1013. The Making of a Merciful Minister of Grace

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. The school was founded in 1927 by the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones Senior's intent was to make a school where Christ would be the center of everything, so he established daily chapel services today. That tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from the University Chapel platform. Today's message will be preached by Dr. Sam Horn Matthew five the book of James in your Bible and I were to look together at a number of text this morning. Our theme is grace and mercy in the oceans of it that we experience from the Lord.

And as we come for a brief time together this morning I want I want to consider. One aspect of that grace and one responsibility of that grace as it relates to each of us who are thinking about using our life in some aspect of ministry.

Whether it is full-time vocational embracing of a call that God extends to you, or participation in the ministry of the word and the ministry of the gospel to partnering with those that deal. All of us are in this room because there's a sense of that in our life and how do we connect that sense to this mercy and so what I'd like to talk about this morning briefly as the making of a merciful minister of grace and I want to call your attention to to some texts and will put them on the screen but you may want to follow along in your Bible, whether it's in your hand or on your device but Melanie just read you some texts. So Matthew chapter 5 verse seven very familiar text right now the Beatitudes, Jesus, looking at his disciples and expressing to them what it is going to take internally for them to actually be effective as salt and light in the world says that them Blessed are the merciful, approved of God is the idea. Blessed these are the people of whom God approves and they are people who are merciful, literally you are full of mercy and then there's this comment that sort of follows, for they shall obtain mercy, and then you keep reading a New Testament and you come to Luke chapter 6 and Jesus speaking in that chapter says in verse 35, love your enemies, do good and land hoping for nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be the sons of the most high. The idea there is that you will be like the most time when you do this is the idea of sons of the most time for why why will you be like it because he is kind to the unthankful think about that. That's an immense statement. He is kind to the unthankful and evil.

Therefore, be merciful, just as your father also is merciful. Then James says in his letter.

Indeed, we count them. Blessed chapter 5 verse 11. Indeed, we count the blessed who endured. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and you have seen, the intended and of the Lord. In other words, you give witnesses you've read this you seeing this in the Scriptures, and here's here's what you're to conclude with Joe. The Lord is very compassionate and merciful and then in James chapter 2. Speaking about the freedom that we have as believers following Christ to fulfill the law of Moses and no longer feeling the weight and tear of that law. James is for judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. And then he makes this comment mercy triumphs over judgment. These texts force us to ask some really uncomfortable questions. Don't think we think about the weight of those words. As you kind of pull them altogether and you think about what the Lord is saying that mercy is not just sort of the side thing that we do that it is essential to who we are as people, not just because we've experienced it, but because of the fact that we bear that mercy to others, so weather here in here because you're headed that way. Vocationally, or in here because you have a heart to be involved in ministry at the center of all of that is God cultivating you a merciful heart, a heart of mercy and so let's talk briefly and quickly about four aspects of that in and made the best way to do this try to answer four basic questions number one what exactly is God talking about when he speaks about mercy. What is it that that the writers of Scripture have in mind when it comes to this concept of mercy and so as as as you canna reflect over again in the Scriptures you begin immediately associated with the concept of biblical love the idea of has said the idea of loyal, committed love. But it's more than that it's it's more than the undeserved favor that you experience in grace its it's it's more than just an emotional sort of response that you have when you meet people that desperately are in need of help and you meet these people.I was speaking somewhere in and I went to was on my own for a meal and and I was out west and one my favorite places deed is in and out burgers so I sent it in and out Burger in an as is walking and there was a woman seated seated on a little bench by the door. He was old enough to be my own mother and for whatever reason we got talking and I began to hear her story and it was it was excruciatingly difficult for me to hear because I kept thinking about this could be my mom homeless no insurance, no sustenance, no place to live and no money to buy food. Here's a woman in the final decades of her life and she's reduced to sitting on a bench outside of an in and out Burger hoping for somebody like me to come along who would have enough compassion to say hey limitless going to let me buy you dinner and the only thing I want returns the opportunity of a little bit of conversation.

Can we talk for a few minutes while you eat and and and that conversation was an opportunity to share the gospel. But what the Lord is talking about is more than that, it's more than that feeling of pity. It's the idea of actually getting involved in the life of people that you would not normally consider getting involved with it. It's the ongoing gracious kindness that is extended to those who need it and to those who don't deserve it from and that's what the stunning text. We looked at in Luke, where we discover that God is kind to the unthankful and to the evil. And that's the calling of what you and I are to do. It's not is not just that were nice to be will is not just that we sort of art are sorry for people and we we act in time. Gracious ways to one another and we sort of overlook the flaws of people that are around us which we should do. Love covers a multitude of sins right we do all those things and you do them well. You most of you in this room are are are gracious awesome people that God is using here on our own campus to show that kind of grace to one another. And I'm thankful to be the recipient of it from many, but what Jesus is talking about is more we Jesus is talking about is this ongoing gracious kindness that is extended to people who need it and especially to people who don't deserve it from you.

