Mercy and the Wisdom of God (by Pastor Tom Pauquette)

James 3 .13-18
Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.

You’ve been there. It was a relational situation and you were stumped. Maybe it still is. You needed to know what to do. Maybe you still do. So you called out to God for guidance. You needed His wisdom. Then it happened. That little voice in your head started going off. You were thinking things you didn’t mean to think. You began to wonder if it was the answer to your prayers. You needed to know how to figure out if what you were hearing was from God or yourself, or whatever. Before you acted on what you were hearing, you needed to know.

James does a great job of showing us that not all wisdom is God’s wisdom. There is a kind of worldly wisdom that is simply not from God. It is, he says, in fact from the devil. So how do we discern the difference? Look at the difference between the intent of each kind of wisdom. Worldly wisdom has, as its central intent, a self-centeredness. Its purpose is to put you in a position of “getting what is rightfully yours.” James says that we can not be championing our own personal causes AND living out God’s wisdom simultaneously.

The wisdom that comes from God, on the other hand, has a different central intention. Being pure, peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of good fruit, impartial and sincere, it definitely has a different object in mind – the well-being of another. Oh, and please notice the quality listed in the verse 17 which I left out of my list – God’s wisdom is “full of mercy.”

Fascinating. Even God’s wisdom is filled with mercy. Everything that flows from the throne of God, it seems, is some expression of God’s desire to be merciful.

Are you at some crucial point of decision? Do you need to hear God’s wisdom for your own world? Are you receiving some sense of direction and simply need to know if it’s really from God? James 3.13-18 makes a great test to apply to what you believe you’re hearing. Does the answer favor your agenda or God’s? Is the answer filled with purity, compassion, and submission? And, is it full of mercy?

Mercy Suggestion: Things happen between people. Sometimes it’s our mostly our fault, sometimes it isn’t. At some point later on, that all doesn’t seem to matter so much any more. Are you out of relationship with someone you love? What expression of mercy

STRONG Mercy (by Pastor Tom Pauquette)

1 Peter 2.9,10
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

I’ve been a Christian for so long that it’s sometimes hard to remember what life was like without Jesus in it – life before mercy. But I know for a fact that there once was a time in my life when I had not embraced the mercy of God. I remember believing in God, but not knowing Him or even knowing that He could be known.

(Enter Karen) Karen Rutter brought something to my life. She brought a confidence not only that there absolutely was a God, but that He could absolutely be known, through His Son, Jesus Christ. I remember a warm summer night (ca. 1970) in the backyard behind her house half playing tetherball but mostly talking about God. (Imagine me at 6-4 playing tetherball with Karen and 5-nothin’). I remember spouting off different theories about God which I had learned from my hippie brother who was pretty well fried by every drug available at the time. She never flinched. She never backed down. She definitely had my attention.

Karen, in her very own way, brought me to an awareness of the mercy of God. She knew what she believed. She that what she believed was true. She just knew.

It was so merciful of Karen not to back down in the face of all my hostile ramblings. It was her very confidence that forced me to explore the validity of the claims of the Gospel of Jesus. Sometimes being merciful means being strong – sometimes very strong.

Once I had not received mercy, now I have received the mercy of God. All because someone was strong enough to stand their ground.

Mercy Action: There are 48 young girls living on the streets of Bangalore, India, who are soon going to have the mercy of God brought to them via the Children’s Home we are building there. This very moment they are living in alleyways and under bushes. They search the corner garbage piles every day in the hope of finding something to eat. They are about to receive the mercy of God. What can you do to bring God’s mercy to someone so far away? Write a check – a big one if you can. Easter weekend, the entire offerings from all four services (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), will go to those girls. Be strong with your mercy.

“Draw Near with Confidence” (by Pastor Bob Stiles)

Hebrews 4:14-16
“Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need.”

The writer of Hebrews says Jesus was tempted, yet He was “without sin” – He did not yield to the temptation. We may be inclined to think, “Jesus doesn’t know what I go through; He didn’t sin.” But the fact that He didn’t sin means that He knows what we go through. Only one who has not yielded to temptation can know the intensity of it. Someone who gives up in the first mile of a marathon doesn’t know how difficult it is to run a marathon. Jesus is the only one who’s “run a successful marathon against temptation”, so to speak. He knows how hard it is. He knows more than we do. Way more. How encouraging it is to know that in Jesus, we have someone who suffers with us, who identifies with us, who knows how we feel, who knows how hard it is to follow God.

The knowledge that we have such a sympathetic high priest, then, gives us confidence to approach God. “Therefore,” because we have a high priest who knows how we feel, let us “draw near with confidence to the throne of grace.” What is the purpose of drawing near to God in this case? It’s in order that we might “receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

What need do we have? We have “weaknesses,” areas of our lives in which we are prone to disbelieve God. Certainly, we need help to resist temptation, but that’s not the point here. A priest doesn’t help someone resist temptation; a priest helps someone who has yielded to temptation. The help we need before God is forgiveness. We need to receive mercy! We need to find grace! The presence of Jesus, our great and compassionate high priest, assures us of God’s mercy and grace. We need the assurance, despite our weaknesses, despite our sinful actions, that God is merciful, that His grace is available – that all, somehow, is still well with the Father. Jesus gives us that assurance.

