John chapter 14. John chapter 14. I thought this passage would
go good after that message this morning. Most of the blessings that we
enjoy in this life are spiritual. But as the hymn writer said,
there's coming a day, a day when we'll see him face to face. Our Lord said in verse one, let
not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also
in me. in my father's house or many
mansions. If not, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you,
and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and
receive you unto myself, that where I am, ye may be also. And whether I go, you know, and
the way you know." Thomas said unto him, We know not whether
thou goest, and how can we know the way? Our Lord answered and
said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man
cometh unto the Father but by me. If you had known me, you
should have known my father also. And from henceforth you know
him and have seen him. Philip said unto him, Lord, show
us a father, and it suffices us. The Lord said unto him, have
I been so long time with you, and yet thou hast not known me,
Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen
the Father. And how sayest thou, show us
a father? Believest thou not that I am
in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak
unto you I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth
in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father,
and the Father in me, or else believe me for very work's sake.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the
works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these
shall he do, because I go unto my father. And whatsoever you
shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the father may be
glorified in the son. If you shall ask anything in
my name, I will do it. If you love me, keep my commandments,
and I will pray the father and he shall give you another comforter,
that he may abide with you forever. The spirit of truth, whom the
world cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth
him. But you know him, for he dwelleth
with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless.
I will come to you. Yet in a little while in the
world seeth me no more, but you see me. Because I live, you shall
live also. At that day you shall know that
I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments
and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth
me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will
manifest myself to him. Judah said unto him, not Ascaris,
Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us and
not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto
him, if a man love me, he will keep my words. And my father
will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with
him. He that loveth me not keepeth
not my sayings. And the word which you hear is
not mine, but the Father's which sent me. These things have I
spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter,
the Holy Ghost, which the Father will send in my name, he shall
teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance,
whatsoever I have said unto you. Peace I leave with you. My peace
I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. Let's pray. Our most gracious, Christ holy, Heavenly Father, we come this night seeking to
worship you, seeking to honor your son. Father, I pray that you would
give us ears with which to hear, prick us and make us attentive
to the word preached, enable us to hear from you this night. Father, I pray for our pastor.
Oh, that you would anoint him. Give him liberty of thought and
speech. Give him an auction to proclaim
our Lord and Savior unto us. For it's his name I pray. Amen. Bibles with me to 1st Peter chapter
2. 1st Peter chapter 2. Look in the Lord's Word. Chapter 2 it says this, Wherefore
laying aside all malice and and all guile, and hypocrisies and
envies, and all evil speakings. As newborn babes, you're a new
baby, you're a baby now, and yet all these things here cease
to be. Desire the sincere milk of the
word that you may grow thereby, if so be that you have tasted
that the Lord is gracious. Tasted that the Lord is gracious.
That's what I want to talk about. Tasting the graciousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Tasting grace. The only people
who know anything about tasting grace is people that's tasted
it. And I'll try to say a few things about it. And Simon Peter
here, the apostle who wrote this, knows what it is to taste the
graciousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. And where it says, if
so be that ye have tasted the Lord, that word Lord there is
the meaning of the Lord in its fullest sense of the word. It's
applied to our Lord Jesus Christ and it's the same thing as saying
Jehovah. It's the same thing as saying
God. And the fullest meaning of the word Lord is what he's
using here. If you've tasted that the Lord
God, the Lord Jehovah, the Lord Jesus Christ who is God, if you've
tasted that he is gracious. And here it applies to our Lord
Jesus Christ because he said in the next verse, to whom coming?
If you taste that he's gracious, that's who you're coming to.
