when he has to sing just spring it on him hey man that was good praise the Lord that's that is shouting ground right there I tell you what praise the Lord well I too just had a great time with you folks we got to head back in the morning and and you know traveling used to not bother me you know 15-20 years ago but I'm kind of dread the drive back tomorrow We're going to try to head out, but not before we partake at Bojangles. And I'm saving it. And of course, I got some real good spiritual training from some of the men while I was here. I appreciate their discernment on the proper Bojangles biscuit. And they said to put some egg and cheese on that thing, I think is what they said. And now there was a little bit of division on the doctrine of that, because I think Brother Burrow, he said no cheese, just egg. But this group over here said the cheese was good. So I'll just, I'll probably, I guess I can scrape it off if I don't like it, I don't know. So I'm gonna try it, and I'm looking forward to it. So we'll get us a biscuit and hit the road. And I'll probably stop somewhere along the way and stay the night, and then hopefully get in there sometime Tuesday. But it's been a great, just a great time being with you guys. And praise the Lord for this church. I tell you, it's always refreshing. You know, not every church, and I hope you understand what I'm saying, God loves them and they're, I'm not... questioning people's motives or anything. Boy, there's a lot of churches struggling, folks, and you don't have this in every church, and so it's just been a blessing to be here. Take your Bibles, if you have them, turn to the book of 1 John, the epistle of 1 John, and when you find that, you can go ahead and stand, and we're just gonna read like we did this morning, one verse of Scripture. And the title of the message, God Never Gets Tired of You. Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad God never gets tired of you? That's exciting as well. You know, I don't know about you, you ever get tired of someone? Now don't answer that out loud, but you know what I mean, amen? But praise God, I just got some good news tonight. Just to let us know as believers tonight, we fail Him, we don't always do right. If you're like me, most of the time you're not doing right or not thinking right. But praise God he doesn't get tired of us. Now, I don't know about you guys, but I believe that this verse right here is a great verse, 1 John 1, 9. I often use it for believers that have gotten away from the Lord, because I believe that God had inspired John to write this with the struggling believer in mind. And so what I'm saying is, I don't necessarily think this is confined to a salvation verse, but to a believer that has gotten away from God. And we see there in verse 9, that's the only verse we're going to read tonight. It says, Father, we thank you for this day, we thank you for the blessings of life, and your love, and mercy, and your grace. And again, Lord, I just appreciate being with these fine folks and getting to know them. And Father, just meeting brothers and sisters in Christ, Lord, and I just praise you for us being here. But most of all, Lord, I praise you for the cross of Calvary. And Lord, what a great song as we is reminded of some things. And And Father, sometimes we make it hard on ourselves. We get bogged down in so much, even in the ministry. And Lord, I appreciate zeal, and I appreciate vision. And Lord, I appreciate those that plan. And Father, that we want to do things to reach the lost and to help grow and disciple believers and those types of things, Lord. But Father, just always remind us of the cross. Always remind us that there's an empty tomb. and the father through that lord of Father, again, that you'll begin to prepare hearts, and I'm sure you already have, and speak to hearts in a mighty and powerful way. Lord, we thank you and love you for all that you do, what you're gonna do. In Jesus Christ's name we do pray, amen, and amen. All right, you can be seated. As I said a while ago, sometimes we get tired of people. We can, you know, some people just make us tired, and it's not that we don't love them or what have you, but sometimes we have the tendency. Now, it's wrong for us to feel that way, by the way. I'm not saying it's okay. And the Bible even teaches us there's times that we have to distance ourselves from certain people. when it comes to being unequally yoked and those types of things. But we know how we are. We get a little grumpy sometimes. But the question has to be, does God ever get tired of people? I was reading in Genesis 6, verse 3, concerning the awful state. We was talking about this the other night with some of the men, the awful state of the world before the flood. And he tells us that, my spirit shall not always strive with man, But we read in this verse here that we just read in 1 John 1, 9 where it tells us if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so we look at those two things together and we say, well, how do we reconcile this? and I believe that there's certainly more than one thing to talk about, but the first thing that comes into my mind is I believe that Genesis 6-3 is, we're talking about lost people, people that aren't saved and certainly God will not strive with man forever when it comes to salvation, sooner or later he'll just take them on But 1st John 1 9 as