The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 2: Mercy

Episode Date: December 12, 2021

Amen, amen, amen. Merry Christmas, Church. It is, man, I love this season. I hope that you have fully engaged in all the Christmas music. I hope you have reached the end of Netflix, the end of Hallmark. I hope that you are just cycling back through the good ones like Elf and Home Alone and jingle all the way, which there's a jingle all the way too, starring Larry the Cable Guy. You must watch TV, right? I hope you're having a great Merry Christmas season. We are at my family. And, man, I love that. this season. I love the fact that we're doing the Advent wreath, man, it takes me back to my roots. I grew up in a South, South Georgia, a Southern Baptist church. And, man, we had, like, the hanging of the green ceremony. Like, if you've never been to one of those, it's actually a blessing for you. But they're just this long, drawn out. Like, you just hang these greens, these ladies up on stepstools, you're like, oh, she falls, or that's the end of, it's the end of Sister Lucy, right? And so it's just this time of season that reminds us, all these traditions that remind us and soften our heart to what matters most.

And I love, I love this season. Speaking of our Advent wreath last week, our candle reminded us of the compassion of God. And we also had compassion Sunday in church, man, a great job. We were able to sponsor 1,066 kids. Amen. Amen. And 1122 online, you did a great job because we sponsored, not only sponsored 166, but 20 different states.

sponsored compassion kids through our online ministry. Amen. Amen. And maybe you're thinking, I don't know. I wish I could have been here last week and sponsored a kid. Well, guess what? There's still about a thousand packets at all of our campuses in the lobby on your way out. You can still sponsor a kid. Find out more about compassion, ask questions at the table. Or if you're like, hey, I'd ready to sponsor one right now. No problem. We can help you sponsor a kid right now. If you want to sponsor a kid through Compassion Ministries, you can text sponsor to 83393 right now in your seat. You can sponsor them. You'll have plenty of time to sponsor them and get back before I do the bottom line in about an hour and a half. So go ahead and sponsor on your

phone and let's get ready to dig into the second week of Advent, which is mercy. I'm talking about mercy. So do me a favor. Open your Bibles to a very common Christmas passage. If you will open the 1st Timothy chapter 1. Why are some of you looking at that like you? You don't go on Christmas Eve and sit by the fire and open up First Timothy and begin to read the epistles of Paul? Okay, I don't really either. But as I was studying and preparing for this week, there was a verse that struck me as all of Christmas in one verse. And it's First Timothy, chapter one, verse 15. It says this.

This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am. the foremost. I love this verse. It is the answer to the question, why did Jesus come at Christmas? Why was Jesus, fully God, fully man, born in a manger to a virgin Mary? Why did the birth of one person change human history? Have you ever thought about the fact that the birth of Jesus changed the way we do calendars? All world religions, whether you're a the atheist or an atheist, we all measure our calendars by the birth of this man named Jesus. And so we have this question, And why did Jesus come at Christmas? And verse 15 answers it.

Jesus came at Christmas to save sinners like you and like me. In fact, the cry of a baby in the manger unleashed the moans of hell because they knew the inevitable was coming. King Jesus was on a mission. The whimpering cry of that baby swaddled and clode would one day give birth to the guttural cry of a Savior on a cross saying it is finished. In Advent, we anticipate and we celebrate the coming of the suffering servant.

In fact, the fullness of the joy of Christmas is found in this changing truth that Jesus came to save sinners. So with that being our focus verse, let's look at it within the context of the text it's in. First Timothy chapter 1, verse 12, says, I, this is Paul writing to Timothy. I thank him who has given me strength. Christ Jesus, our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service. Throughout our text today, I want to draw our attention to like four,

you call it vocabulary words if you want, but four main words, and I want us all to take notes today, and you may think, Stone, I'm not really good at taking notes. No problem. I just need you to write down four things. It won't even be as long as your grocery list. I just want you to write these four things down. and wives, if your husband's not good at this,

just reach over and write them down on his paper. That's how Blair and I met in college. She took notes. I copied her notes. We fell in love. We have two kids. We've been married 15 years. If you're single, this might be an opportunity for you, right?

