Mercy, Me

The freeways in our city are packed this time of year with the winter visitors in, and most of the drivers out there are going too fast. They're going over the speed limit anyway. There was a person came flashing by the other day, just zipping by way too fast. Ten miles an hour, faster than traffic, which was already going over the speed limit, and it was ridiculous how fast they went by. And I said to my wife, whoa, look at that guy! Look how fast he's going! I sure hope there's a policeman up ahead with one of those radar things. Oh, let's just watch, watch, watch. It's going so, so, so, so, so fast.

I was traveling on a deserted highway one night. The speed limit was 65 miles an hour. I was the only one out in the country that I'd seen for quite a while. And as I was zipping along, careful to be just 65 miles an hour, maybe one or two over, but just right there, a policeman came the other direction, turned around behind me, turned his lights on, and pulled me over. Oh, well, this is interesting. Getting pulled over for doing the speed limit. And he came up and gave all the normal things. I said, what's the matter, officer? I was doing 65 miles an hour. He says, yes, the problem was that you were doing 65 miles an hour in a 55 zone. I said, what? I'd seen a 60, I saw many 65 mile an hour speed signs, and then I haven't seen any in a long time. I thought he was 65. He says, well, I know your point. We could only afford one 55 mile an hour speed sign. And that was back there about 10 miles ago. Most people miss it. But actually, you've been doing 65 in a 55 zone. He says, because you realized and thought it was 65, I'm going to just let you off with a warning. Okay. Wow. That felt good. That felt really, really, really good. Now, in Matthew 12, and verse seven, Jesus said, but if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. And here I am hoping that one guy is going to really get burned. But when it comes my time, I'm hoping that I'll get mercy. And neither of us got a ticket. But I was hoping that he would. And I was praying that I wouldn't.

We both deserved it. And Jesus says, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. I desire mercy and not an apology. I desire mercy and somebody paying attention, somebody trying to do right, that makes mistakes. That's what God wants from us. In a world full of imperfect people, like whoever that driver was, zipping by, and I judged him, I condemned him, I wanted to see the axe fall on him. I didn't take the time to ask, is he late to catch a flight at the airport? Is his wife giving delivery? Why is he going so fast, so openly fast? Where is anybody? Any policeman would have just seen him. I don't know.

I don't know. He says, you would not have condemned the guiltless. Police might have pulled him over and said, oh yes, let me get in front and we'll go even faster than you were. In a world full of imperfect people, do you ever condemn the guiltless? What does God mean by I desire mercy and not sacrifice? Today, let's examine the concept of mercy. I think it'll catch you by surprise, as it did me. We depend on God. We need things from God. We're kind of needy people. We want good things. We hope for good things. We're always wanting God's love. We want God's mercy. God's forgiveness. We want God's sacrifice. We want his kingdom. We want his blessings. We want his healing. We want him to help us all the time. We're just like little vacuum cleaners. You know what I mean? Now, what does God want? You and I. What does God expect from you and I in the covenant that we have with him? Well, we actually need, we require certain things from God in order to be part of his family. Our salvation requires that he gives us certain things. For instance, in Jude chapter 1 and verse 2, it says, mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. We need mercy. We need the peace, the Irene, the joining of ourselves with God. And we need the love, the Agape love of God. We need those things.

We can be thankful for those things. Yet, is that why we're called now? Were you called now to need those things? Everybody needs those things. Why are you and I in a covenant? What's our responsibility and role? Why should we be called now? Sure, we need those things. Everybody needs those things. What's so special about us? Are we just here to receive those things from God?

Or as Matthew chapter 5 verse 48 says, become you therefore like your Father in heaven is. Become you therefore perfect like your Father in heaven is perfect. Are we supposed to be growing in something ourselves and actually putting on some of the attributes of God? If we read this statement in Jude again, mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. You notice the kind of the reverse order of what you and I tend to think? We tend to want love, and then the peace, the joining of God, and then, well yeah, mercy too. Yeah, yeah, mercy. Yeah. God puts it in reverse order. We might not be thinking clearly about what the priorities of this covenant relationship with God are. I know that having been in the church, growing up in the church, we tend to look at a couple of things. One is law, God's law. Another is our covenant with God. Those are the big things. The covenant we have, the law of God, obeying God, and then since we don't do it perfectly, well, we need God's help to do it better, and then we need Christ's forgiveness. We need God's grace.

