So Ephesians chapter two, and
we'll read from verse one. And you hath he quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience. 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. But God, who is rich
in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when
we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace
ye are saved, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit
together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. that in the ages
to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness
toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. Our subject today is mercy, and
especially God's mercy, or as the psalmist said in Psalm 103,
God's plenteous mercy. mercy and it may well be that
the Apostle Paul had Psalm 103 in mind when he speaks of the
richness of God's mercy. It is a rich mercy and it is
a plenteous mercy. And so, whether it's the psalmist
or the apostle, we find unity in the scriptural testimony of
the mercy of our God. Paul says, rich in mercy. And the Lord Jesus Christ, he
tells us that mercy is a blessed quality, both to exercise and
to receive. He tells us in Matthew 5, verse
7, blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. So our subject today is mercy. And the Bible speaks of mercy
in a variety of ways. It is a word which speaks to
us of a grace from God to do us good. God has a will to do
his people good, a will to act kindly towards us, and that is
his mercy. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
source of that mercy, the spring from whence that mercy comes
and the channel by which it is delivered to the church and people
of God. Mercy comes to those who do not
deserve it. And whether we think about the
ways in which mercy might be described in a natural or in
a worldly sense, we see that the idea is that here is an individual
or here are a people, here is a nation, here is a city. that
does not deserve any kindness, does not deserve any goodness,
and yet out of a willing benevolence, one in authority grants them
peace, grants them kindness, goodness, and displays mercy
to them. we might think of mercy in the
context of clemency and clemency for those who are guilty. And verse 3 in this little passage
of chapter 2 in Ephesians speaks to us of a people who are guilty,
who were by nature children of wrath, who followed after the
lusts of their flesh, who pursued the desires of their fallen minds. who walked and conversed and
engaged in all manner of sin and were indistinguishable from
every other individual. but God was rich in mercy towards
these people. There was a rich mercy found
in him for this guilty people through the grace of God and
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Or we might think of mercy in
the terms of compassion and care and that is quite appropriate
also because this word mercy is employed by the scripture
writers to speak of God's goodness and kindness to those who are
suffering and those who are sad or miserable. the broken hearted,
the hurt and damaged in this life. They find in the mercies
of God a transcending love which helps and which comforts and
which enables which brings peace in the face of all their sadnesses,
which brings joy to their hearts, a joy that is unspeakable and
full of glory at the very moment when they are in the midst of
their most troubled time and time of anxiety. This is mercy. This is God's mercy. It's his
care and compassion and his comfort upon his people. God's mercy
supplies his people with all our needs according to his riches
in glory. And so when Abraham speaks of
the riches of God's glory, so we find that there is a richness
of mercy in the Lord. When our Saviour was upon this
earth. Appeals were often made to him
for help, and those appeals frequently took the form of a cry which
was termed in such ways as, Son of David, have mercy on me. And we find those cries repeated
several times, multiple times. The Canaanitish woman cried,
Son of David, have mercy on me. A man with a lunatic son cried,
Son of David, have mercy on me. There were two blind men cried
out, Son of David, have mercy upon us. And a blind man, it
may have been Bartimaeus or not, a blind man cried out, Son of
David, have mercy on me. And here were cries for help,
cries for clemency, for compassion, for comfort and care by those
who believed that the Lord Jesus Christ was both able and willing
to help them, to show them kindness, to save their souls, to change
their lives, to alter their circumstances and the circumstances of those
for whom they prayed and for whom they petitioned and for
whom they interceded. Isn't that a lovely thought that
we can go before the Lord, we can go before the Lord Jesus
Christ and intercede for one another, ask him to show mercy
to us, care and compassion and clemency. We are privileged indeed
to have such a God, a God who is rich in mercy to whom we may
go with our prayers and petitions. But the significance that I wanted
to draw to your attention here was that that little reference,
son of David, that these individuals employed in their plea to the
Lord Jesus Christ were significant because they show us that this
person to whom they spoke, this Jesus of Nazareth, was indeed
the Christ. These individuals believed that
the person to whom they spoke was the Christ. That's why they
employed the phrase Son of David. They were calling upon Jesus
of Nazareth and identifying him as the Messiah of the Old Testament
