Mercy & Grace activated

Thank you, Father. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for the privilege to be able to see You, to see Your glory manifest, to live in a time such as this, where the whole of creation will come to see Your glory, where everyone on this earth will come to bow their knee to the only living God. Thank you, Holy Spirit, that You are present tonight.

Thank You for life, for love, for grace, for favour, for mercy. Thank You that You open our eyes. Thank You that we can see, that we can hear, that we can embrace. Thank You that Your Word and Your Spirit effect change in us and through us. Thank You that You enable us as instruments in Your hand. Let it be all about You, Father.

It's all about You. Thank You that You touch every one of us tonight, like only You can. Thank You that You enable us to let others also see You. In the name of Jesus, amen.

You can grab a seat. It's amazing to worship this song and just acknowledge that our eyes have been opened, that we may see Him, that we may hear Him, that we may experience Him, that He is not a religion or a book on our bedside table, that He is God unto us, a living God, that we may have a living relationship with Him, and that He may be God unto us.

Part of what I had in my heart the last two Tuesdays when we prayed... For those of you who don't know, we pray online every Tuesday night at half past eight. It's open to everybody, and I would really encourage you to join us. It's really significant. The component is typically that we play worship music and pray for fifteen minutes, then I share for fifteen minutes, then we pray again for fifteen minutes while worship music is playing, and then the last fifteen minutes is open for everyone to just share what they have in their heart. It's amazing. Every week is so significant for me, and I really want to encourage you to get that into your diary and join. Even if you just want to try it out, join one Tuesday and see.

Part of what I received in the last two Tuesdays, and last night when we were praying here as well – that makes me think, every Friday night before we have this session, on the Saturday, on a Friday night, we pray together here as well, and I want to encourage you to join in with that too. That is truly significant, from seven o'clock Friday night, before this session. So join in – it's really significant. And as always, whether it's this event or the Friday night or whatever, don't let finances keep you away. We'll sort that out, so don't let that stand in your way.

So part of what we experienced was really this – and I must say, for tonight, what I'm sharing is work in progress, and the Lord is still working with me regarding this – this concept of godly reverence.

As we were worshipping now and singing, thank You that You've opened our eyes, we can see You, I have to ask myself: are we seeing Him? The great thing about us being a smaller group tonight is that it always gives me the courage to talk a bit more straight.

So when we talk about godly reverence, when I look in the Old Testament, and even in some of the things that John explained, when people just remotely came into the presence of God or experienced that presence of God, they would fall flat on their face – mostly not even being able to move, just not able to stand in His presence because it was just so much. And I have to ask myself: have we watered that down to what is acceptable to us?

I'm assuming I'm talking to Christians here tonight, so that's why I can talk freely. Do we have that reverence in our heart – the same reverence as if Jesus would show up here in person, or if you were to be in the presence of the Father? That godly reverence – and I'm not even just talking about the significance of that presence and the glory. Even when Moses had that encounter with the Father, with God, He said, "You would not be able to see My face," and He hid him in this cliff, and Moses only saw Him from behind.

I have to ask myself, how significant is God to us? Not just the experience, the visual, the glory, the feeling, the impact, but acknowledging Him as God. I just tend to experience that it's something that is slotted in somewhere in our programmes, and that we have become so busy that it's there just so that we can tick that box.

But for me, godly reverence means putting God first. And what would our lives look like if we truly put God first? This is by no means a condemnation session tonight. This is just me talking to myself, questioning: what does godly reverence mean to me? What does godly fear mean to me? What does it mean to serve the only living God, the Almighty God? What does it mean to me? I think that's something we should continue to ask ourselves, and where we are at, what our lives look like.

As we were worshipping this, it just came up in my heart: as I'm worshipping, I can see You. In my heart it wells up that I have a responsibility to get others also to that place where they can see Him.

How significant is the ministry of reconciliation that has been entrusted to us? How significant is it to us? When last have you led somebody to Christ? See, this is the advantage of a small group – we take the gloves off. We have to ask ourselves: if we don't ask it here, where will it be asked? When last have you led somebody to Christ?

We want to say we see You. We want to say we have godly reverence and godly fear, but does it move me into action to make God a reality to others? There's nothing you need to go and study to be able to lead somebody to Christ. There's not a course you need to go and do. The moment you received eternal life in your spirit, from that moment you have the ability to lead somebody to Christ.

