Mike Bickle discusses the complexities of God's emotions towards His people, emphasizing that God experiences joy, sadness, and anger based on how believers respond to Him. He clarifies that while God loves everyone, His delight is reserved for those who sincerely seek Him, and that true repentance involves a heartfelt turning away from sin. Bickle warns against the dangers of presumption in grace, urging believers to understand that God's approval is not unconditional and that spiritual immaturity is not the same as rebellion. He encourages believers to embrace God's delight in them, even amidst their weaknesses, and to pursue a genuine relationship with Him, which fosters growth and confidence in His love.

Talking about what I've been on the last several sessions, discerning truth and error about the grace of God. This is the fifth message I've given on this, and tonight I wanna focus in on how God feels when he gives his grace. And there's a lot of confusing ideas about the emotions of God, but the Bible gives us some clarity about that. Paragraph A, God feels different emotions related to how his people respond to him. Some believers live confused about how God feels and how God's thinking about them at different seasons and stages of their life. They don't know whether he's mad, glad, or sad, and he has all of those emotions. He can be mad, he becomes sad or grieved, and he has tremendous joy when he relates to his people. He has all three of these emotions related to believers. What we don't wanna do is think God's mad when in fact he's delighting in us, and that happens many times. Many times the truth is God is delighting in a sincere believer, but because the believer doesn't understand the truth and they're imagining God is relating to them like an earthly authority figure that they might have in their mind, and they live with a spirit of condemnation when the truth is that God was delighting in them all along. That's tragic because it kills their joy and they end up running from God instead of to God. One of the central concepts of the bridal paradigm or the kingdom of God through the lens of a bride is the fact that God wants to establish our hearts in confidence even in our weakness because if we feel confident in God's heart towards us while we're maturing, we will mature at a far greater pace, a far greater speed because we will run to him with an open spirit instead of run from him in condemnation and shame. But it's critical that we have understanding of how God feels because if we don't, we shut our spirit down and we retreat because we think he's mad when the fact is he's glad and he's delighting in us. Well, there's the other extreme. There's times when people believe the Lord's delighting in them. I'm talking about believers that are living in compromise and they have perverted the word of God and they've perverted and distorted ideas about grace where God's always glad no matter what and just everything is okay because God's a God of love and that's a distortion of the grace of God. It's a view of God's grace where God is never mad or never sad and that's a distortion too and they live in presumption and there's even believers who live that way and many false religions have an idea of God who's all accepting no matter what. That's not the truth of the word. Paragraph B, we receive his grace, his favor, his righteousness, which are the same things. He likes us, his favor is towards us because of what Jesus did on the cross. He doesn't feel joy over everyone. He doesn't feel happy over everyone. He loves everyone, but he does not delight in everyone, but because of what Jesus did on the cross, it removes the obstacles that keeps God's joy from being expressed towards us. See, God loves the world. He loves everybody, but the sin problem hinders God releasing his joy to us and having joy in us, but when Jesus went to the cross, he paid the debt, the hindrance is removed and the joy that God wants to have is now he is able to express it without violating any of his righteousness or justice. Jesus went to the cross. We know that, he died for us. However, there is Christianity 101. I know you all know this, but it needs to be said. We have to repent to receive it and some, again, they distort the message of the grace of God that grace means everybody's okay. I'm okay, you're okay because God is filled with grace and they minimize or even completely neglect the requirement of the change of attitude of repentance. Now, we know paragraph B in the middle of repentance is a change of attitude. It's a turning from sin and to God. There's two parts of repentance. It's not just turning from sin kind of to neutral. It's not just turning to God while we're sinning. Some people do that. They say, I love God, but they don't turn from their sin. Both of them are distinct parts of repentance and they are different and one of them doesn't automatically guarantee the other one in people's thinking. Now, if you really turn to God, you have to turn from sin, but then they're thinking, oh, I just love God and I used to have friends back in the old hippie days in the 60s and 70s where they were just getting high all the time on pot, loving God, just going for it and there's all kinds of other versions of that today and man, they were high on God and several other things. Paragraph C, talking about repentance because you have to stress repentance, but the problem with the stressing repentance is overdoing it and then the sincere believer misinterprets it and it's this truth is like a razor edge. It's so easy to get into distortion one way or the other. So we want to stress repentance and so it's the sincere ones that go repentance, I want to do it so right that I imagine I'm never doing it right. I'm always in false repentance because it's never enough so they never ever get into a place where they're enjoying confidence in their relationship with God while they're growing up while they still have unsettled issues in their life. So I need to say paragraph C, the pursuit of full obedience, that's what we're after, that's what repentance means. We're going after God 100%, we've set our heart. The pursuit is very different from the attaining of it, but the setting of the heart to go after it is what God calls repentance. The attaining of it comes little by little over time, but the genuine setting of our heart is what God cares about. The Lord is pleased with us, paragraph C, this is very important. The Lord is pleased with us from the time we set our heart to obey