Well, good morning, church. It's
a blessing to be with you. Whether I'm up here or down there,
it's always a blessing to be here with you, to be able to
worship Christ together and fellowship together. The Lord will have
us in 1 Timothy today. 1 Timothy chapter one, verse
two, but we'll read verse one as well, but mainly we're just
gonna discuss verse two today. 1 Timothy chapter one, verse
one and two. It says, Paul, an apostle of
Christ Jesus, by the command of God, our Savior, of Christ
Jesus, our hope, through Timothy, my true child in the faith, grace,
mercy, and peace from God, the Father, and Christ Jesus, our
Lord. Let us pray. Father God, we are
thankful, Lord, that we do, as your beloved children, have your
grace, mercy, and peace. Father, that we know your mercies
and your love for us never come to an end. Father, you have our
faith to finish the good work that you started within us. Lord,
I pray, God, that as you give me the grace to preach your word
this morning, Father, I pray, Lord, that it will fall upon
our hearts and give us remembrance each and every day father of
your grace mercy and peace lord i pray that's something that
we never forget how we experience this father and what it truly
means uh to receive your grace your mercy and your peace and
lord i just pray lord to be glorified through your preaching this morning
through your word going forth this morning lord i just pray
lord that you would give us the grace to walk with you each and
every day and we ask this no other name but the king of kings
the lord of lords jesus christ amen So we see this letter is
written by the Apostle Paul. We know Paul was an apostle called
by God. And we know God saved Paul on
the road to Damascus even when he was not seeking Christ, but
rather persecuting Christ in his body. But God in his grace
chores Paul, knocked him off his horse and saved him and blinded
him, but yet gave him spiritual eyes to see the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ. But actually, according to the
Galatians, according to the writing of Paul, it wasn't 17 years later
that the pillars of the faith, James, John, and James affirmed
that Paul was called. to be an apostle. Why do they
know that? Because they saw the work that he was doing. As Peter
had the gift of being an apostle to the Jews, they saw that Paul
had the gift of being an apostle to the Gentiles, so they affirmed
that he was an apostle. And it's the same way in our
day. Men are not called to preach just because they say God called
them. We know when God calls a man, he's doing the work of
an elder, doing the work of a pastor, and the elders in the church
take notice, and then the elders of the church affirm that this
man is called by God to pastor a church or called to preach
the Word of God. We know there's never been a
vote in the Bible by a church to say a man is called to preach,
but we know elders are the one whom God uses to affirm the calling
of men to preach. So Paul, Was called out by God
to to be an apostle but in the same way Through the laying hands
of Paul and others elders of the church Timothy was called
out by God to be a pastor to be a preacher of the gospel Especially
of the vision the Ephesian church or area so we see Paul and his
love for Timothy He writes at Timothy in verse 2 and he says
to Timothy my true child in the faith Now we know Paul really
had no biological children But Paul had many children. We know,
as we've been going through 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, and 1 Thessalonians,
Paul, even though he was just with that church for a short
period of time, he refers to them as his children. Meaning
everyone whom Paul taught the Word of God to, out of a supernatural
affection through the work of the Holy Spirit, he would consider
all of them his children. And we see the same thing with
the apostle John. John would write, and he would
start the letter, my little children. And we know when Paul writes
to Titus, he would say, my true child, come into the faith. Now
do I believe Paul considered all the people whom he taught
to be his children, but especially Timothy and Titus? He really
saw them being his children. Why? Because he spent most time
with them. He was like a father figure for them. And you can
see out of Paul's love for Timothy, he writes Timothy a letter while
Timothy is at Ephesus to exhort Timothy to preach the Word of
God. to put things in place, to warn
the church of the false teachers as they come in, and not only
warn them, but exhort Timothy not to even allow them to fellowship
with them, lest they cause the whole body to be split away,
because he warns Timothy that in the coming days, many will
fall away from the faith and go after teachings of devils.
But out of Paul's love for Timothy, he writes to him because he wants
him to do that which God has called him to do. In the same
way, beloved, because God has caused us to become the family
of God, though I might not never see any of you as my children,
but I will always see you as my brothers and sisters in Christ.
And I know James would agree with this, but one of the main
things that I would desire to see Grace Troupe do is not only
just grow in affection for the Lord Jesus Christ, but grow in
affection for each other. That we might invade each other's
lives for the glory of God. That we might write each other
text messages or email each other or visit home to home with each
other. That we might sharpen each other in the faith. That
we might encourage each other to continue on with the Lord
because our lost family members can't encourage us in Christ.