We don't tend to jump in there and say, you know, what we are here for is to develop mercy. Mercy. In fact, when I mentioned the topic today, you might think, mercy. That's an interesting word. Mercy, don't hear about that one so much. It's not necessarily on the forefront of our mind. What about this mercy? The title of the sermon today is mercy, comma, me. Mercy, comma, me. What is this about mercy? What is mercy? We could stand here and describe it all day. We could go to the dictionary. I could give you a Greek definition. I'm not going to do any of that today because those things, I don't think, would even define what mercy is, the way that you and I need to know it and how we need to understand it. Because, you see, mercy is not of the physical realm. It's not from dictionaries. It's not from humans. No definition, I think, would be complete because mercy is an element of God in heaven. Mercy is extraterrestrial. And we could fumble around down here on earth trying to figure it out, and we just wouldn't get it because it's what God is. It's part of what God is. God is love. God is also mercy. And so it is something that is very foreign and unique to the physical realm.

Agape love, actually, will find produces mercy. It doesn't come by just sort of out of thin air or an attribute that you and I might be able to have or learning about, studying about it. It's actually almost a byproduct of agape love. It's an attribute. It's an associated thing with agape love. Agape seems to produce mercy according to one scripture. Man does not have agape love, and he doesn't have mercy. So it's something that's foreign to you and me. It's something we have to say, hey, this is different. This is unique. This is something I am not. I don't have God help me with it. Help me to have it like you have it. In Ephesians 2, verse 4, here's this verse that seems to indicate, if we take at face value, where mercy comes from, how mercy is developed. Ephesians 2, verse 4, but God, who is rich in mercy, this thing that you and I don't have, God is rich in mercy. Now it goes on, because of his great love with which he loved us.

If you just take it at face value, God is filled with mercy because he is agape love. Because of his great love. And the two, you see, are inseparable. You and I might say, oh yeah, I'm growing in God's love. Are you growing in God's mercy? If not, could that really be God's love that you're growing in? We're going to find out that this mercy is really something that tells us how genuine our connection or our growing in Christ truly is. To grow in godly love must include growing in mercy at the same time. Or else, it's a self-love. It's a false love. Because agape love is all about mercy. In Matthew, chapter 9, verse 13, Jesus said, but go and learn what this means. It's interesting he said this. But go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. You don't just go to the dictionary. You don't go to the commentary. You don't just sort of ask the question, oh, what does that mean? Somebody gives you the answer. I'm not even going to stand here today and tell you what that means. I think it's something you have to go and learn. It's an attribute of God. It's a relationship with God. It's a part of a covenant that he desires mercy and not sacrifice. We're going to see some strong clues as to what that is as we look in Scripture. Let's do as he said and start go and learning about mercy. It begins with studying mercy. And what is mercy? It's God. You have to study God. You don't go study words. God is love, and God is mercy. So you have to study God. And what do we find out when we study God? It's very interesting. In Titus 3, verse 5, it says, we're not saved by works of righteousness, which we have done. But according to his mercy, he is saving us. It's by according to God's mercy that you and I are being saved. That is something we begin to learn about mercy. You might think that we're being saved by a lot of other things, but it says, by mercy, he is saving us through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. You look at all that God has done since the planning of creation, then the creation, then sending his Son to this earth. He has been about mercy and ready to apply mercy even before you and I ever showed up.

Turns out that God has mercy as a part of his nature. It's woven into his relationships. It's a part of his relationships. You can't talk about any relationship that God has without mercy being an integral part of that relationship.

