The Last Spiritual Gift: Exploring the Gift of Mercy

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,

where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

In this podcast series, we're going to be looking into biblical

words that have great significance to our faith.

The name of this series is called the Word of the Week, where

once a week we will dive deeper into these words that we are

familiar with in scripture.

So come along with me, let's study the Word of the week.

Pastor Josh here.

The word of the week is gift.

This will be our last week looking at the spiritual gifts listed

in Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

And it's been quite a journey as we have looked at these gifts

given to us by God in His grace for our service to him.

And, and we've looked at many passages of scripture, but the two

main passages that we are are foundationally looking at these gifts

in is first Peter chapter four, and then Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

And in that list there in Romans chapter 12, we see the, the

Romans 12 · chapter mention

last gift there listed as the gift of mercy.

And last week we looked at the gift of administration, or as the

King James puts it, ruling.

But this year we will look at many different elements of how we

can use these gifts for the work of the ministry.

But the last one today that we're looking at in its definition

is the gift of mercy.

And so in First Peter, chapter 4, verses 10 and 11, it tells us

1 Peter 4:10

that there are gifts that are going to be more public gifts.

There's also going to be gifts that possibly could be even behind

the scenes.

And, and in many ways the gift of mercy is one of those gifts that

would be behind the scene.

And I think one of the things we have to think about when it comes

to the area of mercy is the motivation behind our mercy.

And we have to look at the definition of that word, mercy itself.

Mercy is essentially withholding something from someone

that they might deserve.

And so we have to recognize what mercy is and we have to recognize

what that looks like in our lives.

And so the gift of mercy defined is this.

It's the spirit giving gift.

And with that gift comes the desire and the motivation to serve

God in the body by deeply, authentically emphasizing empathy

to other people.

So basically perceiving the emotional needs of those that are

in distress or needing comfort, maybe people needing relief,

maybe even to some degrees in anguish.

And I think that for the body of believers, this is a very important

ministry.

And the purpose again behind the mercy is to point people to Christ,

to give glory to God, as First Peter 4 tells us.

And so the person with the gift of mercy is the person with

the supernatural gift of.

Of empathizing with people's emotions.

And emotions are a beautiful thing.

God gives us those emotions.

Even though we can't allow the emotions to dictate to us our truth,

we cannot deny the emotions that we face through various circumstances

in our life.

So, for example, you know, someone could go through a very difficult

time with a loss of a loved one or pain in their own life, and

that leads to sadness, that leads to sorrow, that leads to pain.

And so it's a serving gift that focuses on the emotional needs

of an individual and in the broader sense, the emotional needs

of the body of believers.

And so the.

The mercies are motivated to.

To meet the emotional needs of people in practical ways.

So it's not just, hey, I feel for you.

It's.

It's not just, hey, you know what?

I feel sorry for your pain and I'll cry with you, but it's actually

trying to meet these folks's needs in a very practical way that

can help in, in that process.

And so I think a couple verses that we could look at when it comes

to that idea of meeting the practical emotional needs of people

within our church could be found in many passages.

But I think if you look at Luke chapter 6, Luke chapter 6, and

Luke 6 · chapter mention Luke 6 · chapter mention

we can look at verse 36, here we see a very important truth given

to us.

And it says, obviously Jesus is speaking, and he says, be therefore

merciful, as your Father also is merciful.

I know that's a short statement, but there's a lot packed

in there.

And essentially what we see is that as believers, we are marked

in our identity by our Savior, by, by our Lord.

And so we, we take steps to emulate and to model the mercy that

God gives.

And so obviously, God gives his mercy by meeting needs.

Um, God extends grace and mercy and comfort to those in need.

And so that's what we do.

We don't just say it, but we do it.

Another passage of scripture that we're familiar with in our second

Corinthians studies, 2 Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 3.

2 Corinthians 1:3

Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.

So we see that it's the character of God to extend this comfort

and mercy to people, but then it tells us the purpose of that.

So, so as God comforts us, verse four, who comforted us in our

tribulation, meaning God comforts us, the believer, that we

may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort

wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.

So if you didn't catch that there, it says this God extends mercy

and comfort to us so that we can, yes, be given comfort and receiving

mercy, but so that also we can share that mercy and comfort with

others around us.

And so God is always extending that mercy and that grace and that

comfort so that, yes, we can be beneficiaries of that, but so

that we can share that with others.

And so you serve these people and you give them mercy.

You show, you extend mercy.

But there, there's definitely a difference between mercy and service.

But mercy in and of itself is that starting place to demonstrating

the, the help.

But I, I think the way that you could discern between the two,

between the gift of service or the gift of mercy is that the motivation

behind.

The motivation behind it, right?

Meeting needs, yes, but also meeting people on their emotion,

I think would be the, the mercy element of it.

And so you, you know, you can see a lot of people in scripture

that would be examples of this.

But the one that comes to mind for me would be Barnabas.

Right?

Barnabas.

He's the, the son of consolation.

And I think that that would be an individual that if you studied

him out in scripture, you could study out the, the mercy and

the grace of, of Barnabas.

And, and that would be a good character study.

But I, I would encourage you to, if you get a chance, look up

Barnabas and look up what he does there with, with Paul and others.