Him long before our obedience is ever mature. Beloved, you need to know that because those that are most sincere are the ones that misapply the emphasis of repentance because they are repenting, but they're so sincere to obey God that they never imagine their repentance is ever genuine. And so they never ever have again the sense of confidence that God is delighting in them, that God's enjoying them, and so they're never in the love relationship dynamic. They're always at a distance, hoping God will forgive them as a slave who's serving Him at a distance. And the truth is God is delighting in them, the truth is in the word, but they haven't taken time or they've been mistaught the word of God because the word is the answer to getting clarity. It's the teaching of the word. Now, those who have sincere repentance, paragraph C, here's how you know if you have sincere repentance. It doesn't mean you never stumble because you will. You'll stumble many times after you sincerely repent. I mean, you'll come up short of the light that you have. You will obey less than that which the light God has given you. But when we repent and quickly renew our commitment to war against the thing we sinned against, then we know that our repentance is sincere. So the guy goes out and does whatever he does. He knows it's wrong and in the heat of the moment, whether it's anger or lust or lie or greed or covetousness or bitterness or anger, whatever it is, he expresses some expression of his lustful sinful nature and he's grieved. But if he repents and renews, says, Lord, I repent, I am declaring war. I'm getting right back, kind of fell off the horse, so to speak, getting right back in the saddle and I'm jumping right back in the war. I'm taking up where I left off seven minutes ago. I'm back in it. I'm going for it. Beloved, that's sincere repentance. You can have confidence that the Lord is delighting in you while you're growing. And you will do that thousands of times over your spiritual life, if not tens of thousands of times. Come up short of the light that God has given you in terms of your obedience. You do that which you know from the Lord you're not to do in attitude or in action or in word. And then we get right back in and say, Lord, I call that sin and I declare war on it right now. Now you may stumble in it before the end of the day again or tomorrow, but you get right back in and declare war on it. In time, you will get victory according to the light that you have. And then what happens? The Lord increases the light. We get victory at a certain issue. And the Lord says, okay, now that you've got victory there in the grace of God, now I'm gonna give you more light in that area and I'm gonna lift the standard. And then we start again. We come up short and we blow it. And then we repent and we jump back in the battle. Paragraph D, very important point. Spiritual immaturity is not the same thing as rebellion. It's really important to understand that. Now we've said that so many times over the years and many of the teachers here that if you've been around a couple of years, you've heard that so many times. But some of you that are just been around for a short amount of time, you need to get that really clear. Spiritual immaturity, stumbling, coming up short is not, does not mean you're a rebel. Doesn't mean you're in rebellion. Now at times, spiritual immaturity in the life of a sincere believer, that's what I mean, spiritual immaturity in a sincere believer, they're sincere, they're just immature. There are times where outwardly it looks the same. They may say, have the same outburst of anger. The rebellious person, the person who rebellious towards God and the spiritually immature person who's sincere, they may have the same outburst, but it's coming from a totally different heart response. One is a sincere believer that's longing to love God and please Him and they were overtaken. And when they see it, kind of when things settle down, they go, ah, this is not okay. It is not okay. And they feel that hot work of the spirit touching their spirit. I know well, I know that one well. How many of you know what I mean with that hot hand of the Lord? You just feel like, oh my goodness, you just feel smoke and nobody else can see it, but boy, you feel it. You know, one guy said, I don't get that. I go, well, you know, like you get embarrassed and your face turns red. I go, it's kind of like your spirit gets embarrassed. You got that heat on your spirit. I go, I just know it so well, I can describe it. And the Lord's saying, I don't like what you just said, what you did or what, I just don't like that. And we declare war and we get back into the battle and declare war against it. The Lord's looking at the heart. The immature sincerely repents, but the person that's rebellious, they actually premeditate their sin. They're thinking, you know, it's Wednesday. They're planning on sinning Friday night. They make the phone calls. They set it up. They arrange it. They fully plan to go sin on the weekend. And I would say this, that that is serious error for a person, a believer that can plan sin a day or a month ahead of time and pull it off as in if they're truly born again, they are in spiritual ICU unit. They are in intensive care. They are very, very sick spiritually if they can do that. If it's okay, I mean, they may try it once. They may try it twice, may try it a few times. If they can live in that pattern, I would go as far to say that if they live a lifestyle like that, I would question if they were born again. Well, they grew up in a Christian home. They may be in the ministry, doesn't matter. I would question that a person that could live like that is born again. And if they are born again, certainly they're in intensive care ward. They are really spiritually on the edge. That's very serious. It's a very serious condition to be able to plan sin in a day or a week or a month and to think about it for hours and days and then to execute it. And then afterwards go, you know, I feel bad about that, but I'm gonna plan it next weekend as well. The Lord is very grieved about that. That's not okay. And for people to claim, as we use the terminology around here, the bridal paradigm, the view of the kingdom of God where Jesus is a bridegroom, so it's okay, that is deception, that is deception. So premeditated sin, sin that you're actually planning on, you're setting it up for tomorrow. If that shows up a whole lot, you need to seriously ask the Lord if you're saved, honestly, and I know that's