I Am Gracious

Well, good morning, everybody. My name is Valerie, I'm one of the pastors on staff, and whether I get to be with you in the room this morning or you're joining us on the live stream, I'm just so glad to be together. I'm just happy to have an occasion to say the word together because it's so fun. Now, I'm not gonna give you all $20 like Miss Yolanda this morning, so just don't get excited about that yet. But I am grateful to be here to continue our series, God's Guide to God.

We are going literally word by word through God's self-disclosure that we see in Exodus 34:6–7. So there I am. I'm getting ready for the sermon. I'm just soaking in how good God is, God's graciousness. I'm reading all these amazing Bible verses about God and His mercy and His grace, and I'm just sort of on this God high, this grace high, thinking about, ah, the amazing grace of God. And then I got on Highway One at 4:45 p.m. And my grace high quickly gave way to me, just furious at our society for our inability to help people understand how to merge. And our turn signals really so difficult, and then I started mocking the person that I saw weaving in and out of traffic, and then they got stuck, and I caught up with them, and I passed them. Sweet victory.

And I just actually started laughing out loud as I realized how quickly I went from wow, God, to grrr, people. The graciousness of our God is unchanging and always there. My gracious nature, however, is apparently very tied to the traffic on Highway One. I was reminded in that moment how much I need to know about God's grace, how much I have to learn about imitating God's grace. And I don't think I'm alone in this because I've been on Highway One. So let's dive in and let's see what the Bible has to say about God being gracious.

I wanna begin with our key passage from Exodus 34. We're still in the very beginning at verse six, and it says, and he, God, passed in front of Moses, proclaiming the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. This series is one where you really need to come to each week or make sure you watch each week 'cause they really build on the other. And each week we help expand on what we heard before.

And so I wanna quickly recap what we've done so far. In week one, René walked us through the very name that God gives himself, Yahweh, which simply means he is, he has always been, he will always be, our God has no beginning and he has no end. And then last week, Sarah walked us through that first word in the self-revelation from God, compassionate. And we found out that God's heart, God's very heart is towards us. And this week we're swinging to the next word and it's very connected to compassionate and that's the word gracious. God says, I am gracious.

And I wanna begin with a little word study. The Hebrew, which is the original language of this passage, the Hebrew word for gracious is the word hanun, hanun. And this is one of those situations in translation where what the Hebrew word is has a pretty straightforward translation into English. It's the word you see there in your notes, in your Bible, the word gracious. And this word hanun is used 13 times in the first half of the Bible, the Old Testament. And every time we see this word, it's used to refer to God. Every time it's basically a paraphrase of Exodus 34:6. And every time we see this word, it's connected to compassion.

So these two words are clearly meant to kind of hold hands and be together, but what distinguishes them? What does gracious tell us about God that compassionate doesn't? You know, I thought a lot about this this week 'cause these words really are connected, but as I looked at this word gracious more, and as I thought about the verb tense and all these things you think about, I realized, you know, I think gracious is really active compassion. It's active compassion, compassion that we put feet to. God is telling us in this verse that not only is his heart for us, but that he's gonna act on his heart too.

You know, every week in this series, we've mentioned how different this self-revelation of God was for the Israelites. The Egyptian false gods that they were surrounded with, they were known for being capricious. They weren't known for being gracious. And so I imagine the Israelites hearing this and just looking at each other going, is that what I thought he said? Is that what he means, he's gracious? But then what does that mean for us? We're not Israelites at the base of Mount Sinai getting ready to march around and try to get to the promised land. How does God's graciousness impact us? And then how do we live that out day by day? What does it mean for us?

Well, I wanna answer those questions by telling you a story from the Bible, a parable. And last week you may remember we talked about how a parable is simply a story that does a couple things. One, it's kind of a mirror that shows us ourselves a little bit. And it's a window that gives us a look into God's character and who he is. So if you have your Bibles with you, do me a favor, turn to the second half of the Bible, the New Testament, the book of Luke chapter 10. And we're gonna look at the story of the Good Samaritan today. And I'm gonna start reading in verse 30.

