Relentless Grace - a special sermon from South Africa

1. Relentless Grace
1. No matter how far you run away or how disobedient you are, God still loves you and bathes you with His unending grace
2. Phillip Holmes wrote, “He’s not ignorant of all the ways we’ve sinned against him. He knows everything we’ve ever done and is able to stomach it. His knowledge of who we really are will never hinder his love for us. He’s even aware of the evil behind our righteous deeds. The intimacy by which the Lord knows us but is able to lovingly embrace us as his children is supernatural. God’s grace is mind-blowing. Every time I think of this reality, I’m brought to tears because I serve a God whose love and grace baffle me.” https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/gods-grace-is-mind-blowing
3. I blatantly rejected the voice of the Holy Spirit
1. Heaviest - 138 kilograms
2. I’ve lost 18 kilograms in three weeks
3. No pain, no recovery, no problems of any kind!
4. Joel 2:12-14 'But there’s also this, it’s not too late— God ’s personal Message!— “Come back to me and really mean it! Come fasting and weeping, sorry for your sins!” Change your life, not just your clothes. Come back to God, your God. And here’s why: God is kind and merciful. He takes a deep breath, puts up with a lot, This most patient God, extravagant in love, always ready to cancel catastrophe. Who knows? Maybe he’ll do it now, maybe he’ll turn around and show pity. Maybe, when all’s said and done, there’ll be blessings full and robust for your God!
5. God’s pleasure is to give you the Kingdom! Luke 12:32 “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/it-is-your-fathers-pleasure-to-give-you-the-kingdom)
6. In Luke 12 there are 4 things we tend to fear
1. Death: 4 “Dear friends, don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot do any more to you after that.”
2. Public Shame: 11 “And when you are brought to trial in the synagogues and before rulers and authorities, don’t worry about how to defend yourself or what to say…”
3. Basic Physical Needs: “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food to eat or enough clothes to wear.”
4. But the greatest fear of all...God won’t take me back or love me! 32 “So don’t be afraid, little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the Kingdom.”

• The word is also “good pleasure”

1. In Greek, it’s a verb  “to be a pleasure” or “to be pleased by.” You could say: “it pleased God,” or, “God chose it gladly.”
2. God loves you from a place of freedom, he doesn’t have to he chooses to!
3. It’s his greatest pleasure
4. His joy
5. His desire
1. How many of you believe that God, this lowly Servant-King is just a veneer, a trick?
2. Beneath what we read in scripture God is
1. A terrible power waiting to punish me for my sin and my slip-ups
2. His deepest desire can’t be to bless me and meet my needs!
3. These are lies! Your job is to remember…
1. Ask the Holy Spirit to remind you of how God has loved you now.
2. Are you even willing to remember or see it? Reject any spirit of deception or lies about who God is!
4. If you can’t receive this message today, you must challenge your belief in who God is and possibly, own it is not how you treat others.
5. Your job is to repent and ask forgiveness, and the crazy thing is, you don’t have to beg God for it is His pleasure, His desire, His will to love you unconditionally!
1. God is there!
2. He’s with you right now!
3. He’s yearning for you to take His hand!
1. Little one, I have so much I want to give you
2. You are my child, my blessed one, let me love you
3. It’s ok, I’m here
4. I see you, and I see Me in you!
5. You aren’t just some creation!
6. You are made in My image!
7. TAKE MY HAND