["Pomp and Circumstance"]
We hold our valley with Jesus Christ.
Together his love was home.
Now we hold our valley with Jesus Christ.
Together his love was home.
There will be no more sorrow when Jesus comes.
Together his love was home.
Now we hold our valley with Jesus Christ.
Together his love was home.
There will be no more sorrow when Jesus comes.
We're blessed to be with Jesus, but together with one another.
Together is the one soul.
Though he knows our valley can choose us,
but together love one another.
We'll be strong, holy, with Jesus Christ.
We'll be strong, hungry, with Jesus Christ.
We're a joyful being, with Jesus Christ.
Together is love one's own.
We'll be bold, our valley can choose us,
but together is love one's own.
Heavenly Father, thank you for this service.
Thank you for your word.
I pray that you fill Deacon Russell with your Holy Spirit
and help him preach boldly to us to edify our lives.
In the mighty name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Amen.
My Jesus, I know, I know that thou art mine,
Lord, in all the world, thus with thy desire,
thy gracious Redeemer, our Saviour, our God.
Wherever I go, my Jesus is found,
my lovely God, as well as to love me,
and precious my Lord, one hell or two.
I love thee forever, Lord, on thy ground.
Wherever I go, my Jesus is found,
and precious my Lord, one hell or two.
I love thee forever, Lord, on thy ground.
Wherever I go, my Jesus is found,
and precious my Lord, one hell or two.
Wherever I go, my Jesus is found,
and precious my Lord, one hell or two.
Tonight I'll sing with the river,
and I'll love you my God.
Wherever I go, my Jesus is found.
OK, Matt, let's talk a little bit about the announcements.
As always, the service time's in there on the upper left-hand side.
We'll be back this Thursday for Acts, chapter number 16.
And then we've also got the announcement, of course,
this next Sunday we'll be celebrating five years as a church,
so praise the Lord for that.
If you weren't planning to come out, please do so.
If you can bring a dish, that's great.
If not, come out and enjoy.
We'll have a couple of briskets and some other dishes.
You know the drill, folks.
Everyone in here has probably heard it enough.
So, but come on out.
Don't forget, Saturday we're having the Soul Eating Marathon.
You got the times there.
There's also the sign-up sheet in the back for the volunteer cleaning.
Whoever's cleaning next week after the anniversary service might need a hand.
So just keep that in mind.
I'm not sure who signed up for that week, but it's going to probably,
we know how we are, right?
It's going to be especially dirty because we're going to be eating all kinds of food
and people are going to be running around playing games and everything.
So it's going to be regular service times next week, too.
I'm not going to bump up the afternoon service.
So people can have time to just come here, enjoy the meal afterwards,
go home, take a nap, do whatever, and then come on back in the evening.
So nothing's changing next week, but I am looking forward to it.
I'm looking forward to another five years as a church as well.
So it's been a great five years.
But let's not get all mushy right now, right?
Also on the back, there's the expectant ladies list.
And also if you have any videos or photos to contribute to the montage I'm putting together
for the anniversary service, just let me know.
I think I've got everybody's pretty much.
It's being added to an album and things like that.
So anyway, let's quickly go back to, just count up the soul winning going back to Friday.
If there's anything from Friday or Saturday.
I know we had a couple Saturday.
Was it one?
Anything?
Friday?
Oh, sorry.
I missed you.
I wasn't ignoring you, brother.
I swear.
Saturday?
Saturday at three.
Three.
And then what about today?
Today at three.
Three.
Crushing it.
All right.
Well, keep up the great work, soul winning.
Let's go ahead and sing one more song before we get into preaching tonight.
Be very sure.
We'll make her home.
There comes the sun in her eyes.
And the times like these will give the Bible.
And times like these will be our idol.
Be very sure.
We'll make her home.
There comes the sun in her eyes.
And the times like these will give the Bible.
And the times like these will be our idol.
Be very sure.
We'll make her home.
There comes the sun in her eyes.
And the times like these will give the Bible.
And times like these will give the Bible.
And the times like these will be our idol.
Be very sure.
We'll make her home.
There comes the sun in her eyes.
And the times like these will give the Bible.
Be very sure.
We'll make her home.
There comes the sun in her eyes.
Amen.
We'll make her home.
And the times like these will give the Bible.
There's kind of this theme here throughout this chapter
about God's word, about his commandments, and really how
God's commandments make us accountable. And even in the first
several verses here he talks about how even all of man has been made
accountable to God. He says about how the heavens declare the glory of God.
The firmament showeth his handiwork. So he's basically
saying everyone can look at the heavens and see that there is a God.
And we know Romans 1 tells us the same thing. We won't get into all that.
But he's saying, look, verse 3, there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.
Their line is going out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world.
So he's saying, look, the sun's going out, creation, it's something that just
makes all of mankind accountable to the fact that there at least is a creator.
And that if man would happily seek after him, if he would feel after him,
he would be found of them. If man will ask, if man will seek, if man will
knock, he will be heard, he will receive,
it will be opened unto him. Man can look at nature and see that there's a heaven.
So that's kind of the general accountability that
everybody has. But then as he kind of goes on through the chapter, he starts to
kind of narrow it down to where God's people are accountable
through his word. All of mankind can look at
nature and be accountable to the fact that there is a God,
but then we as God's people because of God's word are held to a higher level
of accountability. And then he gets real personal at the end where
he's talking about himself. He's holding himself highly accountable
through God's word. He's saying in verse 7, the law of the Lord is perfect
converting the soul. It's perfect. There's nothing lacking from God's word.
There's nothing that God has forgotten to tell us about. God has addressed
every area, every circumstance, every situation that we could find ourselves
in. It's perfect. God's law addresses it.
It's converting the soul. It helps us get right. The testimony
of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. So the commandments,
the testimony, this is all words that we would use to
describe the Bible or God's word. And he's saying that testimony
is sure. You can trust it. We don't have to wonder, do we have everything
that we need to live a life that is pleasing unto God?
Do we have everything that pertaineth unto life and godliness in Christ Jesus in the word of God?
It's sure. The statutes of the Lord are right.
Whatever God said is right. God didn't make a mistake in anything that
he wrote in the word of God. Everything that he has commanded, everything that he has
laid down for us, all the dos, all the don'ts are right.
And if we don't line up with that, we're the ones that are wrong.
They're right rejoicing the heart.
That's the great thing about the law of God. Happy is the man that
feareth always. When we're right with God, it rejoices the heart.
