2 John and verse 3 says, Grace be with you, mercy and peace from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and in love. We're looking at the subject of mercy this evening, mercy. Mercy is a word that's in the natural condition, it's foreign. It's not a word that is easily understood among men. Mercy is the goodness or kindness, goodwill, and compassion toward the miserable and afflicted. So having a goodness or a kindness toward those who are in a place of strength, they're in a place of need, They're miserable, literally miserable, literally afflicted. But mercy is also joined or coupled with a desire to help them. So we can have pity toward one another and that not be mercy. Mercy has a desire to help, not just to acknowledge an affliction, but a desire to help. You think about the mercy as it applies from God to men. God's goodness or kindness, His compassion towards the miserable and afflicted sinner, that's joined with His desire to help them, and His desire to help them is in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Always has been, always will be. The general providence of God, His mercy and pardon in providing salvation from the offense for the offender of their sins in the substitution of Jesus Christ, mercy. Mercy and grace, in other words, grace is giving somebody something they don't deserve, and mercy is not giving them what they do deserve. You see that? In the substitution, it's necessary that the Lord show mercy. It's necessary. And because Christ is dying for the ungodly in his own body, he bore our sins. Then by necessity, compassion toward the offender, the afflicted, and the miserable would come in the mercies of God, according to his mercies, and not just help them, but save them. Not just help them, but deliver them. And sin cannot and will not go unpunished, you see. So God would cease to be holy and just if he could deliver mercy and not bring judgment. So mercy then comes at the expense of Jesus Christ. It has to. Mercy is an act of substitution, okay? If you look at mercy, and as we read, if you read in 1 John chapter four, verse nine, in this was manifested the love of God toward us because that God sent his only begotten son into the world, that we might live through him. Here in his love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. The word is mercy. Here it is love, he says. Beloved, if God so loved us, if God, for Christ's sake, can show mercy towards sinners, then men, for Christ's sake, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. And love is evidence in the forgiveness of sins, mercy. Of men toward men, it's the exercise of mercy through being merciful, bringing relief to the afflicted. If we're to truly be merciful, we would bring relief to the afflicted. Mercy. He says, grace be with you, mercy and peace from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father in truth and in love. So we're following a similar outline, a similar pattern as we did the last week concerning grace. He says mercy be with them because those commas and the and, We can interchange the word and just say mercy from God the Father and from mercy be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father in truth and in love. You see how we can handle the words grace, mercy, and peace because they're additive, but also if you take the others out, we could use just one word and still have a complete sentence. So mercy be with, mercy be with, and that is a perpetual state of being. Mercy. Mercy is with the child of God, and God being eternal, God has always been merciful. In his mind, he has always been merciful to his people. He didn't change himself in any way to be merciful to me on September 8th, 2001. But mercy was with me, and I was knowledgeable to the mercy of God on that day, on that afternoon in September. So mercy, in the instance of salvation, God's compassion toward the miserable, toward the afflicted, and his desire to help me was evidenced to me and in me and with me in that instant of salvation. Mercy. Mercy was known. Mercy was evident. Mercy was with. So in the instance of salvation, every child of God has an understanding of mercy. Every child of God, in their own way, just as that man in Luke chapter 18 cries out, my God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Show toward this pitiful, miserable, wretch, compassion. Do not give me, I beg by the gospel of Jesus Christ, do not give me what I deserve, but rather help me in his gospel. Mercy. is with the child of God, knowledgeable to the child of God, an instance of salvation. But mercy does not leave the child of God, though we're sinners and mercy sometimes becomes a fog and a haze to us. but mercy continues with, it says mercy be with or continue with, mercy with and the knowledge and the love of the truth because of salvation, the children of God will have mercy as their companion throughout their entire existence in this life. Forgive as forgiven. When we pray that sample prayer from Matthew, and we'll look at it again in a moment, but when you pray that sample prayer Forgive my debt as I forgive my debtors. Do we really want that? Forgiveness, mercy, showing compassion toward the miserable. And also mercy be with, not just at salvation and not through simply this