I shared with you all ago, I believe is dealing with the believer in other ones one one that is saved Yet has backslidden from God and it says there in again that if we confess our sins He is faithful and just forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness And so when we look at that verse again We can say for sure that God does not ever get tired of you if you're His, amen? And I praise God for that, I really do. And the Bible teaches us, though, you know, the thing is we need to remember something is, I was trying to explain this today to my friend, is that even though we are dead to sin, we can still yield to it at times. You know, we're not in sin like we was when we were lost, but when we get saved, listen, you're as dead to sin as you're ever gonna be. You don't get saved and then get saved-er. You get saved, and the Holy Spirit of God comes inside of you, and you are a new creature. But yet we can still yield to that, that has been killed. We're dead to it, but we can still yield to it, those outside influences that come from this world. And by the way, there's not a believer that's breathing the Earth's air. In other words, there's not a believer that's alive who was sinless. Amen. If you read some of that passage there, if you think you are, then you're a liar. And certainly that's true. So we all deal with this. Paul dealt with it in his ministry. He says, I don't do the things I should do, and I do the things I ought not do. You know, so again, We understand that as believers, we struggle with different things. And boy, the devil loves it when we do sin, doesn't he? Oh, he just loves it. He slaps his leg and just gives a big yahoo. And he wants to convince us in that, though, that listen, God will sooner or later, he'll get tired of you in that. and especially if it's a sin that we struggle with, what we might call, the Bible refers to as a besetting sin, something that we regularly struggle with, and we keep doing that sin, and I hope you understand that I'm not saying that we should sin, but Paul said, God forbid, so I hope you understand what I'm saying, but we keep doing those things, we keep giving in, and the devil, he slides up beside me, whispers in our ear, you know, you've messed up so much that God is sick and tired of you. Boy. And that's a dangerous spot for a believer to be in, by the way. And you say, preacher, I find myself constantly confessing my sin, as the text says, but I keep messing up and God, you know, God just, He's gotta be getting tired of my confessing all the time. Let's look at that. I know how you and I may look at that and think about that because, hey, we get tired of people sometimes. But I want to tell you something, God never gets tired of you. Amen. And I want to look at some biblical truths about sin and forgiveness. Again, we're talking about in the life of the believer. Number one, when Jesus died on the cross, there's a question, how many of my sins were forgiven? Think about it, yeah, I've heard some of you answer that correctly, all of them. You know, I had somebody, we was debating this, I was gonna say arguing, but we were debating this, and he said, well, yeah, what about all my future sins? I said, brother, it was 2,000 years ago when Jesus died on the cross, they were all future sins, amen? What are you talking about, future sins? And so again, the answer to that is all of them. When Jesus died on the cross, as we just heard in the song there, He died for all of them. And really, that's a fact that a lot of folks miss by many concerning the death of Christ, that Jesus died for all sin. In other words, every sin that had ever been sinned, and every sin that's been presently sinned, and every sin that's going to be sinned, Jesus paid for on the cross at Calvary. Amen. Praise the Lord. And He did that. And that was 2,000 years ago, so all sin was certainly future for those of us that are here today. I don't think some of you are quite that old. Some of you might be getting there, but I don't think anybody's 2,000 years old. And since that time, some of those sins that Jesus died for, they have come to pass. But Jesus died. He died for those sins, but there's still sins that are out there, and it's just a sad fact of life. I wish it wasn't so, but we're not perfect. We know we're going to fail. I want to tell you that Christ has died for those sins. Amen. Amen. He died for those as well. You know, we sing that song. I think we might've heard it or I don't think we sung it today, but I think I heard the pianist playing it or something. It is well with my soul. Boy, what a great, great song. What a great, great spiritual truth. My sin not in part, but the whole is nailed to the cross. I bear it no more. My sin not in part, but the whole. Amen. That is a great, a great wonderful truth. Isaiah 53 5 says the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. Praise the Lord for that. Now listen, all your sins, every single one of them, they were laid on Jesus Christ some 2,000 years ago. Peter tells us in his epistle, 1 Peter 2 24, who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree. They've all been nailed to the cross tonight, and I praise God for that. Christ's death was a substitutional death for you. And again, he died on the cross, all my sins were forgiven, he became my substitute, my propitiation, and when you accept him as savior, he