And he's a living stone. Men didn't like him, they rejected
him, but he was chosen of God as precious. And it says also
in verse 6 that he's the cornerstone, the chief stone and he's precious
and God laid him, he's that precious cornerstone. So to Simon Peter,
the Lord Jesus Christ was Lord and God. That's what he's saying
here. In fact, he was an eyewitness of his majesty. Look over in
2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 16 with me. Simon Peter saw was
an eyewitness of the majesty of our Lord Jesus on Christ when
he went up on the mount Where he was transfigured before their
face and his white is glistening white bright and And Moses and
Elijah appeared unto him and you remember how Simon Peter
said after they were gone said Lord Lord It's so good for us
to be here. Let us make three tabernacles one for you one for
Moses one for Elijah and Lord said Simon Peter you don't know
what you're talking about you're talking you're just talking to
me talking and so you know he says and that voice came from
heaven that says this is my beloved son hear him well Simon Peter
when he says I beheld the eyewitness of his majesty that's what he's
referring to he said here in verse 16 of 2nd Peter 1 For we have not followed cunningly
devised fables when we made none unto you the power and coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty,
for he received from God the Father honor and glory. when
there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, this
is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. And this voice
which came from heaven we heard when we were with him in the
holy mountain. So you know he's tasted that
the Lord Jesus Christ is gracious. And if the Lord Jesus Christ
is not God, our faith is vain, our hope is gone. And that's
why Peter says we've not followed cunningly devised fables. He
said it's upon this rock that we build. That's our everlasting
hope and confidence. And Peter had special knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know, he was the first one
to confess that the Lord Jesus Christ was Christ, the Son of
God. When our Lord asked him, he said,
who do men say that I, the Son of Man am? And he says, well,
thou art the Christ. You're the son of the living
God. And he said, oh, you're so blessed, Simon Bar-Jonah.
Flesh and blood didn't make you understand that or see that,
but my father, which is in heaven, he showed you that. He showed
you that. And I tell you what, when he
speaks here in 1 Peter 2, 3, of tasting that the Lord is gracious,
and why he says that, because he had a revelation of it. God
gave him this revelation of he himself had tasted that the Lord
is gracious. This is the same man, this one
who says, taste that the Lord is gracious. This is the same
man who denied the Lord three times and went out with bitterness
and cursing. This is the same man that our
Lord Jesus Christ, after he had risen, he told Mary, he says,
you go tell the disciples and Peter. that I'll go before you
and meet you in Galilee, like I told you. He said, especially
Peter, because Peter would be so downhearted. And at the sea,
when Peter returned fishing, and he went back to fishing,
and our Lord Jesus Christ, when he sat by that fire, and there
they were, and say, he's leaning on his breast, and he asked Simon
Peter three times, Simon Peter, lovest thou me? Yea, Lord, or
feed my sheep. Simon Peter, lovest thou me?
Yes, Lord. Simon Peter, oh Lord, you know. You're the one that knows. He
said, well then feed my sheep. Three times our Lord asked him
if he loved him. And Peter knew how he was restored. Peter knew what it was to deny
his Lord and how it was for the Lord Jesus Christ to come to
him and restore him. So he knew what it was to taste
the graciousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. And when the Lord
blessed him on Pentecost and worked miracles through him,
he tasted that the Lord is gracious. That's why he said he himself
bore our sins in his own body on the tree. And oh, listen. And I, Lord Jesus Christ, is
full of grace and full of truth. And I, Simon Peter, in his experience,
had tasted that the Lord indeed is gracious. Have you tasted? Have you tasted that the Lord
is gracious? Have you tasted the Lord is gracious?
Now, we love to taste things. Taste things. We'll oftentimes
be eaten and say, taste this. You got to taste this. You just
got to try this. Well, that's what we say about
the Lord Jesus Christ. Taste the graciousness of our
Lord. Taste and see if he's not gracious. Huh? And we can say
that the most blessed, the most sweetest, the most satisfying
taste that we've ever experienced in our lives is the graciousness
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Huh? And always says, here's
your old taste, so be that you have tasted that the Lord is
gracious. The scriptures tells us that the Lord Jesus is full
of grace, grace for grace. Our Lord Jesus, when I talk about
his graciousness, our Lord is gracious in his person, gracious
in his nature, gracious in his character. There's nothing about
our Lord Jesus Christ that is not full of graciousness. What
about his person? We went about doing good, healing
all that were oppressed to the devil. Grace poured forth from
his lips. That's what he said in Psalms.
