What If God’s Mercy Is Bigger Than Your Shame? | Pastor Joseph Antley

my name is Joseph Antley Iramart, Noblesville Campus Pastor, and we are continuing our series, Great Cloud of Witnesses. And we've made it into the New Testament, which means we're gonna talk about many characters you know, many characters you love, and today we're gonna talk about a character that you may not love so much, but I believe that God still wants to teach us through their example and through their story. And we're gonna be talking about the Pharisees. So the scripture that I want us to kind of bog down in is gonna be Luke chapter 18. We're gonna read verses nine through 14 where Jesus tells us a parable about a Pharisee. Here's what he says, "To some who were confident of their own righteousness "and look down on everyone else, "Jesus told this parable. "Two men went up to the temple to pray, "one a Pharisee in the other a tax collector. "The Pharisees stood by himself and prayed, "'God, I thank you that I am not like other people, "robbers, evil doers, adulterers, "or even like this tax collector. "I fast twice a week and I give a tenth of all I get. "But the tax collector stood at a distance. "He would not even look up to heaven, "but beat his breast and said,

"'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'" I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God for all those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Let's take a moment and pray. God, we thank you so much for who you are and that you are with us and that we can open your word. So God, I pray that your word would come alive and that you would speak in a way that only you can this morning. God, I know I don't have a lot of wisdom and a lot of eloquent words, but I believe, God, that I can stand here as a demonstration of your power. And so God, I pray that we walk away talking about a God that saves, a God that sees and the God that loves because you are here with us. And God, we thank you and Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So many of you know a little bit about my family. You probably know that I'm married. Probably know that I have not one, not two, not three, but four daughters, which means there is a lot of estrogen in my house. But you may not know that there is another girl in my house that takes up a lot of my time and a lot of my money, not as much as the other five, but she is still very important. And that is our dog, Indy. Indy is a mini-burner doodle and my daughters,

what they did a couple of years ago was they were begging us for a dog, like I'm saying, "Daddy, we want a dog. "Daddy, we're ready. "Daddy, we promise that we'll take care of this dog." And I believe them that they were old enough and that they would take care of this dog. So we surprised them. They came home and we had a little scavenger hunt and at the end of the scavenger hunt was this puppy and it was a super sweet dad moment. I mean, they're in tears. They're like, "Daddy, you got us a dog." And I'm like, "I know 'cause you're gonna take care of it." And I said, "Since we surprise you with a dog, "you get to pick the name." And I thought it would take them hours, if not days, to agree on a name. It took about 45 seconds. And they said, "Daddy, we know what we're gonna name our dog. "We're gonna name her Squishy Paws." And I said, "I'm a loving dad, "but I'm drawing the line right there. "I'm not walking around with Squishy Paws, "and my hands come back again." So they decided we'll name her Indy. Now I love Indy. I take Indy on a walk almost every day. We get her groomed, we feed her, we take her to the vet. But if you ask my daughters, we don't love her enough. See my daughters, they like to get in her face

and they like to kiss her and let her kiss them. And I think that's disgusting. They like to hold the dog and carrier everywhere. And I like the dog to be down at my feet. And of course, we make jokes from time to time as people do about our dog. And if you ask our girls, they would say, "My daddy and my mommy do not love our dog enough." And a few weeks ago, they had the opportunity to share with someone how they thought we didn't love our dog enough. My wife took our dog to the vet because we love our dog and took the four daughters there with her. At the end of the appointment, the vet looked at my wife and said, "Do you have any concerns for Indy?" To ask my wife, "No, girls, do you have any concerns?" Big mistake. This is their moment to share their concerns about how their mommy and daddy don't love this dog enough. So kids, one of the twins, she speaks up and she says, "I have a concern." My mommy and daddy said, "We should leave our dog "at Nana and G-Paul's house," which is kind of easy for my wife to kind of brush away, "Oh, my parents have over 100 acres. "The dog likes to run around." That's all she means. He says, "No, mommy, you and daddy said,