life, but mercy will continue to be with the child of God eternally because of the love and grace and eternal salvation. eternally secure in Jesus Christ. Because mercy granted by God is eternal in that it is granted by the eternal God who never changes. Mercy will never be withdrawn from the child of God. Forever, forever God Almighty shall see me a wretch, miserable, afflicted in my own sin and my own nature. He will behold me forever as his own son. A child, tell me that's not mercy. Mercy, the mercy of God never fails. Lots of things can fail, but God doesn't fail, and he doesn't fail in his attributes in particular. He will not fail. So as John, the writer, hears writing to this elect lady, we can receive these things concerning mercy, that mercy should be with. In salvation, mercy will be with. You cannot be saved apart from the mercies of God. and mercy will continue to be with. Mercy will have an impact on the lives of the children of God. Those that have been forgiven and according to the mercies of God in his sight shall live lives of mercies. And that mercy that's known and is with shall continue forevermore. There'll never be a time when the mercy of God fails God's people. God would have to fail for God's mercy to fail. God would have to fail for his compassion toward those he helped in the gospel of Jesus Christ for them to fail. And surely God shall never fail. Mercy, he says, be with you. Notice that, mercy. He says grace, but again, we're supplying the word mercy there in grace. We're interchanging it for this study. I'm not attempting to rewrite the word of God, but you see again, commas have meaning, and we can say mercy be with you. That's right, brother. Mercy be with you. So it's one thing for us to say, yes, God is merciful. But for us to say that God is merciful to me and God is merciful to you, well, now that means something. We can grab that. Because mercy, just as much as grace is particular, there is particular mercy. In that there's particular mercy. Every single person by the fall deserves, because of their miserable and afflicted state in the sin nature, deserves the wrath of God and would be there eternally, except by the compassion of God, He helped them in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ died for a particular people. He prayed that in John chapter 17. I pray not for the world, but for those that you gave me. A particular mercy. Mercy is shown in a particular way. Again, in the instance of salvation, that particular mercy was known. But also as we live our lives, that particular mercy becomes a purposeful and practical mercy. You think of John the Baptist there, as he walked in Judea, he had experienced a personal, particular mercy, didn't he? He was called of God, and he was called of God to a work, but as a sinner, he was saved from his sins, and he knew that. In a particular way, he knew that. But the particularness of the mercy that he received also had an application in his life. What was that application? That he preached mercy through the repentance of sins and belief on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's one of the most evident ways, one of the most practical ways that someone can show that they have received mercy. is they desire mercy for others. I can't make God, nor should I think that I could make God show mercy. I know God will show mercy according to his purpose. But having a merciful heart, every child of God should desire that mercy, according to the election of grace, that mercy would be bestowed upon the miserable and afflicted. So if we were not to have a public ministry, it'd be one of two reasons why. Either we don't think people truly are that miserable and that afflicted, three really, or that God would not show compassion or that he is not able to help them. But no believing that people truly are miserable and are in need and that God truly does have compassion in saving his people. Children of God, we ought to have purposeful and practical evidence of mercy in our lives. And yes, towards sinners, toward the lost, but also toward one another. We're to have a purposeful and practical mercy. Again, reading in 1 John 4 11, beloved, if God so loved us, if God for Christ's sake loves me, I for Christ's sake should love those that God loves. First chapter five, verse one. Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone that loveth him that beget loveth him also that has begotten of him. How is love evidenced? The forgiveness of sins. We read that. We read that in verse 10. Hearing his love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins. Show mercy. Mercy also has a preserving element to it. Again, because mercy, Mercy is the compassion shown with a desire to help, and it does, mercy is evident in the life of the child of God of salvation, that new birth, mercy. Mercy also has purpose and it has application in our lives throughout, but also preserves us in that the mercies of God preserve that errant child, that sinner. that in the ages to come, we will be shown the riches of His grace, that His servants shall gather around the throne of God and serve Him. Why? Because He's merciful. He's merciful. Look, if you would, turn the page to Jude. Verse 24, and unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy." You