Do You Actually Get What You Deserve? | Jesus Didn’t Say That

That was kind of like the Force. Whoo. It's great to be with you again. My name is Corey and if you weren't here, I think it was back in September I was here. I just love getting to be with you. I got to be here and I'm going to be here hopefully continuing to come on a more regular basis. I did have somebody in the lobby between services go, "Hey, are you the guy with ADHD?" And so, yes, that is me. I'm going to try to rein it in today. But you also made me think, "Man, you were here last time, you were clean shaving. What happened? Is life getting that hard?" Well, first of all, I live in Nebraska now. I just relocated from Florida and so we're preparing for winter. But truthfully, Mike Ash is a friend of mine, pastor Mike Preacher two weeks ago. And I'm always jealous of his muscles and his beard. And so this is just me kind of like trying to be a little bit more like pastor Mike Ash. In fact, our story is that I pastor to church in Cape Coral for nine years in Florida. And I just handed off transition to a good friend of mine named Kyle Jackson and Kyle and Mike are best friends. They go way, way, way back. And so I have a unique connection to Mike. And so it's fun for me to be a part of a series that he helped kick off just a couple of weeks ago. Now, I want to tell you this. I don't know if you know this, but it's actually good. And when you're listening to the word or a message for you to talk to yourself, it'll keep you engaged. But it also I'm giving you permission to talk back to me. And so, like we're going to have a conversation when when when when God says something to your heart that's good, like, yeah, amen, that's good, you know, dilly, dilly, whatever, you know, whatever you got to do to stay with it. I mean, there's actually psychology behind it that says it, it actually sticks more when you're writing things down and talking to yourself. And so but I just want to let you know, we're going to go back and forth, give and take. I don't know how you grew up, but it's okay to talk back. In fact, I want to start with a little bit of an activity. I want to start with it with a game where I have a couple of questions for you. And you're going to help me preach this message at the beginning. And so I'm going to start a phrase. And if you know it, I want you just to finish it for me. Again, no trick questions. I'm not going to dupe anybody. I think you're probably going to know most of these. And so are you guys ready? You ready to do this? Okay, all right. So I'm going to start a phrase and you finish it. Here's the first one. What goes around? Yeah, see there, you guys are ready that don't tell them this, but that was way better than last service. All right, here's the next one. You made your bed now. Lying it, laying it, sleeping it, yep, all the above. Here's a simple one. Fair is. Fair is fair. That must be an older

one. There's less of us that are getting that one. It's good that you're here today. Here's one that you may not know. It's one I'm familiar with that I like. Live by the sword, die by the sword, and you can substitute sword for just about anything. And then probably my favorite one. I don't know if it's super church appropriate, but it works. Play stupid games. Win stupid prizes. Yes, I've noticed that a lot of the younger people know that one. Play stupid games. Win stupid prizes. Here's the truth. The reality is that we could say it a dozen different ways. You probably have some other ones, but most of us believe some version of that. We believe some version of it, and we would never put it on the church sign. We would never put it on the church website, but we kind of live by this mantra. We believe it. The world kind of exposes it that you get what you deserve. Play stupid games. Win stupid prizes. Fair is fair. You made your bed. Now lay down in it. That is true. And listen, I understand I'm very aware that that is actually how the world works, right? If I don't study for a test, I shouldn't deserve to get a good grader to pass. If I don't show up to work, I don't get, and all the pasta said, paid. Yeah, you don't get paid. If I treat my wife poorly for many years, I shouldn't be surprised if the house gets quiet later in life, or she's gone. If I don't treat my kids well, I shouldn't be surprised that they don't want to have a relationship with me. When they become adults, we can use funny ones. We can use serious ones, but we do live in this cause effect world. And I'll be the first to tell you, cause and effect real. I mean, the Bible even says, whatever a man sos, that will he also reaps. You guys are really, really good at this. But here's the challenge, and this is why I think we need to talk about it. And I love this series that Jesus didn't say that because somewhere along the way, we've baptized that phrase and started treating it as something Jesus actually said. And the truth is, I don't know if you know this, but Jesus never said, you get what you deserve. In fact, he said and did so many things that were contradictory to that. Jesus never said, you get what you deserve. We're going to unpack. You get what you did. How How many times have we heard that? I didn't do that one, but you get what you deserve. We've heard that. like it's a scoreboard. Now I don't know about any sports fans in the house, I love sports, I have a five year old son,