We're going to take notes, right? We're going to take notes. He's four words. The first word right here is judge. Hegemi in the Greek. It means to consider between right and wrong when making a decision. It's the context of an employer looking at an employer looking at an individual and determining if they are suitable for hire. Another way to think about it, it's a

judge, which may be a little too close to home for some of you, it's a judge looking at evidence and determining a verdict. To judge simply means this. It simply means you receive what you deserve. Judgment is this. It's simply receiving what you deserve. Now, if you need a little help with the doctrine of judgment, no problem. We have a man named Chris Kringle. a.k.a. the Santa Claus is here to help us with a doctrine of judgment. Just think about this for a second. He sees you when you're sleeping, which, by the way, that's not creepy at all, right? He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad of good. So what? That was pretty pitiful, but at least you tried to say it. Be good for goodness sake. You better

watch out. Also not threatening at all. You better not cry. You better not pout. I'm telling you why. is coming to town. He's making a list. He's checking it twice. He is going to find out who is naughty or nice. Now, all right, don't get me wrong. I love Santa Claus. I have a 14-foot Santa Claus in my front yard, inflatable. It is three feet taller than my neighbors. Not that we're competing, but I am currently winning. I love me some Santa Claus, but I don't love the doctrine of Santa Claus. The doctrine of Santa Claus, you know why I don't love it? I want presents, and I don't deserve them and I don't want to behave for presents

I just want presents Santa's doctrine is this perform and be rewarded in fact Santa Claus has not only got this doctrine to perform be awarded but he has now contracted these little small elves who never blink and put these creepy little

small elves to he's infiltrated our own homes it's like big brother on steroids these little creepy non-blinking elves all up in my house watching me and saying, hey, if you perform, you get rewarded, but if you mess up, Santa is hard on the doctrine of judgment. He will stuff your stocking with coal.

It is the epitome. Now, the thing that breaks my heart, I love Santa Claus, but the thing that breaks my heart is that oftentimes I think as believers we approach our relationship with God, the way that we approach our relationship with Santa. If I perform, he'll reward me. If I behave, he'll love me. If I will do things rightly, he'll have favor on me. Now, I want to be honest with you, God will judge.

God is going to judge everyone. But there is so much more as we open this text today to our lovingly heavenly father than our performance. So here's the word again, judgment. Judgment is when you get what you deserve. Hebrews chapter 9 tells us that everyone is going to die once, and everyone is going to be judged. And he being God is going to look at the evidence of your life and make a verdict based on the evidence of your life.

And I just want to tell you, apart from Jesus, it just not look promising. Romans chapter 3, verse 23, says, we are all sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God. We've all sinned and we have missed the perfect holiness of God. We are all sinners. We're not mistakeers in need of a life coach. We are sinners in need of a Savior.

Your grandma, she's a sinner. Your pastor, he's a sinner. Your lovely little angelic kids, double sinner. Sinner, sinner, sinner. And the verdict, so the judgment's there. The verdict gets worse because Romans chapter 6 says that the wage of sin or the punishment of sin is this. It's death. So basically the Bible is telling us, God's going to judge us.

We're all sinners, and the wage we owe is death. That doesn't sound like good news, but Paul here in the text is thankful that God has judged him. How can this be? Well, as we read through the rest of the text, what we're going to see is it seems like God is judging Paul based on somebody else's evidence. Here's what I mean. God judges Paul is faithful, even though, as Paul says in his own words, formerly, I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent opponent. Paul was a blasphemer. He spoke ill of God.

By word and by deed, he denied God. And we would be honest, us too. There has been all of us, we can look at our life and see a spot whether it be words or whether it be deeds. If we were just honest, we just really kind of practically denied that God existed. Paul says he was a persecutor of the church. Now, I'll be honest with you, I have never killed another person for believing in Jesus. If you have or you're thinking about it, we would love to introduce you. you to somebody on our safety and security team

in a thing we call one-on-one discipleship, but I've never persecuted the church. But when I began to dig into the word persecuted, it just means objecting the word of God, objecting the work of God. And I began to think about it, you know what, I've often in my own life objected the work of God because it wasn't what I wanted.

Or also insolent opponent. Insolent just means like to rudely disrespect God in order to get your own way. I began to look at Paul's list and I began to think, oh my goodness, I think I'm on the same list. And yet, Paul says that God said he was faithful and God appointed Paul to ministry. Paul like me and like you had this really long rap sheet that said guilty, guilty, guilty.

And every one of those guilties means we deserve death, we deserve death, we deserve death. And not some future judgment like way down the road, but that we immediately, in the moment that we sin, just like Paul, we deserve death. the moment we sin against an almighty and perfect God, we deserve death. God does not need a juror and evidence into long, he doesn't need this long, drawn out trial. The moment we sin against him, he knows it, he's perfect, he's holy, and he says, all right, there's the judgment. But how does Paul and how do we not get our debt called out immediately?

Well, it's God's mercy. Let's read verse 13 all the way through now. though formerly I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in my unbelief. Now that ignorantly in his unbelief didn't mean like, well, I didn't know so he didn't count. Paul's saying, look, I know that I acted ignorant. In other words, I didn't even know I was sinning, but it was a big deal. Because any sin, whether you omit it or commit it, it is a big deal to the perfect holiness of God.

