Good morning and Happy Mother’s day to our ladies this morning.  Jennie gave me a call yesterday that she took Terry to the ER yesterday afternoon.  He may have a urinary infection and they weren’t sure if Terry would be up to preaching this morning, thus I put together a short sermon for today.,

I thought, well this is mother’s day and when I think of my mom and all she had to put up with as I grew up, A couple of words came to mind; Mercy & Grace. 

Mercy, because I lived through my childhood.  Mom sure had mercy on me! And grace because of all that she sacrificed for us kids and the unconditional love she had for us.

If I may, I would like to lead us in a prayer for all the moms before we delve into the biblical meaning of mercy and grace.

Our gracious loving father, we thank you for adopting us into your family through the miracle of your grace.

And calling us to be brothers and sisters to each other.

Today, our loving God we pray for our moms.

Who cared for us when we were helpless

Who comforted us when we were hurt

Whose love and care we often took for granted

Who’s love and patience seems to have no end

This morning we pray for;

Those who desire to be moms but know they can’t, we thank you for their care of others children,

Those who are grieving the loss of their mother

For those who never knew their biological mother and now yern for her

Those who have experienced the wonder of an adopted mother’s love

The families separated by job locations and those separated by military assignments

Lord, give them special blessings

The Meaning of Mercy

Ephesians 2:8-9 Read

Can you imagine having the assignment of describing the Pacific Ocean by examining a quart jar full of sea water?

Or how about trying to gather comprehensive information about the Rocky Mountains with just a camera!

How much do the Mars land rovers really tell us about the vastness of God’s universe and it’s complexities by sniffing and tasting a few rocks?

I have to admit that I feel the same way when I try to understand and explain the meaning of God’s mercy.

It is an essential spiritual element of God!

It’s hard to understand with complete confidence, any element of God.  We are the created and He is the Creator!  All we have is the quart jar, the camera, and a robot!  We are physical, God is spiritual. 

We can accept that our discussion of the meaning of mercy will be sketchy at best.  Isaiah said God’s ways and thoughts are higher than ours, he told us the truth.

Our approach for insight is through faith.  Fortunately, that faith gives us conviction and the hope of the existence of mercy.

It has been said, learn, we will.

 Be changed, we will,

be convicted, we will.

Gain enthusiasm, we will

But close in on God by a definition?  An explanation, a diagram? Never!

As the created can we ever fully understand the creator? {Romans 11:33} “Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His Ways!”

This truth insists that we be in awe of the indescribable dimensions of God.  Yet for all God’s “unsearchableness” and “unfathomableness” He openly invites us to examine Him.  WOW!

With all that said, let’s look at the mercy of God: Mercy is closely related to Grace.  A standard definition is, “Grace is getting something we don’t deserve, and mercy is not getting something we do deserve.”  We can add this - “Mercy, also, is not giving others something they deserve.

Grace is divine help or action, participation in human weakness, and it functions in two ways, (1) It provides the ability to accomplish things we cannot accomplish on our own, and (2) it provides salvation where there is no merit.

God alone can make all things work through His breathtaking mercy!  Let’s try this; let’s step away from the attitude of “I’ll take care of it”, and instead have the attitude of, “if it is to be, it’s up to Him!”

The power that we posses is to simply believe in God’s power!

God wants us to learn one thing: “I can’t.”

As long as we give whatever we are doing our best shot, the result will never be any more than, “our best.”  God wants to break into our stubborn pattern of self-effort!

It is only when we admit that our best is not good enough and open our hearts to God, that the master of mercy can enter and take control. 

Remember Paul when he said, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” Or when he said, “The things I want to do I don’t do, but the things I don’t want to do is what I do!”

What he is teaching here is that when we count only on ourselves, we fail.  That when we come to the realization that we can’t do life without God and open our hearts to that, will we see God’s grace and mercy at work within us!

By understanding what God through Paul is trying to tell us, we come to realize that while we are trying to guide life on our narrow little track of must do’s and don’t dares, we forget that it is exploring with wonder what God through His grace and mercy has gifted us!

The master of mercy will bring amazement to our lives.  We tend to spend too much of our limited time focusing on the negative.  Negative things said or done to us are almost always only exceeded by the negative things we do to others.  With a plate so full of negatives we don’t have room to sense anything like wonder or amazement.

{Read Erma Bombeck’s Article}

We need to learn that joy comes not from winning the Loto or having Publisher’s clearing house nock on our door.  Joy and wonder come from opening our hearts to God’s kingly grace. And what’s amazing about the grace of God?  It usually does not come in the form of money, power, or fame.  It most times comes in times of need.

Grace provides the ability to accomplish what we think in our little way of thinking, is impossible

Paul says in 2 Cor. 8:1 (read) “Now brethren, we wish to make known to you the geace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia.” Paul goes on to say in that passage a glowing narrative of a powerless, even impoverished, church that accomplishes the impossible by God’s grace.  Later in the same book we see Paul making the statement of fact that “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8)