we had a very late in life baby, and this kid at two years old literally learned to count so he could know who won. Like that was the only reason he learned, like we didn't teach him, he just needed to know, he plays soccer five, five you soccer, which if you've ever seen a little boys play soccer, it's four on four, it's not soccer, it's just eight kids chasing a ball around. And it's so funny because we don't keep score, it's just rec league, and so there's no scoreboard, we don't keep score, but I promise you, every single Saturday when we play, every dad knows the score of the game. In fact, I didn't really pick up on this 'cause he's new to this, and so we're new to soccer, I've played a lot of sports, that is not one of them, and so we're new to this, and so we were going back and forth, and at the end, my son comes up to me, his first game goes, "Hey dad, who won?" And I was about ready to say something like, "Oh, we didn't really keep score," but there were literally three dads over my shoulder go, "Oh, we did seven to five." And I'm like, "Oh, we clearly won, we love scoreboards." You know, PMC, he's a sports guy, he's an athlete. In fact, listen, he's not here today, I just wanna say this, I'm probably never gonna get invited back here, but you know how much he loves his Ohio State Buckeyes, right?

I don't know if you know the Buckeyes, they've been good a long time, it's old news. I'm from Nebraska, I just moved back to Nebraska. We've had 15 bad years. In three weeks, Ohio State comes to Lincoln to play Nebraska. Would you just believe with me in prayer for the next three weeks (audience laughs) that Ohio State would get humbled, and Nebraska would finally get that rated when we need, they already lost their starting quarterback, and so listen, I guarantee he's never gonna ask me back, but let's just for the next three weeks, we pray and be fast in that we would see a miracle in Lincoln in later November. Would you do that, would you do that for me? That would be amazing. Because at the end of the day, we want the scoreboard to say Nebraska's number is a little bit bigger than the Buckeyes, but here's the thing, and we don't really think about it, but we go through our life with this mindset that if I do good, God kind of owes me. And if I do bad, he's kind of obligated to punish me, and some of you have been trying to punish yourself and live in that punishment for far too long, but again, the problem is Jesus never said that out, so I wanna unpack this idea that Jesus never said, you get what you deserve. Now that would be a great place for somebody to say something

like amen, praise God, thank God, like I don't know if you've ever thought about it, it's probably a really good thing that we don't get what we deserve, am I right? Yeah, he never said that because the gospel is actually the opposite of a scoreboard. The gospel, for those of you who are scorekeepers, record holders, like the gospel is a challenging, confronting thing, and we're gonna unpack these two words together, but here's what I would say, is that mercy often withholds negative consequences we deserve, and grace gives us things we could never earn. And the gospel is all about mercy and grace, and so much less about a scoreboard. And by the way, both mercy and grace have a name, and his name is Jesus, by the way. Come on, somebody, can I get a name in? Yeah, and so what I wanna talk about in our time together is this idea that mercy is God not giving us what we deserve, and then grace is God giving us what we don't deserve. And so, in fact, if you were to slowly kind of just read through the gospels, if you're new to this, the gospels are the first four books of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, you might even have a Bible that has those letters in red, that's the life and the words and the ways of Jesus. If you read the gospel slowly, Jesus basically keeps ruining the scoreboard. And by the way, everybody gets upset about it. Like Jesus is regularly doing things,

and if you're like, "Ugh, not fair, not fair." Like it's a bunch of valley girls in the gospels. They do, they literally go, "Ugh, not fair." 'Cause Jesus keeps giving things to people they didn't earn, and He keeps withholding punishments they should have. And do you know who got the most upset about it out of anybody? Religious people. Church folk. Well, that ain't right. That's not how my papa did it. That's not how Moses wrote it. I mean, you read it. He just keeps flipping the scoreboard upside down, and people literally can't handle it. And here's why they can't handle it because they're not very different than us. And here's where the tension lies, 'cause here's what I know is true about me, and I bet it's true about a couple of us. The uncomfortable part is we love you, get what you deserve when we're talking about somebody else. But we hate it when it's about us. ourselves for our motives. We love, we love, well you made your bed, you better lie in it when it's them, but when it comes to us, it's like, but I tried hard and did good and the kids were sick and the dog ate the homework and I got, you know, my mom was this, and we have, we love it when it's somebody, we, in fact, I would say it this way, we want justice for somebody else, but grace for me. We'll be driving down 75, they'll cut us off, God get them, or you'll see a, the, the

