Mercy Ministries

00:01 If you would, turning your copies of the Scripture this morning to Isaiah 58. While you're turning there, I'll just make an announcement here that if you would remember your leadership team here, church council and ministry, as we meet together this coming weekend on Friday night and Saturday. 00:22 We'd appreciate your prayers for that. And that God would give us direction as we seek to lead the church and chart a vision for the year before us. Normally we meet in January or early February. This year we're meeting a little bit later. 00:39 And so we'd appreciate your prayers for us Friday night and a good share of the day on Saturday. Now, if you're there at Isaiah 58, I'd like for us to read this passage of Scripture this morning. "Cry aloud, spare not. Lift up your voice like a trumpet. Tell My people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sins. 01:01 Yet they seek Me daily and delight to know My ways as a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God. They ask of Me the ordinances of justice. They take delight in approaching God. Why have we fasted, they say, and you have not seen? Why have we afflicted our souls and you take no notice? 01:24 In fact, in the day of your fast you find pleasure and exploit all your laborers. Indeed, you fast for strife and debate and to strike with the fist of wickedness. You will not fast as you do this day to make your voice heard on high. Is it a fast that I have chosen, a day for a man to afflict his soul? 01:45 Is it to bow down his head like a bull rush and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Would you call this a fast and an acceptable day to the Lord? Is this not the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bonds of wickedness. To undo the heavy burdens. 02:04 To let the oppressed go free and that you break every yoke. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry? That you bring to your house the poor who are cast out? When you see the naked that you cover him and not hide yourself from your own flesh. Then your light shall break forth like the morning. 02:24 Your healing shall spring forth speedily and your righteousness shall go before you. The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call and the Lord will answer. You shall cry and He will say, "Here I am." If you take away the yoke from your midst, 02:45 the pointing of the finger and speaking of wickedness. If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul. Then your light shall dawn in the darkness and your darkness shall be as the noon day. The Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your soul in drought and strengthen your bones. 03:05 You shall be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. Those from among you shall build the old waste places. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations and you shall be called the repairer of the breach. The restorer of streets to dwell in. 03:26 If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day and call the Sabbath a delight. The holy day of the Lord honorable and shall honor Him not doing your own ways nor finding your own pleasure nor speaking your own words. Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord. 03:45 I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the Lord has spoken." Reaching back about a year ago, I shared a message on ministry. What is ministry? What does it look like? Who is it involved? 04:05 And we used Ephesians chapter 4 where it talks about that the leaders in a congregation are there to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. And so ministry is not just something that people do up front. It's not just something that people do visibly or publicly. 04:25 It's something that each one of us should be doing privately, even behind the scenes. Sometimes it takes on a public nature. Sometimes it's very behind the scenes. But nevertheless, everyone should have a ministry. And for a growing church to be a growing church, every one of the ministries should be functioning. 04:45 Including mercy ministries. I've entitled the message this morning in this lay ministry series, "Mercy Ministries." What is mercy ministries? Well, we can look at some Scriptures to find that out as we reflect the heart of God. 05:04 Mercy ministries, this is kind of another in that series which has been shelved for quite a while. But pulling it off the shelf, we've done the ministry of encouragement. The ministry of intercession. We talked about an aspect of mercy ministry a couple of weeks ago on the subject of abortion. 