Luke 6:37-45: “Mercy-ology\"

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Pastor Mike Abendroth, Luke 6:37-45: “Mercy-ology"

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I don't know how many of you have done what
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I've done, and that is teach something from the Bible that's not correct.
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You studied it, you thought you knew what it was saying, and you told other people and come to find out that it's the wrong thing.
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In our house, when our children were growing up and they did something that needed, they needed correction,
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I would send them to my room and then I would go in when I was calm and I would say, you know, what did you do, and what are dad's rules, what are
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God's rules, and justice means you're going to have to get your correction. And then once in a while I would say things like, well, you know what, instead of justice today, mercy is not getting what you deserve.
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How would you like to have no correction today and just like to have mercy? I want mercy, dad, I want mercy. And then once in a while on a rare occasion,
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I'd say, well, this is what justice is, and they'd start saying, I want mercy. I'd say, hold on, grace is getting something that you don't deserve, but it's above and beyond, and so how would you like to have no correction, and how would you like to have an ice cream instead?
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I'll take grace, dad. But you know what? That's not the right definition of mercy.
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When it comes to biblical mercy, and I say biblical mercy, what is mercy?
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Somebody would ask you, dear Christian, what's mercy and is it important? I hope you say it's more than just I don't get what
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I deserve, although that could be an element of it. Mercy is seeing someone that has a need and then having compassion on them.
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You see someone that's in a state of, it's a pitiful state, it's a needy state, and you think, you know what, everything in me wants to help them.
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I realize that I need mercy. I realize that I'm far from perfect. I realize they need something.
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They're needy people, not in a bad sense needy, but they need something, and so mercy then meets the need.
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Grace sees unworthiness and helps. Mercy sees need and helps, and I'm quite convinced that in the
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Bible, when we see the word mercy, we don't quite grasp it like we should. We get grace, we figure that out, and we think it's amazing, but I wonder if we would ever sing a song called
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Amazing Mercy. Some of your favorite Bible verses have the word mercy in them.
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Just listen. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy.
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That's Titus chapter 3. How about this? Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to His great mercy,
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He's caused us to be born again to a living hope, 1 Peter chapter 1.
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But God, rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together in Christ by grace you've been saved.
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And of course, that's Ephesians chapter 2. Mercy, mercy, mercy. The Bible teaches that God's mercy is as high as the heavens.
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The Bible teaches that the Lord is a God who's merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness.
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It was Jonah, remember? He prayed to the Lord and said, Oh Lord, is this not what I said when I was in my country?
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That this is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish, for I knew you were a gracious God and merciful.
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So today we're going to talk about the mercy of God. And I want two responses for us to be considered.
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Response number one, that you praise God that He's merciful, that He's been merciful to you, dear Christian. You think, praise the
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Lord. Thank you, Lord, for being merciful. I had a need, the greatest need in the world, that is my own sin.
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And you, in your marvelous wisdom, figured out a way to uphold justice and holiness and goodness and love.
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And you have given me forgiveness. I want to sing aloud of your mercy with the psalmist.
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That's one thing that I want to stress this morning. The other one is, is since God's been merciful to us, any guesses on the second practical application?
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We want to be merciful to other people. So let's take our Bibles and turn to Luke chapter six as we march through the gospel of Jesus according to Luke.
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And we want to talk about the mercy of God today. If you ever see a word like theology, the theo is
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God and theology is where we get our word. The root is word. It's a word about God.
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And so today, we're going to have a little study called mercyology. That's a study of mercy, a word about mercy.
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God sees need in us and He meets that need. And when we see other people who are needy, we ought to be merciful to them.
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There's a poem written, it says, when all thy mercies, oh my God, my rising soul surveys, transported with the view,
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I'm lost in wonder, love and praise. So again, as we study mercy, I want two things to happen by the
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Spirit's power. For you to be thankful that God's been merciful to you. And that when you see other people in need, believer or unbeliever, spouse, enemy, friend, that you say, you know what,
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I ought to be merciful to them. I ought to be merciful. Now we come to the passage here in Luke chapter six, verse 37 and following.
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And of course, you see right away, judge not and you will not be judged. We all have maybe in Christianese, something called a life verse.
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I've been asked that in my life. And as a new Christian, I didn't know what they meant. I didn't know what fellowship was either for that matter.
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And they'd say, do you have a life verse? I don't know. What is a life verse? And a life verse is just a verse that you love.
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And maybe if you're going to write someone a letter, you sign it at the bottom, second Corinthians 3, 18. I don't know if I have a life verse or not.