can summarize that verse with the word mercy. The miserable and the afflicted, the falling, he helped with compassion, joining them even to himself to be pleasurable in his own sight. That's mercy. There's a preserving element. Now, my mercy may or may not preserve you very long. You can show mercy, we can show mercies to one another, but God's mercy does preserve. If God has shown mercy, if he truly has been a help to sinners, then that help in the gospel, because the Lord Jesus ever liveth to make intercession for his people as an act of mercy, then that mercy then would be everlasting, preserving mercy. He says, mercy from God the Father, again, kindness or goodwill, compassion toward the miserable and afflicted. Join with the desire to help them. In general providence, the mercy and pardon of God and providing salvation from the offense of their sins and the substitution of Jesus Christ, mercy from God the Father. Please look, if you would, in the book of John, in chapter three. See how that the Father is indeed merciful. John chapter three, verses 16 through 19. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Gave him as what? Gave him as a substitutionary sacrifice. Gave him as a help to the afflicted. Gave him as a token of compassion toward the miserable. That whosoever believeth in him should not perish. Boy, that's a help, to say the least. who not perish but have eternal life, the mercies of God. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned. Condemnation is off the table according to the mercies of God. But he that believeth not is condemned already. Because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. So there is condemnation for some. But condemnation, again, is removed according to the mercies of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is coming to the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. Well, who causes anyone to come out of that darkness to the light? God does, according to his mercy. Romans chapter five. Mercy, mercy. Romans chapter five, verses six through 10. Knowing this, that our old man, excuse me, chapter five, verse six. For when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. Substitution. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man one would even dare to die. That's not miserable and afflicted, good and fine and righteous. No, those people aren't miserable and afflicted. God commended his love toward us that while we were yet sinners, miserable, afflicted, Christ died for us. That's mercy, particular us, not us in general, but particular us. Much more than being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. That is the definition of mercy. Compassion toward the miserable and afflicted, desiring to help them, we should be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. Mercy. Again, God committed His love toward us, the Father. And He said that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. This is mercy from the Father. The Father being the designer, if you will, of eternal mercy, mercy's eternal plan, that He did elect a children, a group, a people in particular that Christ would die for. But it was the will of God the Father that Jesus Christ would show mercy. It was his will, it was his design. In chapter nine, Romans chapter nine and verse 32. Excuse me, chapter eight and verse 32. He that spared none his own son. Who is that? The father. The father, but delivered him up for us all. That substitution. Who delivered him up? The father did. Consider the father's mercy. How shall he not? with Him also give us all things. To relieve, to comfort, to have compassion on the miserable and afflicted and to help them, to relieve them of their eneminess and to store them as children, giving everything. He gave everything. His own Son, He gave. That's mercy. The Father's love. Look at 1 Corinthians, if you would, please. First Corinthians, the Father's mercy. Second Corinthians, rather. Second Corinthians, chapter one, verse one. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother, unto the church of God, which is the Koran, with all the saints which are in Achaia. Grace be with you, and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, the Father of mercies, the Father of compassion toward the miserable and afflicted with a desire to help them, and the God of all comfort, who comforted us in all our tribulation, who did, God the Father, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." So God the Father, again, God the Father having a personal, particular, purposeful mercy toward Paul and Timothy and all those in Achaia. It is not evident in their lives with a practical mercy and they would be, that mercy that they've experienced now spills out into their lives. Mercy from God the Father. Ephesians chapter 2. Mercy from God the Father. Think on it. Mercy from God the Father. Mercy from God the Father. Ephesians chapter 2. And you, heavy quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, We're in a time you walk miserable and afflicted. Look at this. If you can't read this and see how miserable and afflicted you were, then there's a problem. We're in a time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, for the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we