy yesterday was telling me how he was almost forced to go into an illegal war and had to flee here to The United States. And when he came to United States, there was four members of his family and the government wanted to give him over $3,000 and he said, no. I don't want your money. You've already been kind enough. You just give me an open door into the country.

Andrew McCourt: 09:06

Let me work. Keep your money. Let me work. Wow. I was like super excited.

Andrew McCourt: 09:12

The world is on our doorstep. We gotta listen locally. Isabelle and I, we work with another church in Bakersfield and they're called Canyon Hills. And they're just like Sandals. They've got a big heart for their community.

Andrew McCourt: 09:24

And all the time they're trying to think how can we help? And there's a lot of drug addiction there. There's a lot of poverty and there are a lot of broken brokenness. And they see it as an opportunity. Some really cool things are going on.

Andrew McCourt: 09:37

On Tuesdays, one of their campuses, listen to this, they have a thing that the locals have started calling, it's food distribution, and they started calling it beans and rice with Jesus Christ. Doesn't that sound great? They love Tuesday, beans and rice with Jesus Christ. And they're just feeding the community. It's not on the main news, but it's the headlines of the community on Tuesday.

Andrew McCourt: 10:00

They've also in started in one of the local elementary schools. They started in one, and now it's gone all across the area. They call it the Canyon Closet, Canyon Hills Church, and it's called the Canyon Closet. And it's basically just essentials, household essentials. And one of the pastor's daughters one day was being collected, and she got into the car, and she immediately started crying, 12 years old.

Andrew McCourt: 10:24

Mom said, what's wrong? What happened in school today? She said, no. I can't believe our church. She said, what do you mean?

Andrew McCourt: 10:29

She said, all the kids are going to the Canyon closet, and some of my friends were overwhelmed. Why? The first thing they went for was Dawn dish soap. And they were so excited that they had Dawn dish soap to bring home to their parents. Listen to me.

Andrew McCourt: 10:48

Sometimes we think to fight injustice that we've gotta get into the corridors of power. Yes. Sometimes. But you know what we have to do? We don't have to cross the nation.

Andrew McCourt: 10:57

Sometimes we need to just cross the street. One of the other things they're doing, I just thought this was all so amazing. They they it used to be in Bakersfield 2AM, okay, if you're Irish and drunk. And and you're caught and and you're sitting there on the street or whatever. The police come along and they say, hey, you got a choice.

Andrew McCourt: 11:15

You got a choice. You either go to Gill. And before the church was there, you know what? It was you just go to Gill. But now they turn around and say, do you wanna go to Gill or do you wanna go to their project called CityServe and do you wanna go to the CityServe Sober Center?

Andrew McCourt: 11:31

Would you rather sober up in Gill or sober up there? And everyone goes even in that mine. They wanna go to the sober center. Why? Because there there's a friendly person, there's a clean room, there's a there's a change of clothes, but also there's breakfast in the morning and there's a conversation to try to help.

Andrew McCourt: 11:48

Does that sound like what the church should be doing? Yes? I think that's what the church should be doing. So we need to listen up locally and we need to love and I've always loved this about you know, just the simple teaching of the Bible from the Torah then that was reiterated by Jesus. Jesus gave us the best social policy in the world.

Andrew McCourt: 12:09

The best social policy in the world. And he said, this is how you're gonna look after the world. And he simply said this, love your neighbor as yourself. That's it. We're waiting for the government.

Andrew McCourt: 12:19

God's waiting for us. He turns around and he said simple simply, if you just look after the person on your right and your neighbor on your left and everybody does that, guess what? Everyone's gonna be taken care of. Are you with me? It's real.

Andrew McCourt: 12:34

And we don't have to get super super political about this. We just need to get super practical and see that our neighbors are beside us. So we can listen up locally, but we can also listen up nationally. And obviously as Christians we are clearly pro life and we wanna protect life in the womb, but how many people are also committed to taking care of life after the womb? We wanna do both.

Andrew McCourt: 12:57

That's what we wanna do as a church. And I love America. And it's I mean, everyone tells me it's the greatest nation in the world, USA, USA. And that everyone loves it. But it's it's like me.

Andrew McCourt: 13:10

It's like you. We're not perfect. But we love our nation. We're praying for our nation and we wanna help our nation. And like all of us, we got a few issues.

