The Disciples
In John 16:32 right before Judas betrays Jesus, Jesus tells the disciples, “…But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave Me alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with Me.” This word absolutely came to pass, not just for Peter, but for all of the disciples (Matthew 26:56). But the very next verse says that everything He is telling them is to give them peace. Jesus had every “right” to be angry that the disciples, His close friends according to John 15, would dare to abandon Him in His darkest hour. But instead, Jesus is warning them before they do it that they will abandon Him, and rather than telling them how horrible of a sin that is--which it is--He encourages them before hand so that they “might have peace”. That’s patience, that’s long-suffering, that’s the mercy of my Jesus.
Now let’s deal specifically with Peter. We usually dis on Peter and say that he was coward. But Peter, though proven wrong, was being completely sincere when he told Jesus, “I will lay down my life for You”, just like he was being sincere when he told Jesus to call him out to walk on the water, and just like he was sincere when he made all of his other outrageous statements and promises that he fully intended on keeping. He meant what he said, and he believed he would do it! But Jesus, knowing Peters heart better than Peter did, responded, “Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!” This must have not only devastated Peter, but also confused the junk out him. He probably had a very hard time believing what Jesus just said to him, and I’m sure he was embarrassed. But Jesus told him that he would disown Him 3 times before the night was over, and then in the next statement Jesus makes is, “Do not be troubled, Trust in God; trust also in Me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am.”
This is the patience, long-suffering and mercy of my Jesus.
So one minute Peter is defending his Master against a troop of soldiers and cuts a guys ear off, the next minute he is denying that he even knows Him to a girl that worked at the gate of the high priest’s court yard, and the other 2 denials are soon to follow. The bible says that when he denied Jesus the 3rd time and heard the rooster crow that he ran away and wept bitterly. Then we see Jesus restore Peter in John chapter 21 in a beautiful dialog between Jesus and Peter.
That’s patience, that’s long-suffering, that’s the mercy of my Jesus.
Judas Iscariot
Jesus had such a strong love for all of his disciples, including Judas.
In John 12:3-8 we see Mary, Martha’s sister, washing Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume. It says that the fragrance filled the whole room. Judas makes a comment that sounds godly… “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor?” As spiritual as this might sound, the next verse says that he didn’t say this because he cared about the poor, but because he handled the money bag and helped himself to it when he wanted something. Jesus, God in the flesh, knew this. Yet He didn’t expose Judas’ sin to everyone there. His response was, “Leave her alone. It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of My burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have Me.” Wow! Jesus must have known Judas’ motives, and Judas’ response probably challenged the other disciples and made them think that Judas was really godly. But Jesus did not expose Judas. Jesus probably pulled Judas aside and confronted him on multiple occasions about stealing the money. Any business man, preacher, godly man, with any sort of wisdom would counsel you to at least demote, if not fire someone if they are stealing from you, especially if they are stealing from the ministry. After all, all the money Judas stole could have been used to feed the poor. But Jesus being fully aware of Judas sin was not bitter or sinfully angry with him. In fact, in Jesus’ response to him He answered him about the poor, not exposing his motives to the rest of the disciples. He was giving him time to repent. That’s patience, that’s long-suffering, that’s the mercy of my Jesus.
In John 13:4-17 Jesus washed the disciples feet before the evening meal was served. Jesus did this to show what it means to serve and love each other. So God in the flesh washed the disciples feet--the filthiest part of a person. Judas was included in that. Jesus washed the feet of his betrayer! Any normal human, even if they didn’t fire or demote Judas, would have at least had some sort of bitterness toward him. Even if they didn’t say anything, it would have showed on their face when they respond to him and would have made the disciples know that Jesus had something against Judas. But He never did that… in fact, it seems like the disciples had a lot of respect for Judas:
After Jesus finished washing the disciples feet, verse 21 says that He became "troubled in spirit and testified, 'I tell you the truth, one of you is going to betray me.'" This statement freaked out the disciples and they wondered who it was. So “the disciple that Jesus loved” leaned back against Jesus chest and asked who it was that would betray Him. Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” Then He dipped the bread and gave it to Judas and said to him, “What you are about to do, do quickly.” All the disciples heard Jesus say that, they saw Jesus give the bread to Judas, then they watched Judas walk out of the building immediately… I’m thinking, “Duh! Apparently it’s Judas.” But for some reason the disciples didn’t think that at all. They actually thought that Judas going to go give some money to the poor. The only way the disciples could have reacted this way is if they respected Judas so much, that they could never think it was him. That must mean that Jesus never gave them a reason to believe he would do such a thing. He never reacted with bitterness or anger, nor did He even hint toward Judas’ hidden motives to the rest of the disciples when He could have.
That’s patience, that’s long-suffering, that’s the mercy of my Jesus.
The Pharisees and Religious Leaders
We already know all of the junk that Jesus patiently dealt with on a daily basis from the Pharisees and Priests either challenging Him about the fact that he would dare heal someone on the Sabbath day, or questioning Him about His Authority, His power and who He claimed to be, or accusing Him of being a false teacher, being motivated by Satan and being a sinner. But let’s specifically deal with Jesus and the religious leaders during His trial and crucifixion.
In John 18:28 the Jews and religious leaders have taken Jesus before Pilate to have Him executed. But it is absolutely amazing to me what this verse is saying here… “By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover.” STOP! Did you see that? It says they didn’t go into the palace because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover! The Passover was a celebration that took place once a year. It served as a memorial for the Jews to look back and remember how God delivered them from Egypt. It specifically refers to the very last plague in Egypt that finally caused Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. God told the Jews to kill a spotless lamb, smear it’s blood on their door posts, eat the rest of it, and whatever they didn’t eat, burn. When the Angel of Death came to each house he would see the blood of the lamb on the doorposts and would pass over that house, but if a house was not covered by the blood of the lamb, the Angel of Death would go into the house and kill the first born of the house. This entire event was a shadow and prophesy that pointed to what Jesus was going to do. He was the perfect, spotless Lamb of God who was slain. And only through His blood are we saved from death; death will Passover us. So the Jews are putting Jesus, the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), on trial, trying to execute Him, and all the while they are making sure that they don’t defile themselves and thus not be able to eat the Passover meal, which is nothing more than a reminder of God’s faithfulness and a foreshadow of Jesus Christ… Talk about deception. Jesus told them one time, “You search the scripture for you think they give you eternal life. But the scriptures point to Me.” But they were so blind and so hard hearted that they crucified the Lamb and Son of God while making sure that they could still participate in a celebration that was all about Him in the first place.
