Resurrection Mercy (by Pastor Tom Pauquette)

Matthew 28.8-10
So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Think about it. Jesus could have bypassed them completely. He was risen from the dead, He was certainly longing to return to the company of His Father. He had just suffered an unjust sentencing, a cruel punishment, and a merciless death. If ever there was a time for God deciding to give up on us it was then.

The week between the Triumphal Entry (Palm Sunday) and the Resurrection (Easter) was excruciating. While Jesus delivered some of His most pointed messages in Jerusalem that week, He also faced His most violent opposition. “The Seven Woes” Jesus delivered to the Pharisees (Matthew 23) seem to have set in motion an irreversible plan to have Jesus tortured and crucified. After that it was a painful time of prayer in Gethsemane, a personal betrayal from one of His own, a denial from the one disciple He was counting on to be the rock. The arrest, the accusations, the beatings, the crucifixion. It was a terrible week.

But now all that was behind Him. Laid in a tomb for three days, He was resurrected by the Father. He was, in fact, alive! He was in the airport, at the gate, waiting for His flight home to be announced. But the announcement didn’t come. There was more for Him to do. And for some 40 days Jesus moved about, blessing, reconnecting, and even reinstating His disciples. That was a merciful thing to do. He appeared to 500 people all at once. And let’s not forget about those Roman guards – they saw Him too.

These were merciful appearances. This was a new kind of mercy being expressed. This was resurrection mercy. It was so merciful that Jesus stayed around for so long after the resurrection. Imagine how different our faith would be today if we only had the thought of the resurrection and none of the actual evidence. That was merciful thing to do. That was the Jesus thing to do.

Thank Jesus for His resurrection mercy today.

Mercy Action: As you know by now, 100% of the offerings of the Easter weekend are going to Bangalore, India to complete the construction of the Children’s Home there. I talked to Pastor Stephen from India yesterday. He said the construction is progressing well despite record high temperatures of over 100 degrees every day. If you have not already done so, get your checkbook and show some mercy to 48 little girls who are presently living on the streets of India. This is our chance to show them that Jesus Christ is alive!

“The Cost of Mercy” (by Pastor Jason Coker)

John 10:14-15
“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep”

It’s Holy Week, and Easter weekend and we find ourselves caught in the midst of remembering the incredibly beautiful and horrific events surrounding Christ and his crucifixion. An innocent man falsely accused, beaten with fists, whipped and scourged, publicly mocked and shamefully nailed to an upright wooden beam propped up on the side of a road. Faced with these images of self sacrifice there is no getting around this inescapable conclusion: God is merciful beyond comprehension.

The Jews long expected to be liberated and vindicated by their God. They anxiously awaited the coming messiah, foretold in the writings of their greatest prophets. Collectively these prophesies came to represent the great tradition of Jewish end-times hope, a powerful incentive to resist their enemies and diligently practice pure temple worship. Generation after generation of Jews cried out to God to fulfill these prophesies and bring freedom from their oppressors, appealing to God directly from passages like Isaiah chapter 2:1-5, or Joel Chapter 3:16:

“The LORD will roar from Zion
and thunder from Jerusalem;
the earth and the sky will tremble.

But the LORD will be a refuge for his people,
a stronghold for the people of Israel.” (v16)

Even today, as we read these powerful promises of victory and vindication its no wonder Israel was expecting a fierce conqueror who would destroy her enemies. But the Jews forgot about their own sin. God had to deal not only with the sins of “the nations” He had to reckon with the guilt of His own people as well:

Judah will be inhabited forever
and Jerusalem through all generations.

Their bloodguilt, which I have not pardoned,
I will pardon.” (Joel 3:20-21)

God must find a way to pardon his people, so much to Israel’s surprise He did not send a military conqueror. Instead, he sent a “good shepherd.” God chose to deal with sin by incurring the great cost of sin entirely upon Himself. In His great mercy he laid down his own life to pardon their bloodguilt, and thereby opened the door for all who rely on his terrible sacrifice to become the people of God and escape the coming day of Judgment. The cost of sin is painful and terrible, and God has paid it; He is merciful beyond comprehension.

Reaching Out in Mercy
Who do you shepherd? Are you a father or a mother? Or are you a manager or supervisor, or even an older brother or sister? Do you have friends who listen to you and follow? How can you serve these people on a regular basis? Take some time today to list the people God has called you to, and brainstorm some ways you can become a servant in their lives.

Confession Is Good For The Soul (by Pastor Bob Stiles)

Proverbs 28:13 (AMP)
“He who covers his transgressions will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes his sins will obtain mercy.”

Cover-up! Isn’t that the way many deal with sin? We refuse to tell anybody. We hide our “skeletons” in the closet. We hold onto this fantasy image of ourselves and try to maintain it at all costs. The truth is, we are as sick as our secrets. We can hide things from others, and sometimes from ourselves, but we can never hide anything from God. And as long as we do, we won’t prosper as Proverbs 28:13 says. So it’s crucial that we confess our “skeletons” to God. But why?

Because ultimately, God is the One we have offended. King David wrote Psalm 51 before he wrote Psalm 32, but both psalms are about David’s skeletons. And in Psalm 51:4, David sings to God, “Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” We may even need to make things right with others, but first we need to confess our skeletons to God. What does that involve?

