What am I preaching tonight? I, I forgot to look it up, but
I'm not preaching tonight, Alex. Anyway, I was sitting over here
looking at this thing. This thing's about 10° warmer.
If anybody wants to do over, we can give you a shot at it if you
want to. But anyway, it's, it's always
good to have our young men preach and give them an
opportunity to, to study the Bible for themselves and to come
up with a message. And Alex has done that.
So he's going to come up here and preach for us tonight.
Chapter 30 Psalm 30 look, look at me in verse 10 it says, hear
O Lord, and have mercy upon me. Lord, be thou my helper.
The topic of my message tonight is, is mercy.
What is mercy? Webster's Dictionary of the
English Language says 1 Show of pity or leniency 2 Divine
blessing The American Heritage Dictionary says compassionate
treatment of an offender, enemy, etcetera to a disposition to be
kind of forgiving. Webster's The source for
students gives the examples of charity, clemency, grace,
commiseration, capacity, compassion, pity, and sympathy.
The conclusion someone would come to by looking at these
examples is that a merciful person forgives when they're
wrong, is willing to let a grudge go and one be someone to
avoid another person for something that they've that has
been that they've been offended by.
Let's pray and we'll get the message today.
Dear Father, thank you for this day.
I thank you for the opportunity that I have to preach.
I pray that you talk the message to come across well and that
we'll be able to get something out of the message today.
I pray that you tell the rest of the week to go well and that you
tell all the services that will go on this week.
I pray that you tell them to go well and Jesus name, Psalm 3010
says here, O Lord, and have mercy upon me, Lord, be thou NI
helper. So the first thing we'll talk
about today is God's mercy. The Bible has much to say about
the mercy of God. The first thing we need to know
about God's mercy is that we need it for salvation.
If God had never sent His Son into the world to die for us,
then we'd never be able to go to heaven.
But another thing we need to know about God is that he's full
of mercy. Psalm 8615 says that directly.
But thou, O Lord, are to God full of compassion and gracious,
long-suffering and plenteous and mercy and truth.
God will never run out of mercy, and he's always had mercy.
The last thing we need to see about God's mercy is that it
lasts forever. Psalm one, O 317 says, But the
mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.
God's mercy has been and always will be, even from from the
moment he created man. Even before that, he's always
had mercy. We were talking about this
earlier and my dad mentioned this this morning that we're
going to reading through the Bible.
And earlier this week where I had a question.
She said God said that if Adam and Eve ate of the tree, that
they would surely die. And she said why?
Why didn't they die as soon as as they ate of it?
And dad said, he said that he could have, I don't know.
He said that he, they, they wouldn't have died, but that
they ended up having to die because they ate of the tree.
But that shows God's mercy because he could have made them
die as soon as they had disobeyed him, but he had mercy
and spread them and they could live longer.
But in Psalm 136, usually we read this around the pie and
praise service in thanks at Thanksgiving.
But in Psalm 136, all 26 verses of that chapter in the phrase
for his mercy and earth forever. Now that we've looked at God's
mercy, let's look at some examples from the Bible, that of
people that have fed mercy. Turn to first Samuel 24, 1st
Psalm 24. And that that chapter is the
story of when David was being pursued by Saul who was trying
to kill him. And then they were David and his
men were hiding in a cave. And then Saul came to the same
cave and was hiding there. And some of the some of the men
told him that he should kill Saul so he wouldn't have to run
anymore. But in verse 10 it says David
says somebody may kill thee, but my knife spared thee.
And I said, I will not put forth my hand against my Lord, for he
is the Lord's anointed. David could have had revenge on
the man who was trying to kill him, and he could have been the
king right then, but he had mercy like God, and he spared
Saul's life. Another example is Eben Milek,
one of the words that Webster's Thesaurus gave us compassion in
Jeremiah 38. Eben Milek was in the court of
the king and many of Oh no, no, the people.
So it, it was in Jeremiah. And what they had done to
Jeremiah was they put him in the pit for preaching God's word.
But even Melik saw that what the people had done to Jeremiah was
wrong, and he had compassion as well as the courage to tell the
king that what they had done was wrong.
At verse 9 says My Lord the king, these men have done evil
and all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they
have cast into the dungeon, and he is like to die for hunger in
the place where he is. Even Melik didn't know Jeremiah,
but he knew that what he had done, what the what the people
had done to him was wrong and he had compassion and told he came
about it. The last, the last example is
Abraham in Genesis 18. That's the story that Lot had
gone to Sodom and Gomorrah because the grass was better
over there. But Abraham knew that what Lot
had done was wrong, but he risked God's angry to save his
nephew's life. In verse 32, he said, let not
the Lord's, oh, let not the Lord be angry and I'll speak yet.
But this once he kept asking God if there was any righteous in
the city that he would spare the city.
Even though Lot had gone against what God has said he had.
He had mercy and asked God to save his life.
Now that we've now that we've looked at some examples in the
Bible, the application will be how we can have mercy.
When we look at all the examples in the Bible, it becomes clear.
So the first example of God, he also, he has had the most mercy
that anyone's ever had and so he sent his son to die for us so
that we could go to heaven. The other example, the other
examples were David. He could have had revenge on his
enemy but showed compassion instead.
Even Melix saw that what had been done to Jeremiah was wrong
and he showed compassion even though he didn't know Jeremiah.
The Bible doesn't tell us even if he believed what Jeremiah
believed but about the Bible but he still had compassion on
Jeremiah because he knew what stuntin was wrong.
And then the other example was Abraham who knew that Sodom will
be destroyed and not with it. But he had the mercy to look
past lots of mistakes and ask God to spare him.
In conclusion, the way to have mercy is to follow the examples
God has given us in the Bible. This requires a change of
mindset. We can't just think about it
once and automatically be a merciful person the rest of our
life. It takes it takes a change of
mindset and we have to work at it a lot in order to have it.
Instead of laughing or making fun of someone for the trouble
there, and we should have compassion and try to help them.
Instead of punishing people for doing wrong against us.
We must see that we would want mercy, so we should give it to
them instead. The best example is God, who
could never run out of mercy and who's had mercy forever.
He is. He's always willing to forgive
people who come to Him and ask for forgiveness.
So I hope this message has been an encouragement and a challenge
to you tonight. And let's pray and we'll be
done. Dear Father, thank you for this
day. I thank you that you for all,
for all the things that we were able to get done this week and
that we were able to do this week.
I pray that you'd help us to all work on having mercy and that we
be all the merciful people. I pray that you'd help us to
have a good rest of the week and just Amen.
Amen. Hey man, let's stand with our
heads about an ice clothes.