'Jesus, please don’t ever let our hearts grow that cold!'
This deception continues beyond Jesus trial on through the crucifixion. John 19:31 reads, “Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down.” Jesus just died a verse before this and immediately they started thinking about their religious festivals. They crucify the One that these festivals are about and then they go on celebrating them! How blind. How foolish. Yet Jesus patiently endured all of their accusations and all of their questioning. He endured them all the way to death, asking the Father to “forgive them, for they know not what they do”. He never sinned through being bitter with them, nor through discouraging others to obey their authority. And He even did everything He could to save as many as possible, like Nicodemus (John 3). That’s patience, that’s long-suffering, that’s the mercy of my Jesus.
The crucifixion
The Crucifixion was the greatest level of suffering that anyone could ever imagine. And it was the climax of Jesus sufferings and the primary purpose for Him coming down from heaven. Here are some of the more descriptive parts in scripture that tell what Jesus suffered during the Crucifixion:
Psalm 22 is a prophetic Psalm that shows what the Messiah will go though when He comes:
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from saving Me, so far from the words of my groaning? …I cry out by day, but You do not answer, by night and am not silent.
…I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads: ‘He trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue Him. Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him.’
…Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.
…I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart turned to wax; it has melted away within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; You lay me in the dust of death.
…A band of evil men…have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.”
He went through all of this, receiving the wrath of God for my sin, so that I could be saved and reconciled to God. That’s patience, that’s long-suffering, that’s the mercy of my Jesus.
Isaiah 52:14-53:10 is another Old Testament prophesy about the suffering of Jesus:
“… there were many who appalled at Him--His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and His form marred beyond human likeness… He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.
Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgression, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. …the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
And who can speak of His descendants? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people He was stricken.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked… though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause Him to suffer, and…the Lord makes His life a guilt offering.”
These next scriptures are from the 4 Gospels. They describe the suffering and patience of Jesus on trial and throughout the crucifixion. I almost hesitate to share these because they have become so familiar to us that they are on the verge of becoming trite, if that hasn‘t already happened. But I challenge you to look at this and put yourself there, watching you Savior suffer these things:
In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus is distressed, and asks His disciples to “keep watch, and pray”. He goes off and prays, and because of anxiety He sweats drops of blood. When He comes back, I‘m sure He was more distressed because His close friends were sleeping rather than staying awake like He asked them to (Luke 22:39-46).
Then Judas and a troop of soldiers came with swords and clubs to arrest Him. They asked for Jesus of Nazareth and He said, “I am”, and the whole troop fell down. But rather than fighting back, He rebuked Peter for doing so and said, “Put your sword back in it’s place… Do you think I cannot call on My Father, and He will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scripture be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?” And then He allowed them to arrest Him (Matthew 26:47-54; John 18:3-11).
Then He was put on trial and sent from high official to high official, the Pharisees trying their best to have Him executed. He was taken before the Sanhedrin, Herod, and Pilot where He was falsely accused, beaten, mocked, scourged, humiliated, had his beard ripped out of His face, received a crown of thorns (Matt. 26:60-61;Matt. 26:68; Matt. 27:27-31; John 19:1-3)) and “opened not His mouth” (Isaiah 53:7; Mark 15:5; John 19:9).
Jesus, after being flogged with the Cat of Nine Tails, beaten, wearing the crown of thorns, etc., carried His own cross until they found a man name Simon to do it. They offered Him wine to ease the pain and He refused it. They gambled for His clothes, mocked Him, hung Him between two robbers, mocked Him by saying, “He saved others, but He can’t save Himself”; even one of the criminals mocked Him. They wrote the crime He was charged with above Him, “Jesus, King of the Jews”. Then He cried out, “Father forgive them for they don‘t know what they are doing“, and “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? (Matthew 27:32-55; Mark 15:21-41; Luke 23:26-49; John 19:16-37).
This is the patience, long-suffering and mercy of Jesus Christ, King of glory. Thank You Lord for Your mercy, and for Your patience. Now let’s go and be like Him. AMEN!
Friday, August 27, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
We Pray (Song)
Lyrics:
Verse:
We pray for the hungry and naked
We pray for the one standing alone
We pray for the orphan and widow
We pray for the one who don't have a home
Pre-Chorus:
We, Your saints, offer our prayers
We lift up these names before Your throne
Chorus:
Open their eyes to the gospel of Jesus Christ
He is the Name above all
Open their eyes to the gospel of Jesus Christ
He is the Only Way
Verse 2:
We pray for the ones who are ready to end it all
Show them the love that gave us a hope
We pray for the ones who abandoned their faith
Recapture their hearts and carry them home
We pray for the ones that say that they hate You
Let them taste and see that You are good
We pray for the ones who persecute us
Let mercy fall and save their souls
Bridge:
Let hope lead the way
Let them see You face to face
Open up blinded eyes to the Way, the Truth, the Life
Send Your troops, Send the saints
To shine the light of Jesus Name
Heal the sick, Raise the dead
Show Your power, Show Your power
The Gospel
I Corinthians 15:1-4 - “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…”
So these are the 3 components of the gospel:
- Jesus died for our sins
- He was Buried
- He rose again on the 3rd day
I grew up in church. But even as a “PK”, I always had 2 questions in my mind growing up. These questions weren’t answered for me until this past year.
1) What’s so bad about sin?
2) What does someone dying on a cross have to do with my sin?
Question 1...
God is Righteous and Holy:
This is a quote from a book called 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die:
“God’s Law demanded, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all you soul and with all your might’ (Deuteronomy 6:5). But we have all loved other things more. This is what sin is--dishonoring God by preferring other things over Him, and acting on those preferences. Therefore, the Bible says, ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ (Romans 3:23). We glorify what we enjoy most. And it isn’t God.