He said the grace poured forth out of his lips. And he was gracious
in his nature. He wasn't had the nature like
you and I have. A nature that's so full of sin,
so full of darkness, so full of anger, so full of bitterness,
so full of wrath, so full of impatience. All the things that
make us the way we is and what makes him the way he is. It makes
us understand how desperately we need the graciousness of our
Lord Jesus Christ and in his character. Oh, the character
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, how many people followed
him around and said, I've never heard anybody talk like him.
I've never seen anybody do the works that he did. I've never
seen anybody walk like he walked. I've never heard such words flow
forth from a man's mouth as he did. I know this, had he not
been gracious, Immanuel, God with us, would never have come
into this world had I not been gracious. He's gracious from
all eternity. If it hadn't been gracious, he
would have never descended from heaven and come in the womb of
a virgin and lived on this earth for 33 years. Immanuel had not
come to be with us had he not been gracious. What brought him
to take upon himself our frail, frail humanity to suffer hunger,
to suffer thirst, to suffer being tired, to suffer sorrow and grief,
to know what it is to be hated and despised and rejected, to
know what it is to have to pray, To know what it is to have to
trust his father the way you and I do, but he done it perfectly? Oh, listen, what brought him
to take? It was the Lord being gracious
that brought him to take upon himself our frail humanity. And what kept him here that he
would endure such contradiction of sinners against himself? I'll
tell you why. Because he's gracious. He is
gracious. Oh, how gracious is he? Let me
ask you, did he do anything that wasn't gracious while he was
here? Did our Lord do anything that
wasn't gracious? Always, always serving others. Always doing for others. Even
did for those who debated among themselves who would be the greatest.
Even calmed down those men, said, that will cause them fire from
heaven. He said, no, no, no, no. That's not the kind of spirit
we are above. That's not the way we are. And
oh, listen, always, always serving others. And his whole life was one who
went about doing good. And as we beheld him and behold
him in his blessed word, We see the face, we see the person of
our Lord Jesus Christ. We see his blessed character,
one who is altogether love and goodness and mercy and kindness
and long-suffering and gracious in his nature. He cannot be anything
else but that. All you got to do is look at
us. And then you understand something
about the graciousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. Gracious words
proceeded out of his mouth. Never man spake like this man.
Gracious works he did. Gracious, gracious works he did.
Every work that he did was a work of grace. No one deserved him
to do the work that he did. In fact, one fellow said, if
you'll come, he said, you know, I'll come and heal your servant.
He said, oh, no, no, no. All you got to do is just send
your word. And when our Lord sent the word, it was a word
of grace, because when he got home, his servant was made whole. He was gracious, both as God,
gracious, both as man. He was the God of all grace who
inhabited eternity. And when he came down to inhabit
time, he still was the God of all grace. He was gracious both
as God, as man. Gracious in his manner. Gracious
in the way he dealt with people when he sat at people's tables.
You all remember the story very, very well. When he went to Simon
Peter's house to sit down to eat, he asked Simon Peter, Simon
was a, not Simon Peter, Simon the leper, a Pharisee. He asked
the Lord Jesus, invited him to dinner. And our Lord Jesus sitting
there, of course they didn't sit, they reposed. They sat down
and they had everything on the middle of a table here and people
wretched got it. And while our Lord was there,
a woman came in. And she began to wash the feet
of our Lord Jesus Christ, weeping and weeping and weeping and weeping
so profusely. And oh, she took her tears and
they began to fall all over our Savior's feet. And then she got
down when she laid her head around this way and took her hair, lifted
up his feet and dried one of them and wretched and got the
other and took her hair and dried the other one. And Simon said,
oh, if this man was a prophet, if this man was a prophet, he'd
know what kind of woman this is. And our Lord said to him,
Simon, I've come into your house. You gave me no oil to anoint
me. You never wash my feet, and you never kiss me, but this woman
right here, she has. And he said, I got out and want
to ask you a question. If a man had two debtors, one
owed him 500 pence and one owed him 50, which you think would
love him the most? And frankly, because neither
one had anything to pay, he forgave them both. He said, which one
do you think will love him the most? He said, him that's forgiven.