Andrew McCourt: 13:19

Is that fair to say? And one of them is incarceration. And we don't want the bad guys or girls on the street. But here's the truth, we got 5% of the world's population but about 20% of the world's prisoners. What does the church do with that?

Andrew McCourt: 13:35

How do we help on a national level? But listen to this here. My good friend told me this just the other day and he works intimately with this. About eighty three percent of prisoners released end up rearrested for crimes within three years. Over fifty five percent end up back in incarceration within ten years.

Andrew McCourt: 13:52

And those numbers, and this is the good news, those numbers dropped to eight percent for rearrest or incarceration when a man coming out of prison connects with a faith group and enters a man's bible study or fellowship group. Isn't that great news? And sometimes we're sitting back and and we're going, oh if the government would do and the government You know what the Bible says? Just pray for your government. You pray and pray and pray and pray.

Andrew McCourt: 14:20

But while you're praying, do something as well. Come on church. I do believe that we are still the hope of the world. But also we can listen up globally. Thank God for America.

Andrew McCourt: 14:31

Okay? But there's a world population of 8,300,000,000 people. Guess what we are? We're just the point three. That's where we're we're big.

Andrew McCourt: 14:40

We're a little large sometimes. But we're just the point three. There's the 8,000,000,000. And what God says, I want you to listen up. And also, I want you to listen up for the global church right now across the world.

Andrew McCourt: 14:55

There are 380,000,000 Christians that live under persecution. That's one in every seven Christians is being persecuted for their faith. The writer of the Hebrews says this and I love it so much. Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were what? Suffering.

Andrew McCourt: 15:24

And all I know in life, I don't really I'm not persecuted. I don't suffer. I have middle class inconveniences. That's what I have in life. Let's be honest.

Andrew McCourt: 15:34

I'm just, you know, someone cuts me up in the '91 or the 04/2005. I'm I'm treated as persecution. It's not persecution. It's called living a middle class lifestyle. It's called having too much blessing sometimes that we can actually go somewhere.

Andrew McCourt: 15:48

But the Bible says here that what we need to do is we need to have more than sympathy. You see sympathy is this, it's feeling compassion or pity for someone's misfortune. It's feeling for them. But I want you to get this, empathy is putting yourself in their shoes and sharing their emotional experience. It's not feeling for them.

Andrew McCourt: 16:08

It's feeling with them. I'm actually getting into their lives and into their hearts. And I'm gonna throw out one more stat. Okay? Is that Europe has 600,000,000 people, but less than 2% of them are connected to an evangelical church like Sandals.

Andrew McCourt: 16:26

That's a crime. That means there's 588,000,000 lost people in Europe. And all I wanna do is say thank you to pastor Matt and Tammy for having a heart for Europe. Recently, they were in Europe, not on the beaches in France. They were at conferences working with European pastors, loving on them and building the church.

Andrew McCourt: 16:45

And I just wanna say Sandals, thank you for your heart. Can I hear an amen? Thank you for your heart. So the first step is what do I do with injustice is basically is listen up and show empathy. The second one is this, is speak out and that's advocacy.

Andrew McCourt: 17:03

Is that we advocate for people and I love this. Nehemiah verse chapter five verse nine says this, so I continued And he's gone from listening and now he's speaking. He said, what you were doing is not right. Shouldn't you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies? So he's listened and he's listened and he's listened for six verses, and now he starts to speak up.

Andrew McCourt: 17:29

And I wanna say there's a point where we need to listen, but there's a point where we need to become a voice for the voiceless. So recently, I was out with Isabelle and we went into a store and it was almost like closing time. And I went over and got myself a really nice jacket, know, and it looked really cool in it. And Isabelle classically never shopped for herself. She's shopping for her grandson.

Andrew McCourt: 17:52

And in the end, she's got a couple of items for him and I've got my item. I said, hey, you pay for those because she's got all the money. And and so we we walk over and and I just kind of accompany her and I'm standing to the side and we're going on there's two cashiers and what happens just blows my mind away. Because the younger cashier, she just lights up on the older cashier and she work uses the worst profanity in the world. I mean like, and it's not like she's whispering.

Andrew McCourt: 18:25

It's like right in front and she says, Maria, you're just a beep beep beep. As we said in Ireland, was effing and jeffing. It was just like, wow. And I just thought okay, she's having a tough moment. I'll start to walk away.