Our lost workers that we work with every day cannot exhort
us on into faith. Only those whom God has called
us to be in fellowship with can do that. And think about the
sovereignty of God and His love for you. That He would predestine
you and on His time would have put you in a body of believers
that would be your faith family. That's God's love, that's God's
grace. I mean, James gets letters or gets people on Facebook all
the time talking about how they cannot find a biblical church
in their area. Even one man even told James
he would even think about moving down here from way up north,
like an Ohio or somewhere like that, to be part of a body of
believers. And at times, here at Grace Truth,
I think sometimes we take that for granted. I know sometimes
I probably take that for granted of being part of a body of believers
who hold to saved by grace alone through faith alone. So how much
more should we love each other and strive to help each other
grow in the faith? But even taking part of the way
that, look at, if Timothy really seeing Paul as his beloved child,
even though he wasn't seeing his beloved child, how much,
what better love than Paul could show Timothy by teaching him
the word of God? As parents, we teach our kids
a lot of things. We teach them how to fish. We
teach them how to hunt. We teach them how to play baseball.
We teach them how to play basketball. We teach them how to sing. We
teach them how to play piano. We teach them all kind of things
that we might have something in common or they got something
in common. But you know everything we teach our children will perish. The
only thing we can teach our children that will remain forever is the
Word of God. Oh, how much more we should strive
and labor to teach our children the Word of God that they might
know God. Because guess what? If our children
do not know the Word of God, it's not the pastor's fault.
And if there's a you pastor, it's not the you pastor's fault.
It's the parent's fault that they did not take the time out
of love for their children to teach them the way of Christ.
Not to teach them morality through the Scriptures because we can
teach our children the Ten Commandments all day and discipline them when
they do wrong, but the only thing we will create is a moral sinner
on his way to hell. Hear that? Just to teach our
children right from wrong, though we might teach them to be good
people, they're still destined to hell and on their way to hell
unless we teach them the gospel. Hear that? We can go out in America
and teach the American people they must obey the Ten Commandments.
But if we just teach them to obey the Ten Commandments, we'll
have a more moral society, but a more moral society who's self-righteous
and on their way to hell. That it's only the gospel that's
going to save our souls and going to save our children's souls.
That faith comes through hearing and hearing the words of God
and how we should pray that God would make us make time. Hear
that? That God would make us make time
to teach our kids the word of God rather than teach them to
do vain things. To Timothy, my true child in
the faith, Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and
Christ Jesus our Lord. If you look at most of Paul's
epistles, most of the time this is how he starts his letters
out. Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's only to Timothy that he
adds mercy in. Everyone else is grace and peace.
But to Timothy he adds mercy. I don't know why he added mercy
to Timothy. Maybe it was because Timothy had more on him than
others did. Maybe he knew Timothy was called
to pastor a great number of people and he knew that being a pastor,
Timothy would need way more mercy to not only teach the people
the way of God, but also need the mercy of God to do that which
he preached. But either way, I also feel like
every time Paul starts a letter out this, he's telling us that
everything you're about to read, Hear that. Everything I'm writing
to you, everything you're about to read is going to be grace,
mercy, and peace to you from God the Father and Lord Jesus
Christ. Because how else can we know the peace of God? How
else can we know the mercy of God? How else can we know the
grace of God apart from His Word? Hear that, beloved. It's impossible.
The creation speaks of God and that He is the Creator of all
things, but we cannot know God intimately except through His
Word. But at times we will go here to find the peace of God.
We will go there to try to find the peace of God or the grace
of God or the mercy of God. And yet we have a Bible at home
who contains everything God wants us to know about himself. Beloved,
even when we go through hardships, people will be there for us.
When family die, people will be there for us. And they will
say love things, helpful things. They will be a shoulder for us
to cry on. They will say encouraging words. But if you ever know,
if you ever been through something like that, did it ever really
give you peace? Did you ever really see any grace
out of that? Because though them things are good and they do it
out of a good heart and out of love for us, it can never give
us the peace, grace, and mercy we're looking for. Only the word
of God can do it. Only the Word of God can give
us that peace that passes all understanding. Only the Word
of God can give us that mercy and grace that we so long look
for. But also I can see every time
he says grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ
Jesus our Lord, he's reminding us, he's reminding us of what
God's grace looks like, reminding us of that we have received the
mercy of God and how we have peace with God. So for the rest
of our time today, I would like to talk about them three. And
how do we relate to it? Grace. Grace, it is free. And it is the unmerited favor
of God shown towards sinners, shown towards his enemies by
saving them. Grace is free, beloved, meaning
we cannot work. We cannot do enough good works
to earn the grace of God. That is the biggest difference
between biblical Christianity and all other Christianity and
all other religions, all other religions and other Christianity
is trying to work themselves into a place where they can receive
the grace of God. And yet beloved God in his grace
sees nobody worth saving despite how many good works they might
have. God's grace is free that he looks down from heaven. He
sees nobody worth saving and yet. He saves. Hear that? Because if he looked down from
heaven and saw somebody worth saving, it wouldn't be grace
no more. Isn't that he looks down from heaven and says, wow,
they're beautiful, let me save them. Oh, wow, he's got a great
voice. Oh, let me save him. It's like
playing basketball as a little kid and you pick the four best
players to be on your team because you can stay on the court. God
isn't like that. God picks the weak. God saves the foolish people
of the world. So there will not be no boasting
before God when He uses them, but all glory will go to God
in saving the weak and saving the fools of the world. Praise
God that He saves the weak and fools of the world. If He did
not, beloved, how would we ever experience the grace of God? Beloved, we cannot pray enough
to earn the grace of God. We cannot go to church enough
to earn the grace of God. We cannot read the Bible enough
to earn the grace of God. I cannot preach enough. I cannot
study the word of God enough. I cannot do anything enough that
God requires of me to do each and every day to earn the grace
of God. For if I could do all them things
enough, then it would no longer be grace. Hear that? Grace is free. Grace is given
to us that God would give us this grace and give us the eyes
to see the beauty of our Lord Jesus Christ. When I started
thinking about this grace and how amazing it was, God started
running scripture through my mind. So I'd like to take the
time to reference some scripture today for you that we can relate
to. One of the first places I would
go in Ezekiel 37, in Ezekiel 37, my mind went there and I
said this, I said, we were the bones in the valley of dry dead
bones in Ezekiel 37, whom the Holy Spirit of God moved and
gave us life. Think about that. We were dry, there were dry,
dead bones, white, from being bleached by the sun, and the
Lord takes Ezekiel there. Ezekiel, can these bones live?
