1267. Grace and Mercy

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Today on The Daily Platform, we're continuing a study series entitled, Our Great Salvation. Today's speaker is Bible professor, Dr. Kerry McGonigal. Well, my objective this morning is pretty simple, and that is to take the topic that I've been assigned, grace and mercy, and really unleash those two on you, like canine police dogs, like a German shepherd, because when these two topics are unleashed, grace and mercy, they sniff out the scent of certain unlawful ways of thinking.

And so, I'm just going to go ahead and give you my big idea because I want you to know where we're going with this message. I want to encourage you through this chapel message to let the transforming truths of God's gospel grace and mercy loose in your minds in order to locate and eliminate two common ways of thinking that are absolutely contradictory to God's grace and God's mercy and our salvation. I'm thinking in particular of a sense of entitlement and our sense of superiority.

Let the transforming truths of God's grace and mercy loose in your minds. Let it locate, isolate, and then eliminate this sense of entitlement and superiority that we often struggle with. So let's talk about this first problem of entitlement, that I deserve special treatment. If someone has written entitlement, the definition might as well be Americans. It's the attitude of deserving. I deserve to live in an expensive house, go to a private college, make $70,000 right out of school, send my food back at a restaurant if I don't like it, sue someone for no reason at all, and you get the point.

The attitude almost doesn't exist in the rest of the world. In 2009, Stephen and Catherine Miner tried to sue their mother, Kimberly Garrity, for $50,000. They claimed that their mother had engaged in, quote, a course of conduct which had caused both the intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, end quote.

So I was curious to know what were her crimes, and this is what they put forward in court to support their lawsuit. The mother had failed to take Catherine, the daughter, to a car show. The mother had haggled over the amount to spend on party dresses. The mother had called her daughter at midnight telling her to come home from celebrating homecoming. The mother gave Stephen, the son, a birthday card with no cash and no check in it. The mother failed to send her son care packages while he was in college. And she had the audacity to change her surname when she remarried.

The children were being raised by their father in a $1.5 million home. Stephen Kimberly had divorced in 1995, and interestingly enough, he was one of the three prosecuting attorneys in the case. Now thankfully, the court dismissed the lawsuit ruling that the mother's actions were, quote, unpleasant and perhaps insensitive, end quote, but did not meet the legal definitions of emotional distress. So how about you? How about me? One author writes, how do you feel when life doesn't turn out how you expect it? Single in your late 20s. Two years of trying and still not pregnant.

No acceptance letter from your favorite college. Five years later and still at the same job with the same pay. Do you feel angry, jealous, depressed?

Do you begin to distrust God or become angry toward him? Unmet expectations are our first glimpse of entitlement, a sense that we deserve marriage. We deserve kids. We deserve more money.

We deserve a better job. A feeling that God owes me. She goes on to say it's hard to recognize what you feel entitled to until someone else gets it. You may be content in your singleness until your sister gets engaged. Hey, what about me?

I'm older than you. You're happy in your job until your coworker who's been there half the time gets the promotion. I put in more hours than her. I should have that job. Or you're happily volunteering at your church without the need of recognition until your friend is publicly recognized for her service.

Hey, how come no one noticed me? And that sense of entitlement that I deserve special treatment is actually rooted in the second one, and that is pride. I feel like I need or deserve special treatment because I feel that I'm special.

And more so than others. As I compare myself with other people, I feel this sense of superiority, and it also tends to lead toward prejudice and bias. Our pride becomes evident when we look at the way we view others and the conclusions that we come to about them, because many of our conclusions about other people are made in a matter of seconds or minutes, and they're based on purely superficial considerations. Our judgments are influenced negatively by our prejudices, by our biases, by certain prevailing stereotypes, and ultimately by our own pride. And it's my intention this morning to let loose the grace and mercy of God and salvation, to sniff those out in our hearts to isolate, identify, and eliminate those ways of thinking.

So let me test you out on this. Do you immediately assume that people of a different color or race or gender are less educated and therefore less intelligent? Or do you immediately suspicion certain people as trouble simply based on the color of their skin or the way they look? Men, what is your response when a woman is placed on your project team? Do you immediately assume that she's a liability?

Not because you've determined or seen that she actually is, but just because she's a woman. Do you automatically rule people out because of the way they talk? Do you immediately assume certain things about that person when their speech is slow or slurred or they stutter or maybe they even speak southern? Do you fear the presence of down and outers, certain kind of people at your church?

Do you get nervous when they start showing up for services? What comes to your mind when you see somebody with a tattoo or somebody whose dress is out of sync with your particular preferences or with your particular culture? Ladies, do you look at what other women are wearing and instinctively determine their character or their significance and make cutting comments about them to your friends?

