Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
In this podcast series, we're going to be looking into biblical
words that have great significance to our faith.
The name of this series is called the Word of the Week, where
once a week we will dive deeper into these words that we are
familiar with in scripture.
So come along with me, let's study the Word of the week.
Pastor Josh here.
The word of the week is gift.
This will be our last week looking at the spiritual gifts listed
in Romans chapter 12.
And it's been quite a journey as we have looked at these gifts
given to us by God in His grace for our service to him.
And, and we've looked at many passages of scripture, but the two
main passages that we are are foundationally looking at these gifts
in is first Peter chapter four, and then Romans chapter 12.
And in that list there in Romans chapter 12, we see the, the
last gift there listed as the gift of mercy.
And last week we looked at the gift of administration, or as the
King James puts it, ruling.
But this year we will look at many different elements of how we
can use these gifts for the work of the ministry.
But the last one today that we're looking at in its definition
is the gift of mercy.
And so in First Peter, chapter 4, verses 10 and 11, it tells us
that there are gifts that are going to be more public gifts.
There's also going to be gifts that possibly could be even behind
the scenes.
And, and in many ways the gift of mercy is one of those gifts that
would be behind the scene.
And I think one of the things we have to think about when it comes
to the area of mercy is the motivation behind our mercy.
And we have to look at the definition of that word, mercy itself.
Mercy is essentially withholding something from someone
that they might deserve.
And so we have to recognize what mercy is and we have to recognize
what that looks like in our lives.
And so the gift of mercy defined is this.
It's the spirit giving gift.
And with that gift comes the desire and the motivation to serve
God in the body by deeply, authentically emphasizing empathy
to other people.
So basically perceiving the emotional needs of those that are
in distress or needing comfort, maybe people needing relief,
maybe even to some degrees in anguish.
And I think that for the body of believers, this is a very important
ministry.
And the purpose again behind the mercy is to point people to Christ,
to give glory to God, as First Peter 4 tells us.
And so the person with the gift of mercy is the person with
the supernatural gift of.
Of empathizing with people's emotions.
And emotions are a beautiful thing.
God gives us those emotions.
Even though we can't allow the emotions to dictate to us our truth,
we cannot deny the emotions that we face through various circumstances
in our life.
So, for example, you know, someone could go through a very difficult
time with a loss of a loved one or pain in their own life, and
that leads to sadness, that leads to sorrow, that leads to pain.
And so it's a serving gift that focuses on the emotional needs
of an individual and in the broader sense, the emotional needs
of the body of believers.
And so the.
The mercies are motivated to.
To meet the emotional needs of people in practical ways.
So it's not just, hey, I feel for you.
It's.
It's not just, hey, you know what?
I feel sorry for your pain and I'll cry with you, but it's actually
trying to meet these folks's needs in a very practical way that
can help in, in that process.
And so I think a couple verses that we could look at when it comes
to that idea of meeting the practical emotional needs of people
within our church could be found in many passages.
But I think if you look at Luke chapter 6, Luke chapter 6, and
we can look at verse 36, here we see a very important truth given
to us.
And it says, obviously Jesus is speaking, and he says, be therefore
merciful, as your Father also is merciful.
I know that's a short statement, but there's a lot packed
in there.
And essentially what we see is that as believers, we are marked
in our identity by our Savior, by, by our Lord.
And so we, we take steps to emulate and to model the mercy that
God gives.
And so obviously, God gives his mercy by meeting needs.
Um, God extends grace and mercy and comfort to those in need.
And so that's what we do.
We don't just say it, but we do it.
Another passage of scripture that we're familiar with in our second
Corinthians studies, 2 Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 3.
Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.
So we see that it's the character of God to extend this comfort
and mercy to people, but then it tells us the purpose of that.
So, so as God comforts us, verse four, who comforted us in our
tribulation, meaning God comforts us, the believer, that we
may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort
wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
So if you didn't catch that there, it says this God extends mercy
and comfort to us so that we can, yes, be given comfort and receiving
mercy, but so that also we can share that mercy and comfort with
others around us.
And so God is always extending that mercy and that grace and that
comfort so that, yes, we can be beneficiaries of that, but so
that we can share that with others.
And so you serve these people and you give them mercy.
You show, you extend mercy.
But there, there's definitely a difference between mercy and service.
But mercy in and of itself is that starting place to demonstrating
the, the help.
But I, I think the way that you could discern between the two,
between the gift of service or the gift of mercy is that the motivation
behind.
The motivation behind it, right?
Meeting needs, yes, but also meeting people on their emotion,
I think would be the, the mercy element of it.
And so you, you know, you can see a lot of people in scripture
that would be examples of this.
But the one that comes to mind for me would be Barnabas.
Right?
Barnabas.
He's the, the son of consolation.
And I think that that would be an individual that if you studied
him out in scripture, you could study out the, the mercy and
the grace of, of Barnabas.
And, and that would be a good character study.
But I, I would encourage you to, if you get a chance, look up
Barnabas and look up what he does there with, with Paul and others.
And I think that that would be beneficial for us as we study this
gift of mercy.
