Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Yesterday morning, our men's group met and I had the privilege of meeting with them and had bagels and coffee. And it's a good group of guys to connect with.
[00:00:22] So if some of you brothers are looking for a few better connections in your life, that would be a good place to start. They're good men, they have good attitudes. They want to encourage each other. And if you're looking for a better caliber of friend, that would be a good place to start.
[00:00:44] Our dear Heavenly Father, I pray this morning that your spirit would help us understand the riches of your mercy and grace.
[00:00:56] And then as we understand the riches of your mercy and grace, we could draw upon these strengths and we could be better people ourself.
[00:01:08] And I ask this all in Jesus name, Amen.
[00:01:14] Paul wrote a letter to the church at Ephesus.
[00:01:20] You can visit the ruins of Ephesus now.
[00:01:24] It's on the west side of Turkey.
[00:01:31] There was a great harbor there and it silted in and the city died. And now all that's left is the stone ruins.
[00:01:44] And Paul wrote them a letter.
[00:01:48] And in that letter he talked to them about the riches of God's mercy.
[00:01:57] It's hard to relate how countercultural that was in the Roman world.
[00:02:09] In the Roman world, mercy was not a virtue.
[00:02:14] In the Roman culture, mercy was seen as something that only the fearful do, and that the really strong people, they did just the opposite.
[00:02:29] They showed no mercy and they took revenge.
[00:02:33] So in a culture that despised mercy, the Apostle Paul said, one of the most incredible attributes of God is that he is rich in mercy.
[00:02:51] Why would he do that?
[00:02:54] There's a very simple answer.
[00:02:57] Because God doesn't mold himself to the trends of any culture.
[00:03:06] If a culture doesn't appreciate mercy, it doesn't mean God stops being merciful.
[00:03:14] If a group of people don't respect mercy, it doesn't mean God stops being merciful.
[00:03:23] God is eternally who he is, and he doesn't need our permission and he doesn't need our approval.
[00:03:32] And so Paul says to this heartless Roman world, God, the real God, the living God, is a being who is rich in mercy.
[00:03:49] And Paul said, if you can understand that, you're going to escape some of the tragic pain of living in the world we live in.
[00:04:03] This is how he got started.
[00:04:05] He said, you were dead in trespasses and sin in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
[00:04:42] Paul starts out by saying, let me explain to you why life can be so hurtful.
[00:04:50] Let me explain to you why there are so many unavoidable pains in life.
[00:04:56] Everybody in this room has experienced hurtful moments.
[00:05:03] You've been hurt by people around you. You've been disappointed by people around you. Things haven't worked out the way you wanted them to.
[00:05:12] You've suffered with ailments.
[00:05:16] Why is life, if God is rich in mercy, why can life be so painful?
[00:05:24] And so Paul tries to explain it to us. The first thing he says is the first reason life is so painful is because sin kills what is best in us.
[00:05:36] You being dead in trespasses and sin.
[00:05:41] Sin kills what is best in you, and it kills what is best in the people around you.
[00:05:50] So as sin goes up, what is best about us goes down.
[00:05:56] And as what is best goes down about us, what is hurtful in life goes up.
[00:06:03] Are you following Paul's thinking?
[00:06:05] Why is life so painful? Because sin kills the best part of who you are. It kills the best things in relationships. It kills the best things in communities.
[00:06:18] And as we kill what is best in us, what is worst in us rises to the top.
[00:06:26] And that is a source of great deal of pain and hurt in the world.
[00:06:33] He said life is painful because we follow bad examples.
[00:06:39] Listen what he says.
[00:06:42] You used to live a lifestyle according to the course of the world, following the Prince of the Power of the Air.
[00:06:51] Life is hurtful because we follow bad examples.
[00:06:56] If you pay attention to what our culture shows a lot of respect for, it's really not very respectful.
[00:07:06] We honor trends that are just terrible. Ah.
[00:07:11] We create cultural norms in our cities that make them unlivable.
[00:07:19] And Paul says another reason there's a lot of pain in the world is because we follow bad examples. And those bad examples are bound to make things more hurtful.
[00:07:33] And then he pushes everything farther for you who are open to spiritual realities. He says, and the worst example we follow is the Prince of the Power of the Air. That's another name for the unholy one.
