Psalm 103:8-18, "The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, nor will he keep his anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him; for he knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass; as a flower of the field so he flourishes. For the wind passes over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children, to such as keep his covenant; and to those who remember his commandments to do them".
Father, we thank you this morning for your great love for us. As this word is brought, I pray Lord that you would annoint me to speak. God, without your help I can do nothing. Father, I pray that our hearts would be open to you and that we would decrease and that you would increase, in Jesus name, amen.
We can't imagine how much God loves us. The truth is we could never fathom the depth of his care for us. My prayer is that by the time you leave this place you would understand how much God deeply cares for you and loves you. On every level of our lives he is interested in us. He interacts with us, not just as a loving father but as our creator; the one who not only looks after us but the one who made us. God has a vested interest in each and every one of us. He made you and I want you to think about that for just a minute. I believe that we all have the mental understanding, almost like in education we can open the textbook and read this and say, I believe that God made me. But if you begin to realize how much your creator really cares for you it will change you.
I'm not very good with my hands or even good at making things but we had a piece of furniture, a dresser, that was brought into our family. We've had it since we were kids, my mom had put several layers of paint on it. I decided one day I was going to strip down this dresser, stain it and make it look good. I want to tell you it was the hardest 3 days of my life but now that dresser sits in our home and it is a piece of work. It is the most beautiful thing I've ever made in all my life. I didn't build it, I just got to strip it down and refinish it, but I did that and now that thing isn't going anywhere. I want you to think about things that you've created, things you've done at home that you care about and really have taken the time to make and how much you treasure that. That's how God feels about us and he knows everything about us. It's one thing to conceive someone and it's another to create them. The creator knows every detail, every intricacy that he's put into it. It is not possible for God to love you any more today or tomorrow because he loves you to the greatest extent that he can and it will never diminish; he loves us that much.
From the time that our children are born we have a prayer that we teach them. Even before we teach them the Lord's prayer, we teach them this one prayer, "God is good, God is great and we thank him for our food". Have you noticed that as adults these are the two areas we struggle in the most? Our kids will say God is good and we serve a great God but somehow as we become adults this becomes an area where we forget how awesome God is and we struggle with how good he really is to us. How many know we serve a good God? God is good and he doesn't change, so that means God is going to be good all the time. We need to get that into our hearts and into our minds that he's a good God.
He's a God of mercy. It's one thing to be good and have that gentleness and kindness as part of your character but it is a different thing entirely to do something with that goodness. Mercy is compassion in action. His mercy is God's goodness being extended into our life everyday. Mercy is not the absence of power. As a matter of fact, mercy is the power of God under control and in control, being given and extended toward our lives. Mercy is withholding justice and judgement when someone deserves punishment. How many parents really understand what mercy is like toward your children? You have the power to deal with something that needs to be done but instead you realize that you're dealing with your children and kindness comes out.
Mercy is helping someone who can't help themselves because it is in their power to help them as it is in God's power to help us. Mercy is stooping down in kindness to someone who may be less fortunate than you, to have pity on them and to be actively compassionate. The mercy of God is always tender, always kind and considerate. His mercy is powerful because when he extends his goodness toward us it changes our life completely. Goodness is the source of all mercy. God is good, he's a wonderful God who cares about us.
Last week Dawn and I celebrated our 20th anniversary. We went up into the mountains of Tennessee and rented what we thought was going to be the greatest cabin in the world. We went back into the hills of Tennessee and followed the directions back to our cabin and it was tucked back in the hollow. I've nicknamed that hollow, "Creepy Hollow". We passed a lot of places and homes and a lot of people that scared me. I love the country but I'm still a city boy. God loves and cares for all people but when you talk about Appalachia, you talk about West Virginia or Tennessee and I love these places but it was just creepy. I got to our cabin and was waiting for Uncle Jed with his bucktooth and bottle of Whiskey and his shotgun to come meet me at the door. God loves them too but I was out of my comfort zone. I don't mind going out at night but I made sure every door in that place was locked and when we layed down to go to sleep I think every mattress in that place had rocks and boards underneath it. So I prayed, "God, I love my wife and I want out of this place. We paid a lot of money to be up here". You have to understand, our first anniversary was at Sea World. We ate breakfast at the Golden Arch. How many know when McDonald's only has one arch don't eat there; we were sick the whole time. So here we are celebrating 20 years and saying, "Jesus, it's like the beginning all over again". So I said, "God, have mercy, you're a good God, and I love my wife and kids". I called up and the cabin where we had stayed earlier in the year that we loved the most just became available and we could be in it by 3:00. How many know we serve a good God? Amen.