becomes that substitute. He bore our sin on the cross, and if you're saved, he suffered your hell, he became, if you will, for a moment in time, your sin, and in doing so, he died for all your sins. Amen, and I think that's something we need to be reminded of so as far as God is concerned is as I'm talking We're not talking about fellowship. We're talking about relationship. What I'm saying is as far as God is concerned We're positionally fit for heaven as much as we're ever going to be he bowed his head But before he did he said what it is finished All your sin has been paid for tonight, and praise God for that. Again, my sin not in part but the whole, nailed to the cross, I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. And I do praise for that. So understand that Jesus died for all your sins, every single last one of them, and I praise God for that. So number two, with that in mind. Now, we understand that can a lost person ever make up for his sins? Absolutely not. He can't make up for his sin. It's impossible. That's why they have to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. But I want you to understand some of that thought in mind. There's a lot of times that we as believers, we mess up, we sin, we do the wrong things, but if we're not careful, we'll fall into that frame of mind. In other words, we're going to try to make up for our sinning with good works. Now again, I want you to understand, we need to do good works. James teaches us that, and maybe someday we'll preach on that. But what we're talking about, keeping that relationship with Jesus Christ, belonging to Jesus Christ, I want to tell you something, folks, when you mess up, you've got to understand, you can't make up for sinning. No more than a lost person can make up for sinning. The saved person can't make up for sinning. Listen, it's only by the grace of God that that fellowship can be restored. Not of works. Even in that instance, not of works. It has to be by the grace of God. Listen, no amount of good that you do will pay for your sin. Amen, now you need to keep doing good, but you need to do good because you're saved, amen, not for any other reason, but because you're saved. And so again, the no amount of good that you do will pay for your sin, that's not how God corrects us, that isn't necessarily how God brings us back into line. It would be like, could you imagine shining a flashlight at the sun? I mean, there just really isn't much sense in that, is there? You know, that'd just be, you know, kind of silly, wouldn't it? Listen, no amount of good that you do will pay for your sin. We should do good works, but those good works don't pay for our sins. The Bible tells us, let's talk about it from the salvation side. What does Ezekiel 18.4 say? The soul that sinneth, what? It will die. It will die. We understand that. When we share the gospel, when we want to win the loss, we may use Romans 6.23, for the wages of sin is death. That word death, talking about hell. Spending eternity in hell where the worm dieth not. So I suppose you could say that in a way we could pay for our sins only by spending eternity in hell. But really, he or she never gets it paid, so they just keep burning forever and ever and paying for that forever and ever and ever, as I said, where the worm dieth not. So Jesus, we go back to, as a believer, listen, Jesus paid it all. He paid it all. He paid it all. And he had to because that's our only hope, amen? That's our only hope is understanding that Jesus has died for all my sins. And we, listen, we can't make it up. We can't make up for sinning in our life. We just cannot do it. We've got to rely on the grace of God. Now with that in mind, this kind of ties in with this third point that I want to make. It's God's forgiveness never gives out. It never gives out. You know, it's something I'm sure that all of us have struggled with over time and maybe different seasons in our life. You know, there's different things that come in in our life as we mature and as we age and there's just different things that come about in our life over the years. So, you know, we have that besetting sin, you know, that thing that we just seem to always struggle with and when we get over that and then something else seems to pop into our life. We sin a sin and we confess that sin to God and we ask forgiveness and we promise to never do it again. But what happens? We do it again. We do it again. It's something that we all struggle with. We've heard the saying before, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. In other words, after a while, it's like, hey, you gotta wise up. But aren't you glad God doesn't work like that? Yeah, God doesn't work that way at all. You see, our problem is sometimes we try to see God from our point of view. Yeah, we try to analyze what God would do based on what we might do instead of his point of view. Our point of view says, you know, maybe God's getting tired of me. Maybe God's getting tired of messing with me. But aren't you glad that it says in Romans 5, 20, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Hey man, I was watching this nature show one time years ago, and it was talking about eagles, the bald eagle. And after a while, Mama Eagle, if that little, whatever they're called, eaglets, don't go out on their own and try to start flying, she'll actually reach down and pick one up in