poll poll, you'll see a sheriff, you'll see one of the, the police, get them, you know, they cut you off, they're weaving in our traffic, like I wouldn't even be mad if I saw them on the side of the road in a mile, and then you weren't even knowing it, but you're trying to tie your shoe, do your makeup, send a text message, you'll be cutting everybody off on your way to work, you're like, well, I just, you know, the kids were sick and I go, I want to be late to work and I'm just trying to be, like, you see what I'm saying, we want justice for them, but then when it's us, it's like, we, we cry mercy, you want the, when the coworker drops the ball, we want them to get what's coming to them, we want them to be held accountable, but when we drop the ball, we'll, we'll see Mr. Manager Bosser, what had happened was, and we hope that there's some mercy and some grace, and, and, and again, I have some, I don't know, good news or bad news, this is not, this is not just a church problem, this is not just a church of hope problem, it's actually a human problem, in fact it's, it's even a Bible problem, you see some of the people we call heroes of the Bible struggle with this, if you read, even in the Bible, Jonah, the book of Jonah and Old Testament is, is one of these, Jonah is furious because God was merciful to Nineveh, that whole story cracks me up by the way, basically God tells Jonah, four chapters, by the way, I'll save you about 10 minutes, it's, there's no book like it, God tells Jonah, go tell your enemy, like the, the torture capture, the torture prisoner people that I've already prophesied are going to take you into captain, go tell them I'm going to destroy them, that should have been the best news ever to Jonah, he's like, no way dude, because if I tell them that they might go, we want to repent, and I know you're gracious, and so Jonah instead of tells them God's going to destroy him, he runs away, a fish swallows him, spits him out, tells him God's going to destroy him, in 40 days he counts the, down on the clock, he sits on a hill, he's watching him and God doesn't destroy them, and it doesn't, and he doesn't go like, oh blessed be the name of the Lord for you are great and mighty and mercy, he throws a fit, a tree dies the end of the book, the only tree that was getting him, he's like crazy, Jonah was like, Jonah literally sacrificed the prophet Jonah, sacrificed his life, and was willing to die just so God wouldn't be merciful against his enemy, isn't it crazy how, I can't believe Jonah, can you believe, I'm so glad we're so much more sophisticated than Jonah, that Jonah would go out of his way, so God didn't show mercy

to somebody he didn't like, Jesus tells a story in Luke about two brothers, and the younger brother squanders the living, and goes and does every sinful act there is, and then the dad's like, welcome home, let's throw a party, and the older brother's like outside pouting, he's like, well he's in there, I'm not going in there, and so my point is this is a tale as old as time, and there's a story about some workers we're going to read in a minute, but I think we have to understand, and if we could just be honest in church for a few minutes, it helps us recognize that we want fairness for them, but mercy for me, and if we can start there, I think we could probably have a conversation, and so we want fairness for them, but we want mercy for me, but David puts something right in the middle of Psalms 103 that will not let us have that split, so some of you are like, man this dude's been talking a minute, are we going to look at the Bible if you're ready to get into the word, say I'm ready, let me show you what David wrote in the book of Psalms, if you're following along in your Bible, we're going to go to Psalm 103, and by the way, for those of you who maybe grew up with a narrative that the God of the Old Testament is angry and vengeful, but the God of the New Testament, he's super nice, by the way it's the same God, and I just want to point out that what I'm about to read to you is in the Old Testament, and here's what David, the king, the murderer, the adulterer, the giant slayer, all of those things, here's what he had to say about God, and I don't want us just to read this, in fact before we do, I want to pray, and I want to ask that these would be more than mere words we look at with our eyes, but somehow this would get into our heart, can we pray for that, heavenly Father, no one needs to hear from me today, so would you take these next few moments, and would you let your words sink deep into our hearts, that would they be like a mirror, and would you align us where we need a line, would you relieve weight and guilt and shame where it needs to be, guilt and shame, and would you convict where we need to be convicted, God make your word come alive in our heart to bring transformation in Jesus' name, and everyone who agreed said that's what's up, just seeing if you're with me, this is a fancy way of saying amen by the way, can I show you what David said about this whole idea of fairness? And thank God for that. Here's what he said, the Lord, Psalm 103 starting in verse eight.

The Lord is compassionate. You know what compassion is? Empathy, compassion. There's a connection, I care deeply. The Lord is compassionate and gracious. Come on, somebody, amen? Amen. It gets better. Slow to anger or slow to get angry and abounding in love. Thank you. Can we just stop right there? And let me ask you a question. I don't want to go faster this. Let's give it the time it deserves. Is that the picture you have of God? Is that how you see him? Is that how you feel about him? Is that how you understand him to be? That my God is compassionate. He's gracious. In fact, he's so slow to become angry and love just oozes out of him because that's what David says is true. That's what the Bible corroborates is true. That's what I've experienced to be true. But I don't know if you know this, but your understanding or picture of God the Father, you live out of that picture. And God wants you to know before he's going to ever ask you to do anything for anybody else. He wants you to know that this is how he feels about you.