The goodness of God is his mercy in action. If God could care about us staying in a place that we're comfortable and making a week a beautiful thing then how many know God is going to care about your life in the most perfect way? I want to say it again, God is good.
Psalms 100:5 says, "The Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting and his truth endures to all generations". Psalms 145:9 says, "The Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works". Nahum 1:7 says, "The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble and he knows those who trust in him". That is one of the greatest promises in all the word of God. There is nothing too small you can't trust him with, nothing too small that he won't care about. His mercy is extended to you and me everyday.
We need to get to know these scriptures and stand on them. He is a stronghold in the day of trouble. When things get bad and life has trouble, sometimes we're afraid that we can't even get to God. But God is a stronghold and he is good to those who trust in him. Because God is good we need to remember that he desires our best. He wants us to be happy and healthy, holy and at peace.
The goodness of God means that he takes pleasure in the pleasure of his people. Is there anyone here who really likes to sit back and enjoy watching your kids having a good time? When we were in Tennessee we went tubing down the river with my boys for the first time and that meant we were going to hit some rapids. I love to do that stuff but my boys had never done it. Chris was far ahead of us in his tube. You can have some kids that like to hang with you and others that are trailblazing. Chris had never been in a rapid in his life and he was way ahead of us taking it on. I was just sitting back watching him and it was fun. God enjoys that for us; he takes pleasure in the pleasure of his children. Some people don't get this because they believe God is a hard, angry, stingy God. But God is not stingy with his people. He is generous in what he wants to give to us and to bless us with life.
Psalms 52:1 says, "The goodness of God endures continually". His goodness doesn't run out. Some think that God is not pleased if we're happy. How many know that God wants us to be happy? There are times when God will allow you to go through testing and trials, it's part of life. But those are all meant to make us stronger and better, to equip us so that we have the ability to deal with things in life, so when the hard times come we will know that he's good. A.W. Tozer said, "God takes pleasure in the pleasure of his people provided his people take pleasure in him".
To truly understand the goodness of God we must realize that God doesn't even take pleasure in the suffering of his enemies. I want you to think about that for just a minute. I wish I didn't battle with that in my flesh. That began to change my heart. I remember one time I was driving long distance and some guy had been annoying me on the road and then all of a sudden he wound up flying past me. I saw him 5 minutes later pulled over by the police and I felt good about it. Then God asked me, "How's your attitude? Because I'm not pleased with that". God began to show me that he doesn't take pleasure in the suffering of his enemies. There is not one enemy that could ever stand up to God. The devil tried to stand up to God and he was nothing for God to take care of. He is all powerful and it is nothing for God to look at someone and absolutely vaporize them in an instant but he doesn't because he doesn't take pleasure in the suffering of his enemies. He'll allow them to suffer to teach them. He'll allow them to go through hard times so that they can see they have someone they can turn to. If God doesn't even take pleasure in the suffering of his enemies then he certainly doesn't take pleasure when we're suffering. He cares for us and is there in the midst of it.
The compassion of God is so deep that it moves him to act on our behalf and get involved. Compassion from a distance is sympathy. It's like when you or I are watching television and we see those hungry kids that are bloated and not doing well and we feel emotion for them but it stops at that. Sympathy doesn't require action, it just requires that we acknowledge that something isn't good and we feel bad about it. Sympathy is passive. The moment that we flip the channel on the tv those kids are out of our mind even if we said a prayer for them. But mercy puts it all on the line. It puts action behind the emotion until something is solved. We can have sympathy for the hungry or we can have mercy and feed them. When God has compassion on us, he does something for us. When he saw that we were in sin and we couldn't make a way, he made a way for us and he sent Jesus his son to die on the cross. Not only did he have sympathy but he had compassion and mercy and he did something.
