The Gospel Call to Mercy

We need to get, we need to keep moving, so let's go. All right. Well, today, I want to talk to you about some very special people that are in our congregation today. OK, this year, these people are going to have the opportunity.

To share God's word with the children of our church and community. They're going to have the opportunity to help kids memorize scripture. They'll be able to share the gospel with kids. Who are these people?

These people are our Awana leaders. And the question is, are you one of these people? Do you want to be a part of our Wana program this year? Maybe you were a leader last year and you're coming back, or you've been a leader before and you want to, be involved again.

That's wonderful. But maybe you've never been in any children's ministry before or served in AA or anything like that. Don't worry, it's easy. We have some training that will help you get started and some materials.

So see either myself or Jenny after the service and sign up. We can get some of those materials to you. We also have some training days at some churches in the area where you can go and you can learn more about how to be an Ana leader. The greatest blessing, I think for me as an Iwana leader is having a kid come running up to you and say, I memorized this verse.

Can I say it to you? And that's just awesome. That's something that you don't get every day. So, consider whether you, the Lord would have you to help us out this year.

We would love to have you. All right. Thank you. Well, we want to take just a moment to recognize any visitors that are here, with us in our service this morning, for the very first time.

Is there anybody visiting here today for the very first time? If you are, don't want to embarrass you, but could you raise your hand? We have a gift. That we'd like to give you a book, Christ our Medior by CJ Mahaney, a wonderful book that'll help you in understanding, more deeply the gospel.

Just raise your hand until you get a book. We've got a couple up here. Actually, you're getting the, gospel primer for Christians. Instead of this, You ran out of these.

OK. Well, sorry. All you get is the primer. It's a groundbreaking new book that's been written by me.

if you're unhappy with that, see me afterwards. I have one of these and I will exchange it, but the primer, will be a great blessing to you also and deepening your experience of the gospel, so we would seriously, highly commend that to you. Mr Well, It's good to be back with you guys after being away last Sunday. Last Sunday, I and my family went to Albuquerque, New Mexico for a wedding of a relative, and it was an unusual wedding in the sense that there were 3 of us pastors who were up on the platform involved in officially tying the knot.

So, if it takes 3 pastors to tie that knot, then hopefully, it will endure. but I got the privilege of doing the vows and pledges and presentation, pronouncement, and, the pastor of the church did the very beginning part of the service, and then my brother-in-law, who is a pastor, delivered a challenge to the couple. So, we had a great time, doing that and being together with family. This couple was one of the 70,000 couples in our country.

That were married on 07 07 07. and interestingly enough, when I Googled our trip from our house to where we were going, it was 777. What are the odds of that? it didn't turn out to be that.

It was 784 going and then coming back was 776, but, close enough. but we had a, a great time together as a family and, really, really happy to be back with you guys, this morning, worshiping together, being home with, with our brothers and sisters in Christ. What I'm gonna be doing today in our time of study in the word is introducing a new series that will take a few weeks. It'll take us to the end.

Of the summer, Lord willing, in September, we're going to begin a book study. in the New Testament, but for the time being, there's something that we as pastors want to speak to you as a congregation about and the title of this series is A Call to Mercy, a call to mercy. And, This series is the result of a number of conversations that's been ongoing amongst us as a pastoral staff and also the result of numerous conversations that we've had as elders and will continue to have as an elder board in the months to come.

And we want to come to you as a congregation with this, topic so that you can be up to speed with some of the things that we're thinking about from the scripture.

This is not just something that we're like, wanting to do just to do it. This is really on our hearts, and we want, we feel God speaking to us through His word in this area, speaking to us as leaders, and we want to pass that along to you. And at the same time, ask that you be praying for us as leaders as we figure out what all of this means for us. As a church.

Here at Cornerstone, what we, we got a number of things that are along the lines of what we're going to be talking about. We have an Agape Fund that, that we donate to that enables us as a church to meet emergency financial and material needs, amongst people in our church body. In addition to that, the Agape Fund goes towards, our food pantry ministry. Some of the proceeds go towards that.

To purchase items for the food pantry ministry when that is need be as it recently was necessary. And the food pantry ministry, goes to meet the needs of people in our church family who have need for such items, and it also is used as an outreach to people. In our community who are needy and we are able to give food to these individuals who are willing to come like every other Wednesday and sit down with people in our church and hear about the Lord and then we are able to give them these items of food in the name.

Of Jesus, there are also, there's outreaches that we've done to the homeless in the area.

Back in April. We had a service for the homeless where we had food, tons of food available for them, and then there was a service put together with a gospel presentation, and many of our workers. I was over there at the end, we're just sitting around talking to the the individuals that came. I believe last year there was an outreach to the homeless on Thanksgiving.

