So when you hear the word mercy as we continue the sermon series, whose neighbor am I?
First week we looked at who is my neighbor.
Jesus then flips that question on itself and asks whose neighbor am I?
Making more of not about me, but what am I putting out there as a neighbor?
And we talked about neighbors and all of these things, but I want to start, when you hear
the word mercy, what comes to mind?
And I know a bunch of you are going to go to Uncle Jesse from Full House, have mercy.
That's not where I'm going.
I apologize for that, but that's not where I'm going.
Mercy, what comes to mind?
What?
Kindness, absolutely.
Arm wrestling.
That's actually exactly where I was going to go, Teddy.
So just wait, I'll have you say that one more time, but in a little bit.
What other things come to mind when you think of mercy?
Giving help, a hospital, yep, absolutely.
Anything else?
Forgiveness, up in the top.
Not getting what you deserve.
That's grace.
It's grace and mercy, right?
Those are good things.
His mercies are new every morning.
His grace is there all the time, absolutely.
Anything else?
Yep.
It can be hurtful.
So okay, you and Teddy, you're right there, right?
A lot of arm wrestling going on in the Maison House.
I don't care.
Others?
Any?
Yeah, in the back.
We want it for ourselves, but not for others.
So this super positive, way to go, guys.
You guys are really in healthy head spaces.
I so appreciate this.
This sermon is going to clearly be for this side of the church.
Because I'm there too.
I was thinking about mercy this week, and I think about the game you play with your
siblings where you're trying to hurt them, right?
You remember, you know, Marshall, come over here.
We're not going to actually do it.
But you know, I mean, it's where you go like this and you have to try to make the...
Oh, he wants to play.
That was the wrong person to do it with.
Okay.
But Marshall would clearly win, and I would have to yell mercy or uncle, which that's
always been a slam on uncles.
No one ever yells like, aunt.
No one does that.
But mercy, when it comes to hurting other people, I'm going to make you tap out.
I also think from baseball, because baseball is a big part of my life, kind of the mercy
rule, where if you're up by 15 after five or whatever it is, then the game is over.
We have so many different understandings of what mercy means, because in a culture, it
can be the, I'm going to make you submit, and then you will receive mercy.
That could be real...
That could be tension filled, yet we also have the understanding of, I want it for myself,
as Matt said, I want it for myself, but not for other people.
But you also look at mercy as positive things, grace, hope, helping out, compassion even,
as we talked over the last couple of weeks.
But what's interesting is mercy is talked about a lot in the Old Testament and in the
New Testament, that mercy is a part of who God is.
It's an attribute of Yahweh.
It's an attribute of just who He is.
You do not have mercy without God.
You do not have God without mercy.
In that sense, they are tied together, and we're going to start from really a kingdom
place in Isaiah 58.
Again, I think we're going to do Isaiah in two or three years.
It's hard to do all of Isaiah, but there's a lot of Messianic prophecy in Isaiah.
This is one of them.
This is prophesying about what the kingdom of God is and will be through the Messiah,
which we know is Christ, Isaiah 58.
Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did
righteous and did not forsake the judgments of their God.
They ask of me righteous judgments.
They delight to draw near to God.
Why have we fasted and you see it not?
Why have we humbled ourselves and you take no knowledge of it?
Behold, in the day of your fast, you seek your own pleasure and oppress all your workers.
Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with wicked fists.
Nothing like yours this day will not make your voice be heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose a day for a person to humble themselves?
Is it to bow down his head like a reed and spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Will you not call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?
This is setting up why in the Old Testament people fasted.
People fasted for many different reasons.
They mourned and they fasted.
They were seeking and they fasted.
You see it in Daniel.
You'll see it in the Minor Prophets.
You see it Isaiah himself.
When they are on the run, when they are caught in kind of the places of temptation, when
they're caught and the evil is chasing them, they're fasting.
It is a principle I have understood here, but I've never fully understood here because
I'm a big fan of food.
If I fast, it's like I will fast through breakfast.
That's it.
God better show up by 11 because then I'm hangry and I need to eat.
That is not at all what we're talking about because this fast that the people were doing
were fasting and then pretty much wearing a billboard sign going, I am in a terrible
mood because I have fasted.
You don't want to come talk to me because I have fasted.
Look at how high and mighty I am because I fasted.
This is liking it to someone, letting everybody know on their socials that they have fasted
and they use it as a hashtag.
Hashtag fasting, hashtag blessed, hashtag dumb.
Let's not do that.
That's not at all the fast that the Lord requires of us.
Fasting is a biblical, spiritual discipline and if you are someone that practices fasting,
fantastic.
I love that not a lot of people know about it because that's how it's supposed to be
done.
