Back to Basics: Mercy Please! - Dr. Mike

Welcome to Life Series, a podcast from King Golden Bay Baptist Church, where we gather together to experience God's love, grow in God's love, and give that love back to each other.

We are gonna be preaching from Matthew chapter 5, verses 7.

Matthew 5:7

And it says, I'll read your hearing.

It says, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Matthew 5, 7 says, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown what?

Mercy.

We are just so grateful to be here.

Our sermon title on this morning is Back to Basics.

And look at your neighbor, say mercy, please.

Look at the next neighbor who next neighbor say mercy please.

Before we start contextually, uh, before we start, we are our young people are gonna come back down so we could pray over them.

Uh, but we wanted to make sure as we are going to we're gonna shout out uh and pray for our principals and administrators and people going back and starting the school year.

Some people started school on last week, uh, but collectively, everyone will be back in school uh basically on Monday.

Some of you on online school, some of you going back to work and school, but God is good.

At some point in time throughout this semester, you're gonna look around and look at your neighbor and say, What?

Mercy, please.

Now we have some young people that are gonna be going away.

We have young people that are gonna be going as far away.

Well, two young people actually.

Uh, and I'm gonna say it now.

We have two young people who are gonna be going away uh to the United Kingdom for school.

Um, and I'm gonna miss them very well.

Clap right there, clap right there.

Uh, before you know who they are.

Uh, first we have Tia Herbert.

Uh she she she may be in the back somewhere.

She's upstairs working.

Uh, she will be working remotely in the media room, even though she's in the UK.

She's going to the UK, she's gonna be studying uh event management, logistics, and and that's I got everything, mom.

Event management and logistics and planning.

Uh put your hands together.

Guess who?

Guess who can't wait for her to get back home?

Uh yeah, hey, put your hands up.

Look back.

They can see you.

Wave your hands right there.

They can see.

Uh, we're celebrating people all.

Put your hands up, put your hands up, put your hands up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Her mama's gonna start crying.

Hold on, don't don't don't want her mama crying.

And then next, we have one is such an amazing young person.

Um, we have Jazara.

Jasara Dawson.

Put your hands up right there.

You can see her.

She is going away to United Kingdom as well.

She is going into medical school.

Um better clap.

Cuz uh always nice to be friends with a doctor, amen.

Uh it's good to know them before they have the coat because you know you can get in.

That's why I stick close to them.

Uh, but she is so brilliant.

She is so brilliant.

Um, I've had the opportunity to work with her for the last uh year, make give or take.

And so brilliant, so amazing.

Uh, she's going away from med school to to prayerfully, and we declare she is going to study thoracic surgery.

Now, what are you?

Y'all may be wondering, well, I told you she was smart.

So when she said it, she said, Dr.

Mike, I'm gonna be, I got into med school for thoracic surgery.

I was like, that's great.

Then I looked at Chat GPT, what is thoracic surgery?

And when I found out is all the surgery that takes place from here to here, everything in between.

Um, so imagine right now, if you need that type of surgery, you have to bring a doctor in.

In eight years, I want you to look at your neighbor, in eight years, in eight years, she's gonna be back here practicing.

And and and we might not have enough work for her to do, but at least we know somebody.

Uh uh, but we have a lot of people doing amazing things, but we want to just highlight these two young people uh who are going far away when you don't see them, uh, and recover them and pray for them.

Yeah.

But we'll say a prayer for everyone.

And for those of you who travel back from the UK, you've gone too long.

I've been having lunch by myself.

Just counting my raisins and lettuce uh by myself, Mr.

Sean.

Every Wednesday I used to look for and we even went to have lunch there, and the person didn't show up.

Um, we're not gonna talk about people who go away for four months.

Four months.

My my lunch brother has gone away.

Four months, Pastor.

Uh I'm gonna stamp his passport.

I'm not gonna put him out there, but you know Moses had a brother, and his name was his brother's name was what?

Aaron, yes.

And and I used to love this guy.

He used to watch him, he used to name what?

Mr.

Who?

Whose neighborhood was it?

Rogers.

It was Mr.

Rogers' neighborhood.

Uh, so yes, you Aaron and Rogers, amen.

God bless you.

He's like, you can't, I can't believe you did that to me.

Um, but we're grateful to see everybody that's returning back from the summer.

Let's pray.