Giving or around that time in the park, reaching out to them, showing them the love of Jesus in a practical, tangible way, along with sharing the gospel with them. In addition to all of that, there's so many of you that are involved in mercy ministry in the sense that you are, visiting the shut-ins, you're, you're serving, your brothers and sisters when they find themselves in times and moments of need. And so already here at Cornerstone, there's a multitude of things that are happening.

along these lines, but one of the things that we have been feeling burdened about as leaders is we want to take all of those things.

We want to see the Lord enlarge these ministries, and we also want to see these things be brought more to the center of what we're all about as a church, to where it's not just tokenism. and something we do out of, just some excess that we have available, but it actually is moved to the center and it's closer to the heartbeat. It becomes a part of the fabric of our personality as a church, and we feel that this is something that we desire as leaders for our congregation, for our church, primarily because the Lord in His word seems to clearly call the church and His people to, this particular ministry of mercy.

Now, before we get into what I want to talk about this morning, let me explain briefly the distinction between grace and mercy, because a lot of times these two concepts can get confused.

Sometimes they actually do go together, but Sometimes they are completely distinct from one another. Grace is giving someone a kindness that is the opposite of what they deserve. That's how you would define grace. It's being good to someone, showing them a kindness that is the exact opposite of what, they deserve.

If Aaron Varela came up to me this morning after the service and were to punch me in the mouth, and I were to respond by saying, Aaron, I love you, and I gave him a big hug, and I pulled out my wallet and gave him a $100 bill. That's grace, right? I'm giving him the opposite of what he in that moment deserves. That's different from mercy.

Biblically speaking, mercy is simply compassionate ministry to someone in dire need. That's all, without any regard to whether they deserve it or not, focusing on the fact that they don't deserve it. It's just any compassionate ministry that we engage in. to anybody, brother in Christ or someone who is outside the faith that is finding themselves in dire need.

Now, sometimes grace and mercy go together. Someone may mistreat you, and then you find them in dire need, and you reach out to them, and you meet that need. In that moment, grace and mercy are blended together, but they don't always go together. You guys know the story of the Good Samaritan.

We'll probably be getting into this story as early as next week, but where a man falls among robbers and he's beaten and left half dead, left 4 dead by the side of the road. A priest and a Levite walks by on the other side of the road. They don't do a thing for him, and then a Samaritan comes along and sees him. He's moved with compassion for this guy.

He doesn't know him. The guy's never wronged him in any way, but the Samaritan takes the guy. And he anoints his wounds and bandages the guy, puts him on his pack animal, takes him to a hotel, pays for his stay in the hotel, tells the owner of the inn, when I come back, if there's any additional expenses of caring for this guy, I will personally pay for these things. And Jesus tells that story, and then he said to the attorney that he was speaking to, who was a neighbor to this man by the side of the road?

And the man replied, By saying that the neighbor was the one, the good neighbor was the one who showed mercy. To him, what is mercy? It's just seeing someone in need and reaching out to them. And meeting that need, that's what mercy is.

It could be spiritual need. It could be physical need. It could be financial need. It could be emotional need.

It's any compassionate ministry to someone in dire need is a ministry of mercy. We desire to see an explosion of mercy ministry here in this community here at Cornerstone. And just very quickly, this is not the main point of the sermon, but can I very quickly just take you through the full sweep of some of the things that we're gonna be looking at, from the Old Testament to the New, there are repeated calls from God through the Holy Spirit in His word for us to be involved in a ministry of mercy.

This is something that God has always wanted his people to be involved in, to think of the poor, to think of those who are in need, to consider them and to set about deliberately.

To providing for their needs. Just very quickly, in the Old Testament, there are passages such as Leviticus 19, 9 and 10, where God told the Israelites, when you harvest your crops, do not reap in the corners of your field. You are to leave that for the alien and for the stranger, and for the poor. Who are among you.

Leave that for the needy. And also there was a thing called gleaning. Reapers would come and harvest the field. There was a lot of work to be done.

They would work in a hurry. And no doubt as they're doing that, stuff is falling out of their baskets, falling by the wayside. Not every single thing would end up being harvested because they're moving quickly through the rows and what have you. God told the Israelites, when stuff falls by the wayside as you're reaping, don't go back and pick it up.

You leave that for gleaners. You leave that for the poor, for the aliens among you, so that they can come and they can have their needs met through what's left in the field. In addition to that, in Deuteronomy 14, every 3rd year, the Jews were to bring a poor tithe, a tithe to Jerusalem, that could then be dispersed to meet the needs of the poor and the needy. So God is telling the Israelites deliberately to do things that that would address the needs of the needy among them, those who are needy and who are Israelites, and even those who are outside of the people of Israel but who happen to be dwelling in the land, even their needs were to be tended to.

