Who I AM - Merciful
Who I AM • Sermon • Submitted
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In the last several weeks...
In the last several weeks...
We are on a mission to attempt to describe God. By using human words and human concepts.
I’m not sure about you but this is an overwhelming task. I find myself writing a paragraph, saying it out loud and then having to scrap the whole thing to write it over and over again.
I am trying to use human words, human understanding to describe the indescribable. God is God, we can observe, we can pray, we can seek out the Holy Spirit but we cannot know the vastness and the “unknown-ness” of God.
People lots smarter than I put into words, concepts and actions and try and predict what God is going to do given a certain set of circumstances.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out God doesn’t operate in those terms he has his own mind, the only who can say what He is going to do is himself.
The term we attach to God’s mind, His will and His ways is God’s Sovereignty.
Please don’t get me wrong… I’m not saying that God is arbitrary. God has a perfect will, He has a perfect plan, He knows what he wants.
I believe that He wants ALL of us, the people that He created.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
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Its called the Imago Dei to act in the way that he created us. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for us to wander away. We wanted to be like God, we wanted to have the knowledge of God.
5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
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Even after that disobedience, even after that slap in the face to God. God came looking for them.
9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
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Since then, God has been chasing us, and in the process He has redeemed us by the once for all sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross.
Why would He do that..?
Because He knew… He knew that we, His humans were going to wander and He was going to have to come looking for us.
You see we all have an opportunity, a choice to make, to we follow the will and ways of God or do we go off on a tangent and need REDEMPTION?
Well if you have been with us more than a day and half you must realize that we ALL need REDEMPTION. That redemption from our choice to sin is only found in a relationship with Jesus.
Who does God want to redeem? EVERYONE… But not everyone will take the free gift that is offered. Not everyone will see their sin as a roadblock to God. They have a better way.
We haven’t brought out the proverbial mirror lately… this is the mirror that you look into.
The first thing that you see is a reflection of yourself. With all of your imperfections, will all of your scars, all of your pain, all of your sin. You see yourself as a wreck.
Then we meet God, and we begin, in the shadows, to see a reflection of Christ. At first we recoil because on the sins that we have done. But God is patient and He is merciful, God is full of Grace. The longer that we walk with him the more the reflection in the mirror begins to look like Jesus.
All of our scars, all of our hurts, all of our past fades away into the distance and finally, finally when we reach our home, we no longer have a need to use this mirror. Because we will see Jesus face-to-face.
God is available to each and every one of His humans. But there is only one way to God.
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
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That is the easiest and the hardest statement to swallow hands down...
That is easiest for those who look back and see a time and space in our lives when we surrendered our lives to Christ.
That is the hardest for those who cannot consider adjusting their lives to live according to God’s direction.
As we have journeyed the last several weeks we have looked at
The infinite-ness of God
The immensity of God
The Goodness of God
The Justice and Righteousness of God
And this week… The Mercy of God!!
This is the place where we could divert off into this LONG and TERRIBLY deep discussion about the God’s Sovereign Plan as stated by Paul in Romans 9 and following.
We will talk about some of the elements of those chapters of course but let’s focus now on the Mercy of God, stated in the Old Testament and revealed in the New Testament.
BIG IDEA — WHAT IS OUR RESPONSE TO GOD’S MERCY???
POINT#1 - HOW DOES GOD’S MERCY MOLD AND SHAPE HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS?
As I have said before, how God acts and reacts to us is in large part a mystery.
God came into my life, at 25 years old, I was married to a Preachers kid and I had no idea how to be married, how to love her. Very quickly she figured out that we needed to return to church. I went along… And soon discovered what was missing for 25 years… The Grace and Mercy of God that is only found in Jesus Christ.
I knew nothing… Never had picked up a Bible, didn’t know any of the stories, didn’t think I needed to know.
So how do think that worked… poorly.
I heard the Gospel and it changed my life and can change yours. Here’s what we need to do… Open our eyes, open our ears.
We can get a glimpse of who He is, a look at His Mercy as well as any of His attributes by reading His word… The Bible. You don’t have to be a scholar, or a Pastor, or a teacher to understand His attributes.
Read SCRIPTURE!!!
As you read the Holy Spirit will lead, guide and direct you to what you need to hear and understand.
Such is the tension that we explore today!
Last week we zeroed in on His Justice and Righteousness this week
GODS’S MERCY IS ___________
You fill in that blank… How do you understand His Mercy?