Lord, we are grateful for what eyes have seen and ears have experienced.

Allow this word to go forward and allow your mercy to be shown.

Your name we pray.

Amen.

May have your seat no matter where you are.

So great to see you on this September morning.

And we never forget that we are one day, ten years ago almost now, one day removed, we were picking up the pieces from Hurricane Irma.

If you think about it, we're only here because of the grace and the what mercy of God.

No matter what's going on, no matter what's taking place.

This scripture now is part of the Beatitudes.

We're back in the Beatitudes, and we are now Jesus was now preaching on the Sermon on the Mount.

The Sermon on the Mount is one of the pivotal sermons that Jesus spoke of all time.

It's encapsulate the entire gospel.

Jesus now finds himself on a sermon and preaching to these people who gathered around on this mountain, and he's preaching to them, and these people are the broken.

I want to remind you, these people are not the well-to-do society because all the Jewish class and all the legal class and all the government class didn't want Jesus to be around.

So the people that were coming to hear Jesus preach and speak were the broken-hearted, were the widows, were the people who are marginalized.

Basically, as Howard Thurman says, these are the peoples who are living with their backs against the wall.

Jesus is now preaching a sermon to these people who are holding on to hope and making want to make everything as good, but they're wondering what Jesus will say.

Would he heal us?

Would he make us rich?

Would he set us free?

And now Jesus is now gathered at this place, seated as he's preaching, talking so he could become intimate with the people he's preaching to.

I want to be a part of your struggle.

Jesus now gets to this point as he's sharing with them and wondering, what should I say?

And he starts off with this gospel.

And Matthew, I think, concaps really well.

And he now comes to Matthew chapter 5, and he's in this message, seven verses in, and he now says, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

I want to be honest with you all.

All this week, this message has made me really upset.

If I be if I be honest, because being merciful almost equates for you feeling like you're gonna be weak, like being merciful.

And how do you be merciful when you sometimes in this world the last thing that people show to each other is what?

Mercy.

You're wondering that people are so harsh on each other that they can't, we have a cancel culture.

You make one mistake and you're what?

Done.

And you don't get a warning, you don't get forgiveness, you don't get another chance.

Uh, if it was supposed to be 10 years for your sentence, you're gonna get 10 years.

There is no what?

Mercy.

Uh, some of you who are doing back to school shopping as you got to the register are because we have not implemented any price controls and we are not paying attention to what's happening globally.

We go to the cash register with five things.

The bill is$600, and you just say, God, have what?

Mercy.

Uh, you were there with all of us with bated breath.

When you saw that email pop up and it says BVI Electricity Department, and you saw that the the the fuel supply and you said, God, look at my bill.

Would you have some what?

It's you want some mercy.

Um, but mercy never comes, it doesn't come in the form that you think it is.

You had no subsidy, it's no mercy.

If you look around and you're wondering what is happening in the world, you're wondering where have we lost our humanity?

Everyone wants to push policy, but policy should never reveal the pact of us being nice and kind to each other.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.

Now, on the surface of this, it almost seems like a transaction.

But mercy and you will be shown mercy, you have to understand that to show mercy to someone else and God will show you mercy.

But you have to understand the first thing about mercy is that God showed us mercy first.

Oftentimes in the scripture, you will see that they will start with what they want you to do and then reverse what will happen in the back.

If in all intents and purposes, God showed us mercy first.

It's not like people say, Well, nobody showed me mercy, so I can't be merciful.

Some people use this scripture and read it literally.

It said, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.

So, God, I'm looking at my life, I ain't been shown no mercy in my life, so I can't be merciful.

They do something to me, I'm gonna do it right back.

I got time today.

And you're like, No, no, no, it's not about that.

If I can earn, you can't earn mercy, it's not a payment.

And mercy was never supposed to be a payment.

Mercy is a gift.

Look at your neighbor said, Mercy is a gift.

I know some of you who are still bitter right now are saying, Mercy's a gift, but guess what, Pastor?

I ain't Santa Claus and ain't close to Christmas, so I ain't giving out no gifts.

But mercy is a gift that you received.

So maybe we should just start at the end.

For you should obtain mercy because all of us are living here, our lives are a testament to God's mercy in your life.

Be like, Pastor, ain't no mercy in my life.

Mercy started with God.

God showed us mercy when he sent his only begotten son, and it says, For whomsoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have life and have it more everlasting.