[00:07:47] I believe there is a real wicked person out there. I believe there is a real wicked being. I believe he's angry. I believe he's mean. And I believe he's hurtful. And I believe he. He. He likes making humanity miserable.
[00:08:04] And Paul says, when you follow that guy's example, life gets more painful.
[00:08:12] The third thing he says is life is painful because we develop lifestyles around our wrong passions.
[00:08:26] Your life is moving in the direction of your strongest passions.
[00:08:32] We, if we develop a lifestyle around our worst passions, it's going to be painful for us and it's going to be painful for others around us.
[00:08:46] I've stood in this very place and done dozens of funerals for people who built their lifestyle around in an addiction and it finally caught up with them. And I've, I've, I've stood here and I've looked in the faces of parents who were crushed losing a child they could not bear to lose because the child built a lifestyle around an addiction.
[00:09:19] That's what Paul is saying. We bringing a great deal of pain into the world because we build a lifestyle around desires that are not healthy.
[00:09:30] I've seen, I've had, I've had people in my office whose lives are just crushed, absolutely crushed because one partner or the other was building a lifestyle around infidelity and the pain that it created and the sorrow that it created. It was, it's insufferable.
[00:09:57] And Paul says if you create a lifestyle around wrong desires, you're going to make your life more painful and you're going to make the life of other people around you more painful.
[00:10:10] And then he said, ah, ah. Doing the desires of our flesh and our mind. When we think poorly and act poorly, we also create more pain in the world.
[00:10:25] We have to be, we have to discipline ourselves about how we let ourselves think about other people. Do you understand that there are some thoughts you just should never let yourself think about other people?
[00:10:41] And I want to start in the family.
[00:10:44] Your spouse deserves the benefit of the doubt. Can you hear this on every occasion in your thinking? Your spouse deserves the benefit of the doubt. You can't ever let yourself think ugly thoughts about your spouse without checking yourself and saying, if I think this way about my spouse, what is it going to lead to?
[00:11:12] If I think this way about my spouse, will it lead to greater happiness in our home or will agree lead to greater misery in our home?
[00:11:22] If I think this way about my siblings or if I think this way about my children, will it lead to more joy in their life or will it lead to more pain in their life?
[00:11:35] Paul's saying to us, there is a great deal of hurt in the world because we permit ourselves to think poorly about others when we shouldn't.
[00:11:50] And then he says, there's a great deal of pain in the world because we are by nature the children of wrath.
[00:12:02] Paul's saying the human race is innately angry, violent and inhumane.
[00:12:10] I don't have to prove to you that the human race is innately angry. All you have to do is live in the world for one week and you're going to get plenty of examples that the angry people are all over out there. They are all over out there and it leads to greater sorrow.
[00:12:29] I don't have to prove to you that the human race is violent. Just watch one evening of news.
[00:12:38] We're violent in. We're violent in the way we fight wars. We're violent in the way we live in cities.
[00:12:46] Violence has invaded our schools. Paul says there is a great deal of pain in the world, not because God isn't merciful, but because we permit ourselves to be angry and inhumane.
[00:13:05] Now, he says, you understand partially why the world is so painful.
[00:13:10] Now maybe you're ready to think about the value of the riches of the mercy of God.
[00:13:20] Maybe understanding that the world is painful not because of what God does or doesn't do, but because of what we do and don't do.
[00:13:30] And if we could draw on the riches of his mercy, it would make us different. And if we were different, we would be treating other people differently. And the sorrow and the pain and some of the suffering in the world would go down.
[00:13:48] So in this painful world, Paul says God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace. You have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in heavenly places.
[00:14:17] When Paul says the word mercy, what is he thinking about in his head? What does he associate with the idea of mercy?
[00:14:26] When you hear the word mercy, is it one of those words you've heard your whole life, but you'd have a real hard time writing a good definition? For what exactly do we mean by the word mercy?
[00:14:39] How about this?
[00:14:40] Mercy is compassionate treatment of those in distress, especially when it is within your power to punish or harm them.
[00:14:54] Let's do it again. What is mercy? Mercy is showing kindness, compassion to people when they're in a state of misery, especially when you have the ability to hurt them more or punish them more.
[00:15:12] You see what he's saying? Mercy is the antidote to the hurtful world.