Only you know, Lord. Only you know, Lord. Prophesy
Ezekiel meaning preach my word Ezekiel what happened Ezekiel
stands there and he preaches the Word of God Whether it was
loudly or whether it was quietly or whether he was whispering
it, but I believe he was a zordy out loud He's preaching the Word
of God and next thing, you know the Spirit of God moved and brought
these dry dead bones alive gave my heartbeat and they knew when
I was shadowed out who their God was and Just like the widow's son in
Luke 7 who was dead when Jesus was on the way to name. He stops
and he says, young man arise. And did that young man hesitate?
Did he bring himself alive in his free will? Did them dry dead
bones in Ezekiel 37 bring themselves alive in their free will? No,
beloved. God spoke and they came alive.
When he went up to the grave of Elijah, he spoke and he came
alive. The same way was true with us,
beloved. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, following
in the princely power of the air. Though the doctor told our
parents that we were alive, there was not a spiritual heartbeat
in us. A dead man can produce nothing but deadness. Hear that? A dead man can produce nothing
but deadness. And yet God in his grace towards
us either allowed us to hear his word, read his word, or brought
his word back to remembrance to bring us alive in Christ.
Also said we were like the man in John 5 who was lame and though
he was with many lame, Jesus only showed up and healed him.
Think about that. Jesus goes to this place, there's
many lame. There's like colonies, they said it was a few stories
high. So Jesus appears, I don't, the Bible doesn't say whether
he walked in or he just magically appeared. We know he vanished
at the end, but he appears and this man, Jesus asks him, do
you want to be healed? Sir, I have no one to put me
in the pool. Because they believe that in that day, a myth that
if an angel come by and hit the waters, then that meant someone
could be healed. So the first one in would be
healed. He says, Jesus, the thing about it, he's talking to the
son of God. He's talking to his creator. I had no one to put
me in. He's expressing no faith whatsoever. He doesn't even realize who's
standing before him. And Jesus says, take up your mat. And heals
him, beloved. What was any different between
that man and all other lame men in there? Jesus shows up, he
heals him, and he vanishes. Just like what's the difference
between us and all the other sinners around the world? Were we not mocking as they were
mocking? Were we not blaspheming as though
they were blaspheming? Were we not all like Satan before
God saved us? And yet God in His grace saved
us and only saved us, but in His grace gave us the strength
to heal our crippled spiritual legs and get up and walk with
Him. What love God has shown us, beloved, in saving wretched
people like us I said we were like the naked demon-possessed
man who was a child of Satan in Mark 5. But the Lord crossed
the sea to clothe him, to set him free from the bondage of
Satan and sin, and caused him to become a child of God. And we know scripture teaches
this man had like 2,000 demons in him. And the only reason Jesus
crossed the sea was for that one man, but some scripture says
two. So whether it was one or two over there, we know there
was a man over there who was demon possessed. And this man,
time Jesus stepped out on the shore, the demons brought this
man to Jesus and started having a conversation with Jesus because
they thought their time was up. They thought Jesus, it was the
time up that Jesus had come to destroy them. Yet Jesus spared
them, but yet he sent them into a hurdle, a hurdle swine, that
they might go off a cliff, reminding them that though they escaped
it that day, they are soon to come, their judgment. But this
demon possessed man who was naked, who the people in the city kicked
out the city because they wanted nothing to do with him. Jesus
takes this naked demon possessed man and he saves him and clothes
him. Oh, what a beautiful picture.
We know that Adam and Eve were naked in the garden, but they
were not naked in shame before God until they bit the fruit.
And the moment they bit the fruit, the whole creation became naked
and ashamed before God. And yet God sent His Son, Jesus
Christ, into the world that He might take our sin and hang up
on the cross naked, showing that He was our sin-bearer, utterly
ashamed before God, because our sin was upon Him. And He took
our judgment, and then by God's grace, raising Him from the grave,
that when we believe upon Christ, by God's grace, He clothes us
with the righteousness of Christ. Hear that? We're naked and ashamed.