But he says, look, God had mercy on me, right? All right, here's our second word we're going to write down all you note takers, which is everybody today. Go ahead and pull your pencil out and write the word to mercy down. Mercy, Aleo in the Greek, means this. It means to withhold what you deserve. Mercy is the undeserved love and kindness of God to not immediately call out the debt we owe. In mercy, you and I are recipients of the leniency and compassion of God. Have you ever been around a kid's sports event?

And have you ever been around a kid's sporting event where you realize one team is just beating the other team badly? I have. I enjoyed it because I was part of the coaching, a winning team. But I coached this league called I-9. It's a flag football league. My oldest Emory, she's my 10-year-old. She's been playing flag football for a couple of years. And in this league, I love some things about it. I love the fact that there's winners and losers because losers is an important part of, I don't know, raising adults. And so I love the fact there's winners and losers.

But I also love the fact there's a thing called the Mercy Rule. And if one team is kicking in the teeth of another team, the mercy rule comes into effect, and it starts to limit, puts limitations on the winning team so they don't just purely throttle the losing team. Now, the reason I bring this up is the losing team, whether it be talent or coaching or a combination, they deserve it. They deserve to lose. They're not as good. But what the mercy rule does is it begins to withhold from them the thing they deserve. Now, a couple years ago, I'm coaching Emory's team, and we end up up.

We're 30 to nothing. Things are going well. They say, hey, coach, we're going to put the mercy rule in effect. And so I begin to withhold the things they deserve. We stop passing downfield. We start running the ball. We're trying to run the clock out. I bring the second team offense in.

I'm handing the ball off to kids that shouldn't even touch the football. They don't even know which way to hold it. It's an oval. Just grab it, right? And so we're just trying to run the clock out, and everything's going well. We're showing mercy. and we're just exuding upon them the mercy of God, that they're not getting what they deserve,

and everything is going absolutely fine until the other coach decides he's going to call a timeout, start arguing with the ref, and accuse me of being a cheater. Here I am trying to give this man mercy, and he questions my integrity. So as his attitude grew and the fact that he was wearing an Alabama hat grew, I found myself lacking mercy,

and so I did what anybody should do. I brought the first team back in. We ran what looked like going to be an option left. We faked the inside reverse. We went jet suite reverse. Emory, my 10-year-old, took it up to sideline, 40 yards, touchdown, and then we went for two. Like I said, I don't know if it was his attitude or the Alabama hat, but he got what he deserved. Mercy is when we withhold what is deserved.

Judgment is when we get what we deserve. But here's the thing about mercy, and here's the thing the little I-9 football game helps us with. Mercy can withhold for a time what we deserve, but it will not eliminate the inevitable of receiving what we deserve. For those kids on the other team, which by the way, one of their kids went to St. John's campus and had to have that conversation with their parent the next day. I said, by the way, you can join my team next year if you want. But for those kids, they were on their way to losing, but what Mercy did is kind of held back the full wrath of that, but it couldn't eliminate it. The same thing is true about our relationship.

with God. Mercy can withhold his judgment, but it won't remove it. You see, we need something else. You see, in judgment, when we sin, in judgment, we deserve death, we deserve separation. Mercy is when God is literally holding off, calling out the debt, but we need something else to move us from judgment to mercy to life. Let's review the vocabulary word second. Judgment is when we receive what we deserve. We deserve a punishment. Mercy is when it's being withheld. Mercy will hold back judgment, but inevitably the clock will run out, and we have to deal with the punishment that we deserve. So we need something else. I love verse 13.

Paul shows us what that something else is. Verse 14. And the grace of our Lord, here's the third word. Judgment, mercy. The third word is this. Grace. Grace is receiving what you do not deserve. Grace is the favor of God towards humanity.

It's the outworking of God's wisdom. will through love. The receiving what is absolutely unmerited and unearned. Grace is the undeserved favor of God on our life. Now, I want you to see how these things work together. Mercy is literally holding back the judgment of God. It's holding it back. It's giving time so that the grace of God might bring about the salvation of God. God's mercy holds off his own judgment so then that God's grace could bring about salvation to God's people. So there's just, think about this, just wall, this tidal wave of judgment coming, and mercy just holds it back so that grace can overcome the individual and bring about

salvation. I want to give you a real life example, and as I thought about this week, I found myself not only in realizing I had a real life example, but I have an opportunity to confess some things that I have been hiding as a secret since eighth grade. I feel like this is a safe spot. I feel like we can do this. If y'all would do me a favor and not send me a counseling bill for this, I just need to unpack, unload a few things on you.