Because some of you, here's what I know. But I've been in church my whole life and I've been in ministry 26 years. Here's what I know. People bring a lot more into church than they let on. A lot more weight, a lot more stress, a little more shame, a little more guilt. Some of you didn't maybe have the best Saturday night ever last night. And you don't want anybody to know. So you put a little makeup on, throw on a golf shirt, smile, or whatever. And maybe you even didn't come. You're behind a screen. You're like, I can't even walk in there today. I think God would want you to know he would pause right here and want you to know that I am slow to get angry. The world may be upset with you. Your father may have been quick to get angry. Your boss might be quick to get angry. Your spouse or your friends. But I am gracious. I have compassion for your situation. I'm so slow to become angry and I'm abounding in love. In fact, I have what you need. So rather than walk in shame or feel like you have to duck and cover, bring it all to me and I will wash you clean. I want you to know that I am abounding in love and that even applies to you.

See, again, this is another one of those I think we read and we go, that's true for everybody else. But God's probably mad at me 'cause I've been in church a while and I know better. That's been my journey. I'm like, that's good for you. You didn't even, you had a bad family. You didn't know about Jesus. Good for you. I'm like, my dad loved Jesus and taught me about Jesus. And I grew up in a Christian school. And so if anybody ever bought a know better, it's me. And I'm still as messed up as everybody I come in contact with. I'm like, what a waste. And this is what God, this is what David said. He's compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. Watch this. He will not always accuse nor will he harbor his anger forever. And then here's the doozy right here. He does not treat us as our sins deserve. Oh, I think my mic just went out. Yeah, thank you. But I don't know if you caught that. He does not treat us as our sins deserve. Come on, somebody. Amen. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus, because I don't know about you, but I know what my sins deserve.

And it ain't a good wife of 21 years, two healthy kids. I sure as heck shouldn't be standing on this stage telling you anything about God or his word, yet in his compassion and slow to anger and goodness, he said, I'm not gonna count your sins against you. I'm gonna be slow to, I still can use you even in your broken humanity. And then he goes on to say, not only does he not treat us how our sins deserve, he's not even gonna repay us according to our iniquities. So there goes cause and effect. There goes live by the sword, die by the sword. There goes, you know, was my favorite one. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. And here's what I wanna say. And this is where it gets to the heart. It's not about our actions, it's about the heart. When we see this that God doesn't treat us as our sins deserve, that's not a loophole, that's just the heart of God. And somebody who has been wrecked by the love and grace of God would never use that as a loophole or take advantage of it. But somebody who's just looking to get it right on the outside will constantly be looking for loopholes. And where can I get this thing right? He goes on to say this in verse 11, "For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far he has removed our transgressions from us."

he's not quick to get angry, he's so overflowing of love, he's not gonna count your sins against you, he's removed your sins as far as the East are from the West. But there's, while that is true, and while that's like, man, I love that that's motivating, there's also a reality that Paul writes about in the New Testament when he's teaching the new Roman citizens to be Christians. In Romans chapter six, verse 23, he says, "Well, the wages of sin is death." So he's basically saying that the paycheck for sin is death, that death is the work, the work earns, but then he goes on and says, but, somebody say but, I like a big butt in the Bible sometimes, I said in the Bible, I said in the Bible, I just gotta see if you guys are with me. Which by the way, you don't know me very well, I did this six times every weekend, I used to tell my church this all the time, if you knew the restraint I was showing at any given moment of all the things I'm not saying, you would be like amazed, you'd be like, this guy's incredible, he didn't let any of that out. So I'm allowed a moment, that's all I'm gonna say. Amen, thank you, sister. It's okay to have like church, God loves it, we have a good time in his presence, it's okay. He says, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our, let me say it again. The gift of God is eternal life, how?

So we have a problem, we have the wages of sin is death, but then Jesus never said you get what you deserve, how do we reconcile that through Jesus Christ our Lord? He's literally the gap holder going, yes, the wages of sin is death, so I'm gonna pay for the wages so that you can experience the eternal life, and by the way, Christian, that doesn't just mean go to heaven someday, it means his kingdom come and his will be done on earth in your life as it is in heaven. He wants you to usher in an experience heaven here on earth. It's a wage earned or a gift given, so we have to decide as followers of Jesus, am I gonna operate in my relationship with God as I'm just earning my way through, or am I gonna receive a gift? We know what's true about a gift, a gift is only valuable to you, if what? You receive it, and here's what else is true about a gift, can you earn it, do you deserve it? No, no, 'cause a bunch of your kids have not been good all year, and you're already starting to think about what we're gonna get 'em for Christmas. They don't deserve it. You're like, we can't do lump a coal, 'cause with their social media now, we'll probably go to jail or end up on Facebook, so, dinosaur it is. (congregation laughing)

