Senior Pastor Damein Schitter continues our series on the Beatitudes, preaching about mercy, or tender-hearted compassion
Hello everyone. This is Pastor Damian. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando. At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life. For more resources, visit our website at NewCityOrlandocom. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2:Please remain standing as we ask the Lord to illuminate our hearts together, Out of mercy. The covenant promises in your eternal Word do not change. Holy Spirit, enable us to respond to your gracious promises with faithful and obedient hearts through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Speaker 2:Our scripture reading today comes from Matthew 5, verses 1 through 12. Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain and when he sat down, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you, when others revile against you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. This is God's word. Thanks be to God.
Speaker 1:Well, good morning. My name is Damien, I'm the senior pastor and I'm grateful to get to preach again this morning and keep us moving through the Beatitudes, which is our sermon series here leading up to Easter, and today we've come to the Beatitude. Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy, and I want to invite us to consider this by telling a story about a man named Joe. So Joe worked in a startup tech company and at the time I'm about to tell you about six months in to the company and things were beginning to look possible Maybe not probable yet, but possible and Joe was a hard worker. But Joe found himself in serious trouble. He had made a series of risky and ultimately bad decisions that led to a massive loss for the company nearly a million dollars and this was a lot for this company at this point, and the CEO and founder was an understanding leader, but Joe expected punishment. So the leader calls him in to his office and, of course, joe's expecting the worst. He was prepared to lose his job and, because of the nature of his decisions, actually thought that legal action could be on the table. He wasn't sure what was going to happen and so the founder of the company reviewed the situation, invited Joe in and he began to recount Joe's past contributions to this young company and, seeing Joe's genuine remorse and understanding the impact of losing his job would have on Joe's family, this founder decided to have mercy. Joe, he said I'm going to give you another chance. I know that means we're going to have to absorb the losses, but you can continue working here. It's considered the matter closed, but it is very important that you learn from this.
Speaker 1:So, as you can imagine, joe was overwhelmed with gratitude. He couldn't believe the mercy that he had just been shown. But what was so interesting was about a week later Joe was in one of his direct reports named was Tim, and Joe discovered that Tim had accidentally overcharged a client by $200. It was a mistake and an email and Joe the one that the founder had forgiven confronted Tim angrily in front of his peers and, despite Tim's apologies and explanation that it was an honest mistake, joe demanded that Tim be penalized and even threatened to take the matter to HR. He showed no willingness at all to forgive this small mistake. So eventually, word of Joe's harsh treatment of Tim reached the founder of the company and, disappointed, he called Joe again into his office. And he said Joe, I forgave you a tremendous debt, I showed you mercy, yet you refused to show even a fraction of that mercy to Tim, who made a tiny mistake in comparison. Have you learned nothing from my grace and mercy toward you? The founder went on to say because you've shown no willingness to embody the values we hold dear at this company, I'm afraid we can no longer keep you on our team. And with that, joe was let go, not just for his initial mistake, no, but rather for failing to extend the mercy that he himself had received.
Speaker 1:Now, if that sounds familiar to you, it's because I rewrote the parable that Jesus tells of the ungrateful servant. That's from Matthew 18. I took pieces of Jesus's story of the man who the master had forgiven a great debt and he turns him away, and that man who had been forgiven exacts a small, tiny debt from a servant of his. And so I wanted to put it in a different context, maybe closer to our context, where we could understand what is so insane about receiving great mercy and failing to be merciful. You see, what this parable ultimately is communicating is the reality of a direct relationship between giving and receiving mercy, between grace and gratitude. You see, in this beatitude, jesus invites us to a world of mercy, in the life of the kingdom that he's bringing.
Speaker 1:And so, this morning, what I want to do is explore the reality of mercy in Jesus's world, and we're going to do that by exploring that the kingdom of this world is a kingdom of merit, but the kingdom of the heavens is a kingdom of mercy. Merit versus mercy, in fact, that's it. That is the only point today, and it's actually a question, thank you. It's a question, and that is do you live and I mean you and me, do you live in a world of Mercy or merit? That's the question, that's the question that the beatitude invites us into today. That's the only question I want to explore Do you live in a world of mercy or merit? And I need you to know that I'm using the word world in a technical sense, but don't be scared, because you'll easily understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:So there's an author named Christopher Watkin, and he talks about how Christians have used the term worldview, which is fine, but he invites us to consider something a little more practical, something a little more visceral, and that is to consider that Christians are invited not only to a worldview but to a world and what he's doing is Think about this. We use this term regularly. You might say, well, that was true of the Victorian world, or that's true in the workaday world, or well, that would be possible in the world of Harry Potter, or the world of Lord of the Rings, or in the world of fantasy football, or in the world of the country club. Right, you see, when we talk about this, we talk about your world, or when your world, or well, in my world, well, in their world? Right, we use this idea.