And when we depart, we be clothed with the righteousness of Christ.
We will never enter the kingdom of God. What do the good people
do in this city? They come out and beg Jesus to
leave. They beg Jesus to leave after
seeing what he had done. And Jesus didn't go, well, y'all
sure? Y'all don't want to follow me? No, Jesus got in the boat
and left. He didn't say two words to him.
Showing the whole purpose of him crossing the sea was to save
the wickedest man Amongst them the chief of sinners like Paul
and me Is that who Jesus saves the outcasts The fools Those
who we would throw our nose up at because they're just too heinous
like the criminals in prison the child molesters and the thieves
and the robbers And yet them are the people whom God saves. And whether we might have done
some of those things or not, we have all done it in our heart
at one time or another. We're all murderers at heart
because we've hated people. We're adulterers at heart because we've
lusted. And yet God has clothed us with the righteousness of
the Son by giving us the grace to trust in Him. I also said, we were like the
woman caught in the adultery in John 8, who should have been
stoned, but Jesus forgave and saved her from the penalty of
her sin. Notice that these men bring this prostitute, this adulterous
woman to Jesus, and Jesus says, he without sin threw the first
stone. One of the favorite scriptures for lost people to quote. And
what happens? They all walk away. Did they
not? They all walked away. But who
was standing there? Jesus. You know what Jesus should have
done? Jesus should have picked up that stone and stoned that
woman to death. Is He not going to do many of
the people just like that at the end of the age? Sometimes
we get so caught up in the self-righteous people walking away that we forget
Jesus, by the law of Moses, should have stoned that woman to death
because of her sin against Him. We forget that at times. But
God in His grace did not stone her to death, but He forgave
her. Just like we, beloved, should be destroyed, we should be crushed
by God. And yet in His grace, He has
not crushed us, but He has brought us alive in His beloved Son that
we might be beautiful and blameless before His eyes. We were like
the prostitute weeping at Jesus' feet in Luke 7 when we forgave. Jesus gets invited to these Pharisees'
house, one of them, Simon, and when they come in, they don't
wash his feet or anything, but this prostitute, this unclean
woman, as they would look at her, hears of Jesus, so she bashes
in these people's house and falls at Jesus' feet and takes all
the money. Because I imagine the perfume
she was using was expensive. So all of her prostituting money
she's off of this perfume with. You realize that? Because that's
how she made her living. And she takes this perfume and
she pours it on Jesus' feet. Nasty stinking feet that he's
been walking around in sand all day. Dirt. And then she takes
her hair and she weeps at his feet. And she takes her hair
and she washes his dirty feet. You know what Jesus should have
done? He should have said, get off me, woman. That's what he should have done.
I mean, did he not tell Moses,
take off your sandals, you're standing on holy ground? You
realize that when he created the seraphim in heaven, that
if he did not create them wings to cover their eyes from seeing
his glory, they would fall out the sky and die in heaven? Who can touch the glorious one
apart from his grace? And Jesus did not kick this woman
off, but yet He forgave her of all her many sins. Think about
our sin, beloved. Is our sin not unmeasurable?
If God could give us all the time to remember all of our sin
and told us to start writing, we would not be here forever
writing. And yet God's grace can cover all that unmeasurable
sin, that His grace goes deeper than our sin goes. Oh, praise
the Lord that He is mighty to give grace to the wicked. And
last but not least, I could go on and on about different times
in the Bible that we see God's amazing grace, but the last one
I will use is this one. We were like the Gentile dog
in Matthew 15 who didn't deserve to sit at the table and eat with
the Master, but Jesus fed her anyways. It's amazing that she
would call Jesus Lord and the Son of David, and He would not
say anything to her. And because she continued on,
his self-righteous disciples, probably Peter was the main spokesman,
were trying to get her to go away. I mean, they were blown away when
he was sitting at the well with the woman from Sarkar. But now
he's even, he's even got this Gentile dog coming up to him.
And what did Jesus tell them when he's, first he don't say
nothing to her, and then they try to get him to go, and he
says, ma'am, I came for the children of Israel. Should I take the
bread of children and throw it to the dogs? And she didn't go,
Jesus, how dare you call me a dog? She went, Lord, does not even
the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table? that Jesus called this woman
a dog and she accepted to what she is. Where a lot of times
Jesus calls us sinners and blasphemers and a lot of times a lot of Christians
do not accept that as their title. And until we accept that which
we are, how can we ever see what God is and His grace and His
goodness and His mercy? Because until we accept ourselves
as what we really are, We are still holding on to our own goodness.
We are still holding on to our own righteousness. But yet God
has told us in his word that there are none who are good.
There are none who are righteous. But we have all went astray.
