Rick Warren - Being an Agent of Mercy in the World—Part One

Hello, and thanks for joining us today on Pastor Rick's

Daily Hope. This is the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren,

and today we are continuing in a series called the

Miracle of Mercy. Rick will show us how God's mercy

can lift your guilt, heal your wounds, and transform.

The way you live.

All right, let's get started with part one of a

message called being an Agent of Mercy in the World.

Now, we've talked many, many times that God has five

purposes for your life. He wants you to know and

love Him. That's called worship. He wants you to belong

to his family that's called fellowship. He wants you to

grow spiritually and become like Christ. That's called discipleship. He

wants you to learn how to serve other people and

not be self centered. That's called ministry. And he wants

you to share the good news with other people. That's

called your mission in life. Now, mercy has application for

every one of those purposes. The Bible tells us that

when you show mercy to other people, it's an act

of worship. It shows you love God. The Bible says

that when you show mercy, it builds fellowship. It brings

people together. The Bible says that when you show mercy,

you become more like Christ, you grow spiritually. The Bible

says that when you show mercy, it's a service to

other people. It's a ministry. And the Bible says that

when you show mercy, it is a form of your

mission of sharing the good news, and so you fulfill

your purpose in life. One of the ways you do

that is by showing mercy to other people. I want

us this weekend, in the last message in this series,

to look at mercy as a witness, specifically being an

agent of mercy in the world. When I was a

little boy, I dreamed of being a secret agent. There

was a show on television called The Man from Uncle.

Does anybody remember this show? You're extremely old if you

remember this show. Okay. There was another one called I Spy.

Does anybody remember that movie I Spy? Yeah? And of

course it was James Bond. And I was just obsessed

with this idea of being a special agent or a

secret agent. And even as a little boy, in like

the third and fourth grade, I read all these books

on the FBI and on the CIA and on inter

Pol because I always thought how cool would it be

to be chosen to be an agent that represented something

really significant in the world. Well, God has chosen you

to be a significant agent in the most significant cause

in the world, which is called the Kingdom of God.

And God wants you to be an agent of mercy

in the world. And it's one of the ways that

we actually share our faith. Now, Jesus said in next

chapter one, verse eight. He said this right before he

went back to heaven after he resurrected from the dead.

He said, you will be my witnesses. Now, what is

a witness. Well, if you go to courtroom, witness is

somebody who just tells what they saw happen. It's not

the job of the witness to convince the jury. It's

not the job of the witness to be the prosecution.

It's not the job of the witness to be a defense.

The witness just says, this is all I saw, this

is what happened to me. And when Jesus says you'll

be my witness, you're the only one who can be

the witness for you, because nobody else knows how God

has worked in your life. Besides you, you're the authority

on you. I can't be your witness. Nobody else can

be your witness. Only you can tell what's happened to you.

And when you tell that, that's called your story or

your testimony. Just like in court, people give a testimony. Now,

a lot of people think, well, I only have one testimony. No, no, no,

You've got hundreds of Christian testimonies. Anytime God has done

something in your life, you've got a story about it.

That's called the testimony. If God has helped you overcome

worry and fear, that's a testimony. If God has helped you,

you know, manage your anger better, that's a testimony. You

may have a testimony about your health, how God helped

you through a difficult health crisis. You may have a

testimony or a story about how God helped you when

you're in a financial crisis, or how God saved your marriage,

or how God put back a relationship. You literally have

hundreds of testimonies, and the one you share is just

the one whichever relates to the person you're talking to.

You are the authority on you, and to be a

witness simply means I share what God has done in

my life. You don't have to know a lot of scripture.

You don't have to be a theologian, you don't have

to be able to quote the Bible. You just share

what God's done in your life. Now, Jesus did not

say you will be my defense attorney. It's not your

job to defend God. Jesus did not say you will

be my prosecutor. And it's not your job to convince people.

That's God's job, that's the Holy Spirit's job. Your job

is just be a witness. I don't know this what

happened to me, and only you are the authority on you,

and nobody can even challenge it because they're not you.

You are the authority on you. You will be my witnesses. Now,

what's the best way to do that in today's world? Well,

as the world becomes more how shall I say it, unkind,

more mean, more unforgiving, let me ask you this, is

the world becoming more loving or more self centered? Self centered?