For instance, let's go to Exodus 34, verses 5-9. Exodus 34, verses 5-9. Now, I'm not going to just take you through some little scriptures and, oh, he found some scriptures that said mercy in him. I want to take you to some scriptures that we know and we've always not even noticed the component of mercy. Remember when God came down on Mount Sinai and gave the law? We know that. We teach it to our kids. Let's go back here to Exodus, chapter 34, verse 5, and notice a little more carefully what happened. Exodus 34, verse 5. Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with Moses there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. God is going to proclaim his own name. God has many names that he goes by, but he's going to tell us himself what his name is. This is pretty neat. How would God describe himself? How would he name himself? Here it is. And the Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands. That's what he named himself. Mercy. That's the first thing he called himself. Mercy. And that's the last thing he talked about was mercy. Mercy for thousands. Thousands? Why thousands? He's standing there before millions, about three million people, and he's saying, I have mercy on thousands. This is not a God who just, you know, is soft-headed at all. He's soft-hearted, but he doesn't just say, mercy for everybody. Mercy for everything that walks on the earth. Mercy, mercy, mercy. No. Turns out he's selective with that mercy, and we need to pay attention to that. But nevertheless, he names himself merciful. Going on, he says, forgiving, iniquity, and transgression and sins by no means clearing the guilty. Uh-oh. He is selective in some way. He has some criteria, doesn't he? Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. Moses speaks to God and says, God, essentially, we need mercy. Because in verse 9, if now we have found grace in your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go among us, even though we are a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and sin, as we repent of it, and take us as your inheritance. And you see, that's what God does. When he enters into a covenant, he takes imperfect people, stiff-necked people, sinning people that need to be forgiven, that are trying, and among that greater group of the many, he will forgive a few. Many are called, few are chosen. We have to be serious about those covenants. We have to be serious in what we are vowing to God and what we are doing with that vow in order for God to be merciful to us. God wants repentance, not sacrifice. And he is merciful to repentant people, to people who are trying their best. He is merciful. And he desires to be merciful and not have this endless bunch of empty sacrifices from individuals who aren't really trying, and that the smoke of their sacrifices or their apologies, whatever it is, is just sort of an empty babble, because they're not really trying. They just want mercy, but they're going to continue to sin. That's not what God wants. That's not what Christ wants. He wants to be able to give mercy and not just have people say, oh, I miss again. Here's a calf. I miss again. Here's a prayer. I miss again. Here's an apology. Forgive my sin. Deuteronomy chapter 7, in verse 11 through 13.

God is very clear about His commandments and His laws, just as He is with you and me now. He wants us to be serious about our calling. Deuteronomy chapter 7, verse 11, Therefore you shall keep the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments which I command you today to observe them. That's the expectation on our part. Then it shall come to pass, because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and mercy which He swore to your fathers, and He will love and bless you. Now, did you notice something in that reading that just probably slipped by in all the years that you've read that? The term covenant and mercy. Covenant and mercy. I never noticed covenant and mercy. I've also noticed the covenant, but covenant and mercy, doesn't that sound a little odd? Keep the covenant and mercy. Eleven times God uses that connection in the Bible. Covenant and mercy here. Covenant and mercy there. David talks about covenant and mercy. Covenant and mercy are how we can achieve the goal. It's how Israel could achieve the Promised Land. It's how you and I can achieve the Promised Land of eternal life in the family of God. The covenant without mercy, you see, won't do it, will it? Covenant and mercy, which He swore to our fathers. Now, that raises a question for me. When I read that covenant and mercy and started going through the various passages, covenant and mercy here, covenant and mercy there. Wow, it's covenant and mercy all the way through the Old Testament. Guess what? Get in the New Testament. There's two or three more in the New Testament that talk about a covenant and mercy. Think, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What are the implications for you and me and our covenants? You know, we humans also have covenants, don't we? We have a marriage covenant. Do we keep that covenant and mercy with our spouse? It's an expected thing with the covenant we have with God. What about the other covenants and agreements we make? We make many. Maybe you're an employer and you have employees and you have a covenant with them. They will do this work or out the door you go. You have a contract sometimes that you make with individuals. Here's a contract. You breach the contract, you lose. Maybe it's an investment. Maybe you have a renters agreement and maybe you sell somebody something. See? The day comes, payments do, payments pass do. When it's passed do, you know, if they were buying a house from you and they failed to make payments for a month or two by law, perhaps according to your agreement, you get the house back plus all the payments they've made for the last 10 years. Just get your house back. Boom! You're just sitting there slathering, you know, oh, I hope they don't pay. Oh, it's almost midnight. Oh, if they don't pay, I get my house back. You know, and I can sell it to somebody else. It's going to work out really well for me. Now, that's a covenant. Now, you can do that. But what about covenant and mercy? Is that the kind of covenant that God made with us? Oh, if they sin, we don't have to have them in the family. We're just watching. Just one, just watch him, watch him, watch him. See if he sins. If he does, yes, he's out of here!