Maybe my mind is a bit affected by the fact that I had to lead somebody's funeral, or celebration service, today, and it's always that – when you stand at that place where you're celebrating somebody's life, and also that gap that person leaves – it's always that confronting scenario of eternal life versus this physical life.

None of us have a physical life where everything just runs smoothly and everything is fine and good. We all have challenges. We all have disappointments – whatever it is, challenges in your finances, your health, your relationships, disappointments in other people or even yourself. I think most of us are probably first and foremost disappointed in ourselves, in what we set out to do and not being able to do it, whatever it is.

We don't have that life where we can just say, "Okay, everything is perfect." But there's a purpose with this life. This eighty years, or whatever, that you have on this earth – there's a purpose, and in that purpose there are things that have eternal significance. So I just think we should ask ourselves, question, and look in the mirror, and again ask: what are we busy with, and does it have eternal value? How does godly reverence and fear translate into me making Him priority in my life?

There are two things I'm going to talk about. It might sound like a bit of a detour, but this is what came up in my heart during this week as well, and I believe it ties in strongly with that. It's the concept of mercy and grace.

I find that sometimes people don't really... I don't know, I think all of us, sometimes when you don't understand something that well, when you see it, you just slip past it, whether it's something physical or technical or whatever. I deem myself a fairly technical person, but sometimes I just see, okay, this is going to take me five minutes and it's going to take my son thirty seconds, so I'm quickly going to tell him, "Can you quickly do this for me?" You just – but if you actually put in the effort, you actually focus on it and you learn it, then you realise subsequently that it's easy for you to do.

So I want to quickly talk about mercy and grace, and then I'm going to bring it back to this topic we are talking about. Understanding mercy and grace is, for me, actually very simple. Mercy is God not giving us what we deserve. That's mercy. Grace is God giving us something we do not deserve. I'm going to say that again: mercy is God not giving us what we deserve, and grace is God giving us something we do not deserve. Have you got that? Okay – mercy, not giving us what we deserve; grace, giving us what we do not deserve.

Because in the Tuesday night prayers this continued to come up in my spirit about mercy and grace and the significance of that, I went and did a bit of study around that, and I realised why in my heart it is so significant – mercy and grace, because that is our gospel. That's it. That's the summary of the gospel, those two words.

When my life changed many years back, I had to work this out for myself, and I would encourage you to do that if you haven't. Somebody asked me, "What is the gospel according to Schalk?" And I want to ask you: what is the gospel according to you? And with that, what is your strategy to lead somebody to Christ? What is your methodology? Maybe some of you are more free-spirited, so you don't have a methodology and you don't want a structure or whatever – that's great, but I'm sure you always use at least, say, three verses, and you have a methodology that you take somebody through.

For me, when I started out, I always started with Romans 3:23 – we're all born in sin – and Romans 6:23, which says the wages of sin is death. I'm going to shoot through some verses, so you can keep up or not – you could listen to the recording afterwards as well. There's quite a number of verses I am going to cover, but I'm sure most of them will be familiar to you.

“For we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

Romans 3:23-24 (NKJV)

Remember, grace is Him giving us what we do not deserve. So because we have sinned:

“But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 6:22-23 (NKJV)

The gift of God is eternal life. So again, if you talk about mercy – He's not giving us what we deserve. The fact that we are sinners means He should be giving us eternal death in hell. That's what Romans 3:23 says – that's what we should be getting. But He's not giving us that. And then grace – He's giving us something we do not deserve, and that is eternal life.

He's giving every single one of us the opportunity of eternal life, and there is nothing you can do to deserve it. That is why it is grace.

I think it's important, and I'm going to tie this back to godly reverence – and maybe I'm jumping the gun a bit – but part of what is mulling in my spirit is: do we understand the significance and the value of salvation, and the salvation message that has been entrusted to us? That is mercy and grace.

Do we have an overwhelming desire – firstly, a gratefulness, a gratitude – to understand the fact that I received salvation, but I did not deserve it, one bit? I could never deserve it. But once we have salvation, my concern is that we become complacent about the fact that I have salvation.

That's why when we worship that song, thank You that I can see, I'm saying, "Lord, I need to let more people see You." Now that we have salvation, now that we have a relationship with the only living God, are we compelled every morning when we wake up to say, "Lord, send somebody to me today that needs salvation"?

