In this transformative episode, Rick Hughes takes a closer look at God’s unwavering love as revealed in the Scriptures. From the sacrificial love demonstrated through Jesus Christ to the daily mercies we experience, Rick illustrates how faith and understanding in God’s plan can lead us to a life filled with peace and hope. Listeners will explore the aspects of grace before mercy and how these divine concepts impact our spiritual journey.
00:25:56 Concluding Thoughts on Grace, Mercy, and Forgiveness
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to the Flatline with your host Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now your host, Rick Hughes.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and I’d like to welcome you back for 30 minutes of inspiration, some motivation, a whole lot of education, and obviously no manipulation. That’s right. This is not a con game. We’re not going to ask you for any money. We don’t need to beg people to support us. I don’t mean to put it like that, but we’re not out trying to hustle money is what I’m trying to tell you. We’re not asking you to join up, fess up, give up. We’re just asking you to listen up. Listen as I teach the Word of God. And if you like it, if you can orient and adjust to God’s plan, you’ll find a wonderful life waiting you. We call our show the FLOT line, F-L-O-T. FLOT stands for the Forward Line of Troops. What we’re basically doing is using a military analogy of how God’s Word, especially 10 unique problem-solving devices, can form a main line of resistance in your soul, a flat line, forward line of troops. And that main line of resistance can stop the outside sources of adversity before they ever become the inside source of stress. That’s why we always say adversity is inevitable, but stress is optional. And so you have to think to live. You have to be able to concentrate to live. That’s why you’ll hear me tell you constantly that God gave us two ends, one end we think with and one end we sit on. And success in life depends on which one of those you use. Heads, you’ll win. Tails, you’ll lose. So if you’re going to think and understand how God’s plan operates, the first thing you have to learn in Proverbs 3, 7, don’t be wise in your own eyes. Don’t be a delusional daydreamer. don’t think that you’re smarter than God. He put it all in writing, left it all in the scripture. It’s all there. However, scoffers scoff at the Bible. Scoffers ignore the Bible, ignore the scriptures. And I pray that you don’t do that. I pray you’ll take a moment to listen, learn, and apply in your life these principles that we give you from the word of God. And oh, by the way, just briefly, These shows are all available in transcription form. We have them a year at a time. We’re working on that now, and we will have the entire year of 2019 available. If you’d like to have the transcriptions of every show taught in 2019, write to us. Let us know. from our website it’s free it costs you nothing and we’ll be glad to send it to you free of charge and uh encourage you to continue uh praying for us as we look for new markets and to expand new territories where the lord would have us go with our radio show okay all right and by the way we do podcast all of these shows they are available on the podcast platform such as Apple iPod, Spotify, iPod, Anchor, any of these others like that. And if you’ll just type in The Flotline in the search engine of the podcast, You’ll find our radio shows, and you can listen to them anywhere in the world. We have listeners in Africa. We have listeners in Australia. We have listeners all over the world that just check in to the podcast and pick up the radio show that way. So you can hear it terrestrially in your own city as you may be listening to me right now over your radio station. You can hear it on streaming audio as the radio station puts it out on streaming audio over the Internet, or you can hear it on a podcast venue. And again, no charge for anything we do. If God’s in it, he’ll pay for it. If not, we’ll stop. It’s that simple. Okay, we’ve been talking about the love of God, God’s love for you. We started that last week. And we’re gonna continue that a little bit, talking about the divine love that God has for you. And we asked a question last week, what proof do you have that God loves you? Remember this, before we become a Christian, God loves us, but it’s with an impersonal love. It’s not based on who we are. It’s based on who he is. That’s why he said, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son and the world is me and you. And he loved us even though we were not his children, even though we were not born again believers, he loved us with an impersonal love. And then once we believe in Jesus Christ and receive him as our savior, We’re brought into the royal family of God, adopted in, made heirs to all that Christ is heir to, and now the personal love. Now God loves us with a personal love. So what proof do you have God loves you? Here it is. Someone once said he knows us better than we know our own selves. Yes, the scripture does indicate that. Listen to Psalm in review. I gave you this last week, but I’ll give it to you again. Psalm 139, verses one through four. Psalm 139, verses 1 through 4, as the psalmist wrote that. Yes, God knew you in eternity past. He knew what you would be like. He determined a plan for your life. He provided a savior