a heavy statement, but it could be a life-saving statement for you, a spiritually life-saving statement. Because you grew up in the church does not mean you're born again. Ask the Holy Spirit, say, Holy Spirit, I am troubled by the ease of which I continually just say no to you. Now again, there's a difference between getting in the heat of the moment and our anger, our pride, our defensiveness, we're under pressure and there's deception, we're covetous, lustful, and many different types of lust. And in the heat of the moment, and then we see it and we declare it as sin and declare war on it, that is an immature believer who's sincere in their faith. Even though they'll stumble over it again, but they truly are in their heart. They're trying to think of a way to get free from that sin. They're not trying to find a way to not get caught in it. They're trying to get free from it at the heart level. And that's the difference. So your sin, are you trying to find a way to do it and not get caught? Are you trying to figure out some way to get free from this thing at the heart level? And if you're trying to find a way to get free, that's the genuine spirit of repentance. Okay, Roman numeral two. God loves unbelievers. God so loved the world. We all know that, but here's the point I wanna make. He loves unbelievers. They have no regard for him, but he loves them. But he does not approve of them. That's an important concept because as humans, we don't have a grid to really love someone, to give everything to them like God gave his only son and to be in total disapproval of the way they're living. Now, there's times, I've seen people do that, a parent or a spouse where the other one is the children or one of the spouses is just way out there and they're staying steady. That's rare. I've seen that, but you don't see it much. The idea that God could love the world but be in significant disapproval of the individuals in the world, yet still love them in truth. And that confuses people because they, the doctrine that God loves the world, they confuse it with I'm okay, you're okay, and everything's okay, and it's not okay. Paragraph B, God actually gives blessings to evil people, but he does not approve of them even though he's blessing them. Now, the reason we struggle with that is because we would never do that. We have no grid of blessing profusely the people that we are against. We don't have any grid for that whatsoever except for by the grace of God, a renewed mind. We'll do that, but this is a very difficult concept to understand, and the reason we have to understand it is because God's blessing is on people and the people assume it's his approval because they're thinking of it through a human standpoint. God's love is so superior, he could continue to bless. It says that he causes the sun to shine on the evil and the good. He sends the rain on the unjust. He provides economics and many things, and health, and much prosperity to evil men, and he's really against them, and they don't have any grid for that. They confuse it. The word's clear about it, but they don't know the word at all, so they don't understand it. Okay, Roman number three. God enjoys and delights in believers. Now, the point I'm making is God loves unbelievers. He does not enjoy them, but he loves them. He enjoys a brand new believer. The day you're born again, the obstacles that are hindering God's embrace being released to you and God's enjoyment of you, those obstacles are removed because Jesus paid for them. The day you become born again is the day God moves from loving you only to now enjoying you, and he doesn't enjoy you only after you mature. He actually enjoys you the moment you're born again and your heart's sincere towards him, and you're just completely filled with all kinds of unsettled issues in your life. You don't have much light. The only light you have, the only understanding you have is obey Jesus, say no to sin. You don't hardly know what sin is, you know? I remember after I was born again, I went on on a number of issues and people told me it was sinful, and I thought I couldn't believe it. I really couldn't. The hardest thing, I'll just tell you, when I was born again, the hardest thing for me to understand was why cussing was sinful. I was a crazy cusser. I mean, I had the foulest mouth you could imagine because I grew up in the neighborhood where we thought, you know, past the milk, they just had other words. Everybody did that. But it wasn't the milk they were passing. And when I was born again, I was with Christians, I would just, I would say those words in my prayers, and they would just go, they were horrified, the older Christians. I go, why does God care if I mention body parts? Why does he care? He knows they exist. I mean, and my leader said, Pickle, just sit down. Listen, look us in the eye. You can't talk like this. I go, I can't for the life of me get why this bothers God. It's only words. Anyway, I could go on and on with several other issues. I won't go there. I think I'm gonna lose some of you. You're gonna go, I can't even pay attention now. I wonder what you were. You were a mess. I was a mess. Okay, Roman numeral three, getting back on this. God, we don't have much light the day we're born again, but I was obeying all the light I had. I just didn't have much. And the Lord delighted in me. He delights in you the day you're born again. He doesn't delight in you only five years later when you've gone through all the classes, all the courses, you've proved yourself. It's not that. He delights in you from the very beginning. He enjoys you. Beloved, this is a important revelation to get real clear on. King David, one of my favorite verses, over 35 years of walking with the Lord, I hope this isn't too revealing. The why it's one of my favorite verses, but when King David had lived in 14 months of compromise, the day he repented, the day he repented after 14 months in Ziklag, actually 16 months, not that it matters, but Psalm 18, verse 19, the day that he repented after 16 months, he said, God delivered me because he delighted in me. And I could just imagine David's friends going, you know, he's singing this song. I can just imagine the person come up and say, why did God just deliver you? Because he had a tremendous deliverance on that day. And instead of David saying, because God was merciful, because he likes me. I can imagine them going, he liked David? We've been with you for 16 months. We know what you've, where your heart's been. And David still loved God, but