So Matthew question. Are you merciful like that and here's the here's the here's the difficult piece. Jesus said your heart needs to be full of that kind. That really shouldn't just be the odd moment of your life where words called her attention or it shouldn't just be the sort of one-off that happens every once in a while that this should be the overflow of your life that as you live life as you do.

Life as a merciful minister of grace. This is flowing out of you to people who need it and you who don't deserve it for, and and that's exactly what Jesus is talking about.

We talked about merciful, be merciful, be full of this kind of mercy now that brings us to the second question that's this may be even harder to ask and it's this wisest quality so important to God, why have all the things of God, to talk about. Does he talk about this in terms of why we have to be like this. Why does why does this matter in the end, and there there are many reasons I have about eight of them here.

We just give you two were for second time. Number one.

The reason this matters to God is because he is like this. I mean at the end of the day. This is the abundance overflow of who God is and it's an amazing thing and maybe stop and think about the I identity of God is he is describing Scripture. He is described as a consuming fire so that anything that is unholy or anything that is unclean or anything that does not match the level of his pure holiness is in immediately incinerated and their visible images of that that he instructed for his people so that they would see that visibly, as every day in the temple courtyard or in the courtyard of the tabernacle there would be a whole burnt offering, there would be fire consuming things and then because of your sin as you came in to deal with that sin. All of a sudden, you would see something that was living being completely consumed by fire and goddesses. Now you need to understand that that's my nature. That is what happens and then you have this verse. It is now God is kind to people who are unthankful and to people who are evil and decide how those two images go together. And those two images go together there possible because of Jesus. That's other possible that's how you and I are not incinerated is the common grace that God extends itself. It's the mercy and the kindness of God that God extends to people who are evil and unthankful and don't even recognize that he exists. And it's the unbelievable grace, which is the second thing that you have experience that is brought to close to Jesus or close to the father through Jesus is not just that God was kind to you as as an evil person is an unthankful person by not consuming you he actually was kind to you by bringing you to himself, do you really believe that you came to believe on your own you really believe that thanking you explain honestly why some person here's the same thing that another person hears and one person embraces and the other doesn't, and you understand the embracing part because that's what happened to you but do you really think that was you anything for a moment that it might've been the unbelievable mercy of God who caused you to see like he did in the beginning when he said, let there be light because you see something in the gospel that reflected the glory of God in the face of Jesus, and you believed unbelievable like a virgin birth like a fully God fully human man like a sacrifice who took away the sins of the whole world. Think about the multiplied millions of lands that took away or covered the sins of one tiny nation for 2000 years for Moses to Jesus. Think about the multiplied millions of lands that took away the sins of one tiny nation and in the mercy of God.

He sent his own son to bear way the sins of the whole world that's that that's the weight of John statement as he was baptizing the looks on a riverbank and he sees a man walking and he points to him and he says that one is the Lamb of God, and that Lamb bears away the sins of the whole world. That's what God is like, and you have experience that that's why this quality matters and then our third question as we move quickly through this and that is this what is it actually look like an accident. We know it is right it is. It is the ongoing gracious kindness rooted in the character of God that is extended to those who need it until those who don't deserve it and it's important because this is what God is like does what he does. And this is what you have experience. That's the second reason is so important. But what is it actually look like in action and and there's a story in the Scripture that you are very familiar with in Luke chapter 10, where were a young lawyer scribe stands before the Lord, asking the hard questions and he wants to know what is going to take to enter the kingdom of heaven heaven and basically as it comes down to the end, Jesus looks at him and and is is you love the Lord your God with all your archery so and then you need to do this you need to love your neighbor like you love yourself.

And so this young student.

This young religious scholar looks at Jesus and he has this question I want to know who you think my neighbor is because I think I'm doing that's the essence of the question, who is my neighbor and Jesus answers this question in an amazing way he he he tells the story of three men who have an unexpected meeting one of those madness in the middle-of-the-road wounded lacerated beaded beaten to the point of wondering whether he's gonna make it in life. Physically he's been so beaten by the thieves and to religious men come by. One is a priest and what is a Levite and they see him. It's not like they missed him they see him and they actually have to go around him to get to where they're going and they don't stop that could be all kinds of reasons why the Levite didn't do this or the priest didn't do this you know the priest would would probably not have done it because he didn't want to be take the chance that he would be unclean then have to go to the process of ritual ceremonial cleansing so that he couldn't continue to do his duties in the temple believe I may have been on his way to the temple because a Levite didn't always spend 365 days at the temple. Usually they were going to the temple because they had an allotted time that they were supposed to be there and so the Levite maven thing. I can't miss that if I missed that window. I'm really get a miss it so I don't want to take a chance to touch the sky gazes unclean. So off they went. Perhaps and then comes the fourth man who was a Samaritan and everybody owes about the Samaritan seas of the unclean untouchables and he doesn't just stop. He gets off his animal takes this man bears into an in places them under the care ministers to him physically and pays for everything Jesus said to this young religious scholar now you tell me which of the three was the neighbor to this wounded man and the religious scholar was forced to give the answer. The one who showed mercy on him. That's mercy and then Jesus is go and do likewise. So looks like somebody in a road untouchable inconvenience costly needing mercy and here's here's the here's the thing. If that man in the road had been healthy and sound.