There's no doubt about that. Is the world today more

polite than ten years ago or more rude than ten

years ago? Yeah, more rude. We know that the world

is not getting more loving, The world is not getting

more kind. Wars aren't going away, racial violence and stress

and bigotry is not going away. Profiling prejudice isn't going

to ray. The politics is getting more close or more divided, divided.

We know this, and so you might write this down.

In an unkind world, in a mean world, our greatest

witness is showing mercy because it's so unusual. Showing mercy

means thinking about the other person instead of thinking about myself.

It's doing what's best for them rather than what's best

for me. Every time you show mercy in the world,

that's your greatest Christian witness. Because we're in a world

that's very unmerciful. We're in a world that's very unforgiving.

We're in a world where you're taught to put down

other people. In fact, one of the highest forms of

humor is put down, and some of the highest paid

comedians are those who know how to put down certain

races or certain segments of society. And it is those

sarcastic and cynical jabs they make their money. And coming

into a very unkind, unloving, unforgiving, mean world, when people

show mercy, people go, that's what I expect a Christian

to be. That's what Jesus Christ would do he showed mercy,

Jesus said in Matthew six thirty six, show mercy to others,

just as your father shows mercy to you. So what

I want to do is we wrap up this campaign

we've been in is talk about how and where you

do that. How do you show mercy and where do

you show mercy? So just quickly, we're going to look

at a few principles of mercy, and then we're going

to look spend most of the focus on the places

of mercy. And I want you to hear some just

stories examples of how normal people are sharing mercy as

a witness in their daily life. All right, So let's

look at some principles of mercy. Let me give them

to you real quickly. Number one, if you want to

build a lifestyle of mercy, start looking and listening for

people's needs. That's the starting point. Start looking and listening

for people's needs, the needs of people in your neighborhood,

the needs of people at work, the needs of people

in your family, the needs that you hang out with

at soccer games. Mercy always begins with awareness. It begins

with paying attention, It begins with noticing if you care,

you will be aware. If you don't care, you're not aware. Now,

the reason why we're not very merciful is not that

you're a bad person. It's not that you are just

a totally mean person. It's that you are too busy.

I said this several sessions back. The number one destroyer

of mercy in your life, the number one thing that

keeps you from being merciful, is you're just too busy.

Because when you're too busy, you're moving from event to event,

from project to project, from one thing on your schedule

next thing on your schedule, and you're not paying attention

to the people around you. If you're not paying attention,

if you're not noticing, if you're not looking, if you're

not listening, you cannot possibly be merciful. If you care,

you'll be aware. The Bible says in Philippians two four,

look out, look out for one another's interest, not just

your own. As I said, mercy begins with looking and

loving and listening, and actually attention is an act of love.

You know, when my kids were small, I remember I

would be sitting on the sofa reading the paper and

Amy would come up to me as a little girl,

and she'd say daddy, and I'd say, yes, honey, and

I'm reading the papers because Daddy, yes, honey, Daddy, yes, babe,

what do you need? And she would pull the paper down,

grab my face in her hands and say, Daddy, look

at me. Why Because I've told you this before. The

highest form of love is not sex. It's attention. Attention

is the highest form of love. Why because attention says

you matter to me. Attention. When you give people attention,

you're giving them your time, and your time is your life.

You can always get more of other stuff. You could

give people gifts, but you can always get more gifts.

You can give people money, you can always make more money.

You can give people advice, you can always get more advice.

When you give people your attention, you're giving them a

slice of your life that you're never getting back. So

when you give people attention, you're giving them the highest,

most expensive gift that you could possibly give them, a

slice of your life. And when you look them in

the eye and you pay attention, that is the highest

form of love. I've talked to a lot of husbands

and dads. I don't get it. I don't understand my

wife and kids. I buy them everything they need. I

provide for all. They've got a great home. There's no needs,

physical needs. What more do they want? They want you.

They want you. They want your attention, and it is

worth more than anything else you could possibly give them.

When you look at people in the eye and you

listen to them with your ear, you are showing mercy.

And when you look at them and listen to them,

you are paying attention, which is the highest form of love.

