That's great singing tonight.
And it prepares us well for our theme this evening, which is the mercy and grace of God.
I'd like for you to turn please to Ephesians chapter 2 as we look at the theme as it's
revealed in the context of this second chapter of Ephesians.
To understand something more about the love, grace, and mercy of God, we need to back up
to verse 1 to get the whole context.
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when
you followed the ways of this world, and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit
who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature
and following its desires and thoughts.
Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
That's what we were, dear people, before we were saved.
And every phrase and every word in that first section of this paragraph describes the lost
person in his estate outside of Christ.
Verse 4 begins, though, with a pivotal word.
It swings the whole tone, the whole direction of thought.
He says, But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive
with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.
It is by grace you have been saved.
And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ
Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his
grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it
is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.
For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared
in advance for us to do.
Specifically, this evening we are looking at the mercy and grace of God.
These two characteristics of God are similar to his love.
In fact, I think it is appropriate to say that they flow out of God's love.
But God's love alone could not save a single sinner.
Though God desires men to be saved, though God loves men, God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believed this in him should not perish but
have everlasting life.
But God's love alone cannot save.
God's grace and God's mercy play the all-important role of securing redemption for the lost sinner,
so that God's love can save him.
We have so many hymns written around this theme.
We have sung a few of them tonight.
I think of the words of Joseph Addison regarding mercy when he wrote,
When all thy mercies, O my God, my rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view, I am lost in wonder, love, and praise.
And then regarding grace, Charles Wesley wrote,
O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise,
The glories of my God and King, The triumphs of his grace.
Mercy and grace are distinct, and yet they are similar.
They are separate, and yet they are intertwined truths,
and that is why we are looking at them together.
Were it not for these glorious attributes of God, I would repeat,
We could not be saved, but because of God's grace and mercy, we are.
Let's think of a definition for grace and for mercy.
Dr. Mark Cambren has this helpful paragraph in his book,
There is very little difference in the meaning of mercy and grace.
Mercy, generally speaking, is used in the Old Testament and grace in the New Testament.
That's a pretty general statement, alright.
Old Testament mercy and loving kindness go together.
In fact, in Psalm 136, there is an antiphonal choir number recorded for us without music,
and it magnifies the mercy of God.
In the King James Version, it says, after the first phrase in each verse,
it says, For his mercy endures forever.
Remember that Psalm?
In the New American Standard Bible, it says, For his loving kindness endures forever.
I repeat what Dr. Cambren said.
Old Testament mercy and loving kindness go together.
Someone has said that mercy is negative and loving kindness is positive.
Mercy is shown to the disobedient, and loving kindness is showered upon the obedient.
Both together mean grace.
Richard de Haan said, God's mercy may be defined as God's goodness to man in his
misery due to sin.
Mercy has to do with the wretchedness of sin, while grace has to do with its guilt.
In other words, God's mercy is His love reaching out to us in our misery because of our lostness
and our helplessness.
And God's grace is that which forgives our sins and provides for that forgiveness by
the innocent substitution of Jesus Christ in our behalf.
Let's think of them individually rather than together for a moment.
Mercy is the manifestation of God's compassion in relieving the sinner from his misery.
It is the manifestation of God's compassion in relieving the sinner from his misery.
It is described in the Bible by words like these, great, plenteous, from everlasting
to everlasting, tender, abundant, sure, new every morning, filling the earth, above the
heavens.
Those are some kind of adjectives, aren't they?
Describing God's mercy.
And yet that is how God describes His mercy in the Bible.
In general, there are two aspects of His mercy as we see it in the Word.
There is the general aspect of His mercy, which is evidence to all of creation.
God is merciful to all of His creation.
In Psalm 145 verse 9 it says, the Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over
all His works.
So in a general sense, in that aspect, God's mercy is poured out upon all of creation.
There is no aspect of His creation where His mercy is not poured out in evidence to His
glory.
But we usually think of mercy in a more specialized context, and that is the second aspect.
It is two repentant sinners.