And I think that that would be beneficial for us as we study this

gift of mercy.

So someone with the gift of mercy strongly is driven by love,

compassion.

And so there's that, there's that desire for genuine love, deep

love.

Someone who has the gift of mercy is going to be strongly empathetic.

And that can go in the positive and the negative.

Obviously, as you're feeling, there's emotions, those emotions

that can go into a negative place, right?

If we allow our emotions to dictate our truth, then our truth

is being dictated by a fluctuating thing.

And our truth has to be dictated to.

Our truth has to be dictated to the Word of God.

Dictated by the Word of God, I should say linked to the Word of

God.

And so I think that that's something that we have to gauge when

it comes to this gift.

And so, you know, exercising this gift in the flesh would be seen

maybe as allowing our emotions to dictate our decisions, but exercising

this in the spirit would be saying, I'm going to take my truth

from the Word of God.

But meet people in their needs and their emotions.

And so that, that's something to think about.

I think that there is a strong attraction in this gift to connect

with people that are stressed, people that are maybe going through

difficult times in their life.

And maybe even sometimes it feels like they, they come after

you, they, they follow you, they find you.

And so there is a strong tendency to communicate emotions

to other people.

And, and I, I think that, you know, there are going to be people

that are naturally gifted in this, and there's going to be people

like myself that might not be naturally gifted in this.

And so, you know, it's.

The exhorter will see the, the problem with the situation and the

remedy to the situation and will say, hey, look, you know what?

This is all you gotta do to do it and kind of separate themselves

from the emotional side of things.

But the person with the gift of mercy will maybe not necessarily

sacrifice truth, but they will meet that person in that emotional

distress and empathize with them.

And so that mercy and that truth works together wonderfully.

And so there's a strong tendency to try to take away stressful

situations from people.

And, and so I, I would say that that's something as well that

would link in with the, the gift of, of mercy.

But of course, all those, all those things can fall into the, the

fleshly mindset as well.

Someone who has the gift of mercy but exercising in the flesh

could be maybe more of an indecisive person when it comes to

decision making because of the fact that they are.

He or she are, is going through the process of trying to

allow the emotions to dictate them instead of the truth of God.

That the person who's exercising mercy in the flesh might

jump to someone's side, taking sides because of an emotion, maybe

going to the place of empath, emphasizing the empathy too much

and not emphasizing truth.

There may be some vulnerability there that could easily

lead to hurt, maybe feeling overwhelmed by taking on the pain

of others.

And I would say, you know, might even get to a place of being

too connected with somebody to the point where they can't see the

truth.

They're too close to the situation that they can't see the

truth.

Uh, so, so of course the Bible speaks of speaking the truth in love,

but if you emphasize the love and have no truth, there is a mistake

in that.

So that would be, that would be the negative side of acting in

the flesh with this gift of mercy in one's life.

But it's a needed, needed gift within the church.

As all of these gifts are, right.

God gives us these manifold gifts, these various gifts for the

purpose of being diverse within the church.

Because not everyone can be gifted in the gift of mercy, because

we would be missing in other areas.

But we all are gifted in certain areas for the purpose of

the gospel, for the purpose of the glory of God.

And it is given to us by grace.

We did not earn our salvation and we did not earn our spiritual

gift or gifts that God extends to us in his love and his grace.

So that's something to think about, never to wrap ourselves up

in the pride of our gifts because they weren't something that

we earned.

It was something given to us in grace that brings us to a place

of humility, that brings us to a place of thankfulness, and that

brings us to a place of reliance on God, even in the midst

of our gifts that God has extended to us.

So I've really enjoyed this study.

I've really enjoyed the study looking at the spiritual gifts, the

ministering gifts there in Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

And certainly we will address these in further study down the road,

I'm sure.

But we will be moving on to a new Word of the Week next week.

If you've been with us now for a while, this has been a long study.

I think it's around two months that we've been looking at the spiritual

gifts there in Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

And I thank you for following along with that and I hope it's been

helpful for you, hope it's been a beneficial study to identify

where God has gifted you and where you can serve in your local

body there, wherever you are listening this, listening to this

podcast.

So I hope that you continue on with us as we study more words.

There's so many words given to us in scripture and we're thankful

for them and we're thankful for the opportunity to grow in our

knowledge of the Word of God.

So I hope that you have a wonderful rest of your week.

We will come back to you next week with another Word of the Week.

We'll be praying that God continues to work in your life and

we continue to trust in him for his guidance and for his truth.

So we thank you, appreciate it.

If you could share this podcast with somebody else, that

would be wonderful.

The more folks we have listening to this podcast, the more

we're able to reach out and proclaim the truth to this world.

So we will talk to you soon.

God bless.

Take care.

Hey, I really appreciate that you listen to the Word of the Week

podcast.

If you have any questions about the podcast or about our church,

Middletown Baptist Church.

You can find more information about us on Facebook or YouTube.

Or you can find the podcast on NBCPodcast.org you can contact me

directly at Josh Massaroiddletownbaptistchurch.org stay

tuned for future Word of the Week episodes where we dive deeper

into words that impact our life according to scripture.

Thank you so much.

God bless.

We'll talk to you soon.