The Mercy of God

Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.

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   This morning, we're welcome you this morning to Fire and Grace Church. We welcome those listening by Blogtalkradio. You okay back there, Kev? Hallelujah. Everybody turn to 1 John the epistle of 1 John chapter 3, where we'll start this morning. Believe. You know I'm just going to be honest. Isn't that good? Preachers ought to be honest. I'm going to be honest this morning. I've had a I've had a bad week. A rough week. You know, we got back from vacation last weekend or last Well, really last Thursday. Friday, our water main main line from the road to the house busted. Uh floor Plus, we already had a leak under the house. Just constant problems. And then, you know, the the silver lining is that Kevin can do everything just about, so Kevin and I went rented a trencher bought all the materials and got ready to redo the plumbing in the whole house and under the house and from the road and so So, we used the trencher for about 4 hours. And uh some of you know this, some of you don't, but in the process, I woke up on Sunday morning and a lot of pain in my neck and my middle of my shoulder blades and my back. Not just thought, well, maybe it's just a crick in my neck or something like that, you know, just I'm working. Anyway, so I spent a few days this week uh at the doctor, chiropractor. And for the first time, it's only the second time I ever went to a chiropractor, so they took some x-rays. Come to find out the problem is is that I have a very bad disc in my neck. So, all week long I have been dealing with pain all week long. Even to this day. So, I have not had a good week. And it hurt to hiccup, it hurt to cough, it hurt to sneeze, it hurt to even laugh. If I If I laughed, you know, I But, in all of that, of course, when you go in through things like that, you know, you usually you go through stuff a lot of times either right before God does something good or right after. You know, the devil likes to always create situations and scenarios so that um he can try to either hinder something good that's going to happen or pay you

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   back for something good that happened. You know, the old saying, no good deed goes unpunished type thing. That's what the devil He doesn't like us to be able to uh you know, to rejoice long in what God is doing. But, you know, this week even though I had a very tough week physically and even spiritually, emotionally, and you know, when you're a pastor and you just had a wonderful Sunday morning where you know, people are baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues and you're the pastor of a church that believes in healing and divine healing and that Jesus still heals and we've seen people healed and delivered of demons. So, as a pastor, sometimes when you're dealing with physical problems that just seem to continue it can be very discouraging and very you know, you're just like, "Lord, you know, I pray for somebody else and they get healed, but then there's things that I'm dealing with uh that it seems like I pray and ask the Lord about and they just don't they don't go away. And I don't know, it's a mystery. You know, the Apostle Paul, a lot of people and I've talked about this before about the Apostle Paul's thorn in the flesh and how he, you know, the Apostle Paul prayed for people who were crippled and they walked raised people from the dead and and yet we know he said that he had a thorn in the flesh that he besought the Lord three times that it would depart and it God said, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." And I don't know why there's ever been any theological debate about the issue because in Galatians 4 the Galatians, the church there, wanted to pluck out their eyes and give them to Paul. So, Paul obviously had a problem with his eyesight or his vision probably after the road to Damascus incident. Which made Paul, I guess, and he said it was so that pride would not overtake him. So, maybe it's that, I don't know. But sometimes, just like everybody else, I mean, I just I just want you to know, just cuz you're a pastor or a minister and, you know, people think that you're sometimes they think that you're Superman or oblivious or somehow on some kind of special level. No. Uh we're all people and we all struggle with the same stuff. And so, sometimes I get discouraged and get down about stuff. I tell my wife, sometimes I feel like now at 47 years old, I feel like that someone has beaten me with aluminum bat a lot of times. Just due to all the physical problems I had. And some of it's my own doing. Some of it was my living in sin and disobedience and living wild and you know, playing football and martial arts and fighting and everything else that I used to do. I'm probably paying I'm probably reaping in my body some of

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   what I sowed there. Um But I want to say this. In all of this, I'm going somewhere with this this morning. Is that one day this week in the midst of having a really really bad day. Really bad day. Um My wife probably thinks you've had probably thinks well, man, I didn't know it was that bad cuz you've had worse seems like you've had worse weeks than this week. But it was more on the inside. It was more just me, you know, dealing with all these thoughts and trying to deal with the pain and you know, all the other problems and issues that are out there. And so sometimes you feel a little bit overwhelmed, but I remember and well, it was during the week through later in the week and then yesterday. And I think sometimes the Lord lets me as a as a pastor go through these things so I will share them with that it's not always going to be easy. You know, I woke up last Sunday morning could hardly get up. But yet I came on the church and preached anyway and prayed for people and people were baptized in the Holy Spirit. And we had a one of the most powerful services we ever had, but I was having problems with turning my head. What I'm getting at is you press on. You press on whether you're feeling down, whether you're feeling discouraged, whether you're feeling like the devil's beating you up or you're having physical problems or whatever. God wants us to not give up. To not draw back. To not you know, get angry or get offended or get bitter or whatever. But he just wants us to press on. And sometimes if you just keep pressing on, When stay with him and you pressing on, you either find out something you need to find out or you see a miracle. All right? And yesterday when I got up to pray and study and prepare for the day, the Lord just I guess he just knew. He's like, "I know he's had a tough week." But I remember the it was it was just special because the Lord reminded me. He's like, "Son, I love you." Well, I'm having a bad week. I'm kind of frustrated. I'm kind of tired of it. And he just reminded me, "I love you and I'm here." You know what? That's enough. And I think sometimes we just need to be reminded of the simple things. Cuz see, I know I preach real hard here

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   about sin and living for God and not being lukewarm in this society and not compromising. But I do know this, that we all have bad days and we all have bad weeks and we all get uh sometimes we get offended, even upset with God because things are not going good. And sometimes we get upset with people and we get And then sometimes we get rebellious. We got rebellion in our heart and we we we sin and we, you know, we pitch little temper tantrums like children do sometimes when we don't get our way or when we get frustrated or when we get, you know, you know how your kids sometimes you you have the best kids in the world they going to have a bad day every now and then. Right? Uh they get tired, frustrated, have a bad day, sometimes they get a little rebellious and do things they shouldn't do. Just they're acting out their their frustration. They're acting out their pain or their issues. And I just want to remind you this morning is that, you know, even though there's the side of of ministering where you have to preach, this is what is sin and this is how it will destroy you or lead you to eternal damnation and this is what you need to be careful of, we always need to be reminded that God is not waiting, you know, watching over us with a stick to beat us and destroy us the moment we fall or struggle or stumble. That's not who he is and that's not his heart. And I just want to remind you of that this morning. He is a loving father who wants you to make it. Who knows that you're going to fall down and struggle. He just doesn't ever want you to get so rebellious or so angry or so offended or believe a lie that you can just go do whatever you want and live in habitual rebellion. But he knows the difference and this is what I love. I look at the stories of people like David and Saul or Peter and Judas. These are perfect illustrations of what I'm talking about. Was David a perfect man? Was David a sinless man? Yet God said of him, "He is a man after my heart. Now, why is that? Everybody remembers David, they think about David who committed adultery, about David who tried to hide his sin, about David who sent the woman he committed adultery with, sent her husband to the front lines and told people to pull back from I mean, you want to talk about a time of of falling into sin and giving into sin and rebellion and being evil, you want to talk about that,

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