In Proverbs. Solomon says in Proverbs 14:31, He who is merciful to the needy honors God. When we meet the needs of those in dire need, God is honored. That's an act of worship to him.

Proverbs 22:9, He who is generous will be blessed, for he gives some of his food to the poor, and a person who does that will experience God's blessing in his life. Life. We come to the New Testament, the teaching of Christ. There is so much that Jesus says about, ministry, to those who are needy in our lives.

In Matthew 5:7, Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are those who have an eye towards those who have need and who set about to meeting those needs. Again, he tells stories like the story of Good Samaritan that are designed to challenge the people of God to live lives of mercy, engaging in acts of mercy in this way. We come into the epistles, such as the epistles of Paul and in 1 Corinthians 16 he's talking about taking money to the poor in Jerusalem to meet the needs of the Jerusalem saints who were experiencing financial deprivation.

And he even tells the Corinthians on the first day of every week, lay aside money so that you have funds available to meet the needs of individuals such as this. In 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 92 whole chapters are given over to talking about this support of the saints. In Romans 15, Paul begins to speak about the same thing, talking about how he was taking a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. In 1 Timothy 5:3.

Paul provides explicit instruction for the church on caring for their widows, how they are to be honored. They are to put on a list where they are provided for. Those who are widows indeed and cannot address their own needs should be provided for by the church. We see the early church setting a great example in this area just spontaneously, it seems in Acts 2, they're sharing, as anyone might have need.

So there's The Ministry. They're even selling their property, their assets so that they can have funds to do this. In Acts 4 again we see that there was not a needy person among them, not because there was no needy person among them. There were needy people among them, but their needs would be met.

And he explains that again, that people would sell their property and bring the money from the sale so that the needs of their brothers and sisters could be met. And the result was that no one in the Jerusalem church. was considered officially needy because their needs were being met through the giving, the generosity, and the mercy ministry of the believers in the Jerusalem church who were exceptionally generous to them. In Acts 6, we find spoken about the daily serving of food.

Here's a church that should be all about the gospel. And you would think, well, they should be out evangelizing and talking truth to each other. And yes, they did that. But what else did they do?

They're actually serving physical food. to the needy among them, and especially the widows that were among them, and the apostles even give attention to this, because some of the widows were being overlooked, and they're like, this is absolutely unacceptable. And so they restructured things so that everyone who needed the daily serving of food and whatever Provision was having those needs met. In Acts 11, the Church of Antioch had some prophets come down to that church, and they prophesized that there was going to be a famine over the whole world, and the saints in the church of Antioch amazingly were not thinking, Well, how's this going to affect us?

Their first thought was, Oh, how's this going to affect the Jerusalem church? And so immediately they took up a collection. And they sent that money to the Jerusalem church to meet the needs of their brothers and sisters in Christ there. That's mercy ministry.

You go to John in First John 3, John says, Whoever has the world's goods and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? And how is the love of God showed? In the life of a believer, it shows itself in the fact that believers are engaged in noticing and then deliberately meeting physical tangible material needs of others, little children, he says, let us not love with word or with tongue only, but indeed, and in truth. And then James, In his epistle in James 1, this is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father, to visit orphans and widows and their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

And James 2, when James is talking about true saving faith and how that true saving faith will always show itself to be true saving faith. And by way of describing Describing what true saving faith actually looks like in the life of a believer. He uses this illustration. He says, if a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warmed and filled, and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use?

Is that. Do you guys along with me, get a sense that from the Old Testament through the New, that this is something that's very important to God? Virtually every writer of scripture speaks to this issue. We didn't even touch the prophets in the Old Testament.

God speaks to this issue a number of and calls the Israelites to treat the poor and the needy and the widows and the oppressed in a better way than they were treating them. And when God would send judgment upon the people of Israel, he gave them a litany of reasons why one of them was for the way that they treated the poor and the needy, and the widows and the oppressed among them. So this is very close to the heart of God, very close to the center of his heart. It should be close to the center of our heart.

And so we want to take the next few weeks to just speak to some of these passages and see what they mean for us and hear the call of God upon us to mercy from all of these venues in Scripture today with the time we have left, my privilege is to address the gospel call to mercy. Next week, one of us is going to address Christ's call to mercy. And then the following week, the apostle Paul's call to mercy and the example of the early church and on and on, James and John. But today, what we're going to do is we're going to focus on the gospel.

And just think through the basic features of the gospel. And what we're going to observe is that inside of the gospel itself is a call to mercy. In fact, if all we had was simply the gospel, we would have all we would need to be amply motivated to go out and live a life of mercy, engaging in mercy ministry in a sacrificial way. Towards those who have spiritual and physical need.

And so here's some things that I want to share with you. I want to give you 6 truths about the gospel as we track through the gospel that should shape our thinking process as we think about a lifestyle of mercy ministry. All right. So let's do that with the time we have this morning.