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I always think about Colossians chapter one, verse 28. It's in the front of the bulletin. Him we proclaim, right?
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We want to talk about the Lord Jesus. But I would say to you that chapter six, verse 37 is the life verse of the world.
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The world's life verse, judge not lest you be judged. Even unbelievers know that verse.
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And they're always running around saying, you're not supposed to judge. And they have no idea of the context.
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They have no idea of the meaning. Are you ready for this, dear congregation? Most everyone here does not know the context or the meaning of Luke 6, 37.
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Judge not lest you be judged. If you do know it, wonderful.
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If not, we're going to roll up our sleeves and you're going to think, oh, I see it. I forgot the most basic rule of Bible interpretation, and that's what?
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Believe whatever the pastor says. No. Context.
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What is the context? We're reading a story about Jesus. It's called a gospel.
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It's a genre in and of itself. It's a type of literature that's wonderful, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
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And there's an order and there's a flow. This isn't just a random proverb. This is not just some songs put together with different lyrics.
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No, no. There's an order. There's a context. And if you get the context in any scripture, it'll help you with the meaning.
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But especially this one, judge not lest you be judged. So hopefully you're ready to go.
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You're paying attention. I see a lot of people looking and thinking, what is going on here? Now, to some degree,
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I understand our lack of understanding of this passage.
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That is to say, I kind of get it. Why? Because if you look at verse 37 of chapter 6, what's the first word?
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Well, it says judge. How many people here have a Bible that have a different first word than judge?
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Yes, what is it? Pardon me? Do not. Okay. Good. Anybody else?
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Anybody here have the New American Standard 1977? Okay.
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No. All right. Anybody here have the Legacy Standard Bible? Okay. What's the first word?
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And. Wow. Did you know in the original language, the word and is there? Would that be important to know?
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Of course, translations, we love them. We trust them. They get most everything right. But there's a word called and in the original and in the
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Legacy Standard and in the New American Standard 77, et cetera. If I were to say to you, there's a connecting word and, would that make any difference?
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You'd say to yourself, yes. It's not just a random proverb. He's not just saying, well, you know, love your enemies and do good and by the way, don't be judgmental.
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These things are connected and how are they connected? That's what we want to look at today and it's easy to figure out because if you look at the previous two verses, this is the connection.
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But love your enemies and do good and lend expecting nothing in return and your reward will be great and you will be sons of the most high for he's kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
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Be merciful even as your father is merciful and so this morning, we're going to look at mercy and what does mercy look like?
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If you want an outline, super simple, the title of the outline is what does mercy look like?
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And there's seven things that it looks like, seven aspects of mercy that you'll see in context so you'll understand
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God has been merciful to me, someone in need, and I ought to be merciful to other people in need.
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Seven aspects that seven answers that, uh, seven answers the question, what is mercy?
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All right. So we come to the passage today and we're going to look at verses 37 through,
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I hope verse 45, usually when I say that, that does, that means we're probably not going to make it, but that's all right.
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Where else do we have to go? By the way, if you have your Bible open and if you have even like a pencil or an iPad or something and you're engaged in the passage, uh, time goes by pretty fast.
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Does it not? When you're, when you're really engaged, you're thinking that was not 45 minutes. And so I, I am very, very thankful that you're a congregation that wants to learn and grow.
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And I don't think I've ever, uh, in the last 15 years have somebody who's come up to me and said,
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Mike, you preach too long. That's pretty good. Sometimes people would say, we want you to preach longer.
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It was Wes Blackstone that said to me one year, uh, he said, did you get a raise this year from the elders? I said, yeah.
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He said, what percent? And I said, I don't know, 7%. He goes, that means you have to preach 7 % longer now. Like, well, you work one day a week.
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Okay. If you begin to think a little bit about, has
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God been merciful to you? That'd probably be a good place to start. There's nothing in the text here directly about that.
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But if you thought, okay, in eternity past, the father and the son and the spirit devise a plan and eternal counsel to say,
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I'm going to rescue Mike Abendroth. I'm going to rescue each and every Christian and I'm going to do it so that it is going to be an infallible rescue and it's going to be mission accomplished.
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They're going to make it to heaven because I'm strong and powerful and kind and gracious.
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And there's nothing that they're going to be able to do to separate themselves from my love. This is going to be mission accomplished and I'm going to have this happen.
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If you begin to think about that a little bit, this is going to make a lot more sense. Seven answers to the question, what's mercy look like?
