You
can’t know the quality of a cake until you have tasted it. I have seen people holding a board with a
picture of a burger on it and when you see the picture, you feel attracted to
it and you can’t resist buying a burger.
You expect the big mac to look huge like the poster but it is
small. One day I asked why the picture
looks more attractive and they said, “sorry, next time but give me your money
in the meantime and next time we’ll see”.
In my country, they say, tomorrow never comes so when someone doesn’t
want to give you something, they will say tomorrow so when you go back the next
day, they will say, I told you to come tomorrow not today. For God, He is talking about today and not
tomorrow so we have to focus on today.
We have to follow God today and ask for forgiveness today, we can’t wait
until tomorrow because tomorrow never comes.
Today
I want us to chew on the Word of God and eat it. The message today is about mercy. Everyday
people talk about mercy and we hear people cry out to God to have mercy on
them. What does mercy mean for you? What does mercy mean for God? This word mercy starts from the beginning of the
Bible to the end - the Bible is full of mercy, every verse and chapter.
Before
to eat the cake, normally we look first for the knife to cut the cake but our
fingers could break the cake or we could just pick up the entire cake and put
it in our mouth. We need a knife so we
can make the cake into nice attractive pieces that people can easily pick up a
portion. If I ask you to bite this cake
and then I ask the next person, we won’t be comfortable to bite the cake after
someone else has already done it – we might be afraid of germs etc. In the Kingdom of God there are things that God
wants in order. We have to take the
knife first before reading Word of God. The role of knife is to cut and once the
knife has cut, the food has a good shape that is easy to eat. We have to cut the Word of God into portions
we will be able to easily undertand.
Mathew
5: 7, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”
Are
we merciful? If yes, then we obtain
mercy. If not, we should never expect
mercy from any person or from God. What
a condition, what a tough game – to be merciful. Someone killed your mum and now you have to
have mercy and let it go. Someone hit
your car, or stole from you but now you have to have mercy and let it go. How often are you ready to be merciful? How ready are we to make it one of the
qualities in our lives, to be a character of ours, to make it be a part of our
behavior? I hear people say, I’m so
angry, I’ve given you too many chances so no mercy now. How often should we be merciful to
others? 70 x 7. That’s a big mathematics.
Mathew
18: 21- 35, “Then Peter came to Jesus and
asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins
against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus
answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is
like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As
he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was
brought to him. Since he was
not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and
all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
“At this the servant
fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay
back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and
let him go. “But when that servant went
out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.
He grabbed him and began to choke
him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. “His fellow servant fell to his knees
and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’ “But
he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he
could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were
outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You
wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I cancelled all that debt of yours because you
begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant
just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be
tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you
forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
This
story is a good example of mercy. It started
with a character called Peter (there is no character in the Bible like Peter –
he is really a character). Jesus is
telling them they have to live in unity because you are all like one body and
so you all have to stay together, work with one another and love each
other. Peter was like, “how can I be in
unity with x person because they keep making mistakes, should I tolerate them
more and more? Should we only forgive
7x?” Peter had already forgiven someone
7 times and now he wanted that person to be removed. Jesus replied saying, not only 7x but 70 x
7. Meaning that if someone does
something wrong, we don’t’ have to say, “I’ll give you one more chance,” but
instead we have to keep forgiving that person and keep having mercy.
Jesus
came with a different angle and said, look at the Kingdom of God, I want you to
be in unity because of the Kingdom of God, he secret of the Kingdom of God is
like the following: a king woke up one
morning and checked his books, like an auditor.
Auditors don’t tell you when they are coming, they just turn up and they
use their intelligence and calculator and go through all your items. If you sold two boxes of chocolates, you
write it down in the book and the auditor will ask for that book, he will ask
for the record. The king decided to have
an account with all his servants.
The
first man was to be audited was a servant who was given 10,000 talents which
equals 344,000 kg of gold. 1 kg gold equals
US$38K so 344 thousand kilograms of gold equates to millions of dollars. The king trusted that servant with a huge
amount of wealth. The servant did not
use it properly - maybe he was taking money from it to organize a party, to
travel and he didn’t keep his records clean.
When the auditors came, they took the servant to the king and said, “he
doesn’t have your money”. The servant
begged the king and promised to pay back that HUGE amount of money. How long would it take to pay all of that
back? The servant fell at the king’s
feet begging for patience.
