Touching Lives With Dr. James Merritt

One of the greatest illustrations of grace in the entire Bible involves the story of a man with one of the worst names in the Bible. The man is named Mephibosheth, and despite his odd name, he finds himself in the middle of a story that paints a vivid picture of salvation. King David plays a role in the story as he paints a picture of the Savior. Mephibosheth, as you might have guessed, paints the picture of a sinner. And, throughout the whole story, God is ever-present as He colors the canvas with His remarkable grace.

There are two things that tend to get people into trouble...their temper and their tongue. How many times have you said something you didn’t really mean but you said it anyway out of pure anger? How many things do you wish you could take back? Truly, everyone has felt this way at one time or another. King David comes close to falling into what is known as the “revenge trap” but fights back against his temper and his tongue and puts his trust into God’s capable hands.

Despite the triumphs of David, King Saul became filled with the poison of jealousy and sought to have his revenge by killing David. Saul hires elite soldiers to kill David, but he escapes just before they are to execute him while sleeping. Filled with rage, Saul sent his entire army after David, and yet God provides David with the unbelievable opportunity to kill Saul and end the whole ordeal. David must now decide to give in to revenge or to honor God by respecting His choice for King. David ultimately chooses the latter as he overcomes the urge to take his revenge and, in doing so, gives God the glory.

There are two things that are true for everyone...we all need to have the right kinds of friends and we all need to be the right kind of friend to others. In this life, we will make many acquaintances, but we won’t make many true friends.

This entire story of David and Goliath is not about a little shepherd boy who beat a huge giant. It is a story about GOD! The point of the battle between David and Goliath is this...there is a God who rescues, a God who will fight our battles for us, and a God who is bigger than any giant we will ever face.

Would it surprise you to learn there has been more written about David than any other character in the entire Bible except Jesus? This typical, unassuming, not-so-special young man did not come from wealth, did not possess any unique characteristics, and did not enjoy the benefits of a learned profession. He was an average person with a below average job as a shepherd from a poor family. And yet, he would become a king because he truly sought God’s own heart.

It’s one thing to have a relationship with God. It’s another thing to have a relationship with God and be sure of it. Many Christians struggle with doubt, wondering if there’s anything they can do to lose their salvation. They question whether God’s faithfulness to them is conditional. So in this message, we are going to set the record straight and answer the question, “Can I lose my salvation?” We’ll take a look at what Jesus has to say about this matter where He identifies the people who really have a relationship with God, and where He verifies exactly how permanent that relationship is.

Many people today struggle with managing their money. They don’t save enough. They spend money they don’t have. They have their financial priorities flipped upside down. Many of them can’t even sleep for worrying about money. But God never intended for us to live our lives bogged down by financial pressure. Instead, He wants us to live in financial freedom. So in today’s message, we are going to take a look at four steps you can take to achieve financial freedom in your own life.

Have you ever asked the question, “Does God always answer our prayers?” Well, there’s a very simple answer to that question. The truth is, God always answers our prayers, but we must understand that that doesn’t mean He always answers our prayers the way we want Him to. Prayer is not about getting God to do your will; it is about getting God to do His will. The key to getting your prayers heard and your prayers answered is by praying according to the will of God because prayers prayed in the will of God will always accomplish the work of God.

As we close out this series, we are going to look at a character trait that is certainly not in abundance. Disrespect is found in greater quantities everywhere – in the home, in the government, in the media, in our schools, and on our highways. There is a story of a man in the Bible who one day would be king, who had every reason not just to disrespect the one who was king, but to destroy him and bring his kingdom to an end. But, the fact that he did not and the reasons that he did serve as a great reminder over 2500 years later why respect is so important and what it looks like. This story teaches us three tremendous lessons that we need to not only learn but desperately need to pass on to the next generation who desperately need to recover.

I have heard it said that the greatest ability is availability. I no longer believe that. I believe the greatest ability is reliability because if you are available without being reliable things would be better off if you were simply unavailable. Today, we are going to look at a man that was inducted into God’s hall of fame, because of his faithfulness. A savior ultimately came into this world because of his faithfulness. A nation that at one-time history had given up for dead is in miraculous existence today, because of his faithfulness. He has been called “the father of the faithful” and “the brightest star in the Hebrew heaven,” because of his faithfulness. His name is Abraham. There was an incident that took place in his life that is both at first glance difficult to believe and fathom it is in the Bible. Yet, it gave him an opportunity to define once and for all what true faithfulness really is.

There is a lion within every one of us called “self.” You will find that the biggest enemy you will have to your success, to going where you can and should go, and being who can and should be will always be you. If you want to win the battle of life the first battle you have to win is the one over yourself. In his letter to the church at Corinth, Paul talked about living the Christian life which is a life lived for the glory of God and under the power of the gospel in terms of running a race and he tells us that if you are going to win this race and live what we call the cross-shaped life, it begins and ends with self-control.

