February 4, 2007

Mercy Circle

The Transplant:

• Jeff Leeland, a Jr. High teacher at a school in Seattle, Washington
• was new on the job when he and his wife found out that
• their baby boy, Michael, had cancer and needed a bone marrow transplant. 
• Their 6-year old daughter was the perfect match for the transplant
• Jeff had only been on his job for 6 months
• his insurance would not cover the transplant at that time. 
• If Michael did not get the transplant, he would surely die. 
• The Leelands needed to raise $200,000 by May and this was March. 
• One of Mr. Leeland fellow teachers told his class about the situation. 
• Dameon, a young boy who was teased by the other kids because he was in special education and walked with a limp, made a visit to Mr. Leeland’s house. 
• He told the teacher… “don’t make a big deal out of this… if your baby’s in trouble, I want to help out.”
• Dameon pressed 12- $5 bills (his entire savings) into Mr. Leeland’s hand.  The other kids found out about “Dameon’s gift.” 
• Some kids organized a walk-a-thon. 
• Others, contacted a local newspaper. 
• Yet others raised money for the cause through car washes. 
• The effort grew and grew. 
• The transplant was postponed a couple of weeks which was just enough time to raise $220, 000 through the Michael Leeland Fund. 
• Michael received his transplant and lived. 
• Dameon gave sacrificially and came to know Christ through the Leeland family and accepted Him as his personal Lord and Savior. 
• Having struggled with complications for several years, Dameon died from complications after getting an infection in one of his legs. 
• Michael Leeman lived to tell Dameon’s story. 
• Dameon was a hero. 
• He gave his all so that another could live and he, himself, received the greatest gift of all…life everlasting.

What a beautiful circle of mercy this is!!  This morning, I want to help you visualize the Circle of Mercy that we can all live by.

• Our actions actually reflect what is in our hearts
• if we genuinely understand and appreciate the mercy God has given us, then we will naturally extend mercy to others. 

But what exactly is mercy?

• We will often hear the terms mercy and grace used interchangeably.
• Grace
• unmerited favor
• immunity freely given. 
• Mercy
• requires a deliberate identification with the other person. 
• It is an action. 
• It is seeing things the way another person see things
• It is feeling the way that person feels. 
• It means to feel the pain of another person so deeply that you are moved to help him or her. 
• It is defined by William Barclay as “good will toward the afflicted, joined with a desire to relieve them.” 

Showing mercy is a sacrificial lifestyle, not an occasional thing we do. 

So how merciful are we? 

When was the last time that you separated yourself from your feelings and your hurts and tried to only see the situation from the other person’s point of view? 

• It is our natural tendency to only focus on how we feel in the situation;
• How hurt we are after someone says or does something to us –
• Maybe they don’t even realize that they had hurt you. 
• So many times we want justice, we demand our rights and we lash back at people for things they say and do rather than having mercy and being willing to just let go. 

Sacrificial

By being merciful, we are sacrificing our rights and justice, for the sake of someone else. 

• We deserve death,
• We do not deserve eternal life because we sin against God on a regular basis. 
• None of us are exempt from that, 
• But God does not give us what we deserve,
• He extends mercy   He came and walked in our shoes as Jesus Christ, he felt our pain, He experienced the life we experience, and then he took our place on the cross.
• He gives us freedom from our bondage
• He gives us eternal life despite what we deserve.

From the very beginning, mercy has been yoked with sacrifice. 

• In Exodus 25:17-22, the Mercy seat of God is described. 
• It was an atonement cover which lay on top of the Ark of the Covenant.  The Ark was where God lived. 
• The high priest would sprinkle the shed blood of the sacrificial offering to make atonement for sins. 
• This act was symbolic for God’s forgiving mercy
• The Mercy Seat and the blood foreshadowed the forgiveness available to sinful people through Christ’s atoning sacrifice. 
• Now under the New Covenant, we are the temple of God.  Are sacrifices made on the Mercy Seat of our life?

The story of the Good Samaritan that we read a few moments ago is a perfect picture of true mercy.