But our Lord Jesus Christ, instead of getting angry and getting
upset, he dealt with that woman in grace, he dealt with Simon
in graciousness, he walked out of that house, went in it in
graciousness, and came out of it with graciousness. They took
the woman, taken into adultery. And everybody left, and nobody
left but him and her. Oh, what graciousness, what graciousness
that our Lord Jesus, gracious in his manner, gracious in his
spirit, gracious in every office he had, gracious as king. He rules in grace. He don't rule
like people rule in this world. He rules in grace. He don't rule
by law. He rules by grace. He reigns
in grace and he teaches us as a prophet. He teaches us graciously. He teaches us kindly, teaches
us softly, teaches us tenderly. He teaches us in ways that we
can learn, that we can understand. Gracious, gracious, gracious
as a Savior. Gracious as a high priest sitting
at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us. Oh,
have you tasted that the Lord is gracious? And all, listen,
He is gracious to all sorts of men and all kinds of men, all
conditions of men. He was truly no respect of persons. Whether you was a leper, whether
you was poor, or whether you was wealthy like a Pharisee,
like Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus, it made no difference to Him.
It was Lazarus that was the poor man, the beggar, that the dogs
licked his sore. It was Lazarus that the Lord
showed grace to and took the glory. It was Lazarus. And all beloved,
our Lord is indeed gracious by nature. Oh, he is so gracious. Have you tasted that the Lord
is gracious? And I tell you this, he is gracious
in how he dispenses his salvation. You know, salvation belongs to
Him. It's all His. Every bit of it
belongs to Him. And you know what He does? If
He gives salvation to anybody, He gives it because it's graciousness. Grace on His part. He is free. He's spontaneous. He's generous
in His gifts of grace. I mean, when He comes to give
grace, He don't ask to come. He don't ask to be invited in.
He just comes, and in His graciousness, He gives grace. We don't have
to drag grace out of Him. We don't have to drag grace down. No, no, look in Romans 5. Look
in Romans 5. We don't have to drag grace out
of our Lord. Oh, He's gracious by nature.
He's gracious in how he dispenses salvation. No one has to persuade
him to be gracious. Did you ever have to persuade
him to be gracious? No. Did you have to reach up
there and bring it, you know, did you have to persuade him
and beg, you know, to give it to you? You know when you started
asking for grace after God already gave you grace. You know, whenever
you start tasting grace, offer God already been gracious to
you. No, that's right. Look what he said here in Romans
5, 6. For when we were yet without
strength, when was that? Then and now. In due time, Christ
died for the ungodly. What does it mean to be ungodly?
Be without God, that's all it means. There are some people
that act very, very profane. Very, very profane. I did as
a young man. And Christ died for those that
were without God. Didn't think of God. Didn't seek
God. God wasn't in their thoughts.
They didn't care for God. Wasn't interested in God. And
he says, for scarcely for a righteous man will one die. I mean, it'd
be a scarce thing if a man was righteous. He said, well, I'll
die for him. And then you take a good man, just maybe, just
maybe somebody might die for a fellow that he considers good.
But no, that's not the way God is. But God commendeth his love
toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for
us. That's graciousness. That's graciousness. Look down in verse 10. When we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God by the death of His Son. We were enemies of
God. Aliens from the commonwealth
of Israel. Christ, by His death, He brought God and us together. And if that's by His death, He
reconciled us much more. Being reconciled, we shall be
saved. If His death saved us and His
death reconciled us, what will He living do for us? If His death
brought us to God, what will He do while He's living for us?
If His grace caused Him to go to the cross, if His grace reconciled
us to God, how much more then that He's alive will He give
grace to us? Oh, my. And I tell you, beloved,
when we were his enemies, without thanking or looking for or coming
to him for salvation, he came to us and was gracious. Came to us and was gracious.
How many of us, how many of us here now are trophies of his
conquering grace? How many of us here are trophies
right now of His conquering grace? Grace that came and conquered
our minds, conquered our wills, conquered our nature, subdued
us and brought us to Himself. Huh? Grace unsought, absolutely
undeserved. We love Him. Why? Because He
first loved us. We were polluted in our own blood. And I, Lord, passed by and beheld
our nakedness, beheld our pollution, beheld that we were polluted
in our blood. And he said, when he passed by,
he said, I'll spread my skirts over you, and I say unto thee,
live. Yea, I say, live. Oh, my. When did he do that?