he was in compromise in Ziklag for 16 months. But he knew on the day that he repented, he knew God delighted in him. And that was one of David's greatest strengths is that David was a very aggressive repenter. I mean, he repented hard and he believed in God's delight. The day he repented, he was back into a first class citizen status with God. He felt comfortable with God. He knew that God delighted in him. He could talk to God and what he said to God moved God's heart the day he repented. Beloved, that's a powerful revelation to see that. I wanna offer you Psalm 18, verse 19 as one of your favorite verses for the next 30 years. I mean, it's worked well for me. It's a great verse. It will, because it will cause your spirit to run, to be open. You'll run to him instead of from him because what our natural tendency is to do is repent and to put ourself on three months of probation. We put ourself in timeout for three months. And we do all the, you know, the spiritual disciplines. And if we can hang in there for three months, then we get our confidence back. But the problem with that regime is if you get your confidence by doing good, then you end up becoming proud when you do good. Whatever, wherever you get your confidence is where your pride is going to be. And our confidence is in him and who he is. And he looks at our feeble repentance. It's sincere, but it's still weak. It's imperfect, but it is sincere. And because of who he is, he delights in us. And that's why we have confidence. Paragraph B, Isaiah 62. The Lord says that you shall be called Hephzibah. And the word Hephzibah means the Lord delights in you. This is what God declares over his people. Beloved, our relationship with Jesus, the king, is a relationship with Jesus, the bridegroom king. He's not only a king, he is a bridegroom king. He has power, he is a king. He has a kingdom. But he has the heart of a bridegroom. He has a heart with delight and a heart with joy to the people that relate to him as a king. He's a bridegroom king. Look at this, verse five. As the bridegroom rejoices over his bride, in the same way God rejoices, God has anticipation and joy over weak and broken people who love him. I mean, their love is weak. Their love is immature. Their love wavers, but it is sincere. It's just not mature. And the Lord actually delights in them. Top of page two. Well, the question becomes, if you repent today, how long are you in probation? You're not in probation at all. You don't have to wait a week to see if you really make it. The Lord will immediately begin to rejoice over you. This is really important. I mean, it's an issue of life and death, spiritually for people, because it's when they repent and they're sincere, but they have a wrong image of God, they have wrong teaching, they can't feel confident in God's presence. So the word is boring, prayer is boring, worship is boring, because they're imagining a God who's scowling at them when they're worshiping. Oh, you again. Yeah, right, I saw what you did yesterday. That's not what he's like. He's actually rejoicing over us. The moment we repent and line up and agree with him, to repent means to agree with him. It's the same thing. Look at this story here of the parable of Luke 15. What man having a hundred sheep, Jesus is telling this story in Luke 15, verse four, does not leave the 99, go after the one. When he has found the one, here's the part I want you to get. This sheep, this guy is way off the path. He's talking about humans. He's using an analogy, but he's talking about us. He's talking about those that are the people of God. He's talking about sheep, those that are gods before they got off the path. That's what he's talking about. Look what Jesus does. He lays that sheep up on his shoulders. Jesus picks up this sheep, puts it on his shoulders, and he's walking back to the right path because the sheep does not have enough strength to get back on the path. So he carries us, he helps us. And is he complaining? No, he's rejoicing all the way back. When you and I get on the wrong path and we repent, we say, Lord, we're really stuck. We're in something. We ask you to help us, Lord. We agree to come against this, but it's in our heart. I mean, the problem is we're in a situation where our heart is really bound. And we ask you, God, to help us change our heart. Even the prayer for God to help you change your heart, you're really saying, would you pick me up out of the mud? I'm totally stuck in the mud because if the sheep are in the mud, many times they're kicked and they can't get out of the mud. The shepherd actually has to carry them. He has to intervene. So what does the shepherd feel like while he's intervening? When I get you home, you're gonna get a whipping, boy. No, when the shepherd intervenes, he puts the sheep on his shoulder. He says, I will carry you. You can't get out of the mud. I will intervene and help you. I will break in and create a way of escape for you. He carries us in his strength and he's rejoicing all the way. He is, God is not complaining. Jesus is telling us the story because he's talking about how he feels when somebody in the sheepfold gets out of, off the path into the wrong place. He's not talking about how he feels towards unbelievers. He does the same way, but he's talking about how he feels towards believers. He's talking about sheep here. Verse six, when he gets back to the right path, I mean, gets back, you know, to the ranch, so to speak, he calls his friends and he says to them, rejoice with me. Not only am I rejoicing, says Jesus, I want everyone who knows my heart, everyone who is my friend, I want them to enter into a spirit of joy with me. So when the guy repents, Jesus has joy. Don't go, well, we'll see how long that repentance lasts. Beloved, if the repentance lasts a day, let you be found rejoicing for the day in which the repentance was there. Now we can't really read people's hearts that well, but when somebody says they repent, it doesn't mean that you fully trust everything they say from that point on, they've been living in a, you know, in darkness, but there needs to be a spirit of rejoicing with Jesus because Jesus is rejoicing if they repent. And then he goes on to say, there's joy in heaven. There's joy in heaven over a sinner who repents. And he's talking again, he's not, he's talking to someone who's among the sheepfold who lost their way. There is joy. There is not probation. There is not skepticism. There isn't wait and see. There is joy the day they repent. Beloved, the day