It's such a great thing to know right from wrong
according to the scripture, that we have a rock to stand on, that you rejoice our heart
the word of God. The commandment of the Lord is pure
enlightening the eyes. It gives us that wisdom. The fear of the Lord is
clean, enduring forever. Look, anything you do in service to God
is going to endure. When we fear God and keep his commandments,
that's something that's going to endure forever. The rewards that we earn in Christ will never
go away. The judgments of the Lord are true
and righteous altogether. So he's kind of reiterating that earlier point
about the statutes of the Lord being right. He's saying they're pure, they're clean,
they are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired
than gold are they than gold, yea,
sweet as fine gold, sweeter also than the honey in the honeycomb. Now verse 11
is where he starts to talk about the accountability.
Where he says, Moreover, by them, by what? By the commandments, by the statutes,
by the judgments, all the things that were just described,
by them thy servant is warned, and in
keeping of them is great reward. So the Bible,
God's commandments, not only do they warn us, but when we
see them and keep them, there is great reward. And that's something we have all
heard me talk about at length from behind this pulpit.
But notice again that not only is it that we're rewarded, but also that we're warned.
We're being held accountable by the word of God. When we learn things
and know things about the word of God, that brings us to a certain level of accountability.
And that's kind of what he's dealing with in this chapter.
He goes on and says, Who can understand his
errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults.
Who can understand his errors? Obviously the word of God is pure. The word of God is
right. It's righteous altogether. And if we keep it,
there's great reward. But the fact is that we all sin.
We all commit sin. We all have errors that we commit. None of us
is perfect. We're all going to make mistakes. We're all going to do things that are wrong.
We all have errors. Who
can understand them? Who can count back his sins to God?
None of us can say that we are without error.
And he says, Cleanse thou me from secret faults.
The things that I do that I'm not even aware of.
The sins that I commit, God cleansed me from them. Forgive me for that.
That's basically what he's saying. Cleanse me from these secret faults.
And what he's showing us here is that there's certain sins that we kind of all have
and then there's certain sins that we don't even know we have.
But then he goes on and talks about presumptuous sins. Look at verse
13. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous
sins. So notice the also there. He's talking about
the secret faults. He's talking about the errors. And then he says also,
meaning in addition to these, the presumptuous
sins. So there's a couple different things going on here.
The errors that we all have that can't be counted back.
The secret faults. The things that we don't, we sin through ignorance that we don't even
know that we do. Maybe it's even, the Bible says to him that knoweth
to do good and doeth it not. To him it is sin. Maybe it's the things
we're not doing that we don't even think about. But then there's also this other
thing where he talks about called presumptuous sins.
And obviously this is also something that we all have been guilty
of to some degree or another. Everybody in life has probably sat
down and thought, you know, I'm gonna go do this thing. I know it's wrong.
I know what the Bible says about this, but I'm gonna do it anyway. That's a
presumptuous sin. That's what it means to be presumptuous.
To just presume something. To just go ahead and do it.
Presumptuous, you know, the
dictionary definition is failing to
observe the limits of what is permitted or appropriate.
That's what it means to be presumptuous. To just know what the limits are and then
just failing to observe them. Just saying I know what this limit is.
I know what the Bible says, but I'm just gonna do this anyway. That's a presumptuous sin.
And look, I'm bringing this up because presumptuous sins are serious.
When we sin presumptuously, you know, that's a very
serious thing. Obviously we all have, you know, errors.
We all have secret faults. And we've all, you know, probably
in some way, shape, or form are even guilty of presumptuous sins.
Right? But there's also different degrees to that also, aren't there?
There's different degrees to sin. Not all sin is equal. You know, that's a crazy thing
to think. That's why Jesus told Pilate, you know, that the Jews
because they had delivered him unto him had the greater sin.
Right? That's why he said, you know, those other certain cities, it would be
more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than some of these other places in the day of
judgment. Okay? Where if the works had been done to them, they would have remained unto this day.
So if we commit certain
sins presumptuously, you know, that's a serious thing.
And it's not, you know, and it needs to be preached because of the fact that,
you know, it puts us in line with God's judgment. Okay? That's what brings
God's judgment. That's why he's praying this. That's why he's saying keep back thy servant from presumptuous
sins. He's saying I don't want to just, you know, I have enough errors.
I have enough secret faults. Let me just add on to top of all that presumptuous sin.
Right? Just go out and boldly sin against God.
He said let them not have dominion over me. Obviously we're all
going to do it. We're all going to, you know, be tempted to do things
and we're going to reason ourselves and talk ourselves into doing
something we know we shouldn't do. Right? We don't want these things to
have dominion over us in our lives. And we'll get into why here in a minute.
You can leave Psalms 19 and go over to
2 Peter chapter number 2. 2 Peter chapter number 2.
Just to get an idea of what it means to sin presumptuously. Let's look at
2 Peter chapter number 2 beginning in verse 9 where we'll see how this word is
used there. It says in verse 9 of 2 Peter 2, the Lord knoweth how
to deliver the godly out of temptations. Now stop right there
and think about that. You know the Bible says there's no temptation
taking you but such is as common to man and that God will not allow
you to be tempted above that which ye are able but with the temptation also may await to
escape that you may be able to bear it. Look there's no temptation in life
that you cannot escape through the Lord. I'm not saying it's easy but I'm
saying it's there. You know and we have to believe that. We have to believe
verse 9 where it says that the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly
out of temptations. Whether that's trials and tribulations
in the form of persecution, whether that's the temptations of the flesh and of sin
God can deliver us out of that. You know if we do these things the Bible says we shall
never fall. But as we read in Psalms you know
we also have our we have our errors we have our secret faults
and even at times we have our presumptuous sins.
And he uses that term here moving on it says that in verse 10 but chiefly
them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness
and despise government so they despise authority
they despise the rules. Isn't that what presumptuous means to have
a disregard to fail to observe the limits of what is
permitted? Right? Government set up hey this is what's permitted this is what is not.
A presumptuous person would just say cast off the rules
and say well I'm going to do it anyway. Right? They walk in
the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise government.
Presumptuous are they. So you can see how this word's being used there. They
despise government. They're presumptuous. They are self-willed.
They're not going to do what the you know they're not going to keep the rules.
They're not going to obey the commands. They're going to go ahead and just do whatever they want.