More power for me. Less of my stuff has to get inherited by others.

Covenant and mercy, they go together with our agreements, expectations, and enforcements. Are we? Are we living our covenants with mercy? Like God lives his covenant with mercy?

You know, sometimes, coming to understand what the needs are of others in these covenants, they're shortcomings. Putting ourselves in someone else's shoes, walking a mile in their moccasins. For those who are really trying and can't make the final payment, can't come under the wire before the contract ends. You know, there is a time for a covenant to have mercy along with it and understanding. In Psalm 25 and verse 10, it says, all the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth. And we focus on truth. Your word is truth, we're all about truth, we're people of the truth, but all of God's paths are mercy and truth. Which came first? Truth or mercy? Mercy.

When God created Adam and Eve, which came first? A love for humanity or mercy for humanity? It's kind of which came first, the chicken or the egg, isn't it? Because how could you ever create humanity which you figured was going to sin because Jesus Christ was slain before the foundation of the world as far as the plan went? You had to have mercy and then we know God's love because He gave His only begotten Son so that He could extend mercy, so that we could be saved, so He could forgive us. You can't separate them, can you? You can't put them over here. Mercy and truth and mercy and covenant. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth to such as keep His covenant and His testimonies. God is merciful to those who are keeping the covenant. You and I are in His covenant, and we depend on His mercy if we are true to that covenant. It's a great relationship. David speaks of it in Psalm 32 verses 10 through 11. Psalm 32 and verse 10. Many sorrow shall be to the wicked. It's cause and effect. But he who trusts in the Lord, mercy shall surround him. And again, is that something that we trust in God? We are really trying to do our best. We are praying, we are repenting, we are overcoming. Do we feel the mercy of God surrounding us? Does that even really come into our mind sometimes? Or are we thinking about other things? That's what we get if we trust in God. Mercy will surround us. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart, because mercy will surround you. That's what that's saying. We're trying hard. Mercy in the Bible appears in the New King James 282 times. Of those 282 times, most of all of those references refer to God. God is mercy. It talks about His mercy. The ones that refer to something or someone other than God, you could probably count on less than the fingers of one hand. Mercy describes and defines God. That's what God is. It's not what humans is. Nowhere in here does it define humans as mercy. The term merciful in Scripture appears 39 times. Again, almost every reference of merciful applies to God. But in the New Testament, we find a couple or three references about merciful beginning to apply to us. It's all about God. It's all about God. But we find out at some point we are then to begin to take on the attributes of God, to grow up into Christ, to become like our Father in heaven. So merciful and mercy are things that need to begin to grow in us as well. For instance, in Matthew 5 and verse 7, Jesus said in the Beatitudes, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. That's one of the first statements that draws merciful and mercy to a human being. We are now taught, as we have God's Holy Spirit, to grow and to use mercy for others in order that it is used for us. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Now, what's this all about? God responds differently to different attitudes. Some have a desire for His mindset. Some seek to have that mindset in their life and apply it. Others do not. And so, David said in 2 Samuel 22, we're used to reading David's word in Psalms, and this same statement appears in Psalms, but in historical context, it said in 2 Samuel 22, verse 26, With the merciful, you will show yourself merciful.

With the merciful, you will show yourself merciful.

