Gracious and Merciful

Opening verse: Heb 4:16

Hebrews 4:16 ESV

16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

PRAY

Introduction

Today we’re combining two attributes of God that are closely connected, and they’re often paired in Scripture: Grace and Mercy.

And again, these are attributes or characteristics of God that are communicable — perfectly true of God, and they ought to be increasingly true of us as believers as we grow in our likeness to Christ.

God is gracious and merciful.

Definitions:

Grudem defines them this way:

Mercy: “God’s goodness toward those in misery and distress.”

Grace: “God’s goodness toward those who deserve only punishment.”

Grace

God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense — this is especially true of God’s grace in salvation, but biblically, every good thing we receive from God is because of Christ and what He has done for us.

Undeserved Kindness — it is God’s kindness toward those who do not deserve it and could not earn it — which means that everything we have is by the grace of God. We deserve nothing good and we could never earn anything good from God, but He gives it anyway — that is grace.

So when the Bible speaks of grace or says that God is gracious, the focus is on God’s goodness or kindness toward those who don’t deserve it.

Mercy

Mercy overlaps a lot with grace, but its emphasis is different. Mercy is also an expression of God’s goodness and kindness, but it focuses more on the neediness or suffering of the one receiving it rather than on their being undeserving.

For God to be merciful or show mercy to someone is for Him to feel compassion or pity for the miserable condition of someone and act in kindness to bring healing or restoration for that person.

You can see there is a lot of overlap between these two terms.

This is why the Bible speaks of salvation both in terms of grace and of mercy. The salvation God has accomplished for us in Christ is both an act of mercy toward us and of grace toward us.

It is mercy, because God saw our need, our misery, our suffering, caused by our own sin and rebellion against Him, and He had compassion on us, felt pity for us, and acted to save us by sending His Son to die for us. Salvation demonstrates God’s mercy.

It is also grace, because the gift of God’s Son and the salvation He bring us is something we do not deserve. We deserve God’s wrath and judgment, but He gives us His kindness instead. So salvation also demonstrates God’s grace.

Grace and Mercy Revealed (Psalm 103:7-8; Exodus 33:18-19; 34:6)

David tells us in Psalm 103:7-8,

Psalm 103:7–8 ESV

7 He [the LORD] made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. 8 The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

David is referring to the story in Exodus 33-34, where Moses requested of the LORD “please show me now your ways” (33:13) and a few verses later, “Please show me your glory.” (33:18) In the next chapter, the LORD answers Moses’s request and gives him a special vision of His glory, in which God proclaims His character to be “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (34:6).

I don’t know if you’ve had the experience, maybe when you’re meeting someone new, or maybe doing a job interview or something like that, and someone says to you, “Tell me about yourself.” What would you say?

Moses essentially says to God, “Tell me about yourself.” And this is what God says. Let’s read the verses from Exodus:

Exodus 33:18–19 ESV

18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” 19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

The first thing God tells Moses about His grace and mercy is that God sovereignly chooses when to show grace and mercy and to whom He will show grace and mercy. God is under no obligation to show grace or mercy to anyone, not even to Moses, and the LORD wants Moses to know (to keep Moses humble) that even though He will respond positively to Moses’s request and show him His glory, it is not because Moses deserves it or has earned it. It is God’s own free choice to show it when He wants and to whom He wants.

And He does not always show it at every time or to every person. Every person’s experience of God’s mercy and grace is a little different, and this reminds us that it is God’s sovereign prerogative to choose when to give grace and mercy and when to withhold it.

Think about it:

Two believers who love the Lord ask Him for the same thing, trusting in God’s goodness.

God answers one of their prayers with a “yes” and gives them what they asked for, and

God answers one of their prayers with a “no” and doesn’t give them what they asked for.

I don’t think we’d have to search too long to find that this is indeed the case.

Two Christians suffering from the same disease ask God for healing — and God heals one but not the other.

Two people ask God for safety on the road — and God brings one home safe but allows the other to be in an accident.

Two Christians applying for the same job ask God to let them have the job — and God gives it to one but not the other.

Maybe you can think of examples from your own life.

Why does God do this?

One reason God is showing us here is to remind us that He is sovereign, that He owes His grace and mercy to no one, and to help us to learn to trust Him regardless of whether we receive specific graces or mercies that we desire or feel like we need.

I think another reason is to draw us closer to Him. If God rescued us immediately every time we suffered and asked for mercy, how often would we call out for mercy? How dependent would we be on Him?