Speaker 1:What are we talking about when we use this concept of world? We're talking about a mix of artifacts, ideas, styles, institutions, attitudes, rules. Right, in the world of Harry Potter, you can cast spells, but not in our world. You see, the world that you and I live in, around us, is a world of merit, with ideas and institutions and rules, and Because we live in a world of merit, we're called to embody the rules of that world. But what Jesus invites us into when we place our trust in him, is actually to live within a different world. In that world, you see, jesus sends us back into the world of merit, but he actually transferred us into a different world, the world of his kingdom or the world of mercy. And so Jesus, in this beatitude, is inviting us to inhabit what's actually core to God's heart, which is the world of mercy and all that comes with it. You see, a world of merit is a world where we always get what we deserve.
Speaker 1:Mercy is not a virtue in this world, it is a weakness, because in that world of merit you can be take advantage of if you show mercy. We think about this as parents. We we try to parent gospel center, but we actually parent like behaviorists. We're afraid, if we show mercy, that they won't learn. Well, they might learn, but what about when you're not in the room? You see, the reality is is Jesus invites us to a world of heart change fueled by a world of mercy. Now, it's not new, this world of merit and seeing the world of mercy as a demerit, as one author put it.
Speaker 1:Classical philosophers even taught that mercy, indeed, is not governed by reason at all, and humans must learn to curb the impulse of mercy. Why? Because the cry of the undeserving for mercy must go unanswered. Because pity was a defective character, unworthy of the wise, and excusable only in those who had not yet grown up, in other words, only in those who didn't understand how the world works. We use that, don't we? Well, how does the real world work, pastor? Well, the invitation is into a different world in the midst of what you're thinking of as the real world. And so do you live in a world of merit or mercy? Jesus is calling us to inhabit a different world, his world, the true world.
Speaker 1:Now, what I want to point out here is that the emphasis in this beatitude is on receiving mercy, not giving it, and I want to show you what I mean. You see, in the world of merit, we read this verse as a type of earning mercy. So what we read is blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy, and what we hear is oh so the, though it's a transaction. In order to receive mercy, I must give mercy first. Well, that is the right reading in the world of merit, but in the world of mercy, which Jesus lives in and invites you into, that's actually not the right reading. Why? Look with me closely? Look with me closely.
Speaker 1:Jesus doesn't say blessed are the merciful, for they shall be given mercy. He says blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. God is constantly giving you and everyone mercy. The breath in your lungs is all mercy. He's good and gives his mercy to all. The psalmist says he's constantly giving his mercy. Without his mercy you would be dead. The very fact that there's a change in pressure right now to draw from your diaphragm into your lungs oxygen is you in a sense receiving God's mercy because he's giving you air to breathe. The question is are you receiving his mercy? That's the question. You can't earn mercy by mercy. You can't earn forgiveness by forgiveness.
Speaker 1:The point of this beatitude is that we simply cannot give the mercy and forgiveness of God unless we first repent and receive the mercy and forgiveness of God. And we cannot claim to have received his mercy and forgiveness if we are unmerciful towards the sins of others. That's the whole point of the ungrateful servant. Did he really receive the master's mercy? The clear answer is no, because if he truly received the master's mercy, he would have given mercy. The opposite of mercy is a vindictiveness, it's a scarcity mentality, it's a I must get mine, I must run out, I get, but I don't give.
Speaker 1:To say it another way, jesus's point here is that we cannot give mercy unless we first received it. Isn't that simpler? We cannot give what we have not received. So if you and I struggle with being merciful, it is not your biggest problem that you're not merciful. That is not your biggest problem. If you cannot and are not merciful, that's actually not your biggest problem. Your biggest problem is that you have not or will not receive God's mercy, because if you did receive God's mercy you would be merciful.
