Exodus 34 verse number six. And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God merciful and gracious, long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth. keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. And that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children unto the third and to the fourth generation. And Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. And he said, if now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance. May we pray. Bless the reading and the interpretation of thy word today, dear God. Your word is settled in heaven, but very often not settled in our hearts. May we pray as Jesus taught us. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. May your will be done on earth in my life today. and every heart here at Calvary. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you for standing and please be seated together. In a small Catholic cemetery in Hillside, Illinois, a grave contains the body of an infamous mobster by the name of Al Capone. Died in 1947. His grave marker has three simple words on it that I thought were interesting. My Jesus, mercy. My Jesus, mercy. On Valentine's Day on February 14th, 1929 was perhaps the most infamous crime associated with Capone when seven members of The North side gang were lined up against a wall and shot by men dressed as police officers. Although Capone was in Florida at the time, it was widely believed that he had orchestrated the massacre of seven rival men. He was later charged with tax evasion and gambling and prostitution and bootlegging and bribery, trafficking and narcotics and robbery and murder. Al Capone was not a kind person. In fact, he once said, I'm a kind person, I'm kind to everyone, but if you're unkind to me, then kindness is not what you'll remember me for. And many live to understand the reality of that confession. My Jesus, mercy. And I know what you're thinking, right? No way, no how, not now, not ever, not mercy for a scoundrel like that. But if you don't understand those three simple words, you truly don't understand God, for God is a God of mercy. I read the story of a mother that approached Napoleon Bonaparte seeking a pardon for her son. The emperor replied that the young man had committed a certain offense twice and justice demanded his death. The mother replied, but I don't ask for justice, I plead for mercy. To which the king said, but your son doesn't deserve mercy. Sir, the woman cried, it would not be mercy if he deserved it, and mercy is all I ask for. And it is upon The throne of God today that we throw ourselves as deserving sinners and we bow before the throne of God and we plead for His mercy. Mercy, ladies and gentlemen, is not what God does for us. Mercy is what God is towards us. He is a God of mercy and grace. I want you to notice in this sixth verse of Exodus 34, as Moses has prayed, as we'll look at in further detail tonight, Moses prays for God to reveal his glory to Moses, that in one moment of time, Moses could take in all that God is, and God says, no man can see my face and live, but I'll hide you in a cliff of the rock, and I'll let my goodness pass by, and I'll proclaim the name of the Lord. And as God passed by, as Moses was hidden from the express glory of this God who passes by and God proclaims His name, He says, My name is Yahweh. I'm the eternal God. I'm the self-existent God. I'm the God whose existence depends on nothing and no one. I am eternal. Eternity past and eternity future. I am a merciful God. Someone said that the Jews take this text in Exodus 34 and speak of the 13 qualities of God's mercy. 13 qualities of God's mercy. They say in these verses and including verse number nine, Moses is told by God that God is compassionate before we sin. This passage tells us that God is compassionate after we sin. That God gives compassion according to our need. That He is merciful when we are distressed. He is gracious when we are distressed over our sin. Have you ever been so sick over your sin that it literally made you sick to your stomach? a stress, a guilt, a shame regarding the things that we've done against God. They say that God is slow to anger. He is plenteous in mercy. God is truthful. He keeps mercy to thousands. Number 10, He forgives iniquity. Number 11, He forgives transgression. Number 12, He forgives sin. Number 13, He pardons the offender. I'm just grateful today, as Scott gave way of testimony today, Though his story is different than mine, I've come, Scott, to know the same God of mercy that met you in Los Angeles, that we have a God that is everywhere around the world expressing mercy to those in greatest need. Aren't you glad we have a merciful God? Man, I'm just rejoicing to be a Christian this morning because I, we're entering into this season commemorating the death of Christ. And the fact is, the death of Christ means that He's dying because I should have died. He's being buried because I should have been buried. But I'm going to rise again because I have the merits of Jesus Christ. And though I deserve demerit, though I deserve judgment, He took mercy, and He put mercy on the table where my sin was stacked, and He took my sin off the table, and He put on the table the merits of Jesus' righteousness. It's so wonderful to think today that I not only am going to escape the wrath to come, but I will live forever with God because I have been given the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ placed on my account, because Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owed, and I'm placing my trust where God placed my sin. I'm fully trusting in the person of Jesus Christ today. Can all God's church say amen? I want you to look at this passage this morning, and