[00:15:24] If the culture takes the moment to add on more pain, those who are rich in mercy take the moment to say, I'm going to lessen the pain of this person. Maybe it is my right to yell at them. Maybe it is my right to be angry with Them. Maybe it is my right to ignore them, but I'm going to do just the opposite. I'm going to show them compassion, believing that the outcome of my compassion will be better than the outcome of me getting evil or me having my way or me getting to tell them a thing or two. Are you hearing me, Church?
[00:16:10] The word comes from medieval Latin and literally meant in Latin to pay a price.
[00:16:18] When you. When God shows mercy to me, he pays the price to show me mercy. I deserve worse than what I get, but he pays the price and shows me mercy. When you show mercy to someone, you pay the price. Do you get it?
[00:16:41] You think you have the right to say something. You think you have the right to get even.
[00:16:47] But in that moment, you pay the price and say, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna exercise that kind of thinking.
[00:16:57] I will accept that this person did wrong and let it go. I'm gonna show mercy.
[00:17:03] Are you hearing me, Church? You have the right to say this person deserves this or that.
[00:17:12] You have it within your realm, your power to do something that's painful to them, to get even with them. But instead of doing that, you draw on something more noble, a godlike character, and you say, I'm showing mercy.
[00:17:31] I'm showing mercy.
[00:17:34] I'm not going to extract the full penalty, the full punishment.
[00:17:41] I read Rick Warren's Seven Characteristics of Mercy this week, and I'm going to share them with you.
[00:17:49] Mercy means being patient with people's quirks.
[00:17:53] Do you work with quirky people?
[00:18:01] Well, be gentle on us, would you, please?
[00:18:08] Mercy is as simple as being patient with obnoxious people like me. I mean, come on, we gotta have a little breathing space here. All right? The second thing he says is, mercy means helping anyone around you who is hurting.
[00:18:34] Anybody you come in contact who is hurting. If you help them, you're acting in mercy.
[00:18:41] Mercy means giving people a second chance.
[00:18:46] Ooh, that's hard for some of you, isn't it? That is very hard for some of you.
[00:18:56] You got strict rules about second chances, and God help you if you have to give them a third chance.
[00:19:05] Mercy means. Mercy means I'm going to lower the pain in the world by giving people a second chance.
[00:19:15] Mercy means doing good to those who hurt you.
[00:19:20] Now, we're starting to push it, aren't we?
[00:19:23] But do you see how that connects with what mercy really means? They hurt you, and it is within your realm of justice to do something back to them. But instead, you show them mercy.
[00:19:41] Mercy is being kind to those who offend you.
[00:19:46] Boy, some of you couldn't bring yourself to do that during the elections, could you? You read something that somebody wrote that you didn't like and you were red of tooth and claw.
[00:20:00] Church, we ought not to be that kind of people. It's just politics.
[00:20:06] You're going to lose the friendship of your friend over a politics.
[00:20:13] You're going to lose.
[00:20:15] You're going to rip the love out of your family over a political candidate you don't know you've never met and probably never will meet. They're not worth love of your family.
[00:20:28] We have to be merciful. We have to soften a little bit.
[00:20:34] We got to lower the pain in the world by saying that offended me, but I love you more than I'm offended.
[00:20:50] I'm not saying you can't say what you said didn't hurt your feelings. I'm not asking you to do that. I'm saying you can say it hurts your feelings, but you don't have to hurt their feelings back in return.
[00:21:05] I've heard some horrible stories about families who are disowning each other over the stupidity of an election.
[00:21:16] Church. What kind of pain does that introduce in the world? What happens with kids and grandkids and great grandkids.
[00:21:25] All right. Mercy says if you offend me, I don't have to offend you back. I'm going to show you kindness.
[00:21:34] Church.
[00:21:37] Mercy means building bridges of love to the unpopular.
[00:21:44] And finally, I like this one the best. Number seven. Mercy means valuing relationships over rules.
[00:21:54] What's more important to you, the relationship or the rule?
[00:21:58] Ah, parents. Can I speak to a minute?
[00:22:03] I'm going to tell you.
[00:22:06] Rules come and go.
[00:22:09] Rules come and go. The rules you have for your kids when they're three are very different than when they're 13 and very different than when they're 18.