Speaker 1:This is what Jesus is saying. It's just true. God is constantly giving you his mercy. The question is will you receive it? And the larger question is do you live in a world of mercy or do you live in a world of merit? You see, the reason it's hard to receive mercy is because it's against everything in the world of merit, everything it grates at the world of merit because it's not just an idea of sympathy, it's not just an idea of mercy, it's not just an idea of grace, it's accepting and giving true mercy and true grace to true failure, to actual failure. That's real, that hurts people, that loses money, that breaks relationships, that betrays people. And real mercy is received and given in that place, not in an ideal fantasy land. To receive mercy is when you know you don't deserve it. That's why you grate against it, because you know you don't deserve it. But Jesus is constantly inviting us, wooing us, as we've been singing this morning at the heart of who he is his mercy.
Speaker 1:Now listen, if you're a Christian in this room and I imagine that most of you are I invite you to remember those moments, either when you first became a Christian, if, like me, you came to Christ as an adult, or if you remember back to your childhood, or even last week. Think about that joy of salvation when you truly are overwhelmed and almost undone by the fact that there's nothing you can do to earn God's love. Think about a time when that actually happened to you, when you were overwhelmed by this reality that, in the face of your failure and choosing sin, in choosing idolatry, in choosing addiction, god met you there in his mercy. Think about the joy and life that that gives. And what I want to invite you to consider is that when you and I have lost that joy and that gratitude, it's most likely because we've slipped back into the world of merit. Instead of living and basking in the world of mercy, we've just slipped back in.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about the world of merit, because it's not just outside the church, it seeps its way in to the church. The world of merit is rooted in a narrative of your performance. That's where it's rooted. It's birthed from a story of your performance. In his book the Reason for God, tim Keller writes that God's grace and mercy break decisively from this performance narrative.
Speaker 1:The performance narrative is when we attempt to ground our status before God, either partly or wholly, in our performance in any number of morality or rituals. So here's in the church. How's your quiet time going? Oh, you haven't been doing it. Whoa. When's the last time you read your Bible? When's the last time you prayed? When's the last time you gave money? Oh, you're not a very good Christian.
Speaker 1:Or what about your productivity? You know, I'm just not what I think I ought to be. I'm just not performing up to the standards that I have for myself and that I believe others have for me. You know, my patience is so thin, my anger is so quick. I just destroy relationships around me and, of course, god remains distant from me. You see, if your status and my status before God is shaken by your performance in these areas, you are living in a world of merit. You just are, and God's inviting you to a world of mercy with all of its practices and all of its ideas and all of its fuel. You see the world of merit, and this narrative of performance is the air we breathe.
Speaker 1:Author Michael Sandel calls this in his book the tyranny of merit, and the tyranny of merit is namely the assumption that the only factor limiting success is a lack of effort or ability, and we can achieve anything if only we want it desperately enough. That is the message of the narrative of performance and merit, and there's so much truth in that. But the problem is is that when you embody that and you truly believe, your identity is based on the assumption that the only factor limiting your success is your lack of effort or ability, and if you want it bad enough, you will succeed. Problem is is that you will succeed a lot and then all of a sudden, you'll create a hierarchy and anyone else who isn't as disciplined as you, as talented as you, as smart as you, as wealthy as you, as networked as you, automatically you look down on them. Your whole world now is a world of hierarchy and merit, which is fundamentally against the kingdom of God and his invitation to the world of mercy, as one author said, so both in terms of religion and in terms of daily life, we rate our success and our worthiness by our performance, and the performance narrative is prominent in contemporary culture. It shapes our attitudes to almost everything and then it creates divisions between those who are justified or right and those who aren't, that is, those who are wrong.
Speaker 1:So this author goes on and talks about, for example, politics is a classic example. Both political liberals and political conservatives, for example, draw such lines. Conservatives may draw a line between those who live by traditional values and those who scorn traditional values, considering the first group, that is, those who live by traditional values, as justified and maybe deserving of mercy, which is a contradiction, whereas liberals may draw a line between those who are actively working for what they would call an inclusive society and those who are not, once more, considering the first group as justified. You see, we could go a million ways. We could talk about denominations, we could talk about all sorts of things, and right now you're nervous. You're saying listen, there really is right and there really is wrong. Yeah, I know, but the reality is is do you find your justification in being right? Do you find your identity in being right or out of a faithfulness to God and reality. You wanna get to the bottom of it and see what's right and you wanna invite people in, not as enemies but as fellow sojourners. This is a question because in the world of merit, we might give some mercy to those who are in our camp, but definitely not those who are not in our camp. Why? Because they don't deserve it. So my question is do you live in a world of merit or do you live in a world of mercy?