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Answer number one, what does mercy look like? Mercy, this is obvious, is not judgmental.
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It is not judgmental. Judge not lest you be judged.
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But the word and is there. There's a context. And remember the context.
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Go back to chapter six. And what does it say in verse 20? As he lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said, blessed are you who are poor, blessed, blessed, blessed.
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Four times he says a blessed there. And then he says, blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you.
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Verse 22, when they revile you and spurn your name is evil on account of the son of man.
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Remember dear congregation, Jesus is sending out his men to evangelize. They're going to do what he does, preaching the good news to people.
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And when you're going out to preach the good news to people, do you think it would probably be important to be merciful to them or to be hard on them or to want them to be damned or want them to go to hell?
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Jesus' context here is I'm sending men out to preach the gospel. And what kind of attitude do you need to have toward your enemies?
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That's the context. So he says, and judge not lest you be judged.
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Last time I checked, I'm not the judge. What I say about someone's eternal destiny doesn't go.
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It is God who's the judge. God judges them to hell. And of course, if they don't repent, if they don't believe, there will be literal hell to pay.
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But when you're out and you see someone in need, don't you think an unbeliever is in the perfect state of need as it were?
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They're needy. They act like unbelievers. They have no spirit. They don't have the word. They're rebels.
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They're underneath God's thumb as it were. And you think, you know, that's a needy situation.
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How do I treat people who are needy? Well, I hope you're merciful.
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And part of that is not saying, I'm here to judge you. It is the son's prerogative to judge.
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John chapter 5, for the father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the son that all may honor the son.
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If you've got an unbelieving loved one, if you've got somebody that hates you because you're a Christian, God is merciful.
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God is kind. God sends the rain on the grateful and on the ungrateful.
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And He's very merciful. He sees a need and He's merciful. And so we ought to be merciful as well.
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John 5 goes on to say, God has given Jesus authority to execute judgment because He's the son of man.
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Somebody's an enemy of the gospel. Somebody's an enemy of you. What Jesus wants us to do is not,
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God, get them. Make them pay. Judge them right now.
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Lightning comes down right now. They hate you. They hate me. Get them. Now, again, if they die in their sins, that's one thing.
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But if you're going to teach evangelists something, I hope you teach them, you have to be merciful.
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It was, I think, 1998, we decided to give a VHS, for those of you that don't know it, you can
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Google it later, a VHS Jesus movie to every person in West Boylston, every house.
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And so we ordered whatever it was, 1 ,500. We had some training seminars here. There's a little bag that it went into, and we invited them to the
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Christmas concert. We put a tract in there about salvation. And then we split up as teams, went door to door.
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And I'll never forget it. You knock on some doors, and they're like, oh, welcome. Hi, we're
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Bethlehem Bible Church. Just the doors slammed. Some would just see us and not even open up the screen door.
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But we had a lot of training before we did that. Oh, I've told you the story. For the next three months,
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I would drive up to the church. And on our front door was a bag with the
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Jesus movie in it, and they returned it. I also saw a lot at the West Boylston Library dollar sale.
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So we had training, is my point. And we trained the people, when you knocked on the door, think to yourself, these people deserve to go to hell, and make sure you pray for that.
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These people hate Jesus, and they need to die today. Judgment is mine.
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Let's make it happen. Some of you are looking at me like, you did that? No, we didn't do that.
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You want to love the people. They're needy. Do they need grace? Yes. They need mercy too.
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You think, you know what, I want to be merciful to these people. And Jesus says, if you're going to go out and preach the gospel, and by the way, they're going to hate you, revile you, spurn you, and kill you, you better have a heart of mercy, because unmerciful evangelists are the worst.
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You've seen some on YouTube, haven't you? Street preachers that are just up there, they're mad, they're angry, they're yelling, they're screaming.
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The veins are bulging out of their heads and their necks, and you're just thinking, you know what, that does not sound like a merciful, kind person.
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God, get them. God, send them to hell. God, send them to damnation. Now, when
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God says, the God -man, Jesus, judge not and you won't be judged, he's not saying, don't use discernment.
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He's not saying, well, you could never have church discipline. He's not saying, you can never confront somebody when it comes to sin.
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This in the context of mercy, and be merciful as your father is in heaven is merciful, and judge not.
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I mean, wouldn't that be Satan's wonderful tactic to say, I couldn't stop
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God from saving them, and now they're saved, I'm just going to make them a veritable flamethrower of wrath to all their friends, family, neighbors, enemies, and the whole world.