God
has trusted you and me and given us more than 10,000 talents. First, you are alive. You have your family, you can see, touch,
move, and it is all at zero cost. Many
will tell you they wish they had eyes, others wish they could have legs. How many people in this world wish they could
be the way you are? Do you know?
Someone
was created crippled or blind just because God wanted to be glorified. How will you feel if God created you blind
just for His glory compared to those who see.
When my father became sick, my family took thousands of dollars and begged
doctors to keep him alive, “if he stays alive, all this money will be yours”. Doctors could not keep him alive. We breathe freely and breathe as much as you
want but my father who was paying money to keep breathing could not. Doctors fight to keep their patients alive
but when the breathing stops, there is nothing more that can be done. But God who is the supplier, keeps giving you
the free oxygen everyday and we are to keep notes in our books. The supplier will come one day and ask what
we did with that oxygen. What will you
answer? I was playing soccer? God will ask
you, “Did I give you that breath so you can misuse it?”
Because
He is a God who trusts us, He gives us everything we need and trusts when He
comes back there will be a good record of how we used what He gave us. He gives us the body shape that others can
appreciate. I saw a man in Asia who
looked so terrible – a very deformed face and we can’t look at him twice
because it is so hideous and this man was proud walking around. God created him that way and people stared at
him. We stand in front of the mirror and
the ladies will trim their eye brows, apply powder and turn around and around
looking at themselves in the mirror and people appreciate the way they
look. Have you seen someone refusing to
look in the mirror? I have seen someone
smashing a mirror because he believed he was ugly. So when you look at yourself and you see you
are so good just remember that all the wows from others are glory that belongs
to God.
When
people comment and say how good you are at something, just remember that you
didn’t buy those talents with money - God gave them to you. When He comes back to audit you, he will say,
I trusted you with these qualities, what did you do with them?
At
night we sleep for free but many people can’t sleep and require medicine to
fall asleep. You have nice dreams but
others can’t even sleep. The first thing
in the morning we do is to look for breakfast. You can have eggs for example,
but how many chickens have you created to produce those eggs and God supplies
everything for you but you don’t even think about it. One chicken gives one egg per day and only
for a period of time. If you take 30
eggs, you take the lives of 30 chicks.
Some people complain about the price of eggs or the price of milk. How much effort does the cow do for the milk? God keeps trusting you and making people and
animals work for you to buy a tray of eggs for $5. Sometimes we are even picky and we don’t want
to eat that. God looks at us and wonders
why we don’t stop and think about how blessed we are.
The
servant lost the 10 thousand talents and he begged the boss for patience. The king forgave him and said don’t pay
anything to me – be free. Imagine buying
a car with finance but when you ring the finance company and tell them you can’t
afford to pay and you need time, they say, “you don’t have to pay it back, keep
the car.” Imagine if it were a house. What
will your first impression be? You’ll be
confused. Imagine you miss one payment on
your $600,000 house and the bank tells you that you don’t have to pay the
loan. Will you cry? Smile? Say thank God
or will you doubt and ask the bank to put it in writing.
This
man was forgiven and the Lord had compassion on him. He was full of joy because he was told that
that the servants should take him and sell him and sell his wife and children
and everything that belongs to him.
Have
you heard about the selling of human beings?
Slavery: people would come by force and take you somewhere and you
become a product that they will sell and trade.
You will be given to someone you don’t know and normally they will treat
you as a slave and not as a free person, they will be harsh to you and if you
attempt to escape you might be beaten to death.
I have seen in Africa places where they used to store slaves and it was
a very tall building with one small window and people were packed in the room
and no chance to go out of the room for the toilet. You might be allowed out of
the room for a toilet break once every three days. Once the room is filled with slaves, the ship
will come and take you to the US. It can
be hot or cold but you have to wait in that room. Many people lost their lives. They stayed in that room for montHoly Spirit
until it was filled. They will put a
choker around the neck and a rope to stop you from running because it will
choke you if you tried to run away. No
matter how strong you are, if someone touches your throat, you are nothing – it
is the weakest part of the body. This
man in the bible knew that his wife would also be sold and now his relationship
with her would be over. Imagine how much
his wife was in love with her husband and now she will be separated. How will you feel if your child has to be
sold into slavery? That is so very hard
and all because the servant didn’t keep his book in order.
Your
weaknesses and sins can have an impact on those around you, your family and
nation. Today the church doesn’t want to
recognize that. After forgiving the man,
he was free and shouting and then he sees one of his servants and tells him he
is owed 100 denaries which is about $700. He jumped on him and attacked the
neck and strangled him, he wanted to kill him.