05:22 And yet to come is the ministry of evangelism and the ministry of giving. But today we turn our attention to mercy ministries. James 1:27 says this, "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this. 05:38 To visit the orphan and the widow in their affliction and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." Romans 12:6-8 talks about the ministries of the church as being seven gifts. The gift of giving, gift of prophecy, gift of ministry, gift of teaching, 05:58 exhortation, ruling, and mercy. And it goes on to say that every one of those gifts need to be functioning. And each one has some instructions there of how that gift should be functioning both privately and publicly. Paul in Galatians when he went to visit soon after his conversion and called to preach, 06:19 went to visit the apostles, namely James, Peter, and John, and share with them his conversion experience. The Bible says that they gave him the right hand of fellowship to go to the heathen and they would continue working with the circumcision. So Paul then began to minister and continued ministering out there. 06:39 And the other apostles continued ministering kind of in here with the circumcision. But this is what that verse says in Galatians chapter 1, "Only they would that we should remember the poor. The very thing which I also was eager to do." Remember the poor. Remember the poor. 06:59 Mercy ministries. Remember reaching out to those who are less fortunate. To those who are oppressed. To those who are downtrodden. To the poor, the weak, the blind, the maimed, the halt. Jesus in Matthew chapter 25 talked about mercy ministries. 07:20 When he said to those on his right hand, to the sheep on his right hand, "Enter into the joy of Thy Lord which is prepared for Thee from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and You fed me. I was thirsty and You gave me drink. I was a stranger and You took me in. Naked and You clothed me. 07:38 I was sick and You visited me and I was in prison and You came to me." Now, Jesus is not by any means, I don't believe, promoting a works-oriented salvation in that passage. But what He is telling us both in Galatians, in Romans, in James, in Matthew 25, 07:57 and in this passage here today in Isaiah chapter 58 is that a living faith will be a working faith. And a working faith will include works that remember the poor and extend mercy to those who are less fortunate. You remember Jesus said of the rich young ruler, 08:18 "Sell all that you have. Give to the poor. And then come and follow me and you will have riches in heaven." Jesus also tells the account in Luke chapter 16, I believe it is, of the rich man in Lazarus. 08:34 Rich man fared sumptuously every day sitting in his nice home in his nice comfortable situation in his fine clothes and just in living life for himself as Isaiah 58 for his own pleasure. You see that come through in the passage here this morning that they were pleasing themselves. Even in their fasting, it was about themselves. 08:54 It was about their own pleasure. And Lazarus was outside the gate full of sores. Just a piece of bread. Would I have just a piece of bread for him? And he died and the rich man died. And you know the account. The poor man, not because he was poor but because God, he knew God, 09:15 was taken to Abraham's bosom. And the rich man lifted up his eyes in hell. I think we can say from that this morning that a poor person who knows God through Jesus Christ is closer to heaven than a rich person who doesn't. Amen? And the opposite is also true. 09:36 That a rich person who doesn't know Jesus is closer to hell than a poor person who knows Christ. We might ask the question, how will they know Christ? And it is oftentimes through mercy ministries in the church from the body of Christ, 09:56 the people of God, that people are drawn into the love of Jesus Christ. There are many Muslims in the world today who are turning to the Lord Himself, turning to Christ because they're seeing the anger and the hatred and the violence of their own religion. 10:14 And they're seeing the love and compassion and mercy ministries of the people of Jesus Christ. And they're saying, "If this is Christianity, give me some more of it. 10:26 I love what is happening when we feel this love coming from the people of the living God." I want to share with you this morning from Isaiah 58 three points. First point is the hypocrisy of ritual in verses 1 through 5. 10:45 The second point we'll look at is the requirement of mercy in verses 6 and 7. And the reward of righteousness in verses 8 through 14. The hypocrisy of ritual. In verses 5 here we have people that are going through the motions. 11:03 Appreciate what Gary said this morning about just coming to church because that's what you do or that's what's expected. No, you can quickly in a long-term faith where we get kind of used to and accustomed to things and doing certain things certain ways, we can easily become ritualistic. 11:22 Even in those who claim they're not ritualistic, I've watched them in their services and they take on a certain ritual. And they just exchange one culture for another culture and one ritual for another ritual. But if the heart is not firmly entrenched in the goodness of God and relationship with God, we can become ritualistic. 