I want you to write down three truths. Number one, God's person on display. I want you to notice God's person on display. What we have here in Exodus is not an accounting of the lives of the people. It's really a declaration of the person and nature. of God. As we think about Israel, there are certain things I want you to think about Israel. Number one, I want you to think about suffering Israel. We're going to use our Bibles a bit this morning, or iPads. Let's go back to Exodus chapter 3. By the way, I read this week that still 80% of people bring a Bible to church and 20% use a digital device. Can we do an unscientific survey here? How many of you have a physical Bible in your lap this morning? Raise your hand. How many of you are using a digital copy? Okay, I think it's pretty fair then. Exodus chapter number three. I want you to think about suffering Israel. Do you know that when Israel was suffering, there was a God that took note of their plight? In other words, this creator of the universe, this creator of the ends of the earth that formed this nation out of Abraham, this God is not aloof, He's not indifferent, He's not distant, He's not impersonal. He understands our plight and He responds to that in compassion. Number one. suffering Israel. He says in chapter 3 and verse 7, And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. Then look again, chapter 6 of Exodus, chapter 6 verse 5, where God says, I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I remembered my covenant of suffering Israel. The Bible says, I have heard, I have seen, and I know of their sufferings. Now I just want to stop for a moment and say, part of the mercy of God is knowing what you're going through, being alert to what you're going through, being attentive, not only attentive to know, but able to solve every problem we have in our lives. We have a God who has a relationship with us by faith. Suffering Israel. But number two, I want you to think of needy Israel. Go to chapter 16. And now they are in the wilderness. Moses has delivered them from Egypt. They cross the Red Sea, and immediately their felt needs are weighing heavily upon them. I read, I think, last year that any society is only nine mils away from anarchy. Maybe not even nine. Have you ever seen a teenager go without lunch? I mean, it's World War III, right, in the home. No, nine mils, three days from total societal breakdown. And now here, Moses has two to three million people in the wilderness, There are no Publix, where shopping is a pleasure, okay? There's not a Winn-Dixie, there's not an Aldi, there's not a Farmer's Market, there's not an Orange Grove. There's nothing here. They're put in a place where they have nothing but God. There's no water, there's no bread factories, there's nothing. And they begin to cry out. And what do they cry out? Why did God bring us into this place of destitution? There's nothing here! But God brings them to a place of destitution because He wants them to take their eyes off of meeting their needs on this level, and He wants them to get their needs met on this level. talked to the couples this morning about having a vertical marriage, which basically means I don't seek to find in my spouse what I can only find in Jesus. I don't look to a church member to find what I can only find in Christ. Teenagers aren't looking to girlfriends or boyfriends to find in each other what they can only find in Christ. The church members not look to their pastor to find in their pastor what they can only find in Christ. He brings them to a place where they stop looking to themselves and to each other to meet their needs, and they look to a God that's able to supply All of our needs according to His riches and glory. So begins this gravy train of God's provision on a daily basis. Notice in chapter 16 verse 7, and in the morning he says, then ye shall see the glory of the Lord. How will we see God's glory? He puts this thing on the ground called manna. The word means what is it? We don't know exactly what this manna looks like, but it's bread from heaven. Warm bread baked in the ovens of heaven that God supplies to His people on a daily basis. No wonder Jesus said when you pray, pray, say, give us this day our daily bread. It's God meeting our needs day by day. If you're grateful for God's daily blessings, can you just say amen? Needy Israel is a recipient of this mercy of God providing for their daily needs. Number three, I think of guilty Israel. This brings us to our passage. In Exodus chapter 34, we're on the other side of Israel's greatest crime as God has entered into a covenant relationship with the people. I said last week, it's akin to Israel cheating on Jehovah in the midst of the wedding ceremony. In chapter 32, God is entering into a covenant relationship with the people and no sooner can they finish this covenant ceremony. Israel has already made gods and created idols and bowed down to these idols, seeking to find in an idol what they could only find in God. God says to them in this moment, I am choosing to be merciful to you. It says in Psalm 83, 78 verse 38, but he being full of compassion, he forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not, yea, many a time he turned his anger away and did not stir up all his wrath. What happens here? It's that God is deeply moved towards his people. Now the word mercy that we're looking at It comes from the Hebrew word with the idea of a womb. It's the same word that is translated womb, or bowels, or compassion, or tender mercies. It is emotion that elicits an action. It's an emotion that elicits an action. It is a strong feeling of compassion. A strong feeling of connection on an emotional level that makes God respond in kind to