As a church we look at our city and we look at our town around us and we see how many people need Jesus. It is one thing for a church to acknowledge that work needs to be done and it is another thing for a people to have compassion and do something. We can't do everything but we can do something. That's why we keep moving as a church to reach out and to touch our city.
When God has compassion he does four things. In Exodus 2:23-25 it says, "It happened in the process of time that the King of Egypt died and the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage. They cried out and their cry came up to God because of the bondage. So God heard their groaning and remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and God looked upon the children of Israel and acknowledged them".
When we're going through things and we cry out to the Lord it says first that he hears our sighs and groanings. God is not deaf when we call out to him. Secondly he looks at his children and he doesn't turn away. When God hears our cries he knows it's something that needs to be done. He acknowledges it and keeps his eye focused on you. He remembers that he made a covenant with us. Let me ask you, how many of you know Jesus as your Lord and savior? How many have made a covenant with God? "Lord, I will serve you, you are my God and I'm your child". You need to remember this. We are covenant children with God. Even something as simple as being in the mountains of Tennessee and being in "Creepy Hollow", God heard my cry and he saw exactly where I was and he delivered me from all my fears. He heard, he saw and he didn't turn away and he remembered his covenant. I reminded God of his covenant, "God, you said you'd take care of me and my family and I need your help right now". If he cares about something as silly as being in a cabin then he's going to hear and care about the things you're dealing with in your life.
He'll hear our cry and then his word says he acts on our behalf. I want you to remember that God is not lethargic, hard hearted or indifferent. He is kind and the mercy of God is just like his power. The power of God is amazing; it is infinite and boundless, unlimited and so is his mercy. His mercy is powerful and will never cease to come towards us. Many have the idea that God showed mercy because Jesus died for us. Jesus died because God is merciful. God's mercy was already in action before something even happened. Mercy gave us the cross; the cross did not give us God's mercy. God saw that something needed to be done and he gave us Jesus. God never gave up on us and he will never give up on you and me. His mercy will always be extended. If you and I could only grasp that, if we could understand that hope, if we can know him for who he is then we will never be in short supply.
God's mercy didn't start the moment we were saved; it has been in operation all the time. God was always withholding the judgment we deserved. Psalms 103:10-12 says, "He has not dealt with us according to our sins nor punished us according to our iniquities for as the heavens are high above the earth so great is his mercy toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west so far has he removed our transgressions from us". May we never forget how good God has been to us. He's never given us what we deserved, he's always been better to us than we could be to ourselves. May we never become so arrogant that we neglect his love for us.
Lamentations 3:22-23 says, "Through the Lords mercies we are not consumed because his compassions fail not; they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness". As that man, Jeremiah, was writing lamentations he started to say that God hasn't given him what he deserved, he is good to me and all of a sudden it turned to praise, "Great is your faithfulness, O God". Your mercies are new every morning. Everyday I wake up I experience your goodness toward me. Everyday I walk this earth I see how much you care for me. How many, like Jeremiah, feel the same way about your God? The truth is, great is his faithfulness. I want you to remember how faithful God has been. He's not a hard God, he's a faithful God.
God shows mercy because he understands how we were created. Remember we started out talking about him as our creator and that he has a vested interest in us? He has mercy on us because he knows how we were created. People say, "Well, God made me this way". Yes he did but too many times we use that as an excuse. He made us this way and that's why he has mercy on you and me. He knows our frame that we are dust. He knows how he made us, he knows what we can handle and what we can't handle. He knows that we are frail and he remembers that we are in need of him. When we need mercy and compassion we can cry out for it confident that he will hear us. God hears the cry of the child that is scared at night. How many remember the times you cried out to Jesus in your bedroom at night and he heard you? He cares for the man who is trying to provide for his family and he's scared because the job might be coming to an end. He hears his cry. He will hear the student who is need for help in school, who needs a friend or help with his homework. He will hear that cry. When you need financial assistance he will have mercy. He heals the sick, he comforts the hurting, he sets the captives free. All in his mercy he hears every cry that we could ever utter before him and he acts on our behalf. How many of you are thankful that you have a merciful God?
