Vision of Hope
SPOR April 1 How Honest do You Want to Be?

  • Mercy in Action: The Call to Love the Unlovable

    Good morning, brothers and sisters! I am grateful that in His grace, the LORD has brought us together today, Amen? We are going to talk about a tough one this morning: “Mercy in Action: Loving the Unlovable.”
    If you have ever struggled to show love to someone you don’t like or someone who has done something against you, you are not alone.
    To be able to love like Christ, requires a lot of mercy. We need to recognize His grace and mercy in our lives. Knowing God’s mercy and grace are what drive believers to show love to the unlovable.
    This may sound harsh to some, but accepting people does not mean agreeing with them or approving of them. Our modern culture has spun a lie that says “acceptance means approval.”
    I was telling the guys yesterday that the easiest way for me to think about acceptance is like this: “I accept that you are the way you are.” It does not mean I agree with the person or that I am going to call wrong right. It means I know I am not going to change the person, that’s God’s wheelhouse. I learned that from Jesus!
    Jesus Christ accepts each of us right where we are. He loves you right where you are. He loves me right where I am. It does not mean that Jesus approves of all the choices we make, or our behaviors, or sin in our lives. It means that God shows His great mercy over His creation.
    His mercy is what brings people into a relationship with Him. God’s mercy is the reason Jesus Christ came, so that we would know His grace. It is impossible to know His grace without first knowing Him and knowing His mercy.
    If you are a true believer, you live under the grace of God because of His mercy, in and through Christ alone. Look at what the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 4:16:
    Hebrews 4:16 NLT
    16 So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.
    I love that we are to go BOLDLY to the Throne of Grace. The Greek word used for “boldly” is parrēsia, and it means to go to our Father plainly and confidently. No fear, just as you are, with all that you are. He gives each of us an open invitation to the throne of mercy and grace. No appointment needed. Anytime and anywhere.
    You’ll notice that mercy and grace are in a specific order in this verse. First we RECEIVE His mercy, and then we find His grace. His grace does not come apart from His mercy.
    Let’s take a minute and talk about the difference between mercy and grace. I read this in a Billy Graham devotional, and it made it simple for me to understand.
    Mercy = Not receiving what we do deserve.
    Grace = Receiving what we do not deserve.
    In more concrete terms, mercy is God not punishing us for our sins, which we would deserve. Grace is God blessing us despite the fact that we do not deserve His grace.
    The grace of God is God saying “You have sinned against me, you have hurt me, you have turned away from me.” “You deserve to be punished, but I am going to bless you instead.”
    God has mercy on all of us. But we must go to the throne of grace and ask for mercy. That is step one. Mercy comes only through Christ Jesus. He and He alone bore our sins and paid our penalty. Jesus Christ was and is God’s mercy in action.
    Mercy through Christ comes when we fully realizing what happened at the cross, and we make him Lord and Savior of our lives. That mercy and salvation are what unlocks the door to the fullness of God’s grace.
    Not everybody is fully under God’s grace. Non-believers are living under God’s mercy alone. In God’s mercy, He is waiting for them to come to Him through Christ Jesus, to the Throne of Grace. I am so grateful for that mercy. I was one of those people for a long time. The unrepentant sinner. The one who took joy in sinning and hurting others, an enemy of God. I was one of the unlovable.
    When we “love the unlovable,” those we do not want to love, we are showing God’s mercy in action.
    Most of us can remember a time when all we had was God’s mercy. Until Christ came into our lives, we did not know His grace. If Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, His grace covers you now. We live in His grace.
    Living in His grace, why would we NOT show His mercy by loving those we think are unlovable or those we do not want to love? That is what brought many of us into a relationship with the Father. God reached out to you and me. He waited for you and me. He worked through people like you and me to bring people like you and me to Him.
    Showing love to those we do not want to is a show of mercy. The same mercy Jesus taught at the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus made it clear as day when he said this in Matthew 5:7:
    Matthew 5:7 NLT
    7 God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
    Mercy and love are choices that have nothing to do with our feelings and circumstances. Holy Spirit compels us to extend grace and mercy to even the most challenging people, just as Christ did for you and me.
    Because God shows mercy to us, we can count on His grace when we show mercy to others. God’s will is that we show mercy, that we show His love to this increasingly broken world. The world is not getting any better, and it probably won’t. The harvest is plentiful, and we are the workers.
    What happens is that we will set limits on how much mercy we show others. And then we set expectations on the people we show mercy to. Jesus did not set limits or expectations, and neither should we.
    Let’s be honest with ourselves this morning: A good number of us have withheld love from a spouse, a friend, or a child when they do something to us or something that makes us mad.
    When we withhold love, we do it as a way of punishing the other person. We can become merciless when we don’t get our own way, when we are consumed with ourselves, or feel that we have been wronged, even to those closest to us.
    If we do that to the people we claim to love the most, what stops us from doing it to people we do not even know or people who have wronged us? In Matthew 5:43-44, Jesus said this:
    Matthew 5:43–44 NLT
