Synopsis of Sermon 6/24/23

Delivered by Bishop Joseph W. Walker, III

Psalm 107:1-2 NKJV 
Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! 
For His mercy endures forever. 
2 Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, 
Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy,

1. INTRODUCTION 

1. God has been keeping attacks from us, so the attempt of the enemy would not come to fruition and so we would could see the Grace of God. It could have gone another way!
2. Today we will find ways to give God the Glory, despite our circumstance. We realize God’s redemption is at work. We see that we have gotten out of stuff that we couldn’t have gotten out of on our own.
3. God continues to flip things in our favor. His mercy took a break-down and turned it into break-through! God turned a rough climb, into a set of stairs! God took a broke situation, and made it become profitable!
4. You need to realize that you’ve been redeemed. If God wasn’t on your side, you wouldn’t be here!
5. We have many things to thank God for. It could have gone another way!
6. You must share what God has done for you so that others can learn more about God. The most powerful way to come to God, is your own personal way. There are some that will look at you and realize if God done it for you, he can do it for them!

1. WE RECOGNIZE THE EXTENT OF HIS GOODNESS 
2. The goodness of God can’t be disassociated from God himself. It comes down to perspective.
3. Some of us don’t realize that God is good until later on in our journeys. We must understand that:

1. God Determines the Good 

1. We don’t get to choose what is good. If we could, we would tell God to take all the bad things out of our lives. We would never grow or learn.
2. God determines what’s good and he therefore decides what things are good for us and what things are bad for us. We don’t realize some situations are good until we are in the midst of them. We don’t see it as good when we first go into it.

• It All Worked Together for My Good 

1. God has a way of taking all that we have gone through and using it for our good. This is why the Psalmist says, “Oh give thanks to the Lord, because He is good”.
2. Setbacks give you comebacks. You know that all things work together for the good of them who love the Lord.

1. WE’VE BEEN THE RECIPIENTS OF HIS ETERNAL GRACE 
2. The things that really make grace is found in this text.
3. Generally, are vindictive. By this we mean, if someone does something to us, we want to get back at them or we ask God to do it for us. This is why God doesn’t trust us with grace.
4. Grace says we are forgiven regardless to the sin we have committed. Grace goes past the walls and cleans up our sins. 1 John 1:9 NKJV says 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
   1. God doesn’t make you beg. If you confess it, He will forgive it. We can’t forgive your sins because we don’t really understand grace.
5. Mercy- Grace and mercy work together. Mercy is holding back the consequences and Grace is not giving us what we deserve.

1. What He Gives Me, I Don’t Deserve 
2. God has given us many things that we do not deserve.  Without understanding our human condition, you can’t really appreciate fully that God has given you what you don’t deserve. Understanding this helps you to avoid the condition of entitlement.

1. What causes us not to deserve what God gives us?
   1. Iniquity 
   1. Inadequacies  
   1. Inconsistencies 
2. He Never Runs Out of Mercy 
3. We should give God glory for his mercy. God’s mercy is connected to God’s love. His mercy endures forever.
4. God’s Mercy is inexhaustible, or incapable of being used up.
5. In relationship, we feel like a person will eventually get tired of us and limit our resources. They will then create distance and the lack of resources from them, begin to show up. This is when we truly begin to feel the distance.
   1. How many times have we created this distance from others? God says he will never step back from us. God doesn’t move from us, we move away from him.

• God’s mercy can’t be used up.
• When you pray, Hebrews 4:16 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.-
• Psalm 23:6 NKJV says 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will [a]dwell in the house of the Lord [b]Forever.
• Lamentations 3:21–23 NKJV says 21 This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. 22 Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. 23 They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.

