Abundant Mercy

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello radio friends. How in the world are you? Everything going alright at your house? Well I know, some days are not as good as others. And some days you say to yourself, “I never should have gotten up.” (Laughs) “Should have stayed in bed.” Well I know that. But if you’ve struck a rough day, look up and say, “Lord Jesus I’m yours, see me through this one.” I’ve had the experience of, of waking up and not feeling very religious, not very Christian, not very blessed.

But just saying, “Lord Jesus I’m yours, minister to me now by the indwelling Holy Spirit. And tune up my soul.” And as you pray and commit yourself to the Savior, He takes hold. And a day which seemed threatening now becomes an adventure with the Savior.

I’m glad to be back with you, and we’re in 1 Peter 1. “Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again onto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God, through faith.”

Last time we got together we stopped on some of these words just, just to meditate on them. And I advised you to invite Almighty God into your life. And I told you that the way to get comfortable with God the Father is to make Jesus Lord of everything in your life. He’s the way to God.

Now God the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ who according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again. The new birth is evidence of God’s mercy as well as of His love. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” That of course is John 3:16.

But you go over to Titus 3:5 ‘Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy. He saved us by the washing of regeneration — that’s the new birth — and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. So you have love. Titus 3:4, ‘Kindness and love’. But then in verse 5, “According to His mercy.” God has had mercy on me in that He planned and has implemented this matter of the new birth. What that is, is the implantation of a divine nature in you. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation”, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17. “A new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold old things are become new.”

Paul uses a different figure of speech and says, “We’ve been raised up together,” using the idea of resurrection. “Raised up together and seated in the heavenlies with Christ.” So that’s a new kind of life. It is a deliverance from the death that sin had worked in your life. “The wages of sin is death.” Dead to God, and dead to good, and dead to any possibility for eternity. And now you’re alive in Christ. “You hath He quickened — that’s our word “made alive”, Ephesians 2:1 “You hath made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now worketh in the children of disobedience.”

Used to be under the control of Satan, now you’re under the control of God. And God can control you because He’s put His life in you. And that life responds to His control. My old theology prof. Dr. John Champion, many years ago now he went to be with the Lord. But his memory is fresh in my mind. And once in a while I hear from his son, who I think is a medical doctor if I’m not mistaken. But in any case, my old prof. used to say, “Every life has its law. The law of the acorn is the law of the oak tree. The law of the pollywog is the law of the frog, and so on. The law of the grain of corn is the results in the ear of corn. Every life has its law.”

“And so you were living according to the law of sin and death. But now you’ve been made alive in Christ, and you’re living according to the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8 is the passage. According to His mercy we’re been, been born again. This new life that God infuses in you, which relates then, which responds to His guidance, and His love, and His purposes. Born again.

Now what is the number one result, so far as Peter is concerned, of the new birth. Some people would say, “Oh it’s joy and peace.” Well that’s true. ‘Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’. And Peter says, “In whom though now you see Him not, yet believing you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” That’s true.

And Paul, and Paul says in Romans 15:30, “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.” And there he brings in the idea of hope. “Has begotten us again onto a living hope.” Now hope is different from wish. I wish someone would leave me a million dollars! (Laughs) But I don’t have any hope of it. (Laughs) I don’t have any hope of it. I wish that I might have a new car, but I don’t have any hope of it. You see, there’s the difference. You get the idea?

To wish for something reflects your desires. To hope for something reflects real possibility based on other people or situations. A living hope. Now what is the basis then of our hope, as believers? He says, “We’ve been born again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, from the dead.” See, the basis of the fact that we have a living hope is simply that the Lord Jesus Himself is alive. “Unto a living hope through” — Greek word diá— through, because of an implemental leverage kind of, of word that is — “through, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, from the dead. He’s a living hope.

Now you may, you want to get that so that it’s, it’s reachable for you? Number one, because Jesus is alive you have hope for the passing moments. Every one of us has had the experience of a day where everything seemed to be going wrong, and going at a reverse. And you just sort of lost, you’ve lost hope that things would work. And in the midst of a day like that, right in the present tense where you feel as though you were living in the middle of an egg beater, so much turmoil, so much stress, you can look up and say, “Lord Jesus, I know you’re alive, I know that I’m yours. Take care of me now.”

Anything I tell you, I’ve been there. And I’ve been in situations like that where all of a sudden as I prayed that prayer, my spirit was calmed. My mind begun to work more clearly. Instead of giving up, I went on, and went on through. And God blessed as a result. A living hope for the present tense. See, hope doesn’t have to be a million years away. Hope can be as real as the next second.

And so the Lord Jesus is alive by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The, the fact that He is alive gives me hope. For right now, why? Because He is alive, I can get to Him. And my faith can, can depend upon His almightiness on my behalf. “He everliveth to make intersession for them that come unto God by Him” the writer to the Hebrews says. Because He is alive, I can get to Him. And better still, He can get to me.

And then of course there’s hope for the immediate tomorrows. You look at that little baby life and you say, “Oh I wonder what’s going to happen when he grows up, or when she grows up? What a wicked world it is, and what a troubled world, and full of, of wars and troubles, and terrorists, and all the rest.” And your, and your heart sort of sinks as you realize all of that little tyke is going to be up against. And then by faith you take that life and you say, “Lord Jesus, it’s yours.” And you hand that little girl or boy over to the Savior. And you say, “Lord, you take it.”

And day by day, you hand that life over by faith to the Savior, while you’re doing your best to teach and to train, to discipline and to love, and to, and to model, frankly, the, the Christian life before those perceptive little eyes. You’re trusting the Savior who’s alive. And you have hope for the immediate tomorrows because you know He’s there, and He’s not going to forsake you. For He hath said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Hope for the immediate tomorrows.

Some of you are getting older — as we all are I guess. I don’t feel old. Isn’t that funny? I, I used to sort of snicker a little behind my father’s back when he kept saying he didn’t feel old. He was, he was 80-, 84 nearly when he when to heaven. And right straight up until the end as I would visit him in the old soldier’s home up there at Wood Wisconsin he’d say, “I’m not old.” (Laughs) In fact he said one time to, to Enid Manstrom who was a deacon at Midwest Bible Church, he said, “Why,” he said, “If, if I had my eyesight, I’d get married again and raise a family.” (Laughs) He was a feisty brother, I’ll tell you. (Laughs)

But you don’t feel old. And yet, well years are going by. What a-, what about that? Well because Jesus is alive, you and I have hope for the immediate tomorrows. What if I get sick? What if I am not able to get about? What if I’m not able to keep up the pace, huh? Well? I read just today of Adela Rodger Saint Johns, who at age 90-what? 3-4, — was finally recognizing the fact that her body was slowing down. And she said, “Well this is new career,” she said. “It’s a career that involves learning how to slow down cheerfully for the glory of God.” And right straight up to the end of her life they say, she was happy and, and, and radiant, and praising her Lord because she was trusting Him. Hope for the immediate tomorrows.

No, I don’t know what’s going to happen in the immediate tomorrows. But I know Jesus is alive. And I know I’m His boy. And I know He won’t drop me. It’s great isn’t it? Halleluiah! (Laughs). Praise the Lord.

Dear Jesus, thank you for being alive and being so faithful and loving —our living Savior. Halleluiah! Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!