Mercy Me
Notes
Transcript
Giving mercy is giving people what they don’t deserve. This is a terrible business and life strategy and is an open invitation to be taken advantage of. Mercy, like meekness, is usually seen as weakness and poor judgment. Good news in the Kingdom: we will receive mercy. What we deserve is death and damnation… but God.. rich in mercy… made us alive (Eph 2:4-8).
Free Rent
Free Rent
I was a terrible landlord.
We moved here to Colorado at the end of 2007, kept our place in Colorado and rented it out. Because that was a brilliant decision and there was no real estate disaster coming in 2008.
But I was a terrible landlord.
Not like a slumlord, or something. The place was nice, we kept up on repairs, the rent was competitive.
I was a terrible landlord on the “making money” part of things.
Forgiving rent again and again, late rent again and again, and by the time I ran out of all patience and got them evicted… they owed thousands and thousands of dollars.
Now we could say that I was “merciful” to my tenants. Kind. That’s the positive spin.
Or we could say I was… Unwise. Soft. Weak. Lazy.
Soft-hearted… and I let people take advantage of me.
There’s a whole mix of motivations in there. Yes, I felt bad, there was compassion in there, kindness in there. But there was also “the path of least resistance.” It’s a whole thing to find new tenants, to get current tenants evicted when they’re still under lease, or to go after back rent in small claims court...
So it’s mercy, sure… but it isn’t necessarily, inherently a “good” thing.
Beatitudes Recap
Beatitudes Recap
And here comes Jesus. Calling out to the broken, to the undeserving. The spiritually bankrupt, the meek, the mourners, those who are hungry and thirst for righteousness because they don’t have it…
And here he turns to the “merciful.”
Congratulations on being merciful. They shall receive “mercy.”
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
We are so conditioned to hear “mercy” and think good things… it’s hard to hear it fresh.
What is this, really? We understand “mercy” through the lens of “justice.”
Justice - getting exactly what you deserve.
Justice - getting exactly what you deserve.
Plato and Aristotle: Justice, as fairness, means that people get exactly what they deserve - no more, no less.
Mercy: Not getting what you deserve.
Mercy: Not getting what you deserve.
Mercy is first an emotion, a “pathos”, it is the feeling of pity or compassion when you see someone else’s circumstances. Particularly when you see them about to get punished, or reap unfortunate consequences.
Criminals, lawyers, even in ancient times, are taught to try and elicit this emotion in the judge, for example. The way they dress, the way they act, the things they say, all of it to evoke pity or compassion.
But that’s not mercy yet.
Mercy then takes action. It is the act motivated by the emotion. I feel compassion, and I act in such a way to make you feel better, make your situation better, lessen your punishment.
Mercy also implies a position of power or responsibility. You are after all in the position to either give someone what they deserve… or not.
The Game Mercy
The Game Mercy
We used to play this game, for some reason, I mostly remember playing with my Mom, not my Dad. Mercy… where you interlock fingers and then seek to bring the other person into submission. You can twist your hands around, bend their fingers back… or my Mom always dug her nails in… until the other person cried out “Mercy!”
I remember the day I grew stronger than my Mom, could twist her hands around, ignore her nails, and have her start bowing in front of me… and it actually felt awful. Wrong. I’m hurting my Mom.
I don’t remember actually making her call out “mercy...” I felt the compassion, I felt awful for hurting her, and I let up. Even though she may have deserved a tiny bit of payback. Maybe.
I mean, childbirth is a thing, so maybe not.
But… we call the game “mercy...” but it isn’t quite. Just not torturing my own mother is not mercy. I’m not punching you in the face right now, is that mercy?
No… because you probably (maybe) don’t deserve to be punched in the face right now.
How do you put those two together. Mostly we, humans, we don’t.
Three Strikes
Three Strikes
California law: three strikes and you’re out.
Colorado has this too. In the 90s, 20 something states passed these kinds of laws.
The Act was part of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act, whose purpose was to address the problem of crime in society. The goals of the Sentencing Reform Act were to reduce unwarranted disparity, increase certainty and uniformity, and correct past patterns of undue leniency for certain categories of serious offenses.