It'll make me feel better, and I'm sure it will make you feel better, having absolved me of my sin. So in eighth grade, 24 years ago, I was at FEM County Middle School. I'm sitting in math class. And I realized in math class that my stomach was not well. I don't know if the room got hot or the food got, like, was bad from the cafeteria, but I was able to get myself up. I was able to walk out of my math class.

I was able to walk down the hall. I was able to walk into the boys' restroom. But then comes the problem. I couldn't make it into a stall. And so my stomach bubbled forth and came out through my mouth. I'll spare you details from there. But I just, I painted the wall, lasagna red. I told you I was going to spare the details and then I didn't spare them.

All right. I painted the entryway to the bathroom. I just, it was not good. And so judgment, right? because I got to at some point make sense of this confession. Judgment is this moment where I deserve to be punished. I was, I threw up everywhere, and here's the worst part. I was so embarrassed, I didn't tell anybody.

I didn't tell my teacher. I didn't tell the custodians. I didn't even tell my friends. I just went and I hid back in my seat, and I thought, oh, my goodness, the judgment of our principle will come down on me any moment. But it didn't. You know what you call that? that's mercy.

I deserve to be punished for destruction of property. And the mercy I received is that I didn't get punished. But here's the thing about mercy. It cannot eliminate the punishment. It can only delay it. So in judgment, I deserve to be punished for painting the bathroom lasagna red. And in mercy, I was received, I wasn't getting punished. I wasn't getting what I would deserve.

And so a couple of days later, I thought maybe nobody found out, which isn't possible. But I thought, I don't know what's going on. So I began to look for a friend of mine. and his name was Justin Boyd, and we called him goof. And Justin Boyd wasn't at school. I hadn't seen him, so I asked my friends, because if you guys have seen Justin? Nobody's seen Justin.

I asked my teacher, have you seen Justin? And they're like, yeah, Justin's not at school today. So I began to do the research and found out why isn't Justin at school? Well, someone had saw an average height, shaved black hair, chubby, which is offensive, white boy, throw up all over. the bathroom. Justin Boyd was a average height, shaved black hair, chubby white boy. So was I. Someone had seen me go in the bathroom and seen me get sick. They blamed Justin Boyd, and Justin Boyd, Grace, took my punishment. He got suspended for three days. And he became

the bathroom puker. It became his reputation throughout all of high school. Judgment, I deserve to be punished. Mercy, I wasn't punished. Grace, Justin stood in my place. Now, Justin, boy, if you're watching online, this would be a great time for me to just say sorry, bud. That was a weird nickname through high school. But thank you so much, Justin, for this incredible example of grace at work. This is what's happening in our lives, that the judgment of sin, we owe a penalty. God and his mercy is holding it all so that the grace of Jesus that he would step in and take our place. Let me continue in the scripture. And the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. And I love this picture that Paul is

painting for us. If you get down into the Greek, the word for overflowed is this like hyperbolic term. He's saying the grace of Jesus super duper abounded upon me. It gushed forth. It consulsed. It consumed me. The cup of grace radically drowned me because of the extreme abundance of grace that God had for me. Paul's not saying like grace trickled out like a trickling water faucet. He's saying grace is like a tidal wave. It just consumed me. I could not be consumed by it. It was so irresistible. The grace of Jesus just absolutely gushed out upon me. I think when we look at grace, and we look at this picture of grace, there's two things we see. First of all, I want us to see this.

The grace of Jesus overflowed for Paul. It overflowed for Paul, not because of Paul. Look in the text, it says it overflowed for me. Paul had a rap sheet that said, guilty, guilty, does not deserve the love of Jesus, does not deserve the love of Jesus. And yet Jesus loved him, Jesus gave him faith, faith, Jesus gave him love, he overflowed. Honestly, we're in the same spot that Paul is in. None of us

can do anything to erase our rap sheet. None of us can behave so good for the rest of our life that God's like, oh, you know what, you did so good in the back half that we can forget the spring break on the front half. If we're honest, we all have a rap sheet that says, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. I cannot impress God on my own. But Ephesians 2 says this, that God being rich in mercy because of the great love in which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses. Don't miss that. Even when we were dead, as believers, I wholeheartedly believe that we do things that bring God joy. Once we surrender our life to Jesus, I wholeheartedly believe we do things that he's just like,

oh, look at my children, I love my children so much. But Paul and Ephesians is saying, when we were dead in our sin, enemy rebel combatants against God, unable to do anything to please him in that moment he made us alive in Christ. By grace you have been saved. It's not because of us that God's grace abounds. It is for us that God's grace abounds. Don't miss this church. If you hear one thing today, hear this, he just loves you.