Your laughter tells me I'm not alone. (congregation laughing) So what are we talking about? We're talking about two words that we know, we're talking about mercy and grace, and real quick, I wanna give you a definition, but more than a definition, I wanna give you a picture, what do we mean when we say mercy? It just means mercy is simply God withholding the punishment we earned. Well, how could he withhold it? Because somebody else paid for it. Well, then we're talking about grace, what's grace? Grace gives us the life, the welcome, and the standing that we did not and cannot earn, and it's simply this, are the wages of sin death? Not a trick question. Yes, are we the ones that have to pay for it? There it is, there it is. I heard this story, and I think it's true. The great evangelist, the late Billy Graham, I don't know if you've heard this, where one day he was traveling to actually one of his tent revivals, and he got a speeding ticket. Yes, even evangelists and pastors. We have what we call ticket money. If you wanna go slow, be in the right. We got places to go in the left. That's all I'm gonna say. I lived in Florida for nine years.

You can drive as slow as you want in the right lane. Thank you for that, sister. That's what I say to everybody. You all assume I'm talking to somebody else. But he got a speeding ticket, and he didn't go to contest it, but he went to court just to pay for it. This is back in the day, and he showed up, and the judge recognized, oh my gosh, it's Reverend Graham. And so he goes, but I'm committed to the law. He goes, Reverend Graham, you got a speeding ticket. How do you plead? He goes guilty, and he goes, okay, bam, hit the hammer, and he goes, your fine is, whatever the fine was, however many dollars. And so he found him guilty, and then as soon as he did, he said, he walked down from his place, and he wrote a personal check. The judge wrote a personal check, and paid for Billy Graham. He said, you've done so much for us. Let me cover this. That's a simple picture, but that's how this work. Was Billy Graham guilty? Was he speeding? Did he sin? Did he pay for it? No, but the judge, fairly, through the law, said, guilty, but I got you. Our heavenly father, through Jesus, looks at all of our past, all of our mistakes, all of our insecurity, all of our, I know what you did last summer,

all of the stuff, and he goes, guilty, and then he takes a hat off, and then he got on the cross, and he goes, now I'm gonna pay for it. That's what Jesus did. And so we love, again, we love that for us. But there's a little bit of get 'em, God, with them. And so let's talk about mercy. Let's real quick just breeze through this idea of mercy and grace. Somebody say mercy. Mercy's just simply the gift of not getting it. I can't think of, again, I'm less on the definition. I want you to get the picture, which by the way, when Jesus taught in his day and in his education system, did you know they didn't even care about definitions? They only cared about pictures, images, metaphors, and feelings, like that's the culture Jesus went in with. And so I want to focus on that. And I can't think of a better picture than what we see when Jesus ends his life. I know Pastor Mark referenced this actually a few weeks ago, but I know we're a ways away from Easter. But if I want to take you to the moment where Jesus has done nothing wrong, they've released Barabbas. Jesus has been whipped 39 times, carried his cross out of the town, up to Golgotha, only to pay for the sins of everybody else. And now he's hanging on the cross.

And here's a question for some of you who may be been in church. Is he there by himself? Who's he with? Two criminals, two thieves on either side. And I think this is one of the clearest pictures of mercy that the Bible has. And it really, really messes up some of our religious theology. It's found in Luke chapter 23. I'm going to put it on the screen. But if you have your Bible or device, you can follow along. Or if you're taking notes, it's Luke 23, 39 through 43. And it says this. Jesus is hanging on the cross. He's got a criminal on his right, a criminal on his left. And here's how it goes. One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at Jesus and says, "Aren't you the Messiah? "If so, just save yourself." But the other criminal rebuked him and said, "Don't you fear God? "Since you are under the same sentence, "we are punished justly." Watch what he says. "For we are getting what our deeds deserve. "But this man has done nothing wrong."

And then he says this, verse 42. "Then the man said, Jesus, "Remember me when you come into your kingdom. "And Jesus said to him, "'Truly I tell you today, you will be with me in paradise.'" This story, again, when I read the Bible, I got to get into the story a minute. Otherwise, I just read in words. And I know Pastor Mark, inspired by the same pastor, Pastor Alistair Begg, but I know he brought this. But I want you to go Luke 23, two criminals. Same sentence, same death, same afternoon. And one of them looks at Jesus and he does the most honest thing in the chapter. You've got Jesus in the middle and you've got this guy going like, "Man, you idiot, we belong here." But he does it. And he says, "I'm here 'cause I am getting what I..." 'Cause that's how the world works. And Jesus is here going, "Let me show you how the kingdom works." And so he's on the cross. He knows he belongs there. He knows he deserves that. But then he does something he has no business doing. He asks a question. Where in the world did he get the gumption to go, "Hey, listen, I'm about to die."