God gave mercy.

And if you think about your own life, if you think about what you've been through, God saved you so many times.

That was the mercy of God.

Now, people look, you use grace and mercy.

Grace is an unmerited favor, favor of God to forgive you.

But mercy says, even when you're supposed to have the consequences, even when you were sentenced to 10 years, you were found guilty.

The doctor's report said that you had cancer, and mercy says, I'm gonna make sure you go through it, but you're healed.

Mercy doesn't say that you don't go through difficult things.

Mercy says, I will make sure you make it through the difficult things.

Mercy says, I know you feel like giving up, and I know it's heavy, but I'm gonna make sure you make it through.

Mercy lessens the pain of what you're going through.

Mercy is not only something that you just receive from God, but mercy is something that you should give to people.

And because of all these teaching, we bring in come back to basics.

The basics of a gospel that everyone could understand.

The basics are as simple as one, two, three.

God said, Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love your neighbor like yourself.

Three things mercy of God.

And if I were to do this, if I'm about to love God with all my heart, mind, and soul, meaning that I'm gonna do the things that God has called me to do, which is be merciful, even when they don't deserve mercy.

So for God, yourself, your neighbor, there's something reciprocal about mercy.

God gives it to me, it does something on the inside of me, and then when that's through, I should give that mercy now back to someone else.

Let me say it again.

God gives mercy to you.

Who does God give mercy to?

You.

And the mercy now on the inside of you should change how you are.

Yes?

It should have some type of transformational power.

That's why when I meet people, say they love God and they just not nice, I'm like, well, God ain't finished working on you yet.

I don't curse them, I just said God is still has a whole bunch of work to do on you yet.

If you go on your job and somebody's irritating you, don't be nasty.

Just tell them, God's still working on you, boy.

I could tell, I could tell God's still.

That's a good way of telling someone, I could tell you messed up, broken down, you don't even have it together.

But the Christian way is to say, I can see God is working, a mighty work in your life.

If for anybody in here that I've ever told that to, that's what I meant.

That's what I meant.

That's all I was saying.

That was the best way I could say.

Mercy is still working on the inside, and when mercy is finished working on the inside, it should show in how you treat other people.

Mercy is not supposed to just stay there and you hold on to it, it should be passed along because you give it freely, because it was never yours to begin with.

So when Jesus says, Blessed are the merciful, he's not saying do something nice because something and then I will owe you something nice.

He's saying that people who have really experienced mercy are to become merciful people.

It's hard for me to decide what is the worst thing.

If you've ever done something on how to obtain mercy and don't show it.

So mercy starts with God.

Mercy cannot stop.

And if it comes, you have to give it back and forth.

Now, mercy, I was looking at my old dictionary, and I wanted to get a definition of what mercy went.

And so I went back to my dictionary and says, mercy can be defined in a number of ways.

One, withholding punishment.

Mercy means not giving people the bad consequences or the judgment of the actions that they really earn.

Uh, men in here, uh, you don't have to look, men, all the men in here, if you're married or dating, the men in here, just look at me.

Uh, as you know that uh I'ma say this, and the the women in the house, I really don't want you to say anything.

Uh, for those of us who are married over 10 years, uh, those of us who married over 10 years, uh, we as men, we are the consistent recipientors of mercy.

Uh, as I look over my life over the last 19 to 20 years of being married, and now I'm starting to mature finally, I start to realize that my wife has shown me mercy in relationships, in conversations, in maturity, in emotional transaction, that she has shown mercy because sometimes that sometimes just very few, very few and far in between.

Sometimes, uh, sometimes when the water is really smooth and the sky is really blue and the Sahara dust is not as thick, sometimes I'm wrong.

Sometimes, uh, sometimes uh it happens that that happens, it just happens every now and again.

Uh, just like the the the eclipse that happened, that's how much times I'm wrong.

But when those times that I happen to be wrong, those times that I happen to have a moment of humanity, that I happen to slip up, and those times I understand what mercy is.

Mercy is when you have an argument.

This is not our household.

Mercy is when you have an argument in your house.

Mercy looks like this.

We are arguing.

That's what you're doing well.

Mercy is there's food on the stove.

There's still food.

It's still available.

You can still have access to it, but I ain't taking it out for you.

Because how you spoke to me and how we've been acting, there's food in the stove.