they repent, there's joy. Paragraph D, God smiles over our life in a general sense. I'm talking about our means sincere believers, which is the vast majority, if not everyone in this room. He smiles over our life. There's weaknesses in our life, but he smiles. He might deal with a particular sin, but he's still in the general sense, he esteems our life and he has pleasure over our life. It's like a parent can have a son or daughter where there's an issue that they are in disapproval over, but they really love their child. God's the same way. God doesn't define our life by one issue. He sees that we're stuck in an area. We're crying out for help, but he's not written us off. He's not written us off. We're trying to get unstuck from this mud, but we're really stuck at the heart level and we hate it that we're stuck. We hate it, but we're stuck. And the Lord's on our team. He likes us. And he goes, I'm not writing you off. And I like that you're crying out to me to help you, that you're stuck, that you can't get free yourself. I will intervene in time, but he wants us to know that we are not defined by the one area that we're struggling with or the two areas. We are whatever the number is. My point is God defines us by who we are in Christ Jesus. He defines us. There's a yes in our spirit. When we were born again, the Holy Spirit worked a yes in our spirit. The day we're born again, we begin to say, Lord, we want to say yes to you. The yes in our spirit was imparted by the Holy Spirit, by the grace of God. And Jesus sees that yes, and he likes it. And part of the way that he defines you is through the gift of righteousness, but he also defines you by the yes, the longing in your heart to obey him. That obedience is not mature yet, but the longing is there. You're saying, Lord, I'm stuck, but I want help. And you're crying out. You're even fasting and praying. You're crying out to get help, but you're still stuck. And I want to assure you, the Lord has not defined you by the area you're stuck in. He sees the cry in your spirit, and he sees the blood of Jesus. The Father does when he looks at you. Paragraph E, our love for God, when our love for God is weak, it can still be true. It can still be true love. Weak love is not always false love. Weak love for God is immature. It's not false. It's still love. It's just weak. In our attitudes, our speech, in our habits, there's things that are displeasing to the Lord, and we're warring against them, and we only have a little bit of light. When the Lord turns the light up over the years, you think, oh my goodness, I was really stuck. I thought I was stuck. I was real stuck back then. Beloved, God sees genuine love in a person whose love for him is still weak. And this really changes the way you approach God. It gives you confidence to go stand before him. When I have confidence that, as the Song of Solomon chapter one says, I am dark in heart, is what she means in the allegorical interpretation, the spiritual interpretation. I am dark in my heart, but I'm lovely to God. When you feel lovely while you're growing, you will grow much faster. If you feel shame all the time while you're growing, you will grow spiritually very slow. Because most of the time when you approach God, well, mostly you'll be retreating and hiding from him. In your heart, you'll be thinking, oh, I don't want intimacy. Is it, no, no, it's only gonna show how false I am. And then when we do worship God, we worship God with our spirit covered. And what I mean by, instead of an open spirit, what I mean by a covered spirit, I'm just making up the term. It's not a theological term. It's that those times, and most of you understand this, I've done it plenty of times in my early years, especially, when I would worship God. I love you, I love you, I love you. I promise I won't sin if you'll forgive me this one more time. And I was always negotiating, trying to get God to take me serious and to forgive me. And the Lord eventually through the word said, quit negotiating with me. Because when you're negotiating with God while you're worshiping, your spirit's closed all the time. I mean, because you're guarded, because you feel like you're gonna get rebuked by God if you're just relaxed. And so if you're worshiping, I love you, I love you, I really mean it this time, God, I really mean it. I promise you, if you answer this one prayer, I'll never ask again, as though God's broke, you know, and he doesn't have any money to give or he doesn't have any power. I used to, in the early days, try the old, this is my last time I'll ever ask it if you'll just answer me once. And, you know, finally, the Lord got clear to me, I'm not poor. I got lots of time. I got lots of money. I got lots of power. You don't have to do the old one more time if you'll just do it this, forget that. Well, I know some of you relate to that. There you go, gotcha. Okay. Roman numeral four. God delighting, God delights in giving us compassion. God delights in showing his mercy. It's the same chapter, Luke 15. It's a different parable. That Jesus fills compassion over the prodigal. Not just rejoicing. Compassion's different than rejoicing. They certainly go together, they're overlapped. But you'll notice it says in verse 18, here's the prodigal. The prodigal means it's the true son. I mean, in both all these situations, the son is in the family. This is not an unbeliever. This is a, we often read the prodigal son for an unbeliever. The prodigal son is to a believer who knows better. It's to us. And we can use it for an unbeliever. The Lord doesn't mind. The Holy Spirit will use it. But it's talking about people who are in the family that are in covenant with God, who know better and they still go off the path. This Luke 15 needs to be one of your favorite chapters in the Bible because there's three parables there. Just one after the other, God tells us how he feels towards those that are his who don't live right. And I mean, I've just, I wore out Luke 15 in my earlier years. And I've appealed to it many times since then. But in verse 18, the son, the born again believer in our context came to his senses. And he said, father, I've sinned. He's dealing with his real father. I mean, in our sense, God's really our father. We're talking about believers. He arose and he came to his father, but on the way when he was still a great way off, his father saw him. Now Jesus is revealing God the father. When the father sees us, even at a long way off, the father has compassion, compassion, not when you finally get