What conclusions do you come to when you see somebody in a wheelchair or someone with a disability or someone with a disfigurement? Are there certain kinds of people that you avoid simply because they're different? Are there certain kinds of people that you won't sit by and that you won't talk to? Do you look down on people who serve in ancillary roles as if what they do is less significant than your more public and conspicuous role? How do you feel when you're around other believers whose standards are, in your estimation, lower than yours, who don't take the moral high ground in your estimation, who sing songs that you wouldn't sing in a style that you wouldn't condone, who wear things that you wouldn't wear and who go places that you wouldn't go?

And the questions could go on and on and on, but do we see the problem? Do we see these ways of thinking not just out there in society, not just out there in the student body as a whole, not just in our churches, but do we see these ways of thinking, this entitlement, this pride, this prejudice, this sense of superiority, do we see it infecting our own hearts? We look down on others because we're lifted up in our own estimation. So we compare ourselves and we build a platform, as it were.

So like I am this morning, I'm above you looking down on you, I've erected this platform in my own thinking and I'm higher and superior and elevated because other people aren't as intelligent or they're not as beautiful or handsome or winsome, they're not as well-dressed or as talented or gifted, they're not as well-liked or well-known, they're not as conservative or as separated from the world as I am, or on the other hand, they're not as liberated from legalism as I am. They're not as faithful to the ministry or as significant to the ministry as I am. They're not as consistent in their parenting. Their kids aren't as well-behaved as mine are. They're not as grace-based or gospel-centered as I am.

And on and on it goes. And in some cases, this actually turns into kind of a legalistic mindset. In other words, it's not just comparing ourselves with one another, but we get this sense that we're actually better in the sight of God, that we actually have elevated ourselves to the point where we're actually closer. I'm higher than you are, and therefore closer to God, and God must look on me more favorably and be more impressed with me because I'm superior. I'm more righteous. Just a little bit closer to God because of my looks.

It's easier for God to like me because of my position, my role, my popularity, my nationality, my political affiliations, my theological positions, my personal standards of holiness. And my intention this morning again is to let the grace of God in salvation, let the mercy of God in salvation loose in our minds so it can do that kind of renovating, transforming work that we all need. So I can't think of a better place to turn this morning than Romans, if you would turn there with me, to Romans chapter 1, because Paul is intent on unfolding the glories of God's grace and God's mercy in the gospel. It's really his intention in writing this letter to the Roman believers.

And we'll see in just a minute that his intention is to let these gospel doctrines loose in the mind to transform and renovate us. So look at chapter 1 verse 1, Paul begins this letter by saying he was separated unto the gospel, the good news of God. In verse 9 he writes, God is my witness whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son. Verse 15 Paul says, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are in Rome also. And in verses 16 and 17, which are commonly recognized as the theme of the entire epistle, Paul tells us why he's not ashamed to come to Rome and preach this gospel because he says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For the gospel is the power of God and the salvation to everyone that believeth.

Verse 17, for in it, in the gospel is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. So what we read from chapter 1, 18 on, is this gospel that Paul was separated unto. It's this gospel that Paul was eager to preach.

It's this gospel that Paul was unashamed of. But when we come to chapter 12 verse 1, we reach a transition, as many of you know, in the letter. And Paul transitions from his proclamation, his preaching of the gospel, to his application. So now what we want to talk about is the applicational force and the impact of this gospel message to believers.

And you see there that transitional word, therefore. Verse 1, I beseech you, therefore, in light of the last 11 chapters, in light of my preaching of the gospel, to respond to it appropriately by consecrating your life in order to do the will of God. End of verse 2. In other words, somebody that presents their body a living sacrifice is intent on doing God's will. But if you want to understand God's will for your life, as described there at the end of verse 2, you're going to have to come through the first part of verse 2 where Paul says, and don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That's how you consecrate yourself to God. That's how you come to the point where you know the will of God so you can do the will of God. You've got to have this renovation take place in the way you think. So it's kind of like if you've ever watched Chip and Joanna Gaines in their HGTV series, Fixer Upper.

You know, this is like demo day. The gospel of God's grace and God's mercy and Jesus Christ absolutely, utterly demolishes this sense of entitlement that I deserve to be treated special. It demolishes this sense of superiority and this prejudice that we have.

If we let it. You can see Paul's application of the gospel is really specific to the mind. Notice how he contrasts not being conformed to this world with renovating the mind. And often when we come to this passage, we externalize worldliness. We think of externals.

