Mercy of God - Cornerstone Community Church, Singapore - 2014

[Music] you let me read to you my favorite story that Jesus ever told if you've got your Bibles chapter 20 of Matthew the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in the vineyard and he agreed to pay them to pay a wage for the day and send them into his vineyard now about the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace and doing nothing he told them you can go and work in the marketplace and I will pay whatever is right so they went and he went away again in the sixth hour and of the ninth hour of the same thing about the eleventh hour he stood and went into the place and stood around and he asked the men why are they done standing around doing nothing because no one has hired us first he said to them you can go and work in the vineyard and when evening came he said to the men call the workers together and say say them their wages give them their wages but beckoning them for the last ones hired and the first going to the first ones to the then the workers who were hired about the last the 11th hour came and each received the same Denarius which was the daily wage and so when those who were hired last they expected to receive more but each of them received one of them they I'm sorry I'm fine in difficulty reading each one of those received the same Denarius when they received this they began to grumble against the landowner and those who were hired last worked only one hour and they said and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work of the day and the heat of the day but he answered one of them friend I am NOT unfair to you I did didn't agree that you agreed to work from Adenauer a Denarius today take your pay and go I want to give the man who worked who was hired last the same as I gave you don't I have a right to work a right to do what I want with my own money or are you've envious because I am generous so the last shall be first and the word first shall be last this time of year in England the big parties the political parties have their annual conferences and they get together to decide what the menu what the manifesto for the next election is going to be on the whole we have two major parties to deal with one is the capitalist party and one is the Socialist Party and they each have their conference one of the unusual features is that each political party has the a religious service as part of their program it's part of the tradition part of the past and funnily enough on one occasion a visiting preacher preached from this parable and he said I want to prove to you that Jesus Christ was a capitalist and he would vote for us because here is Jesus telling us that we need to have a free market that bosses need to decide the wages we need to have the less a share in which everybody does what they wish with no trade unions breathe breathing down their necks unfortunately the opposite party the Socialist Party also had their annual service and the preacher on that side of the fence said Jesus was a socialist and he would vote for us and this story he told is very good Socialist Republic policy when we have a free wage for everybody however much or little they've worked we have a minimum wage this is socialism and they will vote for us but which was Jesus and the answer is nada they both made the mistake of selecting part of the story and leaving the rest of course you can prove anything from the Bible by selecting from it what you want to select I want to tell you that Jesus was really no good at all at Industrial Relations if you applied the story to industrial relations today you'd finish up with one big mess imagine what he said he said a man went out to hire people for his vineyard and when they day came to or when the day ended and he gave out wages he gave as much to those who'd only been working for a quarter of the day and gave them the same wage and made those who've been working all day wait till a cup the wages at the end so that they saw what he gave to the people who had only just joined in late now I know what you think if this happened in the place of your work and somebody just came along at the very end of the day and got the same wages you got how would you feel I know how you'd feel you'd say hallelujah thank God you only work for an hour and you got the same money as I did great I really rejoice with you that's how you'd say wouldn't you I guess not well now what's Jesus really talking about to apply this to the ordinary work of industrial relations frankly Jesus hadn't a clue and after only one day's work the whole industry collapsed the people were angry about what had happened and can you imagine what would happen the next day when the boss went out to hire laborers for the day no one is there waiting goes out the next day there's nobody there at the third hour goes out the fitstar nobody's there suddenly it followed clock in the afternoon there's a queue of people weathers got around you'll get a full wage and you only need to work from four o'clock in the afternoon to five o'clock this is no way to run industrial relations in modern industry Christ would be a failure so one earth did he tell such a shocking story and then we read that this is how the kingdom of heaven works so surely this story is about what's going to happen when we get to heaven and we all have the same wage whether we've been serving the Lord for five years or five minutes or 50 years that in heaven wish were all we treated the same as if Heaven is an egalitarian society but listen it's not about heaven because in heaven there are going to be great inequalities some are going to get a great service in heaven summon up and to get one we should find out when we get to heaven who gets the greatest reward and Jesus talked about the great reward in them it's not about heaven it's about the kingdom of heaven on earth and yet were not supposed