Truth number 1, gospel truth number 1. Christ was extremely rich and lived in a really nice neighborhood. I want us to start with that. If you're going to understand the gospel and what Christ did in his incarnation, you have to begin your train of thought, not with the incarnation, but begin your train of thought with who Christ was and where he was and what his status was before the incarnation.

Then you can understand really what he did in his incarnation. And the Bible teaches that Christ was extremely rich and lived in a really nice neighborhood before his incarnation. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 9:8, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that now he's going to tell us of his grace, but look at the first thing he says, that though He was rich Paul says, I want to start there. I don't want to start by telling you he made himself poor.

I want to start with this. He was rich. He was rich. Jesus was, prior to his incarnation, rich.

How rich was he? Well, in Colossians 1:16, We learned that by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him. And for him. So when you create something, you own it, and what we're learning here is that everything was created through Christ in all of the universe, heaven and earth, visible and invisible.

And everything was created for Jesus. So the universe then belongs to Jesus. The earth belongs to Jesus, the heavens belong to Jesus, they were created for him. Everything that is on planet Earth, all of the wealth of the world is for him.

It belongs to him. Throughout human history, it has been guesstimated that there have been 193 metric tons of gold discovered. Who owns that? That's Jesus' gold.

I was teaching my son, earth science last year, I believe, and we learned that in ocean water, there's a lot of minerals, and there's gold in ocean water. Just in ocean water, there's over 70 million tons of gold. It's cost prohibitive to extract that from the water, so no one really does it. But who does all of that belong to?

Jesus. It was all created by Him and for him. So Jesus is unimaginably wealthy. Now, he also lived in a very nice neighborhood, before his incarnation, and Isaiah 6, Isaiah says, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple, and there were seraphim around him that were, saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth.

is full of His glory. So Isaiah sees this incredible scene of the glory of God. Who was he seeing in that moment? Read John chapter 12, where it says that Isaiah saw his glory, speaking of Jesus, and he spoke of Him.

Meaning Jesus. Isaiah saw Jesus in his pre-incarnate state in his neighborhood, in his heavenly neighborhood, surrounded by glory, surrounded by wealth and extravagance, surrounded by ultimately myriads of angelic beings who adored him and saw his beauty and extolled Him day and night, day and night. Unceasingly If you want to appreciate the incarnation, Understand that Jesus was extremely rich. And lived in a really nice neighborhood.

Truth number 2 though. Christ became poor and moved into a really bad neighborhood. Christ was willing to become poor and move into a really bad neighborhood. 2 Corinthians 9:8, for, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes, he did what?

He became poor. Jesus was willing to actually lose that wealthy status, and cease being rich in the sense that he was before, and actually become a poor individual, so that we through that poverty might be made rich. And so he became poor, I want you also to consider. Jesus and all of the splendor and beauty of heaven.

And imagine him looking at earth. and contemplating The idea of coming to Earth. What was there on Earth and about Earth that would have attracted him away from the glories of heaven? To Earth.

Earth was a fallen world full of rebels against God, a world of evil and suffering. In fact, if there were a real estate flyer in heaven, that Jesus could have looked at, talking about planet Earth, and the possibility of living there, it would have looked something like this. And the description of planet Earth would have gone something like this. Isaiah 24:20.

The earth reels to and fro like a drunkard, and totters like a shack, for its transgression is heavy upon it, and it will fall, never to rise again. Would you ever buy something like that? Would you ever want to live in something like that? None of us would be interested.

Jesus looked at that flyer and said, that's where I'm going. That's where I'm going. I'm here and all this splendor and wealth and beauty and magnificence. I'm going to leave here and go live in this shack.

And by the way, Jesus. what neighbors did he live amongst when he came here? We learn in John 1:14 that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Who is us?

Well, I know me. And, you, I think we know each other well enough to know that we are sinners. Jesus left the perfection of heaven and came and dwelt amongst people like us. In fact, imagine this on a real estate flyer.

Imagine you're wanting to buy a piece of property, you're thinking about living in a certain neighborhood, you're checking out a house, and the real estate agent says, Well, let me tell you first before you buy about your neighbors in this particular area, and imagine that this is what the agent says to you. In this neighborhood, there is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands, none who seeks for God, all have turned aside, together, they become useless. There is none who does good.

There's not even one. Their throat is an open grave with their tongues, they keep deceiving. The poison of snakes is under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known, and there is no fear of God before their eyes. Imagine that description of a neighborhood you're thinking about moving into. What would you do?

I think we'd all say, is there some suburb we can move to. And get out of this place. I don't want to live here. But this shack of an earth that is reeling and tottering because the weight of its transgression is heavy upon it, Jesus was willing to come, become poor, and live here amongst people of this description.