for your life. He provided all sorts of information and the potential for you to have an amazing life unless you ignore all of that. unless you get wise in your own eyes and scoff at God’s plan and substitute your own plan. So the writer goes on to say, you formed me in my inward parts, Psalm 139, verse 13 and 14. You formed me in my inward parts. You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise you. For I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well. So you and I, we are a product of a divine design. He designed us in eternity past, and he knows us perfectly well. He has a plan for our life. You want to hear your plan? I can give it to you right here. Jeremiah 29, 11 through 13, for I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord. He’s thinking about you and me. Thoughts of peace, not of evil, to give you a future, to give you a hope, and then you will call upon me and go and pray to me, and I will listen to you, and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all of your heart. These are the plans God has for you. I know the plans that Satan has for you. He’s a liar, he’s a deceiver, and he’s a murderer. This is what Jesus said. But in 1 John 4, 9, by this the love of God was manifested in us that God sent his only begotten son into the world so that we might live through him. There it is, impersonal love of God motivating him to provide a savior for us. And in 1 John 4, 10, this is love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us, and I put in parentheses, first, and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sin. So God paid for our sin with his own son’s life. That first demonstration of his love for us is grace. That’s the first demonstration. God’s grace to you and to me is an indication of his love for us. Point one, in order of the manifestation of God’s purposes of salvation, grace must go before mercy. Grace has to come first for God’s purposes. Grace before mercy. And then point two, peace is the result of grace and mercy. Peace with God, point three, is the reconciliation that we have to him. We are brought nearer to him through Christ. And point four, the act of Christ on the cross restored our relationship with God. And that’s why Romans 5, 1 says, therefore being justified by faith, we now have peace with God through our Lord by means of, because of our Lord Jesus Christ. grace, mercy, and peace. That’s the demonstration of God’s love for you. His demonstration of mercy is the Hebrew word chesed, C-H-E-C-E-D. It’s a word for kindness. Genesis 39, 21, the Lord showed mercy to Joseph and he’s compassionate in Exodus 33, 19. Rakam, the Hebrew word for compassionate. the greek word elias or elio means to have pity and to be merciful to show compassion to those who have need in titus 3 5 listen carefully not by works of righteousness which we’ve done but and here it is listen carefully according to his mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the holy spirit which he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Lord. This is mercy granted to you because of grace. That’s how much God loves us. If you can capture that thought, if you can phantom that idea, God loves you so much that he gave his only begotten son. He was motivated by grace and mercy, and you have the peace that comes with it. Oh my gosh, don’t ever forget that. He saved us according to his mercy. Hebrews 4.16, let us come boldly to the throne of grace so we can obtain mercy and find grace when we need help. One, mercy is an expression of God’s love for us. And two, mercy is extended to each of us and it extends to each of us a forgiving hand. And that’s the act of eternal kindness that God has for us. Three, mercy seen in the work of the cross, where he who knew no sin was made sin for us so that we may be made the righteousness of God through him. For mercy is an outward expression of God’s perfect love, based on his perfect character, which includes justice and righteousness. The justice and righteousness of God, remember this, what the righteousness of God demands the justice of God provides. Justice is the guardian of God’s righteousness, and these are all expressed in love. Mercy, peace, it all comes because he loves you. God’s justice, God guards his righteousness, and this is why you can have, I don’t mean to be complicated, but this is why you can have an eternal relationship with God. He who knew no sin was made sin for us so that we may be made, here it is, listen, the righteousness of God through him. This is the only way you can have a relationship with God to have perfect equal righteousness. And the only way you can have perfect equal righteousness is through Jesus Christ who gave himself as a ransom for our sin. He took our sin and gives us his righteousness. That’s the expression of God’s love for you in mercy and justice. Amazing the peace you can have. You can go through life knowing that God loves you. You can go through life knowing you have no fear of death. You can go through life knowing these things are written, the Bible says in 1 John. so that you might know that you have eternal life you don’t have to hope it you don’t have to wish it you can know it and that’s a question i have for you right now do you know that for sure are you confident if you died today that you would go to heaven you don’t think much about dying when you’re young but once you hit 50 and