Andrew McCourt: 18:38

Then she lit up on her again. And I just couldn't believe the language and there was one other customer here and Isabelle was here. I was over here with like, oh, we're all like super weird. And then she gets on, you know, like the little microphones they have? And she presses and she tells all the staff what she thinks about Maria.

Andrew McCourt: 18:56

Well, at that point, Pastor Andrew, Nehemiah kicks in because I had listened enough. And I gently said, I said, woah. I don't know what you've been through today or what you've been through in life. And I don't know much about Maria, but all I know is this, that whatever you've just said is not true. And Maria is not that and you should never speak to anybody.

Andrew McCourt: 19:23

I didn't I didn't shout. I didn't go full Karen. I didn't do anything like that or Kevin. I didn't I didn't didn't didn't do that. I just you know what I simply did?

Andrew McCourt: 19:33

I spoke in this tone and I looked at her. I said, enough is enough. And you know what? Because Maria had looked pretty beaten up And then suddenly when I spoke up for her, like it wasn't a smug look came on her face. It was just like a little bit of hope someone cares, someone sees.

Andrew McCourt: 19:53

And your voice is so important. And the president of the nation maybe hasn't ever heard your voice. The head of the UN has maybe never heard your voice. The mayor of your city has maybe never heard your voice. But you know what?

Andrew McCourt: 20:06

If you can speak up for the individual, your voice will become the most important voice, maybe not in their world, but in their world. God has given you a voice. Gently and lovingly speak up for them. Choose the right issue. Choose the right people.

Andrew McCourt: 20:23

Be a voice for them. Step three is this. It's find it and fix it. Well, what's that? That's actually comes to the point of policy.

Andrew McCourt: 20:33

Because he needed to turn around here and said, what's happening is wrong, and we need to say more than just stop it. Stop it. We need to fix it. We need to do something with this. It says in verses eleven and twelve, let us stop charging interest.

Andrew McCourt: 20:48

It's a good policy. Give back to them immediately their fields and their vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the interest you are charging them. He went straight for it and he said, you know what? We need to do something. I love the book of Acts.

Andrew McCourt: 21:04

It says this. It says, this is Luke writing to Theophilus. He says, I wrote about all that Jesus began what? To do and to teach. That's pretty good.

Andrew McCourt: 21:16

See Jesus broke the rabbinical model because what the old rabbis used to do, they just sat around and taught. Jesus said, no. We're gonna more do more than teaching. We're gonna do stuff. I'm gonna teach you in the class and we're gonna go out and we're gonna do stuff.

Andrew McCourt: 21:32

We're gonna do the kingdom stuff that Jesus talked about in chapter four of the book of Luke what it says says. He said this, the spirit of the Lord is on me because he's anointed me to preach good news to the poor and he has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind to release the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. This was Jesus' kingdom manifesto at the beginning. And even what we just read there before, everybody, it's called the book of Acts. It's not the book of ponderings, and the book of musings, and the book of thoughts.

Andrew McCourt: 22:07

It's called the book of Acts. And church, are we ready to do the kingdom stuff? And a lot of us, let's be honest, we're sitting in Starbucks and some of us we won't go to Starbucks because it's such bad coffee. We need our pour over millennial experience. I don't care where you are in the in in the day or where you're having your coffee and your mixture of matcha, whatever it is today.

Andrew McCourt: 22:32

Listen to me. Where wherever you are, come on. Let's stop sitting in the coffee shops and talking about it. Let's do something for the kingdom of God. Let's do something.

Andrew McCourt: 22:43

Let me tell you a story about a guy called William Wilberforce. William Wilberforce lived in the seventeen hundreds and into the eighteen hundreds in England. And he didn't know God, but he became a Christian. And at that point, he was a member of parliament. He was like a senator.

Andrew McCourt: 22:57

And as soon as he became a Christian he thought, well I'm gonna leave politics and I'm just gonna go into the ministry. But a really good man by the name of John Newton famous for writing a great hymn called Amazing Grace said to him, no, don't do that. We got lots of pastors. We need someone who can do something. That's a joke.

Andrew McCourt: 23:17

Okay. And and he said, no, stay and use your influence. And William Wilberforce thought it's a great idea. He sought God and this is what he came up with. And this is quite amazing.