And here's what here's the further thing.

Now y'all don't say nothing, because this don't happen in this church.

See you, Pastor.

This don't happen in this church.

Here's the other part of my mercy.

You're gonna eat this food and you're gonna still be alive.

There's some husbands in here.

Some of these women laughed.

Let's just eat, let's just go out after lunch and we're gonna eat together because I I don't know what's prepared for you at home.

Uh, in the presence of your enemies, it looks like that means your cup will be running over.

It will be a different type of cup, and a different type of bowl will be running over.

I don't think mercy says, I should have done this to you.

Don't expect me to act the same way, but what I could have done, that some people in here need to understand that it was with the mercy of God in my life that made me not do what I wanted to do to you because I had all authority, all right, all precedence that nothing could stop me.

But I said, you know what?

It doesn't make any sense for me to break somebody down just because I'm justified to do so.

Mercy says, is it really worth to be this bad to somebody in case they've done something to you?

Mercy says, I know I can, but I won't.

I know you deserve it, but I won't.

I know you did me this, and I have all right to do it, but I won't.

Because mercy has something to protect you from becoming like the people who hurt you.

Oh, mercy is withholding punishment, but mercy is also defined as an act and compassion.

Action, mercy is an adjective, and as we said, mercy is not earned.

The Hebrew interprets mercy as a covenant of loving kindness.

Mercy in the Hebrew means loving kindness.

So if you think about it, you want to, how do I be merciful?

Just say, how do I show loving kindness even when I'm angry?

How do I show loving kindness even when the person doesn't deserve it?

Boy, I told you this message really, really, really upset me.

I'm like, God, you here preaching this message to people who are now broken.

Now imagine you in your life.

I'm telling you to be merciful, and I guarantee that people in your life right now that you're just waiting on the opportunity to be able to call them out.

And God says, I'm gonna give you that opportunity, but I'm not gonna give you that opportunity until you learn the wisdom of being merciful.

And the Greek dended interprets it as being kindness, pity.

It's actively shown in those who need.

So I'm gonna say these couple things and I'll be gone.

Characteristics of mercy.

The characteristics of mercy first.

Look at your neighbor says the characteristics of mercy.

The first thing mercy is a buffer.

Look at your neighbor said, Mercy is a buffer.

A buffer means mercy, mercy puts you in between.

Mercy is a buffer.

Now I know you want to understand why mercy.

Here's why we want I want you to be merciful.

Mercy is a buffer.

Mercy, as James Cohn says, and Howard Thurman talks about, is not just a simple act of loving kindness, mercy.

Has for those who are oppressed and beaten down, those who've had a tough time in life.

You know what mercy does?

Mercy prevents you from becoming like the people who hurt you.

Mercy's a buffer.

I'm telling you, people in your life, you want to be free from people in your life?

Become, show them mercy.

I know it's hard.

I know what they've done to you.

I know what they're doing to you.

I know what they're actively trying, but show mercy.

Mercy is a buffer because here's the worst thing somebody treated you bad, talked to you bad, looked at you bad, and now you become those who were treating you bad.

Now, guess what?

Because you weren't able to forgive and show mercy, now you're nasty, just like the people who hurt you.

That's why trauma and be and abuse continues from generation to generation because it's passed down from grandmother to mother to sister to brother to uncle, and no one, well, they treated me bad, so I'ma treat you bad.

They talk to me like this, so I'm gonna talk, and no one says, mercy, please.

So we're cursing ourselves because we don't want to show mercy.

If that one act of kindness could break a curse over your entire family, that one act of forgiveness can set your children and your children's children free.

Mercy, please.

Somebody needs to know that you need to have a buffer so you don't become like what is hurting you.

Now anybody know what the buffer is?

It puts you in between what is hard and the pain.

Mercy is a buffer.

The second thing is, though, I want to tell you, don't don't don't think that we're here preaching that you should have mercy.

And just have mercy without wisdom.

Mercy also, look at your neighbor and say, Mercy has boundaries.

Look at your next neighbor, look at your next neighbor and say mercy has boundaries.

Let me tell y'all, mercy should not remove wisdom, accountability or consequences.

Let me say it again.

No, that's not what mercy says.

Mercy says, I can do this to you, but I'ma just stay keep my distance.

Mercy is saying, I'ma make sure you know what you've done to me on an individual basis.

