Showing Mercy
Lessons from The Book of Hosea to Matthew
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good morning welcome if you're new here among us my name is gene i serve here at c3 church as your lead pastor and i wonder if there's anyone else like me who has thought like this maybe you see a couple maybe you're walking you're taking a walk getting some exercise and then you see a couple across the street coming your way and then when you can finally see them clearly you know they're a couple they're holding hands maybe this has occurred to you they kind of don't match like maybe you're like you know what is she thinking no i can't be and here's the thing people it's in the bible think leia right not so much he wanted rachel instead so read your bible so we can think about these things it's okay they don't match because it's weird because they normally do so you work with someone for a while and then finally you meet their spouse and you're like oh i can see that it's what occurs to you usually that's like the norm like i get that they work but when they don't it's weird it kind of throws us off now here's another thing you might think and let's just get really honest today like let's say it's an older gentleman with a beautiful young woman what do you think he must be loaded or she's loaded in a different way i don't know but it occurs to us hey look it's naples it happens down here a lot right so maybe you think that why are they together they don't look like they go together well i heard a story about a case that wasn't like that it was like that but it wasn't like that beautiful young girl gets a boyfriend but he's not very good looking if we're being honest well she brings them home to meet the parents now this is a couple where the dad is quiet he has followed my advice that's how he made it through all those years of marriage he doesn't talk very much right you can be right or you can be happy pick one mutually exclusive anyway brings them home but the mom not so much she expresses her opinion all of the time so the guy arrives at the door and she's kind of like looking over his shoulder like do i have to sign for a package or something who is this no this is the boyfriend come on in so she's kind of suspicious she thinks like that what's going on here he must be loaded she doesn't waste any time they're sitting down at the dinner table and she goes so what do you do for a living are you like a hedge fund manager or a banker no no no i'm a teacher okay well like a tutor for the president of the united states or something you know like what kind of teacher are you no no no just an elementary school teacher so she's like ugh she gets through the mail they leave and she has a talk with her daughter like what are you thinking he's not rich he's not handsome what he's nice and the mom's like he has to be right so it's just not working in the mom's head well then they get engaged now the mom's like oh what are you doing you know you can have nice and wealthy at the same time like you can actually have both of those things but no no no you don't get it i love him she's like okay whatever they finally get married and they decide to do something different which allows for the mom to take a little bit of a jab she says oh we're going to get a portrait painted and the mom goes yeah good better than a photograph maybe you can pay the artists off to fix them right you know so stop it mom whatever so they do the wedding they have the honeymoon they go through that whole face then they move into the house where they put the portrait prominently on the wall where you can see it just when you walk in they invite the parents over for dinner well mom comes in and sees the portrait immediately the bride comes over and she says yeah you know mom i'm not really happy with it and the mom's like okay yeah you know i just don't think it does him any justice mom says justice with the face like that he doesn't need justice he needs mercy and we're going to talk about mercy today it wasn't one of my best ones but you know i had to find mercy and that's just a difficult one to make a joke out of anyway without getting terribly inappropriate which we kind of almost do sometimes here anyway today we find ourselves in our series the rest of the story if you're new this is where we are looking at the whole bible and through the series there are a lot of parts that people go whoa i never heard that before so we're really honoring god's word this is our program guide we don't add anything to take anything away this is what it is it's perfect written by the perfect author nobody can come up with a better idea than that even though a lot of people think that they do in this series we are in the accounts of the kings so we're looking at second kings and second chronicles we saw last week went through a lot right we saw how it attached to isaiah and so we're kind of going in chronological-ish order which means that we have to take different books of the bible and re-insert them we also took it all the way to matthew so we saw how all this points to jesus it all points to jesus that's the main thing that should be the main takeaway so last week we looked at king ahaz we saw he was unfaithful we talked about faithfulness versus unfaithfulness and that'll tie into today's topic so today we arrive at hosea and there are a few places where you could put this so you're taking the prophets and you're putting them back into the kings it's about ish right here it's very hard to place them very very exactly so i'm trying to do this topically as well so they kind of tie in and we get some themes here that we're looking at hosea is tough really tough 14 chapters short chapters it's a tough read so i'm