11:43 Our devotional life can become ritualistic. Our Bible study can become routine. Our morality... Excuse me. Our morality can become commonplace. 11:57 Our doctrine can become just an ordinance that we just do. Our prayer life can become mundane. Our church attendance can become just an opportunity to see friends. And all of these things can be done without really connecting with God. 12:17 And you can say, "I'm really sacrificing for God. I'm really going to church. I'm really entering into my Bible study. I'm reading the daily bread every day. And I'm doing all these things. And yet God seems distant. God seems far away." He goes on to tell these people in verses 3, 12:38 "There's a reason why I'm not hearing you. You have fasted but you haven't seen me." God hasn't seen them. They have afflicted their souls but God takes no notice because they do it for the wrong reasons. They do it for the wrong purpose. Their heart is not in the right place. They do so for their own pleasure and for their own benefit rather than for the benefit of God and others. 13:01 They do it for strife and debate and to strike the fist of wickedness. While they're taking time off for their fasting, they're exploiting their workers. They're quarreling and fighting and clenching their fist and even pointing the finger. Pointing the finger and accusation and condemnation and judgment and criticism of one another. 13:23 They bow down and sacrifice and look good but God tells them they have an empty ritual and cannot reach Him in that condition. So what is the answer? The answer is to look at the requirements of mercy. What are the requirements of mercy? Well, He says in verse 6, 13:44 "Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bonds of wickedness? To undo the heavy burdens? To let the oppressed go free? To break every yoke? To share your bread with the hungry and bring the poor into your house who are cast out? 14:01 To uncover the nakedness and to hide not yourself from the responsibilities of your own family and flesh?" He wants us to be people of mercy. You can just kind of write over all those things. Mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy. Grace, grace, extending grace. 14:23 Undoing the heaviness. Setting people free. This is the ministry of Jesus who came to set the captive free. To preach the gospel to the poor. The recovery of sight to the blind. To set at liberty those that are bruised and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. The year of Jubilee. The year of the one who can set us free. 14:43 Free from what? Free from anything. Free from everything. To be released from the bondage of addictions. To be released from the bondage of poverty. 14:53 To be released from the bondage of habits and of depression and mental illness and all of the things that people suffer with. Not only in the church but in the world around us. Yes, I think we can do a pretty good job at times caring for those who care for us. Yes, the Bible talks about that. 15:13 About doing good for the household of faith. But He also talks about reaching out to those who cannot repay you. Who cannot do something good for you in return for what you have done for them. That's where the reward is and that's where the heart of God is. And so He says, "I want you to do these things. 15:32 I want you to clothe the naked. Give shelter to the homeless. Provide for your own family. And share your bread and break the yoke and set the captives free. And not oppress the poor. Not oppress your laborers and your employees and so on. And then there will be the reward of righteousness. 15:54 The reward of righteousness. There will be light. The light of the gospel. The light of your testimony shall break forth. Your countenance will break forth," verse 8. "Healing shall spring forth speedily. Healing not just for the body but healing for relationships and healing for the brokenhearted. 16:15 And your righteousness shall go before you. You will have a testimony of righteousness." And this is a beautiful one here. "The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard." While you're going forward. While you're moving forward. "The glory of the Lord will surround you." Oh, that we would pray that the glory of God would go before us. Would stay behind us. 16:35 Would go beside us. Would go beneath us and above us. That we would be surrounded by the glory of the Lord. "The glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. They shall not attack you from the back. From behind. You will call and the Lord will answer and He will say, 'Here I am.'" What was the difference? The difference was mercy ministry. 16:56 Ministry of mercy. Not only within the church but without. Protection. An audience with heaven. If you take, I want you to see in verse 9. There's two ifs and a then. "If you take away the yoke from your midst. 17:12 The pointing of the finger and the speaking wickedness." Speaking wickedness against your brother. Speaking ill of people. Speaking of gossip and slander. And speaking of finger pointing. Well, do you know what they did and what they did and what that person did and that person's not worthy and that? And criticism. 