In Matthew ten, verse twenty one, one of my favorite verses,

a young man comes up to Jesus. He's got a

lot of problems. He asked the questions, and the Bible

says Jesus looked at him and loved him. If you

love people, you look at him, and when you look

at him, you're showing love for them. So start by

listening and looking for the people's needs around you. You

just need to start practicing that this week if you

want to develop the lifestyle of mercy. Number two, here's

the second principle of mercy. Don't be offended by their sin.

Don't be offended by the sins that they that they do.

You know, grace is messy. Grace and mercy are unconditional.

They're unconditional love, which means it's not like, go get

your act together and then I'll like you, go clean

up your life and then you'll be okay with me.

Go make everything right and then I will accept you.

Go live the way I think you ought to live,

and then you'll be fine with me. No, no, no,

you just grace is messy. Grace is unconditional. Mercy is unconditional.

And if you're going to minister to people, if you're

going to show mercy to people, you can't be offended

by them. Jesus wasn't offended by people, and he hung

out with the worst kinds of sinners quote in the

day that day, the prostitutes, the drunks, the corrupt business people.

He hung out with those people. In fact, he was

accused of guilt by association because he hung out with

people who were corrupt, and he hung out with people

who were immoral, and he hung out with people who

were unloving and unkind and manipulative, and yet he did

not he was not offended by their sin. Let me

just say this. The Bible says to look out for

the needs of other people around you. I can't look

out for them. If I'm looking down on them, you

can't do it. And so if you, as a Christian,

are looking down on anybody, you're not looking out for

that person. If you claim to be a follower of

Jesus Christ, you claim to be a legitimate child of God,

you cannot look down on anybody nobody. I've often thought,

one day I'm going to do a series called Things

that Jesus did Not Say. I thought that would be

a good series Things that Jesus did not say. And

one of the things Jesus never said was you don't

have to love that type. He never said that. He

never said, oh, that kind of over there. You don't

have to love those kind of people. Their politics suck,

their lifestyle sucks, their moral vision sucks. No, you don't

have to love them because they're way way off base. Sorry.

If you're going to be an agent in mercy, the

Bible says you have to show mercy to everybody. You

have to look out for them and not look down

on them. Here's what the Bible says, Jude chapter one,

verse twenty two and twenty three. Show mercy to those

whose faith is wavering. Okay, so the guy out there

guy goes, I'm an atheist. Fine, you're faith's wavering. I

can't look down on you. I'm an agnostic. Fine, you're

faith wavering. I can't look down on you. I don't

know what I believe right now. Fine, your faith is waving.

I am to show you mercy. The Bible says show

mercy to those whose faith is wavering, and then he says,

and rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment.

They're making bad judgments all the time. And he says,

there's still others to whom you need to sho show

mercy because of their lifestyle or whatever. He says, but

be careful, then you aren't contaminated by their sins. In

other words, showing mercy doesn't mean I excuse everything and

say it's okay. It's not okay. If you're out there

and you're addicted to things, that's not okay. And showing

mercy doesn't mean O, I, hey, you know I'm gonna

get addicted with you or you're in corruption doesn't mean

I go, oh, it's okay, it's no big deal. No,

it is a big deal. But I still show you mercy.

I don't get corrupted by it. I don't get myself

involved in it. He says, be careful, you're not contaminated.

In other words, it's the difference between acceptance and approval.

Jesus accepts me completely. He does not approve of everything

I do. Jesus accepts you completely. He does not approve

of everything you do. Jesus accepts everybody else, he does

not approve of everything they do. And there's a fine difference.

We are to love people, and we are to accept them.

But it doesn't mean that everything that I do is right.

Doesn't mean everything you do is right. It doesn't mean

anything everybody else does is right. That's just not true.

One Peter four eight says, most importantly, love each other deeply.

Love has a way of not looking at other's sins.

Isn't that beautiful? Love has a way of not looking

at other's sins. Now, did you notice these first two points?

The first one says look out for people's interests, and

in this point says, don't look out for people's sins.

In other words, of some stuff, you should pay attention

to their needs and their hurts and their interests. And

there's some stuff in people's lives you shouldn't pay attention

to He says, don't overlook their sins. Love covers the

multitude of sins. We're not We are to look out

for their interests, but we're not to look at their sins.