going to summarize for you and give you some of the main verses and points here as we go through but i'm not letting you off the hook from reading it go home read it it's important honor god's word so just because i'm skipping something here doesn't mean i'm condoning skipping something for you so let's jump right in hosea 1 1 the lord gave this message to hosea son of birai during the years when uzziah jotham ahaz and hezekiah were kings of judah and jeroboam son of jehosh was king of israel so if you've been paying attention there you go there's ahaz right there that we talked about last week so it's kind of in this time frame hezekiah we're going to get to him later but we've talked about the other kings now here we get to the real crux of the whole thing hosea 1 2 when the lord first began speaking to israel through hosea he said to him go and marry a prostitute so that some of her children will be conceived in prostitution this will illustrate how israel has acted like a prostitute by turning against the lord and worshiping other gods so hosea married gomer the daughter of dibliam and she became pregnant and gave hosea a son so you want to be a prophet really so we're going to get to ezekiel it gets worse like there are a lot of crazy things that these prophets have to do that's a crazy thing so it's an illustration clearly that's what's being said here but then three kids and they're all to make an illustration they're to demonstrate something about israel's behavior and then what's going to happen later so first one jezreel god plants you might have heard that before in the bible that's what it means it plays jezreel god plants it's a hymn lo rouhama it's a her it means no mercy god will not have mercy on them lo am i a hymn not my people that's what they mean but hosea 1 10 yet the time will come when israel's people will be like the sands of the seashore too many to count then at the place where they were told you are not my people it will be said you are children of the living god then the people of judah and israel will unite together they will choose one leader for themselves and they will return from exile together what a day that will be the day of jezreel when god again will again plant his people in his land so if we turn the page not going to read that one to you because it's kind of graphic so maybe that'll entice you to go home and read it yourself it's a little bit crazy basically gomer don't name your kid that is a prostitute but there's kind of this give and take here so she's doing really bad things description as a prostitute anyway moving on but then there's going to be a time when he takes her back so it's this kind of thing like you're bad now i'm going to punish you then there's restoration but jezreel hosea 2 23 at that time i will plant a crop of israelites and raise them for myself i will show love to those i called not loved and to those i called not my people i will say you are my people and they will reply you are our god if we turn the page hosea 3 1 then the lord said to me go and love your wife again even though she commits adultery with another lover this will illustrate that the lord still loves israel even though the people have turned to other gods and love to worship them man this is tough so it says that it's talking in his voice now for 15 pieces of silver and 5 bushels of barley and a little bit of wine he buys her back pretty good deal i said to her you must live in my house for many days and stop your prostitution during this time you will not have sexual relations with anyone not even with me so this is an illustration that they're going to be without a king or a priesthood for a time kind of a crazy way to illustrate it hosea 4 1 hear the word of the lord o people of israel the lord has brought charges against you saying there is no faithfulness no kindness no knowledge of god in your land you make vows and break them you kill and steal and commit adultery there is violence everywhere one murder after another that is why your land is in mourning and everyone is wasting away even the wild animals the birds of the sky and the fish are disappearing so there's kind of like that courtroom scene like isaiah that we talked about where he's pronouncing judgment on them more punishment for idolatry hosea d5 deals with the evil priests and the punishment on them god says he's torn them to pieces like a lion if you turn the page hosea 6 1 come let us return to the lord he has torn us to pieces now he will heal us he has injured us now he will bandage our wounds in just a short time he will restore us so that we may live in his presence oh that we might know the lord let us press on to know him he will respond to us as surely as the rival of dawn or the coming of the reigns in the early spring restoration return hosea 6 6 key verse i want to show i want you to show mercy not offer sacrifices i want you to know me more than i want burnt offerings save that so seven trusting in other nations we saw tig lath philiso that sounds like a good heavy metal band name they went to ahaz went to him the assyrians didn't work out right so shouldn't trust in them israel's apostasy in 8 9 punishment 10 judgment and captivity now israel is going to be depicted in 11 as like a child that god loves so it goes from a prostitute to a child just depictions of certain things 12 and 13 a charge against judah and israel and then we get to 14 1 return o israel to the lord your god for your sins have brought you down bring your confessions and return to the lord say to him forgive all our sins and graciously receive us so that we may offer you our praises assyria cannot save us nor can our war horses never again will we say to the idols we have made you or