"We should leave her there with the coyotes "and let nature take its course." To which when he's like, "Shh, stop, stop. "You've talked enough today. "You're gonna be quiet." If you ask our girls, we don't love our dog enough. Not enough is something we hear often, right? Maybe I don't make enough at my job. Maybe my house isn't big enough. Maybe my sports team isn't playing well enough, right? That's something we all hear about. But you ever got to the point in your life where it wasn't about something else or somebody else not being enough, Have you ever had that moment in your life where something happens in your marriage where there's an obstacle or there's a hurdle, something that comes up that's so heavy and so big and you're wondering how in the world did I get here? Like this is heavy, what did I not do enough? Was I not faithful? Did I not show up? Was I not kind to you? How in the world did this happen? Was it not enough? Or maybe at work? You show up really early, you stay late, you take on all the extra jobs, all the extra assignments, knowing that one day they will see all of your hard work

and it'll be enough. But then you get passed up for that promotion and you're struggling and you're frustrated saying, "Was it not enough? Did they not see everything that I did?" And maybe you're younger and you're in a dating relationship and they come to you and you know you've been doing everything right, you've sent the text messages, you remembered Valentine's Day, you paid for the meal and then they come to you after a few months and say, "You know what, there's just no future here." And you begin to question, "Was I not enough? Did I not do enough?" What I found is we do the same thing when it comes to our relationship with God. Whenever something happens unexpected, we go through a trial, we weren't expecting, we go through a loss that seems unfair. And the first thing we do is we look at God and say, "God, how could you let this happen to me? Did I not do enough? Did I not go to church? Did I not give to the poor? Did I not serve? Did I not read my Bible? How could you let this happen to me?" Surely, I've done enough. See, all of us at some point in our life will come to a stage where we have to ask the question, "Why is it not enough?"

And what do I do when I get there and I realize that in and of myself, I am not enough. You see, the people that we're gonna talk about today, the Pharisees, the Pharisees were convinced that if they just did enough, they could earn God's favor. If they just did enough right things, then God would bless them. If they just abided by all the laws, then God would love them and they would have a good life. You see, what happened was they kind of emerged into around 165 B.C. And if you don't know your Jewish history, that time there was this thing called the Maccabean Revolt. See, the Greeks, the Seleucid Empire had come and they were ruling over the Israelites. And as they're ruling over them, they outlawed all of the Jewish laws. You wanna celebrate Sabbath, you can be put to death. You wanna circumcise your child, you will be put to death. Not only that, but they took the temple, God's holy place on earth and they made it a temple for Zeus where they could make pagan sacrifices. And then the Maccabean Revolt, the Jews, push out the Greeks and they begin to establish their laws again and the ways that they should live according to God and income, the Pharisees. The Pharisees were not the religious elite like the Sadducees, the Pharisees were common people like you and like me. And what they did is they said, you know what?

If we just abide by all of the laws, if we just make sure that we strictly follow everything and memorize it, then God will surely bless us. But then Jesus comes on the scene and he is constantly at odds with the Pharisees. He keeps telling them, you just don't get it. You're so focused on your works. You're so focused on your righteousness. You're so focused on what happens on the outside that you're not allowing God to do something on the inside. At one point in Matthew 23, Jesus looks at the Pharisees and he says, you guys are like white washed tombs. You're beautiful on the outside, but on the inside, you were unclean and full of dead bones. You see, the Pharisees didn't understand why their works weren't enough. And in this parable that Jesus tells, he introduces two characters to us and one of them is, of course, a Pharisee. And a Pharisee stood by himself and he prayed, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, robbers, evil doers, adulterous, or even like this tax collector, I fast twice a week and I give a tenth of all I get. I don't know about you, when I read this, I think this sounds like a pretty good person. I mean, he's fasting, he's giving a tenth away. He is abiding by and doing the things that God has asked him to do. What is wrong with that?

Well, the problem was he was so focused on doing everything right on the outside that he never took time to let God move him on the inside, which is what we tend to do. We tend to walk away feeling really good because we did good things, not because we encountered a good God. That's how people can go to church week after week, after week, walking away feeling like they've done good because they did a good thing, not because they had a genuine encounter with the living God. It's how people can read their Bible day after day and never be changed and never be challenged to be more like Christ, but they feel good because they did a good thing. It's how people can join a small group or go to a gathering and feel good because they did a good thing, but they didn't experience community and vulnerability and the power of doing life together. You see, this Pharisee was so focused on his devotion that he put his faith in the wrong thing. The problem was in his devotion. The problem was his faith. as long as I keep giving a tenth away, then God will bless me. But whenever you put your faith in the things that you do, what happens when something hits you in life? You ever notice when we put our faith in our things