At least a 150 times in scripture God’s Mercy is called on and/or attempted to be explained.
We are going to try for 151...
Fortunately God does not keep score, fortunately God is not competitive, fortunately God understands our every move before we do and understands our beginning and end before we do.
POINT#2 - GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY REVEALS HIS MERCY
The story of redemption from Genesis to Revelation is possible only because the sovereign God loves the created world, fallen though it is, and is willing and able to be Merciful to us. .
Without the sovereign love and Mercy of the Father ministered to us through the Son and the Holy Spirit, there would be no real human freedom and no hope of everlasting life and God Justice and Righteousness would eat us alive
POINT#3 - GOD’S MERCY HAS ROOTS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
As we discussed a bit ago… In the Garden after Adam and Eve sinned by eating from the tree of good and evil, God came after them. God still wanted a relationship with them He was MERCIFUL towards them
9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
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It was at that point that God started showing Mercy to us!
Instead of just wiping them off the earth, He knew, from this point forward he was going to have to be Merciful.
God’s Mercy forms that foundation of our understanding of God.
8 The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.
9 He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever;
10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.
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God has a deep understanding of who we are and how we respond to our world. He is ready and willing to have Mercy on us!
Moses did His best to lead his people in the way that God expected. He had mixed results… So Moses on his second trip up the mountain to get the Ten Commandments.
5 Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord.
6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,
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God gave Mercy where he intended and punishment where necessary.
POINT# 4 - MERCY IS NOT SOMETHING GOD “HAS.” MERCY IS WHAT GOD “IS.” HE IS MERCY!
There has been a lot of bad theology teaching that says that the Old Testament is a book of punishment and rules, and the New Testament is a book of tenderness and grace.
But do you know that while both the Old Testament and the New Testament declare the mercy of God.
The word mercy appears in the Old Testament four times as often as in the New
You cannot divide the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament.
Same God,
Same Sovereignty,
Same Grace and
Same Mercy
POINT# 5 - GOD’S GOODNESS IS THE SOURCE OF HIS MERCY.
God’s infinite Goodness is taught throughout the entire Bible
God truly desires us to be happy… And blesses us beyond measure to make allow us to choice happiness. But…
WE MUST TAKE PLEASURE IN HIM!
7 I will tell of the kindnesses of the Lord, the deeds for which he is to be praised, according to all the Lord has done for us— yes, the many good things he has done for the house of Israel, according to his compassion and many kindnesses.
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He also feels and responds to our distress
9 In all their distress he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
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We have talked a lot about God, His Mercy in the Old Testament.
I hope that you have a picture in your mind of the Mercy that is God.
Jesus as part of the mystery of the Trinity actively used the ministry of Mercy.
Jesus in one of the feeding of the many who followed him. Said this...
34 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
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Jesus cared about the situation for the 5000 people that followed him… He knew they must eat
37 But he answered, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “That would take eight months of a man’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?”
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So I want to return to our BIG IDEA for today.
BIG IDEA — WHAT IS OUR RESPONSE TO GOD’S MERCY???
We who have received mercy must show mercy.
We must pray that God will help us to show mercy.
We’ve received it; we’ve got to show it.
This Mercy that God gives us can only be given if we understand that Christ died for us… As an act of Mercy. In some respects He didn’t want to. BUT HE DID. As the ultimate act of Mercy towards us.
Our great and glorious Father God, sent His only Begotten Son to die in our place at the hands of a Just and Righteous God.
SO THAT WE WILL NEVER HAVE TO!!
There is another benefit to the Mercy of God… It happens when we approach the Throne of God in Heaven. Christ is being honored and glorified by legions upon legions of Angels all saying without end
12 In a loud voice they sang: “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!”
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Over and Over and Over
But he has NOT forgot us… He has not forgotten you and I. he has not forgotten all of our tears, all of our agonies, all of our disappointments, He loves us… individually.
He has had boundless Mercy for us. He know how much we desperately needed Him and how much we actually called on Him.
Keep searching… Keeping talking to Him… Keep reading His word… Keep coming together in fellowship. He will NOT give up on you if you don’t give up on him.
God understands our pain… Let him mercifully take your pain and replaced it with “Joy in the Morning.”
A final question for you..? I cannot answer for you. But I want you to. On your way out let me know your answer. or text me or call me or come and see me.
Here is that recurring question.
GODS’S MERCY IS ___________