her big old claw, fly way, way up in the air and just drop it. That little, they were showing it on film, they could do that these days, that little thing is just, you know, it's just falling. I guess it's screaming, I don't know, but it's just falling. I'd be screaming, amen. And it's just falling, falling, falling, and just right when you think it's gonna hit the mountainside there, that mama eagle swoops down and grabs it right at the last second. You see, she can fly faster than that little eagle can fall. Amen. and listen, I wanna tell you something, we fall, we fall often, but listen, God can fly faster than you can fall, amen, praise the Lord, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, and I praise God for that, and I believe that's something that as we as believers, we need to understand, I love that old hymn, Leaning on the Everlasting Arms, isn't that a great hymn, amen, now my daughter Layla, You notice she's kind of little in stature over there. She's 17 years old. God's really given us a fine young lady. But she's a daddy's girl. She'll tell you that. And at least she better tell you that. And to this day, when she gets tired of her daddy's around, she likes to come and lean on me. Now, you know, when she was eight, nine years old, that really wasn't a big deal. You know, she'd grab my arm and lean on it. And I'd probably stand there all day. But now that she's 17 years old, and she probably weighs a whole 95 pounds, but that's a lot different than 40, amen? And what I'm saying is, she'll come lean on my arm, but after a while, I'm like, hun, you're gonna have to go find a wall or something to lean on. You're wearing me out, it's too heavy. But God's arms are everlasting. Isn't that wonderful? They never, ever give up. in a All my sins were paid for. We've learned that you can't make up for sinning. Our good works are useless to make up for sin. God's forgiveness never gives out. He forgives each time we confess, no matter how many they may be. Now, we see these things and we say, okay preacher, before I get to this last point, hopefully it'll kind of maybe tie it together for us. In other words, some application. You know, how should this leave me? In other words, after I learn this vertical truth, how do I use that horizontally down here on earth? You know, each time we learn a spiritual truth, then God expects me to allow that to affect what I do down here, you see. You know, we learn these things from God so that we can go out these doors, outside these walls, and they impact our everyday life. And so, based on what I learned about forgiveness, what should I do? And this points us to the last point for tonight. Now, I want to say this statement and pay very close attention to it. Everybody in here, at any given time, has to learn to forgive these two people. And if you don't, then you're probably going to leave here the very same way you came in. In other words, everything that I've said so far will be to naught if you don't understand this last point. And it really ties it together. There's two people that you've got to forgive. Number five, you've got to be able to forgive yourself and you've got to be able to forgive others. Forgive yourself and forgive others. I want to talk about forgiving yourself first. Well, we've seen that Jesus died for all our sins. I don't think that there's any argument there. I think the Bible makes that clear. He died for all of our sins on the cross 2,000 years ago. And since he is God, he knew what every one of them would be, yet he died for them, and I praise the Lord for that. In Jeremiah 31, 34, God, speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, and if you remember, he's talking about a backslidden Israel. He said, I forgive their iniquity and I'll remember their sin. No more. What a tremendous statement that is. I will remember their sin no more. God forgets, that's mind-boggling. But there it is, Psalm 103, 12, as far as the east is from the west, that's a pretty long way, they still don't know how far that is. It's still going, amen. As far as the east is from the west, so far it's removed our transgressions from us. Now, I realize that certainly the human being left to itself can do some terrible things in our life. I mean, it's true. It's true. There's some terrible, awful things that can come back into our life. Terrible actions that we could do. Things that, again, in our minds seem unforgivable. But Christ died for all our sins. He died for every one of them. Yet there might be some, maybe even here tonight, that have made those mistakes and they've done some bad things in their past, but yet there's still a part of them, maybe not all the time, but there's times when they still have not forgiven themselves for them things. And really what you're saying there is something, as we look at the Bible, not only about you, but I believe what God says, don't you? I believe it, I believe what God says. And oftentimes, if we're not careful, we'll find ourselves basically arguing with God, in this case, not forgiving ourself over something that God has already forgiven us over in the first place. Amen. You're arguing with God. God makes it clear. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If you believe that, say amen. So if I do that, but yet I walk away still down, still carrying that burden, you're telling God, no, you haven't forgiven all my sins. Yeah. but we know that he has. We know that he has. And again, we have to learn to forgive ourselves. Listen, if you won't forgive yourself, you're just not gonna be a very effective Christian, no matter how hard you work, no matter how good you may knowledgeably know your Bible, no matter what you do, how faithful you are to the services, and whatever else you're plugged into. Listen, if you cannot forgive yourself, you will be an unhappy, ineffective Christian for the gospel's sake. You've got to learn to forgive yourself for something that's already been paid for. It's an amazing thing. Now, we realize, folks, that there's consequences to our sins. You know, there's scars when we do wrong. Understand that. But that doesn't mean that God is punishing us for our sin. Again, as we saw a while ago, the only way one can ever begin to pay for their sin is forever in hell. We know that's not the case. But God has forgiven us, and we must forgive ourselves as well. And there might be some here tonight, I don't know, that may be carrying a burden, maybe for years and years and years, that according to what our Bible verses tell us, we're carrying that burden around for years and years over something that God has forgotten about years and years ago. We got to learn to forgive ourselves because God has promised that He does. And then we also got to forgive others. We could preach a whole message on this itself, and there's so many verses in the Bible that even Jesus taught on this quite often during his earthly ministry that show the danger, the tragedy, if you will, of not forgiving one another. But one of the things I just want to focus in on tonight, one of the side effects we find in Hebrews 12, I have it on here, the side effects of unforgiveness toward others is bitterness. bitterness Hebrews 12 14 through 15 says this follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord look indeligently lest any man fail the grace of God and I want to try to explain that a little bit but it goes on to say lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled You know, so often, those of us that have experienced the grace of God, not only in our salvation, but we experience the grace of God every day, you know, we're not a very lovable people. You know, I mean, imagine what God has to go through to love us, amen? But we are saved by grace and we live by that very same grace. And listen, we can fail that grace of God. In other words, not understanding that grace that God gives for us will cause us to be bitter towards others. In other words, we get grace from God, but we're not giving grace to others. Yeah. Boy, that's not good at all. And there could be, you know, sometimes, I understand, sometimes, again, just dealing with people. Listen, we get bitter towards another. We hold a grudge against another. Listen, when that happens, the Bible makes it very clear on how we're to handle those things. You go and you make that ride as soon as possible. In other words, you kill that root of bitterness that's springing up. You kill that root of bitterness that's robbing you of your joy. So so very important. So we got to learn how to forgive ourselves. We got to learn to forgive others It tells us in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 32 be kind one to another tender-hearted forgiving one another, listen, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. There it is, it puts it on the same level, if you will. For the sake of Christ, think about this, for the sake of Christ, for the sake of His only begotten Son, God has forgiven you tonight, if you've accepted Jesus as your Savior. Boy, so how much more should we, for the sake of Christ, forgive others? Are you better than God that you don't have to forgive another? Oh, certainly not. And I'll end with this, just a thought there. People can put a lot of hurt in our lives. I'm not downplaying that. James tells us how the tongue, it's like the fire of hell. And it can, just the tongue itself and our attitudes toward people can gouge deep into a heart and affect them for months, years maybe. That pain is real, and that pain hurts. In other words, what I'm saying is, is sometimes we are offended without cause. It happens. It happens. But I want you to understand something. And maybe somebody in here tonight has been offended in a terrible, terrible way. And I'm so sorry for that. I wish that that didn't happen, but I know that it does happen. But I want you to understand that you've offended God for our words. Every one of us. I mean, stop and think about it. When it comes to the holiness and righteousness of God, Jeremiah tells us that even the best thing we can do is like dirty rags. We fall so, so short. What I'm saying is, is our sin, our sin nature has offended God more than anybody will ever be able to offend you. But thank God for His grace and for His forgiveness and for His mercy. Aren't you glad? Amen. Praise God for that. So we're called, as hard as it is to do, we're called to, as I said a while ago, certainly to forgive ourselves over something that God has taken as far east as it is from the east to the west, but he's also told us that we've got to forgive one another. We're to forgive others. Because after all, God never gets tired of you. Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad? Amen, amen. As our pianist comes this evening,