The thing that we need to remember though is that we can make the mercy of God inoperable toward us by our choices and actions. This will never lessen the power of God, it will just lessen our response to the Lord. Psalms 103:17-18 says, "But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him and his righteousness to childrens children; to such as keep his covenant and to those who remember his commandments to do them".
I want you to look at some of the conditions to receiving the mercy of God. Do you realize that even those who don't know Christ, if they will just turn to him and remember his word that says, "Be saved" and if they will accept him as their savior, his mercy is there in a moment. Those who walk according to his word, those who live in the commandments of God, those who are obedient to him always walk in the mercy of their savior. What are your expectations of your God? So many people in the church today believe that they just do what they're doing and they've got to obey God and if he gets around to dealing with them then its ok. The Bible says that his mercy is to those and to their generation after them, to those who fear the Lord and keep his commandments. Let me ask you, are you keeping his commandments this morning? Are you walking in the fear of the Lord? Do you love him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength? If you are then you can expect to walk in his mercy everyday. That's one of the greatest promises of the word of God. His mercy is right there but when we begin to step outside of it we can make it of no effect.
The Bible says in Exodus 34:6-7, "The Lord passed before them and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the childrens children to the third and the fourth generations". If you'll come to the Lord and ask him to forgive you, forgiveness is right there. If you're guilty then you need the mercy of God this morning and he will forgive.
In the church today we love to talk about the mercy of God and his forgiveness and how he will do all these things but the balance of the message is lost that says, "by no means clearing the guilty".
As we talk about this great mercy we have, God still has mercy on the guilty but he doesn't clear them until they've been forgiven. This morning you may need the mercy of God but I want to challenge you; if you're living in sin or you have things you are guilty of, turn to him for mercy and he'll deliver you in the midst of it.
Because we have received mercy the Bible tells us that we as Christians must show mercy. Luke 6:35-36 says, "But love your enemies. Do good to those and lend, hoping for nothing in return and your reward will be great. You will be sons of the most high, for he is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful just as your father also is merciful". Mercy came at great cost to Christ; it cost him everything. Mercy for us is free but for God the cost was high. When you and I show mercy there will come with it times of rejection and even disapproval but we are to show mercy anyway and it will be worth it. I believe that if the church would just get a hold of mercy it would change our lives.
Satan fears the power of God's mercy and he fears when the people of God begin to extend mercy to others. Why? Because it dynamically and radically changes people's lives. Those who once were held captive by the enemy are set free. Mercy ends all bitterness, prejudice, fleshly competition, gossip and division. Mercy begins to set the people free in every way. Mercy looks beyond faults and failures, beyond self justification and self righteousness. When we are unmerciful we wound Christ but when we are merciful to people we are living just as God lives through every one of us. I want to ask you, are you a merciful person? We are never to limit God's mercy towards us and we are never to limit our mercy in extending to others. If the church would just grasp mercy.
Matthew 9:13 says, "But go and learn what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance". In the verses we just read before, verse 37 says, "Judge not and you will not be judged; Condemn not and you shall not be condemned; Forgive and you will be forgiven".
I loved watching the Teen Challenge girls here last week. How many were blessed beyond measure? These girls, whom the world showed no mercy to, had been hurt, stomped on and taken advantage of, yet everyone of them has come to know Christ. They stood here as living testimonies of the mercy and love of God, of the dynamic power of how his mercy can change a life from top to bottom, inside and out, from young to old, rich to poor. Everyone of them stood here as a witness. How many walked out of here without shedding one tear? Probably not one. There were times I had to grab hold of the chair because I was ready to cry like a baby. I love that stuff.
The mercy and the goodness of God is an absolutely amazing thing. The truth is that everyone of us at some time or another has felt that same kindness of God and that's why you and I are sitting here, changed by the power of God, by his goodness that has been extended to us. Even when we have been absolutely miserable and deserved his worst, he gave us his best.
Although I didn't want to stay in "Creepy Hollow", as I was driving out of there I found myself praying for every one of those folks. The things that God is doing in this church, the things that God is getting ready to do in Palm Beach County, everybody needs to know the mercy of God extended. One of the reasons why we must not be silent with this Gospel message that we have is because of how it changes lives. One of the reasons we must go into this city to feed the poor and care for the needy and minister to those who need help is because of the mercy of God that will change a life and touch a heart from top to bottom. That's what God has called us to do. Not everyone of us can do everything but everyone of us can do something. Everyone of us can touch somebody.