We have all forsaken him. Think about that, beloved, that
God would blind majority of the Jews
that they could not see Him, that He would deafen the ears
of majority of the Israelites that they could not hear Him
to fulfill the writings of Isaiah, that He would show His grace
in extending it to the Gentiles, that He would graft us in as
beloved children, that He would adopt us into His family. Sometimes
we miss that. Us Gentiles do not deserve to
share in the bread of life. Even the Israelites, they're
dogs that don't even realize it. They don't deserve to share
into the bread of life. But yet this woman realized she
was a dog, Jesus saves her, and now she will eat at the table
with Jesus for all of eternity. That Jesus called her a dog,
but then he saved her and she became a new creation. She went
from being a dog to a child of God. Beloved, but it isn't that we
just need God's grace in saving us. We need God's grace every
day of our life. That's the good news about God's
grace. It's just, sometimes we got this misunderstanding of
what God's grace is, that He brings me to faith, and then
the rest of it's up to me. No, beloved, God's grace, He
brings us alive in Christ, and then He finishes good work that
He starts within us. That if He just left it up to
us, we would run away from Him. Hear that? We would run away
from Him. If God's grace did not continue with us, we would
not continue in the faith. The flesh, even as Christians,
our flesh is hostile towards God. Is your flesh not still
hostile towards God, church? Does it not raise war against
your soul? Is there not a battle between the Holy Spirit that
lives in you and your flesh that hates God and wants to not submit
to Him? Oh, but the Spirit of God helps
us walk in the Spirit instead of in the flesh. But how does
that come to be? By God's grace. Because there's
no power in my flesh to be anything that God calls me to be. It's
by the Spirit of God that I profess Jesus Lord. It's by the Spirit
of God that I believe upon Him alone for salvation. Because
it's grace. Pope Peter denied him three times. Did he not? Three times he was
asked. No, I don't know that man. I
imagine about a third time he was forceful with it. And then Jesus, because he was
not Judas, but was Peter, his beloved child, he gave him grace. Beloved, we need God's grace
to continue in the faith. Many's gonna fall away. Those
who fall away never really had the saving grace of God. But
those who endure to the end, they did not endure to the end
their own power, but they endured to the end because of God's grace.
It's all of God's grace that completes our salvation. Those
who say they, those who hold to a thing that people can lose
their salvation doesn't understand the power of God's grace. How
can Jesus lose that which he has saved? Beloved, he can't. His grace finishes it. Grace,
it is free, beloved. It is unmerited favor of God
shown towards us sinners by saving us. What is mercy? Mercy, beloved,
Is God not giving us the punishment due to us? A lot of times as
believers we forget what we deserve. We forget. We know what the people
of the world deserve. We can flip to that passage real
quick like. We know what they deserve. We
know the judgment of God, but we forget the same judgment that
is coming against them. It's the same judgment that we
deserve. And it's only by God's grace,
which we just went over that keeps us from undergoing his
fury and his wrath for eternity. What is this place? Jesus calls
it a place of hell. When he speaks about hell in
Matthew 18, 12, in Matthew 22, 13, in Matthew 25, 30, he says
it's a place of outer darkness, a place where there's weeping
and gnashing of teeth. In Mark 9, 48, he says it's a place where
the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. In Revelation
14, 11, he says it's the smoke of their torment that goes up
forever and ever and they have no rest day or night. And in
Revelation 20, 14, he speaks of it being a lake of fire. We
know a lot of times when hell, Jesus refers to a place outside
of the city of Jerusalem where there was a trash dump that burnt
all the time. And Jesus says it's gonna be
like this. Imagine how hot that place was there. And it still
wasn't as hot as what God's wrath is gonna be in eternity. You've
heard of firefighters. when they go out to put out forest
fires. And some of them die because they get too close to it. Not
that they were in the fire, but the heat coming off the fire
killed them. And yet God's fire in eternity is gonna be forever.
that he says their torment goes up forever and ever and ever. And what's crazy, beloved, it
is a pleasing aroma in his nostrils because he is exercising his
justiceness for their sin. You ever heard people say, hell
is hell because God's not there? Beloved, that's a lie. Hell is
hell because God is there. His justiceness is there. His
wrath is there. Who is it, beloved, who created
hell? It is Jesus Christ who created
hell. Who is it who upholds the flames in hell that it might
torture and destroy the sinners in hell for eternity? It is Jesus
Christ's Word of His power that holds up everything in hell.
Just like He distributes His wrath in hell, He distributes
His peace, His mercy, and His grace for eternity for those
who are in heaven with Him. Beloved, we deserve this judgment
Because of our sin, we do not deserve mercy, but the one who
did deserve mercy was Christ. Christ deserved mercy because
He fulfilled the law of God. Christ deserved mercy because
He was God's beloved Son, that He was Emmanuel, God with us. And yet He received no mercy.
Yet the Father crushed Him through the hands of men. so that we
could receive mercy. You realize that if Christ does
not die on the cross, even Abraham, Mary, Elijah, Moses, Peter, James,
and you could go through every person in the Bible who was the
saint of God, all of them would perish. if Christ does not die
on the cross. Even God could use them in the
same way He used them, but if Christ does not die on the cross,
nobody enters the kingdom of God. The Old Testament saints
were covered of the coming of Christ. Hear that, beloved. Covered because
of the coming of Christ. That Christ takes on their sin
and he receives no mercy that they might receive mercy because
God in his justice cannot give out mercy unless someone takes
the place. Hear that. Takes the place of
those who deserve to die. He's the justifier of the just. Well, what should be the response?