So crazy thought. What if, is there a chance that maybe I could go with you? Maybe you could just, whatever you get to where you're going, whatever this thing is, 'cause I've seen it and I've heard it and it's real. Could I be a part of it? Could you remember me? Like when you're thinking of names and you're thinking of the, could I be one of the people that, will you just remember me? Does he have any right to ask that? No, right. You know what Jesus did to say? I love to read the Bible with what doesn't say. You know what Jesus did to say? Jesus didn't say. Well, actually I need you to take communion, get baptized, join a small group. I need you to serve for three to five years. I also would like you to memorize at least Psalm 23, maybe some of the stuff I said. I'm serving on the mall will be a good place to start. Also, could you like repay back all the stuff you stole and then like we'll have a conversation? Jesus did not say that. But you know what? I think in our narrative, that's what he says.

In our story, in our head, whether it's them or us, it's like, well, I don't deserve this, so I can't ask 'cause I probably need to A, B, C, X, Y, Z, really, really fast and I need to earn my way. He had no business asking and he said, "Hey, will you remember me?" And Jesus says, "Yeah, in fact, "you know what? "Today, you and me, we're gonna be in paradise." He didn't say you had your chance. He didn't say you get what you deserve. And listen, this is crazy 'cause this guy did nothing. He had never once attended a church service. He had not been baptized. He never took communion. He didn't know Peter from James, from John, from Moses to Noah. He stole. He'd never been confirmed. He had never tied. In fact, as far as we know, he had never even said a salvation prayer. And I know Pastor Mark kind of paid homage to Pastor Alistair a few weeks ago, but I love the idea, the story of when that guy gets to heaven, and he goes, and they ask him, "Why do you deserve to be here?" By the way, that question, I love what Pastor Alistair says, 'cause there's two really, really, really important things

that we can take from that. Why should you go to heaven? If anybody ever asks you, "Why are you saved?" Why do you think you're gonna go to heaven? And this is what Pastor Alistair said. If our answer at all begins in the first person, we've missed it. If somebody says, "Well, why do you think "you're gonna go to heaven?" And anything in your mind or your head goes, "Because I, because I was a good person, "I tithe, I serve, I give, I show up, I'm selfless, "because we have missed it, "because now we're back to a scorecard and a scoreboard." The only right answer is because he paid the prices, because the wages of sin were death, but he paid it so I could experience eternal life, because he is compassionate and gracious and slow to anger and abounding in love, because he did that for me. And he says it best, that the guy on the cross, when they ask him, "How, why are you here? "How did you get here?" He has the only right answer that all of us should get. The guy on the middle cross said, "I could come." The guy on the middle cross said, "I could come." Because as many good things as we think we've done, we got probably a list longer, whether it's known or unknown, hidden or exposed. That are reasons why we shouldn't. That's mercy.

The man on the middle cross said, "I should come." Now, let me just say one warning, we'll move to grace as we start to wind this down. Let me just make a distinction, 'cause I know what some of you are thinking like, "Oh, here we go, another guy just saying, "I can just do it." No, no, no, no. Mercy is not permission. Mercy is not permission. Because if you take that mercy and you use it as a permission, you're gonna find yourself going a play. You know what you're gonna find yourself doing? You're gonna find yourself playing stupid games. (laughs) And you're gonna start winning stupid prizes. And God's still gonna be compassionate and slow to anger and full of mercy, but he's probably gonna let you sit. He's gonna keep chasing you, he's gonna keep pulling you back. So let's not, well, mercy is not permission. Mercy is when you truly are impacted by the grace and mercy of God, you don't look at it as permission to keep doing the stuff you're doing. You are so overwhelmed that you're like, how could I not live for him, serve him, love him? And I don't even want to do that anymore. So let's mercy.

Number two is grace. Somebody say grace. Grace is the gift of getting what you don't deserve. Grace is unmerited favor we talk about. And the best, again, I love this picture of grace. And this really, this story, I said this, I think last service. I love this parable and I hate this parable so much. Because I know who I, you ever read a parable or a message of Jesus? And if you're being honest in that moment, you're like, man, I hate this 'cause he's actually talking about me. This is one of those. That's somebody who grew up a pastor's kid who's been in church my whole life. I got saved like 300 times. I've never skipped communion. I always ask for forgiveness before I walk into church, just in case. You get what I'm saying, right? This story irks me. And it's a part of the message in the journey that God has done. And this is a great picture of grace. Now, Jesus was often trying to help people understand that the kingdom, somebody say kingdom is different than the world, right? Do we understand this? And so he regularly would say things

that kingdom is like this. And he'd tell the stories. Well, this is one of those. And in Matthew chapter 20 verse one, he says this, the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. Who's vineyard? His, all right. And here was the agreement. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day. And so he sent them to their vineyard. By the way, a denarius was just a day's wage. So if you want to think about what that would be like today, whatever you make in a day, it's like, hey, if you work for me for today, I'll pay you a fair wage. He was like, yeah. About nine, somebody say nine. In the morning, he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace. And so he also hired them. He goes, why don't you go work in my vineyard? And I'll pay you whatever is right. So they went, he went back to town again about noon, somebody say noon. And then about three, somebody say three. And then it's same thing about five, say five. In the afternoon and still found people standing around. He says, why have you been standing here all day doing nothing?