The time of his love. And boy, beloved, when he began
to deal with us, we had no dealings with him. We had no dealings
with him, but he came and started dealing with us. He came to our graves. He came
to our graves. Did you hear what I said? He
came to our graves and called us out of our graves with all
of our grave clothes on and the stench of death on us. And he
said, live, I say unto thee, live. And he's been taking grave
cloths off us ever since, by his grace, being gracious. He just keeps taking them off,
and taking them off, and taking them off. And you know what's
so bad about us? We'll put them, try to put them back on. Try
to dress ourselves back in them. That's how awful this all tastes,
that the Lord is gracious. Oh, my. Grace, free grace. Grace, sovereign grace. Look what Peter said in verse
10 of chapter two here. Oh, found of them that sought
him not. Gracious by nature, gracious
by manner. Look what he said here in verse
10, talking about grace. First Peter 2.10, which in time
past were not a people. You weren't even a people. But
listen to this, but now you're the people of God. Which have not obtained mercy,
but now have obtained mercy. Have you tasted that the Lord
is gracious? And oh, he's so gracious in his gifts. And you
know what? The most gracious gift he gave
was he gave himself. You go through the scriptures,
go through the New Testament, and read how many times it talks
about himself. Himself. Bruce Crabtree tried
to preach on it one time here on himself. Tried to deal with
it. I've tried to deal with it over
the years. What himself is. What it made him. And all that
made him him, he gave him. and everything that made himself,
he gave everything that he was, everything that he is, everything
he gave him. We've never ever given ourselves. We've never entirely completely
given ourselves to anybody. We don't have the ability to
do it. We don't have the ability, we cannot give ourselves We can
give part of ourselves, we can give some time, we can give some
prayer, we can give some love. We can give lots and lots of
things and give up an awful lot and express an awful lot and
give out lots and lots of emotion. There's a lot to us as self. Well, whatever our Lord Jesus
Christ, He was able to give everything that He was that made Him who
He was. He gave Himself, held nothing back. When you get Him, you get everything
He is and everything He did. When He gave Himself to God,
God got all the sacrifice, all of it. And when he gave himself to men,
he gave himself entirely up to men. And you know what they did
with him when they did that? Oh my, how gracious was he when
he gave himself. Though he was rich, yet he became
poor that we through his poverty might be made rich. Oh, what graciousness is that
he gives us pardon, gives us life, gives us justification,
gives us acceptance in the beloved, washed us in his own blood. Look
at Revelations 1.5. I was going to quote this, but
look at it. Revelations 1.5. Look at this. Oh, he's so gracious in his gifts. Give us life. Give us justification. Give us acceptance. Give us grace. Give us mercy. Give us salvation. Look what he said. Verse 5. First
Revelations 1 5. And from Jesus Christ who is
the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead and
the prince of the kings of the earth unto him that loved us. and washed us from our sins in
his own blood. Washed us from our sins in his
own blood. He did it. He did it. Loved us. and because of the
love they had for us. He says the only way they can
be washed, his blood cleanses us from all sin. And he washed
us, washed us, took that blood and washed us. He didn't just
dump it on us, he washed us with it. The Holy Spirit comes and
washes us in that blood. washes us all from the top of
our head to the sole of our feet. Then he goes in our hearts. Then
he goes in our souls. He goes in our mind and he washes
every part of us in his blood. Washes us in his blood. Oh, bless
his holy name. He was forsaken of God to make
us acceptable to God. He was cut off out of the land
of the living to bring us in to the land of the living. He
was made sin to clothe us in his righteousness. No wonder
the apostle says, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. And
this for worthless, good for nothing people like us. Oh, how gracious is our Lord. That's what Peter says, taste
and see. If so be ye have tasted that
the Lord is gracious. Not only is he gracious in his
manner, gracious in his nature, gracious in his gifts, but he
gives more grace. He gives more grace. How do we
express, how do we as believers, how do we express all he is to
us? How would you express what Christ
is to you? How would you express it? How
do you express it? How do you tell it out? We can't even tell
our own heart what all he is to us. We'll get it for a little
bit and then it slips away from us. How can we express all he
is to us? How can we express all he has
done for us? How can we express all that he's
done for us and all it means to us? What word could we possibly
use? What word? I believe graciousness. is about as good a word as we
could find. Gracious, gracious, gracious, gracious. That goes
a long way in describing what the Lord, what he is and what
he means to us and what he's done for us. Graciousness, grace,
grace, grace. How many times, how many times
has he rescued you? How many times has he kept you?