What should be the response of those who are lost to the mercy
of God? Even a response to those who are saved, saved by the grace
of God. Well, in Matthew 8.13, The parable
of the Pharisee and the tax collector. This is what the tax collector
says. He says, but the tax collector, standing far off, would not even
lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his chest, saying, God,
be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down
to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone
who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself
will be exalted. And then we know in Matthew 18,
38, the blind man who could not see Jesus, but heard of Jesus,
cried out, O son of David, have mercy on me. And they tried to
hush him up. Shut up, man. Nobody wants to
hear that. Oh, son of David, have mercy on me. This blind man realized that
not only would he be blind and see darkness for this time on
earth, but he realized if Jesus had no mercy on him, he would
see pitch black darkness for all of eternity. And what's glorious
about it, beloved, that this man has been blind all the days
of his life, seen pitch black darkness all the days of his
life, and he hears about Christ, and he cries out, he realizes
that he's blind and naked sinner, he cries out for God's mercy,
and God opens his eyes, and what happens? The first person he
sees is the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Hear that,
beloved. This man ain't seeing nothing.
Imagine most people, if they've been blind their whole life,
the first thing they want to see is probably their wife. Or their
children. But this man, the first person
he sees is the Messiah. It's the Messiah, the Savior.
You know what he did? He followed Him, worshipped Him.
Just like the demon possessed man across seas, when Jesus healed
him, he wanted to go with Jesus. And Jesus says, no, go back and
tell everybody what God has done to you. So he goes back to the
cities and he tells everybody what Jesus had done for him. Through God's grace of seeing
what we are and we cry out for his mercy through his spirit
willing up in us, we cry out for his mercy and God gives us
mercy. For all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved, beloved. All who trust in Christ shall
receive the mercy of God. But it isn't just we just need
the mercy of God and salvation, beloved. We, like we need the
grace of God every day, we need the mercy of God every day. I
love what Jeremiah says in Limitations. In 322, Jeremiah says this in
Lamentations. He says, The steadfast love of the Lord
never ceases. His mercies never come to an
end. They renew every morning. Great is your faithfulness. Now keep in mind, Jeremiah is
seeing all type of suffering around him. Imagine that he was in that beloved
and yet Jeremiah could see even with all this suffering around
him all this chaos around him all these people being destroyed
because of their sin He can cry out that God's mercies are new
every morning That God's faithfulness never comes to an end Have you
never begged the question with God that how can he not be sick
of you yet? Think about that. Have you ever
asked God that? Or thought about that? Lord, how can you not be
sick of me yet? I mean, think about your spouse.
How many times have you been sick of them? How many times
in a heated argument have you damned them to hell or told them
to go to hell? I mean, not only do we want them to die, but we
want them to be destroyed for eternity. And if we ain't said it, we thought,
how many times have we divorced them? Maybe not verbally, but
in our mind. Or beg to question our mind, why did we ever marry
this person? Thinking, Lord, can we rewind
the time? Or what about our children? How
many times have they just irked our last nerve when we were sick
of them and we exploded on them? Did not discipline them very
well. Or how many times at work with
those we work with? and we just lose it on them,
and we don't, we're striving to be cross a lot, and they keep
on, we're striving to be cross a lot, and they keep on, we're
striving, and the next thing you know, we have a few uncross a lot of things
to say to them. Or we cuss them out in our mind.
Or we murder them in our heart. And yet, God's not like that. There's never a time in a Christian
life that God wants to destroy him. There's never a time in
God's eyes that after He saves us that He's saying, I'm done
with them. You know, sometimes we get mad
at somebody and it can carry on in the next day. God gives us
mercy and that day and the next day God gives us the mercy again.
His mercies come to us every day. You gotta think, even as
Christians, the things at times that we still do against God,
why in the world does He still feed us? Why does He clothe me? Why does
He give me a roof over my head? Do I, am I deserving of that?
Even as a Christian, am I deserving of that? No, that's God's mercy. It's God's mercy that He would
continue to take care of us and love us despite who we are. And
think about it, He sees it all, beloved. He knows every word
before it comes on our tongue. He knows everything we're gonna
think of before we think it. He knows every deed we're gonna
do before we do it. He even sees why we do what we
do. Even the good that we do to give ourselves glory, God
sees it, which is sin. He knows everything we was going
to do. He knew everything we was going to do, beloved, before
He created us. And yet out of His love for us
and His affection for us, not only would He show us mercy and
saving us through His beloved Son, but He would give us mercy
each and every day of our life. Hear that? God will never fall
out of love with His church. God will always have an affection
for His church. God never desires to throw His
church in hell. Never! Never crosses His mind,
beloved! Because He sees us as He sees
Christ! Oh, what a glorious and a beautiful
thing that God sees me as He sees Christ! And all my sin yet
to come, beloved, that I hate, that I don't want to do no more,
He still sees me as Christ! Oh, what a glorious thing, oh,
what a loving God. And yet, beloved, even though
God is merciful for us each and every day, the wicked don't even
know it because they're blind, and yet God's merciful with them
every day. We think, well, God was merciful with me until he
saved me. Why didn't God destroy me at
my birth knowing everything I would do? And yet he was patient and
long-suffering with me until the age of 25, 26 when he saved
me. Think about some of the wickedest
men we know that he lets them live to 80 and 90. That's mercy. That's giving them life on earth.