then you get to 60 then you get to 70 The thought will cross your mind. I’m not going to be here forever. Where will you be after you die? Do you know that? Do you have confidence that you’re going to heaven? You can always settle it. You can do it at any time. You simply have to do what the Bible says. He that believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. That’s from the Bible. From the Bible, whosoever should call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. You make a decision to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, receive him as your Savior, and you always generally will express that in prayer, telling God the Father what you’re doing. And this is a confidence we have in him. If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. Yes, he will hear you. Yes, he will give you eternal life based on Christ. Not based on you, not based on how good you are, not based on the fact that you don’t do any bad things anymore. Based on the fact that Christ paid for your sin. And when he walked out of that tomb alive three days later, the perfect indication that he conquered death. And proof to you and I that we, even though we may die to the flesh, that we will live forever in heaven in a resurrection body, just as our Lord does. An amazing thing. So this mercy that God gives is the understanding kindness. and the forgiveness to those that, like me, like you, we don’t even deserve it. We don’t even deserve it. That’s how much mercy he gives us. It’s giving undeserved kindness, giving forgiveness to us who don’t deserve it. Likewise, the word of God directs us, you and I, to show mercy. to our fellow human beings who have needs. Romans 12, eight, show mercy with cheerfulness. And in the Bible in Matthew 18, 35, mercy is demonstrated in your life when you forgive people. Mercy is demonstrated in forgiveness. So, point five again, mercy is God giving undeserved kindness or forgiveness to those who don’t deserve it. Point six, the word of God directs us to show mercy to our fellow human beings in need, Romans 12.8. And point seven, mercy is demonstrated in forgiveness, Matthew 18.35. Listen carefully to Lamentations 3, 22 and 23. The Lord’s loving kindness indeed never ceases. That’s his love for you. It never ceases. And his compassions, his mercies, never fail. They are new every morning. Great is his faithfulness. So his love will never fail. His mercies never fail. They’re always there for you based on his justice and his righteousness because you have believed in Jesus Christ and accepted him as your savior. The Bible clearly says in Ephesians 2, 4, and 5, but because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy. Did you hear it? Because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ. Even when we were dead in transgressions, it’s by grace you’ve been saved. Ephesians 2, 4, and 5. So, rich in mercy, made a provision because of grace, provided forgiveness through Christ, even though we were dead in transgressions and sin. There’s no way we could save ourself. It’s not possible. We were dead in transgressions and sin. So it’s God’s grace extended to us and mercy that gives us peace. Mercy, Elias, the Greek word, E-L-E-O-S. I refer to that because that’s the way it’s found in the New Testament, in the original languages of the New Testament. Mercy, Elias. One of the great minds of our times, the Vines New Testament Dictionary says, mercy is the outward manifestation of pity. It assumes need on the part of the one who receives it. and the resources adequate to meet the need on the part of him who shows it. God shows it. It meets our need. We need it. We receive it. What did he give us? Total forgiveness in Christ Jesus completely. And Luke 1 50, and his mercy is on them that fear him. And Proverbs 1 7 says, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom from generation to generation. That’s the reverence of the Lord, the respect of the Lord. And in Jude 1.21, keep yourself in the love of God. looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Do you see how much mercy is in the Bible? God loves you. God loves you so much. You can’t go through this day without thinking about that. He loves me. He’s watching me. He cares for me. He gave his son for me. He extends mercy to my life, to my needs, to my health. His mercy is overwhelming. And then there’s forgiveness. The third demonstration of God’s love for you is his forgiveness. And that’s an indication of just how faithful he really is. There are two forgivenesses now. I want you to remember this. The first one is related to time when we sin. 1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That’s the forgiveness that we’re talking about. And then John 3, 36 is the forgiveness related to eternity. Both forgivenesses are based on the salvation work of Jesus Christ, our Lord, on the cross. So even though we believe in Christ and receive him as our Savior and are forgiven, then in 1 John 1, 9, we can still sin as Christians and we need to be forgiven daily for our daily sins. But one refers to your position, and one refers to your experience. So, remember, there is not forgiveness, and this is something a lot of people miss. There’s not forgiveness at the cross. There’s judgment at the cross. Judgment. Judgment and redemption. The forgiveness comes when you receive Christ. You weren’t forgiven at the cross. The sins were judged at