That I've just read. What amazing condescension. We have a Savior who was extremely rich and lived in a really nice neighborhood. We have a Savior who was willing to become poor and move into a really bad neighborhood.

There's a third truth that's worth looking at, and that is that Christ, once he was here, poured out himself, showing love to his really bad neighbors. Jesus got here and what did he do? With his entire public ministry, and perhaps even life before his public ministry, he spent his life pouring out himself, showing love to his really bad neighbors. In Acts 10:38, we learned that Jesus of Nazareth, God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and he went about continuously doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.

And Jesus, much of his ministry was teaching, but much of it was also doing miracles. And when you start to look at every one of the miracles, every miracle with the exception of one, and that was the cursing of the fig tree, every other miracle. It was a miracle of mercy. It was a miraculous ministry of mercy where a beggar like the blind Bartimaeus.

came to Jesus and cried out to the annoyance of the disciples and others who are walking with Jesus, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. Jesus didn't throw him a dime. Jesus fixed the problem that caused him to be poor and cured him of his blindness. Jesus healed the paralytics.

He healed the lame. He gave sight to the blind. He gave hearing to the deaf. He made the dumb able to speak again.

He cast demons out of those that were oppressed by the devil. He raised the dead not only as an act of love for the one he's raising, but he raised the dead as an act of mercy. Toward those that were grieving the death of a loved one. Jesus went about daily doing good and performing miracles of mercy.

His life, when you look at what he chose to do with his time, this one that we are called to imitate, what did he do? He taught, he spoke of the kingdom of God, but he also engaged in ministries of mercy. In fact, in Isaiah 53:12, Isaiah says that he poured out himself unto death and understand the language there. Isaiah is saying more than just he died.

What he's saying is, this servant, Jesus, poured out himself in every imaginable way to the point of emptiness, all the way to the very nth degree. Until he poured out the very last thing, and that was his life. His life was a life of pouring out, daily pouring out, meeting needs and teaching and instructing and giving hope and healing and forgiveness and meeting physical needs. And the needs of those who were poor and in deprivation and in hardship.

And in addition to that, Jesus also realized that the ultimate thing, the ultimate act of mercy that all of these people need is they need salvation and the forgiveness of sins. And so, what, I've poured out everything else. I will now pour out my life. Jesus totally spent himself.

In a life Of mercy There's a 4th truth. About the gospel that needs to be included in our train of thought as we contemplate a lifestyle of mercy. And that is that Christ, not only came into this world and lived in a really bad neighborhood, but when you read the narrative of the gospels, we learned that Christ actually deliberately went into the worst part of his really bad neighborhood. And where that is?

That's Jerusalem. That's the worst place that he could have gone to. in the 3rd year of his ministry, the time where Jesus went to Jerusalem, that was the worst place from a human point of view for him to go to. There are people there who have murder in their hearts.

They're plotting to kill him. in any way that they can. And Jesus, even knowing that, not only came into this world, but he deliberately walked right into the very worst part of this bad neighborhood that we call planet Earth. And Mark 10, they were on the road going up to Jerusalem.

And Jesus was walking on ahead of them, the disciples, and they were amazed. And those who followed were fearful. And again, he took the 12 aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to him, saying, Behold, we're going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of. This man will be delivered to the chief priest and to the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and they will hand him over to the Gentiles, and they will mock him and spit on him and scourge him and kill him.

And 3 days later, he will rise again. Would you have done this? Jesus deliberately goes to Jerusalem, knowing that the suffering and death ultimately await him there. A 5th truth that we need to contemplate about the gospel is that Christ did indeed suffer greatly.

He suffered greatly at the hands of his really bad neighborhood. Or his really bad neighbors. Throughout his public ministry, there was polite rejection. There were people who refused to believe in him.

There were attempts to kill him, to stone him. He avoided those because his time had not yet come. He was attacked verbally. His ministry, they sought to undercut his ministry.

He experienced rejection. He said foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but often I do not myself have anywhere to lay my head because he was not welcomed. into the lives of people the way that we would know that he deserved to be welcomed. But also when he goes into Jerusalem, Jesus ended up suffering to a degree that we can't even begin to fathom.

The suffering was unimaginable. It began with his arrest. And what, when you look at the whole narrative of everything Jesus endured, there was only one time that he voiced A complaint And that was when he was arrested. I think sometimes we underestimate the indignity.

Of a rest. The indignity of arrest. I don't know how many of us in this room have ever been arrested before, and I'm not going to ask for a raise of hands. Probably the closest we could come to that is being pulled over by a police officer, and I know that whenever that happens to me, as happened recently, it's an overwhelming feeling.