That's being presumptuous. They are not afraid
to speak evil of dignities. And this really is the most
concerning thing about presumptuous sins is if you can sin
presumptuously and have no fear about it. You get it yourself on very
dangerous ground at that point. You know presumptuous
sins basically what we're seeing here are sins that we willingly
commit when we know better. We know what the Bible says and we do it
anyway. It's the opposite of the sins of ignorance.
Right? There's some sins that you know like the psalmist said you know we have our
secret faults. We have sins of ignorance. In fact God we won't take the time
to turn there but in Leviticus 4, 5, book of Numbers chapter
15 God has entire sacrifices that he prescribes
for individuals and in fact the nation to perform when
they are guilty of a sin of ignorance. When it's found out
like they did something wrong. They didn't know it at the time but then it's revealed to them hey what you
did was wrong. They're like oh it's a sin of ignorance. Here's what he has to do.
Here's the sacrifice that you have to make. What we're seeing
so far is that the Bible makes a very clear distinction
between sins of ignorance, secret faults,
just the errors that are kind of common to man, the things that we stumble and fall into in a sense
and then just sins that are just presumptuous and bold
and self-willed. There's a big difference. And again
as I said a lot of times what comes with the presumptuous sinning is a lack
of fear of consequences and that's really the most
concerning thing. If you would
go over to 1 Timothy chapter number 1. Let me just read to you
a couple other verses about
showing the difference between sinning through ignorance and just presumptuously sinning.
Because there is a difference. Not all sins are equal
not all sins are the same, not all sins come from the same place
and not all come from the same motive. Sometimes people sin for
different reasons. Sometimes we sin out of ignorance
and sometimes we sin because we don't care what the consequences are.
We just flout the rules and just do it anyway.
For example in Acts 17 when Paul was preaching to the heathen on Mars Hill
and he brings up their unknown god and he's talking about
how in times past God
winked at but now commandeth all men to repent.
When the gospel came to them, when Christ came, the gospel
is going out into the world, God is saying you know what you need to repent of these false idols.
Obviously that's something God always wanted but in the past God kind of
winked at this ignorance. It didn't have the same gravity. Obviously it still led to
hell but now God is bringing
another level of accountability to the world because of the fact that Christ had come into
the world. So again you can see how God has
different considerations when it comes to sin. Is it a sin of ignorance?
Is it a sin of presumption? He says in Deuteronomy 19
verse 3, thou shalt prepare thee away and divide the coast of thy land
which the Lord thy God giveth thee to inherit into three parts that
every slayer may flee thither. So he's talking about the
cities of refuge. How when they came into the land they'd have to set up certain cities
so that people could flee into these cities and then have
a day in court basically. And this is the case of
the slayer which shall flee thither that he may live.
Whoso killeth his neighbor ignorantly, whom he hath not hated
in time past. As when a man goeth into wood with his neighbor
to hew wood and his hand fetches the stroke with the axe to cut down a tree
and the head slippeth off from the health and lighteth upon his neighbor that he die.
He shall flee into one of those cities and live lest
the avenger of blood pursue the slayer while his heart is hot
and overtake him because the way is long because you don't have enough of these cities
and slay him whereas he was not worthy of death. So this guy
killed somebody. But he's basically saying it's manslaughter.
It's like when you go into the woods and you're chopping down a tree and the axe head
flies off and hits another guy and he dies.
And that's very practical. I remember I had jobs where we would have
to swing sledgehammers
and one of the things we always did before you would swing that is you'd look behind you
and if there was anyone behind you you'd say hey move I'm swinging this thing. Because you don't want to go like this and have
a 15 pound piece of iron hurtling
at your face. It's not going to end well.
So that's kind of what he's saying here. But what he's showing us is that even
in cases where death is involved, sometimes it's just done out
of ignorance. And God's saying hey you're going to show mercy onto that guy. There's still a punishment
he couldn't leave until the death of the high priest. It's not like he got off scot free
but he's not going to be worthy of death because it was a sin
of ignorance. Whereas the guy that plots and commits first degree murder
it was going to go life for life. It was the death penalty.
There was no city of refuge. It would have ended him in having to die.
So you can see how there's these examples throughout scripture
of sins of ignorance and then presumptuous sins and how there's varying
degrees of punishment for each. Because in God's eyes
there are varying degrees of severity of those sins.
Another great example of this is the Apostle Paul.
We read early on in Acts how Paul made havoc of the
church and hauled away men and women into jail. Likely a lot of them
to death. How Stephen when he was stoned
they laid down their clothes, those that stoned them at the Apostle Paul's feet and he
was consenting unto the death of Stephen. The first martyr
in the New Testament. Now notice what
he says here in 1 Timothy chapter 1 verse 12. Because you hear these stories about
Paul and be like man why is God using a guy like that? And he said
I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who hath enabled me for the economy faithful will put in me the ministry
who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious
but I obtained mercy. Why? Because I did it ignorantly in
unbelief. He's saying yeah I did all these terrible things but you know what
I did it ignorantly. I was
still lost in Judaism. I was still
a Pharisee. I was still worshiping that way. I wasn't
saved. I was doing these things ignorantly.
I was in unbelief. Then he goes on and says
in the grace of our Lord and succeeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus
this is a faithful saying worthy of all acceptation that Christ came over to save sinners of whom I am chief
how be it for this cause I obtained mercy
that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all
longsuffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.
So it's kind of wordy there at the end but what he's basically saying is
one of the reasons I obtained mercy is so that I could be an example to other people
who have done things in their past ignorantly in unbelief.
Right? That there's hope for them. That they could still be used of God to do
things because this is a hang up some people have. People get saved later in life
they come into the Christian life and they have all this baggage and they're just saying oh God
would never use me because X, Y, and Z. You know Paul's saying
God showed me mercy I obtained mercy so that I
could be a pattern to you. That God used me despite the fact that
I was a persecutor and injurious. Right? And that I made havoc
of the church. He said I obtained mercy. Right?
Now what is mercy? Mercy and grace are two different
things aren't they? Mercy is not getting what you deserve.
Grace is getting what you don't deserve. Right?
You know if I were to just come up to you after church and just say hey you know what
I want you to have this and I just slapped a hundred dollar gift card to
Texas Roadhouse or your favorite restaurant or whatever you say well what did I do to deserve this?
Nothing. I'm just you know just being what? I'm being gracious.
Very gracious of you is what you'd say. You're being generous like that.
Right? And God you know is very gracious towards us.
That's not the same as mercy. Right? Mercy is when we fully deserve
to be punished. We have something coming our way and then we decide not to do it.