Therefore sin is not small, because it is not against a small Sovereign. The seriousness of an insult rises with the dignity of the one insulted. The Creator the universe is infinitely worthy of respect and admiration and loyalty. Therefore, failure to love Him is not trivial--it is treason. It defames God and destroys human happiness.
Since God is just, He does not sweep these crimes under the rug of the universe. He feels a holy wrath against them. They deserve to be punished, and He has made this clear: ‘For the wages of sin is death’ (Romans 6:23). ‘The soul who sins shall die’ (Ezekiel 18:4).
There is a holy curse hanging over all sin. Not to punish would be unjust. The demeaning of God would be indorsed. A lie would reign at the core of reality. Therefore, God says, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them’ (Galatians 3:10; Deuteronomy 27:26).”
The level of an insult rises with the level of the sovereign. Another words, if I were to slap my little sister, Katie, across the face, that would obviously not be very nice, but it’s not a really big deal when put into perspective. However, if I were to slap my mom, that’s a lot different. And better yet, if I were to slap the President of the United States, or the King of England, that is not just a no-no, it’s gonna get me thrown in prison, or shot! Now what if I slapped the King of king’s; the King of the Universe across the face? That’s not just gonna get me thrown in prison… That’s deserving of a punishment much worse!
As the quote above says, “sin is treason!” “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23); “The soul that sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4); Someone Must Pay! Sin is not a game to God.
And all of us have sinned…
Romans 3:10-18 - “…There is no one righteous, not even one; There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
God hungers for righteousness and justice, so His judgment on sin cannot be forgotten or done away with. It must be delivered, and it must punish sin!
So how could we ever escape the wrath of God?
Question 2...
God is Merciful:
God has just as strong a hunger for mercy as he does for justice - Matthew 12:7; Romans 5:8; John 8:3-11
God’s desire for Mercy and His desire for Justice, both must be satisfied.
1 John 4:10 - This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Romans 5:6-8 - You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
For example:
Imagine a dark rain cloud is hanging over your head (The dark rain cloud is wrath). Everybody in the world has a dark cloud over their heads. The only way to get the sunshine (mercy), and not the rain (judgment) is by switching places with someone. But you can’t switch places with me because I have a rain cloud too, so it would accomplish nothing. We need to switch places with someone who has sunshine over their head.
All of us have sinned and deserve judgment. Only Jesus lived without sin and thus, deserves mercy. So Jesus, the Perfect Lamb of God, took our place and received all the judgment that we deserved so that we could receive all the mercy that He deserved.
The Cross is the only place where God’s Justice and God’s Mercy are both fully satisfied.
God KILLED His Son Jesus, so He wouldn’t have to Kill us! That’s the mercy of God!
Isaiah 53:10 - “…Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer…”
Knowing these things to be true, we must respond.
The first response is to completely deny the Truth and Mercy of the Almighty God and spend eternity in Hell under His terrible wrath.
John 3:18 says, “…he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
Revelation 21:8 - “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."
Revelation 14:11 - “And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name."
The second response is for unbelievers who have read this post and believe it to be true and are wondering what to do next.
Romans 10:9-13 says, “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, ‘Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’ For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”
So if you believe the gospel, or good news, that I have shared with you here--that though we are sinners and deserve Hell, God in His amazing mercy sent His Son, Jesus, to receive the wrath that we deserved so that we could receive the mercy that He deserved--then all you have to do after believing it in your heart is tell Jesus that He is your “Lord”. Now the word “Lord” has lost its meaning in our culture. Basically what it means is “master”. In other words, if you make Jesus your master, your boss, the leader of your life, you will be saved.
Hebrews 2:1-3 - We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him.
And finally, the third response is for those who have made a comittment to follow Jesus, but are not living a life obedient to Him.
Titus 2:14 says, “[Jesus] gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.”
Definition: Zeal - excessive fervor to do something or accomplish some end…
We are to be “zealous for good works”. That means we are to have excessive fervor for good works; we are to be crazy about doing what is right and pleasing to the Lord!
Romans 12:1-2 - Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
It says “in view of God’s mercy” give your life to God. That means, in view of the gospel; in view of everything we see herein above, Live For God!
The Bible is very clear about the fact that we are not saved by works, but when we are saved, works will follow. If they don’t, you might not be saved.
Romans 6:1-2 - What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Prayer:
Jesus, thank You so much for Your mercy. I am a hopeless sinner, destined for the eternal wrath of God apart from You. Thank you for receiving the wrath that I deserved so that I could receive the mercy of God that You deserved.
In view of Your mercy and because You loved me first, I give my whole life to You. You decided how I am to live, who I am to be, where I am to go and what I am to do. You, in Your great mercy are in charge of my destiny, and I submit to You Lord.
Teach me how to love You and to be like You.
So these are the 3 components of the gospel:
- Jesus died for our sins
- He was Buried
- He rose again on the 3rd day
I grew up in church. But even as a “PK”, I always had 2 questions in my mind growing up. These questions weren’t answered for me until this past year.
1) What’s so bad about sin?
2) What does someone dying on a cross have to do with my sin?
Question 1...
God is Righteous and Holy:
This is a quote from a book called 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die:
“God’s Law demanded, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all you soul and with all your might’ (Deuteronomy 6:5). But we have all loved other things more. This is what sin is--dishonoring God by preferring other things over Him, and acting on those preferences. Therefore, the Bible says, ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ (Romans 3:23). We glorify what we enjoy most. And it isn’t God.
Therefore sin is not small, because it is not against a small Sovereign. The seriousness of an insult rises with the dignity of the one insulted. The Creator the universe is infinitely worthy of respect and admiration and loyalty. Therefore, failure to love Him is not trivial--it is treason. It defames God and destroys human happiness.
Since God is just, He does not sweep these crimes under the rug of the universe. He feels a holy wrath against them. They deserve to be punished, and He has made this clear: ‘For the wages of sin is death’ (Romans 6:23). ‘The soul who sins shall die’ (Ezekiel 18:4).
There is a holy curse hanging over all sin. Not to punish would be unjust. The demeaning of God would be indorsed. A lie would reign at the core of reality. Therefore, God says, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them’ (Galatians 3:10; Deuteronomy 27:26).”