had our conversation in times past, and the lust 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 what? Mercy, compassion toward the miserable and afflicted. Could have left us. There's many that he just leaves them alone. He just leaves them alone. They let them do whatever they want, leaves them alone. But God who is rich in mercy for his great love where they loved us, even when we were dead in sins have quickened us together with Christ. By grace are you saved, rich in mercy. and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, for that his desire to help is effectual in the gospel, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are you 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. Mercy. Mercy. Yes, mercy from God the Father. Thank God the Father for His mercies. In our prayers, we often rehearse the mercy and love and grace of God, but think about what those words mean. Mercy from the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, compassion toward the miserable and afflicted. with a desire to help them. Yes, the father did send his son and he gave his son to be a propitiation for our sins. Jesus Christ himself had to walk the line, if you will. Mercy from the Lord Jesus Christ. As the elect lady, we read in Ephesians chapter two, look at Ephesians chapter one, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints were to Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. So in particular, Jesus Christ showed mercy to the elect lady there in 2 John. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Now go back to chapter two where we had just finished reading. Look at this, Ephesians chapter two. Mercy from the Lord Jesus Christ to a local particular body. Wherefore remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called circumcision in the flesh made by hands. Read verse 12 and don't see, try to miss the mercy of Jesus Christ here. And in time past you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. That's miserable and afflicted. But now in Christ Jesus, ye who were sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. How merciful Jesus Christ is in his sufferings toward his people. And in particular, how mercy, how merciful Jesus Christ is to those who are of the elect lady, and that's not in a universal sense. You know me better than that. In a local, authoritative, chain-link succession sense, Christ Jesus showed himself as merciful. In 1 Corinthians chapter 12, you think of the mercy. Just be in here. Think of all the people who say that they're children of God and yet look around. How merciful it is that Jesus Christ put you in his assembly. First Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 18. But now have God set the members, every one of them, in the body as it hath pleased him. Now you can get mad and upset at people being here and not being here and all that kind of stuff, but deep down, thank God for his mercies putting you in the assembly of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank God for that. And I believe it's Jesus Christ, according to His purpose, that it's, we don't say it's the body of the Father because God is a spirit. It's the body of Christ, isn't it? It's His mercies. It's a tremendous mercy to be set, literally, physical, and locally set in the Lord's assembly, it is. Please don't ever take that for granted. But also, with the individual membership of that elect lady in 1 John chapter one, under the elder, under the elect lady and her children, Think about the particular mercy that Jesus Christ showed unto his people. Eternal life, mercy. Again, mercy is compassion toward the miserable and afflicted with a desire to help them in a true sense. Think of the mercies of Jesus Christ. Matthew chapter one. Matthew chapter one. Verse 20, Matthew 1, verse 20 says, but while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take thee unto thee, marry thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and I shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. How? How would he bring compassion toward the miserable and afflicted. How would he help us? How could he help us? Is there anyone to help us? How could he help us? Through his own physical substitution for his people at Calvary. Mercy. Mercy. Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which is spoken of the Lord by the prophets saying, behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. God with us. The mercy of deity brings salvation to the miserable. It brings salvation to the sinner, those that were strangers, those that were enemies, those that were afar off, those that had no hope in this present world, Jesus Christ in his mercies saves his people from their sins. In Matthew, turn over, you can see as the account of the Lord Jesus Christ just unfolds toward the ends of his life here, Matthew chapter 27 and verse 45, verse 45. And then about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, that is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why did he do that? Why did he say that? He had taken the affliction of the afflicted. He had taken the misery for the miserable. He had made Himself as though He knew no sin, that He was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He showed