Right? We show mercy onto an individual. We show mercy
onto our children. We show mercy you know onto
others. What about like you know the presidential pardon? Right?
You know president has the power to just pardon somebody and release them from
jail if they want. What's he doing? That's not that the guy
oh it's not that it's found out the guy is innocent. He's just saying you know what this particular
circumstance we're just going to show mercy to this guy. You know
I'm throwing myself at the mercy of the court. You know don't throw the book at me.
Don't give me the full sentence. Show me mercy. Right?
You know mercy is something that we need.
Okay? And here's the thing. When we commit certain sins
when we sin out of ignorance we're still guilty.
When we sin you know because of secret faults things that we're not even
aware of it's just out of ignorance. You know we still
need that mercy. And you know what? Praise God that mercy is there.
But when we sin presumptuously
you know that mercy might not come quite as
easily. I mean isn't that kind of what we've seen in scripture
so far? I mean when God is saying hey
the guy who killed the guy ignorantly make sure you have plenty of cities around. Make sure that the
way isn't too long to the city of refuge so that he can get there. It's like God
is concerned about that individual. The guy who just goes out and just
accidentally literally kills somebody commits manslaughter
he's concerned. He's like I don't want this guy to die for that.
And doesn't that sound like God's pretty concerned about that individual? He's not just like
well you know he killed somebody. No God doesn't want innocent blood. He wants
mercy to be shown unto that person. He wants them to have a chance. So he's saying
make sure you have these cities close enough throughout the land so this guy can get there.
Whereas the guy that just commits first degree murder who just sits down
and plots and plans and says yeah I'm just going to go kill this guy which is a sin of
presumption. It's a presumptuous sin. God says no mercy.
Right presumptuous sins you know mercy is
not going to be as readily available for us as I believe
as sins of ignorance. Because we knew what we were
doing was wrong. We knew what we were doing was unbiblical.
That it was sin. And we did it anyway. And look we're all guilty of this.
Some to more degrees than others.
And it's not to say that mercy isn't available.
It is. For all sin.
Go to Luke chapter number 12. This is something Jesus taught.
That you know we are held to a higher degree of accountability
when we understand and know things. If we understand and know
what the Bible says about certain things and then we disregard it
we are presumptuous. We're held to a higher
degree of accountability.
It says in verse 42, and the Lord said, who is then that faithful and wise steward
whom his Lord shall make ruler over his household to give their portion of meat in due season? Blessed
is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing.
But by truth I say unto you that he will make him a ruler over
all that he hath. But if that servant say in his heart
my Lord delayeth his coming and shall begin to beat the menservants
and maidens and to eat and drink and to be drunken
the Lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him.
So it's not the guy didn't know he was coming he was just saying well he'll show up some other time.
He's being presumptuous. Ah he's not going to be here today I might as well just eat and drink
and you know beat everybody up. It's a crazy story. Right?
He's coming at a day when he looketh not for him. It's not that the servant doesn't know that the master's
coming back it's just that he's not looking he's just saying well it's not today.
He's being presumptuous. At an hour when he is not
aware and will cut him asunder and will point him his portion with the unbelievers.
Saying the guy that's just going to be some presumptuous guy and just behave in
all these manners look he's going to get it. Like an unbeliever. I don't believe he's
talking about losing his salvation. Because he says he's giving him his portion.
Right? What portion does an unbeliever have? He has none.
He has no portion. He gets no reward.
That's not the point of this. Look at verse 47. And that servant which knew his
Lord's will and prepared not himself neither did
according to his will. He knew it. He knew his will
but he didn't prepare himself and he certainly didn't do it. He shall be
beaten with many stripes. But he that
knew not and did commit things worthy of stripes shall be
beaten with few stripes. So he's saying hey the guy
that knows what's right and doesn't do it he's going to be beaten
with many stripes. He's going to have a more severe judgment.
Whereas the guy who was ignorant. Right? He
sinned but he did it ignorantly. He'll be beaten with few stripes.
So it's not the same punishment for everybody. But what's the difference?
Knowing the Lord's will versus not knowing it. That's the only difference.
They broke the same rules
but one guy knew and one guy didn't. One guy was ignorant and one guy was
presumptuous.
Look how he finishes. For unto whomsoever much is given
of him shall much be required. The more knowledge you're given the higher
the greater degree of accountability you have.
And let me just say this to all the young people in the room that are growing up in Faithful Word Baptist Church.
There is so much sound biblical preaching that comes across
this pulpit and the pulpit in Tempe. There's so much Bible that's just being
explained. So many warnings that have gone out about fornication
and drunkenness and adultery and all these other things that if the young people in this room
decide to grow up and go out and just live a wicked and sinful life God
will hold you to a higher standard than average Joe unsaved
out there. I promise you that. I mean isn't that what we're reading in the Bible tonight?
Isn't that exactly what Jesus is saying? He that knows his Lord's
will and doesn't do it shall be beaten with many stripes.
But that he that did not know his Lord's will who was ignorant of it shall be beaten with few stripes.
They're both going to get a beating but the guy who knew better is going to get a
more severe beating. Look and God chastens every son who
we receive it. When we sin presumptuously
it just appears to me out of scripture that mercy may be not be as readily
as available as we'd like. That there's a better chance that God's going to come down
even harder on us than somebody else who doesn't know better.
And to whom men have
committed much of him will they ask the more. See the problem
with presumptuous sin is that it puts us on the path to judgment.
When you sin presumptuously it just puts you right. It just brings down
the cross hairs of God's judgment in your life. Look that's
scary. That's frightening. And when you see people
sin presumptuously you know I don't get angry. I don't get upset.
I get on my knees and say God show mercy. Please be
merciful. That's what I want.
But it's kind of up to other people to determine whether or not
they're going to get that mercy.
Presumptuous sin puts us on the path to judgment. And you know what else doesn't happen? It doesn't
help? Is when we start to justify our sin. We start to give
all these reasons and explanations of why it was okay for us to go ahead and just
commit sin. That doesn't help things.
That's the exact opposite of what we should be doing if we want mercy from God.
And I'm trying to get across this evening is that if you've sinned presumptuously
you need mercy desperately.
Even more so than the guy who sinned
ignorantly. The guy who sinned ignorantly he still needs mercy but not like
the guy who sinned presumptuously because he's going to have a more
severe chastening because he knew better.
So what we don't want to do when we sin presumptuously is just start justifying it
and making excuses of why it was okay.
