Beg Lord Have Mercy 

I mentioned Job 42 last night … 

Exo 25:22  And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel. 

The mercy seat is the place we are able to meet with God. It’s the place of comfort, where we receive strong consolation from what hurts us.  It’s the bosom of the Father.  It’s the place where we see Gods love for us.  It’s the place we feel blameless in his eyes.  Theres something about what we see depicted in the mercy seat that enables us to stand face to face with God.  It’s what we see there that strengthens us to stand before God, even when we are naked, or we are caught in some fault, or we have transgressed God.  The mercy seat is the place we are able to stand before God, holy and without blame.  It’s the place we can look into the face of God, into Gods eyes, in our nakedness, in our shortcomings, in our fault, and not feel accused or judged, or scrutinized, and instead of those things, feel loved and understood.  The mercy seat is the place we look deep into the eyes of God, and get lost in His love for us.  It’s the place where all shame, and guilt, and fear is melted away.  Your fear, your shame, your insecurities about yourself, and whatever perceived short comings you say you have, those things cannot abide the presence of the love revealed in the mercy seat. 

Mercy can never be defined as God not giving us what we deserve.  As if he is a judge thinking we deserve to be punished, and then He punishes Jesus instead of us. The blood we see sprinkled on the mercy seat doesn’t purge our conscience by telling us the Father punished Jesus instead of us.  The blood is meant to tell us that God knows, He really knows what hurts His people.  Mercy is a comforting love that comes out of someone because they know, they really know what hurts you. 

Some of you may have heard Brennan Manning use the example of the Hasidic rabbi.  A Hasidic rabbi says he learned the meaning of love in a bar from 2 drunkards …… 

There can be a disconnect for people in experiencing Gods love for them because they can struggle to see God knows what hurts them.  Not knows like an intellectual, but …..

God who can’t be tempted, who can’t feel fear … who can’t feel weakness because He’s immortal and cannot die … God who has no intimacy with sin or with death.  Theres no darkness in God.  He’s never felt the emotion of lack.  He’s never been intimate with the feeling of confusion or fear.  This same God.  Put on a body that was perishable so He can taste our fear; our weakness; our shame; our confusion firsthand … imagine the humanity of God … when God can came in the likeness of perishable flesh he became acquainted with our weakness firsthand.  Imagine God in His humanity.   The humanity of God …. He knows He really knows what hurts you …. Not because He sees you hurting but because He himself has hurt that same way.  When God put on our perishable bodies, and felt the weight of the death thats in the earth.  God.  Almighty God sweat blood …. 

The love of God is a strong consolation in the depth of our pain because we can see in His eyes that He understands what hurts us.  He is uniquely qualified to comfort us because we can see the love in His eyes is because He knows, He really knows what hurts us.  

It’s like with a support group …. People are able to be transparent in support group.  They are able to bear their soul.  They are able to put their heart out on the table.  That’s the place where they can be loved on and comforted.  The reason they are able to plop their heart out on the table is because they don’t feel judged or scrutinized for what they’ve done.  They feel embraced in their weakness.  They feel an authentic love and acceptance because they are in the presence of people who know the hurt they felt, because they’ve gone through it themselves.  Cheers song .. sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came.  You wanna go where you can see, troubles are all the same.  You wanna go where everyone knows your name.  

This is why God doesn’t  judge people after the flesh.  Thats why God isn’t ashamed of you in your weakness.  That’s why God doesn’t condemn you for what you’ve done to try and cloth yourself with life.  He knows what it likes to be stripped naked.  He knows the weight of the accusation that comes against you.  He’s felt the shame and fear and confusion firsthand.  

God doesn’t condemn us for what we’ve done to try and save ourselves from death/cloth ourselves in life.  He gets it.  He understands.  He knows we were never meant to see death.  He knows we were never meant to experience fear and lack.  He knows the effect it can have on a person who was never meant to encounter sin and death, to now be surrounded in a world shadowed with death.  He sees into our hearts and sees the world was nailing us to a cross just like it did Jesus.  He sees everything we’ve done, as us trying to come down off the cross and save ourselves from fear and lack and death.  He sees we were meant to be clothed in life, and he sees everything we’ve done is to try and cloth upon our own nakedness.  

Would we condemn someone for trying to come down off the cross?  Does a life guard condemn a person drowning for things they do to them while they are trying not to drown?  Of course not.  In fact we’d understand why someone would want to come down from the cross …. We’d understand how someone might hit us in the face if they were drowning and we were trying to save them.  

God knows He’s the only one who wouldn’t come down off the cross.  God knows He’s the only one who can resist sin in the flesh.  He knows He’s the only one who can resist death.  God never expected you to be able to resist sin in the flesh.  When you think of resisting sin, think of resisting death in the flesh. God never expected you to be able to resist sin. 

Hebrews 12 says consider him who endured such contradiction against Himself because you have not resisted sin unto blood.  Gods the only one not coming down off the cross … Gods the only one who can resist death … only eternal life can resist death.  that’s why Hebrews says looking unto Jesus, and the faith revealed in Him.  God never expected you not to be weak.  He never expected you to be strong.  He never expected you to be God.  

But Greg the scripture says resist the devil and he will flee.  The way we resist the devil is by looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of faith.  The way we resist sin is by not trying to strive against sin ourselves.  The way we resist sin is by not trying to perfect ourselves from the death thats in the earth.  The people in the letter to the Hebrews were trying to resist sin through their own works.  They were trying to cleanse themselves from sin and the body of death sin built, by performing the works of law. You see the devil tempts us to pick up our own lives; to exalt ourselves by the multitude of the merchandise we can gather to ourselves.  The way we resist is we see God is a rewarder of those who look to Him.  I mean it’s even God who resists in us, by showing us the substance of everything we’re longing for in the faith that’s of Jesus Christ.  

This isnt a misery loves company kind of thing.  This isn’t about us coming together with God and singing nobody knows the trouble I see.  It’s about God drawing us to Himself so He can show us the reward He has in His hand.  God isnt like double closed fist telling us to pick a hand.  He draws to Himself where we can see His open hand stretched forth towards, gifting us the reward of His indestructible life.  

The reason we werent able to stand before God and gaze into His eyes, is because our conscience was stained by what we saw in ourselves and in our lives.  We were judging ourselves after the flesh ….. we were ashamed of the weakness that manifested in us.  We were ashamed of the things we did to come down off the cross, and cloth ourselves.  All things are laid bare in the presence of God … We know He sees everything we see in ourselves and we hear a voice of accusation and we assume it’s God accusing us.  When in fact not only is God not accusing us, but God is with us to cloth upon us.  Zechariah verse …. Connect to Adam in the garden we were ….

God draws us to Himself so He can cloth us in the likeness of His life ….. God draws us to Himself.  He pulls us into His bosom. It’s the place of comfort.  It’s the place we’re strengthened. God draws us to Himself for our beautification.  He wants to beautify our lives with Himself.  Ephesians 1 says God predestined us in Christ so we can stand before Him and experience His love for us, instead of our hearts accusing us in His presence.  God predestined it would be by His hand we’d be clothed upon with His likeness, so that when we saw Him we’d see we’re the same as Him by His doing, and feel His love for us.  God draws you to Himself to cloth you with His life by showing you He knows, He really knows what hurts you.