17:30 The finger of criticism. If your default setting is mercy rather than condemnation. Rather than exploitation. 17:43 I believe that our default setting, the one that we fall back on continually, the 17:54 thing that just naturally comes forth from the child of God should be mercy. Every once in a while I get a letter or a notice from some of you all in church here about jury duty. Let me tell you how to get kicked off of a jury. Say that as a Christian, 18:15 my default setting is mercy. They'll kick you off. They will eject you. Because a jury is not chosen because of mercy. Now, that doesn't mean that a jury doesn't have its place. It's to discern the truth of what happened in a situation. But if our default setting is mercy, 18:36 which after all is one of the three requirements of Micah 6:8. "He has shown the old man what is good and what the Lord doth require of you. But to do justly," I guess you could say that's the role of a jury also. "And to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God. 18:58 To take the faith and grace and mercy which has been given to us and extend it to others who have yet to experience the mercy of God." Then He says, "And if you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, 19:17 then your light shall dawn in the darkness and your darkness shall be as the noon day." And I love the picture of verse 11. "The Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your soul in drought." How many of you want to be satisfied in a drought? Not satisfied with the drought but satisfied in a drought. In other words, having enough to eat. 19:37 Having enough to drink. Having your needs met in a time of drought. 19:42 When there's drought all along and all around, He says, "I will satisfy your soul and strengthen your bones and you will be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail in a world of drought and deficiency and discouragement." 20:03 Merciful people will find mercy. Jesus said it like this. "Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain..."? "Mercy." That ought to just settle it for us once and for all. "Blessed are the merciful." You want mercy? We extend mercy. 20:22 "Your ministry will be established. Those from among you shall build the old waste places and you shall raise up the foundations of many generations. You shall be called the repairer of the breach and the restorer of the streets to dwell in." There's a restoration mentality among those who have tasted of the goodness of God. 20:43 Among those who have tasted of the mercy of God. Among those who have tasted of the grace of God. The default setting is mercy, grace, and kindness and love. "God will delight in you and you will as you delight in Him." Interesting what He says in verse 13 and 14. 21:03 He turns to the Sabbath. We don't think much about the Sabbath. We refer to the Lord's Day. The Christian Lord's Day. The first day of the week where we commemorate the resurrection which took place on the first day of the week. We're not bound by the law of the Old Testament Sabbath. The Saturday, the seventh day. 21:25 We're not bound by the laws of 21:29 the Pharisaical laws which are detailed, I think over 600 laws for the Jewish people to do and not do on the Sabbath day. We're not bound by those things. What we are bound by is that we have a holy day honorable to the Lord. And so He says, "You call the Sabbath day a delight. 21:51 The holy day of the Lord, call it honorable. Not doing your own ways nor finding your own pleasure nor speaking your own words." The Sabbath is for man, not man for the Sabbath. But it's a gift that God has given us to give back to Him. To be busy about His business. 22:12 Taking care of His business in worship and fellowship and ministry. Mercy ministries. He said, "That's the thing that I'm looking for. If," verse 13, "then," verse 14. 22:26 "Then you will delight yourself in the Lord and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the Lord has spoken." Whenever it says the mouth of the Lord has spoken, it's just to draw special attention to the fact that this is what God is saying. 22:43 It's all what God is saying but this is specifically a message that God wants us to know comes from Him and His heart through His mouth and His servants. Now, what does mercy ministry look like in the church? Well, I did a little studying this week on poverty. 23:04 Poverty. Why does the Bible say that people are poor? It's very clear in the Scripture that the poor are with us always. It's very clear in the Scripture that God has made sure that the poor, that there are always poor people. One of the reasons is it's a test for His people, His children. 23:26 How we will extend mercy to those who are less fortunate and how we will release them from their poverty and their afflictions. Now, there are some causes of poverty that are self-inflicted. There are other causes of poverty that are not self-inflicted. 