You know I was thinking about this. It reminded me of this old story that I heard years ago.
A preacher told this story. And I don't think this is Baptist folklore because I only heard it from one guy.
You know there's the typical stories and illustrations that every
Baptist preacher uses, right? But I've only heard this from one guy. So I think
this is a true story. And he said it was a true story.
But there was this young kid in this town and just a boy.
You know, young boy and this boy
was, I was going to say he was a certain way but I've been told that this is culturally
sensitive or something to use this term. So he was mentally handicapped.
Is that the correct way? Yeah, mentally handicapped, right? He was on the spectrum
or something. I certainly wouldn't, anyway I can't say that word.
There is some things I'm not going to say just out of sensitivity.
I can be sensitive. It happens. But you know he was slow.
He was mentally handicapped. There's something wrong
with him. I don't know exactly what it was. But he had this really bad habit.
Where he got into this thing where he would hide by the side of the road
and whenever he saw a car coming he would jump out in front of the car. And the car would
have to like lock up the brakes. And he just
and people would get upset. Like whoa, they'd almost hit him. And people were
going to his parents or getting upset. And they're like, you know, he runs away and he goes
out and he does this. And finally they asked him, why are you doing this?
And it came out that he just really liked the sound of the car horn.
He just liked the sound when people were trying to warn him.
He was just fascinated with that.
And you know they keep trying to get him, the story goes, they keep trying to get him to stop
doing this and he just keeps doing it. They just can't keep him from running out in front of cars.
Because he just loves the sound of that horn.
And then one day he's out there and he hears a train.
You ever hear a train horn? If you're into horns, a train horn is a pretty cool
horn, isn't it? I don't like train horns.
I remember one time I was crossing a street, this is back
in Michigan, like it was like a busy intersection and there was like
the train tracks were like, you know, 30 feet away. And there's a
train going by and I'm crossing the street like all the traffic is stopped
and I'm going across the crosswalk and the train's coming this way and I'm just
another day just walking along and the train blows its horn because it's going through an
intersection. And in the middle of that crosswalk, I can't do it
now, but I jumped about three feet up in the air in front of everybody that
was idling at the stoplight. And this thing goes and I'm just like
like that and I jumped and I hit the ground and I was running. And I got to the sidewalk
and I'm like, why am I running?
It's because this train frightened me. I'm like, there's cars everywhere. I'm like,
you know, it was too much for my brain to handle, right?
I remember another time I was working at an oil change, an express oil change and this kid
pulls in like a bronco or something. And, you know, I worked on top
and then you had the oil pit underneath where the guy is underneath in the oil pit where he, you know,
it's not up on a jack. There's an actual pit underneath where he's, you know, can reach up
and get the oil filter and the oil plug and grease all the joints and everything.
And he tugs in my pant leg because, you know, I'm right there at his eye level. My feet are right
there because he's in the pit. And he says, this guy has a train horn under here. So I
look. And I told my manager, my manager came over and said, you need to leave. He said,
you can't do this here. You can't. And he's like, why? He says,
if someone accidentally taps that horn, you're going to deafen the guy that's in the pit.
And he would have. I mean, imagine being this close to a set
of, I mean, it was like trumpets. Like, brrr. Like, if you've seen a train horn, you know, they're like,
it's not one horn, folks. It's like rows of horns.
Like, it's, they're loud, right? It's not a train.
Right? Because, you know, a lot of times trains are trying to be heard from miles away.
You know, they want to be heard many, many miles, you know, from a great distance to warn everybody that they're coming
because they can't stop. Right? So I think what he did is he actually
told the guy, hey, bring it around. Come into service bay. Get out. We'll park it in the,
we'll put it up on the rack and change your oil there. It's going to cost you more,
but, you know, you're the one who had to have a train horn, genius. So they parked it over
in that service bay. And one of the mechanics, he didn't know all this. And we see him going over
to get in the, in the thing. And this isn't over the pit anymore. It's parked.
So he called up the mechanic. We're like, hey, test the horn. And this is like
inside a dealership. Like, it's like part of the dealership. Like, there's a showroom on the
other side. And he goes, run! It's like, well, he jumps.
Everyone freaked out. But it was loud, right? So this kid,
you know, he's just fascinated with horns. You know, but eventually
he decided, hey, I'm going to go check out this train and get it to honk at me.
So, you know, he stands in front of the track.
Honk, honk.
But, you know, a train doesn't move. And the story goes
that they picked up his body for miles. You know, but that's what sin
is like in our lives. We flirt with sin.
We play with sin. You know, we think, oh, it can't
get me. It's not going to hurt me. I'm okay. We're not afraid of the consequences.
Well, you know what? We might just find ourselves in a pair of, you know, spiritual train tracks
one day, playing chicken with the train. You know, and it
doesn't end well. And look,
you might not believe what I'm saying, but did I have you go to 1 Corinthians
chapter 11? This is what the Bible teaches.
There are different punishments, different degrees of
punishment for different sins.
And not only for different sins, but the manner in which those sins are committed.
And we all need to be on guard for this in our life. Why am I preaching this?
Because I don't want to see people be judged unnecessarily.
I don't want to see people, see God, you know, drop
the hammer on people. And if you don't think God does that,
I'm preaching to you. Whoever in here
thinks that that's something that is just completely out of the realm of possibility.
Look, I could tell you about people, you know, people could sit there and deny
what I'm saying right now vehemently and say, you'll never convince me of that. You know what?
I know other people who believe exactly what I'm saying and you could never
convince them otherwise. Because they've seen it in their own lives.
You know, just as an example, okay,
I know one person, and I'm trying to be as vague as I can about this,
one person who got divorced and
got remarried, which we know here, the Bible says a lot about that.
Matthew 5, Matthew 19,
Mark 7, Romans 7, 1 Corinthians,
on and on. Malachi, chapter 2, the Lord hadeth putting away.
You know, and we know that that was what the Bible calls
adultery, when people, divorced people get remarried. This person did that.
And, you know, very shortly after their marriage,
that spouse, that one of the spouses died. Just tragically
and suddenly, which is dead. You know what
that person said? And they'll say to this day,
it was God judging me. And you'll never convince that
person it was anything else. And they said, that's why I never did it
again. But do you hear the words that they're saying? That's why
I never did it again. If that wasn't the punishment, if that hadn't been the case, I would have done it
again. See, that's why God has to come down. And that's just one
example. That's just one sin. We all need to be on guard against
presumptuous sins in our lives. You know, sometimes
the only thing that is going to keep us from committing sins is the knowledge that God
will judge us severely. That's what it was for that individual.