Jesus says when he steps on this earth in human form, fully God, fully man, he talks
about prayer and fasting that we don't do it high on a pedestal where everyone can see
us, oh look at us, look at us, but you go into your closet and you do it.
You go and you walk around not inside of people and that's when that happens, that relationship.
I wonder why that is.
Is it because one of the things that the Lord knows about us is we're going to make idols
of ourselves and for a lot of us we make idols of our faith because we think our faith is
better than other people's faith.
Our bond with God is tighter than the person next to me.
This is exactly what Isaiah's calling out.
God's people do a good job of putting a show on for God.
They fast specifically to get God's favor.
This is like one of the kids just doing a chore out of the blue but making sure you
see them do it.
Or the reminder from somebody, oh by the way I did all of this today just so you know.
Maybe you do that with your spouse.
Maybe you're trying to gain some points.
Maybe you're trying to get out of being in trouble.
Something.
When we do things so people can take notice and then we get blessed by it, there's a
tension there, right?
And especially what the Israelites are trying to do to get God's attention.
They were trying to fast to win points with God.
They were trying to show mercy because they're like God's going to see us and we're going
to be blessed by it.
But that's not necessarily the fast that the Lord requires because one of the things that
fasting is is the stopping of doing something.
We fast, we think of the Daniel fast.
We think about intermittent fasting.
It's a big thing now in the health, kind of the health culture and all of those things.
That when we fast from something, how many of you have ever fasted before?
Just in one, okay how many of it didn't have to do with food?
Okay, we got maybe one or two or three.
I mean I see a lot, right?
It's Miles, right?
No, I'm sorry, what was your name again?
Mel, Miles, Mel, I'm sorry.
Mel, you rose your hand.
What did you fast from in your life?
Social media fast.
Absolutely.
Excellent one, right?
For those that may need it, take notes.
Just don't do it online.
And so understand that when we fast, we're doing that for a reason.
And it's not just so we can think about the next greatest post we're going to do and then
we're going to put it on there, but it's fasting to grow closer to God.
Carrie and I, we met in a youth group in Payless Heights, Illinois and we always did the, what
was it called?
The fast we did in October.
I'm so glad it was memorable for you.
It was a 30 hour fast.
We did it for the Crop Walk or something.
I don't remember what it was, but it was a 30 hour fast and we went and did a whole bunch
of stuff and nobody, we drank water, right?
They gave us stuff to do and then after that 30 hours, we had this like youth fundraiser
where we just made a heaping amount of spaghetti and meatballs and we just chowed down on it.
And we all threw up 30 minutes later because we just went from like fasting and making
spirit, trying to make some kind of spiritual inroads when then all we're doing is eating.
And it kind of, though we were raising money and we were doing good in for the organization,
it didn't mean a whole lot because we're like, oh in 30 minutes we're going to, or in 30
hours we're going to eat again and we'll be good.
No one ever told us to kind of slowly go through that and we just mug on spaghetti and we throw
up.
But understanding that when you fast, you're asking God to open your eyes, open your heart,
open your mind to something that will draw you nearer to him.
And the good thing is to fast from things that are taking the place of that relationship
like social media.
And that's where maybe the idea of food kind of gets thrown a little bit.
I don't know too many people that put food in front of their relationship with God so
then fasting, if that's what we're going to use kind of the equation, that doesn't make
a whole lot of sense.
But what we see, especially in the Scriptures, is a fast from food is a fast from sustenance,
seeking God to be our sustenance.
That I have fasted maybe a handful of times in my life outside of the crazy high school
fast where all I'm thinking about is God get me through this next whatever without.
And right there you're engaging him in relationship.
But the fast that we're going to talk about today, the mercy that is being discussed in
Isaiah is a very different kind of fast.
It's a fast more from actions.
It's a fast from piety, living in a very pious way, living in a way that I can stand over
somebody and be okay with it.
It's fasting from the pharisaical understanding that my faith is better than you or because
I have faith and you don't.
I'm a better person.
What Isaiah is calling out is what Jesus is going to call out.
That's why it's messianic.
And what the kingdom of God is based on, the kingdom of God is not based on we are better
than everybody else.
The kingdom of God is not based on we're on the kingdom of God, we're Christians, we are
better than everybody.
Because really who wants to be a part of that?
Who wants that when you're talking to people that might not have much in life?
That's where the health wealth gospel gets kind of raised up high.
Nothing in the scriptures ever promised that.
But what we understand about mercy, what we understand about neighboring, what we understand
in how this all ties together is the understanding of actions, of how I walk out love in my life.
Because Jesus talks about it.
He talks about it in Matthew 25 and he talks about it in a sense, for I was hungry and
you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger, you did
not welcome me, naked you did not clothe me, sick and in prison you did not visit me.
