KNOWING GOD –3b
God’s Compassion, Mercy, and Forgiveness, Part 2
Matthew 18:21-35
Introduction
Last week we began what I had intended to be a one-week look at God’s compassion, mercy, and forgiveness.
But as you know, we were not able to cover all of our outline, due to the amount of material we had to cover to lay an appropriate foundation for the rest of the outline.
This morning we are going to finish up this topic, and Lord willing, next week we will look at God’s grace.
Before we finish this week’s outline, I want to take a few moments to review what we covered last week.
First, we talked about God’s compassion, mercy, and forgiveness…
I. Revealed.
And we defined them as follows:
A. Compassion – awareness of the need and the desire to relieve it.
Compassion doesn’t stop with the awareness, it goes into action to help the person or situation.
We looked at the parable of the Good Samaritan as an example of compassion. The Samaritan saw the need and acted.
We also mentioned that compassion does not mean “agreement.” Being compassionate does not mean agreeing with everyone’s point of view, or being politically correct.
Next, we looked at…
B. Mercy – not getting what you deserve.
We spent a good deal of our time together last week looking at the parable of the unmerciful servant.
The king showed mercy to the servant owing him millions of dollars, yet the servant showed no mercy to a fellow servant who owed him a few dollars.
The first servant deserved to be punished and his family sold, but the king had mercy. He did not impose the sentence he deserved.
And we illustrated how God shows mercy by looking at Romans 6:23 – For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.
God showed us mercy in providing a way out of the punishment our sins deserve.
Thirdly, we looked at…
C. Forgiveness – pardon; your record is cleared.
Forgiveness can only be offered by someone who has something to forgive.
I can’t forgive you if you have not done anything against me needing forgiveness.
God offers forgiveness in Christ. You see, we need God’s forgiveness because all of us have sinned against Him.
Forgiveness is the way God clears the slate in our relations with Him.
He offers a pardon for all our sin so we can be in right relation with Him.
Lastly, we talked about…
D. The Link – God’s compassion drove Him to mercy, that led Him to forgiveness.
We have seen out terms defined, or revealed, but now I want to turn our attention to the…
II. Results.
What are the results of God’s showering of compassion, mercy, and forgiveness?
The first is…
A. Salvation.
Remember Rom. 6:23? For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Lord didn’t just stop at seeing our need for a Savior. He acted on our need. That’s compassion.
He had the power and the resources to meet the need. God can show mercy because He has the power and resources to do it.
We mentioned last week that when a person is on trial, he hopes for mercy from the court. The spectators can’t help. Only the judge and the jury.
God shows mercy in salvation.
And when we have Christ as our Lord and Savior, we have forgiveness from the only One who can grant it.
The second result is…
B. No condemnation.
I would like you to turn with me to Romans 8:1-2 in your Bibles. This is on page 800 of the sanctuary Bibles.
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
With Christ there is no condemnation.
Listen as I read John 5:24. These are the words of Jesus.
“I tell you the truth, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned. He has crossed over from death to life.”
Isn’t that great? No worries about standing before a holy God hoping to be let in to heaven. In Christ we have that taken care of. And that is great news, amen?
Lastly, we gain…
C. Help in time of need.
I have mentioned numerous times and will mention numerous times more that God has not left us on our own.
He has given everything we need to live for Him, and one of those is His mercy to help in time of need.
Please turn with me to Hebrews 4:14-16, which is on page 848 in the sanctuary Bibles.
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
I love this passage, because it reaffirms to me that Jesus knows what I am going through, and He can act to extend mercy as one who knows first-hand.
God invites you to find grace and mercy in your time of need.
And He can offer it because He is able to give it in abundance, beyond measure.
Salvation, no condemnation, and help in time of need. These are some of the results of God’s compassion, mercy, and forgiveness.
But now lets finish by…
III. Reflecting.
As you remember, the goal of these messages about the character of God is to learn how we can reflect them to those around us.
Think back to the parable of the unmerciful servant.
The issue is Perspective. The unmerciful servant did not understand what he was granted, or he would have been a bit more attentive to his need to extend compassion, mercy and forgiveness to the other man.
If we truly understood what God has done for us, we would be a lot quicker to extend that compassion, mercy, and forgiveness to others as well.
We don’t deserve these from God, but He gave them freely. So we should give freely.
Conclusion
I don’t think we need to belabor the point.
Let me just end with this.
You can’t offer something you don’t have or haven’t received.
God’s compassion drove him to show mercy, which led to forgiveness, in the person of Jesus Christ.
There are two types of people here today. My boss in Brookings says there are three kinds of people: those who can count and those who can’t.
Anyway, there are two types of people here today: those who have experienced God’s compassion, mercy, and forgiveness in Christ, and those who have not.
If you are one of those who have not, you can experience it right now by confessing your need for Jesus to forgive your sins, believing He died for your sins and rose from that grave, and calling on Him to save you and give you eternal life in heaven.
If you have already partaken of this, your job is to extend compassion, mercy, and forgiveness to others.
By the way, part of that is to tell others where you got it.
Don’t worry, you can do it. I know you can, and I hope you will.
Let’s pray.