mercy. He cried out. Mercy's case there. He cried it out. He suffered that affliction. And in suffering those things, He cried out something that no child of God experiencing the mercy of God will ever cry out. will never experience the abandonment that Jesus Christ experienced because he did show mercy. Mercy from the Lord Jesus Christ. Look in John chapter 19. Mercy. John chapter 19, verse 28. After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. Why did he thirst? Lamentations chapter one, God sent fire into his bones. He said, I thirst. Recall that woman in John four at the well, he that drinks of me will never thirst again. That's mercy. Showing compassion toward the miserable, he gave himself a ransom for his people. He saved his people from their sin. Now there was said a vessel full of vinegar and they filled a sponge with vinegar and put upon it hyssop and put it forth to his mouth. That's no mercy at all. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, it is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. It is finished. Mercy's cry of triumph. It is finished. The miserable and afflicted have the help of Jesus Christ. those that were out of the way. Eternal life mercy. Mercy from the Lord Jesus Christ, mercy from God the Father, mercy that is particular and purposeful and practical, preserving. Mercy, there's a present living mercy, a present living mercy that the children of God that we are to walk in. Turn to the book of Micah, if you would, please. Micah. Brother Gary, we're on page 922 here. Micah chapter six. Micah. Chapter six and verse eight. And so if you need to look at the front of the Bible and find your page, that's fine to do that. Micah chapter six and verse eight. He hath showed the old man what is good. And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? Those are requirements. A child of God having received mercies of God the Father known and the mercy of Jesus Christ and even mercy of the spirit and that he would help and make the dead to live, that he would do it and not as a co-laborer unto the new birth, but do it unto that dead sinner. The children of God, we are to not just be okay with mercy. We're to love mercy, and if we love mercy, that means we would pursue mercy, and if we pursue mercy, that means we would pursue those who are miserable and afflicted with occasion to have compassion on them with a desire to help them. And as I said at the outset, that is contrary to the natural condition of man. It's very much the desire of the natural man to be easily offended. to those who are miserable or distasteful in our eyes, to turn the back on them and to leave them alone. But compassion, compassion, mercy, it is required of us children of God to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God. Notice that last clause though, with thy God. Don't think you're walking with God if you're not loving mercy. Don't think you're walking with God if you're not doing justly. And don't think you're walking with God if you're not walking humbly. Children of God, if you desire to walk with God, these things ought to be pleasant to us, to not just be okay again with mercy, but to love it. Having love to receive it, we also ought to love to demonstrate it in evidence, that love of mercy. May God give us, with our understanding of eternal mercy, a present state of living mercy. Mercy and truth. Consider this. He says in our text, mercy be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Father, in truth and in love. Mercy and truth, truth and mercy. While you're reading the Old Testament, turn to the book of Zechariah, if you would. Zechariah. We'll be looking at a portion out of chapter 7. Zechariah 7, verses 8-10. And the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassion every man to his brother. And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor. And let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart. Against the miserable and afflicted, show compassion, show mercy, desire to help them. But you notice in verse nine, he says, execute true judgment and show mercy and compassion. You cannot separate, in God's command, you cannot separate truth and mercy. True judgment and mercy, it cannot be separated. God Almighty executed true judgment upon Jesus Christ that mercy would be evident, you see. Where there is no truth, there is no mercy. There is no. And where there is no mercy, there is no truth. It doesn't matter how much, quote, truth somebody knows. If mercy is not evidenced, then truth is not really known. If someone has not experienced the mercies of God, It doesn't matter how much truth they have, they want to evidence the mercies of God. Just think about the occasion of the Good Samaritan. These people under the law understood the law, they understood truth, they just had no compassion, did they? No, mercy and truth go hand in hand. Mercy be with you in truth and in love, it says. Mercy is evidenced in truth. Mercy, if you know truth but don't show mercy, you don't really know truth. But truth is evidenced in mercy. Declaring the gospel in sincerity, simplicity, is to desire to proclaim mercy. To live it. To know truth yet to withhold mercy is evidence to no real knowledge of truth. I've known people that they use the word