to try and apply this in modern industry what's it all about it's about the kingdom of heaven on earth and how it operates how it works and that's the shock in the story you see one of the things you learn very early in life is injustice I have three children one is now in heaven but we serve up two and those three children learn to say something from their very first years of talking all three used to say it's not fair I didn't teach them to say that and their little faces screwed up as mine screwed up then when I quoted them it's not fair and they always looked ugly when they said it and we go right through life saying it's not fair we've been treated unjustly I went to visit an old man in a hospital because he told the the nurse in charge to ring up the nearest pastor to go and see him and apparently he was a Roman Catholic but he said any priest will do and so they rang me up and I said all right I'll come and see the old man so I went into the hospital there he was lying in bed and I said what can I do to help you and he said you can explain why I'm in hospital it's not fair I've lived a good life why should God do this to me I said that just other interests how old are you he said I'm 19 and I said have you never been in hospital before the age of 90 said of course not I've lived a good life and I said how long you gonna be in hospital he said ten days it's not fair and he's gone right through life saying things are not fair and he was in his mid 90s incredible and he grumbled away do you know some men would give anything to me have 10 days in a hospital looked after by pretty nurses with everything done for him why grumble at that but I'm afraid some of us go right through life complaining that life is not fair to us and we never grow past that I've seen those screwed-up faces at an industrial strike when the men are striking for more wages they're not content with what they're getting and you can see on their faces screwed up it's not fair why should we not have more wages we go through life thinking of what we deserve what is owed to us what we have a right to have and we go through life saying life's not fair it isn't fair actually God never promised it would be and some suffer more than others when I was small a boy I remember that my mother would give two of us an apple and he would she would say to us one of you cut it in half and the other can have first choice of the heart and I can remember very very carefully cutting the Apple in half and if you put the two halves on a scale they would be exactly right and we were so anxious that we should get it exactly in half that's life I'm afraid now let's go back to this story let me ask you a leading question do you think the owner of the vineyard was less than fair or more than fair just think about that what's he less than fair or more than fair because the steward in charge of the work the foreman was furious about the unfair wages we've worked all day under the heat of the Sun and these have only worked for an hour and you've given them the same amount as you gave us and they said it's not fair and the owner said but it is fair I agreed with you to give you a fair day's world wage for a fair day's work you've worked all day I've given you a day's wage what more could I have done I've given you everything you deserved I've been absolutely fair and then he said if I've given more to some that's because I was living in mercy and I gave them more because it's my money that I've given away to them I'm not less than fair to all of you you've all had at least what you deserved and what you work for but I have decided to show mercy to some now I want to draw a simple contrast this story that Jesus told is about life here and now life in this world and how we deal with inequalities and it is unequal because something get what they deserve and others get norm they deserved and it's God who chooses mercy there are two principles in the world in which we live and work in one world the world of Earth we live by the word merit and we build up a merit for what we deserve we are paid wages that's one world in which men and women live here but we live in the kingdom of heaven on earth and it's principle is totally different we live in a world in which not merit emmy RIT but mercy is the principle on which were paid and mercy is a wonderful world to live in my wife led me astray into a bad hobbit habit when we married and the habit was she can't begin the day without her daily fix with a cup of tea and the arrangement we have is that when I wake up in the morning feeling like a Christian I go downstairs and make the cup of tea but if I wake up and I don't really like it Christian she goes down and makes the cup of tea I won't tell you how many times I do it or how many times she does it and incidentally by the way I have preached this particular parable at one of the annual political promises of one of the big parties in England I'm not going to tell you which one it was but I tried to show them that it was not proof that Jesus was either a capitalist or a socialist either a right-wing or left-wing but back to the story life in the kingdom of heaven on earth is not based on merit it is based on the see now they bad habit that my wife introduced me to when we married was that she insisted that I had a cup of tea every morning I do it but when I'm away from her I never have a cup of tea in the morning but I do it and we do it together now in our country we have a privilege the milk is delivered to the 4-step at the door every morning there are two bottles of milk delivered to the doorstep and if it's my feeling that I've woken up as a Christian I go downstairs go out of the front door and pick up two cold white objects bottles of milk and if the weather's bad and it's cold outside it's even more miserable and I always picked up those two bottles clutched them to my breast and I quoted