Our ability to manifest God is by the Spirit, not because of our own physical ability. So we have received salvation. It's like – is it Galatians 1? – that speaks about, it says, "You foolish Galatians, you have received this by the Spirit, you want to perfect it now in the flesh." That's my own paraphrased version of it.

But the concept, for me, is what we should be challenging ourselves with is this: have we received something so significant, the most prized possession that God could give us, in the Spirit, and we are functioning with it in the flesh? Because of my ability, my time schedule, my priorities, my passion, my desire, I'm taking something that is right up there – the whole definition of salvation, the whole purpose of what God did for us – right up there, and I'm reducing it to whenever I have time for it. And yet we are talking about where somebody will spend eternity.

So salvation, right from the start: Romans 3:23 says we have all sinned; 6:23 says the wages of sin is death. And then it says, "But the gift of God" – we cannot deserve this.

“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him.”

Ephesians 1:7-10 (NKJV)

He gave us something we did not deserve – the forgiveness of our sins. So let's not walk away from that. Yes, we needed that to receive salvation, but we can't walk away from the significance of it.

He gave us salvation through grace. But now I am going to start moving into something, and I will overlap it a bit because I could not really find verses that only deal with the one aspect and not the other. I am going to start intermingling it now, moving into what you do with the grace and mercy you have received. You will start seeing that there is actually a strong message and a drive that whenever mercy and grace are spoken about, it starts speaking about our responsibility.

What is it that we do with it? What does it lead to in our lives? It is not just something we think: “My ultimate goal in life is salvation.” And now that you have salvation, what? This starts speaking about something much more significant: are we living a purposeful life? Are you living the purpose God created you for? When God created you, He did not make an accident, and He was not caught by surprise.

When He created you, He created you specifically for what He needed in the body of Christ, to bring us to the end times, to the fullness of times. There is a role you need to play to come to that stage. So it starts to speak about our salvation and the forgiveness of sins and grace, but it is impossible to avoid the fact that in our lives it must lead to something.

Our focus – and that is why I have this connotation with godly reverence, saying, “God Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth” – it is too big for our minds to even conceptualise. He predestined me. He created me. He gave me the opportunity for salvation, and I chose that. And all of that so that I could continue a purposeful life for what He created me for. I can’t stay there, at what mercy and grace meant to me.

I must now say, for every person that I meet: what is the significance of mercy and grace in their lives? Is it my responsibility, and am I taking up that responsibility to allow mercy and grace to manifest in their lives? There is a way that you receive salvation, and it involves the human being. Somebody brought the Gospel of Jesus Christ to you.

And if not – maybe there is one or two of you here where an angel appeared to you, or Jesus appeared to you – but even that was preceded by somebody praying for it. And even the Gospel was made possible by a human being dying on the cross, because Jesus was one hundred percent man, and He still had to make that choice whether He wanted to die that painful death. We speak about it many times: whenever God wants to do something, He sends a man.

Obviously I am not talking about gender, I am talking about a human being, okay? So don’t send me a male. Man, woman – that is what I am talking about. So God sends somebody. Now, in case you don’t know it yet, God sent you. Don’t think we are sitting here, a hundred people here tonight, and you are thinking, “Oh, those three people, God sent them for sure.” No. I am talking about you. You don’t have to think, “Ah, that one and that one.”

Every single one sitting here, God sent you. John said, “And there was a man called John, sent by God,” and you can just go and fill in your name there. There is nobody sitting here who wasn’t sent by God. Don’t have this expectation, thinking about a calling, a specific thing you need to walk into. No. That is why I said to you: for you to let somebody experience the benefit of grace and mercy, and for somebody to receive salvation, you can do it immediately.

There is nothing more you need to know. There is nothing more you need to know. Are we acting on what we know? And we have the benefit, the Hebrews 4:16 benefit, that says:

“Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Hebrews 4:16 (NKJV)

We have that benefit, but it is not meant to be just for our own consumption. And the reason why we need mercy continuously – it was significant for me that our salvation, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is the power of God. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation, and that message, that Gospel, is mercy and grace. That is what it is. That is what was offered to us, and that is our salvation. But now as we continue in life, you continue to need mercy and grace.

It wasn’t just for salvation. If you mess up, you still have an expectation that because of the mercy of God, He is not going to punish you just because you messed up, because mercy is not giving us what we deserve. So as we continue to live in Him, we have the benefit of that mercy to say, “Father, although I messed up yesterday, I repent, and I want to change it, and I want to move forward.”