We're keeping that in front of you because this is what it means to neighbor well.
This is what it means to practically love people.
Because there are hungry people in the world, there are thirsty people in the world, there
are strangers in the world, there are quote unquote naked people in the world that need
to be clothed by Christ.
And Jesus gives this in Matthew 25 as kind of the second commission.
Matthew 25, Matthew 28, Matthew 25 is very, very, very, very practical.
Take what you've learned from me and go do it.
When you've done to the least of these, you have done unto me.
Jesus is putting himself in a lowly position and I think we need to kind of clock that
and go wait a minute, why?
Why would Jesus put himself in the lowly position there?
Because I think what he's doing, he's drawing his followers to a practical way of love,
a practical way of showing not only God's love and Christ's love, but showing the love
of the church to a world that needs it.
But Isaiah goes deeper than that.
Isaiah goes to a place where he talks about mercy and justice.
And I guess the question I have for all of us, myself included, is are there people in
your life that you need to show mercy to?
Are there people in your life that you are harboring angst or negativity or whatever
against them that they need to be released from?
Is there unresolved conflict in your life that neighboring well is resolving that conflict?
That doesn't mean you forget, and we're going to get that in a little bit at the end, but
what does it mean to show mercy and forgiveness to people that have wronged you?
That's the way of Jesus.
That Jesus says when you have been wronged, you need to go and show the people their faults.
You need to walk with them in accountability in community.
If that doesn't happen, this is Matthew 18, then you bring people not as a gang to beat
them up, but you bring people to give witness to the fact that there is an ask for forgiveness,
there's an offering of forgiveness and mercy, and there's the start of resolution and restoration.
That's the conflict model in Matthew.
That should be the conflict model in the world, but we don't do that very well.
That if I'm going to love well, I'm going to show mercy well.
I mean, pastor, I can give all the food in the world.
I can throw some water at people.
I can give to a clothing drive.
I can even go meet with people that are strangers and need to be welcomed.
I can go do all that, but forgive people that have wronged me?
That's going to take a minute.
Why?
Why is that going to take a minute?
Why do we struggle with giving forgiveness?
Because we're scared?
Absolutely, that's one of the reasons.
We're scared they're going to do it again.
Well, if I forgive them and then they just go and do it again, what does that even mean?
How does that work?
Well, the nice thing is someone said that to Jesus and asked, how often should I forgive?
Seven times?
No, 70 times seven.
I'm not a math guy.
What is that number?
I'm getting five different answers.
I'm not the only one bad at math.
The annex says 490.
Does the rest of the body feel that that's a good number?
Mike, I'm not going to look to you for math answers.
Okay, then we're good.
490.
That 490, 70 times seven, seven being a number of completion.
There might be some people that go, okay, I'm going to put down 490 boxes to check,
but once that person hits, Daniel offends me or hurts me, that 491, watch out.
No.
But some of us think that way.
I'll give 400, that's daily, by the way.
That's not yearly or quarterly or whatever your analytics say, that this is what I need
to do.
I need to be a forgiving person.
Does Jesus know there are people in the church at Munster Church today that go, but if they
hit 491, watch out.
Yes, he knows that.
But what he's saying is, I am giving you this as a number of completion that to follow me,
you must be someone who forgives.
You must be someone who shows mercy and forgiveness.
But pastor, what if they just keep wronging me?
Keep forgiving them.
Now, there's also something you could say is not setting yourself up to be hurt again.
There is something about that, we'll get to that in a second.
But what we have to understand is that the kingdom of God is based on mercy.
The kingdom of God is based on grace.
These are attributes of the kingdom of God because they're attributes of Jesus.
So if we are Christ's followers, then we are called to forgive those who wrong us.
We are called to go and seek forgiveness to the people we have wronged.
Both can be very difficult, I get it.
Both can be hard because of what that means for us.
That means we have to be vulnerable.
That means we have to be open with the fact that we're hurt.
And there are some of us here in the sanctuary today that will never say that.
No one's ever going to get the best of me.
No, I'm just going to put a face on.
They're never going to hurt me.
All the while you're building a resentment against them, a hatred if you will, and you've
lost it.
But the understanding of forgiveness is so powerful, is so understanding in the kingdom
that God wants us to do it so bad that he talks about the fact that when we forgive,
when we are people of mercy and people of justice, we actually take off the yoke of
oppression.
Now, the yoke gets used a lot.
Now I'm going to go to my resident farmers.
I don't think you guys do yokes too much at Tulip Tree, maybe on the kids.
We don't have to talk about it.
But a yoke is what, Jesse?
A yoke for like a horse or a cow or...
It binds a tool to the animal.