23:47 They just happen because we live in a fallen world. Now, when I think about poverty this morning, I'm thinking about any oppression. Any oppression. Any bondage. Any affliction. Anything that goes wrong in our life. There are some things that are self-inflicted. You know that. 24:06 Probably some things we've inflicted on ourselves if we were only honest about it. But then there are other things that are inflicted on us by others that we may not have had any choice in the matter. And then there are other things that are inflicted on us just because God is giving us direction and helping us to sense our dependency. 24:27 And so as I look for these, as I look for these causes of poverty, I want to remember that mercy, mercy, mercy, grace are default setting. One of the reasons for poverty and famine and oppression is direction. God allows it to happen. 24:46 In fact, sometimes God even may cause it to happen as it was in Genesis 18 with the famine in Canaan. That famine in Canaan came up and you remember why did it come up? 25:00 Well, because God was using it to expend all of the resources of Jacob and his family so that they would be compelled to move to Egypt. You remember that. And so God was using that for direction. How else would they get to Egypt? Well, things dried up in Canaan. 25:20 And so there was food in Egypt. And so God used that poverty and that affliction to direct them down to Egypt from which 400 years later He wanted to call them out as a picture of redemption. You remember Elijah in the book Cherith? 25:37 Elijah was down there by the brook and he was on the run and he was trying to find God and trying to find his way and trying to make sense out of what has happened and what will happen and what God wanted him to do. And he was tired and worn out and he was down there at the brook and the ravens would feed him and he had the brook there for water and then the brook dried up. 25:59 Why did the brook dry up? Well, God wanted him to move. And so you move when God wants you to move. And sometimes God uses affliction and poverty and difficulties to get us to direct in a certain way. The second thing is following Christ. Following Christ sometimes will lead to poverty. 26:20 Now, that's not health and wealth. That's just the simple reality of taking up our cross daily and following Christ. Sometimes that means poverty. Jesus said in Luke 9:58, "Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man hath nowhere to lay His head. You want to follow Me? 26:38 The same thing will happen to you or might happen to you." And so following Christ can bring affliction and poverty. But then oftentimes affliction and poverty is a result of sin. If not our own personal sin, the sin of someone else. Psalm 109:9-12 said, 27:00 "As a judgment, let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. Let his children continually be vagabonds and beg. Let them seek their bread also from their desolate place. Let the creditor seize all that he has and let strangers plunder his labor. 27:18 Let there be none to attend mercy to him nor let there be any to favor his fatherless children." Wow, that sounds pretty rough. Pretty tough. Pretty severe. And yet that's what happens to a person who rejects God and whose God's judgment and discipline comes upon. 27:37 Now, the discipline of God is also a reason why people experience poverty or oppression or difficulties and that is in Judges 6:6. "So Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord." You remember the repentance cycle. Sin, repent. Sin, repent. 27:56 Sin, repent. God allowed them to become impoverished by the Midianites so that they would turn to God and repent of their sinfulness. The Bible says that laziness can be a cause of poverty. And we won't take time this morning to go through all those verses. 28:15 Brother Duane has been doing a good job leading us through some messages on the book of Proverbs. But Proverbs makes it very clear. "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep and poverty shall come in like abandon and scarcity like an armed man." And then drunkenness. The Bible says very clearly that drunkenness will cause poverty. 28:37 But what is our attitude towards those who are in those situations? Well, I'll tell you what a good Anabaptist attitude many times is. Now, I say good. It's probably not so good. But a good Anabaptist in our ideas sometimes is, "Well, I told you that was going to happen. 