I, I, I have, I feel like a 5 year old who is in trouble. There are cars driving by and staring. It is totally humiliating. About a month ago, I was just driving to Home Depot from my house, and when I pulled out onto the street, I was putting my seatbelt on.

But because I didn't put my seatbelt on before I got out on the road, a motorcycle cop pulled in behind me. And I, I just, he comes to the window and he said my car and he says, I need your driver's license and I was so flustered, I was shaking. I handed him my credit card. And I don't know if he thought I was trying to bribe him or what.

He's like, I don't need your credit card. I need your driver's license. And he scolded me for, for what I had done. And it's, it's very, even in the best of situations, that's very insulting.

And here is the perfect Son of God, who has never committed a sin, being arrested by thugs, whom he came to save. In front of his disciples. Those who loved him Jesus was brought before the Sanhedrin. Brought before the leaders of the people.

That scene in that room during that night is a scene of unimaginable evil. evil was no doubt thick in the room as the snarling mob of people with murder in their hearts were plotting against him, and now they had their prey. Worthless men came in and delivered false accusations against Jesus. Jesus was ultimately handed over to Pilate.

He ended up being scourged. He who committed no sin was scourged. Repeatedly He was then handed over to the Romans. And they took a crown of thorns and placed that on his head and took a rod and beat that into his brow.

They clothed him with a scarlet robe and they began to bow and mock and insult him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews. mocking the perfect Son of God who was there. For our salvation. And the salvation of those that mocked him.

Jesus was then crucified, hanging naked in front of a snarling, insulting mob. And experienced utter abandonment by God. And man. Jesus suffered greatly.

At the hands of his really bad neighbors. But what, here's the 6th truth. That we need to keep in mind. About the gospel, and that is that Jesus transformed, Many of his really bad neighbors precisely through the suffering that he endured.

He transformed many of his really bad neighbors. just a couple of months after they had crucified Jesus and he had been raised and ascended up to the Father, just a couple of months. Later, the day of Pentecost comes, the Spirit comes, and Peter is in front of this crowd of Jews that are gathered together. And he's telling them the story of the death of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus.

But look at his language in Acts 2:26. He says, this Jesus whom you crucified, He knows that in this crowd of people he's talking to, there were many who were personally involved in crying out for his crucifixion, who had a direct hand in the mistreatment of Jesus. He says, this Jesus whom you crucified, God has made him both Lord and Christ. And as he preaches to them, we learn in Acts 2 that they were pierced in their heart, terribly convicted over their sin, especially of killing Jesus.

And they said, what, what, what should we do? And Peter said, repent and be baptized. He goes on to tell them, be saved, be saved from this perverse generation. And so there were many who actually did, who were killers.

of Jesus, who mistreated Jesus, who got saved on this day. And Acts chapter 2, as the narrative unfolds, we learn this, Luke says, So then those who had received the Word in that moment were baptized, and that day were added about 3000 souls, many of which were involved in some way in the death of Jesus. And look at how they're changed, and they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, the breaking of the bread and the prayer, and all who believe were together and had all things in common, and they began selling their property and possessions and we're sharing them with all as anyone might have need.

That's just amazing.

2 months earlier, They're killing Jesus. 2 months later, they're selling their stuff. So that they can meet the needs of other people. Jesus changed the neighborhood.

He, he came into this world, he went into the worst part of this world that he could have gone into. He suffered greatly, but ultimately, he changed the neighborhood. And by the way, the neighborhood was only partly changed, but wait till the millennium. Jerusalem's going to be amazing.

And it will all be because he was willing to go into that awful neighborhood and suffer and die the way that he did. And wait until you see Earth. When the new heavens and the new earth are created, he will transform this planet ultimately. Because he was willing to come here.

These early believers who two months earlier had killed Jesus are now day by day, continuing with one mind in the temple, breaking bread from house to house, taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. They're really good neighbors. Now, Because Of Jesus And you say, what does all this have to do with mercy ministry? I think most of you are smart enough to make that connection.

But let's let Paul make this connection for us. Paul in 2 Corinthians 8 is talking to the Corinthians about giving money, not so much to the church. We're not talking about that today. Giving money to meet the needs of the poor, brothers and sisters hundreds of miles away in Jerusalem.

That's what he's talking about. And in the context of talking about that, he's speaking about the support of the saints, this gracious work of supporting the saints. Verse 7, see that you abound in this gracious work, he's trying to exhort the Corinthians to be personally involved in mercy, ministry, meeting the tangible financial needs of those. Those who are poor among them, and look at what he says to them to motivate them.

Verse 9, in this context, for the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich, and he continues to reason from there. Give Show mercy Meet the needs of those who are in dire need. Why? Well, the grace of Jesus.

the gospel. That's why. That's why. Based on these gospel realities just by way of application.