• The incident happened on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem
• It was a very dangerous road, the danger you might find on the streets of the inner city that you are traveling on foot.. 
• The robbers would hide on the caves that lined the road as it wound through the desert. 
• The Jewish man was beaten and robbed and stripped of his clothing.
• The two so-called righteous men” (PRIEST / LEVITE) passed right by him to avoid serving him.
• These were the two most likely men to have helped this man in need,
• Instead, it was a “non-neighbor” who came to his rescue. 
• Not only did the man help him there on the side of the road, risking being beaten and robbed himself,
• He took him to a safe place and paid an entire day’s wage so that the man could be taken care of. 
• He did what was required of him plus some. 
• He told the innkeeper to allow him to stay as long as he needed to and he would pay the debt of his care.
• He expected nothing in return for his mercy…

This passage is very difficult for me personally because when I look at myself, I see myself being just like those who were supposedly “righteous” men. 

• God is teaching me mercy through the large number of homeless and near-to-being homeless people that visit our church office on a daily basis. 
• I have found myself on many occasions
• playing detective to see if the person was really telling the truth
• if they are just trying to take advantage of the generosity of others
• why not go out and get a job like the rest of us;
• The fact of the matter is that God has not given me the right to be the judge of mankind. 
• He has given me specific instructions to love my neighbor (all mankind regardless of their situation). 

In Brennan Manning’s book entitled The Wisdom of Tenderness, the author tells a story of a man he calls the Man of La Mancha:

o One night in 1975, Manning lay sick on his condo floor. 

o That night, he crawled to his rotary phone and as he shook violently, he dialed the operator and asked her to get Alcoholics Anonymous on the line. 

o She took his name and address and promised to do so.

o Within 20 minutes, he felt arms pick him up. 

o The man raced him to the detox center in a local hospital. 

o There he began several days of supervised withdrawal from alcohol. 

o This Good Samaritan that had come to Manning’s rescue was a fallen-away Christian who hadn’t been to church in many, many years. 

o He told Manning that the Father loved him and that he hadn’t abandoned him and that he would draw good from what had happened. 

o Manning later learned that his benefactor was an itinerant worker who mowed lawns for a living. 

o He was barely able to scrape by and he would put cardboard in his shoes to cover the holes. 

o Yet, as soon as Manning was able to eat, the man treated him to dinner at McDonalds. 

o For 5 days and 5 nights, this man breathed life into him physically and spiritually and asked nothing in return. 

o This man had lost his family and his fortune drinking. 

o Years after working his way back from the bottom, he was still alone and lonely. 

o He would turn on his TV each night and talk to John Wayne in hopes that he would talk back. 

o He had been away from the church for quite a while

o But each night before he would go to bed, he would

o Read his meditation book and

o Praise God for his mercy,

o He would thank God for all he had left,

o And would pray for all alcoholics.

o He would then go to the window, raise the shade and bless the world.

o Two years after manning’s treatment, he set out on a mission to find this man. 

o After much research, he found that this man had slipped back into the bottle and was now living on Skid Row in Tampa, Florida. 

o Manning drove to Tampa and walked across Skid row. 

o He spotted a man he thought was his angel, but it turned out to be someone else. 

o The man he had mistaken as his rescuer was actually another wino who had been dry for 24 hours. 

o His hands were twitching and trembling. 

o The wino grabbed Manning’s arm and begged for a dollar for some wine.  Manning knelt before him and took his hand. 

o He looked into the man’s eyes which were full of tears as a result of the incredible feeling that came over him upon civil human contact. 

o Manning leaned forward and kissed his hands and the man began to cry. 

o He didn’t really want wine,

o He wanted to be accepted in his brokenness and affirmed in his worthlessness;

o He wanted to be loved in his loneliness.

o Manning did not find the man he was searching for that day, but God had used his mercy as an instrument to get that wino into detox that day. 

o A couple of weeks later, manning was hosting an AA meeting in his temporary home. 

o The topic that day was the 11^th step – “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.” 

o The six men at the meeting discovered that all of them were either Catholic or Episcopalians and so they decided to celebrate Eucharist.

o Midway through the service, Manning’s angel walked up the stairs to where they were. 

o Manning was so thrilled. 

o The man motioned for Manning to continue with what they were doing.