our gods no in you alone do the orphans find mercy so we talked about faithfulness last week but there was a natural response i got it from some people so we're talking about being faithful in the relationships we're in and i like to you know not just marriage because some people aren't married i get that so like team members a sports team in the military when you have to count on other people right and you have to trust in them right so everybody stays in their lane that they've got their job but at the same time you have to be faithful in yours natural question what if they're not being faithful what happens so we see here that their lack of faithfulness shouldn't affect yours very important their lack of faithfulness should not affect yours we see that although gomer plays the prostitute we also see that hosea remains faithful important lesson there now we looked at matthew last week so i showed you how sometimes they quote these books so i want to go back to matthew and explain something to you before the quote so you get the context so matthew chapter 9 you're going to see the calling of matthew the apostle or levi he's called and then he goes and follows the lord kind of like isaiah 6 if you remember it's isaiah's cleansing and call same type of thing matthew's called but here's the deal he's a tax collector and you're going to see all over the new testament especially they're despised nobody likes to tax collectors why context they're all jewish people at this point very little interaction with anyone who's not jewish you know roman soldier a syrophoenician woman things like that but mostly jewish people well so you have this jewish person who's a tax collector if you can't pay he's going to do what charge interest well if you read the law of moses jewish people are not supposed to be charging interest to other jewish people so they're law breakers they're sinners and so on and on and on it goes with the text collectors and sinners and they're usually like synonymous it's one of the worst things you could be in this mindset so you got to keep that in your mind when this interaction happens so jesus heals a paralyzed man then it says that he's walking along he notices matthew in the tax booth it's really quick come follow me you know just be my disciple that's it it just says he kind of just drops everything and goes doesn't give us any other information wow interesting so later matthew's probably got a lot of money has a nice house or something he invites jesus and the disciples over for a party right so they're hanging out and then they get questioned they're like wait a minute why does your teacher matthew hang out with all these disreputable sinners and tax collectors again synonymous a bad thing but when the pharisees saw this they say why does your teacher hang out with such scum calling them scum so when jesus heard this he famously says healthy people don't need a doctor sick people do then he added matthew 9 13. now go and learn the meaning of this scripture i want you to show mercy not offer sacrifices for i have come to call not those who think they're righteous but those who know they are sinners i want you to show mercy not offer sacrifices jesus is quoting hosea right there 6 6. so matthew is called and forgiven and we see that a key to this forgiveness is mercy it's having mercy compassion for others especially for sinners god desires this more than any so-called worship this is exactly what jesus is saying so let's absorb that it's an important statement so he's quoting hosea and so now as you're reading this if you haven't put it all together put this together it should draw up that picture in your mind i want you to show mercy so you know you should be thinking of going even a prostitute wife you know mercy i want you to show mercy so to drum up this contact i want context i want this more you pharisees than all your fancy worship right all your high praises and fanciness and you know praying on the streets or showing off how much money you're giving and so today's context i want mercy more than your worship team more than your fancy videos and lights and more than your production more than you're good singers i want you to show mercy so think about that very important it's compassion and forgiveness shown towards someone especially when it's within your power to punish them to let them off the hook that's mercy so simple things really quick right they don't deserve it and so let's think about the way christians tip right i find that really funny i like actually get very embarrassed if i go to lunch with someone and they do one thing that they think is great like they're like oh pastor i'll pay i'll pay i'm like great so they pay but then they sit there and they calculate the tip down to the penny i'm like this is so embarrassing like i get embarrassed very embarrassed like stingy you know and well you know the waitress wasn't great and you are you know maybe they need like a tip maybe they need something to make them happy and perhaps a christian could be i don't know the person who is obligated by the way to give them a good day wow so think about it small thing we're going to talk about bigger things we saw that one key in people's relationships and your relationships with everybody whether it be you and the waitress or a spouse is that keeping in mind the unseen things that they might be going through right this person her boyfriend could have just broke up with her because he realized he wasn't ugly right her dog could have just died i don't know are you always smiling unhappy everywhere you go no you've got stuff going on mercy so let's take a look at what it looks like to have mercy a couple digressions here because i have to have a few