Mercy and God

Synopsis     Deuteronomy 9:10-19          2/6/2018

Moses remembered how God had inscribed the Ten Commandments. He wrote them with His own finger. He entrusted them to Moses after Moses had fasted 40 days and forty nights. During that time, Moses ate no food and drank no water.

While he was on the mountain, the people had made an idol. It was molten figure from gold. This offended God and He pondered destroying the children of Israel. Moses begged for mercy from God for the sin of the people. God gave them mercy.

God’s Mercy

God didn’t destroy. He contemplated their destruction. The children of Israel were only days and weeks into their “eternal” covenant with the God of all creation. And they had failed. Idolatry – they had failed in the worst way.

Moses intervened. He threw himself into the breach. He begged for their lives to be spared. He argued the good of mercy for their sake and for God’s reputation. God relented. God didn’t destroy.

This is God’s mercy.

Be Merciful

How to make sense of mercy.

A covenant that has been breached is broken. It can’t be healed without mercy. The offended party has to defer their legitimate right to sever the relationship, to punish, or else it is over.

It is written: The LORD’s acts of mercy are not exhausted, his compassion is not spent; They are renewed each morning – great is your faithfulness!” Lament 3:22-23

I didn’t just offend the covenant once. Mercy is also the commitment a person makes to consistently meet the injustice of a partner. It is not deserved and cannot be demanded. The power is always in the hand of victim.

And so, if you want to understand mercy; then be merciful.

“Be merciful, just as [also] your Father is merciful. Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.” Luke 6:36