or in people and then life hits us, it shakes us to our core? You ever notice when something happens in church, something happens in my family, something happens in my health, that it just shakes me to my core? Because I thought I was doing good things. I thought I was doing everything that God needed me to do. But our faith is not in our things and in what we do, our faith has to be in who our God is and what he has done for us. That I do these things because I love God, not because I believe that if I do them, God will be good to me. He already loves me and he cares for me. So this Pharisee, he's so focused on doing everything right. But did you notice what else he did? He started comparing himself to everybody else around him. And I feel like he must have felt like maybe he wasn't doing enough. Maybe he was afraid that he wasn't doing enough and so he looked and said, well, at least I'm better than the adulterer. At least I'm better than the robber. At least I'm better than this tax collector. Because isn't that what we do when we feel like we're not enough? We just start comparing ourselves to other people. We start comparing ourselves.

If we feel like we're not enough in our marriage, we would look and say, "At least my marriage is better than theirs." Or maybe I'm not doing enough as a parent and I look and I see how their kids are behaving and at least my kids aren't doing that. I must be doing something right. Or maybe we do this and work where we show up and we're working really hard and we get the promotion and we say, you know what? At least I'm doing better than they are. And what we do is we compare our standard of good to other people's standard of good and then we feel justified. But can I remind you of what the Bible teaches that our standard of good is nothing compared to God's standard of good? He tells us in Isaiah 64 that our standard of good, our righteousness before God is like filthy rags that even at my absolute best compared to God's holiness, compared to who he is in his majesty, my best is nothing compared to him. It doesn't matter if I'm the best in my family. It doesn't matter if I'm doing better than people in my school. I am compared to a holy God and I am not enough. Or can we just be really honest for a moment? Even our absolute best is pretty weak. Because I still struggle with sin. I know we don't want to talk about it.

We like to talk about BC. We like to say, you know what? I used to struggle with sin 30 years ago before Christ, but now I'm a new person. We don't want to admit that we still fail as spouses, as parents, as employers, as friends, as neighbors. We don't like talking about that because we like to compare ourselves and say as long as I'm doing better than they're doing, I am a good person and I have to tell you because we believe in the entire word of God that your best is not enough for God. But that's why he sent a savior, that we don't have to be good enough. We just have to put our faith in him, not in our own works. So Jesus, he introduces this Pharisee who's so focused on his works and doing better than everybody else around him. But then he introduces a second character. And the second character is the tax collector. Our tax collectors, they were not good people. Like they were notorious sinners. They were their own category of bad. You ever read in the New Testament, you'll hear the phrase tax collectors and sinners. It's like they're sinners and then there's tax collectors. If someone called you a tax collector, it was bad. Growing up, I knew I had done something bad when my parents called me my brother's name.

I knew I had really done something bad when they called me the dog's name. Like I am in trouble. And if someone was a tax collector, they were down at the bottom. So Jesus says, here's this Pharisee who's doing everything right on the outside, but on the inside is unclean. And here's this tax collector that's doing everything wrong on the outside, but it's gonna walk away clean. But what did this tax collector do? The tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but he beat his breast and said, God have mercy on me, a sinner. The difference wasn't in their works. The difference wasn't in who they were. The difference was that one of them came and said, I need the mercy of God on my life. And the other one didn't need God's mercy because they were trusting their own works. You see, and we know mercy. Mercy is whenever you get pulled over by a police officer for speeding and you are praying that they're gonna give you mercy. Maybe you're like me, you turn the worship music up and you hope when your kid starts fighting so you have an excuse for some mercy. Just give me a warning, please. Or maybe you were a kid.

You remember when you got caught doing something wrong, you prayed for mercy. 'Cause the idea of mercy is it's withholding what we deserve. It's holding back the punishment. We do the same thing when it comes to God. When we come to God, we say his mercy is him holding back our punishment. We actually usually describe it this way. It's the gift of salvation. It's the gift of eternity in Christ. That is grace. But mercy is not getting what you do deserve. The idea that God is holding back the punishment that I deserve because I have sinned, I am fallen, but he's holding it back. And I love this definition. And I think it's a true definition. I just think it's an incomplete definition. See, when we view God as just holding back our punishment, the tendency that we begin to fall into is what's it gonna take for him to release the punishment on me? What if I stop doing enough good things? What if I backslide? What if I walk away? Then is the wrath of God gonna fall on me? But you see, in the Bible, the way that they understood mercy was much deeper than the way that we understand it. Actually, in the Old Testament,