disclaimers but think about what hosea did wow that's mercy that's extreme now here's the thing here's my disclaimer i want to throw this on here i have to adultery it is very very serious it is the one and only reason that jesus gives for justifiable divorce it's bad it's really bad so here's here's the fear because this is what happens sometimes is people they run with it god is making an extreme illustration here it doesn't mean that like oh i can just go gomer did it it's not funny but people do this kind of thing gomer shouldn't be used as an example of why someone can continue like sin and sin and sin against a spouse so please don't take this this way scriptures should not be manipulated or abused this is an example with a specific context so this is kind of necessary i want to just give you a short note here or a short-ish note here unforgiveness you see we need to look at the full counsel of god's word we always always have to forgive but that doesn't talk about proximity in fact if femi i'm probably saying it wrong my greek teacher is going to tell me that later it means let's forgive when you see jesus talking about forgive you know in the sermon on the mount that's there's that's the greek word there any kind of let it go let it go so sometimes forgiving someone is actually letting them go it's not the same thing as proximity so if you get to matthew 18 jesus gives that hyperbolic teaching about hands feet and i was like your eye causes you to sin rip it out hand causes you to stumble it's better to go into heaven with one hand or one eye than the hell with both your hands or both your eyes so he gets through that and then he gives a teaching that is probably well known to church leadership more than regular people so i'll just kind of explain it to you it's kind of the one two three strikes you're out reconciliation process but most people say that's the church discipline scripture it's like yeah because that's the way you want to go it's about reconciliation it's about reconciliation so what happens right so step one pretty simple somebody sins against you you go directly to them and work it out for the purpose of reconciliation but here's the thing pastor rant for just a second if you've been in church for a long time you notice very few people do this long time christians right i know the word i love jesus but i just don't want to listen to him or do anything he says they go to like 10 other people first right and sometimes not that other person but i'm a christian somehow very interesting and this happens to pastors all the time people you know why so and so left i'm like nope they never had one meeting with me they're like well they said they had 10 of them i'm like and they're a liar too so you know it happens a lot and it's disgusting it's very bad go directly to that person and work it out you didn't because you didn't want it to work out because you didn't forgive them step two if that doesn't work out bring some other people right couple of witnesses maybe for accountability whatever it is try again try again work it out then they don't listen bring it to the church here's the funny thing if you pair that with 1st timothy 5 and what paul tells timothy it's kind of scary rebuke them in front of the whole church so they're scared no one wants to do what they did don't worry i try to get step two to work because step three is kind of scary but basically tell it to the church maybe you can bring in some more church leadership there in on the problem for the purpose of reconciliation if that doesn't work treat them like a tax collector or a sinner that's it kick them out if you couple that with first corinthians 5 that's what we get out so it didn't work out well goodbye jesus says that's it if you read first corinthians 5 same thing paul's saying they're out one bad apple ruins the bunch one lump of leaven causes the whole thing to rise so in any relationship if you have a serial sinner a serial abuser jesus calls for separation there but it doesn't mean you don't forgive them you just forgive them from afar here's the funny thing so after this teaching peter comes up to jesus he's like hey um how many times should i forgive someone like he throws out a number seven you know is that cool like seven times and then jesus is like no 70 times seven 490 times more hyperbole you always forgive peter you're not getting it it's not about forgiveness you always forgive it's not about proximity jesus already said three strikes they're out you must always forgive that person even if it's from afar balance but it still stands matthew 5 31 right divorce no good unless adultery is involved then yeah jesus says it's okay to separate but always forgive always forgive so let's talk about some things we should be doing to stop it from getting there and you can apply these things to any relationship so if you're not married or whatever you can apply it to friendships and different things your family things like that showing compassion in relationships now here's the thing there are a lot of programs about relationships and a lot of programs for the church and i very rarely endorse them i don't really like the program church i'm not you pay all this money for and we've done it we've i've tried trust me and it's just like it doesn't work and then sometimes you find stuff in it where it's like not really biblical and uh it's just a mess and why did i pay a lot of money for this i could have just done that and everything would have been fine you know maybe jesus actually had all the answers that would be a really amazing surprise to a lot of church leaders nowadays like hey this person person's really cool and the other thing is here's the other side of it people worship i