Not because of the way you perform, not because of what you can do for him. God just genuinely, purely loves you. It's not because you got your act together that God then gave you grace. He goes, because you're awesome, here's some grace. It's actually the opposite. God's grace came on us and for us. And now that God's grace is overwhelming us

and drowning us and just absolutely consuming us with his grace, now we walk in relationship with him. Church, sometimes the longer we walk with Jesus, it gets more and more difficult to remember, we were wretched sinners in need of a Savior, and because of God's great love, he loved us. And so if you think your relationship with Jesus has anything to do with performing,

you're missing his heart. You're missing his heart because you're trying to behave in a way that he's going, you can't perform for me. There's nothing we can do to make God love us more. There's nothing we can do to make him love us less. The second thing we see here is that the grace of God, completely washes away all sin and shame.

If grace is wildly overflowing on Paul, then all of his sin and all of his shame is washed away. It's like a tidal wave coming against the shore. It just washes all the things away. We build all these little sandcastles of our sin and our pain and our past hurt and guilt, and like a tidal wave, God wipes them out. It's like pressure washing the side of a stucco building.

It just blast all the sun. sin and all the shame off. God's grace overwhelms us. It is for us. It is to completely redeem and to renew us. And I want you to don't forget, I want you to see this. The mercy of God is pushing back and holding back the judgment of God for the time that the grace of God would bring about salvation. May we be so thankful for God's mercy. Back to our Christmas verse, verse 15. this saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost. So why was Jesus born?

Back to our vocabulary words. The judgment of God needed to be fulfilled. The death that was owed by our sins needed to be pay out. The tab of sin needed to be closed. Yet in his mercy, God was holding the tab. He was holding off all calling out the debt. He was holding these things out. And in his mercy, God was patiently waiting to call in the debt of our sins.

But as we remember, his mercy could not remove the inevitability of receiving what we deserve. Even in God's great patience, because of his justice, God would not, could not, and will not eliminate the wages of sin. if God were just to turn his head to sin and forget about the consequences, he would no longer be a good, perfect, just God. So in his perfectness, he has to call out the judgment of sin. And in his patience and mercy, he holds back the judgment of sin so that in his good grace, he may say, come, please have eternal life with me. And as he's holding back judgment and he's holding back wrath and his mercy, it almost as if God looks over his shoulder and says, Jesus, go get him. And Jesus came to he puts on humanity, fully flesh, fully God, fully man. He's born of a virgin.

So that in his life, his perfect life, he would offer the perfect sacrifice. That in his death, he would pay the debt that we cannot pay. And in his resurrection, he would not only handle the judgment of God, but then he would usher in to be co-heirs, brothers and sisters. We would be invited into something we could never earn on our own. eternal life and family relationship with God our Heavenly Father. You see, judgment says sin needs to be paid for. Mercy says, delay the bill.

And grace, Jesus says, put it on my tab. Put it on my tab. In fact, I'll exchange your debt for my righteousness. And all the joy and all the excitement of Christmas, may we not forget that Jesus came at Christmas with the cross of Easter in his scope already. From day one, hell began to moan because the king eternal had come on a rescue mission and he would not go back to heaven until he was taking a whole lot of people with him. Verse 16, but I receive mercy for this reason. That in me as the foremost, this is the second time Paul says this.

It's the second time Paul wants us to know that he views himself as the foremost sinner. I'm going to tell you for me, a problem for me in my faith is I forget that I was as wretched as I once was and therefore in need of a Savior as desperately as I need. Now here's the reason for me it's called religious arrogance. I grew up in the church and I would always think, man, that cat over there, man, he needs all the blood of Jesus. But I could probably get saved with just a droplet. It's called religious arrogance. There's no room for it in the kingdom. There's no room for it in the church.

The problem of thinking is I only need a droplet of Jesus is now I think I need to perform for the the rest of Jesus' love. Paul says, I know I'm the foremost sinner. When you go back to verse 13, he has a list of being a blasphemy. All of us have a list. And in that list, every single one of us, Christ had to die for those sins, and he willingly died for those sins because he loves you and he loves me. May we be a church that never thinks of ourselves as barely sinners saved by Jesus,

but may we always think as ourselves as wretched, black-hearted sinners who were so lost and so dead that if it weren't for the love of Jesus, we would have been lost to ourselves. Paul says, I receive mercy for this reason that in me is the foremost, that Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who are to believe in him for eternal life. We ever thought about this,