That's sparing them from this wrath to come. God's mercies are new every day,
beloved, and how we should rejoice in his mercy, in his grace, in
his love for us. Grace, mercy, and peace. But
peace is what God has given us through His beloved Son Jesus
Christ that the first man Adam condemned us all to hell. Adam
bit the fruit and then we were all separated from God. We were
separated from right standing with God. And then God in His
love makes a way for sinners his enemies to be reconciled
back to him through the second Adam, which is Jesus Christ.
One man condemned us because of sin, the second man gave us
life and justification by righteousness, which is Jesus Christ. Imagine
this, beloved, two countries going to war with each other
and they don't quit having war with each other until what? They
sign a peace treaty. And yet God was at war with man because
of our sin. And yet he signed a peace treaty
with man, not with ink, but with the blood of his own son. And his terms of peace isn't
negotiable. God's terms of peace isn't like
we're a country and we can negotiate with another country to come
to a things of peace. No, God's terms of peace is we must repent
and trust in the Son Jesus Christ for salvation. That's God's terms
of peace. that we would turn away from
trusting in ourselves to save ourselves, that we would turn
away from trusting in our religion, turn away from trusting in our
Christianity, turn away from trusting in our Bible reading
and our praying, or maybe walking out and saying a prayer, that
we would turn away from all them things and trust in Jesus Christ
alone for salvation. For who else can save us, beloved?
He's the only one who's been given amongst heaven by which
we must be saved. that God made a way for us to
be saved through His Son, by killing His Son, by the shed
blood of Christ, our sins can be forgiven because without the
innocent shed blood of Christ, nobody can be forgiven. When
Jesus says, I'm the way, the truth, and the life, I'm the
only one to the Father, beloved, He's saying, look, I'm the only
way that you can have peace with my Father. No other way but through me. Oh, let us draw near to God,
beloved, that we might find peace through His beloved Son, Jesus
Christ. And not only do we need God's
peace to be right with Him for eternity, but beloved, God has
promised us that He would give us peace in this life. As I was
saying earlier, God, the main way God gives us peace is through
the reading of His Word. Through the work of His Spirit,
God can give us that peace that passes all understanding. Though
loved ones can say things to us, but it's not gonna give us
the peace we're looking for as God has given us in his word.
And think about that, beloved. Think about that for one second.
The God of the universe, out of love for us, through the work
of his spirit, would give men the words to write on paper.
And then he would, by his grace and his sovereignty, keep that
word accurate. and translated from Greek to
English accurately so we could know Him and have His peace. We don't deserve to have the
Word of God. And God in His grace, mercy would give it to us that
we might experience peace with Him here on earth. Oh, how we
should take full advantage of that and eat from the bread of
life every day, beloved. That man cannot live off bread alone,
but every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, beloved.
I would encourage you to make sure you're in the God's word
each and every day, that it might be well with your soul. Grace,
mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, it blows my mind, beloved,
as people read the epistles, I reckon, because they fly right
by how anyone can deny the Trinity. I mean, in every New Testament
letter, they always say, God the Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. One person, second person. And
that's just in most times in Paul's introductions. If it was
just Jesus, he'd go, and from Jesus. That's what he would say. The
one of Pentecostal believe it's not the Father, it's just Jesus.
But if it was just Jesus, Paul would not say the Father, but
he says the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That His grace,
mercy, and peace comes to us from God the Father by His love. His overflowing love for us that
He would give us grace, mercy, and peace. His overflowing love
for us. And God decided eternity's past. that He would give it to us.
It isn't that when God saved us, He started loving us. God
has always loved us, beloved. The Father has always loved us,
as He chose us before the foundation of the world, that we would be
holy and blameless before Him, through His Son, Jesus Christ.
That He would adopt us into His family, not only according to
our will, but according to the purpose of His will, for His
glory. That God just shows us that love
when He saves us. And God's love for us will always
be with us. He never leaves us and He never
forsakes us. He has a holy, jealous affection
for us. That He loves us so much that
He doesn't let us be in the practice of going after our own lovers.
All the lovers that we have in our life before He saves us,
He knocks them all over. And in our Christian walk, as
them other lovers try to creep back in at times, He keeps them
away. He knocks them over. He puts
our eyes back on Him because He loves us, beloved. He doesn't
want to share our love with anyone else. Just like I don't want
to share Brooke's love with another man. God doesn't want to share
His love with us. I mean, He doesn't want us to
share our love with something else other than Him. And because
of His overflowing love for us, brother and sisters in Christ,
He gives us grace, mercy, and peace. That He has adopted us
into His family. We went from being children of
Satan to children of God. Because, beloved, when we were
first alive, we come into this world as children of the devil.