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Who wants to be around those kind of people? Should not the mercy of God affect us, and then we should be merciful?
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We should have the desire to be merciful? John chapter 8, Jesus said, you judge according to the flesh.
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I judge no one, yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true. For it is not I alone who judge, but I and the
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Father who sent me. In other words, Jesus is saying, when I judge, by the way, it's perfect, it's not partial, it's a delayed judgment even most of the time.
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I mean, we judge, and it's fallible judgment, it's limited judgment, but no, let's leave the judging to God.
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Well, secondly, if I ask the question, what's mercy look like? It doesn't condemn. Now, what he's doing here is he's saying the same thing a different way for emphasis, and so it's parallel.
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It's pretty close to the same meaning. He's just trying to make sure we all get the point. Since God's been merciful to you, he's been merciful to his enemies, we should be merciful to both friend and foe.
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We shouldn't be all judgmental in terms of trying to judge people to hell. We should be merciful to them, giving them the gospel, the good news.
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And number two now, mercy is not condemning. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned.
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Many times when you look at the word condemnation in the Old Testament, it's tied to mercy.
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Let me give you an illustration. I think you know this Psalm, Psalm 103. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
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He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities, for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him.
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As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
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You'll see the language of condemning, judgment, and the language of forgiveness found side by side, because God is merciful and forgives sins.
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What Jesus wants to do here is he wants us to know, you know what, this is important. And so if I see someone that's needy, especially an unbeliever, my first judgment mentally isn't judge them to hell, and my second judgment mentally isn't,
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I want them condemned. He's repeating the point. John 3, for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
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Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God.
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I did a funeral once in Omaha, Nebraska, for someone that was not a Christian. And everybody who showed up, most of them weren't
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Christians either. It was a very atheistic setting. And I talked to the loved one of the person who died and said, you know,
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I know you're asking me to do this funeral, but I'm going to talk about the
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Bible. And he said, well, maybe not. I said, that's
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OK. I said, I'm a minister of the gospel, and it's OK. He said, well, on second thought, can you just make your message short?
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And so I said, of course. And this is the text that I use. I use text
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John 3, verse 17, but God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved.
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Because sometimes unbelievers think that's the message of Christians. You're going to hell.
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You're going to be damned. You're condemned. I'm not saying that's not true ultimately, but the point of going to evangelize is so people could be rescued from that, so that that's not their end.
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I don't want that to happen to them. All right, let's go from preaching to meddling.
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Is there anybody in your life that you would wish they'd go to hell? I don't think anybody here would want anybody to go to hell.
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Actually, if we knew what hell was like, I don't think we'd even want our worst enemy, a worst enemy of Jesus, to go there.
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It's so awful. What's the point, pastor? My point is simple. God's been merciful to you.
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When you go out and evangelize, how about going with the love of God in your heart to tell them the good news about Jesus and how
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He saves sinners who are enslaved to their own sin? And He saves them freely by grace.
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And I offer to you, dear thirsty unbeliever, water that satisfies. I offer to you forgiveness of sins based on the work of another.
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And you don't even have to stop sinning in order to get it. When you do believe, you'll stop sinning.
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It'll be a pattern of your life where God begins to sanctify you. But this is free. I want you to know, dear
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Christian, that what I'm going to tell you now, you're going to think it's too good to be true. And it about is, except it is true.
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And so when we go out to evangelize, when there's enemies, and you see enemies on TV or the news or this or that, enemies of the gospel, those persecuting
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Christians overseas, I still want you to say, you know what? Jesus' words are true. My flesh wants to say, get them.
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But I'm supposed to be merciful because God was merciful to me. Makes sense? We're not on a judging ministry unto hell.
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We're not on a condemning ministry unto hell. If someone asks you, if I die in my sins, will I go to hell? Well, of course, the answer is yes.
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But our attitude, that's the thing. It's an attitude of, we see people who are needy, and we want to help them.
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Number three, what's mercy look like? It's not judgmental. It doesn't condemn. Any guesses if you were going to be a pastor and put together an outline for a sermon what the next thing is?
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There you go. What does it say? This is now the positive side to the negative of judging and condemning.
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Forgive and you will be forgiven. Context is persecution.
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Context is enemies of Jesus. Context is they're after the Son of Man, 622.
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Context is they revile you, they hate you, they don't want to hear your sermon. I mean,
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I've been in hospital rooms before with my own grandfather who was enslaved to a Lutheranism that thought, you know what?
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If I'm just baptized as a baby, I'm going to go to heaven. And I'm trying to preach the gospel to him.