(And now, there is no crime in California).
The point is not whether this law is good or bad, or effective or not. Think about the motivation behind it.
Why? Because judges were soft on crime. We had to force the judges to be more just… to punish criminals more harshly, to cut recidivism.
Mercy is a “problem to be corrected” in justice. While all the people involved are justice, and everyone agrees that sometimes you should show mercy… they rarely agree on actually when that is.
So let’s use some different words for mercy.
Blessed are the “bleeding hearts.”
... “lenient.” the “indulgent.” The “negligent.” The “permissive”, the “coddling”.
Those too soft-hearted to do what they are supposed to do. Too “nice” to do the right thing.
Because everyone wants justice for the one who hurt them… and mercy for themselves.
These are diametrically opposed foes. Mercy and Justice.
What you deserve… or not.
And yet, somehow
God does… toward us.
Mercy and Justice
Mercy and Justice
19 And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.
Remember the Story of Hosea? Or the “Redeeming Love” version?
God commands the prophet Hosea to marry Gomer. A prostitute. And she runs away again, at least twice, rejecting life and love with Hosea and choosing a return to prostitution. Adultery.
And Hosea has the power, the authority, the right to divorce her… in fact there is an argument that he becomes unclean, both ritually and maybe literally, by taking her back.
But again and again, even though she deserves being abandoned to the consequences of her own choices… God sends Hosea after her.
And then says, this is the way I love you, my children, Israel… this is the way I love you.
Though you betray me again and again, and though justice might demand your death and destruction, God brings us back.
How does he do that?
How does God bring together justice and mercy. Two diametrically opposed foes.
How can He give us what we deserve… and not give us what we deserve?
God cannot simply set aside Justice. Justice flows out of the character of God, it isn’t an abstract concept that He likes… it arises from who He is.
Because He is perfect love, because He is perfect, because He is Holy, because He is consistent, and wise… He is Just and He is Justice. It is impossible to “turn it off.”
And Justice demands our death.
If a person is going bungee jumping, it isn’t mean to tell them the consequences of taking off their harness and jumping without the rope. If you separate yourself from the very source of life, screaming about your independence while jumping to your death… You’re going to die. That’s inevitable, it’s natural, it’s exactly what you have chosen.
God is just and always will be.
So how, in his “steadfast love” does He show mercy?
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.
This is the natural consequence of your choices. Dead in your transgressions and sins.
But...
And hear is one of the Biggest Buts in the Bible.
YOU WERE DEAD! And you deserved it! BUT!!!!!!!!!!!!
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,
Here’s how this works. We’ve come up with all these different names for how the cross works.
Substitutionary: Jesus died instead of us on the cross. Taking our place. That’s true, but it’s just part of it.
Ransom theory: Jesus died to purchase our freedom from sin and death, our “ticket price” to heaven.
Victor theory: Jesus wins and brings us as the spoils of victory.
All of those are true, but here’s my favorite.
Vicarious atonement. Similar to substitution… but over and over again the New Testament uses this phrase “in Christ.”
We are united with him in death… and so united with him in resurrection.
God reattaches the bungee cord. Jesus jumps out of the plane with a parachute on and then straps himself to you.
So, Justice, you experience the full payment of your sin in Christ. It’s just that He takes on the actual sin and death of it. He takes your punishment, your death, voluntarily… because of the great love with which he loves us.
And, because He is holy and perfect, because He is God, God the Father raises the Son to new life…
And because you are in Christ, you come along into life and inheritance and life more abundant.
So perfect Justice is served.
And perfect mercy is given.
Because of the great love with which he has loved us.
So, Jesus says, blessed are the merciful… they shall receive mercy.
And HE IS THE ONE who is the vehicle of mercy, standing before them, already on the three year road that will lead to his vicarious atonement, his death for their sins.
You shall receive the beautiful mercy of Jesus. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Invitation:
Maybe you are ready for some mercy today? Ready to receive the beautiful mercy of Jesus, forgiveness of your sins, healing and life eternal.