This is what is described in Romans chapter 9 when it speaks of those saved as being vessels
of mercy which God had prepared before unto glory.
You and I who have trusted Jesus Christ cannot boast at all in that we have done something
to gain our salvation.
We cannot even brag that we believed on God, for there is a very real sense in which even
our faith, our believing in Christ, is a gift that God gives to us.
In fact, that seems to be the real thrust of this verse here in Ephesians chapter 2
when it says, For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not
from yourselves, it is the gift of God.
So there is a sense in which even the act of believing on the Lord Jesus Christ is a
special privilege that God gives to us.
It is a mercy that He extends to us, and thus in Romans 9 we are called vessels of mercy
which God prepared for glory.
And then grace may be defined as God's goodness toward the ill-deserving.
It is God's goodness to those who do not deserve it, but who deserve something else entirely.
That was what Richard E. Hahn said, goodness toward the ill-deserving.
That which caused God to undertake on behalf of the sinner His guilt and His penalty is
grace.
He gave His Son in the place of the sinner on the cross.
That is His grace in action.
And we must remember that salvation is all of grace.
As I have already stated when we talked about mercy, human effort is entirely ruled out.
Salvation is entirely of the Lord.
It begins by grace, Titus 2.11.
It continues by grace, that is our salvation continues by grace, and it will be consummated
by grace and not by my efforts.
Because salvation is by grace and not by works, I am secure in my position in Jesus Christ.
If I could lose my salvation because of some disobedient act on my part, it would mean
then that somehow my works affect my salvation, and they do not, either in my securing it
in the first place or my keeping it.
Works have nothing to do with my salvation as far as getting it and maintaining it.
Certainly good works are the outflow of our salvation.
God saves us so that good works may proceed from our lives for His glory, but good works
have nothing to do with our getting salvation or our keeping it.
It begins, continues, and will be completed by grace.
I think that John Newton perhaps has captured these three aspects of grace in his hymn,
Amazing Grace.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.
That's the past aspect to it.
He goes on to say, "'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed."
It seems to me here he is thinking not only of that salvation moment, but then God's
grace in leading him to fear, for his fears to be relieved and for him to fear the Lord.
And then finally he says, "'Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come.
"'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.'"
In his commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians, Dr. Louis Barry Schaeffer has an excellent
paragraph.
Of course, he's a very helpful commentator.
"'The exceeding riches of his grace are no less than all that the infinite God can
do for the sinner when every barrier is broken down and every moral hindrance is removed.
The measureless character of his kindness toward the one who puts his trust in the Savior
is seen in that transformation by which the sinner is taken from the lost estate and is
exalted to the highest conceivable position in heaven, there to be presented faultless
before the presence of God, conformed to the image of his Son, and without blame before
him.
What greater thing could infinite love desire than that the sinner, utterly doomed on earth,
should be through riches of grace like him in heaven?'
That's what grace and mercy have done for us.
We lost, condemned sinners without hope in the world apart from God, without life, have
not only been forgiven of our sins, but we have been given a standing before God, described
in our text in Ephesians 2.
There is a standing before God that sees us vitally united to Jesus Christ.
We are one with him.
We are joined to him.
When he died, we died.
When he was buried, we were buried with him.
When he rose from the dead, we did too.
When he ascended to heaven, we were with him in that.
And now he is seated there in the heavenly places in his kingly and glorious session
before the presence of God, and in Christ we too are there.
Whatever has happened to Jesus Christ has happened to you because you are in Christ,
and that is God's grace and mercy, his provision for your salvation.
Let's think of the manifestation of God's grace and mercy.
We've already touched upon that somewhat.
God can show mercy and grace toward sinful men because of the work of Christ.
Perhaps one of the key passages undergirding that truth is found in Romans 3.
We have in verses 23 to 25 of Romans 3 an amazing statement.
In fact, I think that there are few paragraphs in the Bible that are packed with so many
theological thoughts and words as this particular paragraph in Romans 3.