I'ma let you know that you've hurt me, but here's what I'm not gonna go and tell the whole world.

Mercy is that buffer that stops you and says, I have a boundary, but mercy operates with loving kindness.

I'm gonna tell you what you did to me hurt, that what you did to me set my family back, what you did to me really pushed me in a corner and wondered what our relationship really meant.

But I'm not gonna call you out because mercy is a buffer, but it also has boundaries.

But please know because of what you've done and my wisdom that I'm learning, I now know that you're not able to be in a space safely.

That you you've shown me that you can't, you don't know how to be close to me.

So you've lost the privilege of access.

Mercy says I can call you out, but instead of calling you out, all I'm gonna do is keep my distance because I can't allow you to be in my life and disrupt God's plan because you being close to me is making me question what God is doing in my life.

So I'ma tell you I could have done this, but mercy says, all I'm gonna do is keep my distance.

Now mercy puts you in control and now it takes you from being the victim to being the victor.

Mercy transitions you from being the person that's just being taking all the blows and saying, I'm not gonna stay in this position and take all the blows.

Mercy says, I'm not gonna call you out, but I'm gonna remove my distance for you.

Now, mercy has boundaries, mercy doesn't remove your wisdom, your accountability, and consequences.

Uh but here's where the meat of our message is uh mercy moves.

Look at your neighbor say mercy moves.

Mercy moves.

Mercy is an adjective, mercy is an action word, mercy is a verb, it allows you to do something.

There is something that you have to do with mercy.

You can't say you're merciful and no one sees it.

Now, I know a lot of us seeing is believing.

But mercy is not something you simply feel.

Mercy demands action.

So now Jesus is now looking at these people who are gathered and telling them, for you shall obtain mercy, that if you show mercy, that you shall obtain mercy.

If you are Christian in here, that you have now an obligation to be merciful, to be kind actively.

Meaning, when you wake up, how you talk, how you speak, how you treat others is supposed to be replicable of God's mercy in your life.

I know we sit up here in church and we act like we always had it together.

But imagine if God's mercy was just kept in the Bible and was never extended to us.

Mercy is an action.

We have to understand that we have an obligation and a right and an honor to be able to be God's agents on this world.

So our duty is to be merciful.

Someone should be able to say and look at you and say, This person is loving kindness, their representation of what God's mercy on earth should look like.

Can we look at our lives and see that this is what we should be doing in our life?

Mercy, please.

Mercy moves.

Now, if you think about it in your own life, if you look around in your own life, let me ask you a question.

Has anybody in here ever been the receptor of God's mercy?

I know I know that this side over here have been struggling with them because uh they have it all together.

Uh, but but for those of you who are right here, have you ever been in a situation that you received and felt God's mercy on your life?

That everything that happened in your life, you were doing wrong.

Not these people over here.

Uh you remember you, you you you were doing wrong.

You you knew what was right.

Come on now.

I want come at somebody.

I want just just just bear with me for one second.

You knew the right thing to do.

You knew right from wrong.

You actually grew up in a home where they prayed and loved you.

You actually know the scriptures, you actually know the hymns.

You actually have a moral compass of knowing what is right and what's wrong.

You grew up in a place in a community where people looked out for each other.

You grew up in a BVI where we still took care of each other.

You grew up in a BVI where people made sure that everyone and no one went to went to bed hungry.

You looked up where you were my brothers and sisters keeping.

You know what was right.

But how sometimes you went along and lived your life and situations and circumstances happened, and you grew up and you said you grew away from God, you grew away from the things that you knew.

You nobody could recognize you, and you were one thing in front of your family and something totally different in front of everybody else.

You were the one, you weren't the person following, you were the ringleader.

You you were the charge, you were the one that started the party, you were the one that started the fight, you were the one who was in charge, you were the one who was the ringleader.

I'm not talking to everybody.

There's some people in here, you were the one who were using your God-given gifts of leadership and talent and communication and using it for wrong.

You were the one every day you will do it and you will go to bed knowing that what you were doing was wrong.

Every day you woke up and you did wrong, you went to sleep and woke up and did wrong, and it's could create a cycle, and now you're 10, 15 years in, and this has now become your life.

And now you're living.

You got a house, you got a car, you got a family, you got everything you need.

So now it's silencing because you have a title, and no one else is seeing what it is that you're really doing, how you're really acting, how you're really thinking.