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and went away leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too a Levite. When he came to the place and saw him, he passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

The next day, he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. "Look after him," he said. And when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you have. Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise." Now, no matter if you grew up in church or maybe you don't even know Jesus and you're just checking this thing out, you have probably heard the phrase, the good Samaritan. This has become so deeply woven into our vocabulary in our Western culture.

But did you know that it has a connection to God's self-revelation as gracious? The word that's translated mercy here is the Greek word, "eleos," and it is sort of the Greek equivalent to our Hebrew word, "hanun." So the good Samaritan parable is really not just about you be nice and you be a good neighbor. It's actually a window into God's character and his graciousness, and it's a mirror to help us see our graciousness, or not, towards others. So let me give you the setup for this parable. It begins with an expert in the law, and this would have been a man who was very well educated, especially in the first five books of the Jewish Scriptures, and he would have known all the rules that were in place during Jesus' day.

And this expert in the law stands up. Everybody else is seated. This guy gets up, looks Jesus in the eye, and it says he wants to test him. And the connotation there is a little less about test and a little more about trap. And so the expert in the law asks Jesus, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" That's not a bad question. Classic Jesus, he answers his question with a question, probably partly because he knew it was a little bit of a trap. And he says, Jesus asks the expert in the law, "What is written in the law?" Fair question to ask an expert in the law. And this expert, I say, gives sort of a Sunday school answer. This is something that this guy would have said a zillion times in his life.

And he answered, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind. Love your neighbor as yourself." And I sort of imagine this guy going, nailed it. I know I did. Sure enough, ding, ding, ding, Jesus says, "Correct answer." The expert in the law could have just taken this moment to sit down and rest on his laurels. But no, he's human, he's us. I love the way Eugene Peterson's paraphrase, the message says what happened next. "Looking for a loophole," he asked. "And just how would you, Jesus, define neighbor?" He may have sensed that Jesus' definition of neighbor was about to get a little more broad than he was gonna be comfortable with. So he looked for a loophole.

Oh, and I tell you, I get it. There are times you read the Bible, you see something Jesus said, and it just doesn't set right in culture, it doesn't feel right to you, and so you start looking for loopholes. And that's exactly what this guy does here. And Jesus, perfect and wise, doesn't give this man or us a list. He doesn't say, "The following people are your neighbors. You must be nice to them." He tells a story about a man who went from Jerusalem to Jericho. And I wanna help you visualize this. This is actually a really old photo of this road that we're talking about here. And this road is desolate, craggy, full of rocks. And what you can't see in the photo is it actually goes from 2,500 feet above sea level at Jerusalem to 1,000 feet below sea level in Jericho, in just 17 miles. And this road in Jesus' day was called the Bloody Way. And it was notorious for the scene that Jesus sets up in this parable.

A man is making this journey alone, and sure enough, around one of those turns is a band of robbers, and they attack the man, they take his clothes, they beat him up, and they just drop him on the side of the road. And we don't know, maybe they took some money, maybe they took an animal, it doesn't say, but it does say they took his clothes, and that was a big deal. Back in this day, people didn't have a closet or a suitcase full of clothes like we would have today. They had maybe one or two sets of clothing, and so to take somebody's clothes was really to take their major possession that they had at that time.

Well, Jesus continues the story, and he says, first a priest comes down the road, and he sees, the Bible says he clearly sees the traveler, and then he passes on the other side. And then next we see a Levite. He sees, again, the Bible clearly says, he sees this guy, and he passes by on the other side. You know, the priest, the Levite, these guys were supposed to be the heroes of the tale, they were supposed to save the day. The priest at that time functioned as the mediator between God and humans. The Levite was charged with physically protecting the temple, they were the worship singers. They actually had in their job description to help the poor. People like this guy. They were supposed to be the good guys, but they just kept walking.