They're super lightweight.
You just kind of do one of these, right?
No, they're super heavy, right?
Because they have to be because these animals are huge.
And it binds it together.
There's a yoke.
It's a weight on them because, and you tell me if I'm wrong, it's pretty much letting
the animal know what its job is and what my job or your...
It's not going to be me.
Your job is as the farmer.
Jesus uses that so specifically because if something is yoked around your neck, you're
going to do whatever the yoke desires of you to do.
Yet there are some of us this morning that willingly put yokes on ourselves.
The yoke of hatred, the yoke of hypocrisy, the yoke of insert whatever here, and we don't
even realize the weight of that yoke.
We don't even realize that this understanding of the yokes we put on ourselves can immediately
be taken off if we take on Christ's yoke.
Jesus says, take my yoke upon you for my burden is easy and light.
Time out.
His burden is easy and light.
His burden, his love for us went to the cross.
Remember, so you and I don't have to.
But what he is saying is release all of those yokes, all of the burden of all of those other
things that if you remove a yoke off your life, you put on the yoke of Christ, Christ
is now the one guiding you.
And there are some of you that can't stand that.
Friend, all I can say is remember who you belong to.
You don't belong to yourself.
You don't belong to your spouse.
You belong to Christ.
That Christ is offering you his yoke, his burden, right, which he is taking care of
on the cross, rose from the dead so we may have new life in Christ so then the yoke of
oppression, the yoke of bias, of racism, of all of these things that we keep people at
bay with, we don't have to be yoked with it.
We can be people that see other people the way Jesus does.
We can become a people that live in the freedom to love others even those we disagree with.
And I understand we are going to get there next week.
That's a bind for some of you.
How do I know?
You told me.
You wrote it to me.
You don't like this sermon series because of it.
That what Jesus is saying is monster church, take those yokes off, put my yoke on because
my yoke is love and peace and patience, but I'm not a patient person.
In Christ you can learn that.
He can teach you to be patient.
What about the fasting?
What about the mercy?
Okay, we've gotten to the yokes.
We're going to put Jesus' yoke on, but understand what that means.
The yoke means Jesus is the one steering your life.
I then shall live.
He just saying it.
All of those things in there is a life lived with the yoke of Christ.
I will feed the world through me or you're part of the world.
I will befriend the stranger.
I will sit down and invest in people different than me.
For some of us that means they're not white.
For some of us that means they're not Dutch.
For some of us that means they're not CRC.
For some of us that means they live in Illinois.
For some of us that means whatever it is here, that if you want to learn to grow in this,
then you need to do it.
It's nothing we learn via osmosis.
So maybe some of you are thinking to somebody right now and maybe that barrier has been
hurt and pain.
Maybe that person has hurt you and you've just put on guard and you just want nothing
to do with them.
Tell me, is that the yoke of Christ?
Is the yoke of Christ okay with you going, no, I pretty much hate them?
And here's the rub.
I think some of us are actually okay with that hatred.
And you can't be.
Friend, I'm sorry, but you can't.
You can't say that I'm yoked with Christ, but I hate this person.
You can't say that I'm yoked with Christ, but I wish this person wasn't around.
Now this goes way deeper than man, they're just annoying.
It goes way deeper than that.
That this yoke of oppression and justice that not only Isaiah brings up, but Jesus then
kind of multiplies when he's on earth is this needs to be a yoke of action.
This needs to be a yoke of restoration that Munster Church can be yoked in Christ in a
way where anybody, anybody has a seat.
And right there I know I'm going to get emails.
The Reverend Brzeine knew it in the 60s, in the 70s, in the 80s.
I hope we all know it now in 2024.
We have empty seats.
They can be filled.
Do we get to direct who fills them?
No, we don't want that.
Your elders don't want that.
Your deacons don't want that.
Come what may.
That we need to be that yoke of Christ, the light of mercy and justice and forgiveness.
Are we going to do it all correctly?
No, because we're sinners.
We will make a mess of it, but if we make a mess of it, we need to own it.
When we own it, we need to seek forgiveness because even in that there can be restoration.
That's the path of restoration.
Understanding that this yoke that is on us, if it be Christ, then we are compelled by
love to intervene when we witness injustice, when we witness oppression, when we witness
suffering, just as God demonstrated ultimate mercy through the incarnation and sacrifice
of Christ, we too must embody that same spirit of compassion.
So my challenge is I close because we're going to start this back up next week.
For two more weeks we got this.
What in your life is keeping you from showing compassion?
Name it.
Write it down.
Give it to somebody else.
And maybe, just maybe this week, let's fast from that thing and ask the God of compassion
to reveal himself to us that we can show more compassion to a world that desperately needs
it.
behavior.