28:59 You made your bed, lay in it. Don't come crying to me when this doesn't work out. 29:06 If you want to get restored, there's going to be a whole lot of change in that has to happen and we point the finger rather than open the arms." The vast difference. I would say that the Anabaptist, true Anabaptist, true believer in Jesus Christ, 29:26 the true Christian is one when there is a willingness and a readiness and a desire to change and be healed, 29:37 opens the arm instead of pointing the finger. Are you with me? 29:47 That's what He's saying. Loose these people. Set them free. 29:53 Set them free. Now, I realize you cannot help someone who really doesn't want to be helped and you cannot help someone who's not at the bottom of their resources because what happens is, and too many times we've been burned by this. We do. 30:08 We get burned and people say they want to change and so you come in and you help and then they back away. Well, they get comfortable and then they don't want help after all. And then they get to the bottom of things and I know that we've had that happen in many of our families. In many of our relationships. 30:29 We've seen it happen. And so they come and then, okay, we help them. We're going to do everything we can to help you. We're going to set up this. We're going to set up that. We're going to set up accountability. We're going to be there. We're going to pray for you. We're going to mentor you. And then all of a sudden they don't want it anymore. You can't help that. But even in the midst of being burned, 30:52 what should our attitude be? Default setting mercy. 31:00 And many will not be willing to pay the price of change. 31:04 This is a strange situation that many people who are oppressed, I don't understand this and I'm not trying to be harsh or cold, 31:19 but many people who are oppressed kind of 31:25 enjoy or revel in or delight in in some kind of strange way their oppression. 31:38 But let me tell you when a person gets desperate, I had a man, I read his letter the other day at our office. He's incarcerated in the Miami Correctional Facility down in Kokomo. That has become one of the absolute worst correctional facilities in the state of Indiana. 31:56 It's hell is what we're hearing coming out of the stories that are coming out of Miami Correctional. Hell on earth. He said, "I don't want to live this way anymore. God, help me. God, help me." And what do I do? 32:18 What do we as a Christian community do? So we've had people that will take ex-inhates, former inmates into their homes. I know of a dear, some good friends of ours many years ago gave a man a job. He looked like he had found the Lord. He was probably one of the better guys that was going to make it on the outside. 32:38 Found the Lord. They gave him a job. They gave him a place to live. They had everything ready for him and he betrayed him. You get burned. And when you get burned, you get scarred and callous, right? 32:54 Mercy, mercy, mercy. Wisdom. Wisdom and mercy. To know how to help. In fact, there's a book out that I have not read but I'd like to read for those in Mercy Ministries, Helping Without Hurting. 33:10 Sometimes we can be so merciful that we actually jump in with both feet without wisdom and then we actually hurt the individual rather than help them. And so there takes a lot of wisdom. 33:27 But listen to what the Bible says. "For the poor will never cease from the land. Therefore, I command you, saying, 'You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and your needy in the land.'" That does not mean that you give them a handout. It may mean that you give them a hand up. 33:47 A Psalm says, "Defend the poor and fatherless. Do justice to the afflicted and needy. Blessed is he who considers the poor." Psalm 41. "The Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. Whosoever shuts his ear to the cry of the poor will also cry himself and not be heard. 34:07 He who despises his neighbor sins, but he who has mercy on the poor, happy is he. He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord and he will pay back what he has given. He who gives to the poor will not lack, but he who hides his eyes will have many curses. The righteous considers the cause of the poor, 34:29 but the wicked does not understand such knowledge." So what does this mean for us here at Living Water? I don't know. I'm not sure. 34:43 Other than the fact that should we not be praying that God would sensitize us to the needs of others both within the church and without? Teen Challenge. Awesome example. 35:03 One of the best, one of the best, Barnan, one of the best Christian rehab programs in the world is my opinion. Setting people free from oppression. Setting people free from drugs and addiction. 35:19 Setting people free from hatred and anger and fear and violence and tremendous ministry. Rhetta. We already talked about Rhetta. We talked about Christ's pregnancy and so on. This goes for spiritual oppression as well. Those who recognize their need for deliverance. 35:40 Is the church at Living Water, is the church in our community equipped to handle Mercy Ministries in a way that God would want us to handle them? It's a question that I have. Poverty. 35:55 A willingness not just to invest money in a person but to invest in a person's life. Now, I will say this. Sometimes churches are criticized and ours probably also for not reaching out to the needs of others. 