[00:22:20] Rules come and go, but those kids are always your kids.
[00:22:27] Don't ever put your family rules over your family relationships.
[00:22:34] They're going to change anyway. I promise you. Your family rules will change anyway. They have to. But those kids are always your kids.
[00:22:44] All right, I'm not saying don't have any family rules.
[00:22:50] I'm saying don't put the rules over the kids.
[00:23:01] All right, I'm gonna let it go, but please trust me.
[00:23:06] All right, now listen to what he says.
[00:23:11] Paul says we've created a hurtful world and part of the reason the world is so hurtful is we don't live by the right examples and we're not treating the people around us the way we should. Treat them. But God has a solution for that. And his solution is he is rich in mercy toward us. And he actually teaches us how to treat other people merciful by treating us mercifully.
[00:23:40] So God is rich in mercy, first of all, because he loves us. The greatest motive for being merciful is love.
[00:23:50] The more you love someone, the easier it is to show them mercy.
[00:23:55] The more you disdain someone, the harder it is to show them mercy. Can you hear this?
[00:24:03] God says it's easy for him to show us mercy because he loves us so much.
[00:24:10] And now he says, start looking around at the people in your life and ask yourself, don't I honestly love this person enough to show them some mercy?
[00:24:25] Isn't my love strong enough to overcome this moment and show mercy?
[00:24:33] Don't I love this child more than I love our rules?
[00:24:38] Don't I love my spouse enough to show mercy? When they say something to me that hurts my feelings?
[00:24:47] As you tap into your love for others, it will be easier for you to show mercy. As you steal your heart and refuse to be softened by love, it becomes harder and harder to show mercy.
[00:25:07] God's mercy makes us alive with Christ.
[00:25:11] Being dead in sin, being dead in trespasses.
[00:25:18] He made us alive together in Christ Jesus. There's something about the mercy of Christ that He shares with me that makes my inner life different.
[00:25:30] My inner self is different because it is experiencing the mercy of God. All right, now some of you grew up in harsh churches, and I need to remind you that God is more merciful than he is harsh.
[00:25:49] You were instructed wrong.
[00:25:52] It's not the fear of the Lord that compels us. It is the love of God that compels us.
[00:26:00] The Apostle Paul said, all right, you have to let go of an idea that God is angry because you make mistakes.
[00:26:13] And you have to begin to open your heart to the idea that your mistakes are opportunities for God to show the riches of his mercy. Do you hear this?
[00:26:27] Every time you make a mistake and you start to think God is going to be angry with me and probably gonna get punished in some way, you stop right there and you say, this mistake is an opportunity for God to show his mercy.
[00:26:46] And my expectation is not that God is gonna kick me to the curb. My expectation is that in his great mercy, he's going to forgive me and he's gonna help me become a better person. Church.
[00:27:01] If you can think that way about God and you can start absorbing his mercy in your worst moments, it changes the kind of person you are on the inside. And so it changes how you treat other people in their worst moments.
[00:27:18] If you think God is at his meanest when you are at your worst, then you're going to be the very same way to others.
[00:27:28] On the other hand, if you think God is at his most merciful when we are at our worst, it changes who we are on the inside and it makes it more possible for us to do for other people exactly what God is doing for us when we are at our worst. He is his most merciful. And then we start looking at people around us and saying this is a moment where they need mercy.
[00:27:57] If God can show them mercy, so can I.
[00:28:02] And then Paul says, this mercy is a saving grace.
[00:28:11] Grace means God treats me better than what I deserve. The mercy of God. Listen, the mercy of God is God treating me better than what I deserve and that leads to me being saved.
[00:28:29] Ah, the grace of God will save you from the worst things in life.
[00:28:36] The grace of God will save you from the worst things in eternity. But that grace is an expression of his mercy. Now please listen to this.
[00:28:52] Mercy is compassion shown toward people who you have it in your power to punish or harm.
[00:29:01] God has every right and he has all the power to punish me for the dumb stuff I've done and said.
[00:29:10] I don't have any debate with him.
[00:29:13] My own heart says to me, you've said stupid stuff and you've done stupid stuff. You've not been as good as you should be. Okay, God has everybody, but what does he do? He doesn't exercise that right. He shows me mercy.