How many times has he forgiven you and me? How long has he loved you? How many times has he comforted
you? How many times has he come and
picked you up? And how many times has he taught
you in graciousness instead of anger? Look in Psalm 116 with
me in verse 8. Psalm 116 verse 8. Look what it says here. Psalm 116
verse 8. This is what I'm talking about.
For thou hast delivered my soul from death, and mine eyes from
tears, and my feet from falling." How many times has he done that
for you? I'll never forget years and years
ago, first time I ever preached in a Sovereign Grace Church,
Fairmont, West Virginia, Katie Baptist Church. Tim James and Jim Byrd was sitting
right there. Hadn't known him, but just met
him, just barely knew him. And when I got, when I was preaching,
Tim was sitting there, tears streaming down his eyes. Jim
Byrd sitting there, you know, his eyes big. And when I got
through preaching, Tim jumped up and grabbed me and said, the
Lord saved me again. And ain't that the way it works?
The Lord saved me again. Oh, he has, he is, and bless
his holy name. One of these days I'm gonna be
as old Barnard said, plumb, plumb, saved. And then look over in
Psalm 94 with me. Psalm 94 in verse 18. Oh, put this in the bulletin
the other day. Wonderful little article by Brother
Henry. Psalm 94, 18. When I said, my foot slippeth, I'm fixing
to fall. My foot's slipping, I'm going
to fall. And when you slip and fall, it hurts. Oh, how it hurts.
It embarrasses you, it hurts your pride. You try to jump up right quick,
but that's what David said. When my foot slipped and I was
just ready to fall, thy mercy, oh Lord, kept that foot and held
me up. That's being gracious. Have you
tasted that, the Lord is gracious? Oh my. When our Lord should have
laid a rod on us, he gave us more grace instead. We've been
full of faults, and he removes them all and don't hold them
against us. He is gracious. We've been full
of wounds, and he heals them by stripes. We have wandered,
but he always brings us back to the fold. He is gracious. Depth of mercy, can there be? Mercy still reserved for me? Can my God forbear me the chief
of sinners spared? Oh, and He is gracious, I tell
you this, for He hears prayers. He hears prayers. We all have
places where we pray. And we witness, we can bear witness
to God answering prayers. God hearing and answering prayers.
There are circumstances that we've been in and we've prayed.
And we can go to that time and that place that we prayed and
God answered those prayers. And we say, the Lord did that. The Lord did. I've got up and
told you that I've prayed about certain things and that may come
out just exactly. The Lord is so gracious. When
a child is sick, how many of you prayed over your sick children? How many of you have laid your
hand on their heads and held them in your arms and prayed
over them when they're sick, when they're weak, when they're
weary, when you didn't have money enough
to take them to the doctor, take them to the hospital, huh? When you've had decisions to
make, big decisions to make, How many of you have prayed,
Lord, don't let me make the wrong decision. Don't let me, please
don't let me do the wrong thing. Oh, and so when these things
come upon us, you call on him. When you have burdens, where
do you take them to? When you have burdens, where
do you take them to? We take them to the Lord Jesus
Christ. And when we take him to him,
he's the one that lifts them off. When you have fears, you
tell him about them. And he comes and he quietens
those fears. Sins, sins that you've confessed. And he came and in his graciousness
took away the guilt. been wounded grievously and your
heart broken at the loss of somebody that you love, and His love and
His grace brings healing, brings healing, brings consolation,
brings comfort. He hears us when we cry out,
I love the Lord because He hath heard my cry. He hears us when we cry out. You know why? Because He's gracious. He is so gracious that He's preparing
for us a place in glory and preparing
us for glory, for a life in the future that's absolutely inconceivable. We don't know what He'll be when
we see Him, but we know this, that when we see Him, We'll be
just like him, be just like him. We're going to be conformed to
the image of God's blessed son. He's educating us right now.