36:15 Let me tell you, as one who has reached out to the needs of others at times, there is no end to the need for that relationship. 36:26 In other words, you can only have so many relationships that you invest in and invest in and invest in and invest in. And we love that. But let me tell you what. You can't have too many of those kinds of relationships or you get lost. 36:45 I mean, you lose your way. But what if? What if Todd and Anita had a relationship out in the community that was like that? Aaron and Bernice had a relationship that was out in the community like that? Travis and Alicia and Tom and Jewel and Arden, 37:05 Virginia, Rod and Cindy, Marlon and Violet. We each had a relationship that was kind of one of those giving, giving, giving. I don't mean that about this relationship, but kind of a tick on a dog relationship and you're the dog. 37:20 What if we each one had a relationship like that to extend mercy? How would that expand the outreach of Living Water? 37:31 You see, it's one thing to say the church ought to do it. It's another thing to say, "Lord, I'm available. 37:40 Send someone, whoever you want me to minister to today, send them my way." Wow. Mercy. Mercy Ministries. 37:54 And then willingness to invest in people's lives. The widows, the orphans, the mentally ill. That is a problem in our culture. Mental illness. You know what happens when we see someone who's mentally ill? 38:12 We're like the priest and the rabbi pass by on the other side of the street unless we catch what they have. I'm guilty. These are hard things. Hard things to work through. Some of you deal with it in your own families. It's hard. Mercy. 38:33 Wisdom. Strength. But also mercy. Homelessness. The prisoner. The alien. What about refugees coming out of Ukraine? What about refugees coming out of Afghanistan? You know, 38:54 it almost takes a refugee to appreciate what a refugee has gone through and goes through. 39:00 I remember reading the account of some people who moved from Mexico who took into their home an Afghan family because they understood. They understood what refugees go through. 39:20 By the way, brothers and sisters, we are refugees. Amen. We are strangers and pilgrims. We don't belong here. And so that ought to sensitize us to the fact that there are refugees that have no home. 39:35 I told my family I wasn't going to make a big deal about this, but I'm going to share it as an illustration because I think maybe I think the Lord wants me to. I'm going to give you all the gory details, but Monday, two weeks ago, Dallas and I, well, I flew out on Monday and Dallas flew out on Tuesday. And we met at my dad's place in Dallas, 39:55 bought a pickup from my dad. And we were going to drive that pickup to Texas. 40:02 And it ran really good for most of the day. It's an old Ranger pickup. Supposed to be in good shape. Mechanic checked it out. Fit to go. Made a couple of changes to it and just a few things that needed. We got to Salt Lake City, Utah on Thursday night. 40:21 Just ready to head across the mountain and out into the desert Friday morning. Thank God we were in town and we were not out in the desert because it got down to be about 20 degrees that night. And we found ourselves homeless. It was the coldest night I've ever spent for a long, 40:41 for many, many years. There was ice on the inside of the windshield, on the windows when we got up the next morning at six o'clock when McDonald's and the coffee shop opened. We were out of there and ready. We broke down. 40:54 There was a volleyball tournament for the region and maybe even for the West Coast in Salt Lake City in a place called Bountiful. Boy, it didn't feel like it was very bountiful. Bountiful, Utah. I will never forget Bountiful, Utah where we had nothing. 41:14 Didn't have enough coat. Didn't have enough blankets. Didn't have any sleeping bags. We slept in the truck that night. Pulled on two pairs of pants, shirts, sweatshirts, coats, two or three pairs of socks. And the truck was, it was shot. It was shot. Put it that way. We had to abort the plan. 41:34 But part of the abortion process was the pain of sleeping in a truck. We had nowhere to go. 41:39 So when they towed the truck, guy said, and we had a motel scheduled through Hotwire about 45 minutes down the road. We couldn't get 45 minutes down the road. 41:54 And so they towed the truck to a mechanic and we needed to be there at eight o'clock the next morning when that place opened and this was getting late. And so the tow truck driver said, "Well, there's a motel down here. I'll take you down there." So I said, we took us down there, dropped us off about a mile away. And they're full. They've got this big convention in town. 42:14 Nobody has any rooms. I said, "Would you let us just lay on the floor? We'll pay you to lay on the floor." "Nope. No, I can't do that. Too big of a liability." So we walked the mile plus back to the truck and spent the night in that truck. And it gave me a little bit of window. Interesting things go through your mind at that point. 