You know, at least they had enough sense to say, hey, that's what it was and didn't do it
again. You know, but in a way,
it was kind of already too late, wasn't it? They kind of already found themselves on those train tracks.
And this is what the Bible teaches. Look at 1 Corinthians 11, chapter
11, verse 27. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread
and drink of this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread
and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and
drinketh damnation to himself. Now that damnation
is not talking about salvation. We know you cannot lose your
salvation. He's saying the person that receives the Lord's Supper unworthily
is eating and drinking damnation, not discerning the Lord's
body. They're just treating the sacrifice of Christ, the death, burial, and resurrection
of Christ flippantly, right? For
this cause, he says, because there's people that do eat unworthily,
this cause, many are weak and sickly
among you. He's saying, what's he saying?
He's saying that because there's people that are eating and drinking unworthily, God is judging
them. They're weak and sickly. Look, I'm not saying
every time you get a cold, every time you get a sniffle, or every time
something goes wrong physically that it's God's judgment.
But you know, sometimes it might be. I know that's
what goes through my head. You know, I
pulled my back muscle over a week ago, and it took me
10, 15 minutes just to get up off the floor, and while I was laying there looking up,
I was thinking, okay God, are you trying to get my attention?
Is there something I'm ignorant of?
Is there something I need to be brought to my attention?
Did I say it was there?
Well, that's between me and God, isn't it?
And I'm not saying every time something like that happens, but you know what, that's my mentality.
For this
cause, many are weak and sickly, now look at this, and many sleep.
What's he, oh, lots of people are taking a nap.
No, he's saying they're dead. God's killing people in the church.
Because they're eating and drinking unworthily.
Because they're eating and drinking damnation themselves, because God is judging them. God will judge
his own people so severely, they'll even come to the point of death.
And look, I'm not trying to say this to scare people, although I kind of am.
I'm saying this because I am scared for people. Because I don't want to see it to come
to this for people. You know, and this is when we sin
presumptually, this is the path that we're putting ourselves on.
Look at verse 32, verse 31.
For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. If we would just
be honest, quit making excuses,
quit denying what we did was wrong, and just judge ourselves,
we would not be judged.
So even these people that are sinning presumptuously, there's still mercy, but notice
what they need to do. Judge themselves.
Admit. Confess.
But when we are judged, we are chasing the Lord that we should not be condemned of the world.
Let's go to 1 John. I'll wrap it up. Maybe.
1 John. You know, that's one example
of 1 Corinthians. You know, I cited that other individual
which is somebody we would all know. If I said their name, he would know
exactly what I'm talking about. But I'm not going to.
There's not anybody in this church. Okay, so there I narrowed it down for you.
So now you don't have to go try and, you know, figure out who it is in here, because they're not here.
That's not the point, you know.
We're not playing guess who over here up in the pulpit tonight.
Do they have a mustache? Do they wear sunglasses?
Do they have a hat? What color are they?
The point is that some people understand this.
That presumptuous sins put us on the path to judgment.
And when we sin presumptuously, we need to make sure
that we know we've done so and that we're begging God for mercy.
It's not that mercy isn't there, it's just that
it's a little bit farther out of reach. If we really want it,
we're going to have to make sure God knows it.
And you can't get it if you're not sorry. Or you got a list
of excuses as long as you're on why we do what we do.
Look at 1 John. You know, before we get there, another example would be David.
I mean, David sinned pretty presumptuously, didn't he?
It's not like he just accidentally slept with another man's wife
and then murdered him. Whoops!
He's like writing out the death warrant, putting it in the hand of
Joab, explaining exactly how to make sure it happens so he can cover
up his tracks. I mean, that's presumptuous sin.
But, you know, why was it, and that was a sin
worthy of death. Adultery and murder. First degree murder. Both worthy
of death. And yet Nathan said to him, thou shalt not die.
The Lord has put away your sin. Why do you think that was?
Because when he was called on it, when Nathan went to him, the prophet,
and called him on it and said, thou art the man. What did David do?
Well, you just don't understand the position I was in. He said, I've sinned.
That's when he said, I've sinned. Unlike Saul,
when he got called out by Samuel, he had a bunch of excuses.
And God said, well, you're done being king, I'm going to get somebody else.
Right? And he was judged.
That's the difference. He got mercy. So when we sin
presumptuously, it's not that mercy's not there, it's just that, you know, it's not going to come as
easily as those that would sin through ignorance.
And I'm just trying to preach this because, look, if we sin presumptuously, we need
mercy. You need it.
You need to not get what you deserve.
1 John chapter 1 verse 5,
This then is the message we have heard of him, and declare unto you that God is light, and him is no darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie
and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light as he's in light,
we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves. The only person we're fooling is ourselves.
And the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
So what's the difference here? What's being contrasted here in verses 8 and 9?
The person who says, I have no sin. It wasn't that bad. I didn't do anything wrong.
Or contrast the person who confesses their sin.
He just said, what I did was wrong. I've sinned. Doesn't make
excuses. Doesn't try to justify it. Just confesses that
they've sinned. Look, if that's you, you can count on the fact that God is
faithful and just to forgive us of your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
Praise God. I'm not saying mercy isn't there for people.
I'm just saying if you really want it, you have to be willing to admit that you
committed sin. And not to me, not to anybody else,
but to God. It's something you have to confess to Him.
And look, mercy's there. And I'm just trying to get across tonight
that we need it. Every single one of us, obviously,
needs mercy. Every single one of us needs God's forgiveness.
We all sin. We all have errors that we don't even understand.
We all have secret faults. We all, from time to time, are going to sin presumptuously
to some degree or another. And I'm saying when that's
us, we need to get on our knees and beg God for mercy.
Because the Bible says that God will judge us.
That we might not be condemned with the world. That there's some that
were sleeping in Corinth because they were eating and drinking
damnation. They were eating and drinking unwardly. They weren't getting right with God.
This is Bible. Jesus said, the servant who knew his Lord's
will and did it not shall be beaten with many stripes.
We need it. We need God's mercy.
So let's just confess that. But that's us. Just confess.
I need God's mercy. I sinned. Just be like David. I sinned.
And we shall have mercy. Praise God.
That's all I'm trying to get people to see tonight. Judgment does not have to come into our lives.
It is avoidable.
Even in the case of presumptuous sins.
If we say it says in verse 10, we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.