Ephesians four to two says this in the Bible. Be

patient with each other, making allowances for each other another,

cut for each other's false, cut each other some slack.

That's called mercy because of your love. Now, I want

to give you a principle right now that if every

Christian in America would practice it, it would change America overnight.

And if everybody Christian in the world would practice that,

it would change the world overnight. Is this principle, Write

it down. Don't expect unbelievers to act like believers until

they are. That is so simple, and it's so logical,

but we often don't. We want to expect everybody to

act like Christians when they're not even Christians. That's it

ain't gonna happen. You can try to make a law

to make non believers act like believers. It isn't gonna work,

because the Bible says they don't have the power to change.

I couldn't do the right thing until I got God's

power in my life. I tried a lot of things

I wanted to change in my life that I couldn't

change until I got Christ in my life. Then I

had the power to change. To ask a non believer

to have this same moral standards as a believer is nonsense. First,

they don't understand it. In the second, they don't have

the power to do it. And I didn't either, and

you didn't either until you get Christ in your life.

That's like getting the cart before the horse. That's why

it's really kind of nonsense. Where there are Christians out

there trying to get all of these moral laws put

into society, to create moral laws to force people to

act in Christian ways before they even have the power

to do it. The whole Book of Romans says the

law is powerless. It doesn't have the power to change

people's lives. Only grace changed people's lives. Only mercy changes

people's lives. The law has never changed anybody. We could

make a law that says we outlaw bigotry. Is that

going to turn a bigot into a lover? No? Only

Jesus can turn a bigot into a lover. Only he

can do it on the inside. You can make a law,

but it isn't going to turn a bigot into lover.

Is just not going to do it. So don't expect

unbelievers to act like believers until they are. And you

can't be offended by people's sins if you're going to

show him mercy, if you're going to win them to Christ,

you just have to love them where they are. Here's

a good example of that in Matthew chapter nine, talking

about Matthew, who was one of the disciples followers of Jesus.

Matthew was a tax collector. In those days, tax collectors

that was the most hated profession in the Roman Empire

because Rome said to the tax collectors, here's what you want.

We want you to collect, and anything you get above

that you can keep. So is extortion. And so a

tax collector could come to you and say you owe

this much money, you had no alternative but to pay

it or get thrown in jail. He would give a

little bit to the government and keep the rest. They

were all Every tax collector was corrupt. And Jesus goes

to a party with tax collectors and matt It says

that night Matthew invited Jesus to dinner with his fellow

tax collectors and many other quote notorious sinners end quote.

Now of the Pharisees, that's the religious legalist. They were indignant.

Why does your teacher eat with such scum, they asked,

that's very loving. Okay. When Jesus heard this that comment,

he said, Hey, healthy people don't need a doctor. Sick

people do. And then he added, now go and learn

the meaning of this scripture. I want you to be merciful,

not to offer sacrifices for I. Jesus have come to

invite sinners to me, not those who think they're righteous.

And I didn't come for people who think they're well.

I came for people who know they're sick, who know

they're broken, who know they have problems. I've come to

invite sinners to me, not to those who think they're righteous. Now,

the religious pharis he's the legalists. They couldn't get understanding.

Why is this guy, you know, acting cozy with crooks

and riff raff. He's going to all these parties. You

know there's a bunch of drunks and gluttons, and you

know he's Jesus is a party animal. Actually accused him

that in the Bible he's a party animal. But Jesus

was not looking for their approval. What he was doing

is he was looking and listening to the needs of

other people. He was going to where the needs of

other people were, and he wasn't offended by their stins.

You can't help somebody you're offended by it. You got

to show mercy.

What a great message from Pastor Rick today. There's something

I always take away from his message. Here's Rick to

tell you how you can help support this ministry.

Jesus told his disciples that they should live their lives

according to five specific purposes. He said, you've got to

love God with all your heart. That's where and love

your neighbors yourself. That's ministry. That's called the Great Commandment.

And then Jesus said, go make disciples. That's evangelism. Baptize

them into the Family of God. That's fellowship, a sign

of fellowship. And then he said, teach them obey everything

I've taught you. That's discipleship. And we call that the

Great Commission. We believe it daily hope that a great

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