them. I was thinking about this verse in Psalm 103 verse 14 where the scripture says, For God knows our frame. He remembers that we are but dust. God's great mercy here in this moment activates. He is deeply moved. His emotion sponsors His action. His deep feelings of their need gets into His heart, driving Him to respond to them in their time of need. My wife and I had the privilege of working in a Bible college, and we were training up laborers for the harvest, training a generation of preachers and counselors and musicians, and we loved that part of our lives. But I was thinking about mercy. Are you merciful? The Bible says that God delights in mercy. He loves being merciful. Can I ask you a question? Do you love being merciful? Do you love being cut off in traffic? Do you love when people don't give you the honor? Do you love being merciful? I had a student that was taking a class online. It was his last class before he graduated. He was to walk after that class and receive his diploma a week after the class ended. It's his last class. Not only is it his last class, it's his last assignment. It's the last paper he will ever write in his college career. He passes this paper, though he had missed some assignments. If he gets a decent grade on this paper, he can pass the class. And by the way, aren't you glad that C's still get degrees? Amen. And I'm reading this paper and I notice something immediately off about this paper. He has not written this paper. I know he hasn't written this paper. Pastor, how do you know? Because I've read his other papers. And there's a precision about this paper. There's a sophistication about this paper. There's a perfection about this paper that was not true of any of the other papers that he had turned in in this class. And I put it through our scrubbing software, and I immediately discovered he has AI-generated this paper. Oh, Deer's right. I prayed about it. What should I do? Listen, if he fails this paper, he fails this class, if he fails this class, he can't take this particular class for another six months. And if he doesn't get this class, he can't graduate. And he already has a ministry he's assigned to. And the day after graduation, he's moving to a ministry assignment. And he just cheated on a paper in which to finish his degree. I could ruin his life. So I called him in. I said, I've read your paper and I have some concerns about your paper. And he hung his head. At that moment I knew he had cheated on his paper. And I said, I recognize the predicament that you're in. And I said, you deserve a zero. And if you get a zero, you're failing this class. And if you fail this class, you're not walking in graduation. And if you don't walk in graduation, I don't know when you're gonna be able to take this class. Not to mention, you're gonna have to pay for it the second time. And he said, Brother Cox, all I can ask for is mercy. It was 12 o'clock. I said, do you work tonight? He said, no sir. I said, by midnight. If you don't have that paper due to me, I have no choice. I'll get on it. I don't know what time it was, maybe 1130. I get this paper, and it wasn't as good as the first paper, but it was better because it was his own work. Can I get an amen? You know what, guys? I was so proud of myself for being merciful. But you know what? I'm not always merciful. But I'm preaching about a God today who always delights in mercy. The Bible says that the Lord is not slack concerning his promise. As some men count slackness, he is long suffering to us. We're not willing that any would perish, but that all should come True repentance. You see, with God, mercy is not a one-time thing. Mercy is not a one-off thing. It's not a surprise, not a shock to the system. His mercy is everlasting. It is new. It is fresh. It is overflowing. We are here today because of the mercy of our great God. May I say about this God, He has mercy that is free. We, listen, we may force God to punish us, but we could never force God to love us. And can I say to you today, and I'll say something fairly strong, but if you die without Christ and choose to go to a place called hell, you will do so in violation of God's justice and love for you. He delights in mercy, the Bible says. He wants you to be saved. You will force the hand of God, but He offers mercy today. This is God's default setting. He delights in mercy. His mercy is free. It's free. The Bible says we're justified by grace and made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. It is a free grace. And I say number two, it is an overflowing mercy. Moreover, the law entered, Romans 5, 12, the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Someone said, where sin did flow, grace overflowed its banks. Richard Sibbes says, there's more mercy in Jesus than sin in me. Don't ever forget that. There's more mercy in Jesus than sin in me. You say, Pastor, you don't know who I am. You don't know what I've done. You don't know what I'm guilty of. I don't need to know who you are. I don't need to know what you've done because I know Him. And I know where sin abounds in someone's life, grace is always greater than the amount of sin in our lives. It's an overflowing mercy. It's a free mercy. May I say number three? It's a forever mercy. 