Ultimately, God has His own good purposes, which He doesn’t always reveal to us. Just ask Job.

But God does reveal His character to Moses in response to Moses’s request, and the very first thing God says about His character is this:

Exodus 34:6 ESV

6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,

This expression of God’s character is picked up and used across the rest of the Old Testament to describe the LORD. We already saw the example of Psalm 103, and there are a few other Psalms that also speak of the LORD as gracious and merciful, and it’s also expressed in Deuteronomy, 2 Chronicles, Nehemiah, Joel, and Jonah, among other places. This is who our God is: merciful and gracious.

Let’s consider now four examples in Scripture when God displayed His grace and mercy.

Grace and Mercy Displayed

These first two came to me in my devotional reading this week, and they’re probably not examples that would immediately come to mind when we think of God’s grace and mercy, but these attributes are clearly displayed in both cases.

Manasseh (2 Chronicles 33:10-13)

Manasseh was the son of Hezekiah, who had been one of the greatest kings in the history of Israel. This is the testimony of Hezekiah’s life from 2 Kings 18:5-7:

“He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. 6 For he held fast to the LORD. He did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments that the LORD commanded Moses. 7 And the LORD was with him; wherever he went out, he prospered.”

Sadly, Hezekiah’s son Manasseh turned out to be the complete opposite of his father. Hezekiah had led the nation in a great spiritual revival, but Manasseh tore all that down, and the first part of 2 Chronicles 33 tells us some of the evil things he did:

He rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah had built (worshiping God in the wrong way/place - v. 3)

He built altars to false gods (v. 3) and even put some of these altars in the LORD’s temple (v. 4-5)

He burned his sons as sacrifices to false gods (v. 6)

He engaged in sorcery and witchcraft (v. 6)

He set up a carved image of an idol in the temple (v. 7)

He led the whole nation astray into idolatry (v. 9)

The wickedness of Manasseh was greater than that of the nations who were there when Israel came and conquered the land under Joshua (v. 2, 9)

What would we expect God to do in the face of such wickedness?

Strike him dead

Any one of these evil actions deserves immediate judgment from God, but Manasseh’s wickedness just keeps going and going, and God doesn’t strike him dead. Let’s read v. 10-13 and see what God did instead:

2 Chronicles 33:10–13 ESV

10 The Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention. 11 Therefore the Lord brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon. 12 And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. 13 He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.

After a lifetime of sin and rebellion against God, God used a time of affliction and suffering in Manasseh’s life to get his attention and turn Manasseh to Himself.

God graciously sent prophets to warn Manasseh and the people of coming judgment.

God graciously allowed Manasseh to be captured and taken as a prisoner to Babylon.

God graciously allowed Manasseh to experience such distress in prison so that he finally humbled himself and turned to the LORD and sought His favor.

And we know that this was a genuine conversion because of what follows. In the following verses, Manasseh tears down the altars he made, restores things in the temple, and commands the people only to worship the LORD.

What an amazing story of God’s grace and mercy — undeserved kindness shown to Manasseh in a time of distress — which brought Manasseh to true faith in the LORD.

Job (James 5:11)

Another one that came to me in my devotions this week, and another example I don’t typically think of in relation to God’s grace and mercy, is Job; I read about him in James 5.

James 5:11 ESV

11 Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

The word translated “merciful” is actually an unusual form of the Greek word, and it could be rendered something like “extremely merciful” or “exceedingly merciful.”

I’ll be honest, Job isn’t near the top of the list of people I think of when I think of God showing extreme mercy. Remember what happened to Job?

Satan asked God for permission to attack Job, and God permitted it.

In a single day, Job lost all his possessions and all ten of his children.

Shortly after that, God allowed Satan to attack Job’s health, and he was in extreme discomfort and pain.

All Job had left was a wife (who wasn’t much help) and three “friends” who acted more like enemies.

Be honest — does that sound like extreme mercy to you? My guess is probably not.

So how can James say that the story of Job demonstrates the exceeding mercy of God? How is His mercy displayed in allowing one of His children to suffer in such terrible ways? I imagine that Job asked the same question.

But I think the answer lies in what God did for Job by revealing Himself to Job in chapters 38-41. God comes and begins questioning Job and demonstrating in a variety of ways His power and His right to do with His creation as He pleases.

What did Job need more than he needed all his wealth and his family? What did he need more? He needed a fresh vision of God. He needed to know God more and stand in awe of Him and worship Him. That’s what Job needed more than anything, and that’s exactly what God gave him.