to this porch, you're in trouble. The father feels, he feels powerfully. He sees the son coming up, you know, kind of over the, you can see him at a distance. He can't see his face, but he just knows the way he walks. He goes, that's my son. And it says the father, it says here, he ran because in the ancient world, just because of the protocol of society, the father would always remain seated and the son would come in a posture of humility and humble himself. The father gets out of his chair and he runs. I mean, this is completely against the protocol of that society. And the people that are hearing Jesus are going, wow. You know, even the father with a compassionate heart would not do that. And Jesus would say, yes, that's true. But your heavenly father is not like you. Beloved, I tell you, you take one step, he will take 10. He will run, he will fall on your neck and he will kiss you. We're talking about the day the guy repents. We're not talking about a year later, came home from Bible school, you know, got top honors in the class. We're talking about the day he repents. There's nobody who loves like this, except the grace of God is moving on them. But look at verse 22. The father said to the servant, bring out the best robe and the ring and the sandal. In other words, the robe, the ring and the sandal were statements of favor and honor. Each one of them are symbolic, they're powerful. But it's a first-class citizen. We're talking about the day he repents, he is in the father's full favor. His prayer life works right that day. Paragraph B, God delights to show us mercy. He wants us confidence in it, confidence. He wants us to have confidence that he delights in it. It says in paragraph C, Lamentations 3. Beloved, the Lord's mercies, because of his mercies, we're not consumed. You could put the word, we're not wiped out. We're not over, we're not finished. That's what consumed means. Because of his mercies, we're not finished. We're not wiped out. Because his compassions never, ever fail. But this is only to the people who repent. Because if the person doesn't repent, the compassion of God is restrained. Because God gives compassion to renew the relationship. He doesn't give compassion so we can feel comfortable sinning. He gives compassion to renew the relationship. That's what the compassion's for. Some people get confused. They think mercy is kind of like a disconnected kind of entity. Mercy is so that we will restore the relationship and walk with God in agreement, which is called righteousness. But look at verse 23. His mercies, his compassions are new every single day. Every day. If today's the day, you blow it. Tomorrow, you wake up with a brand new beginning. Every day, his mercies are new if you will take them. The guy totally blows it. And we can tell him with confidence. You repent. You are a first-class citizen right now. And I tell you, tomorrow morning when you wake up, it is a new day. It is a completely new day in God. God is the God of the second chance. And he gives us a million of those. It's fantastic. Paragraph D. I've said this phrase for years. Sometimes it gets misunderstood. I tell people, when you repent, just push delete and stand in confidence. Push delete because God's pushing delete. In terms of his affections being released towards you and his joy, there still may be some consequences just in the natural realm that you've created. There's a, you know, you knock the dominoes down. There is a cause effect with bad decisions. I'm not saying all the consequences are gone. But in terms of God's emotion, you can push delete. Now, when I tell people to push delete, I don't mean they should not inquire on the Lord and even with others as to why it is they keep sinning in this pattern. You know, I've encouraged many people to, whether you call it counseling or whatever you call it, get with another person that can help you discover the places in your heart where you have wrong ideas of God, wrong ideas of life, why you keep stumbling. And some people say, well, I just pushed delete. And the delete is related to receiving God's emotions. It doesn't mean the consequences are gonna go away, but it doesn't mean your wrong thought patterns are gonna be cured instantly. We need to locate the thought patterns that help us to keep sinning in the same way. There is much to be said about people receiving counsel from one another. Because really what counseling is, if it's biblical, and that's the only kind that I recommend, counseling, a guy says, I'm in counseling, I'm a mess. I go, no, counseling is just tailor-made Bible study. It's really all counseling is. Counseling is you got a question and the guy or gal takes biblical principles and applies it to a wrong mindset. You go, oh, I get it. Because when we change our paradigm of God, our paradigm of ourself or our paradigm of how life works, then we disconnect from sinful patterns. Doesn't mean we're never gonna sin again, but we have a whole different opportunity to not stumble in that area. So when I say push delete, I'm talking about in terms of God's emotions, God says, everything's out of the way, I am enjoying you. You still may have to have consequences that in the natural realm, there's a cause-effect dimension and you still need to find out why it is you keep doing this. And if you can't find out yourself through the word, get with somebody and say, hey, help me. Can you see any blind spots? And get with somebody who's skilled in the word, even a little bit. Okay, top of page three, paragraph E. God understands our weakness far more than we understand it. God does not discipline us to the degree that we deserve it, nor does he change the way he feels about us when our weakness is manifest. This is fantastic. Look at Psalm 103. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is God's mercy towards those who fear him. I mean, how high is the solar system above the planet? I mean, or what? That's a kind of we're in the solar system, bad analogy. How high is something up there real high than the earth? That is how great God's mercy is. I mean, you're not going to out send the mercy of God. That's the point. And then look at, but here's the part, verse 14, that I wanna point out. For God knows our frame. God remembers we're dust. He remembers we're weak. He doesn't forget. We forget, but he doesn't. I remember the time I was just in my teens and I go, oh no, I did it. And I said the most arrogant statement. I said, I was crying out to God, can you believe it? Like God was shocked because I was. I could imagine, I didn't hear anything, but I could imagine the Lord saying, hey little guy, there's a whole lot more where that came from. Psalm 78, and you wanna read the whole passage. It's a grand passage, but yes, many times God turned his anger away and he did not stir up all of his wrath. Many times he restrained what they deserved. Why? He remembered they were just flesh. God has a tender remembrance of how weak we are. He is not shocked when we are. Because we're shocked in our religious pride. We can't fathom we were capable of it. God knows we're capable of much more. He's not thrown off in the relationship just because we think he is. He's not, he remembers. Okay, paragraph five, or Roman numeral five. God's enjoyment of us is not the same thing as his approval. The fact that God delights in us, even in our sincerity, doesn't mean he approves with everything we're doing. We may not even have understanding of things we're doing that still have darkness in it because he's only giving us a little bit of light. I'm thinking of those early on. Well, no, I don't care. The most mature apostle still has very little light compared to the light they'll have in the age to come. So this applies to everybody. So I talk to people that God enjoys them and some people make the mistake that if God enjoys me, I must not do any wrong. I can do no wrong. No, the fact that God likes you and he understands you does not mean he approves of everything you're doing. God can actually delight in you, but an issue he's against, and he can speak to you and continue to delight in you while we're working on this issue. And then he can help us with that issue. It's called discipline. Hebrews 12, he disciplines us. That's what Hebrews 12 is talking about. It's for our profit, so we would remove the thing that hinders love in our life. That's holiness. That's what holiness is about. God disciplines us so that we remove the thing that's hindering holiness or hindering love. Paragraph B, in the process of God enjoying us but still disapproving of an issue of our life. And that's not confusing to God. That's sometimes confusing to people. They're all or none, as though God has complexity in his emotion and diversity and lots of ability in his emotions. He's not narrow-minded, or his abilities emotionally are not narrow like ours. He can really enjoy us, but put his finger in an area that he is insisting that we change. And he will discipline us with his delight if we don't. But here's what he does. Paragraph B, he gives us time. He gives us, he has tender patience. And sometimes his patience confuses us. We think, well, you know, I've been kind of like dealing with this issue, you know, a month. Now it's a year. Now it's two years. Hey, I think everybody forgot. And there's a verse I should have here, Ecclesiastes 8.11. Just write that one down. It says that when the sentence of judgment is not executed quickly. In other words, when the sentence of judgment of God's discipline is withheld, he gives time. The sinner doesn't take it to heart. The sinner goes, well, I didn't get in trouble. I guess God didn't see, or he forgot. And all that was happening is God was being patient. Ecclesiastes 8.11. But look what he tells to Jezebel. He goes, I gave her, Jezebel, time to repent. And she didn't, so I'm gonna cast her into a sickbed. This is Jezebel. And Jesus is giving Jezebel time to repent. Now, just so you're not confused, the Jezebel of Revelation 2 was an actual teacher in the city of the church of Thyatira. And this is not Jezebel in the days of Elijah. You know, 1 Kings 18, like 900 BC. This is not the same Jezebel. There's two Jezebels. I mean, could you imagine this gal's upbringing? Her mom named her Jezebel, or her dad. I mean, that tells you a little bit about their family circle, okay. I mean, the poor girl, she had a wrong, you know, the cement dried the wrong way. Let's put it that way. But that's not my point. I just didn't, because sometimes people confuse and they think that's Jezebel from 900 years earlier in 1 Kings 18 and 19, which is King Ahab's wife that was against Elijah. This is not, this is a different person, but the same name. Anyway, the point is God gave her time to repent. He says, you know, others were going, you know, just break her. The Lord says, no, no, I'm gonna give her time. I'm gonna give her every chance in my mercy to repent. I am against what she's doing, but I'm still for her. I'm still, I'm still in my heart working to get her to repent. Beloved, when God is being tender and His patience with us, don't, don't be presumptuous with that. Say, well, you know, I'm, you know, I'm doing wrong things with money and the months have turned to years. Nobody ever caught me. Heaven doesn't seem to be looking. Or I'm doing it relationally, or I'm doing it in some kind of abuse and something you're putting in your body, whether drink or food or substance or something. Say, well, the Lord still seems to be with me. Don't take His tender patience for granted. Don't say, well, obey the word. He's giving you time because He cares about you. Paragraph C, divine correction is not divine rejection, but rather it's proof that He loves you. When God corrects us, He disciplines every believer. Every believer has seasons of divine discipline. It's not that He's against you because in the human arena, once many parents, when they correct, they reject. When they say, stop it, you're bad. It means I don't want to relate to you right now. I don't have, I don't want to embrace you. I don't have good feelings towards you. So in the human arena, correction means emotional rejection, but it doesn't with God. It's the opposite. He corrects because He delights in us. It's exactly opposite. Jesus says it here in Revelation 3. He goes, as many as I love, I rebuke them. If I love them, I actually rebuke them. The word of God touches our spirit with rebuke in it, but there's tenderness in the rebuke. It's not a railing rebuke, but He gives a rebuke. If you will read the word and let the Lord rebuke you, beloved, it's called wisdom. If you receive the rebuke of the Lord through the word, it's called wisdom. If the word does not work, then He'll raise somebody up to say it to you. Now, usually what I've witnessed in my own life and in the lives of others, God tries to speak to us through the word. We say, no, then you'll come to a public setting. It's still anonymous. Nobody knows. And He says, I'm speaking to you like I did this morning in your personal time with me. The