Attributes of God - Mercy
Notes
Transcript
What is righteousness? The quality, state, and characteristic of being in the right. God IS righteous (by definition and/or standard). SO, when we are weighed against the righteousness of God, where would we stand?
*** Without God’s gift of MERCY, where would WE be? We would stand before God guilty of our sins and receive our due justice.
But it is because of God’s MERCY that we are counted as righteous through Christ. In the Bible, mercy and compassion are most perfectly demonstrated and characterized by God’s own merciful and loving care for his people, and in particular by the gift of mercy through Jesus Christ in the act of sending Jesus to die in the place of our sins. A.W. Tozer made the statement "The only sin Jesus ever had was ours. And the only righteousness we can ever have is His."
In particular, mercy can be described s compassion for the miserable. To be honest, who (without Christ) is not miserable?
Often we see mercy hand in hand with grace.
Mercy - is the act of withholding deserved punishment. (NOT receiving what we do deserve).
Grace - involves giving us blessings, salvation, and spiritual gifts that we do not deserve and cannot earn through our own efforts. (Receiving what we do not deserve).
Paul gives us a look inside what the church of Ephesus (and us) are up against. The Ephesian church (and us) share in Christs blessing by being unified with and in Him. All we have, all we are, and all we ever will be in because of our belief in Christ. It is through our faith that we are counted righteous. Paul uses this to write a before and after synopsis of the Ephesians.
Dead
Dead
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—
3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Notice the word “were”. Before salvation, we were dead in our trespasses and sins. So, how can we be alive, but be dead? The word used for death (nekros) which can be translated to means separation in a spiritual sense. H.S. Miller says, “Death is the separation of a person from the purpose or use for which he was intended”. So, before conversion, we were separated from God spiritually - dead in every sense of the spiritual meaning. It is this spiritual separation that follows the unbeliever into the second death. First, the physical death, and then the spiritual separation from God for eternity.
Paul reminds the church of Ephesus that it was the way each of them “once walked”. This is in the past, for a believer! What was their walk before conversion?
Following the course of this world.
Following the prince of the power of the air (the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience).
What had separated them from God? Following the world. It was the trespasses (failings) and sins that causes the separation from God and in return it (by definition of nekros) places us (in Halloween terms) in the land of the living dead. So, does this mean that zombies truly are real?
Anyways…
Trespasses and sins are the result of following the world, and not God. You see, by following the world…we are following something imperfect. And imperfection is the OPPOSITE of perfection. By following the world, we are not measuring up to the standards of God, we miss the mark, we are imperfect .
Romans 3:23 (ESV)
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
We all fall short. None of us live a perfect life.
Why? Because we are following the prince of the power of the air - Satan! How many of us would knowingly and willingly follow Satan? But when we do NOT follow God, then by default…we follow Satan. Notice Paul reminds the Ephesians you were walking down the same road as Satan, hand in hand, and up to no good before your conversion. And notice this church, because of free will we still have the choice in who we follow! When Satan tries to influence the spirit of man to sin, man often listens and sins. Paul will go on later in Ephesians 6:12 to remind them and us:
12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
We choose which path we walk, who we follow, and what we do. We can either be obedient or we are disobedient to God.
Before salvation, we all are disobedient to the will of God, and it doesn’t matter how much money we donated, how good a life we lived, how many orphans and widows we assisted, we were still disobedient towards God. Each of us were once sinners, each of us were once disobedient to God, and each of us were once focused on the flesh, on our immorality. A sinner lives to fulfill what HE/SHE and HE/SHE ALONE wants. It doesn’t mean we are all lusting fornicators looking for our next moment of passion, NO sinful lusts of the mind can also simply be our unbelief! In reality, we have nothing else to live for.
The POSB makes this statement here
“His life is self-centered, not God-centered; world-centered, not heaven-centered; selfish, not giving; banking and hoarding, not sacrificial—not meeting the needs of a world reeling in desperate need and death. The unconverted man spends his life with the disobedient of the world living after the desires of the flesh and of the mind.”
As a result, we live fully under the just wrath of God and if it were not for the MERCY of God, where would we be?
But God
But God
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Now, be reminded we have been described as disobedient reprobates facing the full wrath from a just God before salvation.
Praise God for the word BUT found in verse 4.
But God - God did not want this to be the final outcome. He loved us and cared for us so much, He could not allow us to stay in a state of depravity and provided us a way out. While we were dead in our trespasses and sin, God was rich in His mercy because of His love for us.