So someone with the gift of mercy strongly is driven by love,
compassion.
And so there's that, there's that desire for genuine love, deep
love.
Someone who has the gift of mercy is going to be strongly empathetic.
And that can go in the positive and the negative.
Obviously, as you're feeling, there's emotions, those emotions
that can go into a negative place, right?
If we allow our emotions to dictate our truth, then our truth
is being dictated by a fluctuating thing.
And our truth has to be dictated to.
Our truth has to be dictated to the Word of God.
Dictated by the Word of God, I should say linked to the Word of
God.
And so I think that that's something that we have to gauge when
it comes to this gift.
And so, you know, exercising this gift in the flesh would be seen
maybe as allowing our emotions to dictate our decisions, but exercising
this in the spirit would be saying, I'm going to take my truth
from the Word of God.
But meet people in their needs and their emotions.
And so that, that's something to think about.
I think that there is a strong attraction in this gift to connect
with people that are stressed, people that are maybe going through
difficult times in their life.
And maybe even sometimes it feels like they, they come after
you, they, they follow you, they find you.
And so there is a strong tendency to communicate emotions
to other people.
And, and I, I think that, you know, there are going to be people
that are naturally gifted in this, and there's going to be people
like myself that might not be naturally gifted in this.
And so, you know, it's.
The exhorter will see the, the problem with the situation and the
remedy to the situation and will say, hey, look, you know what?
This is all you gotta do to do it and kind of separate themselves
from the emotional side of things.
But the person with the gift of mercy will maybe not necessarily
sacrifice truth, but they will meet that person in that emotional
distress and empathize with them.
And so that mercy and that truth works together wonderfully.
And so there's a strong tendency to try to take away stressful
situations from people.
And, and so I, I would say that that's something as well that
would link in with the, the gift of, of mercy.
But of course, all those, all those things can fall into the, the
fleshly mindset as well.
Someone who has the gift of mercy but exercising in the flesh
could be maybe more of an indecisive person when it comes to
decision making because of the fact that they are.
He or she are, is going through the process of trying to
allow the emotions to dictate them instead of the truth of God.
That the person who's exercising mercy in the flesh might
jump to someone's side, taking sides because of an emotion, maybe
going to the place of empath, emphasizing the empathy too much
and not emphasizing truth.
There may be some vulnerability there that could easily
lead to hurt, maybe feeling overwhelmed by taking on the pain
of others.
And I would say, you know, might even get to a place of being
too connected with somebody to the point where they can't see the
truth.
They're too close to the situation that they can't see the
truth.
Uh, so, so of course the Bible speaks of speaking the truth in love,
but if you emphasize the love and have no truth, there is a mistake
in that.
So that would be, that would be the negative side of acting in
the flesh with this gift of mercy in one's life.
But it's a needed, needed gift within the church.
As all of these gifts are, right.
God gives us these manifold gifts, these various gifts for the
purpose of being diverse within the church.
Because not everyone can be gifted in the gift of mercy, because
we would be missing in other areas.
But we all are gifted in certain areas for the purpose of
the gospel, for the purpose of the glory of God.
And it is given to us by grace.
We did not earn our salvation and we did not earn our spiritual
gift or gifts that God extends to us in his love and his grace.
So that's something to think about, never to wrap ourselves up
in the pride of our gifts because they weren't something that
we earned.
It was something given to us in grace that brings us to a place
of humility, that brings us to a place of thankfulness, and that
brings us to a place of reliance on God, even in the midst
of our gifts that God has extended to us.
So I've really enjoyed this study.
I've really enjoyed the study looking at the spiritual gifts, the
ministering gifts there in Romans chapter 12.
And certainly we will address these in further study down the road,
I'm sure.
But we will be moving on to a new Word of the Week next week.
If you've been with us now for a while, this has been a long study.
I think it's around two months that we've been looking at the spiritual
gifts there in Romans chapter 12.
And I thank you for following along with that and I hope it's been
helpful for you, hope it's been a beneficial study to identify
where God has gifted you and where you can serve in your local
body there, wherever you are listening this, listening to this
podcast.
So I hope that you continue on with us as we study more words.
There's so many words given to us in scripture and we're thankful
for them and we're thankful for the opportunity to grow in our
knowledge of the Word of God.
So I hope that you have a wonderful rest of your week.
We will come back to you next week with another Word of the Week.
We'll be praying that God continues to work in your life and
we continue to trust in him for his guidance and for his truth.
So we thank you, appreciate it.
If you could share this podcast with somebody else, that
would be wonderful.
The more folks we have listening to this podcast, the more
we're able to reach out and proclaim the truth to this world.
So we will talk to you soon.
God bless.
Take care.
Hey, I really appreciate that you listen to the Word of the Week
podcast.
If you have any questions about the podcast or about our church,
Middletown Baptist Church.
You can find more information about us on Facebook or YouTube.
Or you can find the podcast on NBCPodcast.org you can contact me
directly at Josh Massaroiddletownbaptistchurch.org stay
tuned for future Word of the Week episodes where we dive deeper
into words that impact our life according to scripture.
Thank you so much.
God bless.
We'll talk to you soon.