When we are feeling the weight of our sin, the last place we might want to be seen is in front of God’s throne. “Feelings of guilt” and “nearness to God” don’t seem to go hand in hand. We’re inclined to run the other way, and not draw near to God because we fear punishment. Yet, because Jesus took upon Himself our punishment, we can come with full assurance and confident expectation that we WILL receive mercy and forgiveness! Receive it from Him today!

Mercy Suggestion: Offer to help your neighbor do some yard work. Pray that this simple act of kindness will open their hearts to God.

The Community of Mercy (by Pastor Jason Coker)

2 Corinthians 1:3-7
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

As if pain and suffering weren’t bad enough, one of the common features of suffering is that those who are afflicted tend to feel terribly alone in their distress. We sometimes distance ourselves from suffering people because we may not have a solution for their troubles. We inherently want to solve problems, but too often we are powerless to fix whatever is broken and so we don’t know what to say, or do!

The Christians in Corinth are going through a particularly difficult time and Paul wants them to know they are not alone, so he charges right out of the gate in this letter with an immediate praise for the “Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.” Paul wants these believers to know, first of all, that they do not suffer without relief, for our God is the God “who comforts us in all our troubles.”

But notice, Paul says here that at times comfort from God comes not in the form of a solution, but in the form of empathy and understanding from others who have suffered the same! Paul says “[God] comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”

Paul then uses a powerful image to drive home his point: Picture a large pot being filled with water, the liquid rapidly reaching the top of the container and then gushing over the top, splashing down the sides and running out onto the floor. This is the suffering of Christ, and as believers in Christ, his suffering inevitably spills out onto us; however, this is also the comfort of Christ, and as he comforts others, we too are bathed in that merciful overflow.

This illustrates the surprising and uniquely Christian truth that we can receive comfort and empathy from God for our sufferings because we serve a God who has suffered himself. Christ is the suffering servant, who meets us in our pain and misery – not from a distance, but shoulder-to-shoulder in the muck and mire of our broken humanity. He has been there, and he offers us mercy from a place of understanding!

When we have received this mercy, we respond by giving it to others around us. That is the community of mercy in action. We are common sufferers, and common comforters, in Christ and with Christ, and by this activity we begin to enjoy a kind of equality that is peculiarly meant for the people of the Kingdom of God (2 Co 8:13-15).

Reaching Out in Mercy: Let’s relieve someone’s suffering today by providing empathy and understanding. Perhaps you already know someone who could use some comfort. Go out of your way today to talk to them and just listen, resisting the temptation to first try to fix the problem. If you don’t know of someone who needs a listening ear, then keep your eyes and ears open and be bold enough to pray that God would send you an opportunity. I’ll bet he will!

Are You Saved? (by Pastor Tom Pauquette)

James 2.12-13
Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!

Ouch! Does that really say that “judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful”? This sounds kind of legalistic doesn’t it? I mean, I thought I was going to miss the penalty of judgment solely based on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This sounds like something has been added. What could it mean?

There are a few definite indicators which show that a person has truly been apprehended by Jesus. They all flow from the same place ~ love. Jesus said, “by this shall all men know that you are my disciples – if you have love one for another”(John 13.35). The litmus test of our discipleship is whether or not we have love for others. Now if you remember your chemistry, you will remember how litmus paper works (and if you don’t you’re about to learn). Litmus paper, when dipped into a solution, will indicate by its change in color the acidity level of the solution. In other words, the obvious change in the litmus paper shows for certain what is otherwise invisibly contained within the solution. Hence, our love for one another (according to Jesus) is the “litmus test” of our discipleship. It’s not that our love makes us disciples, it’s that our love shows that Jesus Christ is alive and well inside of us. Love for others is a visible evidence of an otherwise invisible reality.

So along comes James (the very blood brother of Jesus) who puts an exclamation point on this truth. So true is it, he says, that a person who has been apprehended by Jesus Christ is also being transformed in to a person of love, that expressions of mercy will naturally flow from their lives. In other words, the true evidence that we have fully embraced the mercy of God (and thus escaped His impending righteous judgment) is that we will absolutely be people who express mercy to others.

Are you saved? Have you fully surrendered the will of your life over to the authority of Jesus Christ? You’ll know it by this fool-proof test – “if you have love one for another.”

Mercy Action: Make a list of the people in your life for whom you feel love. Choose the one from the list for whom you have not demonstrated this love in the longest amount of time. Now you take it from there. If you have a mercy story to tell please email me at tom@gcvineyard.org.