there's a word used for mercy more than any other word, almost 250 times you will find this word in the Old Testament, and it is hesed. Hesed means mercy, but it also means loving kindness, as if it's mercy in action. It's God's love in action, and it means steadfast love. A love that keeps showing up. Mercy is not just a one time, I'm gonna hold back the punishment for your sins, but it's a love that keeps showing up day after day, after day, every time that we feel like we're not enough. And we all need mercy. I know I've needed mercy many times in my life. I actually stood on this stage a few months ago, and I begged for mercy, but our caramel campus pastor, Pastor Joe Smith, would not give it to me. You see, we had this volunteer night. Some of you may remember, we invited our volunteers from all of our campuses to come here and celebrate what they're doing. And Pastor Joe had this idea. He said, "Wouldn't it be fun if we did the masked singer "and we had some of our campus pastors sing the song?" And so he said, "Joseph, would you be willing to do it?" And I said, "Of course, Pastor Joe, I'm a servant "who loves the Lord, loves you, anything you need. "You can count on me." Something like that. And he said, "Great, you're gonna be one of our singers,

"so we have a picture. "I'm sonic, and what you can't see in there "is I am drenched in sweat. "I begged for mercy for 10 minutes, but it never came, "and I was so, oh man, this was such an experience. "Here's why I didn't give mercy." Is what happened was I showed up, and I assumed that the other people singing would be bad singers like me. I didn't know when I got here that Joe had asked our Anderson campus pastor, Nate Jeffers, who was a worship pastor and professional singer to be in this competition. A little unfair, if you ask me. On top of that, Pastor Joe said, "Joseph, we want you to go last." And I found out why he wanted me to go last. The first two contestants, their songs were 60 seconds. You know how long mine was? Two and a half minutes. Something's not right here. I had to sit here for two and a half minutes and sing the male and female version of a whole new world from Aladdin. Some of you were asking, "Where's the video? "It's just like your sin. "It's as far as the east is from the west. "We got rid of it." Wasn't giving mercy. What was up here?

Dying. Let me be honest, that was not the first time that I actually sang Audis stage in church. My dad, one of his dreams was that his boys would sing with him on stage at church. And in the churches we grew up in, most of the time, he was most of, if not the entire praise team. And he would constantly say, "Joseph, "I want you to sing with me." And I would say, "No, I'm not a singer. "I'm not gonna do this. "I'm happy for you, but I'm not interested "in singing on stage." But there was one time he got me to sing a worship song with him and my older brother. And we sang a song by Phillips Craig and Dean. In the name of that song, I've never forgotten it, was titled "Mercy Came Running." Here's the chorus. "Mercy Came Running" like a prisoner set free. It passed all my failure to the point of my need. And when the sin that I carried was all I could see, and when I could not reach mercy, mercy came running to me. This song comes from the story of the prodigal son in Luke chapter 15. When the father watches his son go and squander his inheritance on wild living. And then the son comes home with a speech prepared, and he's not sure how he's gonna be welcomed home.

But scripture says that why the father sees him a long way off, the father runs to him, and he throws his arms around him to remind him that you're still my son, and I still love you, that that is the truest sense of mercy. Because imagine I had the father ran up and said, "Hey, I'm gonna hold back the punishment." You deserve to be mocked. You deserve to lose everything, but I'm a good dad, I'm not gonna do that. That is some of mercy. But when it comes to God's has said mercy, it is God showing up and wrapping his arms of love around you saying you are not too far gone. God's mercy has the power to penetrate through our pain, to penetrate through our shame and say you are still loved. God's mercy has the power to overwhelm our shame, you are still my son, you are still my daughter. God's mercy has the power to show up and say, failure does not have the final word. I am God, you are my creation. And I get the final word over your life and what I have called you to because the mercy of God, it runs past everything and it surrounds us with his love. See, mercy is not just restraint. Mercy is evidence of God's embrace in your life. That I need God's embrace always in my life. Not just when I receive salvation.

