“Trust
and Mercy”
By Parrish Lee
March 6th,
2011
Click here to download printable sermon
notes in pdf format.
Psalms
18:30 ...He is a
buckler to all those
that trust in Him.
John
13:13-17
…The servant
is not greater than his Lord…
Our
Scripture
text here takes place after the Lord Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead
(John
11), after people were being drawn to the Lord in droves because of
this great
miracle (John 11-13), after they had laid palm leaves in His path as He
entered
Jerusalem (John 12), after the Last Supper, and before they came to
take the
Lord away.
The Lord
humbled
Himself, and washed the feet of the Disciples. There
are huge lessons for all of us in this
text on how we ought to behave one to another. He
has given us an example on how to follow
Him, and as we enter pre-Easter it would be good to visit, but our
focus today
will be on verse
16: “…The servant is
not greater than his Lord…”
There is a
reason
this passage is in the Word of God, brothers and sisters. The Lord knew that we, as a
people, would get
around to distancing ourselves from Him, His Word, his life…and still
want all
His glory, His rewards. Saints,
that’s
just the way the flesh is—give me as much as I can get for as little
effort or
work as possible. And
why not? Who wants
to work if they don’t have to? But
we do have to be careful not to get too
smart, convenient and lazy when it comes to living our lives in the
Lord.
If I can be
a
little real this morning, brothers and sisters, the war is on. The world will tell you
that, “You don’t have
to serve the Lord or obey His Word—after all, that book is dated; we’re
living
in modern times,” or anything else that can appease our conscience and
get us
to choose the world over God, but when we look at what God has done for
us, we
see that the world doesn’t have our soul in its best interests.
John
15:19-20
If you were
of the world, the world would love its own…
Why
do we suffer
and go through trials and tribulations in this world? Because
our Lord suffered in this world, and
we are not greater than our Master. The
Lord said that He prayed not that we would be taken out of the world,
but kept
from the evil of the world (John
17:15). Why
not take us out of the
world? Because
we’ve been born again. God
put His Spirit in us and made us of His
light. No man
lights a candle and puts
it under a bushel (Matthew
5:15), but makes it for all the world to see—including our
Heavenly Father. So,
wherever you go, God says, “See there—there’s
My light.” Show the
world. The light is
supposed to make a difference. When
Jesus walked the earth, people who had
needs came to Him. People
who didn’t
want to accept His Spirit persecuted Him, and brought railing
accusations. “The
servant is not greater than his master.”
If we suffer
with Him, we shall reign
with Him.
2
Timothy 2:12
If we suffer, we
shall also reign with Him…
Now,
know
this: All of
creation has been waiting
for this time; for the manifestation of the sons and daughters of God. You know how a family waits
for a mother to
bear a child? Grandparents,
fathers,
aunts, and uncles look so forward to the bringing forth of a babe. And when that baby comes,
look at the
rejoicing! Everybody
wants to see. They
sometimes take the baby on tours, and
when people hear that it’s there, they show up for a visit—those who
can’t,
want to see a picture. Did
you know it’s
like that in God’s family? When
a soul
is added to the Kingdom, you can’t even imagine the seraphims and
cherubims and
the archangels—the joy they give in the presence of God Almighty (Luke
15:10). Can
you just hear the songs
that they sing and the shouts that they give, and all of God’s creation
join to
praise Him for what he’s done? It
would
blow our minds if we could just get a glimpse…
Psalms
36:5-10
…children of men put
their trust under the shadow of thy wings…
We
see in verse
5 that His mercy reaches to Heaven, and in verse
7, His lovingkindness is excellent, therefore we trust Him;
so, there is a
relationship between His mercy and our trust. We
have talked a little about us trusting God,
now a little bit about His mercy.
Lamentations
3:21-26
…It is of the Lord’s
mercies that we are not consumed…
Many
of you have
heard that I was in a car accident recently, and I want to thank each
and every
one of you who sent prayers and well wishes. I
tried to change lanes, because the car in
front of me signaled to turn. I
did not
know that I was on a sheet of ice. My
back end swung toward the car in front of me, so I accelerated towards
the
grass to avoid hitting that car. That
would have been fine, except for that big tree…
I swerved, trying not to hit the tree, which swung
my back end around,
and shot me back into the street and traffic—sideways. The next thing I knew I was
rolling over and
over. The only
movement I could do was
to throw my elbows up to try to protect my head from the roof caving
in, but,
really, can I lift 6500 pounds with my elbows?
Saints it
is of
our God’s great mercy that I am here today. And
not me only, Brother Tom Hanson was in a
terrible car accident years ago. Brother
Tom, how long were you in the hospital? A month. Did
everyone survive? Seven people were
killed. Ed Howes
was also in a bad
accident. How long
were you in the
hospital? A week and a half. There
are
others here that can say that they were in an accident in a car, or at
work,
and you know it was the hand of God that kept you. Maybe
you know someone in your family, or a
friend, that something happened and you know it was nothing but God
Almighty
that made the difference.
It is easy
to
take the Lord’s deliverance for granted. When
we are in the midst of a battle, we
wonder, but when God delivers us, He often does it so thoroughly that
we have a
tendency to wonder what all the fuss was about.
If I can
make
myself a little more clear this morning about His mercy and grace: I’ve heard it said that He
is the God of a
second chance, but if you know like I know, He’s not just the God of a
second
chance, but He’s God of a third and a fourth and a twentieth and a
hundredth,
and if you are anything like me, then you know that God is well into
the
thousandths. Oh,
thank God for His mercy
that endureth forever. This
is the
heritage of them that trust God—we know that He is God alone and there
is none
beside Him. When
you trust God, you find
Him to be the Rose of Sharron, the Lily of the valley, the Bright and
Morning
Star, the Balm of Gilead, and the Great I Am. When
we trust God, we find Him to be our
medicine when we are sick, our heat when we’re cold, food on our table,
rent,
transportation, peace of mind, breath in our lungs, and even words in
our
mouths.
I’m not
confused
about this: I live
because of Him, I
breathe because of Him, I see because of Him; in fact, the Scripture
says that
every good and perfect gift cometh from the Father-of-lights (James
1:17).
Revelations
4:10-11 …for
thy pleasure they are
and were created.
Sermon
notes by Pete Shepherd
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