hate people worship if if you get to know me and you get closer i hate it it's like the tipping it's very embarrassing if someone sees someone famous and like oh let me get a selfie or something i hate that and especially now that i'm a christian we shouldn't be worshiping anybody but jesus that's it that's it not me not anybody i don't like it but you hear people oh so and so he's so great he's so great i've been watching this people come up to me like who you reading you know who are you reading i'm like god you know how is your guy better than that you know what i feel like so you know so i just i hate people worship i'm just so that you know me it's just like a thing and my wife and i were laughing about it because something came up and we used to know a lot of very very famous people really really famous people and so it just didn't phase us and getting very very close to us they appreciated us because we just didn't treat them any different and they liked that they liked that it was it was helpful to them so that's why but here's the thing in the christian ministry why it's so bad because you worship this person and of course they do something wrong of course they're a person you know what i mean and sometimes it's really bad but then your whole world falls apart you know people fall away from the faith because oh so-and-so is doing something wrong he's not god of course he's going to do something wrong you crazy plus he was letting you all worship him think about it you know what i mean of course hello you know that's that's no good and so that's the problem with the program the people all that other stuff anyway all that being said it's important to know there is one program i've kind of endorsed and i'm going to show you the problem with that one too the five love languages i've endorsed this in the past i've actually met the author and everything great guy but he'll mess up but anyway it's a good program the idea is that you like take this test and maybe your spouse or your friend or whatever you take this test together and then you find out how you receive love like how how do i receive love because for some you know it's like gifts right that's my wife she likes gifts acts of service expensive takes a lot of time but anyway i like most guys it's i like physical touch right so a lot of guys do and so if your wife comes home right you like the physical touch she does not and you're like all over her she's like get away from me repulse then you have an argument whereas you should have just got the gift and then you get the physical touch do that like see so it's like that and so go ahead and look it up that's the thing but here's the thing here's the problem with that program i discovered it later i couldn't believe it took me so long here's the problem with it it causes you to search for what you should already know think about it the five love languages offers us another test the test is a test if you don't know your partner's answers already you probably have a problem if you don't know your answers already you might be crazy think about it it doesn't make sense it's another test you see mercy and compassion they involve understanding knowing what the other person likes or doesn't like so i'll just give you an example i'm married i'm your pastor right maybe you haven't made that decision yet and you're like i don't know but anyway bring you into the household a little bit now if you're newly or married or you're still working things out wherever you're at women are subtle most of the time and so they're waiting for you to pick up on things sometimes i think like subconsciously on purpose to test you to create a problem but anyway they're they're like dropping hints right so that's another conversation they're dropping hints right and you got to be picking it up if your husband that's that's your job and most of the time it's like that but sometimes it's not and i'll give you one example heather says i hate doing laundry i'm like that's kind of hard not to hear i hate doing laundry i had a bad day so i was like i'm definitely at this point obligated right to to do something about this or forget it right not what i want no physical touch so when i get a little free time yeah i know and when i get a little free time i do laundry and when i did i kind of started thinking like why she doesn't like it towels folding towels now maybe some of you all have no hygienic skills at all and you don't care but think about it what do you use the towel for you dry yourself off with the towel do you dry your face yes i hope so well you can't let the towel hit the floor it's like a shoelace you got to throw it away if it hits the floor another seinfeld reference the towel hits the floor it's dirty again because the floor is dirty that's where we put our feet don't rub your foot in my face i did jiu jitsu for a long time it had to happen a lot it's gross so don't do that so what happens if the towel hits the floor it's got to go back in the wash or you just don't tell gene that they'll hit the floor that's probably how she solved the problem all the time like but for me i can't so think about it what if you're not around six feet tall right if you're don't call your wife short either you're just not super tall right so you gotta hold the towel up while you fold it so it doesn't hit the floor this has to be very strenuous on your shoulder muscles so i totally get it not for her though she just doesn't like it so i take a little time and i give her her love languages love language don't always do the gifts you know past your salary anyway so that's one way in which i can show a little mercy and compassion right i know she doesn't like doing something i do it for her and then