a verse from the book of lamentations and it was his mercies are fresh every morning and so I would come back into the house praising God and thanking him for all that I have that I never deserved the mercies of God the things I never deserved never paid for couldn't buy first thing among those mercies I used to say Lord thank you for the mercy I'm seven no I'm 84 now and I Drive a car that 75 years old so I'm really over the top one foot on the one foot in the grave and the other on a banana skin so there we are and then I thank him not only the done healthy I thank him that we have a house of our own a roof about our own little place on earth though at the moment were just in the middle of moving to a retiring apartment but the fact that we can have a place of our own that's a mercy I never deserved that but I've got it and then I've got work to do and I'm just thrilled still to be able to do something positive for other people all that's not a right it's a mercy I didn't deserve any of it and it's a good thing to thank the Lord while you're carrying cold milk into the kitchen thank you Lord for your mercies of fresh every morning well now that's the background to this story in the kingdom of heaven on earth it's all done on a basis of mercy not merit you don't deserve anything from God he doesn't owe you a thing when you learn that you start calling everything you receive from God and mercy and that's the principle of how are your praise now I want to go a little deeper and talk about two things which is essential to know when you're talking about the mercy of God and the first thing is this there is no contradiction between justice and mercy many people think these are opposites that they are in conflict with each other they're nothing of the kind justice and mercy are sisters they operate together and God is both just and merciful he's both and the way it operates is this justice and mercy travel along the same Road the only difference is that mercy goes further along the same road towards the same people justice will give them all they deserve and mercy will go beyond that and give you what you never deserved God will give justice to everybody he's under obligation to do so and he's a just God and everybody will get what they deserve I found that frightening if God had dealt with me as I deserve you would have no preacher this afternoon I'll tell you something else there'd be nobody sitting out there to listen if God had dealt with me as I deserve I wouldn't have reached the age of 84 I wouldn't be here but thank God he went further and gave mercy and God will give everybody in the world exactly what they deserve I'm just so glad he won't give me what I deserve because I've discovered the secret of his mercy and he goes way beyond what I just Lee deserved so there's no real contradiction between justice and mercy never fall into the trap of believing that God is one of the other he is both and that is why you find in Scripture he's a God who loves people and a God who hates people he's a God who Parnas pardons sin and he's a God who punishes sin he's a God who therefore is both just and merciful he is a God who heals some people and he is a God who kills Ava's very important that is both and therefore you have a big question who is going to get his justice and who's gonna get his mercy and I'm telling you now that in this building on this occasion some of you will go home with his mercy and many of you may not and I don't know who it is who's going to receive his mercy this afternoon and you don't know either but it's not a matter of luck it's not a lottery it's not God putting his finger in the telephone directory and saying I'll choose to have mercy on this person fortunately he has told me exactly why he has mercy on some people and doesn't on others and it's strange I tell you now it's going to happen here now in this service that some of you will go home bursting with his mercy some of you will not and there's a reason for that a clear reason which I'll come to in a moment the second thing about mercy that I want to make clear to you it's a little difficult to get hold of but when someone shows mercy to you he does it entirely because his is the choice that's why God says twice once in the Old Testament once in the new I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy when there's the free choice of showing mercy he is entirely free to decide who it is but it's not a lottery the word luck never occurs Christian it's not part of our thinking luck is the Hebrew word GAD have you heard the phrase by God I will do this that same by luck God is not a God of luck he's a God of reason and he has told us who will receive mercy in this very place so would you like to know then I'll tell you there are three simple answers in the Bible about who will be chosen this afternoon to receive His mercy and the first simple answer is this those receive His mercy who asked for it isn't that simple and you the thought people were so eager to have mercy that they'd be asking all the time and yet the tragedy is that very few people ask for mercy people pray for safety they pray for healing they pray for guidance they pray for wealth they pray for so many things health wealth and the whole shopping list that our prayers so often are but very few people ask for mercy isn't that strange when it's the one prayer that God can't refuse he's so full of mercy that he's bursting with it loves to give his mercy and he waits for people to ask for mercy but not many do and I'll tell you why they don't feel bad enough when I go to a top-priority Chris Eyre prison with life people into life murderers drug dealers and I tell them about the good news they pray for mercy you've got to be pretty bad before you beg for mercy people who go to church and feel the not so bad after all don't often beg for mercy but if they do they get it it's so simple