42:34 One of them was, I wonder what chain of events would happen if we didn't make it through this night? You know, you think. 42:42 But it gave me a window. No place to go. If I had a place to go, I couldn't get there. Nobody would take you in. No places open. 42:56 And I had this picture of people sleeping in their cars or on a park bench huddled up with a coat and newspaper and thinking, "Wow. Lord, thank you for giving me just a little bit of a window." Somebody said, "Why don't you call the police? 43:15 Have them bring you some blankets." "Well, we didn't need, I guess we didn't think about that. We were focused on survival." And that's the way it is with homeless people. "Why don't you do this? Why don't you do that? Why don't you do that?" "Don't know. 43:28 I guess I'm just not thinking that way." And so how do we help people that really aren't thinking clearly? How do you help people that are homeless? How do you help people that are drug addicts? 43:46 "Well, just quit using." Does not work that way, brothers and sisters. Not with addictions. You can't just quit using. 43:59 And so they steal and they burglar and they thieve and rob so that they can get the next fix because they need somebody to introduce them to Jesus Christ. And even then, it takes a lot of work because Christ is the answer. But Christ comes with a whole new worldview package. 44:22 I remember meeting a man in prison. 44:27 Had never run a lawnmower. 44:32 Now, just because he becomes a Christian doesn't mean he suddenly knows how to mow lawn. Just because he becomes a believer doesn't mean that he knows how to balance a checkbook. He may not even know what a checkbook is. 44:48 Just because he becomes a Christian doesn't mean there's a whole way of living that you and I just take for granted and we point our fingers and I do it mentally, emotionally towards those who say, "How come you don't know better?" Mercy. 45:07 Mercy. We could say to those women who are pregnant outside of wedlock, "Why don't you know better? Don't you know you're going to get pregnant?" And we can come to God and do our ritual on Sunday morning. Think we've got it together. When really we stand on the backs of many, 45:28 many, many, many, many or the shoulders of many generations who have figured out life. Trying to reach a world that does not have a clue. It takes a lot of mercy, brothers and sisters. It takes a lot of mercy. Let's pray. 45:50 Father, you are so good. And you have blessed us in so many ways. Lord, let us not use our blessings for our own pleasure. Let us not just see our faith as something that's just me, 46:10 God, 46:10 and nothing else. But let us see our responsibilities to a lost world as requiring involvement, representing the heart and mind of Christ. 46:32 Oh God, would we be so bold and so daring and courageous to ask you to send us an opportunity? Maybe as a family. Maybe as a church family. 46:53 Maybe adopting a refugee. Maybe adopting an unwed parent or maybe taking a homeless person under our wings or I don't know. Lord, how would you want to use us? How would you want to use Living Water? We don't feel like we can save the whole world, 47:14 but maybe we can save somebody. Lord, I pray that you'll grip our hearts with mercy. My heart with mercy, compassion. That that would be my default setting. 47:36 I hadn't planned to do this this morning, but I do feel like giving an invitation. That if there'd be someone here this morning that God has spoken to you in some specific way, I'm not talking about just a general sense that I want to be more merciful. I want to be more aware of people's needs. I'm talking about in a specific way. And you would say, 47:54 "Brother Todd, I want you and the church to pray for me that I will follow through with what God is asking me to do." I know a couple of weeks ago when I preached on the subject of abortion, one of you came to me after the service and said, "I really believe that God is asking me to do something." A couple of you did. 48:13 And I still want to follow up with some of those things. But you would say, "God is asking me to do something or to consider something this morning. And I want the church to pray for me that I will faithfully follow through with what God is asking." Would you slip your hand up this morning and we'd like to remember you in special prayer. 48:37 Lord, you see those who have been touched by your spirit in some specific way this morning. We ask, Lord, that you will give them the courage to follow through. The courage to step forward. The courage to find their way to be obedient to that which you are asking. For the rest of us, 48:57 Lord, this morning who sense no particular specific unction, may you continue to work in our hearts and make us more and more conformed to the image, character, and likeness of Christ. It's in his name that we pray. Amen.