So you come to that throne, and you can receive mercy and grace. You can receive the mercy to say, “Father, I know I messed up, but I know You will forgive me. Please forgive me.” And the grace to say, “Father, I know I don’t deserve this, but this is what I want to do, this is where I’m going, this is what I need, Father. I know I don’t deserve it, but may I have that grace?” There is a component of grace which is favour. Favour is the outward manifestation of grace, but you can see the two as one in the context of what I am explaining.

So we continue to benefit from that. It gave you the option to receive salvation, but the outflow of that is that for the rest of your life you will continue to benefit from it. But we are not meant to be the only ones. In this part of still explaining salvation, mercy and grace, this verse speaks strongly into that, from Romans 5:8.

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Romans 5:8 (NKJV)

Remember, mercy and grace goes without saying, mercy and grace is just because of the love of the Father. If you hear mercy and grace, you hear love. That is what it is. It is love. Everything about it is love. And here it says that God demonstrated His love toward us, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. We sometimes have this perception: “Yes, He paid the price for me, but I’m a child of God.” And you don’t realise that at the stage when He paid the price for you, you were not a child of God yet. You were a sinner. He paid the price for sinners, not for the righteous.

“Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.”

Romans 5:9 (NKJV)

This is the continuation that I am speaking about. You needed mercy and grace for salvation, and now He is starting to speak about, subsequent to that, the outflow, the continuation.

“For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”

Romans 5:10 (NKJV)

This is not salvation, okay? There is no time to teach a class.

“And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”

Romans 5:11 (NKJV)

There is a benefit of being in Christ, a grace and a mercy that will be present.

People often refer to, when they talk about grace, a common grace and a salvation grace. There is that common grace that says: okay, everybody, whether you are a Christian or not, you can receive the beauty of nature. Speaking of which – that is common grace, looking at a sunset like that, looking at cornfields like this. That is common grace. Anybody can receive it, whether they are a Christian or not. But then there is saving grace, which is that salvation grace, which you can only benefit from if you tap into it and receive salvation. Okay, that is just a side note.

Ephesians 2, from verse four.

Do you remember what is mercy? What is mercy? Not giving us what we deserve, okay? And mercy and grace is because of His love.

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,”

Ephesians 2:4-6 (NKJV)

Grace, giving us something although we didn’t deserve it. Can you imagine – the highest being in existence takes part of Him, which is His Son. I have always explained to you, His Son wasn’t standing next to Him. It says, “The Word was with Him, the Word was in Him, the Word was God,” and that is what He gave: “The Word became flesh.”

God had to give part of Himself to manifest as a human being on this earth, and to give that for our salvation, to make it possible for Him to be raised from the dead again, to ascend and sit at the right hand of the Father in heavenly places, so that we can be positioned in Him. All of that so that we can be there. Can you understand what God sacrificed just so that we sinners – mere people, human beings, like ants on the earth – could be seated in Christ Jesus at His right hand?

How can we ever deserve that? It is not possible. Because of mercy and grace, it is possible. But can we start tapping into the acknowledgement of who God is and the price He paid, and the significance of that, instead of just relying on grace and mercy for my own life – to start realising there is a godly reverence part that comes with it?

The acknowledgement that the Almighty God, the beginning and the end, the Creator of heaven and earth – and even as I am saying it, I know my mind can’t grasp it. I am saying it from a conviction from my spirit, but my mind can’t stay up with what I am saying. That God paid this price because of His love for me while I was a sinner, dead in my trespasses, deserving eternal death in hell, yet He chose you, He chose me because of mercy and grace.

He says – I’m going to read that again: “Even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” There was a purpose, and that is why I am saying every one of us has a purpose on this earth. We have a purpose. We need to live a purposeful life, and it is to continue what Jesus Christ started.

It is not separate from that. It is to continue this manifestation of mercy and grace, to be seated in Christ Jesus in heavenly places, from where you can say, “Thank You for opening my eyes, I can see.” Without that positioning, it is impossible to see.

“He raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace.”

Ephesians 2:6-7 (NKJV)

The exceeding riches of His grace. It is obvious to any and everybody, physically and spiritually, that we could never deserve to be seated in Christ Jesus in heavenly places. The riches of His grace is being shown forth to all of creation.