Well, because no one has hired us, they said. He said to them, then you also go and work in my vineyard. When it came time, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman. So clearly he was in construction. He had a foreman. He said, call the workers and pay them their wages. Watch this. And beginning with the last ones, hired and going to the first. So five, three, noon, nine early in the morning. He lined them up. He says, the workers who were hired at five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. La Faire. and noon a denarius, and 9 had a denarius, and then when those who were hired first, they expected to receive more, and this is where we get ourselves, guys. I just thought, well, I just assumed. Well I just expected if you did that for them, and they came in at the last minute, if you're that good to them, and they didn't even try to follow or serve you for the last 20 years, then surely you would do even for me. Scoreboard, that's a scoreboard. And it says that he gave them also a denarius, and then they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. Those who were hired last worked only one hour, and you've made them equal to us who've been born the burden of the work, and in the heat of the day, but then the master answered to one of them, "Am I being unfair to you? Was he? What was the agreement? Work for a day, get a?

They worked for a day, they got a? Was he being unfair?" He goes, "Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money, or are you envious because I'm generous?" Are you envious because I'm generous? See if Mercy is not giving us the penalty we deserve, Grace is giving us the paycheck we didn't work for, and the landowner pays them all the same. And here's the scandal of this story. The scandal is not that God is unfair, it's just that he's generous. And we have to watch our hearts and our minds because when God starts being loving and generous and compassionate and slow to anger to somebody else, we're kind of like, "Am I chopped liver over here?" And God's like, "Is it not—" and here's the message, ready for it, hope? I feel like God would say to us, "Is it not my grace to spread out how I want? Is it not my love to pour out lavishly as I see fit? Is it not my slow to anger, to be slow to anger when I want to be slow to anger? And have I not been all of those things to you time and time and time again? Come on, somebody. Has he not been those things time and time and time? But we get so tripped up because rather than just focus on the cross and who Jesus is, we start comparing and competing and getting entitled, and we're like, "Well, it's not fair. No, it's not unfair. He's just so generous. We can't even handle it." And some of us, this is a challenge, like me again, followed Jesus a long time. We've served, we've showed up, we've given, we've stayed, we've forgiven people who didn't deserve it.

And somebody walks in late, messy. They don't know John from James from Jonah. And they got a test and they're like, "Every other month they're testimony of God's goodness in your life." And we're like, "What the heck?" And I think Jesus would just say, "Can I not pour out my love wherever I want? Can I be good to whoever I see fit? There's a great real-life story of this as we wrap." I'm going to give you a practical thought in just a minute, but Corey Tenboom. I don't know if you know, she's a hero of the faith. She was a part of the war. She was a Jew in the time of the Nazis. And this was after the war. She was in a prisoner camp with her sister Betsy, stripped, abused, beaten. She watched her sister die. A faithful follower of Jesus came out and had a ministry. A lot of it on forgiveness on the back end of that. And after the war one time, Corey Tenboom was speaking at a church in Munich, Germany. And at the end, a man walked up to her and reached out his hand and she began to shake. Because she recognized him immediately as the guard at Raven's Brook that stood at the door while she got stripped and beaten in the guard that stood there while her sister died. This man made her life, her sister's life, and everybody around her a living hell. And he showed up and he reached out her hand and he said, "Miss Tenboom, I was a guard at Raven's Brook. Since then I become a Christian and I feel horrible about the things that I've done. I know that God has forgiven me for the things I did, but I need to hear you say it. So I came up here to ask, "Will you forgive me?" And Corey Tenboom stood there frozen. She had breached forgiveness for years, but now the man who helped kill her sister was standing right in front of her asking for her forgiveness.

