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.”