When we confess our sins, we see them from God’s viewpoint. We humbly and honestly say to God, “Father, I have sinned in Your sight. As You already know, I have gossiped about my friends or mistreated my wife or stolen things from work or cheated on my taxes. I admit that what I have done is wrong, and I ask You to forgive me for my sins. With Your help, I will never do that again. And if I need to do so, I will make things right with whomever I have offended.” Without excusing or hiding, we openly and specifically tell God what we have done. David says in Psalm 32:5, “Then I acknowledged my sin to You, and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord …’”

What happens when we confess our “skeletons” to God? David answers that at the end of Psalm 32:5: “… and You forgave the guilt of my sin.” When we confess, God isn’t shocked. He already knows what we’ve done. God forgives, and He forgives every time we confess. If we confess 100% of the time, He forgives 100% of the time. God forgives completely and He forgives immediately. Notice that Proverbs says if we confess and forsake our sin, we will receive…..what? Not judgment. Not condemnation. Not punishment. Not rejection. We receive MERCY! What an awesome promise! The assurance of knowing we will receive mercy gives us the grace to “open the closet doors” in our lives and begin to clean out those skeletons! Praise God for the greatness of His mercy! Receive it from Him today!

Mercy suggestion: Easter is a great time to gather with family and celebrate together. Many people are not able to enjoy that closeness due to such things as geographical distance, or a number of other reasons. Do you know someone, perhaps a friend or co-worker, or someone from church who will be alone this holiday weekend? Take the opportunity to invite them for Easter dinner. What a wonderful expression of kindness to welcome them into the midst of your celebration of our risen Lord!

37. “Because of His Mercy” (by Pastor Jason Coker)

Titus 3:3-7
3At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.

It’s good to remember.

It’s good to remember because its so easy to forget. It’s so very easy to become comfortable in our churches, our home groups, our Bible studies and our giant sacred world of Christian music, Christian politics, and Christian consumer goods. Its too easy to grow accustomed to a whitewashed world and peer through the windows of Christianity at the poor lost people outside and condemn them.

Pride can creep into our hearts like a silent thief and steal our humility. There is no other explanation for a Christian who judges and condemns non-Christians. Only pride would enable a recovering fool to look down his nose at a fool. Only pride would allow a liberated slave to condemn a slave still in chains.

Paul won’t let us forget that there was nothing special about us that incited our salvation. We too were foolish. We too were rebellious. We too were ugly and violent and living in the hopeless condition of sin. There was nothing about us, but there was something about God. There was something remarkable, and powerful about Him that caused our salvation:

4But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

This is a refrigerator verse! Packed tightly into these two sentences are all the foundational elements of our great Christian tradition. There’s the initiating power of the love of God; salvation by grace; the hope of eternity; the triune God fully expressed in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But one thing jumps out among them: Mercy.

God did not conquer us with force. He did not conquer us with fear, or judgment, or anger and he certainly did not conquer us because we deserved to be saved from our own brokenness. He conquered us with Mercy. Mercy breaks the back of sin. Continually remembering that we were saved because of mercy and mercy alone liberates us to treat others with mercy.

Reaching Out in Mercy
Why not take over a dirty job for someone today? What bummer chore can you relieve someone of today at home or at work or in the neighborhood? Clean the toilet at work or change the toner cartridge in the copier for someone. Take out the trash, change the oil, or pick up the poop in the backyard(!) if its usually someone else job, and say “just because.”

In View Of God’s Mercy (by Pastor Bob Stiles)

Romans 12:1
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual act of worship.”

The apostle Paul begins Romans 12 with “THEREFORE…in view of God’s mercy…” What’s he referring to? In order to fully understand this, it is helpful to know that Paul has spent the first eleven chapters of Romans explaining how God has rescued us from the guilt, penalty and power of sin. He’s told us that it is only through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross that we can be forgiven. And he’s told us that we don’t deserve God’s love, but that in spite of us, He has been incredibly merciful. We live “in view of God’s mercy.” All of our faith and all of our lives are transformed by this. God has loved us and shown His mercy by giving Jesus to die on the cross in our place. God’s mercy is seen! The cross still stands before us! Our songs, our prayers, our communion, our preaching, our giving, all our worship to Him reflects upon the mercy of God seen in Jesus Christ, the Son. After what He has done for me… what He is still doing for me… what else can I do but give my life to Him! Because of His mercy, my whole life is now worship to Him.

Worship is always in response to God. God always takes the first step. He took the first step in creating us and He takes the first step in saving us through His Son. Our worship, then, is a response to the mercy God has shown us. You see, God saved us “FROM” something – from slavery to sin, from the consequences of our disobedience, from judgment and ultimately from hell – but He also saved us “TO” something. And that something is worship. He saved us to worship Him.

What is worship? The answer is both simple yet incredibly complex. It’s everything! Is music worship? Yes. Is taking part in a church service worship? Yes. Is getting up and having breakfast and going to work everyday worship. Yes, or at least it should be! In response to God’s mercy, we are to offer ourselves, our bodies as living sacrifices – this is our spiritual act of worship. When you make a sacrifice, you give something up. That’s the very nature of a sacrifice. It’s a serious, costly gift. Paul deliberately uses language in Romans 12 that will remind us of the gift of God. The Father offered the body of Jesus as our sacrifice, and in view of that, we too are to offer our bodies. We give ourselves up, we surrender ourselves utterly and completely and say to God “I’m going to give the control of my life and the purpose of my life back to it’s rightful owner – to You.” That’s what Jesus means when He says that unless we “take up our cross and follow Him, we cannot be His disciples.” Unless we give ourselves totally, we’re not truly people of God.

To be a “living sacrifice” means living a life that is fully consecrated—fully separated to God for His pleasure and purpose. It means living a life that is totally given over to God—offered up to Him in surrender and obedience to His will and His way. God is calling for lives that will be lived as a daily expression of worship to Him. This means a life that will worship Him in all of our actions, our attitudes, our motives, our words, our thoughts—everything! Today, respond to the mercy that God has shown you by living a lifestyle of worship to Him!

Mercy Suggestion: Write a note of appreciation and encouragement to your mailman. Consider putting a coupon for a free meal with the note and let him/her know that God loves them!