truth, I wanna know truth, I wanna keep being truth, truth, truth, truth. but some of the most unmerciful people you could ever meet. In Matthew chapter six, I mentioned it before, this is part of the Lord's sample prayer. In Matthew chapter six, what if we rehearsed this and meant it? Matthew chapter six and verse 12, And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Show me mercy as I show others mercy. Would you really be confident in asking God of that? I wouldn't. I wouldn't. Show me mercy as I show mercy. What if God showed me mercy like I show mercy? I thank God God's mercy is not like my mercy. But I should desire my mercy to be like his. I shouldn't just stop at that sentence. I should desire to be merciful as God is merciful. But truth and mercy, truth has a merciful effect. OK, if the more I study the word of God and understand the truth of the word of God, if I'm not increasingly becoming merciful, then I'm missing something. The more I understand about God's compassion toward me as a sinner and his help toward me in the gospel of Jesus Christ, I ought to be observably becoming a more merciful person. The truth has a merciful effect in our lives. So when he says, mercy be with you, mercy continue with you, mercy as in the instance of salvation and through your life and throughout all eternity, mercy having a particular and purposeful and practical and preserving element in our lives, the truth of the word of God should be the gasoline on the fire of mercy, if you will. The truth should have a merciful effect on our lives. The more we understand of God, the more merciful we should be. Because God is true, right? God be true in every man a liar. If we understand more about God, who is truth, that should be evident in mercy, ever increasing in our lives. Mercy is also associated with love in the passage here. Look, mercy be with you in truth and in love. We read it, read it again in 1 John chapter four and verse nine. In this was manifested the love of God toward us because that God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. Compassion toward the miserable and afflicted to help them. Hearing his love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. In both of those verses, John is very careful that he does not separate love and mercy, does he? Love and mercy are intertwined there. Pretty neat thing. On the coast, on the western side of the Red Sea, when God sent, He was separating the Red Sea. You know, they've got the chariot wheels and there's evidence in the bottom of the Red Sea, but did you know there's a portion on the bank of the Red Sea where there is a spot where sand is actually melted together? You didn't know that, did you? There's a spot where there's sand that is melted together on the bank of the Red Sea, in the middle of the desert. You have any idea how hot sand has to be to melt? Well, that's, God's Shekinah Glory kind of heat is what that is. Why do I bring that up? Just as much as that sand is melted as an evident token that God parted that sea, love and mercy are melted together in 1 John 4 9-10. Inseparable. You know, once you stir in that Kool-Aid mixed with water, you're not gonna separate that stuff out. It's in there. Now, you could probably centrifuge it, but that might be a bad example. But this is God's love and God's mercy that are inseparable. Mercy and love demand forgiveness of sins. That's what God's love did. That's what God's mercy did. It demanded the forgiveness of sins. And God's compassion toward the miserable and afflicted and his help toward them God's love and God's mercy brought the gospel of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of sins. Read verse 11 now. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. Love and mercy demand forgiveness of sins. If God can forgive sins, if God the Father, for Christ's sake, can forgive sins, then sinners, for Christ's sake, ought to forgive Sins, and love one another, again, inseparable. It doesn't mean that we condone one another's sins, it's not saying that. But forgiveness of sins, mercy, having compassion among the miserable, desiring to help them, not simply exposing them for their sin, but desiring to help them from their sin and through their times of crisis, love. Love and mercy never demand the acceptance of sins. Love and mercy demand God's compassion on sinners of His election with relief of salvation that is guaranteed in that work of the gospel. Now, God has a particular group that Christ died for. Now, we are, as children of God, to have particular mercy on the brotherhood and have a particular love toward the people of God. But God never tells us, particularly in the New Testament, never tells his people, be merciful to those people, but don't be merciful to those people. What's he say? Love your enemies. How do you love your enemies? How did Paul turn around to those people that were carrying him up the staircase and tell him one more time how God had saved him? He evidenced the love of God, compassion, he evidenced mercy. Love your enemies. Mercy and love cannot be separated. They cannot. If one is not merciful, they're not loving. If one is not loving, then true mercy won't be known. There's an occasion in Matthew chapter 18, don't turn there, I'll summarize it