o After a few minutes, while his back was turned, Manning heard the door close and the man was gone.  The next day, manning found a letter from the man, slipped under his front door. 

o It read, in part:

LETTER:  Last night , in my clumsy way, I came to your house and just prayed for the right to belong among you good people… You will never know what you did for me two weeks ago in Tampa.  You didn’t see me, but I saw you.  I was standing twenty yards away and hiding behind a lamppost.  Brennan, when I saw you kneel down and kiss the wino’s hand, you wiped away from my eyes the blank stare of the breathing dead.  When I saw that you really cared, my heart began to grow wings – small wings, feeble wings, but wings.  I had a pint of Gallo wine in my hand, and I tossed it in a trash bin.  You breathed life into me, and I want you to know that.  You released me from my shadow world of panic, fear, and self-hatred.  If you should ever wonder who I am, remember that I am someone you know very well: I am every man and woman you meet …Am I also you?

• How we react to our neighbor from day to day,
• How we react to the sin-scarred wino on the street,
• How we respond to the interruptions people in life bring our way
• May reveal our reverence or irreverence for Jesus more than the profession we make about how much we love God. 
• Our actions are far more telling than our words.

But mercy is more than how we treat those who are lacking a home and who are poor. 

Resentment and Forgiveness: 

Another form of sacrificing for others is through forgiveness.

• There is always a reason people are the way they are, doing things the way they do them, and feeling the way they feel. 
• Rarely do we understand the situation at all. 
• If a person is irritable and rude, it may be because he is in some sort of pain or she is worried about something. 
• If someone treats us badly, it may be because that is all he or she knows. 
• We as Christians are to extend mercy…try to put ourselves in their position realizing that if we felt what they felt and knew what they knew, we would handle the situation the very same way.  “But for the grace of God, there go I.”  We are all different, yet, in so many ways, we are all so much alike….

It is so difficult for us to forgive others, but that is part of the sacrifice.  God has forgiven us, the least we can do is forgive others out of reverence to God. 

• We can learn as Peter asks Jesus in Matthew 18:21-22 how many times he must forgive his brother. 

· The priest taught that 3 times was enough

· Peter asked if 7 times was enough and felt like he was going above and beyond what was required

· But Jesus tells him 70X7 – not meaning 490, but forever…however many times a grievance arises.

We may not always think we are able to forgive someone. 

We may have to begin by forgiving in our head and eventually our heart will catch up. 

It doesn’t always happen at the same time. 

But how do we do this?  We can pray and ask God to help us see the situation the way it truly is, to see the situation through His very eyes.  He will show us the truth and the truth will set us free.

Unfortunately, a lot of hurts happen right here between the walls of the church building.

I think each one of us knows someone who might tell us that the reason why they do not attend church is because someone in the church brought a great deal of pain to their life.  The church is full of sinners. 

We are all on a journey that will last the rest of our lives; a journey to become Christ-like.  We will be hurt and get hurt,

but we as Christians are called to forgive those who have wronged us and to make amends to those we wrong. 

When we do not forgive…when we hold on to resentment, there are severe spiritual consequences that come about.  Our relationship with God becomes choked by it.

In Matthew 18:23-35 - we see the story of two debtors. 

• In this story, we find ourselves not just rooting for the underdog but also seeing ourselves in this parable as well.
• The first debtor had a debt to pay back to the king in an amount far greater than he would ever be able to pay back (the talent’s worth varied during various time periods but this 10,000 talents was equivalent to somewhere between $25 million and $100 million of today’s wages.).  His wish was granted….mercy was extended to him.
• Shortly after his debt is forgiven, a man who owes him money comes along and asks for the same mercy,
• But the man refuses to release him from the debt even though the debt he is owed is far less than the debt he owed to the king. 
• He tells the man that he must pay back every last cent he owes him. 
• It is obvious that the resentment this man had over this debt had grown with each day the debt had not been paid. 
• Resentment had totally sickened this man and his attitude towards this man was rotten. 
• The master (in verse 32 – 35) tells this servant how wicked he is. 
• He has lost favor with the master and is turned over to the jailers to be tortured until his debt that had been forgiven was repaid. 
• Jesus goes on to say that the same will happen to us if we do not forgive our fellow man from our hearts. (that does not say from our minds, but rather from our hearts – where it is genuine)

