Sermon Quotations Pastor Steven L. Shelley
(Click on date to read entire sermon)
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
But he said, “By the grace of God - by God’s unmerited, undeserved
favor - I am what I am.” Do you know that that could be our
testimony?
That could be our
testimony today. We are men and women born out of season, and
yet the Lord Jesus has appeared to us. He has made Himself real
to us through His Word.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
Sometimes we feel like we’re being stoned to death. Sometimes
we feel like we’re losing our lives. We can’t go on like this.
We’re going to be snuffed out, so to speak.
But I want you to
know sometimes God is allowing us to feel the things that we’re feeling
because there’s a greater plan that is being unfolded.
We can’t see it right now with our eyes. Sometimes we can’t even sense it in the Spirit.
But can I convince
anybody in this house that God is in control of all things? When
we feel like we’re spinning out of control, we’re not because God is
still sitting on the Throne. He is still in charge. He is
still sovereign.
Nothing is going to
happen to me that He doesn’t already know about. And if He allows
it to happen, it’s because there’s a reason for it happening to me.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
I didn’t realize that one of the tools that the enemy is using against
the people of God, one of the biggest tools that the enemy is using
against the people of God, is a feeling of hopelessness.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
And these kinds of things, looking at the circumstance instead of the
Promise, can cause us to be filled with a feeling of hopelessness.
I think that the reason why the enemy is able to pull that kind
of a trick on . . . He shouldn’t be able.
Listen to me.
Satan should not be able to make a Holy Ghost-filled child of God feel
hopeless. If anybody had a reason to be filled with hope, it’s
us. We need to be like Abraham and we need to hope against hope.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
One of the things that’s missing, I believe, is a true revelation of who we are in the Lord Jesus.
I mean, that is
easy to say. It sounds like a cliche. It sounds like just
some worn-out phrase. But I really believe there is a lack of a
true revelation of who we are in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The apostle said, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
There’s no way in the world I could read all these to you - not all
the Scriptures. I could never do it. But did you know that
the revelation of who I am in the Lord Jesus Christ is so big that it’s
almost the entire New Testament?
The entire New Testament, almost, is to tell me who I am in the Lord Jesus Christ.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
I am redeemed. I want you to know I’m redeemed. I didn’t
say I was walking in perfection yet. I didn’t say that I always
say the right thing and do the right thing.
I didn’t say I
always behave the right way. I didn’t say that I’m always proud
of everything I do. But I am redeemed.
Paul said, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
You are bought. I am bought with a price. I don’t belong
to myself anymore. I am not my own anymore. I am a
purchased possession of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Somebody said, “I don’t like that because it says that I’m not in control.”
Well, I don’t know about
you, but every time I’m in control I get in trouble. It’s good
for me that I am bought with a price. It’s good for me that I am a
peculiar treasure and a possession to the Lord.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
But the emphasis of what we’re saying is Paul said, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”
What are you
Paul? Well, one of the things that Paul was is he was purchased
by the precious Blood of the Lamb. I’m Blood bought.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
(Eph 1:18) The eyes of your understanding being enlightened;
that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches
of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
I am one who has an
inheritance in God. But I am also one who is a part of His
inheritance. I am a part of the Lord’s inheritance.
I am what I am. I am a part of the Lord’s inheritance. And He has given me an inheritance.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
People come and ask me sometime when I travel, “Pray for me. I think I’ve blasphemed the Holy Ghost.”
You know what my answer to that is? I’ll pray for you, but you haven’t blasphemed the Holy Ghost.
Somebody said, “How can you give such a generic answer?”
Because I believe
that if you have blasphemed the Holy Ghost, the Bible tells that you’re
turned over to a reprobate mind and you don’t have the God knowledge,
you don’t have that consciousness that “I’ve blasphemed the Holy Ghost.”
You walk in deception.
You go on thinking that you’re just as good as anybody else.
And those who have really done that, I’m telling you it’s a
serious thing.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
I’m going to say something that people don’t like, but I’m going to say it anyway as I close.
I mentioned Brother
Branham several times. I don’t think that will offend you, but if
it does I’m sorry for that. Let me just tell you another thing
that he said that people really don’t like, but I like. I really like
it.
He said, “Once you
receive this revelation of who you are in the Lord Jesus Christ, once
you really know, ‘I am a seed of God, I am a son of God,’ then you go
forth with a revelation that you can no more be lost than God could be
lost.”