You know, I'm kinda tempted to put these guys on blast a little bit for what they chose, but I don't know what was going through their minds. This is a dangerous road. Maybe they thought it's a trap. Like if I go over to this person, people are gonna attack me, they're just pretending. Or maybe they thought the guy was dead and they didn't wanna risk becoming ceremonially unclean in that moment. Maybe it was more mundane, maybe it was like me sometimes. I just am more concerned about my schedule than my calling. And I feel like I just gotta keep moving, I gotta get there, I gotta do the next thing. I don't know, maybe they saw the guy and they're like, I know that guy. He is always getting in trouble. He hangs out with bad people. You know what, kinda deserved it. And they just kept on walking. We don't know, but what we know is they kept on walking.

And at this point, the people would have been listening to Jesus going, okay, so the priest isn't the good guy. The Levite isn't the good guy. They were probably thinking, oh, I know, it's just gonna be a common Jewish layperson will come by. They'll be the hero and it's just some sort of anti-clerical thing that Jesus is telling us. But Jesus had a plot twist. Jesus always has a plot twist, I feel like. And he says, but a Samaritan. Nope, they're thinking no way, no way Jesus is a Samaritan gonna be the hero of this story. There was deep, deep animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans. There was a deep racial tension. In the book of John, the religious leaders wanna insult Jesus and so they call him a Samaritan, a racial slur, that was the worst thing they could think to call Jesus.

But here's the Samaritan. And in contrast to the priest and the Levite, the Bible says he took pity on him. He sees him like the priest and the Levite did and he takes pity on him. But he moves beyond that because in contrast to the priest and the Levite that say they pass by on the other side, the Samaritan went to him. He went to him. I tell you, you could chew on that the rest of the day. Are we the people who pass by or the people who go towards? But I think that we see in this passage in the verses that follow two things that we can learn about graciousness, both God's graciousness and the graciousness that we're called to in our relationships.

And the first thing we see is that graciousness is practical. Graciousness is practical. The Samaritan sees this man has pity. He does not call a committee meeting. He does not write a post about runaway crime on the bloody way and the demise of society. He bandages this man's wounds. He simply pours oil and wine on them. The oil would have acted to soothe the wounds and the wine would have acted as an antiseptic to prevent infection. I mean, it sounds so much better than the back teen my mother used to put on my wounds. That stuff stung. It stung. And you know, I doubt this man was walking around with bandages, so maybe he had to tear his head covering or tear his clothes in order to make the bandages. But so incredibly practical. And just exactly what this man needed.

And all through the Bible, we see God's practical graciousness that he has on full display. Israel, the people at the foot of Mount Sinai hearing this self-revelation for the first time, they saw this repeatedly as they wandered and tried to find their way to the promised land. They had food provided for them. They had water provided for them. And as sort of a summary of God's practical graciousness to them, the Bible says not even their sandals wore out as they wandered, so practically gracious. And throughout scripture, God calls us to this practical graciousness. I think this is often where we get to partner with God in what he's doing in the lives of a person or a group of people. God does not want his followers to neglect mercy, to neglect justice.

If we say we follow Jesus, practical graciousness should be a part of our lives. And when we try to justify our way out of it and try to pass by on the other side, like the priest and the Levite did, Jesus has words for us. In Matthew 23, Jesus is talking, very much talking too, the religious leaders of the day. And look what he says to them. He says, woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites, you give a 10th of your spices, mint, dill, and cumin, and they were supposed to do that. They were doing what they were supposed to do. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law, justice, mercy, faithfulness. Yes, this is what you need to focus on. Don't neglect the other. Yes, you need to obey and give. But this is what I wanna see.

And you know it's so much easier to give a 10th of our mint and our dill and our cumin because it's clean, it's tidy, we know what it is. It's math, but justice, mercy, faithfulness, active compassion, that's messy and that's hard. But you know what? It's not a side note of scripture. We are called again and again and again to reflect God's practical graciousness to the world. We don't get to marginalize it off to the side. We don't get to walk around it. We don't get to politicize it, we're just called to it. And you know this is one of the many things I love about our church. Part of our corporate identity, as Steve said in announcements, is that we are a group of practically gracious people, both in our community and to the community at large.