The level of an insult rises with the level of the sovereign. Another words, if I were to slap my little sister, Katie, across the face, that would obviously not be very nice, but it’s not a really big deal when put into perspective. However, if I were to slap my mom, that’s a lot different. And better yet, if I were to slap the President of the United States, or the King of England, that is not just a no-no, it’s gonna get me thrown in prison, or shot! Now what if I slapped the King of king’s; the King of the Universe across the face? That’s not just gonna get me thrown in prison… That’s deserving of a punishment much worse!
As the quote above says, “sin is treason!” “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23); “The soul that sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4); Someone Must Pay! Sin is not a game to God.
And all of us have sinned…
Romans 3:10-18 - “…There is no one righteous, not even one; There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
God hungers for righteousness and justice, so His judgment on sin cannot be forgotten or done away with. It must be delivered, and it must punish sin!
So how could we ever escape the wrath of God?
Question 2...
God is Merciful:
God has just as strong a hunger for mercy as he does for justice - Matthew 12:7; Romans 5:8; John 8:3-11
God’s desire for Mercy and His desire for Justice, both must be satisfied.
1 John 4:10 - This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Romans 5:6-8 - You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
For example:
Imagine a dark rain cloud is hanging over your head (The dark rain cloud is wrath). Everybody in the world has a dark cloud over their heads. The only way to get the sunshine (mercy), and not the rain (judgment) is by switching places with someone. But you can’t switch places with me because I have a rain cloud too, so it would accomplish nothing. We need to switch places with someone who has sunshine over their head.
All of us have sinned and deserve judgment. Only Jesus lived without sin and thus, deserves mercy. So Jesus, the Perfect Lamb of God, took our place and received all the judgment that we deserved so that we could receive all the mercy that He deserved.
The Cross is the only place where God’s Justice and God’s Mercy are both fully satisfied.
God KILLED His Son Jesus, so He wouldn’t have to Kill us! That’s the mercy of God!
Isaiah 53:10 - “…Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer…”
Knowing these things to be true, we must respond.
The first response is to completely deny the Truth and Mercy of the Almighty God and spend eternity in Hell under His terrible wrath.
John 3:18 says, “…he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
Revelation 21:8 - “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."
Revelation 14:11 - “And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name."
The second response is for unbelievers who have read this post and believe it to be true and are wondering what to do next.
Romans 10:9-13 says, “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, ‘Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’ For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”
So if you believe the gospel, or good news, that I have shared with you here--that though we are sinners and deserve Hell, God in His amazing mercy sent His Son, Jesus, to receive the wrath that we deserved so that we could receive the mercy that He deserved--then all you have to do after believing it in your heart is tell Jesus that He is your “Lord”. Now the word “Lord” has lost its meaning in our culture. Basically what it means is “master”. In other words, if you make Jesus your master, your boss, the leader of your life, you will be saved.
Hebrews 2:1-3 - We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him.
And finally, the third response is for those who have made a comittment to follow Jesus, but are not living a life obedient to Him.
Titus 2:14 says, “[Jesus] gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.”
Definition: Zeal - excessive fervor to do something or accomplish some end…
We are to be “zealous for good works”. That means we are to have excessive fervor for good works; we are to be crazy about doing what is right and pleasing to the Lord!
Romans 12:1-2 - Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
It says “in view of God’s mercy” give your life to God. That means, in view of the gospel; in view of everything we see herein above, Live For God!
The Bible is very clear about the fact that we are not saved by works, but when we are saved, works will follow. If they don’t, you might not be saved.
Romans 6:1-2 - What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Prayer:
Jesus, thank You so much for Your mercy. I am a hopeless sinner, destined for the eternal wrath of God apart from You. Thank you for receiving the wrath that I deserved so that I could receive the mercy of God that You deserved.
In view of Your mercy and because You loved me first, I give my whole life to You. You decided how I am to live, who I am to be, where I am to go and what I am to do. You, in Your great mercy are in charge of my destiny, and I submit to You Lord.
Teach me how to love You and to be like You.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Love the Lord Your God with ALL...
Matthew 10:37-39 - Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Mark 12:30 - Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all you understanding and with all your strength.
Luke 9:23 - …If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
To carry our cross. What does that even mean? We see pictures of it all the time on coffee cups, tee shirts; we imagine ourselves carrying this big, 80-100lb cross beam on our shoulder. Because of it‘s weight we are limping and leaning over, struggling to get to our destination…
People genuinely try to capture this reality, but unfortunately, the “cross” doesn’t have a lot of meaning in our culture. Don’t get me wrong, in many ways that’s a good thing, the cross was such a cruel way for even the most heinous of crimes to be punished. But the unfortunate thing is that because of our culture we don’t understand what the cross really was. It was not unique to Jesus, the cross was a very common, very cruel way to punish many a crime.
Seneca (d. 65 C.E.) refers to a variety of postures and different kinds of tortures on crosses: some victims are thrust head downward, others have a stake impale their genitals, still others have their arms outstretched on a crossbeam.
An especially grim description of this punishment, meted out to murderers, highwaymen, and other gross offenders, is the following from a didactic poem: "Punished with limbs outstretched, they see the stake as their fate; they are fasted, nailed to it with sharpest spikes, an ugly meal for birds of prey and grim scraps for dogs."
So you see here that the picture that the disciples had in their mind when Jesus to take up you cross daily was a lot different, and frankly, a lot more gruesome than the cute picture we put on our mugs! It is terrifying for someone to tell us to take up our cross… and how much more so to take up our cross DAILY! What kind of person can ask something that intense of someone?… Someone that owns us. Someone that paid for us. Someone that can relate to our weakness. Someone that can help us do it!
The next scripture up there talks about the greatest commandment. It says to love God with ALL of your heart, ALL of your soul, ALL of your mind and ALL of your strength. Now lets use a simple analogy with that word “all” for a minute. If you have a bucket full of 154 apples and I take ALL of them, how many apples are left in the basket? …hmmm… that’s right, x=0! When it says to love God with ALL, that means there is nothing left to love anything of the world with in your heart, soul, mind and strength! WOW! You might be thinking, “What kind of person can ask something that intense of someone?“ …Someone that owns us. Someone that paid for us. Someone that can relate to our weakness. Someone that can help us do it!