    43 “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. 44 But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!
    Talk about some verses that will convict! That is some tough stuff right here! Loving our enemies runs contrary to human nature! I shared with the guys at Men’s breakfast that I get frustrated with some scripture, because it is so challenging at times. This is one of them. “Love my enemies!” “You have got to be KIDDING me!” Jesus is not kidding. He means it.
    We need to have a biblical understanding of the word “love,” though. The word “love” has become some convoluted catch all word in our society. There are four different ways the word “love” is used in the Greek.
    Eros - Passion or infatuation (man and woman).
    Storge - Family love (parent & child)
    Phileo - Deep, intense, and warm affection (good friend)
    The word Jesus used is agape love.
    Agape - It is a love that demonstrates kindness, benevolence, and esteem. It is the love of the mind, reason, and choice. It is a sacrificial love, that is, a love that cares, gives, and works for another person’s good—no matter how the person may respond or treat us.
    We often hear that agape love is the love of God, and that is true, but it doesn’t really explained further. That leaves a lot of room for confusion. Although agape love is a sacrificing love, and is the closest word there is to describe God’s love, it is also a different kind of love than what our society and the enemy would have us believe.
    Agape love is a love that must be willed. The Christian must use their mind and reason, deliberately CHOOSING to love their enemy. It is different than the love we hold for our families. It would be impossible to love an enemy with affection. It’s okay, Christ knows that.
    Agape love IS NOT blind acceptance of sin and wickedness. It is restraint, control, discipline, and even punishment when it protects the offender from themselves or protects others from being hurt.
    Agape love is the love of God. Believers can have agape love only as we allow God to love through us. When we submit and allow Holy Spirit to be Master, He equips us to share His love with others.
    Loving the unlovable has nothing to do with our feelings. You can show agape love and be angry. You can show agape love and be happy. You can show agape love and be sad. It is about showing mercy in action. The feelings are of no consequence because it is a sheer act of our will aligning with God’s will. We are choosing to show others the same mercy Christ has shown each of us.
    Romans 5:8 sums it up.
    Romans 5:8 NLT
    8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
    Christ did not have the warm and fuzzies when he went to the cross for you and for me. He did that through sheer will because it was the will of the Father. The ultimate form of agape love. I did not deserve for a perfect man to die for me, the Son of God. You did not deserve it either. Yet, he did it anyway. Think about the brutality of the cross for a moment. What Jesus suffered.
    Jesus knew what was coming when he said this in Luke 6:32-33:
    Luke 6:32–33 NLT
    32 “If you love only those who love you, why should you get credit for that? Even sinners love those who love them! 33 And if you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you get credit? Even sinners do that much!
    Jesus is using some strong language here! Jesus was brutalized and hung on that cross because of His agape love for all people. Not just Israel, not just the disciples, ALL OF CREATION, INCLUDING HIS ENEMIES. Jesus Christ is making a comparison between the behaviors and actions of unrepentant sinners and believers. What Christ is saying is that the believer’s behavior must surpass the unrepentant sinner’s behavior.
    Unrepentant sinners love those who love them
    Unrepentant sinners do good to those who do good to them.
    Believers who do not live as Christ, love as Christ, and show the mercy of Christ are doing no more than the unrepentant sinners. Virtue and goodness are not enough.
    What makes the believer different? The one who truly worships God? The one who walks in the will of God? Jesus mentioned seven aspects of a true believer in Luke 6:27-38.
    (1) Love your enemies
    (2) Do good to those who hate you
    (3) Bless those who curse you
    (4) Pray for those who mistreat you
    (5) Do not retaliate
    (6) Give freely
    (7) Treat others the way you want to be treated
    Mercy in action. This kind of love marks you off as different from this world. This kind of love marks you as belonging to Him, to God. It is impossible to achieve these actions by human nature. I know I can’t. They require supernatural enabling, through Holy Spirit. These actions are proof of the Fruit of the Spirit in the believers life. The Apostle Paul tells us in Galatians 5:22-23:
    Galatians 5:22–23 NLT
    22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
    As the worship team makes their way up to worship and bless the Father and to bless us, let’s go into a season of prayer. You can pray in your seat, you can come to the alter, you can come forward and receive prayer this morning.
    As you go to Abba Daddy, ask Holy Spirit to search your heart and mind this morning. Are you showing the fruit of salvation, the fruit of the Spirit to this world? Are you holding a grudge that is keeping you from loving like Christ? Do you need help loving the unlovable? Are you showing the Mercy of Christ to others?
    Ask our merciful and gracious God to give you His eyes. To quicken you with the Spirit. He will fill you with His grace when you need it the most.
    Maybe you are here or online, and believe that you are the unlovable one. Many of us have been there. The Father loves you more than you can imagine. You are loved. You are valued. Jesus Christ payed it all for you. Go before the mercy seat of Christ, seek His mercy and allow Him to overflow you with His grace. If you need to talk to a Pastor, Pastor Paul and I will be here after service. Let us pray.

      • Proverbs 11:3NLT

      • Proverbs 11:4–5NLT

      • 1 Timothy 6:17NLT

      • Proverbs 12:22NLT

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