You know if we tell you, oh hey our food bank, people's pantry needs paper bags to put groceries in. We will be drowning in paper bags within the week. I assure you. A few weeks ago we said, oh hey Bridge of Hope is in need of men's clothing so that they can give it to men and care facilities in our community. Barrels of men's clothing now occupy our local outreach director area. We laugh about this one in the office. About 15 years ago we asked you to donate eyeglasses because one of our global outreach partners was giving them to people in need. Well that partner has since retired and you're still giving us eyeglasses. I mean you won't stop with the practical graciousness. And I love that though. I love that about us as a body of believers together, that that's what we do.

But what about you and I individually? How do you and I individually live out this practical graciousness in our lives and our relationships? It can be complicated. It can be messy. But I would say practical graciousness, you know it can take a lot of forms. Maybe depending on the state of the relationship, maybe it takes the form of praying for somebody. Maybe it's that you switch your talking from gossip to gracious speech about somebody behind their back and you start to assume the best. It could be taking a walk with somebody. It could be watering their plants. It could be bringing a meal. It could be sharing a cup of coffee. It could be making a bed. It could be playing a game with a toddler. But it's always the choice, instead of going around to the other side to go towards somebody in our heart and in our actions.

All right, let's go back to the parable. You know I thought this week at this point, the Samaritan could have easily thought, hey, I bandaged up this man's wounds. Let the next Jewish person who comes by take care of their own. But he doesn't do that. He just goes next level. And we see second that graciousness is generous. Graciousness is generous. The Samaritan puts this man on his donkey. So now the Samaritan is walking in the position of a servant and this man has the place of honor and ease on the donkey. He brings the man to an inn and he continues to care for him. The text says the next day, implying that the Samaritan took care of this man through the night.

And remember, this just is not done. Nobody would have expected the Samaritan to act like this towards the Jewish man. And in fact, most Jewish people would have probably not even thought that the Samaritan was capable of such actions. But the Samaritan isn't done being generous. He gives the innkeeper two silver coins. And he says, keep taking care of this guy. Those two silver coins would have equaled a few days wages and archeologists tell us it would have been enough to probably pay for 20 to 24 days for that man to heal in safety and in comfort. And he doesn't even stop there. He tells the innkeeper, hey, don't worry about it. I'm good for the rest on my way back through. I mean, it's just beyond.

And what a window this is into the character of our gracious God whose generosity towards us is just beyond. There are hundreds of verses in the Bible. And I would say the whole Bible is just again and again and again telling us, God loves you. God is gracious towards you. Here is his grace, accept it, embrace it. It's here, it's here, it's here. The whole Bible's pointing us that way. There's hundreds of verses. I put a couple in your notes there that are particularly special to me. The Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians, but because of his great love, great love for us, for you. God who is rich, rich in mercy. Same word as we see in Luke 10, Elaias. Made us alive with Christ. Even when we were just dead in our transgressions, our sins and our choices, it is by grace you have been saved.

And the Apostle Paul goes on to say in Titus 3, he saved us, not because of the righteous things we did. It doesn't matter how good your works are. He saved us because of his Elaias, his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and a new life through the Holy Spirit. He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ, our Savior. These verses do not show us a stingy God. They don't show us a God who's just standing there waiting, waiting, waiting for us to catch up. They show us a God who's active in his compassion towards us, who went first when it comes to generous graciousness.

And it's what we've been given by God, this generous graciousness that we're called to give to other people. A graciousness that isn't keeping score, that doesn't have an Excel spreadsheet with like, okay, they bought that dinner, my dinner was $8 more, they still owe me eight bucks. No, that's not what that's about. We have been lavished by God and we're being called to lavish that on others. And now the room's quiet. The moment has come that everybody in the room is dreading, especially the expert in the law. Jesus ends the parable with a question. Verse 36, "Which of these three," Jesus asks, "do you think was a neighbor to a man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

Everyone knows the answer, no one wants to say it. I imagine there's this longer than needed silence, maybe the expert in the law is looking around, hey, softball across the plate, anyone else wanna take it? No, okay. He says, "The one who had mercy on him." This week I was like hit between the eyes by that phrase, the one. It's almost like the expert in the law could not even bring himself to say the word Samaritan. I have to imagine that if the priest had been the hero of the story, this guy would have gladly said, "The priest who had mercy on him." But instead he's just able to mumble, "The one, the one." And I have to admit it, I have the one in my own life. I have the one who's hurt me. I have the one group. I have the one party. I have the one side. I have the one choice. The chest grates on me and you know what? We all do. We all have the one.