“…exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith,”

Ephesians 2:7-8 (NKJV)

Grace, giving us something we do not deserve, through faith. This life that I live, I live by the faith of the Son of God. The fact that Jesus was the One who had to exercise His faith to die, to be resurrected – that faith made it possible for me to receive salvation. Now, grace gave me the channel, the path, the power of God unto salvation, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That death, that resurrection, was made possible and made available to me because of grace.

I access it by faith, but only grace made it possible. I did not even deserve the fact that I could access it by faith.

“…and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,”

Ephesians 2:8-10 (NKJV)

I think the more and more we start realising that we are not separate entities, but this reconciled, combined living organism – there is only one body of Christ, and we are part of that. And the more we start realising that, and our position in Christ, the more we will cherish and value what it is that we have become, this new-creation reality, the manifestation of His life in us and through us.

“…which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

Ephesians 2:10 (NKJV)

This is the component that, for me, started flowing through here, and I am going to share a few more verses with you that flow into that, where I am going to ask again: what is my responsibility? What is our responsibility because of the grace and mercy that we have access to? You will start seeing how inevitably this leads into the life that we live. The thing I started realising is that mercy and grace to me should not be a doctrine. It should not be a theological explanation. It should be a lifestyle. The understanding of mercy and grace should manifest in what my life looks like.

You will see how this starts showing itself. Titus 3, from verse four to eight.

“But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by grace we should become His according to the hope of eternal life.”

Titus 3:4-7 (NKJV)

According to His mercy He saved us, and then we were justified by grace so that we can become His according to the hope of eternal life. And even in this process it touches on the work of the Holy Spirit, but all of this flows into a purposeful life.

“This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men.”

Titus 3:8 (NKJV)

So often – I have spoken about this many times – we tend to intermingle what is required for salvation and what is expected from us post-salvation, if I can call it that. Once you have received the life of God and become reconciled with Him, and that life is in you, there is a purposeful life that we need to lead, that we need to live.

There is a responsibility. There is something that has been entrusted. Every one of us – something has been entrusted to you, and what is it that we do with that? We tend so easily to intermingle the fact that “I cannot receive salvation because of good works.” One hundred percent right. But yet the Word still says: now that you have received salvation because of mercy and grace, there is an expectation.

The Bible says, “Freely you have received, freely give.” What more can you put as priority number one in your life to give than eternal life? Priority number one in our lives to give is eternal life. And then, number two, it continues to speak in all these verses: “But do good works.” Make a difference in somebody’s life. Is that our mindset?

Is it our mindset that I've died to myself? It's inevitable that this concept comes up: when I was diving into mercy and grace and you start speaking about having died to yourself, then you start putting a question mark there, whether I am manifesting mercy and grace to the extent that I've received it, that I can truly say I've died to myself. So let's not confuse the fact that we have been called to good works with salvation. It has nothing to do with achieving your salvation, though it could have something to do with somebody else's salvation. But that doesn't mean we haven't been called to good works.

“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age.”

Titus 2:11-12 (NKJV)

Can you see how this is starting to speak? It's talking grace, it's talking salvation, and then verse 12 says, "teaching us," grace and salvation. Are we still talking about the same thing? Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age.

That's why I'm saying, what am I doing with what God has entrusted to me? Am I really acknowledging that I have in my possession something that I received from the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth? What am I doing with it? I'm not talking about something your neighbour gave you. This is not your job, your car, your money, your whatever. It will follow, it will follow, but I'm talking about something that the Creator of heaven and earth gave us: salvation through grace, and it has to lead to something – to deny ungodliness, worldly lust, and to live soberly, righteously and godly in the present age.

We should live to manifest Him, and what does it take? There is not a shortcut. That is the problem with thinking, "Okay, now all of a sudden I've received salvation, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Now I have all this freedom." Many of us came out of a religious environment, and now we think, "Okay, but now I have freedom." The focus is freedom: I can choose whether I show up for meetings, whether I commit to anything or not. I have freedom, I could choose.

Is that really what it is saying to us? The risk of saying, "Nobody now tells me what to do. I can do with my time what I want." There is not a shortcut to manifest the presence of God. There's not a shortcut to see Him. We can stand here and worship and say, "I see You." Do you really see Him, or is it lip service?

It takes something to see Him. It takes a focus. It takes a condition of the heart. It takes a turning unto, looking away unto Jesus, the author and the finisher. Until you have that focus, you will not see Him. To manifest His presence, if it says here, "I must live righteously," now we're starting to think, "Okay, is this religion again?" No, it's not religion, but there is something that it requires for me to be positioned to live righteously. What happens in my inner room is manifested on the outside.