Do you want to be surrounded with mercy? Do you need mercy? Yes, we do, desperately. Well, we're finding out it's with the merciful that you will show yourself merciful. With a blameless man, you will show yourself blameless. Now, notice, with a pure, verse 27, you will show yourself pure, and with the devious, you will show yourself shrewd. It's not mercy for anybody. It's not mercy for everybody. It's not mercy for the shrewd. Okay, I'll apply a little mercy here so I can get mercy. Remember, mercy is a byproduct, we read earlier in Ephesians, of agape love growing in us. Verse 28, You will save the humble people, but your eyes are on the hottie that you may bring them down. So even our application of mercy, if we're going to follow God, doesn't have to just sort of be a blind, oh everybody, I'm going to be merciful to everybody all the time, every time. Mercy, mercy, mercy. You know, this is meted out for those who are trying from God, and we need to be looking at and trying to extend mercy and not condemning others, but hoping that they are doing the best that they can in the circumstances they have. Not everybody has God's Holy Spirit, do they, on earth today? Not everybody who has God's Holy Spirit has, perhaps, what you do.

Understands.

God is merciful, not to the perfect, but to those who are trying, and He will be merciful to those who are trying to be like Him and are showing mercy to others as well. In James 2, verse 13, it says, for judgment is without mercy, or condemnation, might be a better term there, condemnation without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over condemnation.

In answer to Jesus Christ's statement, learn what this means, I prefer mercy to sacrifice, he says mercy triumphs over condemnation. Mercy moves a person beyond the sacrifice of animals, which could not forgive, but through the blood of Jesus Christ and through the mercy that He shows because He and His Father are loved, we can triumph, we can move beyond this death penalty that we had.

Christ desires to give us mercy, and He wants us also to give mercy and not condemnation. He doesn't want to kill anybody. You and I shouldn't want to see anybody die eternally. We should not desire the sacrifice of their eventual eternal death, but rather desire to be in a position where you can be merciful, which really would be a person repenting, trying their best, depending on what they know and they have, making mistakes, falling down, but they're trying to move forward, and so you can be merciful. You should desire that. God desires that.

But mercy is not in the human mindset. Instead, survival of the fittest is in our mindset. Survival of the fittest in any sport, who do we support? Who do we root for? The fittest. Let the others fail, but let our champ ride on. Survival of the fittest. What do people have in their homes oftentimes? Guns. Somebody comes and gets your stuff. Boom. It's the American way. Somebody comes to get your cattle. You string them up, you know. You get a posse and you ride off in a rope and you just hang them from a tree. That's all that problem. That's kind of the way it is, you know. If you're trying to, somebody else is messing with you somewhere, you send a drone over there and you're done. Drop a bomb and they're toast. It's just the way we are as humans. It's been going on with swords and sticks and, I don't know, guns for as long as you can imagine. Is that what God wants? He wants us to have the survival of the fittest. There's a song that's been out for probably two or three decades by Peter Gabriel called Mercy Street. It's this kind of plaintive cry with a slow beat. It's like, mercy, you know, looking for mercy. It's called Mercy Street. He says, mercy street, where's mercy street? They must have moved that sign. In other words, in our world, we just don't have mercy. He just begs for the time he could sit on his father's lap and have mercy. Where's mercy? And he says, mercy, where is it? Now, I've had for a long time an idea to make a video with that as music of the background because over in Africa, you see, we've gotten some pretty good shots. Crocodiles going through the river, you know. Here comes the zebra and the wildebeest crossing the river. The crocodiles go underwater. It's murky and muddy and you don't see them. The zebras and the, you know, they're running. All of a sudden, one goes down, oh, crocodiles, spins them, and oh, mercy. Oh, yeah. And then one of the worst beasts out there, and when I just, oh, it's awful. It's the spotted hyena. Hyenas are nasty because, unlike a lion or something, it grabs the neck, kills the animal. Hyenas just sort of dine on things that walk around as they walk around. It is not pretty, and it just breaks your heart to see that going on. So there's another one. Mercy. That's kind of our world. You know, the animal world, I think, reflects the human world. There's no mercy out there. People are just kind of doing this stuff. And James 3 verse 17 says, but the wisdom from above, God is different than that. The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, joining, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy. God's wisdom, his mind is full of mercy and good fruits, which is love. Love and mercy go together. Without partiality, without hypocrisy. In other words, it's mercy for any who are trying their best, without partiality or hypocrisy. Now, the last little thing from my video, if I ever get to make it, my wife and I were watching a couple of lions dying on this big old carcass of a of a Cape buffalo, water buffalo. And this water buffalo, I don't know if he weighs 1500 pounds, but they're big. And these two male lions are trying to get the hide back. And every time they pull on this hide, the legs of this big old beast will kind of roll up and shake. All right, go down. The lions will get another bite, you know.

