What are the Eternal Mercies of God

Overview: Pastor James discusses the concept of the mercies of God and how they are manifested in different ways, such as spiritual and relational mercies. The focus then shifts to the eternal mercies of God, particularly the idea of resurrection and justification. Pastor James emphasizes the importance of living for what is to come rather than solely focusing on the present. The need for a transformation of mindset is highlighted, as well as the significance of relying on the finished work of Christ for salvation. The idea of standing face to face with God and the importance of justification through faith in Jesus is discussed. The message concludes by posing a thought-provoking question about one's relationship with God and the response they would receive if asked why they should be allowed into heaven. Transcript: Romans Chapter 12, verse 1. We have been talking, this is the third week now, about the mercies of God. What are those mercies? We have covered spiritual mercies of salvation and freedom, of the Holy Spirit and of being conformed to the image of Christ. We covered relational mercies of love and forgiveness and reconciliation and even sonship. Becoming a son and daughter of God. And so this morning, I want to spend a few minutes diving into the eternal mercies of God. So let's read together Romans chapter 12, verse 1. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And let's continue there in verse 2. And, present your bodies, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And so a couple of weeks ago, we looked at the instructions there found in those two Scriptures to present your bodies as a living sacrifice and to not be conformed, but to be transformed. Well, how do we do that? And then, how do we go on living the life that is described in verses 3-8? The hinge for all of that is found right there in verse 1. By the mercies of God. How do we present ourselves? How do we be transformed? By remembering and clinging to and holding on to tightly what we receive from God. The mercies that He gives us. The love, the forgiveness, the reconciliation, the salvation, the freedom from the bondage of sin, the power of the Spirit of God in us by all of those things, but also by clinging to the eternal mercies that God gives us. What are the eternal mercies that He gives us? The first one being this. Resurrection. Now, why should that push us and encourage us and even invite us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice to Him? Because with the resurrection, we understand this, that death is not the end. Death is not the end. Do you realize and understand, that when they are misguided and they are dark and they are messed up and I'm not encouraging or promoting, I want us to understand a little bit of the thought process of the ones that are doing such evil acts that we just prayed against. Because in their minds, the false god that they follow promises them a form of resurrection. Well, if you die in jihad, then you are promised your own planet or you will be the god of that planet. And you will get all of these things. Or at least, you will be reincarnated as something a little bit better than you are right now. Now, that doesn't interest me, so how can you improve on what's here? I'm kidding. I'm kidding, of course. But they are promised something after death. And so they are banking on the fact that if I do this, if I commit this evil, if I commit these atrocities, then I'm getting something better than what I have right now. Now here's the problem with them versus us. They are serving a false god with false promises and false teachings. Because the only thing waiting for people that cling to that and hold to that and follow that is an eternity and a hellfire burning with brimstone where the worm dieth not, and torment and judgment and separation from the one true God. That's what's waiting for them. But what's waiting for us is an eternity in heaven. In a place of perfection where we will not be God, but we will be clothed in the righteousness of God. Why was Satan kicked out of heaven? Because he thought that he could be God. And here's all these other religious teachings saying, you'll be God. You'll be God. You'll be God. Satan has no new tricks. He's using the same ones over and over and over again. And people are falling for it. But for us, we put our faith and trust in Christ. There is a resurrection coming for us. A better thing offered to us. Romans 6, verse 5 says, for if we have been united, and in the King James, that word is planted. Think about that. Not just united, but planted, rooted, growing together in the likeness of His death. Certainly, we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection. 1 Thessalonians 4, v. 16-18, For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then those who are alive and remain shall be called up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus, we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words. Lord, how do we present our bodies as a living sacrifice? How are we transformed by the renewing of our minds? Because our minds move from this is all there is to there's something better to come. You see, the church is full of people. The church is full of pastors. The church is full of deacons who live their entire life and spend all of their energy for the right here and right now. What God says is, if you want to present your bodies, if you want to be transformed by the renewing of your mind, you don't live for the right here, right now. You live for what's to come. I heard one guy put it this way. He said if you aim for earth, you might get it. But if you aim for heaven, you'll get it and earth will be thrown in. What's he saying? If I focus on what's to come, then all of my relationships on earth will be better. Why? Because