Mercy not Sacrifice

INTRO: A mother once approached Napoleon seeking a pardon for her son. The emperor replied that the young man had committed a certain offense twice and justice demanded death. 

"But I don't ask for justice," the mother explained. "I plead for mercy." 

"But your son does not deserve mercy," Napoleon replied. 

"Sir," the woman cried, "it would not be mercy if he deserved it, and mercy is all I ask for." 

"Well, then," the emperor said, "I will have mercy." And he spared the woman's son.  - Luis Palau, Experiencing God's Forgiveness, Multnomah Press, 1984.

If ever there was time for the Church to reconnect with the meaning and application of MERCY, it is now!

We are in a fierce debate in this country about many things: abortion is back on the radar as a new SCOTUS Justice is being sought, immigration has been a debate for a while as we see horrible circumstances develop around our borders, and a host of other issues like gender, rule of law, the standard conservative versus liberal arguments that we continue to think can be productive in any way. It’s troubling.

It’s troubling to me, as a pastor, on both sides of these issues as I see Christians weigh-in with as much vitriol, scorn, and anger as any angry atheist mad at a God he doesn’t believe in.

Despite the fact that we can clearly read in scripture that Jesus ONLY reserved His righteous anger for religious hypocrites, we continue to think that we have a right to get angry at sinners, those who aren’t on our side of the aisle, and those who might threaten our delicate sensibilities of who we are by challenging our long-held assumptions about who Jesus was and is.

Here is my personal top ten list of indicators that you may not know Jesus as well as you claim (not funny, just contemplative):

You think Jesus is a Republican.

You think Jesus is a Democrat.

You think that as long as you are a church-goer you are okay with Jesus.

You think if you give up enough stuff, and spit-shine your outward self, God will love you more.

You have a loyalty to a color of skin, or an ethnicity, or nationality and you think Jesus is okay with that.

You think certain sins are inexcusable, but none of yours, of course, and Jesus really can’t wait to punish those nasty sins, but yours…well…actually you just remembered, you don’t have any.

You think you can take a part of a verse like “Judge not...” and build your Christianity on it, never going any deeper than that and believing anything goes, and to each his own.

You think Jesus would stand outside an abortion clinic with posters that are disgusting in their content, waving them in the face of women who feel trapped in their circumstances.

You think Jesus is just fine with the way sex has become a mere transaction between two people who consent, and it’s okay to then discharge the life that results for any reason you choose, without any thought for the miracle that it is.

You think you’re going to Heaven because you believe in Jesus.

I think you can tell that most of those are loaded statements that would cause a free-for-all, cage-match style fight in many circles today.

And you’re probably right, but what I want you to get out of your head is that Jesus cares who you vote for, what party you’re registered with, and how much or often you go to church as much as He does about whether your heart is filled with MERCY or MEANNESS; or whether you are, in every situation, acting out of LOVE or HATE.

It’s way less important to ponder whether God is on your side in all of these things as it is to ponder whether or not YOU ARE ON GOD’S SIDE!

The near total lack of civility, distrust of one another, failure to even attempt to understand opposing viewpoints, and missing-in-action mercy by many Christians today is an indicator that the Jesus of the Gospels is way different than the Jesus of the contemporary Church in many cases.

As was the case very often in the Gospels, Jesus was being stalked by the religious leaders of the day because He threatened their authority, and He spoke about there being a direct link to God.

You see, in that day ANY access to God was made through an earthly intermediary, one who would go to God in the Temple on your behalf.

And it behooved the good, loyal subjects of this religious kingdom to treat these Pharisees with all due reverence and respect, and all the perks that came along with that - power, authority, and even material things gained through their dishonest approaches.

Well, Jesus was cutting the legs right out from under these sin-black-hearted men by bringing a NEW MESSAGE of inclusion, equal access, and respect for all life at all levels of society.

Here’s what happened on one such occassion...

Matthew 9:9–13 NIV

9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. 10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

See if this sounds familiar to you, or maybe it’s a fear you have about really reaching those who need Jesus: Why are you hanging out with those people?

Let’s make sure, first of all, that you are truly hanging out with them so you can influence them for Christ.

Don’t hang out with sinners so you can sin with them; that’s not what God called you to do.

But He did, believe it or not, call you to hang out with sinners, only He wants you to influence them for Christ.

We are called, the Bible says, to be salt and light.

Eugene says it like this...

Matthew 5:13–16 The Message

13 “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage. 14 “Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. 15 If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. 16 Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.

If you are hanging out with sinners for the wrong reasons you aren’t being salt and light, you’re being a sinner.

If you are hanging out with sinners to truly be salt and light, then you are make their lives better!

Flavors cannot remain the same when salted, they get better.

Darkness cannot remain when there is light, it HAS TO GO.

is that what you are doing when you’re hanging out with sinners?

If not, get saved, go back and do it the right way!

Jesus, indeed, hung out with sinners, but His purpose was totally noble and right.

And when He was confronted by the uptight self-righteous religious brigade,...

... who couldn’t believe that a doctor would be caught dead with sick people (follow?),...

…who, to put it in another light, couldn’t believe that a auto mechanic could be found fixing a broken car,...

... who couldn’t believe that someone who claimed to be a rabbi would mingle with the marginalized to bring them back to hope and life,...

... who were incredulous that He was wasting his time on people that just weren’t worth it,...

Jesus offered this verse, and it’s quite possibly the most important verse in scripture for Christians because it offers us a summary of the gospel, and we should remember it every day.

Matthew 9:13 NIV

13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

“I desire mercy, not sacrifice...”

Everything that God teaches us and commands of us is for the sake of mercy.