Speaker 1:Let me tell you about my first memory of mercy I have as a child. Growing up, it was normal for my parents to invite people to live in our house. It was so against my nature. It was confusing to me as a child. I was in first, second grade. I remember regularly my dad was a sales engineer. He would go around and he would just bring people home with him. This happened with some regularity and then he would just tell us hey, listen, jim is having a hard time and he works over at such and such, and I saw him today and he's just gonna stay for a couple nights with us until he gets back on his feet. I was like what if he comes upstairs and hurts me? I mean as a child. And I was like no, it's okay, he's gonna be fine, I promise. Do you even know Jim? So this was normal. Another thing that was less hard for me, but still annoying, was that my family would regularly invite extended family on hard times to come and live with us. This would happen for weeks, months. One time it happened for two years, and that's the story I wanna tell you is the one that happened for two years.
Speaker 1:So one of the things as a child this is a test, not I don't know what it's of, but you can fail. So here it is. Do you know what a silver dollar is? A 50 cent piece. What would you call them? Anybody Would you call the silver dollar? Yeah, maybe a half dollar, a 50 cent piece? What do you call it? I'm sorry, don't I put him on the spot. He was like do you really want me to say it? I get it sometimes I'm rhetorical. Right then I was really searching for help. So the reality is is that you can call different things, but it is an actual coin worth 50 cents and as a child I haven't seen one in a long time.
Speaker 1:As a child, I collected these so much of them my grandparents when they would go to the bank. They would just ask if there were any 50 cent pieces half dollars, whatever you call them and I collected them over time and at one point I had a couple of $100 of these things and my cousin who was living with us. Eventually, I mean, this was my treasured possession and I hid it and the only people who knew where it was were me and my parents. Well, eventually I let my cousin in, who was living with us. I wanted to show them where it was and we talked about it and they were like, oh, this is amazing, that's really cool. So then, some time later I don't know how long later it was I had two or three more half dollars that I had been given from my grandfather and I go into my secret stash to put them in there, and at least half of them were gone.
Speaker 1:Now, as a first grader, this is tragic. It's more than just wrong or annoying right. It's just money that can pay you back, but not in half dollars. And you see, what happened was is that I was not only angry, I was vindictive, I was judgmental. I wanted them out of our house. I was never gonna talk to them again and I remember my parents sitting me down and explaining to me essentially about mercy.
Speaker 1:Now, they didn't open the Bible we didn't read the Bible in my family but what they taught me was that I didn't get it because eventually I too would recognize that I do evil and wrong things too. And this wasn't like a just covered over everyone does bad things. It was a listen, damien, eventually you'll understand that you too will need mercy, that you too will transgress trust, you will rupture relationships and you will need mercy and forgiveness, and you need to learn this now. I'll never forget that that conversation has shaped me in some ways. I still think about it sometimes. I remember I was sitting on the foot of their bed as they stood and my mom had her hand on my shoulder and they're telling me about this and I'm crying. And they invited me to exercise mercy, but they didn't say do mercy, give mercy, because it's the right thing. They invited me to consider first the mercy that I had already received. It was really powerful.
Speaker 1:Now, listen, I need to say, of course, at this moment that grace and mercy don't mean there's no moral right or wrong. It simply erases any hierarchy of value of right or wrong. This is what I mean. Listen, when it comes to the gospel, the criterion for being on the right side is not mercy. I mean, is mercy not performance? That's it. That's the only foundation of you. Being right with God is his mercy has nothing to do with your performance.
Speaker 1:Those who are saved by grace are not those who are smarter than others, more rational than others, better behaved than others, kinder or humbler or more generous than others, or better by any other criterion of performance whatsoever. Those who are saved by grace are saved despite their performance, not because of it. God didn't choose you because you were lovely. He chose you because he loved you and he's gonna make you lovely. That's the gospel. That's mercy versus merit.
Speaker 1:If I claim to be a Christian and do not acknowledge that my enemies are very possibly more moral and more intellectual, superior to me, more intellectually superior to me, I have simply failed to understand the gospel of Christ. I am still operating according to the performance narrative, the narrative of merit, not according to the narrative of grace and mercy. There is nothing in you that makes you deserving of God's love. There never has been, there never will be, and even as I say it, it just doesn't seem quite right to be honest with you, but it's the truth. Do you live in a world of merit or do you live in a world of mercy? I'm gonna give one practical example and then for the rest of our time which isn't a lot I'm just going to wash over us with grace, wash over us with God's heart of mercy. Because if I emphasized on you giving mercy this morning in the second half of the sermon, I think it would be inconsistent with everything I've just said. What I think our biggest problem is is that we need to learn how to receive God's mercy afresh so that in that receiving it overflows into the giving of mercy.