I cannot go outside and walk righteously if I am not creating it, desiring it, crying out for it, praying for it, interceding for it in my inner room. If I do not sacrifice the things that are distracting, if I do not turn off my television and cut down on the things I'm involved in so that I can spend time with Him in relationship and hear and be filled with the Word and the Spirit, how am I going to do this? This is not dead works. This is not religion. This is not prescriptive commands that are given.

It is saying, if you truly have a conviction about who God is and what He did, the price He paid, what He gave you, and you start being overwhelmed with that, you focus on that in your inner room. You speak to Him. You query. You ask. You wrestle. You will come out, and then you will be able to live righteously. You manifest who you have become. Salvation is not just – the Bible says, "Work out your own salvation." You receive eternal life once off, but then there is a manifestation, a purposeful life that continues after that, and for that life to be purposeful, it must be of such a nature that people will look at it and say, "I want what you have."

And it must make a difference. That's why I believe the question for many of these things is: how is mercy and grace manifesting through me in the lives of others? Can they see the reality of mercy and grace without knowing the gospel of Jesus Christ? That is why it leads to this. It has to come from the inside. It has to be a cup that overflows. Otherwise it's a cup that's empty, and it becomes a struggle, it becomes a pain, it becomes a mission, and people give up because it feels like dead works.

If you don't have that relationship, it is going to be difficult, because it will be dead works. But it brings me back to what is my responsibility? My responsibility is just like, if God shows up here now, how will we respond? Am I truly acknowledging that He's God in my life and directing my life accordingly?

Because if I acknowledge Him as God, I'm going to change things in my life. I'm going to cut out things that don't belong there. I'm going to switch off the television, close the newspaper, and spend time in the Word, in fellowship, in prayer and in worship – not because of religion, but because I desire Him. I want to see Your face. I want to see more of You. I want to experience more of You so that I can give more of You. That is why we are still here.

If we have received eternal life, what else do you need to receive? You are going to heaven, you are sorted. But is everybody around you sorted? And if I treat them in a way that doesn't speak of a living God who is present in my life and whose mercy and grace has transformed my life, how will it be attractive to them? That is why all of these things speak about why we should live that way – not because of a guilt trip.

We should be overflowing into that. The realisation of the grace and the salvation should just flow into that, compelling me to say, "God, I understand who You are. I understand what You've done to, for, in and through me, and because of that, I'm overflowing into the lives of others." So there is a responsibility that comes with it.

“Looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Titus 2:13 (NKJV)

We are not like a people without hope. We have hope. We have an expectation that our Lord is coming back. Do you know that? He's coming back. We don't know when, but in terms of the dispensations, however you want to measure it, it's not too far. However far that is, it's not too far.

We can't sit on our backs and say, "Ah, it's okay, it'll happen whenever it happens. Probably not in my lifetime." No. How do you know? You know the parable of the virgins with the oil. We don't know. Are you going to be ready? And what is that oil? I'm going to sidetrack if I explain that to you, but you should know it's relationship.

“Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.”

Titus 2:14 (NKJV)

Purify for Himself. Purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works. Oh man, I feel like I want to fall on my face and say, "God, I've messed up. How could I not have attached so much significance in my life to what You have given me?"

He gave Himself for us that He might redeem us. That's grace and mercy. He redeemed us from every lawless deed and purified us for Himself. We can easily say the blood of Jesus has cleansed me, but there was a purpose with cleansing me. He purified me for Himself. I belong to Him now.

He has an expectation. Purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works. I think the most significant thing you can understand about salvation, other than being reconciled with the Father, is the fact that we have been taken out of the world. That should be the most significant thing for you about salvation. We live from a different place now.

We live according to a different set of rules. We live according to a different set of measurements. That's why you have all these parables in the New Testament explaining about the talents, and we want so much to make it a physical thing. But what God has given us – one, three, five – what have you done with the five? We want to attach something physical to it, but what have you done with mercy and grace? What have you done with the fact that you have been set apart?

His own people, set apart. A holy priesthood. What does it mean to be a holy priesthood? You want to tell me the holy priesthood can continue to do whatever they want? We have been set apart, and part of that – the Old Testament is a shadow of things to come. Just look at how many times the priest had to purify, to cleanse, to sacrifice, just to be in that clean, purified, holy environment, to be worthy to enter there.

