Embracing God's Grace and Mercy in Our Lives

1) "When we're asking for God's mercy, when the word talks about God's mercy, it's actually speaking about this healing presence of God, right? Because olive oil back in biblical times was used for different things, but it was really used for massaging into wounds and bruises and things like that. So when we're asking for mercy, we're asking for his soothing, for his healing. That's what we're asking for. So it's... It's a huge change because, you know, we kind of have this, you know, we're influenced by Puritan culture and there's this sermon that was preached called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, and that's kind of our idea of mercy. Like he's just barely dangling us over the fire. It's like, I'm going to have mercy and no, I'm not going to throw you in. But that's not it at all. It's more his compassion. His compassion towards you is so great." [01:16:51] (55 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "See, the thing is, when Jesus was walking the earth, his mercy was his compassion towards people, right? Like it says that he was moved with compassion, but it's his grace that actually fulfilled the healing, that actually made the healing happen. It's his power. It's his grace. So we're going to get to grace, but I first feel like we need to talk about God. Yeah, we're in church. We're going to talk about God. See, the ancient church. The ancient church, talking about God, they believed that there were these two aspects of God. One was his essence, and one was his energies. And I'm not talking about like a new agey, like, your energy's off. Man, I don't like the energy around that guy. It's not that at all. It's energeo. It's talking about the way he energizes things in the earth, the way that he moves in the earth, the way that we experience him in the earth." [01:18:17] (53 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "We can't even comprehend the universe, and how can we comprehend the one that put it in order? Right? This essence. This essence. Understand this first. Isaiah 55, 8 through 9 says, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Thank God. Thank God that his thoughts are higher than my thoughts. But here's the thing. In the New Testament, Paul says, but we have the mind of Christ. So we can fathom what he speaks. We can understand. But the thing is, that's not to understand. The fullness of God, that's to understand his perspective looking outward on the world. That's to understand what he sees about someone else. That's to understand what he wants, his will in the earth." [01:19:49] (54 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "We have to understand that God is good. There is consequence to sin, yes. But God is compassionate. He's full of mercy. And he's full of grace. He is so good. He's better than we think he is. Who alone has immortality? Who dwells in unapproachable light? Whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. That's 1 Timothy 6.16. I'm just going to take a moment. Because Job wrecked me. And I tell you why. Because we're going through this. And there's, you know, Job is going through all the suffering. Then he comes to a point. This is, like, not related to grace at all. But it just, like, hit me. So I'm just going to read this really quick. If that's okay with you guys." [01:23:18] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "Grace is the empowerment by the Holy Spirit to do the things that I can't do on my own. To give me the capabilities to do the things that I need to do that I can't do on my own. That's what grace is. Grace is the empowerment of God to do the things I need to do. It's the empowerment of God to live the way I should live. Because you can't white-knuckle that, right? Has anybody tried? It doesn't work. It doesn't work. It's just energizing. You know what's weird? We've had this charger debacle in our family. Chargers that don't work. The kids lost chargers. There's no chargers anywhere and everything's dead. My phone hasn't been fully charged for a week. Then I go in my office and I've got an extra long charging cord that comes out. It's really nice. I plugged it in. I'm like, why isn't this working?" [01:29:36] (57 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "His grace empowers me. Also, the spiritual gifts. It's charismata, which are these abilities that are given by the Holy Spirit. Spiritual gifts. Things like prophecy. Healing. Tongues. All these different spiritual gifts. These are also God's grace. So pretty much at the bottom of all this, grace is the empowerment by the Holy Spirit to do the things that I can't do on my own. To give me the capabilities to do the things that I need to do that I can't do on my own. That's what grace is. Grace is the empowerment of God to do the things I need to do. It's the empowerment of God to live the way I should live. Because you can't white-knuckle that, right? Has anybody tried? It doesn't work. It doesn't work." [01:28:50] (52 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "We receive grace by receiving from others. And this is why I said that if you need prayer, if you need healing, if you need anything, please come up after church. It doesn't take a super spiritual person to pray for you and for God's grace to come through them and give you what you need. It doesn't take the super Christian. It doesn't take like, I need that person. I mean, maybe the Lord's pointing somebody out to you, but just come up and receive prayer. We've seen so much breakthrough with kids praying for people. Crazy, like crazy breakthrough. Again, I'm talking about the church again, or the school again, but at the school we've seen kids praying for healing for each other and stuff happening. It's crazy. So receive prayer." [01:48:01] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "Lastly, we approach the throne of grace. So his essence, is unknowable. The vastness of who he is is unapproachable. But he's made himself known and he's made himself approachable. Hebrews 4, 14 through 16. Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the son of God. Let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." [01:50:07] (52 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)