Scriptures. The Anointed One, the Chosen
One, the Son of God. Now we saw in our studies of
John's epistles that this Jesus of Nazareth is our Lord Jesus
Christ. So when these people were crying
upon Son of David, have mercy upon us, they were speaking to
the very same Lord Jesus Christ that we preach today. and all
who feel their need of mercy, all that have a need for God's
help, for God's kindness, for God's grace and for God's goodness,
go to the Lord Jesus Christ. As they went in a day gone by
to the son of David, to Jesus of Nazareth, so we go to the
Lord Jesus Christ who is able and willing to save. Jesus of Nazareth, thou son of
David, have mercy on me. If you can cry that today, if
you can cry out to the Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. He will not pass you by. He never did then and he will
not now. I have four headings that I want
to draw to your attention today with respect to this theme of
the rich mercy of our God. Four headings that will help
us to understand the richness of God's mercy. And the first
one is this, that mercy characterizes or describes our Lord. It is an essential quality of
God's person. And also we will just touch upon
the fact that sovereign mercy is as readily available as sovereign
grace. The second point is this, that
mercy supplies salvation. The third one is that mercy,
God's mercy, his rich mercy, sustains believers. And fourthly, God's mercy satisfies
our needs. So these are the four headings
that we will touch upon. And the first one is this, that
mercy characterises or describes our triune God. it highlights his nature. If we are to think about God,
if we are to contemplate God in his revelation, we must think
of him as God the merciful, the merciful. Now the basic meaning
of mercy is a gesture of help. and the active giving of kindness
or another theme or another strand, a moving compassion. So this idea of activity is there
in the sense of mercy in scripture. It's a gesture of help, an active
kindness, a moving compassion. It is love in action, if you
like. And I thought this was interesting. I'm not going to become overly
complicated here. But if any of you know anything
of the French language, you will know that the word in French
for thank you is merci. Merci. If I were to say thank
you in French, I would say merci. And that's the same idea because
that is the French person saying Thank you for a gesture of kindness,
for a help that has been given, and for an act of compassion
that was granted to the person. And so it's a response acknowledging
that there has been some goodness granted. Now we often and rightly
think about God's love, and we should dwell on God's love often. And we often and rightly think
about God's holiness. Properly so, we should think
about God's holiness often. But it is God's mercy that brings
these two together, melds these two together. And it is in the
manifestation of God's love, without the compromise of God's
holiness, that mercy finds its place. Mercy both honours God's
holiness and conveys God's love. And it is a beautiful attribute
of God's nature. And I want to particularly notice
on this point that when God speaks of himself as, when he speaks
of himself as the great I am, remember he spoke to Moses in
the burning bush and he said, I am that I am. And so when God describes himself
to Moses, The first quality of his person, the first revelation
of his nature that he reveals and expresses is mercy. In Exodus chapter 36, the Lord
says to Moses, it's at the top of Mount Sinai when he's receiving
the tablets of stone, the Lord speaks to Moses and he says,
the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering
and abundant in goodness and truth. And so the very first
thing that God describes himself as is merciful. Merciful. And when Moses subsequently asks
to see God's glory in, well, it's not actually subsequently,
it's before because it's in Exodus 33. But when Moses asks to see
God's glory, this is how the conversation went. Verse 18 of
Exodus 33. And he said, I beseech thee,
show me thy glory. And he said, I will make all
my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name
of the Lord before thee. and will be gracious to whom
I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show
mercy. And so whenever the Lord is revealing
himself, whenever the Lord is describing himself, whenever
the Lord is, as it were, explaining for our weakness and for our
proper understanding who he is, it is couched in terms of his
mercy. So this mercy of God, this love
in action, is according to God's own testimony, His sovereignly
bestowed kindness. And that is why I mentioned earlier
when I said that we speak a lot about sovereign grace, we should
also speak about sovereign mercy. Sovereign mercy, because God
says, I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. It's up to
me to show my mercy to whomsoever I will. And that was, of course,
fundamental to the Apostle Paul's teaching about free sovereign
grace. Writing in Romans chapter nine,
his great defence of election, he writes in verse 15 and 16
about this encounter between God and Moses. And Paul writes,
he saith to Moses, speaking about God, speaking to Moses, I will
have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. So then it, that is, election
to salvation, is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,
but of God that showeth mercy. You see what Paul has done here?