sometimes i get my love languages it all works out we need to listen mercy in the greek is actually very interesting because it's connected with all these like our words have a thought too like when you say an english word it brings up a thought those words it's usually very elaborate because sometimes they're compound words this isn't but it just brings a lot of meanings to light so when you see the word mercy in your bible a greek person would see like giving to the poor that's like how they see mercy giving alms you know just giving something away right showing like pity if you will and so we talked about go-to's last week what we're going to instead of god so you're addressing those and i want to tie that in here because people going to something else and it could be anything from adultery and i told you that's not a good thing so i'm not excusing that hear me loud and clear but it could be adultery it could be with your eyes so guys that's the thing jesus says that so maybe you're doing that you're looking at stuff on the net that you shouldn't be looking at then that's a go-to instead of god maybe it's alcohol you know maybe it's drugs it's a go-to right same route different branch you just go into something else to soothe yourself instead of gut food a lot of people do that that's a real thing right so i laugh when people like oh yeah you know i haven't had anything to drink in 10 years but you know i stuffed my face or whatever it's like well you're still not in recovery you're not if you're going to something you're not it's got to be god but here's the other side of it so yeah you might be like hate this guy but the other side of it is what about if we have a friend a spouse a lover whatever it is who's going to a lot of things except god they're needy they're needy and they need us they need us to show mercy not an argument right not a criticism because you got your own stuff just if you feel like doing that just go look in the mirror just do that stop you need to show them mercy and compassion they're going through something they're not doing that to hurt you there's just something missing and it's called god that's what's missing and so in doing this here's another thing we're not trying to replace god we're trying to represent him we can be the hands and feet of jesus we looked at first peter last week so as we close we'll continue there we see here if we get to chapter two for example we're supposed to be ambassadors for christ that's really what it is like two through first peter three so i don't say that sorry first peter as you go through there that's what the whole thing's about here's what your heart should be hearing in all your different relationships as hard as they can be you're supposed to think of yourself as a representative of jesus christ what we do to people can just chase people away from the faith so authorities first peter too honor the emperor even if he's burning us alive that's what's happening there by the way pay your taxes i kind of think just honor authorities we could win them over even in death that's the thought hard read slaves that's not a thing now but employees even if you're being treated harshly work hard win your employer over to jesus that's what it's about we turn the page first peter 3 1. in the same way you wives must accept the authority of your husbands then even if some refuse to obey the good news the gospel your godly lives will speak to them without any words they will be won over by observing your pure and reverent lives clear that's the point here if we continue first peter 3 7 that's where the husband stopped reading here's where the women continue in the same way you husbands must give honor to your wives treat your wife with understanding as you live together she may be weaker than you are but she is your equal partner in god's gift of new life treat her as you should so your prayers won't be hindered that's a thing interesting and to all christians first peter 3 8 finally all of you should be of one mind sympathize with each other love each other as brothers and sisters be tenderhearted and keep a humble attitude don't repay evil for evil don't retaliate with insults when people insult you instead pay them back with a blessing that is what god called you to do and he will grant you his blessing we are all to be good will ambassadors for jesus christ just as you have been forgiven you must also forgive just as you have been shown mercy you must also show mercy no if hands or butts it's an absolute if we look again at first peter i want to close with this thought first peter 2 8 they stumble these people who have rejected christ is the context because they do not obey god's word and so they meet the faith that was planned for them but you are not like that for you are a chosen people you are royal priests a holy nation god's very own possession as a result you can show others the goodness of god for he called you out of the darkness and into his wonderful light once you had no identity as a people now you are god's people once you receive no mercy now you have received god's mercy that is a quote of hosea 1 6. now that you have received mercy through the blood of jesus christ his sacrifice contemplate that you must also show mercy let me pray for you lord i thank you for this church for this day everyone who had the heart and inclination to come here and be a part of the body of christ that is the people not the building although we thank you for it and everything that we can do with it i just encourage everyone in the sound of my voice to just fashion themselves into vehicles of your grace your love and your mercy as they interact with everyone from jesus died this week we ask this in jesus name amen so so you