I'm going to pick up just a few words from verse 22 where it says,
There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are
justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
Think of verse 25, God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his
blood.
He did this to demonstrate his justice because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed
beforehand unpunished, referring to those sins of the Old Testament that were under
the blood of atoning animals but were not forgiven.
They were covered over by the atonement.
He goes on to say, He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to
be just and the one who justifies the man who has faith in Jesus.
Now I'm particularly interested in what it says in verse 25 where it says, God presented
him as a sacrifice of atonement, as the NIV puts it, but that is a marvelous word translated
in the King James as propitiation.
God set him forth as the propitiation for our sins.
A propitiation, what is that?
Well, in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross there were three results, and each result
is toward a different end.
This word propitiation is the result of the work of Christ toward God.
God has been propitiated by the work of Christ.
Now what does that mean?
Well, it means that the righteousness and the holiness, the justice of God has been
satisfied through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf.
He as an innocent substitute took your place and mine upon the cross.
He died in our stead.
He took upon himself the wrath of God for our sins, and thus God is propitiated toward
us who are in Christ.
This word propitiation, as we see it here, is translated a different way over in Hebrews
chapter 9.
Just turn over there.
This is kind of interesting, I think.
It shows how wonderfully our faith is put together and how wonderful the Bible is in
revealing these truths to us.
In Hebrews chapter 9, the writer speaks about the first covenant, that is the covenant of
the law, and some of the regulations for worship and the pieces of furniture to that tabernacle
which the Jews had.
He says in verse 2, a tabernacle was set up in its first room where the lampstand, the
table, and the consecrated bread.
This was called the holy place.
Beyond the second curtain was a room called the most holy place, which had the golden
altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant.
This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron's rod that had budded, and the stone
tablets of the covenant.
Look at verse 5, above the ark were the cherubim of the glory, overshadowing the place of atonement
or the mercy seat.
Did you get the picture?
He's describing this box or this ark of the covenant as it is called.
He tells us what is in it, and he says that the mercy seat was made out of gold and it
was fashioned into these cherubim who held out their wings covering that place called
the mercy seat or the place of atonement.
That very word there for mercy seat or the place of atonement as it is in the NIV is
the same word as propitiation back here in Romans 3 when it describes Jesus.
He is the propitiation or we can say he is the mercy seat.
What was the significance of that mercy seat in the Old Testament?
That was the place where the high priest once a year would sprinkle the blood of a sacrifice.
There was on that day of atonement when he would enter in behind that veil described
here into the most holy place, coming into that sacred room where the very presence of
God was manifested between the cherubim.
That is where the Shekinah, the glory was.
There below the glory was this gold covering to the ark called the mercy seat and it was
there he would sprinkle the blood.
It was there that justice was accomplished.
The blood indicated that the sentence was carried out upon a substitute for the sins
of the nation.
And the blood of that innocent substitute, that animal, was brought in and placed before
God as an atonement, a covering for the sins of the nation for that year.
We no longer have that, of course, because that is fulfilled.
This ritual is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
He is now the propitiation.
He is the mercy seat.
He was the innocent substitute who shed his blood for our sins.
That's why he is called the propitiation or the sacrifice of atonement, or we can say
he is the mercy seat where we meet God.
God's grace and mercy are manifested in that work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now let's think about some application and we'll be on our way.
We have defined God's grace and his mercy briefly.
We have looked at it being manifested in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, shedding his
blood for our sins.
Now let's think of application.
What does this mean to us?
In the first place, these truths that we're talking about should be brought to our minds
very often.
In other words, we should sing of them as we are commanded in Psalm 89.1, where the
psalmist says, I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever.
I believe that we ought to sing often of the mercy of God and realize what we're singing
as we do it.
As those words of one hymn writer said, depth of mercy, can there be mercy there reserved
for me?
Can my God his wrath forbear, me the chief of sinners spare?
Those are not words that you find in some little ditty of a chorus written in the 20th
century, that's for sure.
