https://app.dropwave.io/episode/cb2941cb-953c-4cbe-bae1-c7b20fdda6d0/trinity-4-ad-2025.mp3

++ JESU JUVA ++

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[SONS OF YOUR MERCIFUL FATHER]

You, dear saints of God, are sons of your Father in heaven. By Holy Baptism, He has adopted you as His sons, declaring each of you His child and heir, which you receive by faith.

This takes us all the way back to the beginning of the Trinity season. On the Feast of the Holy Trinity, God reveals His name and gives it to us. On Trinity 1, we flee from the love of riches and join poor Lazarus in faith, looking to our God and Father for all good.

Last Sunday, we were invited to live as sons in our Father’s house. We saw this Father’s mercy in the way that He received back His wayward son. We heard His mercy as He pleaded to be reconciled to his older son. We heard His call to participate in our Father’s joy in bringing all His lost sons home.

Our Father in heaven is full of mercy. He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Over and over, the Scriptures tell us that He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, forgiving iniquity and transgression, showing love to thousands who call upon Him.

This was the mercy that we needed. Apart from Him, we were poor and destitute. We needed the holy blood and the innocent suffering and death of the very Son of God.

He has given us the greatest possible expression of love in the blood of His Son, which cleanses us from all sin and unrighteousness. For there was a time when you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy (1 Peter 2:10). You live in and by this mercy. It’s why even as a Christian you call yourself “a poor miserable sinner.” That word ‘miserable,’ means ‘in need of mercy.’ You continually come before your God in heaven to receive His mercy.

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is [His] faithfulness (Lamentations 3:22-23).

[CALLED TO BE LIKE YOUR FATHER]

So if this is our God —. If this is the Father we have, then it’s no wonder that Jesus tells us: Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful (Luke 6:36). Don’t be like the older son from last week who preferred to stew and sulk rather than celebrate with his Father and brother. See that you belong in the house as a son of a merciful Father.

This call to a life of mercy is a gift. It’s an inheritance — something that has been handed over to you. This mercy doesn’t depend on you. You don’t have to go and scrounge it up from the recesses of your heart. Mercy — all true mercy — begins with your Father, is given by Him, and points back to Him.

The nature of the Father also lives in His dear children. So Jesus is telling you to be who you are. You are your Father’s son. Participate in the family life. Be a member of God’s household. Participate in the things that bring God joy. Join with Him in being merciful.

He has poured His mercy into you — mercy that is pressed down, shaken together, running to overflowing. You have been given far more mercy than you could ever hope to use yourself. So this call to be merciful is the call to be a good steward of what God has already given you in Christ. As His mercy overflows to you, let it also flow to others. God has graciously given you all things (Romas 8:32). Freely you have received His mercy; freely give (c.f. Matthew 10:8).

[OPPOSITION TO MERCY]

Yet in this world, it’s hard to be merciful. There are obstacles to mercy. The first obstacle is your own sinful flesh. The temptation to be miserly with mercy, to give mercy only to those who like you. The temptation to use mercy for your own gain — to gibe mercy only to those who might be useful to you. The temptation to withhold mercy when the one in need of mercy just doesn’t deserve it.

Taken together, these might be described as a direct attack of the devil: dispensing or withholding mercy as an exercise of power. I get to decide when and how to dispense my mercy. It’s up to me to determine who is worthy of my mercy.

But this is not the way that your Father is merciful. God didn’t wait until you were properly worthy of His mercy before He gave it to you. And when you have squandered His mercy, He doesn’t wait for you to clean up your act before you get more. Nor does God use mercy as an exercise in vindictive power, as though it gives Him depraved pleasure to only grant mercy to some, while withholding it from others.