I need God's mercy every day and everything that I do. But see the Pharisees, they didn't understand mercy. See, had they understood mercy, don't you think the Pharisee would have showed mercy to the tax collector? The Pharisee is standing up here towards the front and we're told that the tax collector is standing a far way off. You see Pharisees, they had the written law but they also had this thing called the oral law. And in the oral law, it was meant to help interpret the written law. And so they put this thing called a category called fence laws in there. These fence laws were meant to be like a barrier, like a fence, like a buffer to keep you from sinning. So an example would be, you weren't allowed on the sabbaths to spit in the dirt because if you spit in the dirt, it could form together with the dirt and make mud and mud was used for building. And so that would be a sin. Another one was because we follow the law, we don't spend time with people outside of the law. We only spend time with people who were within this barrier, within this fence. And one time in Matthew chapter nine, Jesus is spending time with tax collectors and with sinners and the Pharisees are frustrated. They're like, Jesus, don't you know our laws?

Don't you know you're supposed to stay within these bounds? Who do you think you are spending time with these people? Do you remember what Jesus said? I desire mercy, not sacrifice. See Pharisees, you're so focused on this law. You're so focused on trying to stay within these barriers that you miss the whole point. The point of these laws were to inspire you and teach you the need for mercy in your life and then to extend mercy to others. See I think the Pharisee went home unjustified that day because he didn't express mercy to the tax collector. Why do you think that? Because James chapter two tells us this, speaking act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom. Because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful because mercy triumphs over judgment. And here's my fear of what I've noticed in the church is we're really good about making these fence laws. We're really good about making these barriers. You know what we call them today? Boundaries. We're really good about putting boundaries in place and say as long as you abide by these boundaries, as long as you stay within this expectation, as long as you follow within this, then you will receive mercy. But don't you dare step outside of it

because then you have broken my boundary and now you deserve to be punished. It's what we do in our marriages. Whenever we love each other, we care for each other. As long as everything stays within this box, but the moment you step outside of that barrier, we bring judgment down on each other. We do it with our kids, but hey, here's the expectation. As long as you love me, as long as you abide by all of these rules, but if you step outside of it, judgment will come down on you. Say, Joseph, are you against rules and expectations? No, I'm not saying I'm against that. I'm against the Christian church of today being known more by our boundaries than we're known by our mercy. I'm against people being so convinced that they need to make clear boundaries for people to abide by to protect their health. When in reality, God is saying, when's the last time you've expressed mercy to somebody? Because guess what, Joseph? You stepped outside of those boundaries the moment that you sinned. Guess what, Joseph? You still step outside of the boundary, even as a pastor. You still sinned. You still make mistakes. But because of God's mercy, he shows up.

You see, when I moved by mercy, truly moved by mercy, I move towards others with mercy. See the church, we have to be known for being merciful. I like the way that Tim Keller said it. He said it this way. Mercy isn't just the job of a Christian. Mercy is the mark of a Christian. That we are known by the way that we love one another, and we are known by extending mercy to each other. But here's what I find as a pastor. As I spend more time having conversations with people in the church who refuse to express mercy to other people in the church. I have so many conversations with people who are mad about what a small group leader said, who are mad about what their teacher said, who are mad about what their friend in small group said, who are mad about what the pastor said, who are mad about so many things and saying they should be punished, something should happen. And we should have rules and we should have expectations, but let me be clear, the church should be known by our mercy. You see, you don't get to say you have a biblical godly marriage if you don't express mercy to each other. You don't get to say that you have a godly home if your children don't see you express mercy to other people. You don't get to say you have a godly business

As a church, we have to be known by our mercy. In this tax collector, he's standing a long ways off. But then we're also told that he did this. The tax collector stood at a distance, but he would not even look up to heaven, but he beat his breast and said, God have mercy on me, a sinner. The tents here of him beating his breast is implying that he did it over and over and over. But he just kept hitting his chest saying, hey man, I'm a sinner, man, I've messed up. There's something wrong with me, just keeps hitting his chest over and over. And what I'm finding in the church today is we have a lot of Christians who believe that they were forgiven a long time ago, but they're still beating their chest. I'm a sinner, I've messed up. Man, I don't deserve this forgiveness. I receive forgiveness, but I don't deserve mercy. I find people who will tell me, you know what? I know I've been forgiven, but if people find out what I did, I will never be able to walk back into that church. Man, if they had had a better spouse, if my kids had had better parents, God surely won't use me. I know he's forgiven me, but I have the shame on my life because of what happened in my past,