Or other hymns that are written that speak of this, depth of mercy, as I've just quoted,
majestic sweetness sits enthroned upon the Savior's brow.
That verse concludes, his lips with grace or flow.
There's a wideness in God's mercy, grace greater than my sin.
Grace tis a charming sound, harmonious to the ear.
Only a sinner saved by grace, wonderful grace of Jesus as we have sung tonight.
We ought often to sing of the grace and the mercy of God, but we ought to do more than
that.
We ought to talk about it too.
In Psalm 107 verse 1 it says, O give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his mercy
endureth forever.
And then it goes on to say, let the redeemed of the Lord say so, those he's redeemed from
the hand of the enemy.
Let him say what?
That his mercy endures forever.
I was raised in a little country church that had on a typical Sunday night about a third
of the size of this crowd.
That was a good evening.
And it was just as hot in that church as it is in this one.
We had no air conditioning.
The windows were thrown open in the summertime and it was a small enough town that I think
probably half the town knew when we were in church because, like you, we were a singing
church and enjoyed singing.
And I can remember some great testimony meetings growing up.
And there was one lady who every time she stood up, and that was almost every time we
had testimonies, she would quote that verse.
Well, the Bible says, let the redeemed of the Lord say so.
And then she would go on to give her testimony.
I was confessed as a young person.
I got a little old, got a little tired of hearing that statement, let the redeemed of
the Lord say so.
And yet I appreciate it now more than ever what she was doing.
She was simply obeying scripture.
We ought to talk of the mercy and grace of God, how easy it is for us to get together
and talk about the weather or to talk about sports or to talk about our kids or our house
or what our plans for vacation are.
Folks, let's discipline ourselves to speak more often of God's mercy and grace when
we get together.
His mercy endures forever.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.
Encourage one another with those things.
And then we ought to rejoice in the grace and the mercy of God.
The psalmist said, I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy.
If we get our eyes focused on scenes around us, as Dick said earlier, we will become depressed.
This world is in a sad state.
And if we think about some of the things that happen to us, it's easy for us to become
disillusioned and unhappy and unsettled.
What we need to do is focus more upon the mercy and grace of God and rejoice in it.
The little things that happen to us in this world are but for a while.
Quickly they pass away and very soon we should all be in eternity.
And we will be there in heaven by the grace and the mercy of God, and that will be the
theme of our singing and our praise to God forever and ever.
And why will that be so?
Because it says in Ephesians 2 that forever God is going to keep revealing more aspects
of his grace by doing kind things for us.
I have no idea what God's got up his sleeve, so to speak, if you'll pardon that.
A rather human way of putting it.
I don't know what God has in store, what he has planned, but God has things planned
so that throughout eternity new dimensions of grace will be revealed to all of his creation
by his kindness toward us in Christ.
We ought therefore to rejoice in God's grace and mercy.
So we should remind ourselves often of these things.
And then we should trust his mercy and grace for our daily failures.
Do you fail every day?
If you can go through a day without one failure, you're doing well.
I think all of us realize that every day we need a fresh embassage of God's grace and
mercy to our lives.
I like what David said as he concluded Psalm 23.
Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
Then of course he talks about heaven.
But first he talks about this life.
We were talking about Psalm 23 several weeks ago in our Wednesday night Bible study, and
we noted that God's goodness and God's mercy there are probably the names of sheepdogs
that God has.
The shepherd is out in front leading his flock.
The Lord is my shepherd.
He's guiding the flock and leading the flock and caring for the flock, but behind the flock
are his sheepdogs.
Shepherds often had them, sheepdogs which would keep the sheep moving along with the
shepherd while he was out in front showing the way to go.
It seems to me that that verse is simply saying that God has two sheepdogs, one called mercy
and one called goodness, and that these two are with us all the days of our life.
They move us along.
They nip at our heels when we lag behind.
They minister to us when we are lost.
They get us back with the flock.
God's goodness and His mercy, we should trust them daily for our failures.
This is what David trusted in Psalm 51 as he realized his sin and confessed it.
