Immanuel’s Mercy.
“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:4-7).
A key theme of mercy involves, on our part, humility. Titus 3:4 tells us that God saved us, “not because of works done by us.” That is a humbling thought. It holds our actions up against God’s mercy and then it tells us that our actions DO NOT help the matter. Our actions can’t make, for us, any progress toward God. Our actions actually repel us from God as Colossians 1:21 points out: “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior” (Colossians 1:21-22 NIV). Our behavior put us at odds with God; it made us feel like aliens in relationship to God.
That’s a hard thought because we are (or should be) accustomed to hard work being a benefit and help in creating strong bonds with our teachers, our supervisors at work, our parents and all other places where strong, determined efforts are applied in our lives. The physical operation to drive and create will often cause positive connections to people. But our behavior, in relationship to God, creates a separation from God.
But in the humbling thought that our works can’t earn favor or connection with God comes the connected thought of what humility brings or allows: mercy. “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:12). God has always looked on our wretched state and seen our inability to perform; He’s seen the messes we create and the path which our actions and thoughts have prepared. Isaiah 64:6 says, “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.” That is, again, humbling. (And if I told you what that polluted garment was, you would recognize even more the crumbled state of our existence with God.) We can’t achieve or draw closer to God or patch up any of the failures we have daily created.
Humility is . . . well, humbling; and humility is very necessary. It might first appear that such humbling seeks to deface us as respectable people. But it is sooo necessary. It requires us to take a cold, hard look at ourselves. It requires a re-evaluation of how we see ourselves. Most often we see ourselves in comparison to other flawed human beings. Some of us do well with such comparisons because we can mask the sin in our hearts by a good performance on the outside. Our demureness opens us up to the reality of what we intensely need from God: Mercy.
As we apprehend and comprehend our plight, mercy swoops in to provide a solution. Mercy can blossom into this amazing, beautiful understanding of God and cause us to give Him celebratory glory. We can see that our chances of inheriting or earning paradise are nil. We can, in real and unfettered introspection, see the deviant attitude of our very righteous actions and learn to depend on his mercy. And it is good for us to be morally upstanding, but not for the sake of being acceptable to God. Our “good works” are the most precious fruit - an outpouring of our full understanding of mercy. Because of His great mercy, we WILL NOT GET what our sins deserve.
What do our sins deserve? This is where humility comes in. OK, how do we make a clean analysis of ourselves? Most of us are fully educated and very good performers in our community. We grew up being respectable because that is how, for the most part, we were trained. And we learned that there is order in this world which favors those of high moral standards. But this is what our works provide in the civil portion of life; this is NOT what our works or lack of works provide for us in terms of God and righteousness, justice and salvation. Our standing in front of God is bunk; we are deplete of any good thing. What our sins deserve is not good. We deserve and earn death (Romans 6:23 - For the wages of sin is death). God, who is rich in mercy, will not give us what our sins deserve; instead He placed that burden on His Son, our Savior.
That is why we relish the doctrinal term, mercy. We embrace God’s goodness, love and kindness - displayed in His mercy. We don’t get what we deserve; Jesus took it on instead. We get quite an amazing gift from God when He removes the justice we deserve and instead makes us forgiven children, dearly loved by Him. Oh thank the Lord for mercy!
Blessings to all of you this week!