Andrew McCourt: 23:30

He came up with two great goals. I'm gonna read them to you. He said, I'm gonna stay in parliament and I'm gonna try and make some change. Alright. And this is what he said.

Andrew McCourt: 23:39

He said, God Almighty has set before me two great objects, two great goals. The suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners. Let me just talk about that first. So he said, the slave trade is the most heinous, heinous, you know, thing that's ever come from hell on this earth. And I wanna see that slavery is stopped all across the British Empire.

Andrew McCourt: 24:07

And my dad can remember even when he was a boy that the world almost used to be pink, the old British Empire. And he said, I wanna make sure in my lifetime that we put an end to this. How many people agree with that? That's just a hellish evil that we just all of that slavery, we wanna see it finished with. And then he turns around and then he said this, and I wanna see also the reformation of manners.

Andrew McCourt: 24:29

What does that mean? Does that mean, you know, it sounds like today? Oh, I wanna teach people how to use, you know, their silverware and also how to lift a cup of tea and we need to have better manners. No. He what he was talking about was at home.

Andrew McCourt: 24:43

I wanna change the city that I live in in London. This this is incredible. I mean, listen to this here for a statistic. The sexual trafficking of women was a staggering problem and it's an inconceivable scope. Twenty five percent of all women in London were prostitutes with an average age of 16.

Andrew McCourt: 25:05

And William Wilberforce, he said, I'm gonna I'm gonna shoot for the moon. I'm gonna try and finish slavery and I'm gonna turn these two things over. And by the grace of God, for slavery, it took him forty six years to see it finished. And he grafted, and he grafted, and he grafted. And three days after it was finished, he died.

Andrew McCourt: 25:26

He died. But how many people think that's what God wants us involved in? And if you're here today in one of the 14 campuses and and and you're a local politician, can we just say thank you for you? Thank you for what you do. If you're a community leader or activist and you're there and saying, I'm just trying to see the kingdom of God extended, we wanna say, can we do this everyone?

Andrew McCourt: 25:45

From the bottom of our hearts, can we celebrate these people today? Would we do that? We're praying for you and do it justice. Doctor Martin Luther King, he he said this he said this and he talked about, you know this parable of the Good Samaritan? And he talked about this on the road to Jericho.

Andrew McCourt: 26:02

He said on the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will only be an initial act. One day, we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. That's super smart. Thank God for the good Samaritan that was there to help the guy that had been beaten up. But you know what doctor King says?

Andrew McCourt: 26:33

Let's put some lights on the road. Let's put some cameras up. Get some security. Let's change the whole road so that we can help people. Here's the last thing here, and I think this is pretty powerful.

Andrew McCourt: 26:48

Step number four is just rely on God. Rely on the mercy of God when it comes to the world of injustice. Nehemiah says this, verse 15 of chapter five. Remember me with favor, my God, for all I have done for these people. Lord, I I I'm throwing myself on your favor.

Andrew McCourt: 27:09

I'm throwing myself on your mercy. Lord, will you help? Lord, it's ultimately over to you. And what do I do with the justice? Well, you know, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna listen up.

Andrew McCourt: 27:21

I'm gonna speak out. I'm gonna find it. I'm gonna fix it. But you know what I'll ultimately you know how I deal with injustice in this life? I'm gonna trust God.

Andrew McCourt: 27:29

Let me bring you back to Northern Ireland. So my father was a royal marine. He left Northern Ireland when he was 16 years old, and he served his country for nine years as a royal marine and saw saw so much of the world. Like, the The UK's version of a Green Beret, he was an incredible guy. He became the the navy middleweight boxing champion of the navy.

Andrew McCourt: 27:52

He just as my mother said, he had fast fist and a fast mouth. He could just swear and cuss. He didn't know God at all. And one day, a man called Ted Seymour, a naval missionary came in and after three visits, he led my dad to Christ. It was the most unexpected thing in the world.

Andrew McCourt: 28:07

Unexpected. My mother was like, what has happened to you? But she knew he'd find God because he stopped cussing immediately. He was like the gift of tongues in reverse. It was just like, he just stopped cussing.