but we don't ask for it because we don't think we need it we need guidance we need money we need so many other things but you need mercy more than the more we don't feel really bad enough and so we don't beg God for mercy so we don't get it nothing could be more simple than that and Jesus told another parable is an amazing story about a man who went to the temple to pray and he went right up to the front of the temple and he lifted his voice up voice on face up to heaven and said god I thank you that I am not like other people and mentally he's saying not like that other chap at the back I thank you that I give a tenth of all that I possess and he went on praying like this five times he used the wrong word the Littlewood I I thank you that I am not like other men I fast twice a week I give a tenth of all that I belong amen and it was all true the only trouble is the the pet tragg of no higher than the ceiling it didn't reach God but there was another man of the back and he was what is called in the Bible a tax collector but it was something a good deal worse than that God had tax collectors the Romans had tax collectors whose job it was to accept taxes from the Jews and they were totally free to ask for more than they owed and to make a profit and they were free to put all that margin into their pockets to put it bluntly they were in the protection racket and they were free to make as much out of the tax collecting as they could Zacchaeus was such a man and in the temple that day there was a man at the back of the temple he didn't even look up he hung his head in shame and he said God be merciful to me a sinner and God said that man's prayer went straight up to heaven and he went home justified that were justified he's a bit of a solemn word it doesn't excite you but I love the pitch an English version of the Bible where instead of justified it says God II say em all right I love that that's what it means to be justified God is they aim all right and I can imagine the man going home the men of the back and saying to his wife or she would say to him have you had a good day at the office haven't been to the office Oh where have you been wives always want to know I've been in the temple what you've been in the temple you've never been there before have you had a good day bribing the priests collecting money from the free no he said I was pray you you haven't prayed since we're married what were you praying for I was asking God for mercy and he said life's gonna be different from now because I found mercy it's as simple as that he hastily got it now I want to talk about a classic example of how God's mercy reached people at the end of World War two the Nazi war criminals were all arrested and taken to a big prison in Nuremberg in Germany I've been to the prison and imagined that trial they were charged with murdering thirty million people of whom six million were Jews and an international trial was held and there in the dock was an appalling list of people I've got their names here listen there was Frank sizing cart Colton Brunner from poppin for Neurath Speer Schindler fritz Franck von Schirach Sal call during the big fat head of the German air force the Luftwaffe and they were put on trial for their lives and they were each given something absolutely free of charge they were given a lawyer to defend them and a chaplain to look after their souls both free of charge both to help them one to defend them and the other to look after their souls for them and they looked around for a chaplain who would come and look after the selves of those Nazi criminals and they found a man who was an American chaplain in the American forces who had been in his father and grandfather emigrants from Germany and who knew the German language but had been fighting for their lives and they went to Padraig Erika that was his name and they said would you come and be chaplain to the Nazi war criminals and look after their souls and immediately he said never he said they killed my two boys in World War two I'm not gonna come and look after the two after the souls of the Nazi criminals and he went away and he prayed and God said but I want you to go and he went and he went to look after the souls of 16 of the criminals another six chose to have a Roman Catholic Padre but he got this sixteen Protestants and on the first Sunday morning he's facing those sixteen Nazi war criminals and he wondered what on earth to tell them and he finally decided to put it so simply and to tell them that the Lord Jesus had paid the price for the worst things they did and that God could forgive them Sal was the first and he fell on the floor and he cried out God be merciful to me and God forgave him von Ribbentrop was the second the propaganda minister and he too begged God for mercy and asked for mercy and got it one after the other of those men obtain mercy from God one of them von Ribbentrop went to they all paid the penalty they were hung but they accepted it and von Ribbentrop said as he died I put my trust in the redeeming blood of Jesus it's the most amazing story but there were two criminals who absolutely flatly received refused to be forgiven one was a man called Rudolf Hess and he was imprisoned for over 40 years he wasn't hung he was given a life sentence he eventually died as the only one left in the Berlin Hospital or rather Berlin prison but it was in the hospital wing and he managed to kill himself by cutting the Flex the electric flex of the tire of the light above and cut it and hung himself with the electric flex the other man who refused to listen was Goering that fat man who controlled the German air force and you know before he was hung the last visit he had from his wife and family the little girl said to him to his father please trust Jesus I want to see you in heaven and he refused and he brushed it brushed her aside like mad and said you can believe in your