Go to Psalm 32.
The Bible says in Proverbs 28, he that covereth his sins shall not prosper.
But whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall
have mercy.
You know, we sin. We know we sin. We know we've done wrong. We just say, oh, no.
Nothing to see here, God. Nope.
Not going to prosper. But the person just
confesses and forsakes and says, lays it all out there, just bears it all out
there for God and just admits to it and just says, yep, did it.
Wrong. And actually feels bad about it.
Mercy. Which is exactly what we
need. Mercy. Got to have it.
What's the alternative? No mercy. That's not how we want to live.
It's not good. We want mercy. We need it.
Happy is the man that feareth all way, but he that hearteth his heart shall
fall into mischief. Look at Psalm 32, verse one. Blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord will impudeth
not iniquity and whose spirit there is no guile.
Now notice this. We love those verses, right? We quote those ones.
While I kept silence, my bones whacked
old through my roaring all the day long.
Look, it's great to have your transgression forgiven, but it just seems to me
like he's saying it's not that it always comes that quickly.
To just have mercy, to just have it. It's proportionate
to the degree to which we seek it and need it and
acknowledge that fact, right? Blessed is the man whom the Lord
impudeth not iniquity and whose spirit there is no guile. Now these are all
connected, these verses. While I kept silence, when I just shut up,
my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day. When I sat
there and thought about what I'd done and really let it sink in,
it was like my bones, it was in my bones.
This is someone who's really feeling what they did.
Look, but this person's the one who could read or write
verses one and two. But you know, they had to go through verse three.
There was four.
For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture has turned into drought
of summers, Elah. God's hand was just heavy
on me. You know, sometimes
that's, you know, God will do that in our lives. He'll just say, you know what?
You don't think you need mercy? Let me just show you how much you really need it and just put His hand on us.
And our moisture just dries up into the drought of summer.
And then we're just roaring all the day. Our bones are waxing old.
But look at verse, what's that lead to?
Verse five. I acknowledged my sin unto
thee, and my iniquity have I not hid. I said
I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and
thou forgaveth me the iniquity of my sin.
So we love verses one and two. Sounds great. Blessed is the man
whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man
unto whom the Lord impudeth not iniquity.
But how did he get to that blessed place? Well, verse
three and four, God had to bring him to that place.
Put His hand upon him. Make his bones old.
Judge him, basically, is what I believe is going on there.
Until he finally got to the place where it's just like he got tired of being judged. You know what?
I acknowledge my sin unto thee. He felt bad.
I haven't hid my iniquity. I will confess.
He did that. You know what? And then what? He was blessed. His sins were forgiven.
It's there. Go over to
Hebrews chapter four, a very familiar passage we all know.
The Bible says in
First Peter, wherefore gird up the loins of your mind and be sober and hope to the end of the grace that is to be brought unto
you the revelation of Jesus Christ as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves
according to the former lust and your ignorance. But as he which hath called you is holy,
so be ye holy in all manner of conversation. Because it is written,
be ye holy, for I am holy. That's the standard God holds us to, all of us.
Look, and when we fall short of that, we need mercy.
Here's the thing. We all fall short of that. We all need to have
mercy. We all need to make sure that we don't
become ignorant of that fact.
And if you call on the Father who without respect of persons judgeth according to
every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here
in fear. Boy, it sounds like the
Christian life is kind of scary. Yup. It's a fearful thing to fall into the
hands of the living God.
It's a fearful thing to be on the wrong end of God's judgment.
And look, he does it without respect of persons.
God doesn't care who we are. This is why we all need to take heed to this.
Take heed lest ye fall. Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.
We need to make sure we're passing the time of our sojourning here in fear.
Look at Hebrews chapter 4 verse 14.
Look at verse 16. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace.
Now it's called the throne of grace.
It's grace because, you know what, we don't deserve
that throne, that access. We did nothing to warrant that. It was because of our
high priest who gave us that access to that great throne of God.
We don't need some mediator.
We don't need some person between us and God. We don't need some
priest here on earth wearing a dress.
Dressing like mama called himself papa, right? End of joke. With his collar
around backwards, right? We don't need some guy.
We don't need to go to some little ornate phone booth
and prescribe a bunch of vain repetitions to go home and say
in the hopes that we'll maybe not have to spend too much time in purgatory.
We have a throne of grace that we can just boldly go before God any time we want.
It's very gracious, isn't it? That God just said, here's the way.
You want to come before me? You have a prayer? You have something you need?
There's something I can help you with? You need to come and just spend time in my presence?
Maybe you just want to come thank me for everything I've done for you? Any time. Any place.
Anywhere. Just drop to your knees and you can go right to that throne.
It's the throne of grace, friend.
Notice what we can go to that throne of grace that we don't deserve for.
That we may obtain mercy.
That we can go to that throne of grace. It's very gracious that it's there, that it's open.
We didn't deserve that. Why did God open that up? Because you're going to need mercy.
There's going to be times in every single one of our lives where we need to
go before that throne and say, God, be merciful.
Whether for ourselves or for other people.
You know, and that's another point that's worth making. Before we jump
on other people about their sin, we better make sure that we've got ourselves squared away.
You know, unto the merciful, thou wilt show thyself
merciful. You know, sometimes I just want to show mercy to people
because I know how desperately I need it.
In fact, God created a whole throne of grace for me and you and all
of us so that we can go there to find that mercy.
Very gracious thing to have a place where we can go and obtain mercy.
Because we're all going to need it. That's what that tells me.
That God knew that every single one of us
was going to have secret faults, was going to have
transgressions and, you know, things that we
can't even, sins of ignorance and sins of presumption.
All of them. What I'm saying about the sins of presumption tonight
is that you better make sure that you need it. Because that's what I
see in scripture, is that when people sin presumptuously, there's already
a lack of fear. There's already a lack of fear.
Of God's judgment. And if that
doesn't get corrected, well, don't be surprised when
God puts his hand on you and it gets heavy.
That's all I'm trying to get across tonight. We all need that mercy.
Let us go there and find grace in time. Go to James chapter 4.
We'll close there. You know, the throne of grace is open. Mercy
is there to find for those who admit that they need it.
I mean, if you're asking for mercy, think about it.
What are you asking for? God, go easy on me.
God, please don't punish me.
That's what you're saying. When you're asking for mercy, you're admitting
that you did something worthy of being punished.
If we're raising our kids the way we ought to, we've all heard it. Please don't
spank me. I feel so
embarrassed. That's why they don't tell me anything.