the cross. Galatians 3.13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us because it is written, cursed or judged is everyone who hangs on the cross. The forgiveness comes when you receive Christ as your Savior. It’s technical, but you need to remember it. On the cross was judgment. The sins of the world were judged. And when you receive Christ, you’re forgiven. So our Lord referenced forgiveness of sin as he stood in the synagogue on the seventh day back in Nazareth, his hometown, and read from the book of Isaiah. Listen to what he said. aphiasis is always used for divine forgiveness of sin. And when he uses this word aphiasis, we have to remember that, okay? Here we go. The verb aphiemi is the word forgiveness of sin and used in 1 John 1, 9, where God cancels the forgiveness of sin. So our Lord referenced that, talked about that, read from the book of Isaiah, and in the word katerizomai, the verb, Colossians 2, 13 through 14. Listen carefully. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him. having forgiven you, having forgiven you all of our transgressions, canceling out the certificates of debt consisting of decrees they had against us which were hostile to us, he took it out of the way and he nailed it to the cross. All right? Now, listen to what Jesus said in the synagogue. I got them ahead of myself. I want you to hear this. This is in the synagogue when he referenced forgiveness of sins. In Luke 4, 18, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he’s anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance, aphiasis, which is forgiveness, letting them go as if they never even committed anything, remission of their penalty. to preach aphiasis to the captives and the recovering of sight to the blind and to set at liberty them that are bruised. Verse 19, Luke 4, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And then he closed the book of Isaiah, gave it again to the ministers that were at the synagogue and sat down. And the eyes of all of them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. This is where he proclaimed publicly to the religious leaders that he was claiming to be a royal figure with a prophetic mission. He quoted Isaiah as he read from it, the spirit of the Lord is on me. He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted and to preach forgiveness of sin to the captives and the recovering of sight to the blind. All right? So this is quite a shock. When they heard that, they kind of got blown out of the saddle thinking this guy’s from Nazareth and he’s saying that he’s been sent by God. Paul made this forgiveness very, very clear in Colossians. In Colossians 1.13, he’s rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his son. He loves us in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of our sins. Redemption and the forgiveness of our sins. Mercy has been shown to us because of God’s grace and we have peace knowing our sins are forgiven. The Mount’s Expository Dictionary says sin has destroyed the relationship between God and the human race, but the cross of Christ is the means that God used to remove the fissure. Bring us back into fellowship together. In Hebrews 9, 22, without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness, referring to the cross. So this forgiveness that God offers you, a demonstration of his love for you, is a royal pardon from the Lord himself. In Isaiah 43, 25, I, even I, am the one who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and furthermore, I will not remember your sins. There it is. Forgiveness is a requirement for members of the royal family of God. We must forgive others. Colossians 3, 13, burying one another, forgiving each other. Whoever has a complaint against anyone else, just as the Lord forgave you, so also you should forgive them, and I mean never bring it up again. It’s clear the mature believer has a tender heart and does not hold a grudge or seek revenge. Ephesians 4.32, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God, for Christ’s sake, gave you. So this means that if someone asks you for your forgiveness and in honor you forgive them, then integrity and loyalty to the word of God demands that you forget whatever was done against you and that you never again do you recall it or hold it against them or penalize them for what they did. That’s your job. That’s where you have to come in with forgiveness in your life. Even though we have forgiveness for pre-salvation sins because of faith alone in Christ alone, we still need forgiveness for post-salvation sins, and that’s that 1 John 1 passage. The first forgiveness is our positional forgiveness, and the second is our experiential forgiveness. In our position, he has made us alive and forgiven us for all of our sins, nailing them to the cross, Colossians 2.13. And the second forgiveness is post-salvation. That cancels out the repercussions of our sin and restores us to fellowship in the spiritual life. I gave you a lot of information. Oh, a lot of information on grace, mercy, and forgiveness. This is all indicative of how much God loves you. Don’t forget it. And you must reflect these same things in your life as you grow. and become a mature believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. I hope it’s made sense. I hope you’ve learned something. Write to me if you have a question. Until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