As we were watching this and filming it, notice the little, he's out on a grassy savanna in Kenya. And notice out of the corner of our eyes, a little, little, oh, it's a baby gazelle, hardly bigger than our tiny little dog, just a little newborn, maybe week old at the most gazelle. And there's no other gazelles, and there's nothing else except two lions. And this gazelle is heading right for the lions. You think, oh no, mercy! Do we drive away?

We do not want to see this. And that little gazelle's like, oh, there's something brown over there. You could hear it. I wonder if that's my mommy. And the lions are pulling on this carcass. They're pulling on the carcass and the little gazelle. Oh, I'm going to go over there and see if mommy. And they got close and closer and closer. And finally, one of the lions took a break and he looked over and was like, what? A snack! We don't have this kind of problems.

We don't have this hide on there. Just, you know, one bite. The little little gazelle looked at the big lion and said, are you my mommy? And took about 10 more steps closer. Oh, this male lion finally had enough. And he just ran over to that, ran over to that little baby and went, well, you have to imagine what happened. Of course, you can't really imagine what happened because you would never guess what happened. He just stopped and they kind of looked at each other.

And they looked at each other. And the little baby said, hi. And the lion looked at him and, huh, get out of here. And the baby said, you see my mommy? No, I haven't. Well, can I hang out with you guys then? No, go away. And the lion went back over and started eating on the carcass again. And the little baby looked around, huh? Okay. Oh, wander off somewhere else. You know, there is a time when mercy is sweet. Really, really, really nice. You and I need to be agents of mercy, like God is. You know, that was really the lesson of the Good Samaritan parable that Jesus Christ gave.

When you read that parable, how the Samaritan helped someone that was not of his own kind, not of his own religion, nationality, you know, thought processes, we find that what was noted there in Luke chapter 10 and verse 36 wasn't that, you know, which one showed the love? Which one, you know, was more righteous? What was the thing there? Luke 10, 36. Jesus said, So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves? And the person that he was saying this to answered, He who showed mercy on him.

You know, Jesus made up that parable, that story, and the lesson He wanted us to get from it was the person was a neighbor who showed mercy to the other individual. And Jesus then said to him, Go and do likewise.

Go and do likewise. Go and be merciful. Go and show mercy. That's the that is the point of the parable was a go and show mercy. We're to grow and become merciful people like God in heaven is. We're to imitate our father and older brother. In verse 36 of Luke 6, Jesus said, Therefore be merciful just as your Father in heaven is also merciful. You see where where this is going now?

We're told to be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. We're told to grow in love and have the love of God in us. And we're told to be merciful just as your Father is also merciful. The title again of the sermon is mercy, me. We're supposed to move from just wanting mercy, needing mercy, to being mercy like God is, to becoming love like God is, just as we're to be light like Jesus Christ is. We're supposed to be merciful.

To whom? Well, let's go to Matthew chapter 5 verse 7 and verse 11. Matthew chapter 5. We see the beatitude real quickly. But then we'll see a little more. Matthew 5 verse 7. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Now verse 11. Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely. What's the connection? The connection is the last three words. For my name's sake. See, they're doing the best they know how. They think they're doing good, but they just don't know any better. And look what they're doing to you. They're persecuting you.

They're reviling you. They're saying all kinds of evil against you. They're saying false things against you, but they're doing the best they know how to do. For my name's sake. Do you remember when Jesus was on the stake, dying?

What did he say? Shoot him, God! Pull out the gun!