1. THE REDEEMED EXPRESS THEIR GRATITUDE 
2. You can’t know the goodness of God and sit there like a stone with no life.
3. Being thankful is more than just saying “thank you”. It is an attitude. It is a learned behavior. Without the attitude, it is much like your child who receives things and don’t understand the sacrifice that happens to provide them with what they want.
4. You have to train your children to pause and say, “thank you”. When you told them to say, “thank you”, you have trained them to appreciate the sacrifice it took to get them what they just received.
   1. When the maturity come in, they learn to associate the blessing with thankfulness for the intangible things. God doesn’t want you to associate your blessings with stuff all the time. When you mature, you associate blessings with love, joy, and peace, things money can’t buy. Give God the glory for the thing’s money can’t buy!
5. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.

1. You Can’t Know It and Not Show It 
2. When you get asked to do things outside your job, you realize for the greater good, you must help the company! Likewise, when God’s been good to you, you just can’t hide it. You have to show it for the greater good of the Company.
3. In Acts 3, a lame man was dropped at the gate called Beautiful. After finally being healed, he walked, leaped, and praised God!

• Your Witness Is Beyond the Walls 
• When God’s been good to you, your praise is not restricted to the walls of the sanctuary.
• Your Song – Songs were important to Israel. The songs help you to tell your story.
• Your Story – If you don’t have a Song, you got a Story. In your Story, there is some glory!
• Your Shout – Everybody ought to have a shout! This can be a bit controversial for some of us that grew up in a quiet church. Psalms 100:1-2 NKJV says Make a joyful shout to the Lord, [a]all you lands! 2 Serve the Lord with gladness; Come before His presence with singing. – Noise is a nuisance for some people, but necessary for others. It allows us to express what we can’t articulate. It doesn’t make sense to you, but it makes sense to God.
• Story: While walking to his room, which was near the Casino, Bishop noticed that ever time somebody hit, they hollered! As many times as God has done something for why don’t we respond in the same manner.

• HE RESCUED ME FROM THE ENEMY’S GRIP 
• He redeemed me from the hand of the enemy. The enemy wanted to control my life. To be in the hand of something, hand is the root word. If I’m in the enemy’s hand, it means I depend on being controlled by the hand enemy.

1. The Devil Had an Agenda 
2. Whoever hand I’m in, shows who is controlling me.
   1. Some of us are still feeling the result of being handled by the wrong hand. The enemy has been after your life from the begin John 10:10 NKJV says “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”, I Peter 5:8 NKJV “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”- God redeemed you from being handled the wrong way.

• The Enemy Was Reminded That I’m Anointed 
• Some of you can testify that no weapon formed against you was able to prosper!

1. Psalm 20:6 NKJV says Now I know that the Lord saves His anointed; He will answer him from His holy heaven With the saving strength of His right hand. – God’s hand is greater than the enemy’s hand and the hand of whatever has been a handling us.
2. To be anointed suggests that God has his Hand of Covering over you. When you’re anointed, you have divine confirmation, so you don’t seek affirmation elsewhere.
3. It is a point of identification in the spirit realm. Anointed deals with a Greek word soteriology which is the study of salvation. If the Lord saves his anointed, something must be in a place that can’t be put there by ourselves, that causes us to be saved.
4. In the Bible you see God save his anointed. In all cases, these people have been handled the wrong way.
5. For example:
6. Pharaoh wants to hold on to children of Israel (handled the wrong way). God says let them go!
7. The 3 Hebrew boys is another example. The enemies convinced the king that they were beside themselves and therefore would not bow down when they wanted them to. As a result, they were put into the fiery furnace, but king sees the son of God in the fire. This means God was in there to bring them out.
8. In Acts 12, Peter is in Prison, Herod has already killed James, and going to kill peter after Easter. The church is praying for Peter and God brings Peter out with the use of an Angel.

At some point, you were mishandled, and someone was praying for you. Brittany, the basketball player, was held captive in Russia. America knew Russia wasn’t going to kill her, because they who she belonged. Likewise, You haven’t been killed, because the enemy knows who belong to. God protects his anointed!!