But God sees it all, and he's looking at you straight away day after day.

And guess here's what mercy looks like.

Here's what mercy looks like showing up in your life.

You are able to wake up every day in spite going to sleep in sin.

What mercy looks like is you being able to go to work among people who don't like you and still make it home safely.

What mercy looks like is that you didn't balance your budget this summer and you wanted to be like the Kardashians and go to summer tripping, and now you're broke like a joke and don't have nothing to give your kids to go back to school.

Mercy, please.

Mercy looks like that you mismanaged some relationships and people in your life, and now you're wondering how you're gonna make it, but you still make it.

Mercy looks like that God told you to end this friendship, but you kept it going, but you still have in your right mind.

That's what mercy looks like.

Mercy looks like you've had some bad health habits, and God said, I allowed you to stay alive so you can change them.

That's mercy.

Mercy is for those of us.

Mercy is for those of us who ain't never have it all together.

Mercy is for us who ain't never really get it quite right.

Mercy for us who made a mistake, and mercy is entitled to all of us, and we give it freely because God gave it to us.

Last thing I'm gonna take my seat is that mercy saves.

I'm happy that mercy saves.

I'm happy that mercy is an action word.

I want to tell somebody in here.

I want to tell somebody in here that no matter what you're going through, no matter what's taking place, that mercy saves.

When you go through life, I want you to look in your left and your right and look over your life.

Now, this is the part of sermon I wanted you to take it personally that nobody else can't preach this or say this for you.

I want somebody to know that there is an all also in a response to mercy, that mercy kept you all over these years.

Now, this is where it becomes personal because I could preach about God's mercy in my life, uh, but there's nothing the more than God being merciful in your life.

Uh, because now I want you to think back over your life.

I want you to start to go over your life up until this morning, and I want you to think about all the ways that God has been merciful for you, that God withheld punishment that you should have deserved, that God was able to say, you know what?

I'm gonna create a buffer between the people so I didn't become like them.

Mercy is that you've been saved from a family that's been so toxic and so brutal, and you've become nothing like them.

Mercy says, I made it through the fire, I made it through the mud, I made it to I might have some scars, I might be a little bit smelly, but I'm here.

Mercy is like I've been broken, I've been beaten, I've been bruised, but guess what?

I'm still here.

Mercy says Monday try to break me, Tuesday try to hurt me, Wednesday try to wound me, Thursday try to traumatize me, Friday trying to frighten me, Saturday will slum me, but guess what?

Mercy says Sunday morning is here, and because we are here, we have hope.

Mercy continues to act.

But I can't talk about mercy without talking about my savior.

I want to let you know that imagine what mercy looks like.

That God sent his only begotten son into this world, into this world that was full of sin, that was able to say, look down, there's gonna be a young man 2,000 years later.

He's gonna grow up in King Garden, baby.

He's gonna be born to a mother and a father who knows and teaches him right.

And guess what?

He's gonna grow up in church, he's gonna play the drums, he's gonna play those drums, and that's all he's gonna wanna do with his entire life.

And mercy says you're gonna grow up and you're gonna make mistakes and you'll travel and do all types of things.

And mercy says, no matter what, mercy follows you.

Mercy is something that is active.

Some of us need to understand it is no, it's no nothing else, but mercy and grace following you around.

Grace and mercy following you around.

Now, if you think about it, that sickness should have killed you, but it didn't.

But mercy kept you.

You have to understand that relationship should have caused you to lose your mind.

But mercy said no.

Sometimes you have to understand, you will go through the fire, you will go through the mud, but mercy says you will go through and make it out.

Some of you need to understand, I know you might not have all the things that you had before your trauma, but what was left is what God needs for your next level.

Mercy says, I'm preserved.

So Jesus Christ came down, his only begotten son.

Pastor Hodge, I wanna tell you, uh when I think about the mercy and the goodness of God, if I think about all these things, I don't deserve it.

You don't deserve it, but God gives it to us freely because he says, I looked at you and I saw something greater than your sin.

I look beyond your thoughts, and what I see you need, and what you need is mercy.

And so I just want somebody in here who don't have it all together, that you're struggling to make it right, but God still has a hand on your life.

I want you to now be able to cry out to God in my life, the things that I'm struggling with in my life, the obstacles are in my way when you face them.

Here's our prayer.