No, he said, forgive them. Why? Because they don't know any better. They're doing the best they can. Forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing. They think they're somehow saving the real Messiah, and I'm defaming the law and speaking evil of it. And I'm blaspheming God as what he was accused of as well. They think they're doing good, but their eyes are closed. They can't hear. So be merciful to them, Father, and forgive them at this point, because they can't do any better. They can't do any better in their current state. What attitude should you and I have when showing all this mercy that we're coming to find that we need to? What's the attitude that we should have? I don't know about you, but as a human being, sometimes we can feel better than others. You can say, well, I know I have. I'm going to be one of the firstfruits when Christ returns. The world can't see. God, I thank you that I'm not like the rest of these. And so, in my infinite betterness, I will be merciful to these masses. Would that be the right attitude to have? What is the attitude that we should have? Should we aloof? Or maybe we should be frustrated. You know, God, all these people out there just don't get it, and I'm so tired of this, and I'll just take my stick and whack the rock like Moses did. And I'll be merciful to them because I'm so frustrated. It didn't work out real well for Moses, did it? It's not the way Jesus Christ did it. Should we do it with resentment? All right, I'll be merciful, but I sure don't want to. Should we do it with reluctance? Oh, do I have to be merciful? Oh, let me fast about it and make sure that I have to have to have to have to. Compliance? Well, I know that if I'm not merciful, God's not going to be merciful to me, so I'm going to comply with that. I don't really want to, but I will. In Romans 12, verse 8, it talks about things that we should do, and one of them is, He who shows mercy, show it with cheerfulness. That's what God wants from you and me. You know, God loves a cheerful giver. God loves a giver of mercy to have cheerfulness. Mercy with cheerfulness. I'm so thankful. I'm so excited that I can show mercy to my child, to my spouse, to my employee, to this person who has really gotten behind. They've done the best they could, but this thing just fell apart. I'm so thankful that I've been able to show some mercy here and help them, get them over that hump and maybe back on their feet. That's exciting. See, it's a byproduct of agape love, thinking of the other person, wanting the best for that other person, and sacrificing yourself. Let's go to Colossians, in closing, Colossians 3, verses 12 through 15. Colossians 3, verse 12. It's interesting to do a study on mercy and look through the hundreds of scriptures there are in the Bible that talk about mercy, merciful.

But when it comes down to it, you and I are to be growing up into our Father, up into Jesus Christ. We'll be putting on the mind of Christ what we're going to read right here. Colossians 3, verse 12. Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on commandment-keeping, truth, preaching the gospel, and above all, loving one another. How's that? I just made those up. Because that's not what it says. It says here, therefore, is the elect... not that any of those are bad. I'm just saying that's what we often focus on, but is that the order that God puts it in? It says in Colossians 3, verse 12, Therefore, as the elect of God, yes, we have been chosen, yes, we have God's Spirit, it's such a blessing to have what we do. We don't deserve it. None of us are even any good at it. But God, thankfully, is merciful as we try to become like Him. And as the elect of God, holy and beloved, first thing, put on tender mercies. That's where we start. Put on tender mercies for other people, other individuals. Kindness along with that tender mercy. And humility, not thinking, oh yeah, look at me, I'm so good, or I'm, you know, better than everybody else. But humility, wow, I couldn't even think if God didn't elect these little firings and the goo on the backside of my brain work. Let alone be worthy to have His Holy Spirit.

Meatness, long suffering. Verse 13, bearing with one another. See, when you're merciful, you have to bear with other people, don't you? Okay, I'm mercy, poof, and it's over. No, that's not what mercy is. Mercy means if you're going to be merciful to somebody and let them extend a contract or let them hurt you or your children, be disobedient as they generally, hopefully, get in a trend to better obedience over time. You're going to you're going to be bearing with one another. It's part of mercy. And forgiving one another. What God does with us every day, bears with us, forgives us. If anyone has a complaint against another. Even so, as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. Not as a requirement, but it has to be part of the mental mindset that God is putting in us. Verse 14, but above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts to which you also were called in one body. So here we have the one body with love and mercy is the ingredient that holds it all together. Because if it weren't for mercy, the body could not be together. It would have to have members cast out of it all the time. In conclusion, agape love is coupled with mercy. And those are attributes of God and Christ. The true children of God and Christ, the ones who are being engendered from above, the ones who are being converted from the carnal human nature to the godly divine nature, they are putting on this agape love and this mercy in combination with the other fruits that we are to do. And so while you seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, be growing in mercy for all who are trying to do their best.