Speaker 1:But here's a practical example. Say, someone at work steals your idea, and I don't mean a small one, the idea that unlocks the whole project, the idea that unlocks the actual product of the problem you're trying to solve. You've tried dozens of products, but you're still committed to the same problem, and then this particular suggestion just unlocks it, creates a new workflow, opens a new group of customers, and you've been having a conversation with this person, and this person just steps up and takes your idea. Now, if you live in the world of merit, you have a few options. One you can just call him out right there. Jim, that's my idea.
Speaker 1:We talked about it right then. Remember, there's a room full of people. What is everyone gonna do? What's wrong with Damien? You could do that, go for it. You could humiliate him or her. You can try to get your credit, that's fine. I don't even know if that's always wrong. Second, maybe you talk to your manager after the meeting, but let me ask you this what will you say? Hey, listen, that idea that moved the whole company forward. I'm really upset because I didn't get credit for it. It just makes me mad. It was my idea. Your manager says yeah, that's sad, but so are you more concerned with the good of the company or are you? I mean, if I don't get credit, I might not get promoted. Got it, got it, got it.
Speaker 1:You could do that, that's fine. Or you could be merciful. You could step into the world of mercy, which is filled with abundance and not scarcity. You could step into the world of mercy. That knows, you did not come up with that on your own. Anyway, you probably read something and oh that, okay that that. Or you listened to something. Or if you believe in the Holy Spirit, maybe the Holy Spirit sort of carried you along. I'm just that's too much. That's the Bible. Maybe the Holy Spirit in some way opened your eyes to see something.
Speaker 1:What am I saying and what am I not saying? Don't hear what I'm not saying. Don't hear what I'm not saying that you should be okay with toxic work cultures. I'm not saying that you should even not want credit for your ideas. What I'm saying is what world do you live in? And it happens in the smallest things.
Speaker 1:I cannot say that I live in the world of mercy and in that meeting, let it just get under my skin. If that happens to me and to sort of jockey in the rest of the conversation, how can I humbly and christianly remind everyone that this was actually my idea? Listen, do you live in a world of mercy which is filled with abundance and goodness or merit which is filled with vindictiveness, scarcity? Okay, last part is I just want to talk a little bit about God's world of mercy. I'm going to read a lot of Bible and then I'm going to read some quotes and then we're going to be done, and my desire in this is to invite you into what I've spent a little bit of time doing in preparation, which is just letting the reality of God's mercy wash over me so that in turn I can become merciful.
Speaker 1:Because Jesus says that is the flourishing life Not vindictiveness, not scarcity. The flourishing life is found in tender hearted compassion. But God being rich in mercies the only thing God has said that he's rich in in the whole Bible. It's the only time God is rich in anything by name, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses. He made us alive together with Christ. It's by grace you have been saved and he raised us up and seated us with him in the heavenly places so that in the coming ages I love this in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. God just can't wait to keep pouring out on you his mercy and grace and kindness in the Lord Jesus. He just can't wait for that.
Speaker 1:Here's Peter. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not here, it is received mercy, but now you have received mercy. How do you become God's people? Not by giving mercy but by receiving mercy. And once we've become God's people. We receive mercy and overflow. We give mercy.
Speaker 1:Psalm 103,. The Lord is what. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities, for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. If that's not enough, as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions for us. As a father shows compassion same word to his children so the Lord shows compassion or mercy to those who fear him. Psalm 145,.
Speaker 1:The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all and his mercy is over all that he has made. So the question is not will he give mercy to all that he has made and everyone he has made? Will we receive his mercy? As Anselm said, you don't even know who he is. Probably you should read him.
Speaker 1:God, in his bountiful goodness, has, quote a mysterious bias towards mercy. I just love that he has a mysterious bias toward mercy. Well, why? Because he's the fountain of mercy. He's, as one author said, a billionaire in the currency of mercy. Can you imagine if a billionaire picks up lunch for you, even a really nice one, a couple hundred dollars, that's a really nice lunch and then as you're walking out, he's sort of like hey, I have Venmo, so you can just hit me back with that. That's a cash app. If you don't know, people can pay each other on Venmo. That would be insane. Why would it be insane? Because he's a billionaire, why? Why would that be insane? Because billionaires, they just give, they can just give and give. Well, god is a billionaire and in fact he's more than that he's infinite. In the currency of mercy, whatever you withdraw is nothing. It's nothing because it's never ending. That is the kingdom of mercy, not merit.