And then finally, we ought to show mercy and be gracious to one another.
Our God is noted for both grace and mercy, and we should be noted for the same.
In other words, we ought to be forgiving.
We ought to be willing to allow an offense to pass without retaliation, without a tit-for-tat
kind of an attitude, the chip on the shoulder.
We ought to be merciful to one another.
Now in any kind of a congregation, there are going to be times when people will rub each
other and there's the opportunity for offense or irritation.
We ought to evidence God's mercy in those situations, and if need be, suffer the wrong.
This is true not only in little personality clashes, but it's true in even things like
monetary loss.
Clark Morphew, who is a religion editor for one of the local newspapers, called me this
last week wanting to know my attitude about Bill Gothard and the suit that has been filed
against him by some of his former workers.
Maybe you haven't heard about that, but that's another episode and a saga that seems to be
going on with the Institute of Basic Youth Conflicts in the last couple of years.
Little charges which, if proven true, would be rather serious.
I had to remind him a couple of times that they have not yet been proven true, but he
wanted to know what I thought about that.
I said, well, I think that you'll find a lot of Christians are coming to the defense of
Bill Gothard in this matter.
He said, why is that?
Because the terrible things have been charged against him.
I said, well, in the first place, he's a man of character and he believes in biblical
principles.
If these things are true, he's the kind of a man that will admit it and make it right.
I said, secondly, the Bible forbids one Christian to take another Christian to court.
These former staff members who claim to be Christians have sinned in doing that.
He says, where does the Bible say that?
I said, in 1 Corinthians chapter 6.
He said, then you would advise them not to go to court?
I said, yes.
He said, well, what should they do then?
They were wrong.
I said, well, it's alleged that they were wrong.
He said, what would you tell them to do?
I said, well, I would tell them that if they couldn't talk to Bill Gothard and get anywhere
to go to his board, and if they couldn't get anywhere with the board to drop it and
to suffer the wrong.
He said, you would tell them to suffer the wrong?
I said, yes, I would.
Dear people, that's exactly what they should have done, and that's what we should do.
Rather than taking another believer to court, even in a matter of monetary loss, we need
to be merciful to one another and not hang out our difficulties before the unsaved of
the world for them to judge.
It only brings harm to the cause of Christ when that's the case.
We need to be merciful and gracious to each other in our homes.
Husbands and wives need this, parents and children.
We need evidence, not only the strictness of the law to our kids, folks, but we need
to show them that God is also gracious and merciful.
I remember one time I was trying to illustrate this, I think, to my son.
He was due for a spanking.
So I thought, well, I'm going to illustrate a great theological truth to my son.
I said, now, you deserve a spanking, isn't that right?
I think he said yes.
I said, I'm going to show you something.
I'm going to be gracious, and I'm going to forgive you, but somebody has to suffer
the wrong, so I'm going to give myself the spanking.
So I used the spoon on myself.
Then I said, now, I've taken the spanking for you, and you're forgiven.
I'm not sure he got the full theological implications of that.
I know that I was a little sore as a result of that particular illustration, but my point
is that we need to illustrate to our children not only justice and righteousness, but we
need to illustrate at times mercy and forgiveness.
We ought to evidence these because they are aspects of our God and our Father.
He is called the Father of mercies, and we as His children should resemble Him.
I'd like for us to close this evening by singing a song about these characteristics
of God.
And in number 360, these words by Annie Johnson Flint, He giveth more grace.
And here it speaks of the kind of grace that goes beyond just salvation, but it's the
ministering, strengthening, enabling grace of God.
As we speak this evening, it may be that you are troubled and burdened, and you're low
because of problems in your life.
I want you to look at these words as we sing them and believe them, because what is written
here is based on Scripture.
He gives more grace as the burdens grow greater.
And if we can be of some spiritual counsel to you, I hope that you'll come to us after
the service and indicate that.
We want to help you and minister to you in any way that we can.
Let's stand and sing the first verse of number 360.