• God tells us we must forgive,
• But first, we must repent of our resentment because the resentment we hold on to will eat us alive inside and it blocks us from receiving the joy that comes from forgiveness, both our own forgiveness and the forgiveness we extend to others. 
• Some of the most miserable people in the world are those who are unwilling to be merciful. 
• There are people who will make lists of all the wrongs a person does to them for the sake of being able to throw it up in the other person’s face later or to use it as ammunition to try and make the person look bad to others,
• But those are not happy, joyful people full of the peace of God. 
• 99% of the time, this only breeds hatred and further problems for both parties down the road. 
• There is a reason for that…Christ tells us to extend mercy and we in turn will receive mercy. 
• Lewis Smedes said it best when he said, “When I genuinely forgive, I set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner I set free was me.”

MERCY CIRCLE:

On one side of the mercy circle, we see Romans 12:1, where Paul tells us we are to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing unto God because of the mercy God has extended us. 

When we truly appreciate the mercy we have been given by God, before we were ever born –before we ever committed our first sin, we will in turn be willing to sacrifice our will and our hurts for the sake of another as a way of honoring God.

On the other side of the circle, we see Matthew 5:7, where Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

As we show mercy to another out of reverence to God, we are blessed beyond measure by being given mercy.

PRAYER:  Merciful Father, we thank you for the mercy you extended to us before we were ever born, before we committed our first sin against you and against others.  Because of our gratefulness, we desire to extend mercy to others.  It is not always easy, so many times we get caught up in wanting justice and we feel entitled to our rights.  We find it hard to forgive others that have trespassed upon us.  But, Father, we ask that you will help us to see others through your eyes; to have the ability to put ourselves in others shoes and see the situation for the way it truly is.  As we learn to extend mercy to others, we thank you for your blessing, for the gift of mercy that we receive and we give you praise.  This we pray with genuine hearts in the name of the one whose mercy has saved us from death and the grave, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Amen.

INVITATION: Queen Victoria  / Mrs. Tulloch illustration:

• Queen Victoria was a close friend of Principal and Mrs. Tulloch of St. Andrews.
• Prince Albert died and Queen Victoria was left alone. 
• At the same time, Principal Tulloch also died. 
• Queen Victoria came to call on Mrs. Tulloch when she was resting on her couch in her room. 
• When the Queen was announced, Mrs. Tulloch struggled to rise quickly from the couch and curtsey. 
• The Queen stepped forward and said, “My dear, don’t rise. 
• I am not coming to you today as a queen to a subject, but as one woman who has lost her husband to another.”

This is what God did…He came to earth not to show His power, not as a remote , detached, isolated God, but as a man to give mercy to all of us who really deserve death and hell.  JESUS CAME TO THIS EARTH TO SEE THROUGH OUR EYES, TO FEEL THE VERY THINGS WE FEEL, TO GET RIGHT INSIDE US – SO THAT WE MAY, IN TURN, DO THE SAME FOR HIM AND OTHERS (THOSE HE CALLS US TO LOVE UNCONDITIONALLY).  Maybe you have guilt and shame for something you have done in your past.  Maybe you think that no one could possibly understand how you feel.  Maybe you feel hopeless.  There is Someone who understands completely.  When you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, He literally will, through His Holy Spirit comes inside of you and will direct your life.  He will heal you and H will set you free.  He understands better than anyone else and He has extended His mercy to you.  He is trustworthy.  If you would like to finally accept Him as your personal Lord and Savior or if you are looking for a church home where you can be loved and accepted for you are, we would love for you to become a part of our church family.  If this describes you, please join us down front as we sing our closing hymn, HYMN # ______________. 

Benediction:

May you receive God’s mercy with a grateful heart.

May you extend mercy to others with a genuine heart.

May you proclaim the kingdom of God in all that you do.

May you be blessed forever and ever.       Amen

Disclaimer:  These notes for were written for the purpose of presenting a sermon; not all information is cited in this document.  The illustrations are not my own.  Information for this sermon can be found in commentaries and illustrations can be found at www.sermoncentral.com.