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And as many of you know, I've told the story several times. Having grandma scream the top of her lungs, the grandma that babysit me three days a week, the grandma that loved me, the grandma that took care of me, screaming her head off that somehow
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I was evangelizing, telling my grandfather before he died that there's good news and there's hope of heaven.
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It's not through baptism. How do I act toward people like that?
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How do you act to people that have hurt you when it comes to this? The answer is forgive and you will be forgiven.
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I mentioned these verses last week, but they're important to reiterate now. Jesus is crucified, remember?
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And Jesus was saying, Luke 23, Father, forgive them for they do not know what they're doing.
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And we also saw last week, did we not? Stephen is getting stoned and he says, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
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And then he said, Lord, do not charge them with this sin. If you're going to go out and preach the good news and you're going to get persecuted and people are going to sin against you and sin against the
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Lord, our attitude should be of forgiveness. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children,
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Paul said to the church at Ephesus and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.
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If you've been forgiven of all your trespasses, all your iniquities, all the perversions, all the missing the mark, everything else, then we ought to be forgiving people.
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That's what Jesus is saying. Jeremiah 31,
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I will forgive their iniquity and their sin. I will remember no more. And of course, you remember Matthew chapter 18.
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Steve and I talk about this all the time in marriage context. If you've been forgiven much, can't you forgive just a little?
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The answer is yes. And in addition, not only does mercy forgive positively, number four, mercy is giving.
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Give and it will be given to you. Good measure. Press down. Verse 38, shaken together, running over will be put into your lap for the measure with you use it will be measured back to you.
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So here's what Jesus is saying. I'm sending you out doves among wolves. And I'm going to say to you, dear preachers, these 12 in particular and anybody else who would preach the gospel,
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I want you to love your enemy. I want you to be kind to your enemy. I want you to be gracious to your enemy.
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I want you to be merciful to your enemy. You don't have to go out with this attitude of I want you to be judged to hell right now, condemned.
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No, no, on the positive side, just with wonderful kind of parallelism, reinforcing the point negatively, don't be judgmentally judging them to hell.
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Positively forgive them. Give. It's OK. Just give give to your enemies. It's fine.
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This is the attitude. Now, some of you love this verse because it's got good measure.
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Press down. Shaken together. Running over. I don't know what it is, but I tend to live in places where they have cereal manufactured.
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Maybe they manufacture a lot of places. I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and we had the huge Kellogg's building.
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And every time you drove past Kellogg's, you just automatically just say they're great, you know, or whatever you would say.
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Enjoy your cereal now before Kennedy Jr. gets in. It's my own. I never talk about politics. That was just for fun.
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And I used to drive past over here in Clinton Weetabix, and I would smell Weetabix every single time I would drive past.
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The way I would teach this to younger people was say, you know, you open up your favorite cereal and you look inside of there and you're like, this thing is half full.
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My favorite all -time cereal, Captain Crunch, is half full. Boo Berry is half full because it just shakes down.
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It's contents by weight is what they try to do. So what's the
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Lord doing here? He's saying, listen, here's your attitude. You want them to be saved.
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You're not wanting them to go to hell. And you want to be forgiving to them. And you want to be giving to them.
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And by the way, God blesses obedience. And when you give, guess how you're going to get the gift back?
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Maybe not financially, maybe not tangibly, but of course, spiritually.
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You're going to get it just overflowing. It's going to be like cereal. It's shaken in. There's put more in, shaken, settled down.
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You know, if a man had a robe back in those days, and that's what you would have, if he would sit down, there would be kind of a cloth that would go between his knees that the robe would have.
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And it was just like piled up the grain over and over and over, and shake it down in your own robe right there between your legs, between your knees there.
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And you just thought, I've got so much. Just the blessings from God, God's kindness and generosity. We've been given much.
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We give to other people, and God rewards it. That's what Jesus is saying. Just be ready to give, be ready to forgive, even if they're enemies.
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Because God forgives enemies. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, even when we were enemies.
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OK, now we come into an interesting passage. Remember, context is key. This is still dealing with mercy.
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Verse 39, he also told them a parable. What does mercy look like?
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Number five, mercy is wise. Mercy is wise.
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That is to say, mercy picks the right teachers. Mercy picks the right teachers.
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What do I mean by that? Well, let's read the verse first. He told them a parable. Can a blind man lead a blind man?
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My first response is, yeah, but they're going to go in the ditch. And that's what Jesus says.
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Will they both not fall into a pit? Pits everywhere back in those days. Not flat streets, not flat roads. A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher.