He has drawn upon the revelation of God in the Old Testament to
Moses to support and prove and give evidence to the sovereign
grace of God in election. So we may say that mercy is at
the heart of God's character and in his dealing with sinners,
it is at the heart of his dealings with sinners. Mercy and truth
meet together in the Lord Jesus Christ. and this distinguishing
mercy by which God upholds his holiness and his love is found
in the person of Jesus Christ. So this is the first thing that
I wanted to show you, that mercy was an essential attribute of
God's character. The second thing is that mercy
supplies salvation. And one of the earliest pictures
or types that is revealed to us in the Bible concerning God's
way of salvation in Christ is the Lord's provision of the mercy
seat in the tabernacle in the wilderness. Now the tabernacle
was a tent, effectively, that was built in the wilderness in
the time, in those 40 years, that time between the exodus
out of Egypt and the entrance into the land of Canaan, the
promised land. And during those wilderness years,
God established the tabernacle, which was the place where the
worship of God was to be made, where the priests of God, Aaron
and his sons, would represent the people, where the sacrifices
would be made, and importantly, where God said he would meet
with sinners, with his people. It was at the tabernacle. And
in the tabernacle was the Holy of Holies. In the Holy of Holies
was the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant was a
box made of wood, shittum wood it's called. It was overlaid
with gold and it contained a number of things, Aaron's rod, a pot
of manna, and the Ten Commandments, the tablets of stone were in
this Ark. And over the top of the ark stood
the mercy seat. And at each side of the mercy
seat there were cherubims, representations of God's glory. And it was here
at this mercy seat in particular, specifically, that the Lord promised
to meet sinners. The mercy seat, which as we are
saying, which we're talking about here is a type of the Lord Jesus
Christ, literally means a propitiatory covering or the covering that
propitiates, the covering that does us good. the covering by
which good comes to sinners. It was where the blood of the
innocent sacrifice was poured out to the covering of the mercy
seat with blood and the satisfaction of God's anger and wrath against
sin. So then, In those Old Testament
days, the mercy seat represented the redemption by blood, by the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it represented mercy flowing
from God to sinners by the blood of Christ. The blood on the mercy
seat covered the tables of the broken law. And so here we see
mercy and grace coming to sinners because of the sacrifice that
was made in type, a type of the Lord Jesus Christ who was yet
to come. And so mercy, the mercy of God is seen in the pardon
of sin by the sacrifice of Christ or substitution. Here was the Lord Jesus Christ
coming as the substitute of his people and that too is the meaning
of mercy. We see the mercy of God in substitution. We see the mercy of God in redemption. We see the mercy of God where
God meets sinners at the mercy seat. Only at the mercy seat
and only in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that Old Testament type passed
away, the tabernacle passed away, the sacrificial system passed
away, when the fullness, when the anti-type, the reality, appeared. when Jesus Christ came into the
world to save sinners. And the Apostle Luke in his gospel
writes about that in Luke 1, verse 78. And there he speaks
about the tender mercy of God. He says, through the tender mercy
of God, the Lord Jesus Christ came. Through the tender mercy
of our God, whereby the day spring, From on high hath visited us
the Lord Jesus Christ, that rising sun with healing in his wings,
the day spring has risen. and the Lord Jesus Christ has
appeared as the fulfilment and the reality of the mercy seat,
the law, broken law covering for his people. So that Peter,
the apostle, could say, we are not redeemed with silver and
gold, but with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without blemish
and without spot that has been sacrificed for us. And the Apostle Paul could write
to Titus in chapter 3 verse 5 telling him that it's not by works of
righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he
saved us by the washing of regeneration. That's the quickening that we've