[00:29:29] And his goal is that by showing that mercy, that is a way that he's going to lead me, become the person he wants me to be and save me from being the person he doesn't want me to be.
[00:29:45] Are you following this? The mercy of God saves me from being the person he doesn't want me to be and saves me to be the person he wants me to be.
[00:30:07] Papers are sticking together this morning. I don't know why.
[00:30:10] God's mercy doesn't just help us in this world. God's mercy promises us a Beautiful future. Verse 6.
[00:30:19] His mercy will seat us in heaven with Christ.
[00:30:25] You can't live forever.
[00:30:28] I guarantee you, you can't live forever.
[00:30:33] And at some point you'll be ready to say, I'm ready to go.
[00:30:39] I've had good friends who said, doc, just pray that God will come and get me. I'm ready to go. All right, when it's your time to go, where will you go?
[00:30:55] Surely you don't think that you can show up at the gates of heaven with your resume and say to God, I deserve to come in here. Look at my resume.
[00:31:11] Surely that sounds like folly to you.
[00:31:15] Someday I have to leave this place, and I want to go to heaven.
[00:31:20] But my pathway to heaven is not through anything I can do for myself. My pathway through heaven is through the riches of the mercy of God.
[00:31:33] Nobody earns their way into heaven.
[00:31:36] You only get in because God is rich in mercy.
[00:31:42] You only get in because at some point in your life, you say, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
[00:31:50] And in the wonder and in the beauty of his grace, he says, I'd love to be merciful to you, Church.
[00:32:00] It's not the good people who go to heaven. It's the people who have received mercy that go to heaven. Do you hear this?
[00:32:12] And then. And then Paul wrote so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is a gift of God, not a result of works. So that no one can boast.
[00:32:38] In this coming age where people get to see God as He really is, what God wants people to see is the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness.
[00:32:53] In this coming age when God is most clearly understandable, listen what he says. This is what I want you to. I want people to know about me, that I'm rich in grace.
[00:33:10] God could be known for many, many things.
[00:33:13] Huh?
[00:33:15] The universe is a pretty incredible place.
[00:33:18] Wouldn't be such a bad title to be known as the Creator of the universe. But that's not what he's saying he wants.
[00:33:26] Wouldn't be great. It would be great to be known for all the wonderful things God has done through history. But this is what he wants in the ages to come.
[00:33:37] He wants his reputation to be that he was a being who was rich in his ability to treat people better than what they deserve.
[00:33:49] What do you want to be known for?
[00:33:55] What about your character?
[00:33:59] If you had to show the best of who you are or what you have, what would you display?
[00:34:06] When God wants to show the best of who he is and best of what he does, he shows us mercy and grace. Church.
[00:34:15] He could show us mountains of gold.
[00:34:19] He could show us globes of silver.
[00:34:23] He could walk us through diamond and gem mines.
[00:34:28] His wealth is inexplicable. But when God wants to be known, he doesn't walk us through a vault of material wealth. He walks us through the quality of his character. And he says, if you really want to know me the way I want to be known, then understand I'm rich in grace and mercy.
[00:34:50] And I'm not only rich in grace and mercy. I am generous in grace and mercy.
[00:34:58] The riches of God's grace create our future, our blessed future.
[00:35:05] The riches of God's grace is at the core of his plan to give us salvation as a gift. Do you see what he says here?
[00:35:16] For by grace, you have been saved through faith.
[00:35:20] And this is not your own doing. It is a gift of God. Here's. Here is God being generous again. God says, I have a gift I'll give you. I'll just give it to you. And that gift is the grace to abide with him forever.
[00:35:39] We can't boast about our future because it is a gift.
[00:35:45] And then now Paul has a call to action. He teaches us all of this, and he brings us to verse 10. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good work that God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
[00:36:00] Okay? We are his workmanship.
[00:36:04] God created you, and he created you to be like him.
[00:36:12] And as God is generous in mercy, you are created to be generous in mercy, too.
[00:36:21] When you become the best that you're capable of being, you will be like Christ and you will be generous in mercy.
[00:36:30] The less mercy you show, the less you are like what you were created to be.