if people just beating their chest. But can I remind you about the Israelites in Exodus 14? The Israelites have been given their freedom from Egypt. They have left slavery, they have left bondage, they have left the reminder of all the things they did wrong, and now they are walking in freedom. Do you remember that Pharaoh and the Egyptians changed their mind? And it says that they came and began to go after the Israelites, and they got to the Red Sea, and God parted the Red Sea, and the Israelites walked across on dry land, and when they turned around, do you remember what happened? Pharaoh and all the Egyptians were within the confines of the Red Sea, and God let the waters loose, and it covered the Egyptian army, and now one of them was left alive. And right before this happens, Moses speaking, he says the Egyptians you see today, you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still. I gotta tell you, North Sea Church, some of you that are doing this about all the things you did in the past, you need to let the mercy of God overwhelm you. You need to let the mercy of God move you in such a way that you realize his mercy is greater than your shame.

His mercy is greater than your sin. His mercy is greater than when you came up short. His mercy is better than when you failed in your marriage. His mercy is better than when you failed as a parent. This mercy comes and it overshadows everything that you have done, and the only thing left is a God that says, I still love you. Church, we gotta quit beating our chest in misery, and we gotta start raising our hands in mercy. Every time I've reminded of what has done something wrong, you should raise your hands and say, but God, I know your mercy is here. Lamentations three tells us that his mercies are new every morning, so when you wake up in that shame and that guilt, just like an Egyptian army is coming back into your life, you say, I'm not gonna do this. I'm gonna raise my hands and thank him that his mercy is new every morning. And sometimes someone's gonna come and they're gonna remind you of what happened in your past. And you should quote back what David said. David in the Psalm said, I am confident that surely your goodness and your mercy will follow me all the days of my life, that I am not what somebody said, I am not what somebody did, but there is mercy that is strong enough and great enough that I did nothing to deserve here for me. This mercy should overwhelm us to such a powerful extent

and move us. The last thing I love about this is we don't know what moves the tax collector that day. Did he have a bad day? Did somebody let him know he was a sinner? Was he just woke up that day and God spoke to him? Why did he show up at the temple? We don't know. All we know is he woke up that morning and said, I am not enough, but if I could just get to God, if I could just get in the temple, maybe, just maybe God would be merciful. Maybe if I could just get to him, he would extend his mercy to me that maybe I'm not too far gone. What I find is there's a lot of people in our communities and in our church, they need to experience mercy. But not just the mercy that's straining back our punishment, the mercy that comes in, when I'm not enough and it wraps me in his love and it says, I'm still with you. It's one of my favorite moments of mercy that I got in high school, of 17. And I'd love to tell you that I didn't do anything wrong as a 17 year old. I'd give him my life to Jesus. I was serving in a church, but I was still sinning. And we had a football coach on our team and he had a stuttering problem.

And I would love to sit here and tell you that I was a respectful, honorable man, but I wasn't. And honestly, I'm embarrassed and ashamed to even admit that to you. But I did not behave the way that I should have. And you know, of course, we had to run and we received some discipline as we should have. But our coach never got angry. He never got in my face and said, how dare you talk to me that way? He never got angry and started telling us, you know what, you deserve so much better. I'm gonna so much worse. He continued to show mercy by holding back the punishment that I deserved. But then, during our two days practice, our coaches pulled us all together for a meeting. And I could tell something was off. Our coaches are, most of them are crying, they're moving over here, I'm just, what is happening right now? And they gather us all together and we're all just looking around saying, "What are they about to tell us?" One of our coaches, he finally stands up and he looks at us and he says, "Boys, I'm really sorry to tell you this." But my friend and my teammate, he died in a car accident on his way to practice. And he's not gonna be here with us anymore

because God's taking him home. And at 17, it struck me so heavily, so severe. I had no idea what to do in that moment. And literally, I just, I got up and I sprinted to the locker room. I was like, I have to take this equipment off. I don't wanna be at this school. I don't wanna be around these players. I don't wanna be around any of this. I've just gotta get home and get out of this. I don't know what I need, but I can't do this. So I take everything off and I change my clothes and I sprint out of the locker room and I throw the door open and there's one man standing there. And it was the coach who I had been making fun of. The coach who I had mocked, you know what he did? I ran out and he wouldn't even let me go by. He just grabbed me and he held me in his arms and I just began to cry and just begin to mourn. And he said, "Joseph, we're gonna be okay. "Joseph, this is not the end of our team." And I look back at that moment and I think, why would he show me mercy like that? I didn't deserve mercy. I was not worthy of that response, but he was willing to show love to me and it changed my life. See what I think is too many of us are coming to church and we're walking away saying,