I don't want you to say no fancy prayer.

I just want you to look up to the heavens when you find yourself in reveless, trivulous situations.

Look up to God and says, God, it's Monday again.

Mercy, please.

God is my family giving me a hard time.

Mercy, please.

God, I don't know where the next meal is gonna come from.

But mercy, please, God, my bills are more than my money.

Mercy, please, God, my family seems to be falling apart.

But mercy, please, God, I wanna make it, but my body is tired.

Mercy, please, God, I wanna pray, but my mind is filled with anxiety.

Mercy, please, mercy kept me, mercy saved me when I was sinking, deep in sin, far for the peaceful shore.

Yeah, yeah, then deep within, seeking to rise no more.

But the master of the seeds heard my distressing cry.

You know what that cry was when you were sinking, when you're going far from God, you know what that distressing cry was?

It was God, I need your mercy.

Some of you could pay fancy prayers, but sometimes all you need to say, God, have mercy on me.

I trust you, but this seems I know I'm messed up, I know I'm guilty, but God, can you have some mercy on me?

And God looks down from heaven and sees you in your predicament that you caused, sees you in the trouble that you stored up, sees you in the mess that you went in that direction that he told you not to go.

But he looks down and says, You know what?

I created this person, I've blessed them, I've anointed them.

And for the point that they could just reach out and say, Mercy, please, it shows that they've recognized that I'm the author and the finisher of their faith.

And even though they got a little sidetracked, they've reached back out to me.

I want you to know you have to be able to reach out to God.

So if you want your mercy, ask God for it.

I'ma end.

I'ma end.

Somebody in here is spending all their time and energy to get mercy from people on this earth.

You're trying to convince people who are close to you to be merciful to you.

And no matter what you've done, they now see you in a vulnerable place, and what they're doing is taking your vulnerability and manipulating you.

They know you need mercy.

So now mercy is attached to a whole bunch of things.

I will show you mercy when you do this.

I will show you mercy when you act like this.

I will show you mercy when you treat me and give me this.

I'ma tell you, that's not mercy, it's manipulation.

Mercy has no strings attached.

God is doing this so He could bring you back in the right relationship, and so you can be an example of the goodness of God.

And the reason why God is being merciful to you is so that you could turn around and show that mercy to someone else.

And then that person who received that mercy shows that mercy to someone else.

And then that person, and now we are living a community with people who are loving each other because I know I'm not gonna treat you worse because I'm no better than you.

Because if it wasn't for the grace and mercy of God in my life, I won't be standing here.

That's all sad.

Mercy Please.

No trick after this, if you say, God, I just need I need your mercy in my life, whether for me personally, for me handling situations, for my spiritual life, I need your mercy in my life.

If you're saying that you need God's mercy, just God's mercy to extend to you wherever you are, as we pray, your hand will be a sign of your faith.

You could just raise your hand.

We see those hands being raised all over the church.

And the most important thing, more than me seeing your hand, God sees the action of you raising your hand.

For all of you who've raised your hand over the church, you're saying, God, I need your mercy, I need your glory.

Shine upon me.

So, God, we pray now for all of us who have raised our hands.

God, we're not using mercy as a past because it wasn't ours to begin with.

We're asking for your mercy because we need your presence in our life.

We deserve everything that's coming to us.

God, we ask you for our mercy to be extended to us.

Give us mercy to make it through tomorrow, to make it through this week, to overcome and give us grace.

Give us mercy to interact with the people that are meaning evil for us.

Give us mercy because we're responsible for those in our care.

Let us be merciful.

God, forgive us of anything that is causing hate to be resident in our hearts and our minds.

Clean us, forgive us, give us a brand new hope.

Let's show mercy because it tricks the enemy.

They expect you to act one way, but mercy said no.

God, give us the wisdom to have boundaries, to keep people accountable.

But no mercy will be a buffer for us.

God, now may your divine presence reign and rule in our lives.

Anoint us afresh.

God restore the light that's inside of us so we could be merciful and exemplars of what it means to be Christian, what it means to be loving, what it means to be an ambassador for Christ.

Thank you for your mercy in our lives.

Those of us who have raised our hands, that action is a recognition and God sees your faith, and God's mercy endures forever.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you for worshiping with us today.

If you'd like to go deeper in your walk with Christ, we invite you to contact us at 284-442-4222.

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