been speaking about in Ephesians chapter 2, the washing of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Ghost. So, not only is mercy an essential
attribute of God and part of his character, but mercy brings
salvation. And mercy sustains believers. This is our third point. We make
a big mistake if we imagine that the Christian life is simply
about getting saved. and then waiting until we go
to heaven, or getting saved and then getting others saved. Salvation, as the Lord said to
Moses, I will be gracious unto whom I will be gracious. I will
be merciful to whom I will be merciful. I'll show whoever I
want to show mercy and grace. Salvation is of the Lord. It
is His alone to give and all the workings that we do and all
the aspirations that we have to make converts is only ever
going to be as the Lord wills. And so this great free will,
Arminian emphasis to win souls, has its place undoubtedly in
the preaching of the gospel, but that's not the essence of
our Christian life, to win souls. The essence of our Christian
life is to get to know God, to get to know the Lord Jesus Christ. and to know him better every
day. The Christian life is about getting to know God in Christ.
It is about learning about God day by day. And it is about our
daily battle with the flesh, and with doubts, and with the
devil, and with this world, and with temptation, and the enemies
that our soul has, and the enemies that our spirit has. And we would
not overcome those enemies were it not for the richness of God's
mercy. In Lamentations 3, verse 22,
we read these words. It is the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They
are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. The
Lord is my portion, saith my soul. Therefore I will hope in
him. The Lord is good unto them that
wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. So here's a question
for you, friends, brothers and sisters today. Do you know the
Lord is your portion? Do you know the good that he
does for you? Do you wait upon Him? Do you seek after Him? Do you desire and hunger and
thirst after the mercies of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord's
mercies? For it is by those mercies that
we are not consumed. The Lord tells us that he is
faithful to his people and that faithfulness is manifested in
his mercies towards us. It is this day-by-day relationship
that I want to emphasise here. God's mercies are new every morning
because we need them renewed every morning. Every day we need
the mercy of God. We need fresh portions of his
goodness and his kindness and his love. And notice it's plural,
we need daily mercies. We need such mercies with a sufficiency
that meets the evils of the day that we face. So those evils
of our day will find a mercy from the Lord commensurate with
our need. And that is what we go before
the Lord seeking. We have promised provision. Says
David, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days
of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. These are the sure mercies of
David which Isaiah spoke of, which the Lord daily promises
to his people. Covenant promises, covenant mercies,
daily blessings freely bestowed, not for the success of our achievements,
God forbid that we should imagine that, but on the success of Christ's
accomplishments and for the asking. there is a constant supply of
sustaining grace and mercy, keeping, preserving, restraining evil,
providing strength, forgiving, equipping us for trial and the
opposition that we face, all for which the Lord is to be thanked. Because these are the good gifts,
the ascension gifts that he gave to men as he entered once again
into heaven and sent God the Holy Spirit to be our comforter
and our protector. These are the mercies of the
Lord to his people. In 1st Chronicles chapter 16
verse 34 we read these words, See that little phrase there,
his mercy endureth forever, it occurs repeatedly, frequently,
over 40 times in the word of God is that little phrase used,
his mercy endureth forever. And so it was a constant theme
of the Lord's people of his church, the enduring mercy, day by day,
mercies of God that are new every morning. And indeed, it is the
entire theme of Psalm 136. If you want some homework, read
Psalm 136 before next Sunday. 2 Corinthians 1, verse 3 says,
Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. Okay, so salvation,
I'm sorry, mercy brings salvation, mercy sustains believers in their
needs and Mercy satisfies the Lord's people. Mercy satisfies
us. The mercy of God is rich. There's more of it than we could