We think of conformity to certain external patterns and ways of living and dressing. But Paul is going much deeper. He's going right to the way we think, a certain mentality. And I want to show you actually what he has in mind because we've got to keep reading in the passage to find out what Paul had in mind when he says, be transformed. Verse 3 says, for I say. You can see the little word for there at the beginning of verse 3 connects back to verses 1 and 2. I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you.

So no one is excluded from this application that Paul's about to make. Now notice what he says, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. In other words, don't be conformed to the world in the way you think about yourself.

Be transformed and think a different kind of way. In other words, in the world system, it's all about status and position and prestige. It's all about our placement in society. It's all about comparing ourselves with one another. But Paul says the gospel demolishes that way of thinking. It renovates us. So we think in a transformed way.

And what does that look like? What he says, think soberly, think and judge according to reality, not what I have come to think about myself, my inflated estimation of myself, but think soberly according to the truth as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith. So the first application of a right response to the gospel is how believers think about themselves and by extension how they view other people because he's going to go on and apply this to spiritual gifts and the use of gifts within the context of the church.

Because I have a certain gift, let's say preaching or teaching, that doesn't make me any better or superior to others who have lesser gifts in terms of their conspicuousness or their public role. The gospel according to Paul is designed to renovate. So what are some of the facts about God's grace and mercy that he covers in chapters 1 through 11 that will come into our minds and renovate us? Let me give you five of these transforming truths of the gospel of God's grace and mercy. Let's rehearse these this morning and apply them specifically to our struggle with a sense of entitlement and superiority. And the first one is it's not your birthday. So where did you get that from?

Well, I got it from Paul Tripp. Paul Tripp relates when he was a kindergarten teacher and one of the moms wanted to have a birthday party for her daughter Susie and so he said yes as long as everybody's invited that'd be fine. So Susie's mom shows up on the day of the birthday party and makes the whole classroom into a birthday kingdom. Susie gets to sit at the end of the table and she's got this pile of packages in front of her.

You can hardly even see her because of the amount of gifts that are stacked up in front of her. And all of the children have little sandwich bags that are full of party favors and so they get some tootsie pops and lollipops and they got a plastic whistle. There's one boy, Johnny, who was not content. Who did not see that as fitting or appropriate. He felt like he deserved something special. Like he was having a hard time with Susie getting all the attention and so he started to make his disgruntlement known and so he crossed his arms, furrowed his face and just started going, hmm, hmm.

And he started doing it loud enough that everybody could hear and he was actually beginning to draw attention to himself. So one of the teachers, one of the parents came over and knelt down beside Johnny and very wisely and very gently said, Johnny, it's not your birthday. It's not your party. And you know what, the gospel comes to us very wisely, very gingerly, but very directly and says to us, it's not your birthday. It's God's birthday. It's God's party. This is about him receiving honor.

This is about him receiving gifts. And so the gospel reminds us, it devastates our pride and our sense of, our inflated sense of self because we want to privatize the gospel. We want to individualize the gospel. We want to make it, you know, we love singing songs like, it was for me he died, for me. And I don't want to take any blessing away from the personalization of the gospel.

That's certainly something we need to revel in, but we can't do that exclusively. It's not just for me he died, it was for him he died. The gospel is designed to reveal something about God. In fact, when you saw Paul explaining why he was so excited to come to Rome and preach the gospel, it was because of what the gospel reveals about God. It reveals his righteousness.

That God in his great wisdom would devise a way to justify the unjust and still be just. That's why the gospel is beautiful. And so it's not surprising that when Paul comes to the end of his preaching of the gospel in chapter 11 of Romans, he ends this way, for from him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever.

Amen. The gospel is ultimately reminding us that it's about God and not about us. So whenever we're tempted to lift ourselves up, to exalt ourselves, we need to remember this truth. It's God's party. God is the one to be exalted from beginning to end.

Number two, transforming truth, number two, you're going to get what you deserve. Look at chapter three and verse nine. What then are we better than they? No and no wise, for we have before proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin, as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. They are all going out of the way. They are together become unprofitable.

There is none that doeth good, no, not one. And then drop down to verse 19. Now we know that what thing soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight. The gospel reminds us that we're all in the same boat and we're all underneath the righteous judgment of God because we are all personally unrighteous.

So there's no one of us that has some kind of edge with God. Think of it like this. Think of a cruise liner and think of all the people and yet let's say something happens to that cruise liner and it starts to go under in the middle of the ocean. That cruise liner is no respecter of persons. Everybody is going under.