1 Chronicles 16, 34, O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. Psalm 103, verse 17, but the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his righteousness unto children's children. God's person is on display. Number two, may I notice with you this morning, God's pardon here is on display. Now watch. The people have just broken his law. Moses is so angry that during The covenant ceremony, he's holding the Ten Commandments in his hands that are the laws, the regulations of this covenant. Moses is so mad that they violated the covenant that he breaks the stones in pieces because he believes that because they have sinned that God will renege on his promises. He breaks the stone in pieces. And if you'll read chapter 34, God basically says to Moses, I'm not going up to Canaan with you and you're not my people. Whoa. Whoa. We're not your people, but we're still going to Canaan land. And then Moses says, and I want you to hear the message tonight. Moses says, no, no, no. If you're not going with us, don't take me with the people because I don't want to be anywhere in my life where you're not. Can I say that again? I don't want to be involved in anything in my life that God's not a part of. And if God's grace doesn't take us up, then I don't want to go with the people. And Moses begins to intercede for them. Give us a sign that you're still with us. And the sign that God is still with the people comes in this 34th chapter. He says, Hew out two more stones and bring them up to the mountain with me, and I'll give you the law again. Now watch. Have your kids ever violated a rule? Now come on, they'd say amen if I was picking on you. How many of you have kids that have violated your rules? Come on, help me. We should be having a revival in here right now. How many of you had kids that violated the rules? Alright, so give it to them again. Oh, you're going to break the rule, are you? Fine, I'm going to make it harder next time. Isn't that what we would do? Well, if the five foot fence is not tall enough for you, I'll put an eight fence up around the yard. And Moses brings those two tablets before God, thinking to himself, surely God is going to throw the book at the people. Surely God is going to raise the level of righteousness. Surely God now is extremely angry with the people. And what will this second draft of this covenant look like? And you know what it looks like? It looks like the same one that God gave the first time. And the reason it has to be the same is this. Number one, it has to be the same because the law is a reflection of God's person and God's person had not changed. What are the Ten Commandments? They are a reflection of the holiness and purity of God. And you can't change who God is because of your sin. But the second reason I believe that God gives him the law in the same way is because God is providing them reassurance of his mercy. And what better time to remind them of his nature than now, at the moment of their greatest sin, comes the greatest picture of God's mercy. I want us to sit with that for just a moment. At the place of their greatest sin comes the greatest picture of God's mercy. Now, I illustrated through my story about my student, I'm often not like God and his mercy is far beyond my comprehension. How God can be merciful is a miracle only known to God. I don't know how, listen, I don't know how God could remain merciful with the United States of America. I don't want to get off track too much here, but just suffice it to say America has told God He's not very wanted in our daily lives. We've turned God's natural order. We've redefined God's terms. Someone running to sit upon the Supreme Court was asked what a woman is, and she said, I don't know. I'm not a biologist. Well, you have eyes. God gave us a thing called marriage. We redefined that. He gave us a concept called love. That's a direct reflection of his person. We've perverted that. But what better time than when you're sitting in your own mire of sin that God comes to you and says to you, I want to show you who I really am. And ladies and gentlemen, and Scott said it in the video and I really appreciated how he said it. If you fear God because you think God has thunderbolts of wrath and he's just waiting to zap you when you disobey him, you don't know our God. If you think this God is some cantankerous old man with a beard that drags the ground, carrying around the weight of the world upon his shoulders and is just going to take out all of his frustration regarding all the sins of all his kids on you when you as a child make a mistake, then you don't know my God. My God's not sipping on Maalox, hitting tums, wondering what He's going to do with this world that's so out of control. Listen, this world is not spinning out of control. This world is spinning in the merciful hands of our great God. I read the story one time of a man who was having some psychological problems and he booked two different reservations. He booked one with two different counselors. He went to one counselor and he took him across the street to an art museum where there was a picture of Atlas. And Atlas, as you know, he lays over and he's got the whole world on his shoulders. He said, you feel like that? He said, I do. Got the whole world on my shoulders. Then he went to the other appointment. The counselor took him across to the children's hospital. Before he went to the hospital, there was a statue of Jesus, and in the hands of Jesus, he was holding the world in his hands. Hey, listen guys, our God's not like Atlas, carrying the weight of this world on his shoulders. This world is like a blueberry, just rotating in the hands of our great God. And when you think your life is spinning out of control, You are merely spinning in the hands of a merciful potter's hands who can take the broken pieces of your desperate life and make you what he wants you to be. Listen, he just picks up the pieces of our lives and creates out of us what he wants us to be. This is the image of our great God. God's pardon on display. Why does God forgive these people? Because he loves them. Why does God forgive these people? Because he has a plan for them. Why does God forgive these