They tell Mom. They don't tell me anything. They're just afraid I'm going to blurt it to the
whole church. I never would. But you know,
it's a great example. Sorry, it's just a good example. I've got to use it.
Please don't spank me. You know, and sometimes we don't.
Let me say I don't gain mercy. Rare.
Because we're not God. This isn't the throne of grace.
Look at James 4, verse 5.
The Bible says, Do you think the Scripture saith in vain, that the Spirit
that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?
What's he saying there? That you and I, although we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, we're sealed on the day
of our redemption, we still have this Spirit, this old man
that dwells in us, that lusts to envy.
And that's what we're asking for.
It's full of lust. It envies.
It wants things it doesn't deserve. It wants things that are off limits.
It's envious. And it lusts for it. That's what we have.
But that's not an excuse, is it?
It's not an excuse. But he giveth
more grace. That's why it says in verse 6, but he giveth more grace. Look, we have a Spirit
in us that lusteth to envy. That's no excuse to sin
presumptuously in life. Because God gives more grace.
We don't deserve it.
God says, You know what? Here's more grace. Wherefore, he saith,
God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil, and he might flee.
There's a chance.
You know, 50-50 got the devil. No, it says he shall flee. He will
flee from you. He might come back later.
Different lure. Different temptation. See what else he can try.
But if we just consistently resist, if we just consistently
go to that throne of grace, consistently go to God
and get that grace from him that he will give us, you know, we can continually
resist, resist, resist all the way to heaven.
We can just send the devil running time and time and time and time again
anytime we want. What I'm getting at is this, is that
when we make excuses for sin, we're selling the grace of God
short in our lives.
When we just say, Well, you know, whatever.
Well, the Bible says that he giveth more grace. Well, you know, it's just the spirit that dwelleth in me,
lusteth to envy. I'm just flesh and blood like everybody else.
But he giveth more grace!
You know, that's the truth of Scripture.
God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, he will flee from you.
Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you.
Cleanse your hands, he sinners, and purify your hearts, he double-minded.
Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning
and your joy to heaviness.
Find mercy right there. Because as I said, that's what you're
doing when you're asking for mercy. And if you're really
asking for mercy, that's the spirit in which you will ask for it.
There will be mourning and weeping and heaviness.
Because a person who's asking for mercy is admitting that they need it.
And it ought to put a little fear into them.
They would be acknowledging the fact
that they defended a holy God. And they say,
God be merciful to me. And it ought to, like the psalmist said,
it ought to be that my bones waxed old, I roared all night long,
my moisture was dried up, my hand was heavy upon me.
Wasn't a pleasant experience getting mercy.
But that's how you get it.
Oh yeah, sorry about that, God. I could use some mercy, thanks. Just casually, flippantly,
just admit to sin, confess it. That's not the right
attitude. That's no way, you're not going to get it.
And we need it. Hopefully I made the case earlier in the sermon that we need it.
Where Jesus is saying you'll be beaten with many stripes, people are dying
in Corinth. David almost got killed.
I mean, there's just so many examples. Hopefully we know we need it.
Hopefully that will be enough to compel us to be afflicted
and to mourn and to weep. I mean, good night,
just me, when I'm sitting here writing this sermon, I'm just like, God, you know.
I'm thinking about all the things, you know, that I
want to work on and get right and fix my own life.
That ought to be the attitude of every single one of us.
And not be sitting there thinking, oh,
so-and-so's listening. Because every single one of us
needs mercy and grace in this room. Everyone.
And all I'm really trying to do tonight is
just get across the fact that we all need it
and without it, life's not going to be fun.
We're not going to get off scot-free with our sin. Presumptuous, ignorant, any of it.
But if we've sinned presumptuously, we just need it
all the more. Because the judgment is going to be that much more
severe. And all I'm trying to do is get people
to do as it says in verse 10, to humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He shall lift you up.
You know, it takes humility
to get forgiveness for sins. You know,
it takes being afflicted, it takes mourning. It takes
being willing to admit, not just the willingness to be able to admit that you did wrong, but to
actually feel bad about it. But to actually feel, understand
what we've done is wrong. That's how you get
mercy, folks. It's not that it's out of reach, it's just that sometimes we don't want to do what
we need to do on our part to actually get it. The humbling, right?
You know, so that's all I've got for us
tonight. You know, I hope that that's encouragement to people and I hope that, you know,
any of us that ever finds ourselves in
life in a position where we are in need of God's mercy,
that we'll acknowledge it and that we'll seek it
sincerely because we need it
in those instances. We all need it. And it's not that God's just
sitting up there with the Louisville Slugger just waiting for us to step out of line.
God doesn't want to just come down on us, but God will come down on us.
But God, you know, God obviously is a God of
judgment and He's also a God of mercy. Right? He
means clears the guilty, but He also shows mercy
unto thousands. That's the same verse.
You know, we need just to make sure
we're on that side of God, that we're on the mercy-getting side, not the judgment-getting
side. How do you get it? Humility,
all these things that I talked about tonight. Let's go ahead and close the word of prayer. Dear Lord, again,
thank you for, Lord, thank you for the mercy
that you give us, Lord, even when we don't ask for it. The things that you
pass over in our lives, the faults that
we don't even see in our own lives. Lord, help us to be
seeking those things out in our lives, to cleanse them from our lives. Lord, there's no one in this room that is
without sin. Every single one of us has things that we need to work on.
You know, whether it's sins of the flesh or the heart or the mind,
there's so many things, Lord. And Lord, I pray you help us
to see what a gracious and loving God you are, that there truly is mercy
to be found in time of need, Lord, that there is that throne of grace open to us.
And I pray that nobody would leave here tonight not understanding
that they need it. And Lord, I pray that you would, Lord, cleanse us
from secret faults. Lord, help us to understand our errors. And Lord,
keep us back from presumptuous sins. Let them not
have dominion in our lives. Let that not be said of us, Lord, that that's
the type of people that we are, that we just flout
the rules, we just disregard Scripture, and just commit sin,
Lord. But Lord, if and when we do, Lord, I pray that we would
be driven to our knees, that we would go to you
before anybody else in seeking forgiveness. And we ask these things in
Christ's name. Amen. Alright, let's go ahead and close, or we'll sing one more psalm before we
go. I feel like we just need to keep praying up here.
Amen.
Let's turn our head over to the song of the 146.
The song of the 146 is
a shelter in the time of storm.
...