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
I believe in eternal security. I would make a very good
Baptist, you know, because the Baptist people . . . they really believe
in eternal security.
And I don’t believe it
exactly like the Baptists believe it, but I believe it like the Bible
teaches it. I didn’t grow up that way. I grew up thinking
that if I failed the Lord, I was lost. So really, I’m saved
today, but if I do something that I shouldn’t do, I’m lost. And
if the Lord were to come, I would be left.
Am I the only person
that grew up with that kind of theology? That was the church’s
teaching. Then I say, “Lord, forgive me and have mercy on me” -
I’m saved. And then if I tell a lie - I’m not going to tell it on
purpose, but maybe a bad situation comes up and I tell a lie, I know
I’m telling it, I tell it - then I’m lost.
And then I say, “Lord,
forgive me,” and I’m saved. And then something else comes up and I
cheat a little bit on a test - I’m lost. And then I say, “Lord,
forgive . . .” See? Back and forth.
You know, all I can say about that is I hope the Lord catches you on a good day.
When He comes, I hope He
catches you on a saved day. I hope He doesn’t come back on a
lost day. You know, we don’t believe that. That is not
what the Bible teaches - no.
I believe that
once we have become truly, genuinely born again, we are born again.
And when we fail God . . . The Bible said, “Little
children, I write unto you that you sin not. Nevertheless if you
sin, you have an advocate with the Father.”
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
Now you say, “But I know people that have gone to church and have
served the Lord and now they’re way back in sin, in adultery, in
fornication, drinking and carrying on. What is their excuse? Are
they saved? Are they lost? What are you going to say
about a situation like that?”
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
I believe according to the Bible that in God’s foreknowledge He knew
from the foundations of the world who was going to choose to serve Him
and who was going to reject Him.
The Bible calls
it foreknowledge. And by that foreknowledge the Scripture said,
“He predestinated them to be conformed to His image.”
In other words, I
believe that if a person has ever truly been born again and that person
was seen in the mind of God as one of those who would make the right
choice, then to me I believe it doesn’t matter how far in sin they go as
children of God, He will reach out in mercy and bring them back into
the Kingdom.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
It’s the grace of God. It’s the grace of God. And you know what I believe?
Somebody said, “Well, what if that person were killed in a car accident and didn’t have time to go back to church?”
I believe if that
person was an elected son of God that God would allow that person in
the last seconds of their life to say, “Have mercy on me.”
If it’s in your
heart to serve God, it’s always there somewhere. If you come here
with that seed of representation to serve God, it’s always there
somewhere and you just keep pushing it down and filling up your life
with other things. Hallelujah.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
The reason why I like to preach this . . . and I’m closing . . . is
because we’ve all got loved ones who are so far away from God right now
that it grieves our hearts. And some of them give no indication
of ever changing their ways, you know. They’re just in serious
trouble.
And we could really get
discouraged and really get despondent about it. But when we read
who we are, and when we read the promises that have been made to us and
we start standing on those promises, we must believe that the God who is
able to keep our souls that we have committed to Him against that day,
the apostle said, that same God knows how to reach our loved ones
wherever they are, whatever shape they’re in, whatever condition they’re
in.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
That is the mercy and the grace of the living God. And I’ll
just tell you what Jesus . . . this conversation that Jesus had with the
eternal Spirit of His Father - “None that the Father hath given me are
going to be lost.” Amen.
Not one of them, not one
of those who were in the mind of God at the foundation of the world,
those who would choose to serve the Lord, not one of them are going to
be lost in the end.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
Let it not be what we read about other people, but let it be what we
read about ourselves. Let us be able to see our own lives in
these promises and let us go forth with that attitude, “By the grace of
God, I am what I am.”
I may not be what I want
to be or what I ought to be, but by the grace of God, I am not what I
used to be. Lord, we need that this morning.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
We surrender our minds. We surrender our thoughts. We
surrender our denominational ideas and man’s dogmas and creeds.
And we pray, Lord, that You will let us receive what John received on
the Isle of Patmos - the revelation of Jesus Christ, the revelation of
Yeshua HaMashiach.
We want that revelation because once we have a revelation of who You are, we’re able to begin to see ourselves in You.
Oh, we thank You
that all the Father was was poured into Yeshua the Messiah, the Son, and
all that Jesus was has been poured into us by the baptism of the Holy
Ghost and Fire.
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