Christian discipleship is this: receiving God’s mercy so that we can become God’s mercy for the world.

At this point, it is very important for us to grasp the true, Biblical meaning of the word mercy, because the American pop-evangelical church has turned Christian salvation into a tacky afterlife insurance product.

Mercy is not reducible to being forgiven for doing something wrong. That can be part of it.

But mercy is also rescuing someone who is helpless and being crushed by their enemies, whether or not they did anything wrong.

In the Bible, the Hebrew word... hesed is usually used in this sense of pleading with God to show the Israelites “mercy” by rescuing them from their enemies.

Hesed

What hesed literally means is kinship love or what the King James Bible translates as “loving-kindness.”

Hesed is the fierce, protective love that parents have for their children.

To receive hesed from someone means that you are treated like family.

So when God shows mercy to sinners, it’s not so much that he’s deciding not to collect payment on a debt that we owe him.

It’s more that he’s rescuing us from an enemy who is crushing us.

God rescues us by becoming the sacrifice for our sins through Jesus’ crucifixion that proves he’s not holding our sin over us.

Romans 5:8 NIV

8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

It’s not that God needs Jesus’ blood sacrifice in order to forgive us; it’s that we need someone to take the weight of our sin in order to receive a forgiveness that has weight.

When Christians don’t get this, that we live under the mercy of God, that’s when we try to earn God’s favor by giving stuff up!

I once knew a sweet Christian lady, she has gone on now, who told me that when she was young she used to love to dance.

But when she got saved, God took that love away from her.

She said it as a testimony, I know, and I don’t want to be too harsh, but I don’t think God took it away from her.

I think some stoved up, uptight Christian convinced her that she needed to lay that on the altar so that God would be impressed with her sacrifice.

And the problem with that is…He’s not impressed!

I think if you have a love of dancing before you’re saved, then after you’re saved, learn to dance for Jesus!

Musicians do it all the time; before Jesus you’re playing for a different reason; after Jesus you play for Him.

All of these gifts and passions come from God!

Your ability to throw yourself into any endeavor, whether any art-form, or any job, or anything else, comes from God!

Passion is not possessed by any other creature!

The lions don’t chew you up if you stumble into their territory out of passion; they’re just eatin’!

But humans, we can approach something with a passion and drive that is only akin to the way God approached creating us!

Don’t get confused and start thinking your sacrifice, giving stuff up, is the same thing as serving Christ, because it’s not.

When we aren’t convinced that we live under the mercy of God, we inevitably try to earn God’s favor and the world’s favor through sacrifice.

This is what is called self-justification; you’re constantly trying to show everyone how right you are, what you’ve given up to be clean.

I would say that a life of always trying to prove yourself right is actually what hell is.

Many self-professed Christians try to justify themselves through sacrifice.

The most self-righteous have turned to social media to prove their sacrifice, but the problem there is this: it’s doesn’t cost anything, really.

“I hold counter-cultural beief, so I must be better than others who don’t”

“I’m a conservative, so my sacrifice is that I’m taking a stand against gay people!”

“I’m a liberal (or progressive), so my sacrifice is that I’m more virtuous because I’m on board with all the radical stances and important cause of the day!”

“I’m a moderate, so I sacrifice by rising above all these things, AND heap scorn on both sides of the issue!”

None of these are true sacrifice.

True sacrifices usually happen when people don’t think of themselves as making a sacrifice because they are moved by mercy.

Think about Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan.

The reason the Samaritan sacrificed his time and money to help the wounded traveler was not because he was performing a religious duty; it was because he was “moved with pity”

Luke 10:33 NIV

33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.

The Samaritan’s actions were motivated by his heart.

It was not that he had submitted himself through rigid sacrifice to stringent moral precepts.

Rather, he was able to see the face of the other because he was looking through the eyes of mercy.

The Samaritan story is Jesus’ answer to a question:

Luke 10:25 NIV

25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

He doesn’t say obey your Bible, have a daily quiet time with God, avoid premarital sex, and vote Republican.

He says be merciful.

Of course, it could be tempting based on this story to think that church should be nothing more than a community service organization.

But that would be missing the point also.

Church has the task of molding our hearts in such a way that we will “go and do likewise” when we see wounded travelers in the world.

But it’s important that we get our hearts right through receiving the gospel instead of immediately jumping to the “go and do likewise” part.

If we aren’t mature and careful, we can read about Jesus hanging out with sinners and think, “Cool! I guess it doesn’t matter who I hang out with!”

But you aren’t getting the point; the point is WHY are you hanging out with them.

There’s no question about Jesus’ motives in hanging out with sinners…He was INFLUENCING THEM TOWARD KINGDOM LIFE AND BEHAVIOR!

He was showing the ones who were kicked to the curb by society MERCY by loving them where they were.

If we help other people out of self-justifying sacrifice, that isn’t mercy; that’s self-righteous paternalism and it can do more damage than good.

That’s why we need to receive God’s mercy in order to become God’s mercy.

When you show mercy as one who lives under mercy, then you will do so in a way that cherishes the dignity of the person who is receiving that mercy, because you know that the mercy has its source in God rather than you.

Many of our actions, especially in this self-centered, social media kinds world, are self-focused and are shouting LOOK AT ME!

When we act out of the mercy we have been shown by God, we are saying LOOK AT MY JESUS!

CLOSE: Have you recieved His mercy? Until you do there is no way to act in His mercy.

Matthew 9:13 NIV

13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Church, learn what this means!

Acting in the mercy that has been shown to us is the only way to ensure we are acting in God’s will and not our own.

I pray that each of you receives the wonderful mercy of God in your life.

Let us pray...