Because of that action of attacking someone else and not listening to
him the other servants went back and told the master, “that same person you
forgave does not have compassion”. Here God
is teaching us the power He has given us.
When
you are someone somewhere, how do you use your power? How do you control yourself in order to not
harm yourself or others? How many times
do you hurt your heart, your Holy Spirit, your Christian life, your personality
and you make yourself look stupid. Some
get drunk and they make themselves look so foolish by banging into things, or
beating people. Where is compassion on
your behavior, your personality, your Christianity and after doing all that
rubbish, they will tell you that they will never do it again but they do. The
Lord told the bad servant, I forgave you but you didn’t forgive so for that
reason, give back what you owe me. You
lose the blessing of God sometimes when you don’t have compassion on others, He
reverses his blessing.
Because
you didn’t have compassion on your life and the people I gave you, you have to
pay back the blessings I gave you and they will all be flushed down the
toilet. We want so much to get glory and
money but many don’t want to be known as Christians – they are ashamed because
they want to live their own life.
Jesus
said, this man was given to those who know how to torture until he paid back
everything. Imagine having a conflict
with God because you didn’t want to have compassion/mercy for others. You tell others, “You keep doing the same
thing so I break the relationship”. The
solution is to break the relationship rather than having compassion. You tell them to stay in your corner and we
will go somewhere else.
We
always meet here to pray because we are preparing the way to the Kingdom of God. We need to know the rules of Kingdom of God
to enter it. We need to understand the
rules. When we became citizens of New
Zealand, we had to repeat what we needed to say and once making the oath, it is
a big engagement. When you became a
Christian, you told God that you now live for Him and you took a big engagement
with God. That was the beginning of
accounting and God is looking at you. I
give God false promises but live my own life and still want God to bless me.
Some
people have lost their sense of taste and everything is tasteless but those
with a good tongue will know how tasty the cake is. Have you lost the taste of the Word of God in
your life? Does your tongue feel that
you really belong to Jesus? If not, now
is the time to fall at the feet of God and cry out for mercy and then change
your life. What you are living now is yours but after tomorrow you don’t know.
Lebon
and I were watching the news yesterday and in Hamilton, after celebrating a
party, a house caught on fire. Three
people died. They were sleeping and then
fire. Although the house had windows and
doors, they died. We don’t have to be
foolish and think that we will jump through the window when the time
comes. Don’t think you still have time
to fix it. God is not our friend in the
world’s way of thinking of friends. We
don’t have to tell Him to wait until we are ready. The auditor is at the door and He will ask
you, “what did you do with your hands, feet and everything you have?” It will be a shame if you have to use excuses
because God will tell you, “no you should first take care of your soul”. You might say, I didn’t do your work God because
I was sitting next to someone who is sick but He will tell you, “being next to
the one who is sick cannot stop him from dying”.
When
Lebon was in hospital I remembered how he always talks about being strong and
fit which he is but now he is in hospital.
He was talking about how cold he felt but why couldn’t he run and warm
up his body to remove the cold? It was
serious. A girl came with a blue shirt
and she had to take blood sample. Lebon
has very big veins and when the lady tried to take blood it was
impossible. No veins. Lebon was suffering. After doing that, another nurse came to try
to get blood and Lebon started to shake.
The body that you believe is yours puts you in trouble. You look after your body but it doesn’t look
after you. You wash it and put on make-up
but it doesn’t look after you. You have
to look after your body but you need to also look after your soul because your
soul will look after you. If you don’t’
look after your soul, you will lose.
I
used to drive Lebon every day of the week to his training like a taxi driver
and I had to pay sometimes for his accommodation and then suddenly he had to go
to Japan to represent NZ in his age group for soccer. The trip cost $10,000 for one week. All of that money? And you give and give to the point that I
started to forget my other responsibilities and praise God he grew up and can
now drive himself. Lebon’s soccer boots
were around $350 and he needed about 5 per year. I was investing time, effort, energy, brain
etc for Lebon to be on a soccer team. We
need to remember that we belong to God’s team.
We have a role to play and what are we doing as parents for our
children, what are we doing for our neighbours, our friends our work collegues? We do our physical exercises but do we
spiritually run and walk or do we say we are tired? We should be active spiritually. Give to Cesar what belongs to him and to God
what belongs to God. Do we only give to
Cesar or do we give to God as well?
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