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Dear congregation, the context is sending out men to evangelize, who are going to be hated, reviled, spurned.
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Be kind to them, be merciful to them. And by the way, when you need to have the attitude of mercy, if you follow men that aren't merciful, if you follow ladies that aren't merciful, you are not going to be merciful.
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Backdrop Pharisees, suffocating with their legalism, fastidious in their little tithing, little mint and cumin.
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And if I had to say one thing about Pharisees on the negative side is I'd say they're not merciful.
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They don't see the need in the people and want to meet it. They're there for themselves. If you follow people who aren't merciful, and you learn from them, and you say they're my teacher, you're going to become like your teacher, and you're going to be not very merciful.
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I mean, as I think about this in my own life, I think I teach the Bible, obviously, and many of you teach the
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Bible at Sunday school, and home groups, and to children. What would it say of us if we as teachers were not merciful and didn't have that attitude that God has toward us of mercy?
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He sees the need. He has compassion. He has pity. It is mandatory for teachers to be merciful.
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I'm sure that I have a long way to go in being merciful and kind in the pulpit and outside the pulpit.
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But I want to be more merciful. Don't you? Don't you want to be more merciful to people?
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I'm certain that in the younger days when I was preaching, I was less merciful than I am now. I'm certain that no compromise radio starts off in kind of this discernment ministry kind of thing, where you're just kind of getting after people, and it's not typified by mercy.
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I don't want to go back to those days. By the way, the ratings are higher in those days, because when you talk about Jesus and mercy, the ratings go down.
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I'm not kidding. I know.
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Who do you like to listen to on YouTube? Who do you like to listen to preach sermons?
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If it is the scolding, raw, flamethrowing,
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God, get them. And then you wonder why you're not as merciful as you want to be.
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Isn't it related? Yes. Jesus just said it's related. It's a good thing to pray for your pastors that they might be merciful and kind.
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Think about how it works in ministry. If you're struggling with a sin, and you're enslaved to sin, and you need help, do you go to the merciful person?
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The answer is yes, because the people that are not merciful, why would you ever go? It's going to be, thank you, sir.
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May I have another? They're going to look at you and say, I can't believe you did that. You idiot. You're stupid. You can't do this.
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I would never do such a thing. They might not say it, but that's what their body says. I mean, do
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I want this congregation to be loving? Yes. Do I want this congregation to be kind?
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Yes. I think this congregation, in many ways, yet we have a long way to go. It's a merciful congregation.
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Because if someone comes to you, and they have a need, don't we want to say, do you know what? I'm needy.
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Here's what mercy does. Mercy says things like, I don't even know what this person's gone through.
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I don't know what kind of dad they had, or maybe no dad. I don't know what kind of financial thing, what stuff is emotionally going on with them, trials in their life.
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I don't know. I don't even know what they've gone through. So I should probably have a little bit of extra mercy.
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What's the point? Pharisees were not merciful. And if you listen to people that aren't merciful, you will become like them.
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And so you have to pick the right kind of people. If it's always discernment, always polemics, always get after people.
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These are all the mistakes that all these people make. Then I think we should probably revisit the
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Lord Jesus when he says, the disciple's not above his teacher, but everyone, when he's fully trained, will be what?
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Like his teacher. Side note, if you're a teacher, and you know you're not as merciful as you want to be, talk about the one who's always merciful, the
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Lord Jesus. How in the world can I get up here and teach every week because I'm sinful? I'm tainted by sin.
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I'd have all kinds of sin problems in my own life. And I'm going to preach to you? Well, number one,
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I have the passage preached to me when I study it. And then I repent and ask God to help me. But number two,
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God uses frail people like me. And so then I preach. But I want to be merciful, don't you?
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Not just to unbelievers, but to believers too. Think how this could revolutionize marriages.
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Somebody in your marriage bugs you, or your spouse bugs you, or they don't do what you want them to do, or this, that, or the other.
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And instead of just this clash, if it was, you know, we've received mercy. I've received mercy.
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You've received mercy. Jesus is merciful. Number six, it sure is quiet in here.
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That's good. That's good. We all want to be more merciful to friends, to family, to enemies.
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They're needy people. Nobody's arrived yet. Number six, what's mercy like?
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It's not hypocritical. Number six is not hypocritical. It's not judgmental. It's not condemning. It is forgiving. It is giving.
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It has the right teachers in mind, follows the right teachers. And number six, it's not hypocritical. And now we expand to brothers.