Andrew McCourt: 28:22

Stopped cussing. And anyway, they moved back when he left the marines back to Belfast, and he didn't realize this, was moving back into the mayhem that I talked about at the beginning. And he became a police officer, not knowing what was about to happen, that there would be over thirty years of violence and just chaos. And because he was a police officer, he was seen as a legitimate target. Terrorists would try to kill him.

Andrew McCourt: 28:49

And so let me bring you to the 12/31/1976. And there was a knock at our front door. And you need to understand that that was never a good thing in our home. Never a good thing in our home. Why?

Andrew McCourt: 29:04

Because sometimes terrorists would turn up a police officer's home and murder them in their own homes. And so this is what used to happen. My father then, if there was a knock at the door, the curtain was always pulled over. It was a dark night. There was a knock at the door.

Andrew McCourt: 29:18

He would stand there's a living room I'm sorry, the front door. He would stand in the living room door, and he's already reached up and he's got his gun, personal firearm, three five seven magnum, and he's got it in the holster and he's just holding it and he goes he always says these words, who's there? And his kids, that used freak us out. I mean, used to freak us out. Why?

Andrew McCourt: 29:37

Because then we knew that wasn't good. And for me, this is what I used to do. Front doors here, dad standing here. If I heard the words, who's there? Go up the hallway, it's my bedroom door.

Andrew McCourt: 29:47

Open the bedroom door, it's the head of my bed. When I heard him say, who's there? I would immediately set up because in my mind I'm thinking, if they shoot through the door, they won't hit my dad because he's standing on the side. Bullets gonna go up the hallway, go through the door and hit me in the head. That was my childhood.

Andrew McCourt: 30:04

It's the way we were raised. And that night, here's the door. He said, who's there? And he hears the neighbor's voice, pulls back the curtains, open the door, and the neighbor says, Derek, we think and boom. A car bomb goes off in our street.

Andrew McCourt: 30:23

Windows smash into the house. Slates come off the roof. And I think we got a picture of it here. That's yeah. You can go back to that picture.

Andrew McCourt: 30:31

That's the street that I learned to ride a bicycle on. It's a street we used to play on. And that's a street when one of the other neighbors was running away when they heard there might be a bomb with her little 18 old son, Graham. And he was killed with shrapnel from that bomb on our street. The father was the first police officer on the scene.

Andrew McCourt: 30:54

I wish I could tell you, well, that was just a one off. That was that was life for my dad. It was all day. It was almost like a civil war. It was just crazy.

Andrew McCourt: 31:04

It was Protestant on Catholic and Catholic on Protestant. And we could see no end to it. And then in 1977, May 1977, my father is out on patrol. He's he's now a detective, plainclothes, unmarked police car. And he sees a VW camper van in front of him, like one of the old hippie vans.

Andrew McCourt: 31:22

There's a lot of movement going on, and and and he he's not happy with it. He radios through, and he gives a license. Anything in this van, nothing on the van. And he said to his partner, things that change your life, can you just stay on it? Will you just stay on it?

Andrew McCourt: 31:35

And and they and then they said, yeah. And then it came through. Oh, that van has just been involved in a bank robbery. It was some terrorist fundraising and they've they they robbed a local bank and my dad, he put the horns on immediately and called for backup, chased the van. The van, they went into a cul de sac, nowhere to go.

Andrew McCourt: 31:55

The occupants came out, started running away. My dad, plainclothes, kid jumps out of the car, lifts his gun, shouts halt or a fire, and backup arrives. Backup was in the form of an armor plated Land Rover, police Land Rover. And these things were just like a take a mini missile. They had grills right to the bottom so people couldn't throw grenades onto them.

Andrew McCourt: 32:17

This is a police car. It was absolute chaos. Dads and oh, sorry. Two police officers are in the front, but in the back's two young soldiers. Things that have got so bad, the military were trying to help the police.

Andrew McCourt: 32:28

They're 18 years old. One of them sees my dad in ordinary clothes with a gun in his hand and thinks he's a terrorist. And from a distance of about 15 feet, he shoots him with the most powerful rifle in the world. We're talking a high velocity bullet. Forget the movies, everyone.

Andrew McCourt: 32:47

Thing hit him in the chest, went straight through his body, almost severed his right arm from his body, blew a hole in his chest the size of two fists. Somehow he survived. Unbelievable. He survived. And what he went through was just horrendous what he went through.