when i'll believe in mind and pushed her out of the cell and very shortly after that he had hidden cyanide somewhere in his body and was able to beat the execution by committing suicide the last stubborn pied that's the story of the people who asked for mercy and that's all they did now they were some of the worst men who've ever lived if you judge by the size of their crime but they found mercy and they died trusting in Jesus and with a clear conscience the most amazing story because it's all true I've got it here in on paper written by Padraig Erica I've also got a huge volume at home the history of the trial in Nuremberg and sure enough are almost every page there is Podrick Erica saving those men years later I was at home in our church and I told them this true story and the businessman a professional man came up to me tears running down his checks his cheeks he was a a professional person crying like a little child anything David you have no idea what you just said to me he said I was a British soldier in Germany after the war in the occupation forces and at that time that the trial in Nuremberg was taking place and he said we held all night chair prayer meetings begging for the mercy of God for those men and he said from that day onwards I have never known when I God heard our prayer and he said you're telling me that God heard our prayer and he said for the first time I wept for joy now what do you think about that the very worst man on earth yes later I was in a house in noob not far from where I lived at home and I was preaching to about 20 people squeezed into her house and I felt led to tell them the story about those men which I did and while I told that story a young couple well middle aged couple probably and they both began to try to cry out and to laugh and to weep at the same time they became hysterical and I stopped preaching and I said to the couple would you like me to come and pray with you and the wife said no no don't go on and go on but I said you're obviously disturbed my wife is here you can go into the next room and my wife will come and pray for you she said no carry on carry on and I told him this story and afterwards I went to the couple and said what made you so hysterical and she said you don't know this but kayfa was my uncle he was the head of the Imperial General Staff and he was hung for his crimes but Podrick Erica told him the gospel and she died he died in faith and she said that was my uncle title and she said wherever I have gone since World War two people have discovered Who I am and as soon as they've discovered they won't talk to her she went to Australia to hide but they discovered that she was Keiko uncle's or keidel Smith and as soon as they discovered that they wouldn't talk to her and the poor couple went to Canada and Hayden can endeavor they discovered that she was cattles niece and no one would talk to her she moved again and moved to Newbury in England and she came to that meeting and then for the first time she heard that Kaito was forgiven and she was so excited she just exploded and she cried and she left for joy and she said afterwards you know I've lost all my fear a great cloud has rolled away and I can be free and if anyone says to me your Chi clothes nice I will tell her yes I am titled Leafs and he's in heaven will you be that's my answer she said well that's the first answer that settles the question who receives the mercy of God today now the answer is it's anybody who came to church and came to this service wanting mercy that you came to church because the one thing you needed the one thing you wanted to pray for was the mercy of God and all you need do was come here wanting to ask don't ask because I've told you the important thing is that you came without the biggest need in your life and all you need do is ask and you've got it that's one of the answers but it's only one of three I'll be quicker with the rest because time is running away with us the second answer is this if the first is the answer ask can you receive mercy the second is that you need to pass it on that's simple again you can receive mercy if you will pass it on it's like electricity you need a contact both ways it needs to flow in and flow out and unfortunately you can block it all and prevent it flowing through you so you can't take it in because you're not letting it out that sounds a little more complicated but it's very important let's start with another parable of Jesus another story that he told about a man who owed a million dollars to a king and he went to the king on the day that he owed that money and had to pay it back and he said I beg you Your Majesty please forgive me please give me more time to collect the money I can't produce it I promise to pay it back and I can't do it and the King said Jesus was very generous and said I'm going to do better than wait for your repayment I'm going to let you off I will cancel the debt you go away a free man the debt is paid it's over it's done and the man went out from the King's presence and Jesus he went straight down to the kitchen of the public palace and he got hold of a man who owed him just ten dollars and he got him by the throat that's what it literally says and he started squeezing certain saying when are you gonna pay what you owe me he just been forgiven a million dollars by the king and he's saying to a man who owes him ten dollars when you're gonna pay me and the King had heard about this and he had him brought back into his presence and he said I forgave you that huge Sun and you went straight out and tried to force a man to pay you the little Sammy owed you how dare you do that you will go to prison until you repay every dollar to me and then Jesus said this he said that's how God will treat you your heavenly Father will treat you in the same way if you don't pass on that gift of frickin forgiveness if you don't pass it on to