And it's kind of funny to talk about not being gracious on Highway One, but that's really gonna be the easiest place for me to change at the end of the day. When it comes to the one, that's where I know my only hope is leaning into and relying on God's generous graciousness towards me so that I can live it out towards others. And that's really our call to action in this parable. Jesus told him, Jesus tells us, go and do likewise. I mean, that's the bottom line folks. That's our call to action, go and do likewise. We are to reflect God's generous graciousness on the bloody way of life. That's what he's called us to.

You know, and I hear the internal dialogue right now. You're going, well, yeah, but I hear you Val, but you don't know. We always wanna find that loophole, don't we? But Jesus doesn't give us any loopholes here. He just says, go and do likewise. How? How in the world are we supposed to do this? If I just ended today and said, all right everybody, go be gracious, we'll see you next week. Have a great week. You might feel maybe a little guilty and so that would maybe motivate you for a few days, but you wouldn't feel supplied. You wouldn't feel empowered because in and of ourselves, I can only wrestle up so much graciousness even for the people I love. But when it comes to the one, I don't have much left, but I wanna remind you today, I wanna rejoice with you today.

Like those verses reminded us, we have a savior. We have a savior who went first. We have a savior who does not pass by on the other side. We have a savior who went towards each one of us. God's graciousness, his active compassion is always directed towards you. It's so deep and it is from this deep well of graciousness that we draw in order to be gracious, actively compassionate to others. Take a look at that last verse there in your notes, one of my favorite in all the Bible. It says, "Let us then, because of Jesus, approach God's throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy." Yep, LAS, takes us right back to Exodus 34. "We may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Because of just the ultimate example of generous graciousness that God expressed through Jesus on the cross, we can receive mercy.

Mercy. You know what, for some of you in this room and we were talking about the one, you're thinking, "I wish I had a one that was somebody else. I feel like the one, Val. I feel like the one right now, and I don't know what to do." Go to the throne of grace. Go to the throne of grace. Receive mercy, find help for your time of need. You may be saying, "Val, you do not know. You do not know how bad it is and how much this one hurt me, how hard this is for me." Go to the throne of grace. Tell God that, he can handle it. He can handle it. Receive mercy. Get grace to help you in that need. You may say, "This is all great, Val, but nobody in my life is showing me any graciousness, and I don't actually think God is even showing me graciousness right now." That's a dark place to be. But just take a step towards this. Go to the throne of grace. No matter how you feel, this is true. This is true. Our God is on a throne of grace.

Let me close with a poem that's from a hymn that I sing to myself a lot. It says, "When we have exhausted our store of endurance, when our strength is failed, ere the day is half done, when we reach the end of our hoarded resources." I just love how that, the visual I get with that. "Our Father's full giving has only begun. His love has no limit. His grace has no measure. His power has no boundary known unto man. For out of the infinite riches in Jesus, He giveth and giveth and giveth again." Our actively compassionate, practical, generous, gracious God. That is who He is. Let's pray.

Father, we are humbled today by your graciousness. We are grateful because, oh Lord, who among us could stand if you didn't go first? Who among us could live if you had not decided to go towards us? You didn't go around us. God, I pray that you would give each one of us the day, today, the desire and the courage to go and do likewise. Open our eyes, God, to the opportunities you give us to live active compassion each day. Lord, I wanna pray for the one who's here today who maybe feels like the one. Maybe they're struggling because they've just been so hurt by the one or they're so frustrated by the one or the one group of people. God, I pray that you would provide us eyes to see that you are there in our struggle and you are ever gracious. Father, give us wisdom as we live active compassion. Give us creativity. Help us to rely on you, your strength, your grace, and to give us from the overflow of what you've already given us. We are grateful to you, our very gracious God. In Jesus' name, amen.