Andrew McCourt: 33:13

He still lives with PTSD, hardly sleeps. He's 82. And two years ago we went to celebrate his eightieth birthday. And you would think with everything that he went through, he lost 300 colleagues during that era. You would think going to that birthday party that we would be saying, keep the kids back.

Andrew McCourt: 33:38

Don't let them near him because he's so angry and he's so bitter and he's so vengeful. He just wants to hurt people. No. Not my dad. He's one of the happiest man you will ever meet.

Andrew McCourt: 33:53

He's always telling a joke. And if you think dad jokes are bad, granddad jokes are twice as bad. Really bad. Really bad. But he tells him with such conviction you laugh.

Andrew McCourt: 34:04

I'll call I'll call him almost every day of my life. Do you know why? Because it's a joy to speak to him. He's full of joy. He's full of happiness.

Andrew McCourt: 34:12

He's just blessed, and he's been through it all, and he's suffered injustice, and he watched it on both sides. And I wanna be really careful here. When I was growing up, my parents would never let us talk about them and us. It's really important that you get this. There was never a them and there was never an us.

Andrew McCourt: 34:31

Why? Because we're part of a kingdom. We're part of a kingdom and dad would never let that none of that sectarian language, divisive language was allowed into our house. Even though quite physically he was carrying the wounds himself, He wouldn't let and this is the important thing everyone. He wouldn't let the outside get on the inside and that's Christianity.

Andrew McCourt: 34:53

This is it everyone. We're called to let the inside affect the outside. And I know you've been through injustice, and I know it hurts. And I'm not here today to minimize what you've been through or to to grief compare in any way. We all have our story.

Andrew McCourt: 35:12

We all have our hurt. We've all cried our tears. We've all got our scars whether they're physically or whether they're emotional. But I wanna say this, God is greater. I don't say that glibly.

Andrew McCourt: 35:25

If he's not greater, we don't have hope. And here's the good news. He defeated death. He defeated the grave. He's got us for all eternity.

Andrew McCourt: 35:33

And in this life, heaven can still touch earth. It can. And this is what my dad said to me. I remember. I said, dad, how did you cope?

Andrew McCourt: 35:44

And he said, son, I've had police officers die in my arm, and I've had terrorists die in my arm, and I've spoken Jesus over both. I've spoken Jesus over both. We don't get to choose the neighbors that we have to love. Jesus never said judge your neighbor. You see that's when injustice will be dealt with and some people you've gotta leave to another judge for another day.

Andrew McCourt: 36:19

What you and I make is terrible judges. We're we're terrible judges. There's only one that has a pure heart and his name is Jesus and he will bring justice to the earth. And here's the good news. This is the really good news.

Andrew McCourt: 36:33

That Jesus will bring judgment and justice to the perpetrator, but also he will bring justice to the victim. That's But you know what we gotta do? Is leave it with him. And the most important thing that right now in our lives that we need to do is not try and beat up on that other person. I'm telling you, you know the the number one job I've made in my life is to guard my heart, and that's a full time job.

Andrew McCourt: 37:02

Is to guard my heart. That's what I'm responsible for, is to guard my heart and say, God, give me your grace. Give me your mercy. And Lord, just keep washing. Just keep washing.

Andrew McCourt: 37:13

Keep Paul said this, I have to die every day. Is anyone else with me? I have to die every day. I mean, for me, it's about three times a day. My wife keeps reminding me, you need to die, Andrew.

Andrew McCourt: 37:22

You need especially when I'm driving, you need to die. You need to die. But we're gonna leave that great we're gonna leave people to the grace of God and the judgment of God and we're gonna ask for that same grace into our lives as well. I don't know what you're going through today, but I do know this that God loves you and he is for you. And while you're maybe experiencing justice, let's also think about others that are going through that.

Andrew McCourt: 37:48

But in everything, let's trust in the grace of God. Let me pray for you today. Lord Jesus, I wanna thank you for everybody watching this, Lord. They can hear my voice, but I'm praying more importantly, the Lord that they would hear your voice. And even more than that, Lord, they would feel the hand of mercy upon them today.

Andrew McCourt: 38:12

Lord, where we can speak up and listen up, I pray that that will happen. Lord, where we can find it and fix it, God, help us to be active. But God, in our own hearts, where we need grace and mercy, may we receive it today and all of it for your glory in the name of Jesus. Amen.