We did the works of the devil. And yet, God the Father drawed
us and open up our eyes to see the glorious of His beloved Son,
Jesus Christ. From God the Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ, we know the Father has made His Son Lord over all. Oh, I love the great passage
in Philippians 2, 9. It says, Therefore God has highly exalted
him who is Christ, and bestowed on Christ a name that is above
every name, so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow
in heaven and on earth, and on the earth, and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord to glory of God the Father. that
Jesus Christ is supreme over all things. And not only is he
supreme over all things, he will always reign supreme over all
things. Hear that, beloved? You hear
preachers all the time, God, Lord, help them. You need to
make Jesus Lord. How do you make someone Lord
who's already Lord over your life? You need to accept Jesus
as Lord. How do you accept someone's Lord
who's already Lord? He's not asking you to accept
him as Lord. He's already told the world that
he is Lord. You just suppress the truth of
it. He's calling for you to repent and submit to Him by faith. To
trust in Him. The gospel call is never asked
by us to you. It's never begged by God to you. God always commands for us to
repent and to trust in Him for salvation. That we know Jesus
Christ isn't just the Lord over all, but Jesus Christ was the
image of the invisible God. Christ is the face of God. Jesus
was, as Clausius would say in, I think, 2.9, that deity dwelt
bodily. Deity, supreme being, dwelt bodily
in the person of Jesus Christ. Oh Lord, in Hebrews 1. Oh, Hebrews
1, beloved. If you have time today, read
Hebrews 1. You see Paul or whoever wrote Hebrews, you see them referring
to the Old Testament of the Father, speaking of the Son. You see
the Father calling the Son God. You see the Father telling the
Son that He laid the foundations of the world. You see the Father
telling the angels to worship His Son. And who does God share
His glory with? Who does the Father share His
glory with? No one, except His Son, Jesus Christ, who is one
with Him. Oh, beloved, Jesus Christ is
Lord over all. And beloved, He's a good Lord.
Hear that? He's a good Lord. He tells us
to come to Him and bear His yoke, which is easy, not hard. You know why His yoke is easy?
The way I see it, why His yoke is easy? Because no longer do
we have to work for His love. No longer do we have to labor
for His affection. No longer do we have to try to
earn grace, earn righteousness. When He opens up our eyes to
see it's all about Him, He sets us free from that way of thinking
and He shows us that He is Savior and all who draw near to Him,
all who trust in Him shall be saved. All who call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. Adam and Eve became naked in
the garden, and what did they do? They sewed fig leaves together. They sewed fig leaves together.
I imagine, as they got them sewn together, they looked at each
other and said, okay, we dress now. We clothed up. And when Jesus
showed up in the garden, they were still naked. And man, in
all their religions, even in Christianity, still sewing fig
leaves together, working themselves slap to death to hide their nakedness
from God. And when the Lord of glory comes,
Jesus Christ, they will still be naked if they haven't trusted
in Him, beloved. Oh, beloved, if you're trusting in what you're
doing for salvation today, I would plead with you to stop. It's
trusting Christ alone. So many Christians I hear, you
must be good. You must trust in Christ and
be good. Beloved, it isn't trusting Christ
and be good. That's another gospel. It's trusting
Christ alone who has made you good before him. It's another
gospel if I'm still hanging on to my own goodness. I'm a sinner
that needs Christ, needs to trust in Christ for salvation. So beloved,
I would plead with you today to become free. As I said earlier,
we cannot pray enough. I don't pray enough. I don't
preach enough. I don't read the Bible enough.
I don't come to church enough to earn the grace, mercy, peace,
and love of God. And I can be in the word of God
every moment of every day until he takes my last breath, like
the Pharisees probably were. And it still wouldn't be enough. It still wouldn't be enough.
Oh, beloved, let us turn from anything we're trusting in and
trust in Christ who has given us his life as a ransom, has
died on the cross for us that we might receive his grace, mercy,
and peace, not just in his kingdom to come, but here on earth as
well. Let us trust in Christ. Let's pray. Beloved, Thankful, Lord, that You would
allow us to open up Your Word and read it, Father. Lord, I'm
so thankful, Lord, that You would allow us to hear about your grace,
your mercy, and your peace, and remind us of, Father, what we
have escaped your judgment to come, and how now, Father, as
we once were lost, but now we've been found, now we have peace
with you, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. Lord, I pray, Lord,
that we would never turn away from trusting in you. Will you
tell us in your word, Father, that many, many, Father, will
fall away from the faith, Lord, let us not fall away from the
faith. Lord, show us your grace for all of eternity. Lord, let
us long for your coming. Let us long to be with you, Lord.
Let us wake up every morning refreshed by reading your word,
refreshed by going to prayer with you, our Father, in the
name of Christ. And Lord, let you use our lives
for your glory. And we ask this in no other name
but the name of Jesus. Amen. God bless you, church.