Ephesians 2:3-4 (NKJV)
3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us.
By Rev. Rickey Stuckey,
Pastor of the Dillon Parish
My brothers and sisters in Christ, Paul is telling us in this text that before we got saved, we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh. We once were among the sons of disobedience, proven by our conduct. We embraced the lusts of the flesh, which are primarily perversions of the legitimate desires of human nature. And were by nature children of wrath. Because we were obedient to the old man, the world, and the devil, and we were by nature children of wrath. We rightfully deserved God’s wrath because of who we were by our heritage. We inherited sin from Adam and Eve.
Paul explained God’s reason behind reconciling (which means to restore to friendship or harmony) other words bring back man to Himself, and these reasons are found totally in God. The reasons are His rich mercy and His great love, which He focuses on us. With which He loved us: behind the good news of God’s salvation offered in Jesus is the fact that this mercy and love is extended to us.
Some people think or assume that God loves us because we are so lovable.
Instead, God’s love is so great that it extends even to the unlovely. Every reason for God’s mercy and love is found in Him. We give Him no reason to love us, yet in the greatness of His love, He loves us with that great love anyway.
Beloved, God loves us in spite of, not because of. When we look at the dictionary definition for the word Mercy: it means “Compassionate treatment of or attitude towards an offender, adversary, etc., who is in one’s power or care; clemency; pity.”
The definition and meaning of the word Mercy according to the Bible is: the clemency of God (which is an act or instance of leniency) towards believing Christians in providing and offering them a measure of time during which they can take introspection of their life and recognize, through God’s Grace, what they need to do to change, conform to Jesus, and work out their Salvation through Jesus Christ.
“Mercy is not something God owes to us—by definition mercy cannot be owed—but is something God extends in kindness and grace to those who do not deserve it.”
Another thing about Mercy is beyond our understanding and God’s mercy never runs out. God is merciful to even the worst of sinners. This means that even though He knows of our fault, He does not always give the punishment that we deserved. Simply, we are all sinners and do not meet the standards of righteousness that God intends for us to have but, through His mercy and grace,
He made it possible for our sins to be forgiven through our acceptance of Jesus Christ—even though we don’t deserve it. Paired with grace (being given God’s free gift of forgiveness though we’ve done nothing to deserve it), mercy is shown because He loves us and only asks that we accept His Son Jesus by faith.
In Micah 6:8: “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” These are words to all of mankind. Mercy is freely given to you and me.
Micah asks God in Micah 7:18, “Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy.
In other words, the Mercy of God allows us time to recognize the sins we have committed, repent of them and change. Beloved, we went to bed last night and the Lord up above knows that we have not done everything right according to His word, but He still showered down His mercy on us.
It makes no different how nice we are, or how much good we do daily. God knows that we are not perfect. We desperately need mercy to help us get to where He wants us to be. God knows that we all fall short of His word every day. Even when we desire to do right, we still end up doing some wrong because evil is always around and because we still have to fight with our flesh daily. There is no need for any of us to brag because we are not where we need to be in our relationship with God yet. We are still striving. A lot of us are much better than we’ve been, and we thank God for where He brought us from. We can even say we’re not that same person that we used to be, but we’re still a work in progress too. God knows that we stand in need of much mercy, and I praise His Holy and righteous name for sending it every day, and for new mercies I see every morning. God has showed us so much mercy during this Pandemic. Even though it was difficult, and we lost a lot of family and friends in this process, we should thank God for showing us mercy, because we are still here.
Beloved, regardless of what happened along the way, regardless of what and who we lost, we are still truly blessed. There are so many who are always complaining about what they don’t have, or what else they want, but we all need to just stop and tell God thank you for your mercy one more time. We don’t deserve it, but He still allowed us to sleep all last night, and we didn’t know we were still in the world until early this morning He sent the twins in the room and woke us to another brand-new day…yes! Grace and mercy pleaded our case one more time. If you don’t believe it, just think about when you got up this morning and looked around in your room and realize that you were still alive. The Lord was showing you mercy one more time because you could have died in your sleep, but thank God for mercy.
When you were able to open your mouth and words still came out in the right form of a complete sentence, you knew right then that you didn’t have a stroke at the brain. You were still clothed in your right mind and that was God’s mercy one more time. When you sat up on the side of your bed and were able to put both feet on the floor, put one foot in front of the other and made steps, and didn’t you realize that the Lord gave you activity to your limbs, that was His mercy. Somebody cannot walk this morning, but if they can still talk, you better believe they got up saying Lord I thank you for being able to still be here to see the sun rise one more time. I thank you because I have a roof over my head, clothes to put on my back, and shoes to put on my feet, Lord, thank you for your mercy. We didn’t deserve it, but He still made a way out of no way. He is still healing our bodies. He is still making our enemies bless us. He is still lifting us up when we fall, and still giving us another chance and another chance, and we are still messing up from time to time, That’s God’s mercy one more time.
By now you should be giving God praise for what He’s done for you and is still doing because when friends and even your family turn their backs on you when you needed them most, nobody but Jesus that stood right by your side and kept you from losing your mind. That was God’s mercy.
If it had not been for the Lord on our side, we don’t know where we would be. There were so many times when we felt like giving up and throwing in the towel, because the burden seemed too hard to bear, but somehow just in time, things worked out in our favor, that was God’s mercy. Remember what Pastor Stuckey what told you…….“If You Live To See Christmas, Thank God for His Mercy One More Time.”