What does the gospel call us to do in connection with this? Well, number one, The gospel would call us to realize that We and those in need have a lot in common. You and I. When we see beggars on the street, we should instantly feel a kinship with them, just instantly.

When we see the homeless. We should instantly feel a relationship with them, because they are physically, what we were spiritually, before Christ saved us. And so as we observe that, it's like, I can identify with that because that, at least spiritually, Was me. And Jesus came into my life and lavished his mercy.

Upon me, so the gospel cultivates a kinship. With those who are experiencing great and dire need. The gospel also calls us to live a life of mercy. The gospel is the story.

Of the ultimate act of mercy. Our greatest, most pressing need was to be delivered from the fate of hell, to be delivered from the fate of God's wrath forever. To have our sins forgiven. And God, because of His great mercy, Ephesians 2, and the love, the great love that He has for us.

He saved us by His grace, and we now have forgiveness of sins. We're clothed with the righteousness of Jesus. We are now before God in love, and he's even building us a home in heaven where we will live in His presence in front of Him forever. We are the recipients of an amazing mercy, a staggering mercy.

And there is no one you will ever meet that ever requires mercy from you that in any way will ever match the intensity and the magnitude of the mercy that you're already the recipient of through the gospel. Live a life of Mercy. That means having an eye towards those who have needs. That means living your life each day to where you're open to that and, and not viewing that as an intrusion, but that this is, if, if something comes your way, it's like, well, this is what I live for.

This is, I now have an opportunity to, reenact the gospel in the life of this person and minister to them in the name of Jesus. Go to the last point on the screen. We should allow God to help us to see our home as a mission post in our neighborhood and actually think like a missionary. We really need to think.

This way. we have missionaries like the Stevens who are living in comfort and security, and they feel the call of God to go to Varanai, India. which is quite literally a hellhole. there are people lying by the side of the streets in conditions of extreme physical and financial deprivation.

There is so much bondage spiritually there that it's palpable. You can feel that bondage when you come into the It is also extremely hot there. For those in our church that have actually been there, well over 100 degrees with over 100% humidity, and it's not even raining. It's even physically many times of the year, a miserable place to live.

And back to the spiritual bondage. I remember Ron Needham sharing with us when they got back from Varanai, that if there ever were a place on earth, in which you could find the gate to hell itself, the opening to hell itself, it's Varasi, India. The Stevens living in comfort. Say, we're going to leave where we are.

And we're going to Varanai. And we as a church say, well, it's just a great honor to be able to support you guys as you leave the comfort of where you are and go into this city, and it's a blessing to be able to financially support you and we just commend you and what you're doing and praise God for your work. And oh God, be with the Stevens, help them in their ministry and Varasi. And we do that.

Meanwhile, we move out of our neighborhoods. When there's just too much sin there. We move out of our neighborhoods for comfort and convenience, without stopping to think that maybe we are in this neighborhood with all of its sin, so that we can be a light. Now, I'm not saying it's never wrong to consider safety.

I'm not saying that it's wrong ever to move out of your neighborhood for any particular reason. Here's what I'm saying. Can we just factor gospel thinking? In these moments where we need to make these decisions?

Can we ask God to just make sure, Lord, as we think through this, maybe you do want us to leave, but, but let's factor gospel thinking into this. About 3 months ago, I I had gotten ready for bed and I had literally just touched the bed. Anticipating, how you just collapse, like, I had just done that and just anticipating 8 hours of no one asking me to do anything. And as soon as I touched the bed, I hear a noise, some commotion.

coming from somewhere vaguely from the front of our house, and I hear loud talking, and then I hear my wife. Talking pretty frantically and something happening at the front door, so I come downstairs as quickly as I can, and what had just transpired in the moments up to that was that right across the street from us in our neighborhood there was a girl. Who broke up with her boyfriend and had cheated on her boyfriend, and the boyfriend was extremely upset. He had been drinking and she got into her car to leave.

He did not want her to leave, and so he bashed in the windows of her car in an attempt to get to her. There was glass all over the street, and tried to get to her so that she could not drive away. She ended up driving away. In the midst of all of this noise and chaos, my son Brendan was trying to get into the front of our house, and our door was locked, and so he's standing there waiting for someone to open the door.

He hears all of that noise from across the street, and he turns and looks. Well, the guy who had busted the window and was trying to get at this girl, observed my son looking and began screaming at my son for looking. I guess you're not supposed to do that. someone's busting windows across the street.

You're supposed to just ignore that, pretend it's not happening. My son did the wrong thing of looking at this guy and the guy walked over to our property and stood on the edge of our property. And was yelling and screaming at our son. Donna went out and then I came out and And started talking to the guy, trying to calm him down.