others you're gonna block all that God wants to pour into your life because the mercy cannot flow in if it doesn't flow out again it's so simple and yet it's so profound it's the second condition of doing that and that's the second parable I've told you this afternoon and that's how God will deal with you if you don't pass on the mercy to others you can't take it in it's got to flow through you now I could tell you so many things of true stories but I remember a very sad occasion when after a meeting a family wheeled their mother in a wheelchair into my presence and said would you mr. Paulsen please come and pray for mother and I could see that the lady was sick terribly sick she was absolutely twisted with rheumatoid arthritis and she was in a wheelchair and her whole body seems twisted out and they said please will you pray for mother and I said yes I will after I've asked one question and she looked up and said what's the question I said who is it that you hate so much and it burst out have face twisted up she said my husband I hate him and I said will you please forgive him I don't mind what he's done however terrible it's mean but I can't pray for your healing until you forgive him and she said I will never never forgive him and I said I'm sorry I can't pray for you and they wheeled her away this poor twisted woman she just couldn't receive because she blocked the flow of Mercy into her life tragic but if I've prayed for her nothing would have happened it couldn't flow in on the other hand I remember a meeting in the middle of Nuuk of England one day and at the end of the meeting three people came to see me and I'll tell you their story the first to come was a middle aged woman and her face had been very bitter but that night she said I've forgiven my brother after so many years I said what went wrong why couldn't you forgive your brother and she then told me that when she was just nine years old her brother had forced her to have sexual intercourse with him her own older brother only nine and she said it ruined my whole life she said I've been afraid of men ever since I've never been married I've never had a boyfriend my brother ruined my life and she said I've been so bitter and angry about it but she said tonight I forgive him and she had and she was free and the mercy of God flirted because she'd allowed it to flow out to her brother and she was free the second person to come up to me was another middle-aged lady and she said tonight I've forgiven my next-door neighbor and I said what was that all about she said 20 years ago the lady next door to where I lived called me a devil and she said it went right into my heart she hated me fortunately she said within weeks she had moved away right out of the district but she said I could never forget what she said and I was bitter inside and have been ever since she left the district and for 20 years I've held it against what she said about me which expressed her hatred of me but she said tonight after listening to you she said I knew I must forgive her and she said from my heart I forgave her all that she said and then she said I turned around in the meeting and she was sitting behind me and I have the Cena for 20 years and she forgave her on the spot so mercy flowed into her the final couple who came forward with the lovely young couple I really felt for them they had just been married and they were both in tears and they both came to me and the little wife was saying you tell him and the husband was saying no you tell him and they had a big argument between them and I said one of you tell me what's the matter and finally they both told me that they'd been married for two years I think and then they had their first baby and the baby had a condition that was fatal and the doctors told her the very maximum she could live would be five years and they were very angry and they both turned to garden said God why did you bless us with a baby that wouldn't live when normal couple were normal people why did you give us such a tragic situation and they were both very angry with God in fact they confessed it cursed God for what they felt he done to them but they said tonight we both forgiven him what an extraordinary statement forgiving God but they were honest they had to put it that way that was what they meant and forgiveness came into their heart and asked God forgiveness forever blaming him for it and first so and so many much timing they had been blaming God and angry with God and now they said it's all settled were free of that and we thank God for the honor and the privilege of having a baby for five whole years they thanked him and I said now you will see what God can do in your little baby's life because you've unblocked the whole situation now his mercy can flow you wait and see what God will do now I haven't ever seen them again so I can't tell you the rest of the story but I just have this strong feeling that God had mercy on that baby that's the second answer to the question who gets his mercy who will go away from today with his music those who will pass it on those who will not be resentful those who will forgive as they think God Himself for what they think he might be doing to them at the end of one meeting in England the well-dressed man came up to me and he said an interesting thing he said mr. Poston unstuck will you please get me going again he said I was making programs I was growing as a Christian and I knew I was going forward but he said I've got stuck and he said I'm just going no we're not making any progress in the Christian life so I looked at him and I said it's a will he said what do you mean I said I don't really know but that's what I believe the Holy Spirit has told me it's a will he said what kind of a will well you know what I mean whether the will is relatives and he understood oh he said that's the trouble answered yes I said what will is that he