I sometimes get distracted during worship when we sing songs like The Stand from Hillsong… “I’ll stand with arms high and HEART ABANDONED, in AWE OF THE ONE WHO GAVE IT ALL! I’ll stand, MY SOUL LORD, TO YOU SURRENDERED! ALL I AM IS YOURS!” The reason I get distracted sometimes during songs like that is because I begin to look around and wonder, “Do these guys really know what they’re saying?“ For some reason I think most of us, myself included, have gotten it in our head that the more intense our faces look, the higher our hands are raised, the louder we sing and shout, the more we mean what we’re singing. However, if we really stop and think about the weight of those lyrics, it can become very difficult to sing them with sincerity in our hearts. Not that we don’t want to mean it, but how can we live a lifestyle like that… It makes me start to shrink back a little from singing along. Think about it: when we sing lyrics like, “I’ll stand with…heart abandoned; my soul, Lord, to you surrendered; all I am is yours!”, that’s not just talking about a moment of worship, that’s talking about the way we live our lives. It’s not hard to think about God and worship in atmospheres where everyone around us is on their faces singing their heart out to God. But what about when we leave? Because that’s what songs like this is talking about!
What does it really look like to “abandon my heart“? I have desires, I have dreams of who I want to be, where I want to work, how much money I want to have, etc… But if I abandon my heart, my desires, my dreams to Jesus, then what does my life look like? I guess it looks like whatever Jesus wants it to look like if he’s the one that I gave it too! There’s a song by Tree63 that has a line that says, “They say I must abandon You to make my dreams come true. So what am I supposed to do if I only dream of You?” That song paints this picture perfectly.
How about, “my soul, Lord, to you surrendered”, what does that look like? The word “soul” refers to our Mind, Will and Emotions. That’s whatever we “think about“, whatever we “want to do“, and however we “feel“. Those things are to be completely surrendered to Jesus.
“All I am is Yours”? ALL I AM IS YOURS? ALL? So you mean ALL as in EVERYTHING? As in, THERE IS NOTHING THAT I AM THAT ISN’T YOURS? EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY? ALL I AM IS YOURS?
This is why I tend to get distracted from time to time during songs like this. I look around and think, “Do these guys really mean this? Are they out Evangelizing? Are they out feeding the hungry? Are they praying and getting into the presence of God daily? Are they continually striving to not sin? Are they continually striving to obey Jesus? Everything He says? Even the hard things? The things that they don’t want to do?” A lot of times it seems that we sing songs like this too easily! Should our response always be to sing and shout these lyrics at the top of our lungs? Maybe sometimes the greatest response to lyrics like this is to just pause and count the cost, or to cry out to God for help to fulfill this kind of commitment, or to repent because of the lack of the commitment in our own lives! Let’s take these kinds of songs seriously; let’s begin to look at them as vows we’re making to the Savior of our souls, the Creator of the universe! Let’s have the mindset of Daily Carrying our Cross to follow Jesus! The Cross was one of the most morbid forms of execution we could ever imagine! That’s how serious we need to be about living for God, about giving Him our everything, about crucifying our desires, crucifying what we want to do, crucifying what kind of person we would prefer to be, and say, “ALL I AM IS YOURS”.
We‘ve heard it thousands‘s of times, “in order to do this we need to realize we can‘t do it on our own“. But what does it mean to rely on God’s strength? The Bible calls the Holy Spirit our Councilor, Helper, Teacher, it says that He gives us Power to Witness, Power to obey, the Holy Spirit is our Life-Source. We need “grace” to be able to do what God wants us to do. Grace is empowerment. It’s the power to obey. The bible says in John 15 that “without Jesus we can do absolutely nothing”! We need Him! We need to cry out to Him for the power to live this kind of lifestyle.
We will mess up, and we won’t be perfect, but when we fail we MUST ALWAYS fall at the feet of Jesus and ask for mercy to forgive us and grace to help us to change. Never run from Him or try to hide from Him because of shame. We must remind ourselves that Jesus was a human just like us and is now our high priest… the Bible says that we have a High Priest that understands our weakness (Heb. 4:14-16), that He constantly prays for us(Heb. 7:25), that we can cast our burdens on Jesus for He cares for us (1 Pet. 5:7), that we can find strength in our God (Phil. 4:13).
Jesus, give us the strength to live for You! Make us like You. And help us to never to these things to win approval or any other pointless reason we might have, but to “love You because You first loved us”. Let our obedience ALWAYS be a response to Your Gospel!
Thank You for Your mercy and grace Jesus,
Amen!
Info on the cross:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/peter_kirby/tomb/roman.html
Mark 12:30 - Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all you understanding and with all your strength.
Luke 9:23 - …If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
To carry our cross. What does that even mean? We see pictures of it all the time on coffee cups, tee shirts; we imagine ourselves carrying this big, 80-100lb cross beam on our shoulder. Because of it‘s weight we are limping and leaning over, struggling to get to our destination…
People genuinely try to capture this reality, but unfortunately, the “cross” doesn’t have a lot of meaning in our culture. Don’t get me wrong, in many ways that’s a good thing, the cross was such a cruel way for even the most heinous of crimes to be punished. But the unfortunate thing is that because of our culture we don’t understand what the cross really was. It was not unique to Jesus, the cross was a very common, very cruel way to punish many a crime.
Seneca (d. 65 C.E.) refers to a variety of postures and different kinds of tortures on crosses: some victims are thrust head downward, others have a stake impale their genitals, still others have their arms outstretched on a crossbeam.
An especially grim description of this punishment, meted out to murderers, highwaymen, and other gross offenders, is the following from a didactic poem: "Punished with limbs outstretched, they see the stake as their fate; they are fasted, nailed to it with sharpest spikes, an ugly meal for birds of prey and grim scraps for dogs."
So you see here that the picture that the disciples had in their mind when Jesus to take up you cross daily was a lot different, and frankly, a lot more gruesome than the cute picture we put on our mugs! It is terrifying for someone to tell us to take up our cross… and how much more so to take up our cross DAILY! What kind of person can ask something that intense of someone?… Someone that owns us. Someone that paid for us. Someone that can relate to our weakness. Someone that can help us do it!