And that's a shadow of things to come. Yes, we know mercy and grace – Jesus made it possible for us. But the end result is still the same. Don't think the Old Testament is not relevant; there was a purpose for that. What was it? To come into the presence of God. Now we have the privilege that the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus made it possible for me to come into the presence of God. But what is the expectation when I come into the presence of God?

It must lead to something. I'm set apart. I'm holy. I don't belong to myself. I can't choose to do what I want when I want. Most of you are working and you have a boss. Do you just tell your boss, at eleven o'clock in the day, "I've worked hard now, I'm going home, okay, see you tomorrow – if I feel like it, maybe next week"? Do you think you'll still have a job the next day? So we have fear for our boss – he might fire me. So I have to work till five o'clock.

You have a bigger boss than that, who is also saying, "What's happening on your shift? Are you manifesting holiness, righteousness, love, grace, mercy? Can people look at you and see Me?" When the disciples said, "Show me the Father," Jesus said, "You've been with Me so long, and you ask Me, show you the Father? If you've seen Me, you've seen the Father." Can we say that? Have you said that to somebody? It will be a bold statement, but we should be able to do it: if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. There is an expectation.

Who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works. "Speak these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you." That's interesting – in Matthew 9:13 this verse is actually quoting, though you might not see it there, from Hosea 6:6: "I desire mercy and not sacrifice."

So this is emphasising or quoting that, saying:

“But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.' For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

Matthew 9:13 (NKJV)

Even in the Old Testament, Hosea 6:6, this is what God said: "I desire mercy and not sacrifice." We have a responsibility to manifest mercy and grace. I think for me that was a bit of a reality check this week, in a certain situation where I had to ask myself afterwards, "Did you manifest mercy and grace?"

Because we have a responsibility – that parable of the unforgiving servant, Matthew 18:21. Peter came to Him and said, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" Can you see the mentality here? And I'm saying it respectfully, because that's the mentality that we have. We're saying, "Man, you want me to forgive this guy? I've done it five times already, so I'm asking God, okay, if I get to seven..." Are we also going to say, "Are You going to hit him with fire now"? He wants us to manifest mercy and grace, and Peter is asking seven times. Jesus said no, seventy – and some translations say seventy times seventy, meaning actually there's no end to it. There's no end to it.

So if we want to manifest mercy and grace – I'm not going to read the whole parable, it will take too long, but you know the story about the unforgiving servant. The king was calling in everybody who owed him money. One servant owed ten thousand talents, and the king wanted to throw him in jail. He pleaded for mercy, and the king said, "Okay, it's fine," and let him go.

Then he went out and found somebody who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed this guy by the throat and said, "Pay up, pay up," and eventually threw him in jail. If you do that comparison, ten thousand talents in those days – in today's money – is about ten million rand. What this guy owed, the hundred denarii, is about twenty rand. I'm sure that's the reason those amounts have such a big discrepancy, to make us understand: here's a guy who was forgiven ten million rand and told, "You can go." He goes outside, finds a guy who owes him twenty that can't pay, grabs him by the throat and says, "Pay," and throws him in jail. We have an expectation.

We cannot even attach a value like the ten million rand to the mercy and grace that we received. But now there's an expectation. That's what that parable explains to us as well: there's an expectation that we live out in our daily lives, that we manifest mercy and grace. It's a practical thing. We can't make our religion and our relationship something that only happens in my inner room. It is to manifest on the outside. That's what it's all about. And that means I must question myself.

I must pray in the morning and say, "Father, allow me to manifest mercy and grace today in every situation." And then I must measure myself tonight. When I go on my knees, I must say, "Lord, show me – did I mess up somewhere today?" He expects me to manifest mercy and grace. So what does that mean? Mercy is giving something to somebody, or not giving something that they do deserve. So if they slap you, physically, they might deserve a slap, but you don't give them what they deserve.

You can't give them what they deserve – that's mercy. Grace is when you give them something they don't deserve. The Bible says it's easy to show love and grace and favour to those that love you or that are good to you, but your enemies – the guy that started that rumour about you, the guy that made you lose your promotion at the office, the guy that started the law case against you – those guys, can you show them mercy and grace?

Not only not responding to what they physically deserve, but also giving them something they do not deserve. We should actively, every day, ask ourselves, "In whose life can I make a difference today that does not deserve it, in inverted commas, and does not expect it?"

