God Is Merciful
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
How far do you have to go—what sin do you have to commit—before God will no longer forgive?
It is a question that people all around us are asking either directly or indirectly. Often it is phrased more like a statement than a question: “God can’t forgive me.” Sometimes even Christians think this. Is it true?
To answer the question, we must talk about the biblical concept of mercy. It is part of a twin concept (mercy & grace) that is foundational to Christianity and to having a relationship with God as our Heavenly Father.
Definitions
Mercy is not getting what I do deserve
Grace is getting what I do not deserve
It is important to know that mercy and grace work together, but as we focus on mercy—not getting what I do deserve—our definition might prompt another, telling, question. If I don’t get what I do deserve, than what do I get? In a word forgiveness. When God, or people, extend mercy to us, they give us forgiveness instead ow whatever we really deserve.
But that brings us back to the question. How far does God’s mercy reach? Can I go so far that God will not forgive?
Transition
Moses, in the book of Deuteronomy, addressed this question because he knew that people would eventually ask it.
Illumination
The people that Moses was addressing were the people of Israel. They had been wandering around the Sinai Peninsula for 40 years but were now assembled just east of the land of Canaan and would soon enter the land that God had promised them. A entire generation had passed since God delivered this people from slavery in Egypt. Moses would not be joining them in the Promised Land. Deuteronomy was his last reminder of all the things they needed to know when they went into the land.
15 “Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 16 lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, 18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth. 19 And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage. 20 But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be His people, an inheritance, as you are this day.
23 Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you. 24 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
The instruction is pretty clear: God is a spirit and does not have a physical form, so do not diminish Him by trying to represent with any physical form.
25 “When you beget children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, and act corruptly and make a carved image in the form of anything, and do evil in the sight of the Lord your God to provoke Him to anger, 26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess; you will not prolong your days in it, but will be utterly destroyed. 27 And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you. 28 And there you will serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. 29 But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30 When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey His voice 31 (for the Lord your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.