God said, "I haven't come to bring the righteous but sinners to repentance". I came to give mercy to those who needed some compassion and to those who actually needed some help. I find that my flesh battles with this all the time. Sometimes you like to see other people get something coming to them. The truth is this, sometimes we want to turn our eyes away but God looks right at it and he calls the church to look right at it. He calls the church not just to see it and acknowledge it, not to turn away and go in the other direction but he tells us that he has extended mercy to us and we need to extend it to others. Watch God work through you so that lives will be changed.
I was reading that book last night that they gave us from Teen Challenge. I wish I could get everyone of you a copy. One man went to new York City and he started with just one gangbanger. The kid put a knife to his throat and said, "I'm going to cut you preacher man". He said, "Good, with every cut you make, every drop of blood will say "I love you". From that one man who went to that one city I was reading about all the lives that had been changed. Right now the largest church in New York City is being pastored by a man who went to Teen Challenge and was set free from drugs. All the lives that have been touched because of the mercy of God was extended. How many are thankful that God extended his mercy towards you? The things that God wants to do through us as we begin to reach out.
As we start next month to go to two services, each service should have about half the church empty so God can fill it up with people who need Jesus. We can't just sit here and say, "God, bring it on". God's mercy is there to touch lives. This community is filled with hurting people who need to hear and know the mercy, goodness and kindness of the savior. I want to encourage you that before you can go out and win those people and tell them, some of you need to grasp on to this reality that God is a good God. He is good.
Do you know that God is good to you? Do you know how much he loves you? Maybe you've just been beaten down and have come into this place and wonder if God really loves you or cares for you. I want you to know that he does. Maybe you've been running from God and you've thought "God would never love me. You don't know the things that I'm doing preacher, you don't know who I really am". That may be true, I don't but God does. He made you and he knows what you're all about. I want to encourage you to reach out and receive his mercy. Maybe you've come into this place and you've been hurting bad; the mercy of God is here for you this morning. Maybe you're here and have got an enemy that you're rejoicing over their suffering or have been waiting for God to strike them down but God allowed that person to come into your life so that you could learn his mercy, so that you could truly be good and kind.
Father, I thank you this morning for each one. I thank you for your great love for each of us. God, we thank you for your kindness and your gentleness with us. Lord, we run to you, our help, our savior, our everything. Thank you Lord that you haven't given us what we deserved. Thank you Lord for forgiving us of our sins. Every day your mercies are new towards us. We can mess up and you're still there. You haven't gone away, you still love us. You haven't stopped being good or kind even when we just can't seem to get it together. You've got it all together and Lord and we run to you. I pray right now that you would heal every hurt. I thank you Lord that you would hear every cry and that you just don't have an emotional reaction but what you hear and see causes you to move on our behalf. I pray that whatever that cry is, I thank you that you are answering it.
I pray Holy Spirit, that you would make us a merciful church, not a judgmental or unforgiving church but that you make us like you, Lord. I pray you would help us to love others as you do and to help us to not only be moved with sympathy but with mercy. I thank you God that when we step out to touch others lives and when we get involved we're not doing things in our own power but through your power and by it lives will be changed. God have mercy on America; have mercy on Palm Beach County. Lord, help us to be your hands of compassion extended. In this community there are many needing a touch from you and that need is extending across all economic levels of life, all races and nationalities. Every corner of this community needs your mercy; the rich, the poor, the young and the old, white, hispanic, black and everything in between.
I pray Lord God that you would allow us with power and might to be your arms extended. Not only would they know your love because you have it for them but they would see it demonstrated through your people. Father, change lives. Thank you for what we saw in Teen Challenge and we thank you that you're doing that same thing in Jupiter. God, thank you for your mercy that is new every day. God, we put all these things in your arms and we trust you. I pray your blessing on each one in this room. I pray for that one that just can't seem to get it together, that today you've got a hold of them and we'll give you the glory for this in Jesus mighty name, amen.