[00:36:37] The farther you are away from showing mercy, the farther you are from who God designed you to be. You were designed to be people who live in the mercy of God and share the mercy of God with other people. You were designed for that. You were created for that. Your soul. Your. Your soul thrives on that.
[00:37:05] Does anything feel better in the world than when we've done something wrong? And the person that we did something wrong to their kind, to us, and they forgive us. Does anything feel better in the world?
[00:37:20] Is anything more miserable in the world than to want to be forgiven by somebody? And they're angry and resentful and they won't forgive you?
[00:37:29] Church. See, that's because your soul was made for mercy. You were created for mercy. You were not created to live in this angry, resentful world. Your soul can't take it because you were designed to live in the wonder of God's mercy and to share that mercy with everyone around you.
[00:37:54] God is rich in mercy and grace, and he created us to be his partner in being equally generous.
[00:38:04] How generous are you in showing compassion to others when they've made a mistake?
[00:38:14] How generous are you?
[00:38:17] Do you always have to get. Do you always have to get even?
[00:38:21] Is there some times that you're willing to say, I don't have to get even on this.
[00:38:26] I'm going to let it go. I'll take the hit on this one. Church.
[00:38:34] God creates us to be generous in our daily lives, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
[00:38:47] Every single day is an opportunity for me to walk in the generous riches of mercy and grace.
[00:38:57] I want to get up tomorrow morning and say, who can I be merciful to today?
[00:39:02] Who can I be merciful today?
[00:39:05] Church I want to drive down Mark's Road where the Antichrist himself lives.
[00:39:12] And I want to be generous and merciful to everyone I meet on the road.
[00:39:20] Uh, I want to come to work. I want to be merciful with all the people I work with.
[00:39:29] I want to be more merciful and gentle with my wife than I've ever been. I want to live in an environment of receiving mercy and grace from God and giving mercy and grace to the world around me. Church. And I want to do it generously. I don't want to be grudging. I don't want to grumble about it. All right, I guess I'll be merciful to you.
[00:39:56] Church.
[00:39:59] All right.
[00:40:01] You don't know it, but I hear you thinking. You say, doc, that's usually that's true for most people. But you don't know the people I'm dealing with.
[00:40:11] You do not know the people I'm dealing with. You've never met my brother. You've never met my sister.
[00:40:20] You've never met the people I work with.
[00:40:23] You don't know my neighbor. You wouldn't be saying this if you did. All right?
[00:40:32] That's why this text talks about riches of mercy and grace.
[00:40:39] Sometimes mercy and grace don't cost us very much.
[00:40:44] Sometimes it's relatively cheap.
[00:40:49] We just let something go.
[00:40:51] Ah, we just. We just forgive in a moment. It's not hard.
[00:40:57] But sometimes we gotta empty our wallet of mercy and grace. It takes everything we have to show mercy and grace. Church.
[00:41:11] Sometimes we got to get a loan.
[00:41:14] The mercy and grace is so expensive. We got to go to the. We got to go to the bank of God and say, I don't have it this time, God, I just don't have it. But I want to be what you want me to be.
[00:41:30] And now, if you will grant me a mercy I do not have, if you will grant me a grace that I do not have. I promise you I will spend it freely on this. But I can't do it without you. Do you hear me, Church? That's the Christian life.
[00:41:48] What is mercy? Mercy is compassionate treatment of those in distress, especially when it's in one's power to punish or harm them.
[00:42:00] And God is rich in mercy to us, and he's asking us to be his partners and be rich in mercy to others.
[00:42:10] Mercy is paying a price.
[00:42:13] Christ paid the price to be merciful to every single one of us. And now he says to us, you're my partner.
[00:42:23] Some days you're going to have to pay the price.
[00:42:27] But being merciful is worth it.
[00:42:31] It's God's cure.
[00:42:33] It's God's remedy for a miserable world.
[00:42:37] Our dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your grace today. Thank you that you are at work in the world.
[00:42:46] I pray for myself and I pray for everyone who is here and everyone who is online. I pray that mercy would make sense to us.
[00:42:54] I pray that the quality of our life would go up and the quality of our home would go up. The quality of our friendships would go up, the quality of our church would go up, and it would go up. Because we're drawing on the riches of your mercy and grace, and we're sharing it with miserable people around us. And I ask this in Christ's name, Amen.