I hope it was a good sermon. I hope they sing a good song. I hope they decided to do some good things, but there are people who are showing up to church just like the tax collector saying, I need God. There are people showing up saying, I'm not enough in my marriage. I'm not enough as a parent. There are students showing up saying, I'm not enough at my school. I don't know how to do this. And they're looking for God. They're not looking from a sermon from me. They're looking to encounter God and my fear is, they're showing up looking for God and all their finding are us and our plans and our preparation. See, I like the way that Kerry Newhoff said. He said, it's a shame when people come to church looking for God and they only find us. I think there are people who are walking into our church at all of our campus to say, I need God. I don't just need him to hold back the pain. I don't need him just to hold back the punishment. I need him to come and love me right now. I talked to a family last night that said, we just lost our mom. And I don't know what I need, but I just feel like I need God to show up in my life.

And I'm like, you need his mercy. We talked to families who were experienced and lost and confused and they're saying, Joseph, I'm just not enough. I'm a failure as a dad, I'm a failure as a husband. You don't need a sermon. You need the mercy of God to come in your life because when you feel like you're not enough, that is a reminder that you have a God who is always enough, that every time I feel like I'm not enough, it's a reminder that I put my hands up and say, I'm grateful that he loves me enough to go and he died on a cross for me. That every time I feel like I'm not enough, I should be reminded that he sees me, that he cares for me and that he wants to be with me right here and right now because he is who my faith is in. See, church shouldn't be a place where you walk away feeling good about yourself. It shouldn't be a place where you walk away feeling bad about yourself. Church should be a place where you walk away feeling good about the God that you serve and that you've placed your faith in. Anything short of that is a failure on our part. We walk away reminding ourselves that because of his great mercy, I get to stand here before you today, because of his great mercy,

I get to be a pastor at this church because of his great mercy, I have a family that I get to go home to because I don't deserve any of it. My question this morning is very simple. Do you need mercy? What we're gonna do is we're gonna take a few minutes. We're not gonna be about our plan, it's not gonna be about our preparation. We're gonna create space for people who need to experience mercy today. So I'm gonna ask you to hear at Carmel and at all of our campuses, I'm gonna ask that you would stand with us as we get prepared to make this a time of mercy. And as you're standing, I've got prayer partners coming forward here, prayer partners that all of our campuses are coming forward and being prepared to take some time to pray with people. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna take a moment and we're gonna do a song here. I'm ending short to help you out. I know you're busy, I know you got things to do, but I think if we took us a few moments and said, God, we need you to show up. He is faithful to always answer that request. And so some of you, you walked in today, you didn't need me, you need to encounter with God. Some of you, you need mercy on your marriage and as a couple, you need to walk up

and you need to get prayer. Some of you need mercy as a parent. You need mercy on your job. You need mercy on your family. You need mercy in the things that you're going through. So why do we need to pray? Matthew 18 tells us that when two people pray on earth that our heavenly Father hears it in heaven and he responds. And so many of you, you need prayer. If we're gonna hear just a moment, we're gonna ask you to walk up here and physically solidify spiritually what's happening in your life that you need mercy. For the rest of you, we're gonna sing a song that reminds us that we are not enough, but he is faithful to meet me again. And that he met me all those years ago at Salvation. He met me all those years ago in those moments, but he is faithful to meet me here again because Dorothy Church, we are not enough on our own, but he is faithful to show up again and again and again because of his great mercy. Let's pray God, we thank you for who you are. God, I thank you that you are a loving and a merciful God. God, I thank you that you love us so much that your mercy is abounding and it shows up day after day. And so God, I pray at all of our campuses, the families, the marriages, the students, the individuals, the leaders who need your mercy that God,

they would experience it in a fresh way this morning. God, I pray for my fellow staff members that are tired, that they've been carrying such a heavy load that today they would experience your mercy. God, I pray for the men in our church who have been working, who have been striving. In this moment, they would be reminded of your mercy. God, I pray for the women of our church, not to walk away thinking about what someone else says of them, but they would walk away thinking about your mercy and your love because you have the final say. God, I pray that we are a house of mercy, that we receive your mercy freely, and God, we give it to others just as freely, because when we are not enough, you promise to always meet us here again. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.