preacher, the singer, they're saying it. You go, no. He says, okay, we'll go to the next level then. Then He raises up somebody to get in your face and say it. No, He raises up the second one. I bind you, Satan, in the name of Jesus. It's not Satan, it's God. Then He will use circumstances to get your attention because He cares so much about you. Beloved, we don't need to wait for circumstances to chasten us because He will chasten us by His word in our personal life. If we will receive His chastening, His discipline by the word, He says, okay, we did it. Or say, you know, we're responding a little slow, then He'll use a public word like some of you right now undoubtedly, you're thinking this might be the Lord. Forget it. It is the Lord. Stop sitting. Don't think it might be. It is the Lord. He's talking about you. They said, it must be me. Yes, that's right. That was the Lord. It's you. It's you. I wanna be disciplined by the word or chastened by the word. The word chastens, it stings us. He tells us we're proud. He tells us that we're disobedient. It tells us that we're fleshly. The word will chasten us. It will discipline us. He chastens everybody that He loves. He rebukes us. But the rebuke goes more public, a friend, a second friend or another person. You know, some, the police get involved. The rebuke goes higher. Other authority figures in the business or the workplace, whatever, get involved. It takes it to another level besides friends. And then it comes to circumstances. He does care so much about us. Look at Proverbs 3. Whom the Lord loves, He corrects in the way a father corrects the son in whom He delights in. God delights in us. But He would love to correct us only by the word if we would take it or by a friend. But He'll keep bringing the level up if we need Him to. But He'll give us patience. But, beloved, don't take His patience as though He did not see or He does not care. Take His patience as that He's really committed to you. But He's not just committed to letting you off the hook. He wants it to go easy. If you'll say yes, He is committed to get your attention and to get my attention. Paragraph D, it is a terrible thing to get away with sin long-term. Because when you get away with sin long-term, it means God's given you over to it. If God is no longer striving with you, I'm thinking of the verse in Genesis 6 where it says the Spirit of God was striving with men in the days of Noah. Genesis 6, verse 3 or whatever it is, that the Spirit strives with us, strives. When the Spirit quits striving with you, the Lord is giving you over to it. He says, okay, you can have it your way. You can have your way. And then the circumstances of bondage, they'll get worse and worse and worse because the first thing will happen, not necessarily a negative circumstance in terms of a crisis out in your other circumstances. The first heavy is we get in bondage to that area. And the Lord says, I'll give you over to it. If you don't want to repent, I will give you over to it. Beloved, there's a day in the realm of immorality, in the realm of drugs, alcohol, and bitterness, and anger, there is a time where a person is given over to what they want. The Lord says, okay, you can have it. That's what you want. But it will be a relentless taskmaster to bring you to horrendous bondage. And then way more severe circumstances will come later. If you think, if the Lord has been dealing with you in an area and you say, I haven't felt this dealing with him, beg him to deal with you. Say, oh Lord, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's re-talk this through. Convict me, convict me. I mean, I'm serious. Get serious about it. I don't think there's a, there would be very many in this room that would be in that condition, and very possibly nobody, but there might be one. God gives them over. Paragraph E, God fills our pain even when he's disciplining us. He told Israel, he goes, in all their affliction, God was afflicted. That's what the prophet Isaiah is saying. And when he's talking about here in Isaiah 63, in all their affliction, he meant their divine discipline. The affliction was brought on because of their sin and God was afflicting them, but God was pained while he was afflicting them. It was not a casual, distant, God says, this hurts my heart in reality. Paragraph F, it's another type of emotion. God is grieved, which is different than anger. He's heart sick. God is sick in his heart, meaning he's in pain at the heart level over lukewarm believers who will not respond to his goodness. He tells the Laodiceans, he goes, I will vomit you out of my mouth. He means, he doesn't mean I'll cast you away. He means you have hurt me so much that I am reacting to it. I feel it. I am sick over this. And it's not that I have nothing to do with you because some people read that, they think God cast them off. God says, I take this so deeply personal, I can't let it go. It's actually, it's got a hold of me in a very deep way. And that's how he feels when he sees someone he's shown his goodness to, they're born again, and now they become passive. The Lord says, it's not, he's not saying you're disgusting to me. He's saying what you have done has grieved me so much that my stomach is sick. And that's the physical sense. But in the spiritual sense, my heart is sick. I'm completely made sick by this. You know, you've heard of the, you know, the situation of the guy is, sees a situation that's so grievous that he vomits. It's not just that he tasted something that, and crisis and griefs or, you know, he sees a car wreck, something that's so, it so hurts him. That's what Jesus is talking about. It's really touching me in a deep way. We can grieve the spirit. The spirit could be quenched. This is, the spirit can have pain, sadness and pain. Okay, top of page four, I'm just gonna leave you with this and have the worship team come up. I just mentioned that spiritual discipline gets us in a position, worship team, come on up. Spiritual discipline puts us in a position to receive more, not to earn more. God doesn't love you more when you're more disciplined. He gives you more because you position yourself to receive. He doesn't love you more. You don't earn it by discipline. He doesn't like me more when I'm fasting and praying and serving. It positions my heart to receive more from him. It's a statement of my hunger. And then he says, I'll give you more because you're hungry for relationship. Amen, let's stand. For more free downloads from Mike Bickle, please visit mikebickle.com.