that you and I, when we receive the mercy of God, it might actually be the avenue by which God is using for the world around us to see the salvific work of God. Jesus? Like, what if God's mercy for you wasn't just about you? It is. It is about you, but what if it wasn't just about you? What if his mercy for you is actually the catalyst of grace that your one more as your loved ones would come to know Jesus? What if when we realize, I am such a great

sinner, I need a great Savior, what if God delays the punishment for your sin long enough that he would extend a salvation of invitation, invitation to salvation for you. And in extending an invitation of salvation to you, he was declaring to everyone around you the story of his salvation. What if as God was withholding and pushing back wrath and death, a, a.k. his mercy,

it was a way for him to shine a light on salvation to you, to your family, and to your loved ones. What if we, like Paul, realize how great our sin was, we would really realize even greater is our Savior. What if we began to dwell on the fact, not glorify and not make anything more than, but what if we were just so aware of our sin that it became to stir in us a deeper affection of the Savior? You see, people who realize I was the foremost sinner are leaders in worship. Because when you realize the depth from which you were saved, it creates a gratitude and a worship that is unquenchable.

It's people who realize the depth in which they were saved from. Those are the individuals who cannot stop talking about Jesus with their coworkers, with their school, with their classmates, with their neighbors, with their family. God in his mercy towards you and towards me is his gift to those around us that they might believe. As God was holding off his wrath and judgment, looking at me and looking at you saying,

come on in and join the family. If we think about it this way, if in God's mercy towards me, if he could save me, what great hope do I have that he could save my loved ones? This should be a hope, a hope that's stirred by the fact that God held off all of his judgment so that there'd be a time by which I would come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior. That thing fuels a hope I have for God. So here's the fourth world.

For a fourth word, belief. Good job. some of you, that's the most notes you've taken in church ever. I'm proud of you. Believe, Pistuo. The word means this, to trust and rely on. Maybe a longer definition would be this. To believe is to consider something to be true

and worthy of one's trust, to trust in, to put faith in, and to fully rely on. To believe in Jesus is to fully trust that Jesus' work on the cross was the payment of the debt that you and I owed for our sins. that his death, it took care of our death. That in his payment, it's taking on of our sins and dying on the cross,

he gave us his righteousness. I want you to see this somewhere in between the mercy of God, right? So God holding back his judgment and his mercy in which he holds back and he withholds from us the things we deserve, somewhere between that and our believing, our trusting and relying on Jesus. somewhere they're in that gap, there's something that holds that gap there.

God, in his mercy, is pushing back judgment, in his grace, he's inviting us to receive and believe in a way that we don't deserve. And in that gap is what we call God's perfect patience. His perfect patience, that in between holding off his judgment and extending an invitation for us to know him as Lord and Savior, God has long endured suffering.

He has long held back overdue judgment, and he is now offering pardons and forgiveness instead of separation and death. You see, the moment that sin happens, the moment it happens, the moment you have that thought about someone and you realize, oh, I hate that person. The moment your eyes linger too long, the moment the social media takes you to the spot, the moment you log on, the moment you drink too much, the moment you just feel in any sin, lust, hate, anger. In the moment that we sin, the moment, jealousy, a judgment is made. Why? God is a perfect, holy, pure God. He does not need to deliberate upon our sin. A moment, the moment sin happens, a judgment is made.

Yet God in his mercy, walking out perfect patience, withholds the calling out of the debt. The debt has to be paid. It cannot go unpaid. And yet God in his mercy kind of takes that ledger and just puts it on the money. the shelf and says, we'll worry about that later. And yet in God's mercy, he's delaying the debt, but every single breath we breathe, God is delaying the debt, but the debt doesn't disappear. It's just being delayed.

From the first sin of Adam and Eve to the cross to every breath humanity brings, God is perfectly walking out his patience through mercy. Throughout all of human history, God has acted in mercy. Now, how can God act in mercy? because God, he knew that Jesus would go to the cross and in grace, atone for all that sin. In fact, the story of the Bible, if we want to think about it, is largely a story of God's mercy. It is many things, but it is largely a story of God's mercy. In Genesis, we see God's mercy that Adam and Eve did not die immediately when they disobeyed him.

instead in mercy he spared their lives and in grace he covered their nakedness with the sacrifice of an animal it's god's mercy that he regarded Noah as righteous and told Noah to build an ark and thus preserved humanity it's through mercy that god called Abraham he called him righteous he brought him into a relationship with him and even when Abraham tried to take matters in his own hands continued to walk with him and continued to give him mercy and to fulfill promises. It was in his mercy that Jacob survived cheating his brother Esau of his blessing and inheritance. It was God's mercy that one day Jacob would come back to his homeland with children and flocks and a new name by which all of Israel will one day be known.