Speaker 1:So here's the thing if God simply possessed mercy and his true nature was actually something else, he would be limited in the amount of mercy he could offer. But if his fundamental nature of core to his heart is mercy, god is merciful and gracious. Remember when we were in Exodus. Moses said God, reveal to me your glory. And he said the Lord, the Lord, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding, instead fast love and faithfulness. This core of who he is, and because this core of who he is, he can never run out of mercy, ever.
Speaker 1:Charles Spurgeon said it this way he delights in mercy, just as some men delight in trade, some in the arts, some in professions, and each man according to his delight. This thing about what are you delight in? This is what he's trying to draw up in us. Charles Spurgeon, you delight in starting new things, you delight in music, you delight in the work of your hands, you delight in gardening, you delight in national parks, whatever it is. Charles Spurgeon is trying to draw us, even analogically, into this that each man delights in something and according to his delight, he becomes proficient in pursuing a work for that love. So God is proficient in mercy. He addicts himself to it. He is most God-like, most happy as such a thing may be said of him when he is stretching out his right hand with his golden scepter in it and saying to the guilty come to me, touch this scepter and you shall live. He's delighting in his mercy.
Speaker 1:So you say, what's the problem? The problem is this is that you and I are bent in such a way not to receive this mercy, because it blows all of our categories. Out of God's heart flows mercy, but out of ours there's a reluctance to receive it. As one author says, we are cool in calculating ones, not him. He is not, we are. He is open-armed, we are stiff-armed. I love this Well, because I drink coffee. Our naturally decaffeinated views of God's heart might feel right because we're being stern with ourselves, not letting ourselves off the hook too easily, and such sternness feels appropriately and morally serious. It feels appropriate and morally serious.
Speaker 1:But this deflecting of God's yearning, merciful heart does not reflect Scripture's testimony about how God feels toward us or what he invites us to. He invites us to mercy, over and over and over. And some of us this morning, our hearts are hard, they're calcified through bitterness, disappointment, anger, unbelief. But hear me, the way to soften your heart is not toward saying I guess I got to be more merciful. The way to soften your heart is to receive God's mercy. The only way a hard heart is broken down is when wave after wave of mercy washes over, slowly but persistently, turning that hard heart into one that is soft. And so receiving God's mercy I'll leave you with this doesn't reduce motivation in this life.
Speaker 1:Some of you are like well then, what then? Where is obedience? You should be obedient, I mean. There's no doubt about it. But the question is, what is your fuel for obedience? Is it merit? Is it God will be happier with me? No, it's that God wants you to have abundant life, and sin does not lead to abundance. Obedience, faithfulness, leads to abundance. So the point is this is that mercy doesn't reduce our motivation for holiness and obedience or a life of excellence. It just changes the fuel. The fuel switches from gaining God's approval to receiving the gift of his approval, and that's why we long to be wholly in obedient. It switches from a fuel of performance to that of gratitude, and I promise you this that fuel burns hotter and longer than fear and effort.
Speaker 1:And so this morning I invite you to a flourishing life. Drink from the well of God's abundant mercy, so that then you and I might overflow with mercy and grace to others. Let's pray, oh, father, open our hearts to this truth. Everything in us says this isn't right. It's just quite just not quite right, just a little off. Because of our hardness, because of our sinfulness, because of our doubt. And your goodness, holy Spirit, I ask that you would in fact help us experience and taste the mercy of our God that we've been singing about, your mercy that you pour out in our hearts. I pray that from the joy and relief that we experience, that from that you would grow in us a desire for holiness and obedience. And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this is the time when we reflect for a few moments silently, on what you may have received or heard or thought or felt, and it's a time of prayer. You're responding in prayer, and so I'm going to give you the same question I've been asking the whole time for you to reflect on, and that is are you living in a world of mercy or merit? And maybe ask the Lord to reveal to you what that might mean practically. Now, if there's something else that you wrote down that you'd like to reflect on, of course you're free to do that, but if you're not quite sure, go with that one During this time. Ask the Holy Spirit Am I living in a world of scarcity of merit or of mercy?