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He's been saying, when you go out in the world and people hate you, speak evil of you, spurn you, kill you, persecute you, here's how you act.
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Love your enemies and do good to them. Don't be condemning and harsh. Forgive, give. Now he's expanding it to brothers because this is important that we're merciful not just to unbelievers and enemies, but to brothers as well.
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And you'll see the word brother in verse 41 and 42, I believe four times. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
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How can you say to your brother, brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye when you yourselves do not see the log that is in your own eye?
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You hypocrite. First take out the log of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck that is in your brother's.
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Jesus is saying, be merciful, not just to enemies, but also brothers.
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Be merciful to not just people out there, but in here. And you know, sometimes
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I read the Bible and I think, oh boy, Paul was sure sarcastic there. Jesus was like utterly sarcastic, just dripping with sarcasm in this other passage.
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And you'll think, wow, this is amazing that this is just so real and so raw. If there's ever a passage that just makes me kind of want to laugh, it's this one.
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You're going to judge the speck in my eye, a little piece of sawdust, and you're walking around with the four by four that's 12 feet long.
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I don't even know how you carry it, but here's the big four by four ministry. And you know,
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I know you think you have spiritual gifts, but one of them is not the speck ministry. And everybody that just laughed,
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I think maybe you have a problem. We have speck ministries at the church, in marriage, at work.
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And if we would just stop and think, if I would just stop and think how many logs I have in my own eye, how could
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I ever say anything about the person's speck? I mean, seriously, if you have the gift of confronting your spouse, would you just please stop over and over and over?
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But what we do, I do it. If somebody does something wrong or says something or this or the other, my first thing is, well, you did this.
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And what I don't do is, wait a second, before I say that, I should probably remember how merciful
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God has been to me, how many logs I have in my eye. But it's just this knee jerk thing where I just think, you know what?
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I just have to stop and think through this and just be slow to speak and quick to have mercy.
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Galatians 6 talks about if there's a Christian who's got sin, is there a time to talk to them? Yes. It's not like you never can say anything to your spouse, never can confront sin at the church.
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But when you do, what does Galatians 6 say? You restore them in the spirit of what? Gentleness.
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You restore them in the spirit of gentleness. I don't think
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I knew this until today. I didn't know what a knit was.
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I didn't know what an NIT was, a knit. I knew what the word nitpicking generally meant, just looking for tiny little things in life, other people's lives that bug me or don't measure up or I don't like, nitpicking.
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I'm giving so much detail to their lives that I'm a nitpicker.
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Did you know what the word nit is? How many people here know what the word nit is? Okay, I don't need to say anything else.
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A knit is the egg of a lice. And so back in the day, before you had the right kind of shampoo, you would just sit there and you would pick out the nits of your children's hair and take the lice eggs out of the hair, making sure you look very carefully at their hair.
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And I just thought, that's gross. What's grosser? Seeing the specks in other people's eyes over and over and over without thinking about yourself.
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I don't want to do that. I'm convicted. Lord, help me. Lord, help you. Warren Wiersbe, people who are constantly criticizing others are usually guilty of something worse in their own lives.
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And another man said, when we must judge our own sins, we are like the blind leading the blind.
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The Lord Jesus, with his words of law that direct us and guide us because he wants the father to be honored.
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He wants what's good for our neighbor and what's what's good for us. He said, just don't do that. Stop doing that.
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That's not the fruit of the spirit. That's the fruit of the flesh. When we get to know ourselves better, we don't criticize others as much.
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I like mercy. I like mercy that's given to me. Then I should be giving mercy.
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Shouldn't you? I thought this was also fascinating, too.
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If I'm thinking to myself, you know, someone did something and I want to not think first about God's mercy in my life before I talk and confront and do my spec ministry and everything else and nitpicking.
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What if I first thought, you know what? I'm bugged at what they did. But if what they did is sin, there's somebody who's not bugged.
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But it's God who's grieved. That would help me. I'm not saying you can't be discerning.
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I'm not saying you can never approach your spouse about an issue. I'm not saying you can't go to somebody at church and say, you know what?
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You rubbed me the wrong way. And could we, you know, make up and make amends and and ask for forgiveness and all that?
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I'm not saying that because Jesus in this account in Matthew chapter seven talks later about don't cast your pearls before what?
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Swine. So you got to know what a swine is. You have to be discerning enough, judging enough to know what a swine is. Here he's saying mercy just doesn't blow things out of proportion.
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Mercy doesn't just look at a person's sins and foibles and shortcomings. It looks to self first.