ever use. It's fulsome. It's generous. It is more than sufficient for
all our needs. And I have no doubt that the
Lord brings his people into dire straits, into trials and troubles
and difficulties and anxieties and problems for the purpose
of proving to us the richness of his mercy, the richness of
his grace, the plenteousness of his goodness and kindness
towards us. which in turn teaches us trust
and patience and perspective as we go through this life. James, in his little epistle,
writes in chapter five, verse 11, Behold, we count them happy
which endure. Which endure? How are we to endure
but by the mercies, the daily mercies of our Father? ye have heard of the patience
of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is
pitiful, full of pity, and of tender mercy. Mercy is discovered
at the throne of grace. There is where we seek help. There is where we ask for help. That is the place, like the mercy
seat in the Old Testament, the place where God meets his people. the throne of his grace, or let
us personalise it. It is the Lord Jesus Christ. We go and we pray to Christ. We pray to God through Christ,
for it is here that God gives us the mercy that we need. we
approach our Saviour with our requests, with our petitions,
asking in faith that we might prove His faithfulness. You know, our God delights in
showing mercy, and indeed He constantly bestows it. We see that in Psalm 103, and
even things that we don't assume are His mercies are His mercies. He is being merciful to us all
the time, and woe upon us, we are too slow and dull to see
the goodness of God in so many circumstances in our lives. He is the source of all good.
and his mercy is communicated to us through Christ as a gift
to his people. Whatever our need, whatever our
concern, whatever our anxiety, the Lord has a mercy to suit
our case. In Hebrews 4, verse 14, we read
these words. This again is this Old Testament
picture of the mercy seat and the high priest going into the
mercy seat on our behalf in order that the blessings of God might
flow to us at that point where he meets us in Christ. Seeing
then that we have a great High Priest that is passed into the
heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an High Priest
which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. So what does the writer to the
Hebrews tell us? Let us therefore come boldly
unto the throne of grace, why, that we may obtain mercy, mercy,
and find grace to help in time of need. 1 Peter 1, verse 3 says, Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according
to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. A lively hope,
that is a hope in life and a hope in death. by the abundant mercy
through which we have been begotten again, or quickened. And so here
we see the apostles, Peter, James, Paul, we see the writer to the
Hebrews, we see Moses, we see Luke, all bringing this great
theme of mercy. to our attention and focusing
our eye upon the Lord Jesus Christ and the abundant mercy, the richness
of God's mercy, the plenteous mercy by which we are blessed
in Christ. So here is my conclusion and
then we will be done. I want to conclude with a little
jewel for which I take no credit at all. I took this, I nearly
said I stole this, but I didn't steal it. He gave it up freely,
so I'm going to give it freely to you. I took this from Robert
Hawker. We've been thinking about the
richness of God's mercy. which David told us in Psalm
103 is from everlasting to everlasting. We've been thinking about how
it brings us salvation. We've been thinking about how
it sustains our lives. We have been thinking about how
it satisfies our needs. Well, Mr. Hawker sweetens our
contemplation upon the mercies of God by saying this, with respect
to mercy, and I quote, properly speaking, mercy is simply another
name of Jesus. For David, speaking of grace
and pleading for it before the Lord, saith, as an argument and
plea for receiving it, there is mercy. That is, there is Jesus
with thee. Psalm 130 verse 4. And when Zacharias prophesied
under the influence of God the Holy Ghost at the coming of Christ,
he said it was to perform the mercy promised. Luke chapter
1 verse 72, and Jesus is the mercy promised. End of quote. So brothers and sisters, May
we seek the Lord's mercy every day and in seeking the mercy
of God may we find the Lord Jesus Christ to be the very personification
of God's mercy, his goodness, his kindness, his love and his
grace to his people. Amen.