Let me say that one more time, While we were dead in our trespasses and sin, God was rich in His mercy because of His love for us.
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God changed the course of our eternity by intervening on our behalf. God Showed Us MERCY - by withholding the punishment we deserve - IF we choose to live obediently for Him. We were dead in our trespasses and sin, but verse 5 says we have been QUICKENED (KJV) or MADE ALIVE (ESV) in Christ. We are conjoined, intertwined, combined with Jesus in our conversion from death into life.
WHY???
Because God is not like us - He doesn’t hold a grudge, hold things against us, and show revenge when we do something against Him. Instead, He is full of compassion, affection, and kindness. He looked down on His creation - mankind - and saw our sinful state, recognized our needs, understood our limitations, and met our needs where and when we needed Him most. You see, He is the epitome of a selfless and sacrificial love - loving us, even when we do not deserve to be loved.
10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
God made us alive together with Christ. Now, as a believer this brings more significance as we know Jesus is resurrected and with His Father, and we, too, have the promise to live eternally with Him in heaven!
IF… you see, there is always that condition. IF we believe on Him, trust in Him, and follow Him in obedience. You see, Jesus lived a sinless and perfect life. But we have already sinned. We cannot live a sinless and perfect life ourselves. So how can we be in the presence of God when we are not sinless?
4 For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you.
We, by all rights, do not deserve to be with God since He cannot dwell with wickedness… BUT GOD…provided a way that we could stand before Him and could be seen as sinless and made righteous through His Son Jesus Christ.
The penalty for our sins had already been set.
Genesis 2:17 (ESV)
17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
But Jesus died for us, and paid the penalty for our sin IF we believe - trust - in Him, by faith. When a person truly believes in Jesus Christ, God loves His Son so much that He counts the person’s faith as his identification with Christ.
And that, my friends, is GRACE.
By Grace
By Grace
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
FF Bruce points out “Sola gratia, sola fida, soli deo gloria. By grace alone, through faith alone, to God alone be the glory!”
Let me say something - salvation has nothing to do with us. What we do, what we have, what we bring to the table. Salvation is strictly a free GIFT from God. Salvation is the work of God, of God’s grace and of God’s grace alone. It is not of man, not in any shape, form, or fashion whatsoever. It is by grace alone, then, that we are saved. We cannot do anything to save ourselves.
We are saved SOLELY by God’s grace - receiving His favor and kindness even though we do not deserve it.
Romans 6:23 (ESV)
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God did not have to give His Son to this world. God did not have to allow His Son to be tortured, ridiculed, mocked, and eventually put to death. God owed us nothing. He could have wiped us off the face of the earth and started over. THAT, my friend, is what we deserved. But God being fully of mercy and love and kindness extended grace to us instead.
We can never be justified or seen as righteous through our works or by fulfilling law. Our works are nothing more than filthy rags to God.
6 For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, carry us away.
We cannot keep every part of the law, so we cannot work our way into salvation. All the law does is points out our depravity and the inability to live up to God’s standards. But God…He sent His Son to fulfill the law so that we COULD have a way to live up to God’s standards by simply believing in Jesus Christ.
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
We are saved through faith, believing that Christ died for us, bearing our sin and punishment on the cross. When we truly believe this, God then takes our faith and counts us as righteous like Jesus. It is our faith that causes God to look upon us as having been in Christ when He died. It is our faith that causes God to credit us with salvation.
Mercy and Grace, Not Works
Mercy and Grace, Not Works
5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
As I close today, I do want to remind us that salvation is not just a one and done activity. God expects more from us. As the previous verses in Ephesians tell us, we have been created for good works through Jesus Christ. This means that, while salvation is free, there is still work that must be done.
When a person is born, physically, they don’t just lay there expecting someone else to do everything for them for the rest of their life. So, why would we think when we are born again that God would allow us to sit still and do nothing?
In putting it another way, knowing what God delivered us from, the mercy and grace He extended to us, should make us want to stand up, shout praises, and tell everyone what He has done for us. When a person is truly saved, the Holy Spirit renews and revives him day by day. He stirs and energizes the person to follow Jesus more and more closely and to serve Him more and more faithfully.
So where do you find yourself today? Have you experienced the Mercy and Grace of God? Have you been renewed by the Holy Spirit? Do you follow Him and serve Him daily?
Or, are you missing out on the joy, peace, and power given to us as believers? Maybe it’s time to rededicate your life to serving Christ.
Or maybe you have never made the decision to follow Christ by faith.
Today, the choice is yours. He has already done His part…now He waits on you. What will your decision be?