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Mercy says they're needy. They're going through a hard time. They need help.
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And so I, therefore, I want to help them. That's what mercy does. And then lastly, what's mercy look like?
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Well, I'll change it around just a little bit. And I'll just say mercy stems from a changed heart.
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Mercy stems from a changed heart. And that's found in verses 43, 44 and 45.
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And basically, there should be mercy coming out of people who are merciful. If you're a Christian, good fruit should come out.
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That should be our desire. It doesn't always come out, but we get the point. For no good tree, there's a connection.
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It's all connected. The first word is for. For no good tree bears bad fruit. Hey, you're a believer in Jesus.
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Don't bear bad fruit. Nor again, does a bad tree bear good fruit. For each fruit is sorry.
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Each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from foreign thorn bushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.
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The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good. The evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil.
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For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks. In other words,
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God has made you a new Christian in Christ. He's given you the Spirit of God to dwell in you, to say no to sin and yes to righteousness.
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He sealed you by the Spirit to the day of redemption. He's given you every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
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And so what should come out of your mouth that reveals your heart? Merciful things.
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When Christians sin and aren't merciful, we repent. That's true. But I think it's fair to say, if you say, my default is never, ever, ever, ever, ever mercy.
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It's always condemning and judging. It'd probably be good for you to say, how can I call myself a Christian?
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Because bad things are coming out of my heart over and over and over. The Lord Jesus knows we're not going to be perfect.
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He's not saying, if any time bad fruit comes out of your mouth unmercifully, you're not a
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Christian. He's saying, you're a good tree. You should be bearing good fruit. And the fruit of the
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Spirit is all kinds of things that have nothing to do with the flesh.
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Lord, I've been noticing in my life a greater desire to have mercy come out of my mouth.
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That's the sign of a Christian. Lord, I'm going to look at my life and think, you know what?
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How do I respond to other people? And you say, well, I don't do it as well as I ought to.
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By the way, is that a sign that you're not a Christian? If you sin, is that a sign you're not a
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Christian? If you don't obey like you want to, is that a sign you're not a Christian? Answer, no, no, and no.
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It's a sign you are a Christian. As I've said many times, who put that desire to obey in your heart?
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Who can help you to love enemies and feel convicted when you don't love enemies? It's certainly not the world.
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It's not CNN. It's not
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Fox News. You have to do that when you're a pastor. If you criticize CNN, you have to criticize
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Fox News. The Smiths regularly say, we're having a wager in our family.
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Will Mike talk about Mother's Day on Mother's Day? Will he talk about Father's Day on Father's Day? Will he talk about Hallmark Holidays on Hallmark Holidays?
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I hope you were betting if I talked about politics on the Sunday before the election.
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Because you would have lost, no just kidding. It's a desire that God's put in our hearts.
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I want to love more. I want to be more merciful. Lord, and I'm convicted when I don't.
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I want to be more merciful. And it's not just saying, you know what? I'm not going to give you what you deserve.
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I'm going to see that you're needy. And I'm going to say, God has been merciful to me. And I want to be merciful to you.
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That's all. And if you're not a Christian, there's a way to receive mercy.
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And there's a way to give mercy. And that's by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, the
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Lord of mercy, mercy incarnate. Have you ever met a man like Jesus seen in the text of Scripture that exuded more mercy?
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Every person he saw, he saw the need. He saw the need of the leper and met that.
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That's called mercy. He saw the need of the man who needed forgiveness. He met that. That's called mercy.
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He saw the man who had a child who's dead, and he raised her. And that's called mercy.
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No wonder the psalmist says, great is your mercy. I want to praise you. And then we respond with,
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Lord, have mercy. I'd like to be more merciful. Amen? P .S.
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Somebody's going to rub you the wrong way this week. And now you're going to have to be merciful. Right? I'm afraid to pray for patience sometimes.
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And then I say, Mike, you're an idiot. Just pray anyway. When you see people today walking around, unbelievers especially, you think they have a need, and I ought to be merciful.
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All right, let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word. Oh, it's good to be challenged.
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It's good to have your law sharpen us, to take off the rough edges.
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Father, it is my desire to be a merciful pastor. And I know it's the desire of every person here, the trust in the
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Lord Jesus, to be like him, that is the God of all mercies and the
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God of all comfort. Would you answer that prayer? Father, sometimes it takes trials in our lives to make us more merciful and kind.
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And we would accept whatever your good hand gives us, because we know you care for us, and you want our best, and you want us to look like Jesus Christ.