In Job’s case, God’s mercy was displayed by allowing terrible suffering and tragedy that brought Job so low that he had to look up, and when he did, he found God to be all that he needed.

And of course, in the end of the story, God restored double all that He had taken away in the beginning, just to show that He could.

Two Blind Men (Matt 20:29-34)

Matthew 20:29–34 ESV

29 And as they went out of Jericho, a great crowd followed him. 30 And behold, there were two blind men sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” 31 The crowd rebuked them, telling them to be silent, but they cried out all the more, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” 32 And stopping, Jesus called them and said, “What do you want me to do for you?” 33 They said to him, “Lord, let our eyes be opened.” 34 And Jesus in pity touched their eyes, and immediately they recovered their sight and followed him.

These two men are suffering from blindness, probably forced to beg to sustain themselves. They probably were not allowed in the temple either, so they were excluded from public worship.

But all of a sudden, they hear the news that Jesus is passing by. Maybe they’ve heard stories of what He’s done for others, and so they begin yelling out, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David.”

They confess their faith in Him as the Lord — God! And they confess their faith in Him as the Son of David — Messiah!

And they ask for mercy.

Please consider our helpless, miserable condition, take pity on us and restore us.

And they keep on asking even when everyone’s trying to get them to shut up.

Jesus hears and knows, and He does feel compassion for their suffering, and He heals them so that they can see.

But not only can they see with physical eyes — they see with spiritual eyes — they trust in Jesus and follow Him.

I once was lost but now am found

Was blind but now I see.

Hallelujah! Amazing grace.

The Salvation of Sinners (Ephesians 2:1-10)

This is a familiar passage, but as we read through it, just note how it speaks of the salvation God has provided through Christ as both an act of mercy and of grace:

Ephesians 2:1–10 ESV

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 flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 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. 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.

We don’t have time in this message to dig into all the details of this passage, but I hope you noted the mentions of mercy and grace.

The salvation God has accomplished for us in Christ is an act of mercy — God saw our helpless, miserable condition (which was because of our own doing), He took pity on us and chose to rescue and restore us.

It is also an act of God’s grace — and that’s what’s emphasized more in this passage — God is showing kindness to undeserving people. You and I had rebelled against God, aligned ourselves with His Enemy, Satan, and were destined for destruction — eternal condemnation because of our sin. That’s what we all deserve.

But God in His grace chose to rescue undeserving sinners, granting us the gifts of regeneration, faith and repentance, doing it in such a way that no one has any ground for boasting, except to boast in the Lord — to praise Him, because it’s all about Him, it’s all from Him, and it’s all for Him.

And so God demonstrates both His mercy and grace in the salvation of sinners.

Grace and Mercy Applied (Hebrews 4:14-16)

Let’s end by looking at a very practical passage which speaks to us of God’s grace and mercy. And this passage is specifically for believers, so if you have not yet experienced God’s grace and mercy in salvation, I urge you to receive His grace and mercy to you in Christ. If you are a believer and have already experienced the grace and mercy of God to you in salvation, here is a passage that tells you,

“But wait… there’s more!”

There is more grace and mercy for you still to receive:

Hebrews 4:14–16 ESV

14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

The throne of grace probably refers to the mercy seat or atonement cover, the lid for the ark of the covenant, where atonement was made for sins.

So the author of Hebrews commands us — draw near with confidence to the sacrifice of Christ, relying on what He has already done for you, in order to receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

In this context, I believe that mercy refers to the forgiveness that we need — ongoing relational forgiveness we need because we keep on sinning even as Christians, and we need our relationship with God to be restored once and again. That mercy of forgiveness is available to us because of the sacrifice of Christ.

But also, we need grace. And here, I believe grace refers to God’s enabling power to overcome sin and temptation in our lives, the grace of sanctification that enables us to become more like Christ as we learn to say no to sin and say yes to Him.

Mercy to cover our past failures.

Grace to keep us from continuing to fail.

And we need both. And not just one time, but over and over again, we need to keep coming back for more mercy and grace.

The amazing thing here is that we are commanded to come with confidence. Boldly. Not because of who we are or what we’ve done, but all because of Jesus.

Conclusion

Praise God for His grace and mercy.

Recognize that God has been gracious and merciful to you — even if it’s not always in the ways you expect or want.

Come boldly before Him in prayer and seek His mercy and grace to help you in your walk with Him.

And, since this is a communicable attribute of God, remember that this is the way God wants you to treat others as well:

Luke 6:36 ESV

36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.