The next scripture up there talks about the greatest commandment. It says to love God with ALL of your heart, ALL of your soul, ALL of your mind and ALL of your strength. Now lets use a simple analogy with that word “all” for a minute. If you have a bucket full of 154 apples and I take ALL of them, how many apples are left in the basket? …hmmm… that’s right, x=0! When it says to love God with ALL, that means there is nothing left to love anything of the world with in your heart, soul, mind and strength! WOW! You might be thinking, “What kind of person can ask something that intense of someone?“ …Someone that owns us. Someone that paid for us. Someone that can relate to our weakness. Someone that can help us do it!
I sometimes get distracted during worship when we sing songs like The Stand from Hillsong… “I’ll stand with arms high and HEART ABANDONED, in AWE OF THE ONE WHO GAVE IT ALL! I’ll stand, MY SOUL LORD, TO YOU SURRENDERED! ALL I AM IS YOURS!” The reason I get distracted sometimes during songs like that is because I begin to look around and wonder, “Do these guys really know what they’re saying?“ For some reason I think most of us, myself included, have gotten it in our head that the more intense our faces look, the higher our hands are raised, the louder we sing and shout, the more we mean what we’re singing. However, if we really stop and think about the weight of those lyrics, it can become very difficult to sing them with sincerity in our hearts. Not that we don’t want to mean it, but how can we live a lifestyle like that… It makes me start to shrink back a little from singing along. Think about it: when we sing lyrics like, “I’ll stand with…heart abandoned; my soul, Lord, to you surrendered; all I am is yours!”, that’s not just talking about a moment of worship, that’s talking about the way we live our lives. It’s not hard to think about God and worship in atmospheres where everyone around us is on their faces singing their heart out to God. But what about when we leave? Because that’s what songs like this is talking about!
What does it really look like to “abandon my heart“? I have desires, I have dreams of who I want to be, where I want to work, how much money I want to have, etc… But if I abandon my heart, my desires, my dreams to Jesus, then what does my life look like? I guess it looks like whatever Jesus wants it to look like if he’s the one that I gave it too! There’s a song by Tree63 that has a line that says, “They say I must abandon You to make my dreams come true. So what am I supposed to do if I only dream of You?” That song paints this picture perfectly.
How about, “my soul, Lord, to you surrendered”, what does that look like? The word “soul” refers to our Mind, Will and Emotions. That’s whatever we “think about“, whatever we “want to do“, and however we “feel“. Those things are to be completely surrendered to Jesus.
“All I am is Yours”? ALL I AM IS YOURS? ALL? So you mean ALL as in EVERYTHING? As in, THERE IS NOTHING THAT I AM THAT ISN’T YOURS? EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY? ALL I AM IS YOURS?
This is why I tend to get distracted from time to time during songs like this. I look around and think, “Do these guys really mean this? Are they out Evangelizing? Are they out feeding the hungry? Are they praying and getting into the presence of God daily? Are they continually striving to not sin? Are they continually striving to obey Jesus? Everything He says? Even the hard things? The things that they don’t want to do?” A lot of times it seems that we sing songs like this too easily! Should our response always be to sing and shout these lyrics at the top of our lungs? Maybe sometimes the greatest response to lyrics like this is to just pause and count the cost, or to cry out to God for help to fulfill this kind of commitment, or to repent because of the lack of the commitment in our own lives! Let’s take these kinds of songs seriously; let’s begin to look at them as vows we’re making to the Savior of our souls, the Creator of the universe! Let’s have the mindset of Daily Carrying our Cross to follow Jesus! The Cross was one of the most morbid forms of execution we could ever imagine! That’s how serious we need to be about living for God, about giving Him our everything, about crucifying our desires, crucifying what we want to do, crucifying what kind of person we would prefer to be, and say, “ALL I AM IS YOURS”.
We‘ve heard it thousands‘s of times, “in order to do this we need to realize we can‘t do it on our own“. But what does it mean to rely on God’s strength? The Bible calls the Holy Spirit our Councilor, Helper, Teacher, it says that He gives us Power to Witness, Power to obey, the Holy Spirit is our Life-Source. We need “grace” to be able to do what God wants us to do. Grace is empowerment. It’s the power to obey. The bible says in John 15 that “without Jesus we can do absolutely nothing”! We need Him! We need to cry out to Him for the power to live this kind of lifestyle.
We will mess up, and we won’t be perfect, but when we fail we MUST ALWAYS fall at the feet of Jesus and ask for mercy to forgive us and grace to help us to change. Never run from Him or try to hide from Him because of shame. We must remind ourselves that Jesus was a human just like us and is now our high priest… the Bible says that we have a High Priest that understands our weakness (Heb. 4:14-16), that He constantly prays for us(Heb. 7:25), that we can cast our burdens on Jesus for He cares for us (1 Pet. 5:7), that we can find strength in our God (Phil. 4:13).
Jesus, give us the strength to live for You! Make us like You. And help us to never to these things to win approval or any other pointless reason we might have, but to “love You because You first loved us”. Let our obedience ALWAYS be a response to Your Gospel!
Thank You for Your mercy and grace Jesus,
Amen!
Info on the cross:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/peter_kirby/tomb/roman.html
Monday, August 23, 2010
The Filthy Mercy of the Father
When it comes to His mercy, God is not afraid or ashamed to get his hands dirty. His salvation is not extended to a bunch of good people, with good morals and good intentions who have a couple short comings. His mercy is extended to the wretched, filthy sinner who slapped Him in the face with their blasphemies, mockeries and lifestyle of sin. In Romans 5:6-8 it says, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” So we are about to check out some of the Filthy situations where God poured out mercy on His children.
First, let’s go to the Old Testament, you know the first half of the Bible that’s full of God’s judgment and anger toward the Children of Israel.
In Ezekiel chapter 16 God is rebuking Israel for “her” (the bible usually refers to Israel as a woman) rebellion. But look at the language He uses in the midst of it… starting in verse 1 it says, “…confront Jerusalem with her detestable practices and say, ‘…On the day your were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.
Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, ‘Live!’
WOW! Now that’s not normally what you would here on a Sunday morning service. It’s even kind of gross. But that is the mercy of God, it’s not always nice and neat. It meets us where we are and sometimes we are not beautiful, sometimes when God finds us, He finds us kicking in our blood. It goes to say, ‘You grew up and developed and became the most beautiful of Jewels. Your breasts were formed and your hair grew, you who were naked and bare. Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you declares the Sovereign Lord, and you became mine. I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you.’
Again in Ezekiel, chapter 37 we see a familiar passage. Starting in verse 1 it says, The hand of the lord was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ I said, ‘O, Sovereign Lord, You alone know.’ Then He said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones and say to them, “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.
This story is worse off than the story above. In Ezekiel 16, the child was left for dead and God had mercy and said, “Live!” In this story, these bones are not just left for dead, they’re not just dead, they are old, dead, dry, disassembled, destroyed! And God sees them and tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones and tell them to live! If you read on you see that this, again, is the children of Israel. God, in His mercy, brought their dry bones to life.
Let’s do another one, also in the Old Testament. This one’s in the book of Hosea. God, once again, is rebuking Israel for sinning. Many times, especially in the Old Testament God paints the picture of His and Israel’s relationship as a marriage… and a lot of times Israel is committing adultery. God paints this picture again in Hosea 1:2-3. He tells Hosea, “…Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing form the Lord. So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.” God is saying that Israel has been unfaithful to Him, but He has always remained faithful to her, though she is a whore and deserves for Him to divorce her.
It goes on to say that God is going to punish her because she has been unfaithful, but in the midst of all of that, we get to 2:14, “There fore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.” He says He is going to try to romance her and win her back and, “In that day… you will call Me, ‘My Husband’”. SHE’S AN ADULTEROUS! She has been cheating and yet God says that He’s going to romance her! What!
In chapter 3 God tells Hosea again, Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the secret raisin cakes.”
That’s the filthy mercy of God!
Let’s go to the New Testament. It is plain to see the mercy of Christ in the gospels, and I might as well copy all 4 books down word for word to show all the merciful acts that Jesus did. But in focusing on the Filthy Mercy of God, I want to highlight a few…
In Matthew chapter 8:2, we see a man with leprosy come to Jesus and kneel before Him and say, “Lord if You are willing, You can make me clean.” Jesus reached out His hand, touched the guy and said, “I am willing, Be Clean!” The guy was immediately healed. We’ve heard the story a million times, but we need to remember what leprosy is. People got kicked out of the city and had to live in “Leper Colonies” because Leprosy was so gross, so disgusting, and so “Unclean” that anyone who came in contact with it was considered unclean. Jesus touched the man and healed him. I think even most men of faith would pray, but wouldn’t touch the guy. But that’s the filthy mercy of Jesus.
Go to the book of Mark 5:2 and we see Jesus encounter a demon possessed man. The bible says, “This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.” This isn’t some nice guy that just doesn’t know Jesus yet This is a crazy dude. In Luke’s account of this story it says that when Jesus asked what the demon’s name was it replied, “My name is Legion for we are many!” This dude is insane, and what so many would call hopeless, but through the mercy of Jesus, nobody is hopeless. Jesus cast’s the demon out and the guy is delivered. In fact, the bible says he wanted to stay with Jesus!
Now we go to Luke 15. Jesus tells the parable of what we know as “The Prodigal Son”. The story goes, “There was a man who had 2 sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there, he squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he cam to his senses, he said, ’How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.”
This parable is a metaphor about our heavenly Father’s mercy toward us, His wayward children. It is not about an obedient son, but about a son who could care less weather his father was dead or alive. You don’t get the birthright until your father dies and the son asked for his early. He might as well have told his dad to die. He didn’t care about him. He didn’t even deserve for his dad to make him a servant, he was going to beg for mercy just for that, but God in His great mercy, threw His arms around this dirty, disobedient, slop covered, wayward son and said, “Put a robe around him, a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, and kill the fattened calf. We’re going to celebrate that my son is home!”
Another famous story is the one about the woman caught in adultery in John 8:3-11. It reads, “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing Him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with His finger. When they kept on questioning Him, He straightened up and said to them, ‘If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.’ Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older one first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ ‘No one sir,’ she said. ‘Then neither do I condemn you,’ Jesus Declared. ‘Go now and leave your life of sin.’”
WOW! This is one of my favorites. I am amazed at the filthy mercy of Jesus. Think about it… this girl was JUST CAUGHT IN ADULTRY! Like 5 minutes ago she was on top of a married guy! Now, completely embarrassed, shamed in front of everybody and about to die a very painful and shameful death, she is thrown down by the leaders Israel before Jesus. They are about to stone her, and according to the Law, they should have! She fully deserved what she was about to get. But God, in His great mercy, got His hands dirty. He didn’t forgive a nice, respectful, sweet girl. He forgave an adulterous, a “home wrecker”, a whore, a wretched sinner! His mercy cause Him to get down in the dirt and save her! That is the beautiful, filthy mercy of Jesus!
The last one I’m going to mention is Paul the apostle. He rightfully called himself the “chief of all sinners”. He persecuted the church of God! And didn’t apologize for it. No one was going to stop him, and he was adamantly against Jesus and all who followed him. And there he was on the road to Damascus, on his way specifically to find Christians and throw them into prison. This was a dirty sinner! But in Acts 9:3-6 Jesus literally knocked him off his high horse, and in His great mercy saved him. And Paul became one of the main pillars of the church, and the main preacher to the Gentiles. Thank you Jesus for Your mercy!
Ephesians 2:1-9 sums up everything I am saying here perfectly:
“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. Alll of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast.
Thank you Jesus for Your mercy! Thank You that You are not afraid to get Your hands dirty. That You take our trash and give us glory. That You take our sin and give us righteousness. That You take our pain and give us peace. You are good, Your love endures forever. Praise You Father for Your mercy
First, let’s go to the Old Testament, you know the first half of the Bible that’s full of God’s judgment and anger toward the Children of Israel.