It was God's mercy that Joseph wasn't left in his family to be the baby kept at home and spoiled and made arrogant. but it was in God's mercy that he was taken captive to Egypt. It was also God's mercy that when he heard the cries of his people coming out of Egypt, he took action to rescue them. It was God's mercy that when the Israelites were wandering the desert, complaining about not having food and not having manna, God began to give them manna from heaven, began to give them water from the rocks.

He ignored their complaints and in mercy took care of them. It was mercy that God, when the Israelites would worship a golden calf, that he continued to be present amongst them instead of destroying them. It's its mercy that God let this complaining people enter into a promised land. It was God's mercy that every time Israel worshipped other gods,

God would allow nations to occupy them rather than destroy them so that in God's mercy, he could call their hearts back to him, and each time they cried out. It's in God's mercy that throughout the book of judges, he would raise up these broken saviors to help win their freedom, them once more. It's in God's mercy that he would choose a man named David and make him the

king. That he was the youngest son and a shepherd, he would be the king from which the eternal line of kings would come. It's in God's mercy that God protected Saul. That God protected David from Saul. It's in God's mercy that even when David's sinned, God did not destroy him. God did not abandon him. It's in God's mercy to every time the nation of Judah would rebel against God and worship other gods. God would allow them to be taken into exile that their hearts would be softened. It's in God's mercy that every time in exile

their hearts would soften, he would call them return home rather than leaving them in exile forever. It was in God's mercy that he called a man named Nehemi to build the walls back up that temple worship could be restored. It was in God's mercy that instead of leading the Jews in silence,

he sent a man named John the Baptist to say, one is coming who will take away the sins of the world. It was God's mercy that he would send his one and only son to earth when humanity deserves no earthly king, no heavenly king to live amongst us. It was God's mercy that good news about Jesus Christ would not be contained to a certain people group,

but the good news of Jesus Christ would be declared at Christmas that the king has come to glory to God, the king has come to the whole world that all would know the salvation of Jesus. It's God's mercy that you and I are not called to judgment at the very moment we sin, but in God's mercy, he holds all. all of his wrath that his grace would come and usher in belief.

It is God's mercy that one day Jesus will come again, not as a baby in a manger, but as a king riding on a horse to take his people unto him and unto the Father, that sin will be vanquished once and for all. So why did Jesus come to save sinners? Why Christmas? Because God took on flesh and came to rescue us. So here's our vocabulary words one last time. God is judge.

God will judge. Every sin will be accounted for. Every sin will be atoned for. God will judge all of us and he will judge all of our sin. He's been keeping a ledger. There's a whole ledger on me and on you that says guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. So not only will God judge, but in his mercy, he has been showing mercy to everyone around. the earth for all of human history.

He's been taking that ledger and holding it off and holding it off and holding it off, holding back that tidal wave of punishment. You see, it's God's judgment that we'll all be judged. It's his mercy that holds it off, and it is his grace that he would sin Jesus Christ to live a perfect life, to die, a death he did not deserve, and to be resurrected, that you and I would be invited

into something we could never deserve. The unearned, unmerited faith of God, God, that His grace that we would have life and righteousness that we don't deserve. And here's the truth. Here's the simplicity of a Christmas message. If we believe, then we receive. If we were to put our faith and our trust in Jesus, if each one of us has to answer this question, what will you do with Jesus?

And very simply put, if we believe him to be who he said he is. If we believe him that on the cross, when he said, it is finished, it counted for me, if we believe him to be the son of God, the son of man, perfect sacrifice to take away the sins of the world. In the moment we believe, we trust on that, then we receive life. All the judgment of God gives heaped upon the cross of Christ and all the righteousness of Jesus overflows us like grace tsunami on our lives.

So across our campus and online, I beg you, as a pastor, please, if you have not surrendered your life to Jesus, why wait? in regards to our sin, his mercy will expire. Have you ever thought about this? The mercy of God does not exist in its fullness in our view of heaven because mercy is withholding what we deserve. Hebrew 9 tells us it's appointed for man to die once

and after that comes judgment. You see, God's mercy will hold off judgment until the moment that the clock ends. And in that moment, either his grace has overwhelmed us and we are robed to write, we're in righteous robes, we're clothed in His grace and mercy. But see, mercy will expire,

but there's one thing that never expires, his grace. It abounds forever and ever and ever and ever as we experience and receive the undeserved, unmerited favor of God. And this is what breaks my heart as a pastor despite the abundance of mercy. Despite the fact that in this room,

all campuses and online, there are men and women sitting, under God's mercy right now. You have got a rap sheet that needs to be paid for and you're sitting in mercy in this moment. May I beg of you to surrender to the grace of Jesus. Because despite the abundancy of mercy, some still successfully choose their own way. And there will come a day where all of your sin will be atoned for, either by Christ's work on the cross or by your imperfect record. But Jesus has atoned for your sin. So will you believe and surrender your life to Him? all of our campuses, I just want to ask you to bow your head and close your eyes.