He would have had nothing to do with that Samaritan.

So here's a man on the ground who needs mercy doesn't deserve it from the Samaritan because of the way the Samaritan himself is been treated for his entire life and of the three men.

He's the one that Jesus and mercy look like that's what it looks like it looks like that it looks like Jesus and a leper. Another untouchable that look to Jesus and says to me, if you will. If you want to you can make me clean the Jesus I I want to, and he touches him instead of becoming unclean. For the first time a person touches an unclean person in the unclean person becomes clean. That's what Jesus does. It looks like people who are moral outcasts and social outcasts and religious outcasts who all of a sudden become the centerpieces of story after story after story in your Gospels because God is full of this kind of mercy that brings us to the last question, then, and that is this because if you're like me and after hearing something like this. I want to be like that. So how does God go about cultivating that kind of mercy in us. More specifically, how he cultivated and silly like me. I would God know about with this sort of uncomfortable mercy. To me this is radical uncomfortable mercy. It puts me way out of my comfort zone. I am okay buying somebody lunch. I am okay extending help her get on occasion to somebody that God brings across my path, but I would not describe my own personal life is full of this, not to the level that Jesus is talking about. So how does God do it is said to you this way will be done unto you find yourself in the road desperately needing mercy you want to be merciful.

I lived in Minnesota for many years and there was. I lived in a very wonderful neighborhood we we had all kinds of nationalities in the particular area were we lived in, and down the road from us was a woman from India and I remember we had I think was a five or 6 foot snowfall that felt and and I remember Robert and I were getting out of our we plowed our driveway. Were you ready go to work. We look down to our neighbor and there she was with the garage door open and this mountain of snow in her driveway and she had a spoon and she was taking her spoon and trying to plow her way through the driveway with a spoon and so Robert and I went over and we took our snow shovels and we plowed snow made a lane for her enough of Elaine for her to get out in and in and she was profoundly thankful we became really good friends. Lots of gospel opportunity and so here's here's the point I want to make. Why did I do that what motivated me to do that will maybe I felt sorry for the felt bad spoon and give tried to snow drive our snow shovel drive with a spoon. It's it's it's unimaginable it's the right thing to do morally little socially neighborly. She's my name or I maybe I can make some goodwill with her exam.

I need her to watch the dog sometimes maybe I could make some goodwill or maybe it maybe it's good to give me a great opportunity to teach my Canada lesson, or maybe an awesome illustration Sunday. I will really be honest and I neededthis is a good one. I got half an hour flexibility illustration out of this I can use in the sermon was shameless, brief usually do that may be may be, it happened because I've been there.

I've been in that spot with no shovel nobody around trying to figure out how to get all the snow out of the way so I can get what I need to get in. Just be sporadic and crying out to God, do you send somebody to help me and I've been if you've ever lived in snowy country you have to you pulled your credit card out as you have the you know that the windshield thing you know the worst thing to do is clean off your car and from all the mountains snow and then click your door lock her in the car. Next you the lights blink that actually happened to me for you to be merciful, that's not intended mercy so doesn't count as merciful when we see ourselves in that untouchable that leper is me, the prostitute is me that moral outcast is me and until I see myself in the road and then I I stand amazed at the wonderful merciful Savior that God sent me.

That's how God cultivates mercy in us is it's not because we see the plight of others read it is because we have come to understand that that is our plight and we found mercy. So as you think about being a merciful Savior learn all that you can about the theology of mercy understand the grace behind that mercy realize you know what it feels like because you've been the man in the road.

You've been there. By the way some of you may still be there in the mercy that were talking about today is not just a foreign concept. It's available to you if you will come to the Savior and asked for more.

Thank you for our time today.

Thank you for the opportunity we have talked about your mercy and grace to us. Thank you for the experience of it in our own lives in the Lord to fill us with them so that we would be like because we have experienced that mercy from you.

In Jesus name, amen. You been listening to a sermon preached at Bob Jones University. Dr. Sam Horn.

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