She actually later wrote that she felt nothing in that moment. She didn't feel any charity, any love, any warmth, only old anger. And so she did the only thing she knew to do, which was very quickly in her head, just say a prayer, "Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness." And then she did the only thing she could is she reached out her hand. a current went through her shoulder, and her arm and warmth came over her body and tears began to flow from her and from him. She later wrote that she had never ever in her life experienced God's love more intensely than in the moment when she was shaking the hand of her oppressor abuser and the one who killed her sister. That's the gospel in real time. That doesn't make sense. That's irrational. That's a bounding in love. That's compassionate, slow to anger. Mercy withheld what the man deserved and grace gave both of them, which neither of them can earn. Both of them experienced the same thing in that day and his name was Jesus, and that same Jesus is here for us, and so I want to close with this. I know we've been talking about grace and mercy, but I don't just want to kind of give you a concept or maybe even inspire you, but I want to give you something practical. In just a second, we're going to sing one last song and there's going to be prayer leaders that are up here. If you come here regularly, you know we do this on a regular basis, but there's a couple things I want to give you. There's going to be a response. But let me tell you, what do you do with this message? If you were saying, "You have my attention, I feel God speaking," the words have jumped out of the page.

What do we do with a God that refuses to give us what we deserve? Here's our response. Number one, we have to receive it. We have to receive it. Listen, I'm old enough to know that some of you are still trying to earn your way out of a pit you dug. You're trying to earn your way into God's good graces. You don't actually believe you deserve. You kind of have this narrative like, "Yeah, but you know the Bible, your parents were good to you. You ought to know better," and you've kind of been punishing yourself. And I believe there's some of you that you just feel burdened by. You have never really experienced like that lavish grace and mercy that comes from the love of God. If that's you in just a moment, that's our first response that you would come up here and just say, "I need to receive it. I need to receive it on a deeper level." You're not saying, "I don't love God." You're not saying, "I'm not trying to be a good person." You're just saying, "There's more of this and it is keeping me back because I can tell you from experience." You cannot extend this to somebody else if you first have not received it for yourself. You cannot give somebody something you do not have and you cannot take somebody somewhere you have not been. And so for some of you, you just need to come up here when we sing the song and go, "Would you just pray that I receive this, that I receive God's mercy, that I receive His grace, that this would be true for me." And then number two, your marching orders after you receive it is you got to start taking some thoughts captive. I said it this way.

Stop prosecuting yourself. Stop being the judge in your head that, "Yeah, you did, you did, you did." And you start telling yourself things that are true about yourself. God's already said you were guilty and Jesus already paid the price. Jesus paid it all. I'm pretty sure we like sing that song. So you walk in that, let the Spirit of God lead you somewhere. And then for some of you, this will be the second, this will be the second thing we're going to respond to or pray for. How, what do I do with a God who doesn't give us what we deserve? Now we got to go extend it. We got to go extend it. We have to be crazy idea like Jesus. We're going to leave the scoreboard and the scorecard at church this week and we're going to go follow Psalms 103 and we're going to follow the heart of God. Here's a crazy idea. I said this last service. Could you imagine what would happen in America if Christians just started acting like Christians? Like if we actually just actually did what Jesus said and did, like it would solve a lot of problems. And so first I'm going to receive this, but then I'm going to extend it. I'm not going to want mercy for me, but justice for you. Every time I see God moving, I'm going to be God. I'm so grateful that you are compassionate and gracious and slow to anger and abounding love and you do not count our sins against us. And so that's the other thing. You receive it. You stop prosecuting yourself and then you extend it. And if you're like, man, I'm really bad at extending it. I just, I'm even some game person.

Let us pray for you. Let the Holy Spirit do the work that you are unable to do. That's his job, by the way. When God gives us his spirit, he's like, I'm going to help you do the things you can't do on your own. And so we're going to let him do that. And then we're going to pray. And then here's the third one. Maybe all of this is foreign to you. You're like, I don't even know God. I don't even have a relationship with Jesus. We would love to pray with you about that. I think I couldn't have painted a better picture, but the guy on the middle cross said I could come compassionate, slow day. God is not angry like you understand. He is inviting you into a relationship, not a religion, not a bunch of todos and don'ts. It's a relationship where he helps you understand your identity, your purpose, and he puts his spirit in you and you come alive like never before. And we would love to pray with you and we would love to introduce you to the Jesus that has transformed so many of our lives as well. I'd like to invite you today to start following Jesus. It's not about your behavior. It's not about your church attendance. It's about the reality that Jesus is for you. God's not managed you. He's madly in love with you. Would you right now pray this prayer with me? Hey, God, it's me. I've sinned and I know it and I can't fix me. But today, I receive you, Jesus, as my Savior.

I believe that you died on that cross for me and that you were buried for three days and then you became alive again. And I invite you into my life to guide me and direct me all the rest of the days of my life. And with that prayer, my friend, welcome to God's family. I'd like to continue our friendship. If you would email me, [email protected]. I'll follow up with you and together, we'll celebrate Jesus in your life. Peace. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)