people? And listen, I'm trying to land the plane. Do you know why God forgives these people? He forgives these people because he wants them in a world of the merciless. To be reflections of his mercy in their daily lives. Let me show this to you. Go to Exodus chapter 20. Somebody can yell it at me. What does he give them in chapter 20 of Exodus? He gives them the what? He gives them the Ten Commandments. I wish you'd take time and mark those in your Bible. Now, what's interesting to me is God gives them the perfect standard of righteousness in chapter 20. And when you get to chapter 21 and you get to chapter 22, the first thing God begins to describe after he gives the people the law is he gives them regulations how they are to be merciful to each other. This is fascinating to me. Before the pattern of the tabernacle, before he describes a sin offering, the peace offering, the drink offering, the offering on the day of atonement, before he describes any of this sacrificial system, Before he tells them about the furniture and the tabernacle, before he talks about the brazen altar and the brazen laver, and the table of showbread, and the candlestick, and the altar of incense, and the veil, and the holy of holies, and all the Indiana Jones things. Before God describes all of those things to His people, He says to a people who have just experienced mercy, I want you to preeminently think about being merciful to other people. Now why does that matter? It matters for this reason. It matters because those who have experienced the marvelous, matchless, infinite, gracious, powerful, overflowing, free, forever mercy of God should be the most merciful people that walk the streets of Englewood, Florida. people that rise up in the morning and know that God has not laid our sins on our account, but has put our sins on the shoulders of Jesus. Those people are to be the most merciful people in the state of Florida. But have you ever crossed a Christian? Have you ever crossed a Christian who forgot about the mercy of God. You know what I've seen? I've seen people guilty of one sin that knew they were forgiven by God of that sin, bully other sinners guilty of the same thing. And what does our God think? I want you to go to Matthew chapter 18 very quickly. Matthew chapter 18. And verse 23. Just going to read the story and I'm going to seek to do so without explanation because Jesus tells a really great story. The only detail I'll give you before I read the story is that the first debtor was, if you extrapolate out through currency exchanges and inflation, he had a debt of several million dollars. And the second currency that you read about in the story is probably worth about 25 bucks. That's the only explanation I'm going to give you and then I'm going to read the story. Verse 23, therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him which owed him 10,000 talents. But for as much as he had not to pay, his Lord commanded him to be sold and his wife, children and all that he had and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down and worshipped him saying, Lord have patience with me and I will pay thee all. The Lord of that servant was moved with compassion and loosed him and forgave him the debt. But the same servant went out, found one of his fellow servants which owed him 100 pence He laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. His fellow servant fell down at his feet and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he would not but went and cast him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were very sorry and came and told unto their Lord all that was done. His Lord, after he had called him and said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desirest me. Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I have pity on thee? And his Lord was wroth and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother there. trespasses. And I ask you this question, in regards to the debt of sin forgiven you freely by Jesus himself, what should our response be to our debtors? We should forgive as we have been forgiven. We should set free as we have been set free. I've not been married as long as many of you have been married, but I'm grateful that I'm married to a very good forgiver. Part of maintaining a healthy marriage is being able to forgive. And I'm sure sometimes I've just really done the dumb thing. And I know exactly what transacted between her and God. She said to God, you've forgiven me. And I'm going to forgive him for your sake, not mine. Years ago, I saw the devil in a man's eyes. I saw the devil in his eyes. I shudder every time I tell this story, but I'm going to tell it anyway, because I think you need to hear it. My wife sometimes will see this crazy thing, just a crazy thing. You ever see something crazy? Do you ever see something you wish you'd never seen? How about if you bring someone into your misery? I'll say, I don't want to see that. She goes, if I had to see it, you have to see it too. But I don't want to see it. Well, I saw it. No, you have to join me in my misery. I had forgotten to bring this man up to sing in the service. I just forgot. He didn't sing a lot, and I was focused on preaching. I forgot to have him come sing, and he was angry. He was very, very angry. So angry that he cursed me after the service, which gave me reason to believe he should not have sung that day. Just to go on the record, if you're going to curse the preacher out, you probably shouldn't bring special music in the local church. Can I get an amen on that one? Okay. So he came by the office and he was still very angry. He said, I don't really like preachers. He said, my wife had stage four cancer and I asked that preacher to come