Reflecting God's Mercy

Ephesians 4:31-32 – Reflecting God’s Mercy

Intro:

· What is our theme for this year? – Living in the Light.

· Over the last few weeks, we have heard from the Word of God, how we are to reflect this light. Reflecting God’s Love and Holiness.

· But there is another thing we should reflect in our lives, but friend I must admit, this is probably one of the hardest things to reflect when it comes to our walk with the Lord.

(Read Scripture)

· Let’s be honest, this is scripture is a hard one to reflect. Especially, if we have been hurt by someone or if someone we love has been hurt by another.

· To offer forgiveness like Christ has given us, seems out of capability, yet that is exactly what the scripture tells us we must do.

· Now this passage teaches us that we are to reflect God’s mercy if we are going to live in the light. Look me draw you attention to these three things if we are going to live in the light of Christ.

The Hindrances to Forgiveness

· Many of us wear glasses, when we go to the eye doctor to get a new pair of glasses, they offer us the option to have the lenses of those glasses coated with an antiglare film.

· For the most part, completely undetectable. And what it does, when light hits it, it doesn’t reflect that light.

· Now many of us that is how we are living, we are living and many people see us and they don’t see what is really going on in our life, but as God shines down his love, holiness, and mercy from heaven on our lives, we are refusing to reflect that love because we got anger built up in our lives that we refuse to let go.

· For instance, when someone hurts us, our response isn’t immediately forgiveness, instead we often respond in a much different manner.

Bitterness / Anger

· How do we respond? Well we get angry. And when we get angry that just grows into something much worse.

· For some, that anger will become bitterness. Now understand, all it takes is a little bit of anger to grow into a mountain of bitterness.

· A person just consumed by bitterness, and all that bitterness just robs them of the joy that Christ radiates onto us.

· When we allow bitterness to fester in our life, the light of Christ in our life slowly dims. To the point where people, and even those who are close to us, do not want to be around us.

· I like trying new foods, especially foreign foods that are not common around here. There have been some foods that I have eaten and not expecting them to be bitter, and as soon as it hits my mouth, I’m spitting it out. Its bitter, its nasty.

· When you walk around with bitterness in your life, people don’t want to be around you because you have a nasty attitude.

Wrath / Clamor

· Now bitterness some of you here, your bitter because you can’t forgive. And then there are some who become wrathful because you won’t reflect God’s mercy and forgiveness.

· What is it that you want to do, you want to go out there and throw down. Your response isn’t to give forgiveness, instead it is to give out knuckle sandwiches.

· I mean, you get upset and you go to the extreme. Your mad, your upset, and everybody sees it and in some cases hears it.

· Go off on some tirade, yelling, screaming, pushing, shoving, hitting and spitting; you name it.

· And this is the sad reality, that we have kids watching moms and dads just pouring that wrath out on each other, and they are growing up with all of these emotional problems.

· You know what we are doing in these situations? We are letting the flesh get the better of us.

· And each time we allow the flesh to rule, it is like we are pulling the blinds on God, and instead of living in the light, we acting the fool in the dark.

· And when people see this, they don’t see Christ. They don’t see Jesus being reflected, what they are seeing is Jesus being rejected.

Evil Speaking

· Now there is one more area that hinders the light of Christ from reflecting in our lives and that is evil speaking.

· Friend, you want to destroy the reflection of God’s light in your life quickly? You can, and you don’t even have to lift a finger, all you have to do is just speak it.

· Someone just rubs you wrong. It irks you. You didn’t like their tone or you didn’t like what they said. So, you just start an unofficial smear campaign.

· Anytime you are around people, and that person comes up in conversation, what do you do? You just focus on all the things you don’t like about them. How much they annoy you. You just run them down and try to get others to feel the same way you do.

· Let me ask you? Does that sound like something Jesus would do? No! It hinders the light of Christ from shining, that is what it does.

· When we are unable to forgive, to show mercy, then friend we are hindering the light of Christ from reflecting off of our lives onto others.

The Request of Christ

· Now think about what the Lord wants us to do? He wants us to be different, he wants us to respond differently. He wants us to be like him.

· We would sometimes get these guys coming up and ask if I would like to buy a watch. They pull out a bunch of watches, and they would say Rolex. Except they weren’t.

· They were what we called Folexes. They were real, they were genuine. You find this from time to time in lots of different things. Not the real deal.

· And you find it with people. You know how you can find a real Christian, you find a person who instead of responding with what we saw in verse 31, responds with what we find in verse 32.

· You see, If we are going to be God’s children, the real deal, not fakes or knock offs, then friend we have got to reflect God’s mercy in our lives.

Kindness

· He tells us to be kind one to another. Someone riding your butt in traffic? Allow them to pass. And when they pass, don’t rush up to be on them.

· Someone caused extra work? Don’t get angry at them, instead go alongside of them and help them.

· We are to be kind to people, and that must reflect in our lives everywhere we go.

Tenderhearted

· Now understand, God does not want us to be hard-hearted Christians. That we close off the world and don’t care about people.

· That someone offends us and so we don’t have a heart for them. Christ told us to be tenderhearted.

· That means we have a heart that is willing to help, that we have a heart that genuinely cares.

Forgiving one another

· And here it is. If we are going to live in the light, then we must be willing to give forgiveness to those who hurt us.

· You might be saying though, they hurt me physically. Well they hurt Christ physically, and he still forgave them.

· Well, they hurt me emotionally, they broke my heart. Well that is exactly what happened to Christ, and yet he still forgave.

· You see, reflecting the light of Christ, is reflecting that same mercy and forgiveness that Christ gave to us.

· Now understand, it has to be real. It can’t be fake. Kindness, Tenderheartedness, Forgiveness, it must be real, and it can only be real if it comes through Christ.

· You see God forgave us, because Christ asked him too. When Christ was on the cross, he said Father, forgive them for they no not what they do. He wasn’t just talking about those who were literally putting him on the cross. He was talking about every person that has ever lived.

· Here they are taking the gift of God, His Son, and nailing him to a cross. Offending God and what He had done.

· And through all of that, Christ asked God to forgive us. That was real. And that is what you got to be right now. Real.

Conclusion

· You see, God sees your life. He knows if you are really reflecting Him, or if you have closed yourself off to the light.

· People who have been out of the light, you know they become sickly. Their bodies lack things that they need.

· If you don’t get into the light of Christ, you are going to be sick. Make the wrong choices. Be miserable all the time.

· You can make the change today. You don’t have to be angry all the time. You don’t have to be filled with bitterness. You can find the light of Christ, and you can learn to forgive.

· Christ will help you forgive. It may not happen over night, but he can help you get there. If you would allow him to shine on you right now.

· Will you allow that light of Christ to shine? Or will you close the blinds?