said my father died and left all my money all his money to my brother he said it's funny but it was about that time that I stopped making in his virtual progress he asked him out of simplicity could that be connected with getting stuck I said of course it could well he said what do I do about that to get going again I said you go straight to your brother and you say to your brother I'm so glad that you got dad's money now at that point his face I wish I had a camera on his face it went through such a kaleidoscope of expression and I just sat and watched his expression and then finally he said I'll do it and he started moving him he did it and it was good again all because of that legacy I've made my point so now I could keep you all day with true stories of people who get stuck people who can't get through to God's mercy if people can't make any progress in the Christian life and just get stuck it's not always the call but in so many cases resentment bitterness has crept in and this could be true of people here in this congregation people who are resentful against parents against children against employers against people in the same business against people who've left them down and you will never get any further until that's dealt with an out of the way resentment is a killer once that gets in your and it stops mercy of God coming in it can't get in anymore because it's not getting out Jesus said blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy it's a spiritual law that until you are merciful to others you can't receive mercy it's a written law of God in the lips of Jesus that's the second answer to what I wanted to tell you today and now we're going to look at the third reason why God chooses some to receive His mercy and not others and I'll be very quick and very simple with the third answer it's very simple again God showers his mercy on those who don't take advantage of it now what do we mean by that it is so easy to take advantage of God's mercy when you receive it and then exploit it and take advantage of it let me try and explain that in the simplest way I can you're walking along the seafront here in Singapore and there's someone drowning in the sea and shouting help help I can't swim and drowning rescue me please and because you can do it you can swim and you know how to save people you take your jacket off you take his shoes off you dive in and you pull him out and you pump him dry and he's okay and he turns round shakes your hands as old thank you so much you saved my life and he turns around and walks off the embankment straight into the sea again this is not a silly situation our guarantee some of you have done this and he shouts I'm drowning again please save me save me and you're just putting your jacket back on you haven't got your shoes on yet so you dive in and you save him and he says you saved my life twice now I'm doubly grateful to you and I having shaken your hand the second time it turns around walks back into the sea how many times would you go on fishing amount seventy times seven I don't think I'd even do it a third time I would say to that person who'd fallen you don't want to be saved so I'm just gonna let you drown the man doesn't want to be saved he enjoys being saved and the more often he can get others to save him the more he enjoys it now that's a crazy story but have you ever prayed to be delivered from something that the Lord has forgiven a second time or a third time or a fourth time you've been delivered from a sin you've enjoyed the freedom God has given you and yet within six months you're back in the same old sin again that's what I mean by exploiting the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and that's a the most serious blockage to his mercy when you take advantage there was a Frenchman well actually German born but a French poet and when he was dying in Paris as the result of a bad life they asked if he'd like to call a priest for confession and the priest did come but he didn't want to talk to him he simply said dear Mahad on recess on metier god will forgive me that's his trade and he died he was taking advantage of God's mercy he'd lived a bad life in Paris and there was no trace of repentance he just went on doing it and assumed that God was good enough to forgive him you can't exploit God's mercy you can't go on doing it again if you've truly repented he gladly forgives but if you fall back again and again into the same bad thing you're taking advantage God forgives you so that you won't do it again he doesn't just go on forgiving and doing the same thing over and over again it loudly forgives you but then to come back six months later and say God I need you to save me again then you come back again say Oh God there I go again that's not forgiveness and it's not salvation you are exploiting God's mercy and that's the third and the last thing I'm going to say to you this afternoon don't ever take advantage of God's mercy God doesn't play games he is merciful he longs to fill you and go out from this place just basking in his mercy and thinking what a wonderful thing it is to be freely given God's mercy but it's for those who came here to ask him for his mercy those who knew that was their need and simply came to ask and it's for those who will pass it on to others and be as merciful to others as God has been to you and it is those who will not exploit what he gives you but it will turn over a new leaf leaf and realize you need not go back to that sin again you're free not to sin and the greatest freedom I know on earth is the freedom not to sin so now we know we know who's going to receive the mercy of God today

Channel: David Pawson - Official

Views: 10,042

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: David Pawson, Mercy of God, Cornerstone

Id: 1pFRaeZri2s

Length: 70min 24sec (4224 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 07 2019