Not because this is a magical position, but because I just believe this is a moment for you to answer a question with God, what will you do with Jesus? You see, God's mercy has been holding back God's judgment so that in this very moment His grace may invade your life. And if you're across all of our campuses are online and right now you want to surrender your life to Jesus, I want to invite you to raise your hand as an act of worship. And as you raise your hand, I want you to just pray a simple prayer that says, God, I acknowledge. acknowledge that because of your judgment, I deserve to pay a penalty. I thank you for your mercy that you've held that judgment off.

I receive your grace that's come through the cross, and I believe in Jesus as my Lord and my Savior. And I surrender my life to you all the days of my life. And if you just raise your hand online on any more our campuses in this moment, you just went from death to life. You just went from walking in mercy to fully understanding the grace of God. A church, look here. I want to invite us as a church to participate in something called communion.

In Advent, we look forward and anticipate, and we're eagerly anticipating the coming of Jesus. And in communion, we look back. We remember Jesus at the Lord's supper with his disciples. We remember him on the cross. We remember the moment by which we surrendered our life to Jesus Christ. In communion, we remember that when he took the cup, he was taking the cup of God's wrath to God's judgment. And when his body was broken, it was broken for us. We remember that sin has been judged, and in mercy and in debt, God has taken care of us.

And His grace, He has given us what he could not deserve. So, church, I want to pray for all of us. And then at each campus, our campus pastor is going to come after I pray and lead us through a time of communion. pray. Jesus, we love you, and we thank you for loving us. But I pray in this moment that you would stir in our hearts and affection for you. Then in this moment, we would know that the judgment of God was owed to us, and yet the mercy in your mercy, God, you held off the judgment so that the grace would overflow our lives, that your mercy would hold judgment off long enough that grace would invade.

And God, we're thankful for that. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for coming after us on our rescue mission, King Jesus. Lord, we love you. It's your name we pray. Amen. Church, we're going to respond in a few ways, but we're going to start by taking communion. And if you want to go ahead and start making sure your cups are open, I want to walk us through what it means to take today's text and look at communion.

You see, it's in God's judgment that we deserve for our bodies to be broken. we deserve for the guilt of our sins to be heaped upon us. And His mercy, he held off all of those punishments long enough that Jesus would come. And Jesus was sitting around the table his disciples one night, and he told them, this is my body broken for you. They understood the sacrificial system. They understood that sin needed to be paid for. And what Jesus was telling them is that he was going to pay the price.

His body was going to be broken. And so as we take this body, we take the bread today, may we remember the judgment of God that was due us, the mercy of God that withheld that judgment, and the grace of God that gave us what we did not deserve, which was life instead of punishment. Jesus said, every time you take this bread, do this in remembrance of me. So let's take the bread.

And then Jesus took the cup. The cup that at Passover was a reminder that one would come to deal with the sins of the world. And he took that cup, and he looked at those disciples and he said, my blood, they understood, we understand, according to the Bible, that the only way for sin to be dealt with is death. And for a year, year, year in, and year out, those disciples had seen these different animals sacrifice, but they never could quite cover sin. It'd cover it for a second.

But Jesus looked at them and said, I'm going to be the perfect lamb, that Jesus was going to go to the cross and that his blood would forever cover our sins. A reminder that the judgment of God was due us, but the murder. mercy of God withheld that judgment long enough so that the grace of God would overwhelm us. So as we take this cup together, let us remember the goodness of Jesus. Church, if you'll stand with me, scriptures teach us that after communion, the first communion, they sing a song together. And here's why.

I think they began to wrestle with the fact that this man was going to radically redeem them, not just be a good rabbi, but he was going to be their savior. And when a heart is wrapped around the fact that I was the foremost sinner and now I'm a son, and daughter of the king, in that moment comes gratitude and worship. So we're going to worship by singing with great gratitude that Christ took the judgment we deserved and that we received grace that we did not deserve. We're going to come kneel, we're going to pray. Some of us to repent of our sins, some of us to rejoice in his goodness, some of us to

ask God to continue to be gracious to us in a hard time. And we're going to bring our ties and offerings. We're going to give our first and our best because Christ gave his first and his best. through the giving boxes or through giving online or the app, we're going to bring, we're going to pray, and we're going to sing. Church, let's respond.