Never in our lifetime has something so profoundly affected the entire world like the COVID-19 pandemic. Many questions of faith have been raised over the last few weeks including 1) Is God mad at the world? 2) Are we being punished for the sins of the world? 3) Is this pandemic a sign of the end-times? 4) How should we, as believers, respond to the virus? In this special presentation of Touching Lives with Dr. James Merritt, hard questions will be asked and answered using God's Word as the source. Tune in online on Touching Lives TV to watch this special broadcast.

You will discover there are two situations you cannot avoid. It is a situation that befalls all of us no matter how good a person you may be, no matter how hard you try, and no matter how nice you are you will be in one of these two situations. You will need to be forgiving or you will need to be forgiven. One of the reasons why the Bible is so valuable is because it gives us real life examples and shows people who faced real hurt and heartache just like we do. Rather than becoming victims they became victors. Rather than sinking into the quicksand of bitterness, they were able to get to the oasis of forgiveness. The poster child for forgiveness is a man named Joseph. How did Joseph keep from being burned by the fire of bitterness? Avoid drowning in a sea of bitterness? Becoming immune to the poison of bitterness? It is because he refused to do four things that even though stated negatively will bring a positive result for you if you will refuse to do them as well.

After He lived a perfect, sinless life, Jesus Christ died on a cross. He claimed to have died for the sins of the world, but technically anybody can make that claim. If He did die for the sins of the world, His death was unlike any other death. The clincher, though, is the belief that He rose from the dead. If those three things are true regarding His life, death, and resurrection, then Jesus, in fact, did live an unequaled life, died a unique death, and experienced an unmatched resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus Christ makes Him different and superior to every other person who has ever lived. Everyone in history has died and stayed dead except Jesus. Every other religion of the world can point to a founder and then point to a grave or a tomb, but only Christians can point to an empty tomb and say, “Our founder is alive!”

Last week, we talked about how Jesus lived an unequalled life. He is the only person who ever claimed to be without any sin, and who never had anyone convict Him of sin. Today, we are going to look at His death, because He died a unique death. Death itself is not unique, rather it is universal and inevitable. Even the way Jesus died by crucifixion was not unique. Thirty thousand Jews were crucified, and He was just one of them. But why He died and what His death accomplished was very unique. The reason He died and the result of His death is unlike any other death in the history of the world, past, present, or future. So, as we are answering the question, “Why should everyone only look to Jesus to have a relationship with God?”, we must understand that it is not just the way He lived, but also why He died that helps answer that question.

How often have you ever slipped up, made a mistake, blew it, and said, “Well nobody’s perfect!” Well, that statement technically isn’t true. There is one person who was perfect in every area of life. From His thoughts, to His words, to His deeds, He was absolutely and pristinely perfect. However, if Jesus wasn’t perfect, if He wasn’t sinless and instead sinned like everyone else, then several things would be true of Him. If this He wasn’t perfect, then Jesus was not who He said He was. If He was not who He said He was, then He could not have done what He said He did. If He didn’t do what He said He did, then there is no hope for anyone being delivered from sin and having a relationship with God. If Jesus sinned, He couldn’t be the Savior. And if He is not the Savior, we cannot have salvation.

There is one particular story about Jesus that is so remarkable, first of all, because it even made it into the Gospels, and also because it didn’t involve a miracle. The reason the story is so phenomenal is because of what Jesus saw and what Jesus said. What Jesus said was so remarkable, because what Jesus saw was so refreshing. He saw the greatest example of generosity anyone has ever witnessed. A generous person is the epitome of what generosity is all about. It really is amazing that this story makes it into the Bible, because this woman that is talked about does something that to the ordinary eye was so small, so unimportant, so inconsequential, that nobody would have given it a second thought except Jesus. In fact, only one person left that day talking about it, but because Jesus did talk about it, we are still talking about it two-thousand years later.

In this portion of our study on character, we are going to talk about one of the greatest values and virtues you must have if you are going to be a person of character and that is perseverance. You will never read biographies of great quitters. You will never see a long line of followers behind great quitters. You will never see trophies and awards given to great quitters. There is a man in the Bible who is in the Bible and has a book about him in the Bible, because of one thing – his perseverance. He ran the stop sign and didn’t quit, but he had every reason to. His name was Job. No man in the Bible, outside of Jesus Christ himself, suffered more than Job. It would even be fair to say that outside of Jesus, no man suffered more unjustly and more unfairly than Job. If Job had responded the way the vast majority of people would and do this book would have never been written and Job’s name would have never been known. We learn a great character trait called “perseverance” from this man who teaches us that tough

As we continue this series on character, we are going to deal with a character trait that I believe is lacking more and more in every part of our society. It is why we refuse to listen to each other, refuse to face and solve our biggest problems, refuse to face up to reality, and refuse to call things the way they are and that is courage. The type of courage I am talking about is moral courage. It is the kind of courage that exposes you to ridicule, criticism, ostracism, and the judgmental wrath of others. It is the kind of courage described in the story that has been preserved for more than twenty-five hundred years, and that is the story of Esther.