In Ezekiel chapter 16 God is rebuking Israel for “her” (the bible usually refers to Israel as a woman) rebellion. But look at the language He uses in the midst of it… starting in verse 1 it says, “…confront Jerusalem with her detestable practices and say, ‘…On the day your were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.
Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, ‘Live!’
WOW! Now that’s not normally what you would here on a Sunday morning service. It’s even kind of gross. But that is the mercy of God, it’s not always nice and neat. It meets us where we are and sometimes we are not beautiful, sometimes when God finds us, He finds us kicking in our blood. It goes to say, ‘You grew up and developed and became the most beautiful of Jewels. Your breasts were formed and your hair grew, you who were naked and bare. Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you declares the Sovereign Lord, and you became mine. I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you.’
Again in Ezekiel, chapter 37 we see a familiar passage. Starting in verse 1 it says, The hand of the lord was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ I said, ‘O, Sovereign Lord, You alone know.’ Then He said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones and say to them, “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.
This story is worse off than the story above. In Ezekiel 16, the child was left for dead and God had mercy and said, “Live!” In this story, these bones are not just left for dead, they’re not just dead, they are old, dead, dry, disassembled, destroyed! And God sees them and tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones and tell them to live! If you read on you see that this, again, is the children of Israel. God, in His mercy, brought their dry bones to life.
Let’s do another one, also in the Old Testament. This one’s in the book of Hosea. God, once again, is rebuking Israel for sinning. Many times, especially in the Old Testament God paints the picture of His and Israel’s relationship as a marriage… and a lot of times Israel is committing adultery. God paints this picture again in Hosea 1:2-3. He tells Hosea, “…Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing form the Lord. So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.” God is saying that Israel has been unfaithful to Him, but He has always remained faithful to her, though she is a whore and deserves for Him to divorce her.
It goes on to say that God is going to punish her because she has been unfaithful, but in the midst of all of that, we get to 2:14, “There fore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.” He says He is going to try to romance her and win her back and, “In that day… you will call Me, ‘My Husband’”. SHE’S AN ADULTEROUS! She has been cheating and yet God says that He’s going to romance her! What!
In chapter 3 God tells Hosea again, Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the secret raisin cakes.”
That’s the filthy mercy of God!
Let’s go to the New Testament. It is plain to see the mercy of Christ in the gospels, and I might as well copy all 4 books down word for word to show all the merciful acts that Jesus did. But in focusing on the Filthy Mercy of God, I want to highlight a few…
In Matthew chapter 8:2, we see a man with leprosy come to Jesus and kneel before Him and say, “Lord if You are willing, You can make me clean.” Jesus reached out His hand, touched the guy and said, “I am willing, Be Clean!” The guy was immediately healed. We’ve heard the story a million times, but we need to remember what leprosy is. People got kicked out of the city and had to live in “Leper Colonies” because Leprosy was so gross, so disgusting, and so “Unclean” that anyone who came in contact with it was considered unclean. Jesus touched the man and healed him. I think even most men of faith would pray, but wouldn’t touch the guy. But that’s the filthy mercy of Jesus.
Go to the book of Mark 5:2 and we see Jesus encounter a demon possessed man. The bible says, “This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.” This isn’t some nice guy that just doesn’t know Jesus yet This is a crazy dude. In Luke’s account of this story it says that when Jesus asked what the demon’s name was it replied, “My name is Legion for we are many!” This dude is insane, and what so many would call hopeless, but through the mercy of Jesus, nobody is hopeless. Jesus cast’s the demon out and the guy is delivered. In fact, the bible says he wanted to stay with Jesus!
Now we go to Luke 15. Jesus tells the parable of what we know as “The Prodigal Son”. The story goes, “There was a man who had 2 sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there, he squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he cam to his senses, he said, ’How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.”
This parable is a metaphor about our heavenly Father’s mercy toward us, His wayward children. It is not about an obedient son, but about a son who could care less weather his father was dead or alive. You don’t get the birthright until your father dies and the son asked for his early. He might as well have told his dad to die. He didn’t care about him. He didn’t even deserve for his dad to make him a servant, he was going to beg for mercy just for that, but God in His great mercy, threw His arms around this dirty, disobedient, slop covered, wayward son and said, “Put a robe around him, a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, and kill the fattened calf. We’re going to celebrate that my son is home!”
Another famous story is the one about the woman caught in adultery in John 8:3-11. It reads, “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing Him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with His finger. When they kept on questioning Him, He straightened up and said to them, ‘If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.’ Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older one first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ ‘No one sir,’ she said. ‘Then neither do I condemn you,’ Jesus Declared. ‘Go now and leave your life of sin.’”
WOW! This is one of my favorites. I am amazed at the filthy mercy of Jesus. Think about it… this girl was JUST CAUGHT IN ADULTRY! Like 5 minutes ago she was on top of a married guy! Now, completely embarrassed, shamed in front of everybody and about to die a very painful and shameful death, she is thrown down by the leaders Israel before Jesus. They are about to stone her, and according to the Law, they should have! She fully deserved what she was about to get. But God, in His great mercy, got His hands dirty. He didn’t forgive a nice, respectful, sweet girl. He forgave an adulterous, a “home wrecker”, a whore, a wretched sinner! His mercy cause Him to get down in the dirt and save her! That is the beautiful, filthy mercy of Jesus!
The last one I’m going to mention is Paul the apostle. He rightfully called himself the “chief of all sinners”. He persecuted the church of God! And didn’t apologize for it. No one was going to stop him, and he was adamantly against Jesus and all who followed him. And there he was on the road to Damascus, on his way specifically to find Christians and throw them into prison. This was a dirty sinner! But in Acts 9:3-6 Jesus literally knocked him off his high horse, and in His great mercy saved him. And Paul became one of the main pillars of the church, and the main preacher to the Gentiles. Thank you Jesus for Your mercy!
Ephesians 2:1-9 sums up everything I am saying here perfectly:
“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. Alll of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast.
Thank you Jesus for Your mercy! Thank You that You are not afraid to get Your hands dirty. That You take our trash and give us glory. That You take our sin and give us righteousness. That You take our pain and give us peace. You are good, Your love endures forever. Praise You Father for Your mercy
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