The police had already been called. The police showed up in just a couple of minutes and like that he was in the car. I couldn't believe how fast it happened. He was in the car just as soon as the car arrived.

They wasted no time with this guy. This guy wanted to get down with me as I spoke with him. And I didn't want any part of that. I tried to reason with him, but two or three times he asked, do you want to get down with me.

But The police stayed for a while and they ended up leaving and in all honesty, I had this thought come upon me. And that is, we got to get out of this neighborhood. We got to leave. And then I had a second thought.

Which was Maybe this is exactly why we're here. Maybe God has us here. If we leave, where will the light be? In this neighborhood.

So I talked to my family about it and tried to get them, let's all think this way, and the next day I went over to the house and I talked to the mother of this son and asked if, how things were going and if they had heard from the police, and she said she could not speak English, so I had to speak to her daughter and And they said they had called the police. The police didn't tell them anything, and police said they'd call them back, and the police never called back. And I asked her, I said, can I try to track down, Where your son is.

And so I made some phone calls, found out where he was, the detention center, when his court hearing was going to be, and what the charges were, which were vandalism and attempted murder.

And I went back over and I wrote it out. I typed it out so that it was very clear, and I gave it to this mother and tried to communicate with her as best I could. And when I was done, she was very moved and she said, thank you, senor. And I I was just struck by, OK, Lord, this is why we're here.

And now this is an open door of ministry from this point on with this family. I'm learning this. And I got a long ways to go, but I'm learning that we need to think like missionaries. Cornerstone, everyone here is a missionary.

We don't support missionaries, and then we're just average Joe Christians, sorry, Joe. But we, we actually We actually are missionaries and we need to think like missionaries in the neighborhoods where we are. And our first instinct should not be to flee from sinners, but to realize that maybe we are where we are precisely because we can be a light and show mercy to those who are around us who need mercy. We also need to be generous in our mercy looking at the screen.

Jesus, I'm not talking about mercy, just tokenism mercy where we just throw from the excess of what we have, and just help people out, but our status stays the same. Jesus was willing to change his status from rich to poor. And I'm not saying sell everything and become dirt poor, but are we willing to even contemplate, what, here's our standard of living. How about we lower it, and then out of what we save we can now enlarge our ministry of mercy.

Are we willing to ever consider doing without certain things just so our ministry of mercy can be enlarged in our neighborhood and in the lives of other people? And then also we should be gracious in our mercy. Be gracious. it's amazing how non-gospel our thinking can be when we're evaluating whether to help somebody out.

Sometimes we're like, Well, I'd sure like to help that person out, but that person's in their condition of deprivation because of their own sin. And we weren't And our lost condition of deprivation as a result of our sin. Well, if I help that person out, they, they, I've helped him out before and he's hardly even grateful. Have you always been just full of gratitude to God for his kindness and His mercy towards you?

You say, well, I'd help that person out, but I'm afraid, and this is actually a legitimate consideration. We're going to balance some of this out in the coming weeks. But sometimes the only thing we think is, I don't want to help that person out because they're going to use what I give them to serve sinful and selfish ends. Legitimate issue, but let's just be honest.

Have you ever used something that God has generously given you? For selfish And sinful ends. Guilty On every count. that we would hold against someone as an excuse for refraining from showing mercy to them.

Let's at least be humbled by the gospel. staggered by the overwhelming generosity of God towards us. And let us allow the gospel. To motivate us.

to a life of mercy. The gospel is not just a story through which we're converted. It actually, the closer you look at it, it's actually the blueprint for your own life story. God says, do this.

This thing that saved you, what Jesus did, let the same attitude be in you that was also in Him, imitate. And so, wow, this saves me, and I worship and celebrate how this saves me, but this is actually a blueprint that I am to follow and to live a life of mercy. We have much to learn in the coming weeks along these lines. We're gonna listen to the teaching of Christ, listen to the example of the early church, the teaching of Paul, the teaching of James, the teaching of John on this very important subject, and let us just with an open heart, come before God and say, God, we're open.

We're open. All we want to do is what you teach us to do. That's our only agenda. Will you teach us and will you change us?

Will you transform us to where there's an explosion of mercy? In our individual lives, in our homes, in our neighborhoods, and in this church. You want to pray that with me? Let's pray together.

Lord, you are an awesome God. You are a God of mercy. And you call us. To love mercy.

To live lives that are characterized by mercy. We are to be Christ once. Who imitate him. Our, our own life story is to be a gospel story, a mini version.

Of the larger gospel story. We are to follow this blueprint. And as Jesus did, So are we to do for those That you put in our lives. Who are experiencing dire need in this church body.

And beyond. We have much to learn. And I perhaps in this congregation have the most to learn. But we are inviting you to teach us and take us where you want us to go.

We ask these things in Jesus' name. And all God's people said, in.