and he didn't come. I asked him again to come and he came the day after she died. And I said to him, you should have been here. Preacher said, I'm so sorry. I wish I could have come. He said, no. He said, I'm going to pray that your wife gets cancer. And you're not there when she dies like you weren't there when my wife died. And then he says the unpardonable thing. And God answered my prayer. Whoa. Whoa. Listen. If you're going to go around telling the world that you've been forgiven, you can't go around the world not being one that forgives. You know what I want to do today? I just want to get on my knees and just thank God for his mercy in my life. I'd throw as many stones at you as I could, but there's a problem. Got a lot of sin in my life. Mercy. Scott, I'm so glad his name is Merciful. You know what? I was thinking about that testimony. I thought about everything God did. in the world by just giving mercy to one guy. He had his Better Man hat sitting on the table. I thought about all the guys that have been helped in Better Man and I thought, I wonder where those guys would be had God not been merciful to Scott. I thought about my life and where I'd be without the mercy and grace of God. Listen, I've given up with Moses, assuming that God would let me see his face, and I don't need to see God's face. I'll see his face someday. You know what I have seen? I've seen his glory pass by in the form of mercy, and I've seen the glory of God. And you have as well. Let's rejoice today. Let's be grateful today. Let's be merciful today. And let's pray for that one here this morning who's never fully embraced the mercy of this great God. Let's all make our prayer. I want to ask our personal workers to come this morning and be ready to maybe assist those who'd like to come. And I want to just invite you to come to Jesus this morning. He alone is merciful. He is so merciful. And you need him in your life. He's speaking to you. He's drawing you to himself. You know you need this mercy. You cry out in your soul. God, give me mercy. Is there one person here this morning that would say, Pastor Cox, I need this mercy that you're preaching about this morning. I recognize that I'm a sinner, and I recognize I need forgiveness. I need God in my life. And if someone would show me this morning about this mercy, I'd talk to them. I'd let them open a Bible and show me compassionately and patiently what it means to be a Christian. I need this mercy in my life. Is there one here this morning, you lift your hand, you say, Pastor Cox, I need that mercy in my life, and I wish you'd pray for me. Would you lift your hand just high enough I can see it? I need this mercy in my life. I'm scanning left to right. No one's looking around, but I do want to pray for you. I need this mercy in my life. Is there one person here today who said, Pastor, I need that mercy and grace found only in Jesus? I want to include you in my prayer. Maybe you didn't raise your hand, but you say, I'm not quite comfortable coming forward. And I can understand some of that. Would you do me a favor? I'll be in the back hallway with my wife, maybe if you're a man or a lady, and I'll be in the back. And at the end of the service this morning, you say, I didn't come forward this morning, but I'd like to talk to you about this mercy found in God. After service today, I'll look for you and I want to pray with you, encourage you. Are there any of us as Christians today that just would say, Pastor, it's been a long time since I sat with the reality of the mercy God shared with me. And I just want to rejoice for a few moments this morning in the mercy of God. Would you lift your hand? You say, that's me. I, I just want to just rejoice in God for a few moments this morning for the mercy I found in Jesus. God bless you. We just, where you're seated or down here in this old fashioned altar, you just say, God, Can I thank you for mercy and can I confess the fact that I've forgotten just how merciful you are? Just make your prayer to God. Just worship him in the quiet of this moment this morning. God, we just want to thank you for giving us the mercy and favor of God. And we praise you. Lord, where would we be without your long-suffering and mercy in our lives? We want to thank you. As you continue praying, I want to ask you this third question. Are there some of us here today that say, man, that story you told at the end about that man praying that prayer, I've not gotten to that level, but Pastor, there's some bitterness in my heart. There's a lack of mercy swelling up in my soul, and if I don't conquer it by God's help, I don't want to be that man, but I've got some bitterness in my heart, some roots growing in my heart. And by God's help, I want to pluck those roots up in my life so that I don't end up being such a poor testimony of a Christian, if a Christian at all. But oh, pastor, please pray for me that God will help me to address some feelings I have in my heart that God would set me free. I want to be set free from those feelings today. You say, pastor, that's me. Would you lift your hand, hold it high? You say, thank you so much. I see your hand in the back all across the building. How wonderful that is. Can we just get real with God? Sit with his mercy and rejoice in his mercy and extend his loving favor and mercy to others. Father, thank you for speaking to us. Thank you for visiting in the presence of your people at Calvary today. Thank you for what you're doing in our hearts at this moment. Thank you for your mercy and grace. We ask you, Father, to help us, Lord, to just sit in that place. Remembering where we were when you found us and where you brought us from and where we are today. And we glorify you in Jesus name.