It doesn't matter how rich you are, doesn't matter what you look like, doesn't matter how beautiful you are, doesn't matter how talented, how athletic, you are going down. And so when we wrestle with this sense of entitlement, the honest truth is, apart from Christ, I don't think you want to get what you deserve. Because Paul says in Romans chapter 1 verse 18, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and we're all unrighteous. What we deserve is to be banished forever from the presence of God and to bear the punishment for our sins. And when God judges, He judges objectively. He judges according to the truth. He judges according to our deeds, chapter 2 verse 6. And that leads us to this third truth and that is God doesn't play favorites. Now, when we're thinking about our judgment and condemnation, it's a frightening reality but it's also true on the positive side. Chapter 3 verse 22 teaches that in spite of our universal sinfulness and our universal condemnation, that the righteousness of God is available to everyone because all have sinned. God's offer of salvation is indiscriminate. It is available to all, not just to a particular sub-class of people, not just to the educated, not just to the refined or the cultured or the religious.

It's available to all. Gospel Transforming Thinking knows that acceptance before God is not based on our personal performance. That somehow we get closer to God because we're beautiful or well-off or stylish or likable or intelligent or conservative.

None of those things matter. The righteousness that we have before God is based on Jesus Christ and the grace of God that comes to us through Him. So on what basis do we accept other people? Do we make other people measure up before we accept them?

Do we make them work to gain our approval and our favor? If anyone is accepted before God, it's because of Jesus Christ. Number 4, everything you have is a gift. Look at chapter 5 verse 1. Everything we enjoy as believers is because of our union with Christ. And this is really at the heart of grace. Grace is a gift. It's the gift of God. And it's given to people who don't deserve it.

In fact, it's given to people who deserve just the opposite. But look at chapter 5 verse 1. Therefore, being or having been justified by faith, we have certain things. We have certain possessions. We have, first of all, peace with God.

But I want you to notice that our peace is through our Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse 2. Paul identifies our second possession as a result of being justified by faith. He writes, we have access by faith into this grace. It's like when you trust in Christ, you enter a sphere, a realm of grace, and we stand in that realm.

But don't miss that little prepositional phrase, by whom? That is, by Jesus Christ, we have this access. And if you read through the rest of chapter 5 of Romans, you find out that every blessing that we enjoy is due to the obedience of the one man, Jesus Christ.

Just like all of our disaster and all of our condemnation was due to the disobedience of Adam. So all of the spiritual blessings we have find their source in our being united to Jesus Christ. We don't enjoy these blessings because we're intelligent or male or female or because we go to such and such a church. We have these benefits.

We enjoy these benefits because we're in Christ. And that's true of every believer. Regardless of their social grace or their hygiene. That's true of every believer regardless of their lack of athleticism. Regardless of their fashion and sense of style. They are in Christ if they're a believer and they enjoy the blessing of God's grace and mercy.

Regardless of their gender, regardless of their skin color, regardless of their nationality, regardless of their physical disabilities or the way they talk or the way they walk or their obscurity or their lack of popularity. If you're in Christ, that is the basis for God giving you what you have. It's like Paul says to the Corinthians, what do you have that you did not receive?

And the more we meditate on that, the more we let that loose in our minds, the more it demolishes and devastates the sense of entitlement and the sense of superiority that we often have. And then lastly, there's only one word that explains all of this. And if you go back to chapter 12, verse 1, you see it.

I love it. Paul summarizes 11 chapters of gospel preaching with one word, mercy. Mercies, plural.

God not giving us what we do deserve. Because he's compassionate, because he pitied us. Look at verse 1, I beseech you therefore, brother, by the mercies of God that you present your body a living sacrifice. No discrimination in the availability of God's righteousness. That's mercy.

No longer the object of God's wrath. That's mercy. Freely declared righteous by virtue of faith alone in Christ alone. That is mercy. Having the righteousness of Christ transferred to my account, that's mercy.

Blessings in Christ that far surpass everything I lost in Adam. That, my friends, is mercy. No condemnation in Christ Jesus.

That's mercy. So, will you do this? Will you let the transforming truths of God's grace and mercy revealed in the gospel and in the person of Jesus Christ isolate, identify, and eliminate this sense of entitlement and superiority?

Let's pray. Father, would you give us grace to further enter into the depths of your love for us and to understand the basis by which you relate to us and then have this transformed way of thinking about ourselves and this grace-filled perspective when we relate to other people? Or change us and transform us through the glorious gospel of grace and mercy? We pray in Christ's name. Amen. You've been listening to a sermon preached by Bible professor Dr. Kerry McGonigal. Join us again tomorrow on The Daily Platform.