no matter how they hurt me, I'm not focused on that. How good they are to me, guess what? I'm not even focused on that. I'm focused on what's to come. I'm not focused on what's to come. I'm focused on what's to come. Because what's to come is even better. All of my relationships were based on this. How do I get them to see what I see? How do I get them to experience what I experience? How do I get them to be where I'm going to be? When we cling to and hold on to the fact that we have a resurrection that's coming, then it's not about how can I make you feel good about yourself? No, it's, I know you're going through a hard time. But you know what? The sufferings of this present world are nothing to be compared to the love that we have in Jesus Christ. And I'm going to lift you up, and I'm going to pray for you, and I'm going to support you, and I'm going to be there for you. But you know what? There are better things to come. That's why Paul says, I've been hungry, and I've been full. I've been free, and I've been in bondage. I've been in need, and I've had everything I could think of. And you know what? Under all of those circumstances, I can be content. Why? Because our future, because who we are, our identity, our joy, all those things are not based on the temporal things of this world. They're based on the eternal things that is promised to us. Here's the thing. That's a transformation of mindset. Because from the time you were knee-high on a grasshopper, your mom and dad have been telling you, you can be anything you want to be. Just try hard. You succeed at life, and everything's going to be good. You just do right and do good to others, and this world will be a better place. And it's all about what you do right now. And so we grow up with that mentality. I've got to work hard. I've got to perform. I've got to do right. I've got to go this way. And it's all about the right here, right now. But I want to promise you, not based on my understanding, not based on anything that I have, my knowledge or my wisdom, but based on the very Word of God, this life is not all there is. The church, those who believe in Christ, who have confessed Him as their Lord and Savior, the church has to stop living like it is. We must live for the resurrection. Not only resurrection, but we have justification. This means to declare innocent or guiltless. You see, this is important because after the resurrection, you and I will stand face to face with God. And the justification is important. Because when we stand face to face to God, judgment's coming. And if it's left up to us, we've worked hard, we've built a life, we have all the luxuries that this world could afford, and we've put our kids through college, and we have taught them to play baseball or football or soccer, and now they're stars in the NFL or the NBA, what's the major league? MLB, soccer, ACLS, I don't know. All of those professional athletic organizations, man, they're playful and they're making the big bucks. Oh, there's some CEO of a Fortune 500 company and they're bringing millions and millions of dollars. That's great! That's good! That's awesome! Congratulations! But what will they say when they're face to face with God? Well, God, I donated $2.6 million to Kings Grove Baptist Church. If You want to do that, I will welcome it. I understand, appreciate Your support. But that's not going to get you into heaven. You stand face to face with God. The only way that you and I will be pronounced innocent and guiltless is if we're leaning on the finished work of Christ on the cross. One of what they call diagnostic questions of the evangelism explosion outline, which is just a tool to use when you're talking with somebody about Jesus. You start a conversation. It's like, oh, you like fish? Hey, you work through that. And you get to the point where you can ask one of these questions. If you were to die today and stand before God, and He were to ask you, why should I let you into my heaven? What would you say? Well, I'm a pretty good guy. I give to the needy. I give to the poor. I wear my plaid on Sunday. I go to church. I do all these things. I taught in Your name. I served in Your name. I gave in Your name. I even claim to be under Your name. But if it's not, I trusted and put my faith in the sacrificial crucifixion of Your Son, Jesus. The Father's response is going to be this. Depart from Me. I never knew You. Think about that question. For your life. Not why I said a prayer once. Not why I knelt at an altar one time. I came to pray for Israel that time, you remember? But if you were to die today, and you were to stand before God face to face, and He were to ask you, why should I let you into my heaven? What would you say? Well, my daddy would say, what would you say? Well, mama... What would you say? Well, preacher, what would you say? God gives us justification because we can't justify ourselves no matter how good we think we are. The same darkness that leads these men to do what they're doing in Israel is the same darkness inside of us. And there's only one power that can overcome that darkness. And that's Jesus. Resurrection justification. And with justification is the flip side of that same coin which is righteousness, which means characterized by accepted standards of morality. Now we have to be careful because there is a level of self-righteousness, right? Well, I think that's right. You talk to anybody long enough about the Bible, you're going to disagree on one topic or another. Well, I believe that women shouldn't wear pants. Well, I think they're free to wear pants. You say nobody thinks. You'd be surprised, right? There's a disagreement there. They both have a different standard of morality. And so when they get to heaven, they're like, well, my standard is this. Women shouldn't wear pants. Miss Pastor, I'm sorry, but you just... But here's the thing, beloved. It's not our standards that matter. And that's where we get in trouble as pastors, isn't it? That we try to push our standards on people. It's not about our standards. When I get before God, when you get before God, you're not going to say, well, God, I know You said this, but here's my standard. So we can't bank on our self-righteousness. What we have to bank on is God's righteousness. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin that we might become what? The righteousness of God. So we need to be transitioned from self-righteousness to God's righteousness. How do we do that? Through the blood of Christ. He made Him who knew no sin. God's righteous standard, His moral standard is what? Perfection. Perfection. Now, I hope nobody's ever looked in the mirror and saw themselves like, yeah, perfect. Right? We understand that perfect is unattainable. The only way that we can pretend to grab on to perfection is if we lower the bar of perfection. Well, I can't reach this, so I'm going to just bring it down to here. And once it's down here, oh, I can do that. Rich young ruler came to Jesus. I've got to do this, this, this. I've done all that. Lowered level of perfection. Done it all since childbirth. Kept it 100%. I said, but there's one point. Go and sell all your possessions. Love for me should be over. Love for your possessions. That's what He said. So let's bring the bar back up here. And you know what? He went away sad because He was very rich. He had lowered the bar of perfection. Jesus put it back where it belonged. Beloved, we can't reach that bar of perfection on our own. And so we can't bank on self-righteousness. We have to trust in God's righteousness through Jesus. Justification, righteousness, and lastly, all of this culminates into the eternal mercy of eternal life. Romans 6.23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. I want you to picture just for a moment, I thought our worship was very good this morning. That song was beautiful. A reminder of who God is for us. But you know what? Our worship this morning was imperfect. Because it was made up of imperfect people led by an imperfect person in front of a congregation of imperfect people. It was flawed. It was tainted by sin. Can you imagine participating in perfect worship in a perfect body with a perfect family and perfect praise in the presence of a perfect God and after 10,000 years, we'll just be started? That's the life. Listen, I want to make this point very clearly. That's the life that is to come. But that's the life we're living right now. And what I mean by that is I don't just grab on to eternal life after my death. I have eternal life right now. And so what that should do for me is remove the fear of death. Hey, Paul says to die is gain, but to live is Christ. That's the mentality. Hey, I've got eternal life coming. I've got that resurrection. I've got that justification and that righteousness. And you know what? I've got all that. I've got it. I should cling to that just as clearly as I cling to this wallet in my back pocket. I have this in my possession, right? It's here. Eternal life, righteousness, justification. All of that is yours. You have it. It's not just something to be grasped later. It's something to live in and to walk in right now. Well, you just don't know what my neighbor did to you. Does it really matter in the eternal scheme of things? Well, they just looked at me cross-eyed. So what? Not everybody's going to like you. Not everybody's going to be your best friend. And that's okay. Let's cling to the mercies of God. When we get there, we won't be tempted or tainted by sin. There will be no more sickness or disease, no darkness or disasters. Only the perfect presence of a perfect God for all eternity. What a glorious, glorious day that will be when my Jesus I shall see. Beloved, I ask you a question that I hope has rattled around your mind for the last few moments. If you were to die today, and you were to stand before God, and He were to ask you, why shall I let you into My heaven? What would you say? Your answer to that question would be anything other than, because I believe in Jesus and what He accomplished on the cross, that He died for me, that I might have forgiveness for my sin, and I fall before you claiming the righteousness and the justification that He has given me. Now, I know it doesn't have to be in those exact words, but you understand what I'm saying. If your hope is anchored in anything other than that, my friend, you stand in danger of Him saying to you, depart from Me, for I never knew you. But the good news is there's a remedy for that. He says if you'll confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus was raised from the dead, you shall be saved. Anyone who puts their faith and trust in Christ will have all of the mercies that I've been talking about the last three weeks, including the mercies I spoke of this morning. Have you put your faith and trust in Christ as your personal Lord and Savior? If you haven't, the Bible says today is the day of salvation. Is He calling you? Is He drawing you? Would you love to talk with Him more about that? I'll be down here right front. Maybe there's a loved one on your heart and in your mind that you need to pray that they will receive and experience the love of Christ. They will be saved from the penalties of their sin. Will you come and lay their name on this altar? Pray for them, for their salvation. Maybe there's a situation or circumstance you're dealing with that you need God to be your refuge, your power, your quiet place. You just need to lay that before God. That's what this altar is for. You come. As Patsy plays, I'll be down front. I'd love to pray with you, pray for you. You come. This altar is open.