for you, where this man, he owed, and he begged, he pleaded with the master, and the master forgave him. And that same man was owed far less by somebody else. And he put his hands on that guy's throat and would not let him up, so the master, you know the account, the master had him bound and had him thrown in the prison. To the tormentors, you would say. This is a man that, having experienced the mercies of God, was not merciful to his brother. Some read that, that he was thrown into outer darkness and that he wasn't saved at all. It's possible to look at it and say, well, this is a person that was a saved person, but because they didn't have true mercy in their heart to forgive others that in this life they were tormented. Both of them may have application where if you're an unsaved person, you haven't experienced mercy, nor you show it, I encourage you to repent and live on the Lord Jesus Christ. As a saved person, though, if you desire, if you feel as though you have experienced the mercies of God and the love of God, but do not express the love and mercy of God toward others, then that can be a very desperate place. It can be a place of mental and spiritual and emotional torment for never experiencing and evidencing true love and true mercy, which should never be separated. Gentlemen of God, don't be unforgiving servants. Mercy be with you. and love. Love has a merciful full effect in our lives. If we've experienced the love and goodwill and compassion of God towards us as miserable and afflicted, terrible, disgusting sinners, and God has helped us in his love and in his mercy, that love should have a merciful effect in our lives. God's love should have a merciful effect in my life. Just as much as truth should have a merciful effect in my life, love should have a merciful effect in my life. I should likewise have compassion on the miserable. Someone has wronged, I should have compassion, try to help them. Is anyone any good at this? I'm not gonna ask if you're great. I'm not gonna ask if you're great. I'm not gonna ask if you have excelled. Is there anyone that cannot improve? Is there anyone that does not desire More mercy toward them. We should all desire more mercy toward ourselves, or an idea of that. Not that God would pour out more mercy, but a better understanding of the mercy he has shown. But also a desire for that mercy to flow through us in truth and in love, according to the mercy of God the Father, and of Jesus Christ his Son. Children of God, thank God for eternal mercy. Thank God for saving mercy. Thank God for particular, present, preserving, and practical mercy. Particular mercy in our salvation, present mercy. Oh, that the practicality of the mercies of God would be alive and well, that others would see us for our love and compassion, our mercy toward one another. Thank God for mercy from God the Father that he gave his only begotten son. Thank God from the mercy of Jesus Christ that in his own body he bore our sins, and he came to save his people from their sins. Thank God for mercy and truth according to the word of God. And thank God for mercy according to the love of God, and he has made us acceptable in the beloved. Thank God for mercy. Mercy be with you from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and in love. Sinner, oh that you would desire, oh that you would crave the mercies of God. People don't crave mercy unless they see their miserable condition, do they? That's kind of the hinge point of craving mercy is you gotta first understand you're stuck. You have to first understand your affliction. I've been in a vehicle before and stuck. I took Lex to his T-ball practice one time. I was in that Lincoln, and I was in what seemed to be quicksand, and every time I hit the gas pedal, I was getting deeper and deeper and deeper. And I tried this, and I went over here and got some big rocks and put them under the thing, and I was trying to rock it, and I did everything. I did everything I thought I could. You know when I cried for help? When I knew I couldn't do anything else. There was no more to be done. I was sunk down to the frame on that car. I was miserable. I needed help. I asked someone for help. I cried out for mercy. Luke chapter 18. Luke chapter 18 and verse 13, and the publican standing afar off would not lift up so much his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me a sinner. I'm miserable. I'm afflicted. I got nowhere to go, and if I got anywhere, I couldn't exist there. I'm nothing. I have nothing. I need help. My God, help me. Help. Without you, I perish. Right. Sinner, do you see yourself in such a case? You won't cry out for help unless you think you need it. One out there on the ocean won't cry, ship ahoy, if they think they're safe at home in their bed. Do you see the peril? Cry out for mercy. You know what's exciting for the sinner in verse three? that there is mercy from God the Father. And there is mercy from the Lord Jesus Christ. And you can depend upon the mercy from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ because God's mercies are true. Mercy and truth are inseparable. And the love of God being true is likewise mercy. God is love. God is merciful. God is true. God is mercy. May the Lord bless the preaching of His Word.