The thing I realise about spiritual life, relationship, manifesting our responsibility, is we can't just leave it out there like vapourware. We plan everything else in our lives. We have plans, we study, we document – whatever. If you are really serious about this, you will document things in the morning. Say, "Lord, I want to manifest mercy and grace today. Is there somebody specific that You want me to do it to?" And you write down their name.

We are very strong on accountability groups, because I believe that if you live in isolation and call yourself a Christian, you are lying to yourself. It's not possible. We have been called to walk in fellowship, in union, supporting one another so that you are accountable. The fact that you do not belong to yourself means you belong to Christ, means you belong to the body of Christ. You belong to the body, so there is accountability. We can't just do what we want when we want.

I've been in ministry now for twelve years, and I can tell you, and I've said it many times before, the people that grow spiritually the quickest by far are the ones that show up with two things: they say, "Where can I help?" – a servant heart – and secondly, they make themselves accountable. When they make big decisions in their life, they get two or three people together, they pray, they say, "This is what I want to do. Do you agree with it or not?" If you have that servant heart and you make yourself accountable, those people just by default grow the fastest spiritually. It's just what happens.

So we do not belong to ourselves. If we are serious about living this, we need to practically work out a programme. When you sit and plan your whole week and say, "These are all my appointments," have you slotted in your time for when you pray, when you spend time in the Word, when you spend time in worship, the prayer sessions, the opportunities?

Like these ones – we've got the dates. In the beginning of the year, we set out the dates for the whole year. You should put those dates in your calendar for the rest of next year too; we shortly want to give you the dates for next year, right till the end. Those kinds of things, because this is not man-made – this is God-ordained. I'm not standing here because I have nothing else to do; I'm standing here because God sent me. You are sitting here because God sent you. So there is a purpose with this that we should be taking seriously. We put these dates in our diaries for the rest of the year, and then everything else works around that.

If you set up your diary for the week, you set up your time: where do you pray? Whether it's early in the morning – some people pray at five o'clock, I prefer praying at ten o'clock at night, it's just more quiet for me at that stage, and that's how my rhythm is – or maybe it's between one and two for you. Whatever it is, doesn't matter. If we are serious about these things, we will put them in our diary, we will programme them, we will plan them.

With that, thinking about the things that happened in October, and I see the state I stay in – they're continuously sending these messages now about Halloween – and I'm thinking, when the world starts saying "Happy Halloween," I think we should start saying "Happy Mercy and Grace." Not pushing it down somebody's throat, but living it to such an extent that somebody should ask, "What is this?"

And we can verbalise it and say, "This is mercy and grace. This is what Jesus did for me, and that's why I'm doing it for the people around me." I believe the Lord placed it on my heart that this is something to do actively now, in the next week and however long you feel you should be doing it – that this is a project in your life: Happy Mercy and Grace. How do we manifest this? How do we live this? How do I make myself accountable in my accountability group to say, "I want to manifest mercy. I want to manifest grace"? And in those difficult situations, my enemy – that's what the Word says – it's easy to do it to those that are good to you, but your enemy: are you going to be able to show mercy and grace to your enemy?

So I'm going to end off there. You've got homework – and I always include myself in that; we've all got homework. There is something about godly reverence and godly fear, acknowledging Him as the Almighty God, that leads us to this place where we need to have this compelling urge to manifest mercy and grace to every single person around us.

And it's those two simple things. It's not difficult. I said to somebody the other day, "To change your life is one decision away." That's all it is. And this is also one decision away, but I can tell you for sure, if you don't decide it, it's not going to happen. I believe the fact that you are here tonight means that God has entrusted something to you and He's expecting something from you. So make yourself accountable. It will be good and profitable unto you.

We thank You, Father, for this amazing opportunity and for grace and mercy far beyond what we can ever deserve. Thank You, Father, that we know we don't have to rely on our own ability, that we can be expectant that Your Spirit will enable us, compel us, create that desire in us to be able to live mercy and grace to those around us.

Father, my prayer is that we have godly reverence, godly fear, an acknowledgement of Your godliness, Your almighty godliness. We have such a conviction of it that it compels us to fall on our knees more often, to bow our knees, our necks, and give You our hearts in every dimension of our lives.

Help us through Your Spirit. Give us that conviction, give us that desire, give us that ability. Thank You, Father, that we make ourselves accountable to one another to live this life You created us for. Thank You that we may live a purposeful life, Your purpose. Manifest Your presence. In the name of Jesus, amen.