He's weaning us right now. He's conforming us right now
and will someday soon take us to where the Lord, the lamb is
the light of that blessed city. Oh, our Lord is gracious to the
uttermost. I'm ready to go, I'd just love
to go on home. I really would, just, Lord, go
on home. But I can't go home until he
calls me. You can't either, we can't go till he says. Can't
go till he says. When I came back from Vietnam,
I was afraid to come home. I was scared to death to come
back to the United States. I re-upped another six months.
You've been so wild in such awful places and done such awful things
as afraid to come back. But now I've got a home that
I want to go to so bad. I ain't afraid to go there. I ain't afraid to go there. Oh,
and then taste. Let me give you this real quick.
I'm taking too long. I hope I'm not wearing you. How
do we taste? He says, taste that the Lord
is gracious. How do we taste? Faith is how we taste the Lord
is gracious. is the soul's eye. Faith is the
soul's ear. Faith is the soul's hand. And what do we mean when we say
taste that the Lord is gracious? Taste is an inward sense. It's
a private sense. You're the only one that can
do it. It's a personal, powerful and personal appreciation for
what you're tasting. And to taste is to learn the
essence, the enjoyment of what it is you're tasting, to discover
what it is, to gain an assured knowledge of a thing. So taste
that the Lord is gracious. And taste, not only is that,
but taste is a test. Taste is a test. You know of
things eaten. We try food by tasting. We try
the flavors And you know, I know you wises ask your husband, say,
taste this, see if it needs this or needs that or needs something
else in it. See if it's any good. See if it needs more salt. See
if it needs more seasoning. See what else it needs in it.
And taste it. And that's what it says here.
We taste the Lord Jesus Christ and we test to see if he's really
gracious. And he is. He really is. Would you know the Lord graciousness
of our Lord? Take a taste and test and see. Oh, my. Well, oh, taste also means appreciation. Oh, when you taste something
you really, really, really, really, really like and enjoy, oh, how
you appreciate it. And do you really, really, taste
that the Lord is gracious and how much do you appreciate it?
How much do you appreciate it? How grateful are you? And it
takes a living soul to taste a living God and the grace that
he gives through our Lord Jesus Christ. And have you tasted that
the Lord is gracious? Have you? The question is, have you tasted?
You may never be a preacher, may never be a theologian, may
never know much about the scripture, but I tell you one thing you
can do, you can taste. You can taste. You can taste
the graciousness of the Lord. This is the root of the matter.
This tasting that the Lord and His graciousness, it deals with
the whole man. And the graciousness of God deals
with all that we are. And taste that our Lord is gracious. He is, ain't he? Oh, the graciousness
of our Lord. Our Father, in the blessed, glorious,
holy name of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you for
allowing us to be in this service this evening. Talk about the
grace of our Lord Jesus, how gracious he is. How patient,
loving, kind, full of grace, full of truth. And Lord, if you
ever deal with us in anything other than grace, there'd be
no hope for us. We'd be utterly and helplessly
and hopelessly lost. But Lord, you deal with us in
your graciousness. You deal with us in grace. And
thank you for your grace. Thank you that you are gracious.
And Lord, we have tasted, we do taste. Oh, and it's a wonderful
taste, a blessed taste, satisfying taste. Oh, it tastes so wonderful. Sweet,
sweet to our taste. Sweet to our hearts, sweet to
our souls. Sweet to us when we're heavy
laden, sweet to us when we rejoice. Sweet to us when we weep, sweet
to us when we laugh. Sweet to us on our bed at night,
sweet to us in our days. Oh, Lord, you are full of grace.
You are indeed gracious. You are indeed gracious. Bless
your name. Amen.