May 17 Worship Gathering

So, Ian, yes. So, glad that you're here. My name is Janice. I'm the operations director here, and I'm hosting today.

So, I just want to say welcome. So, glad that you've come together with us. I invite you to stand if you're not already standing and get your hearts and your bodies ready for worship. And I'm going to hand it over to our worship team.

Good morning. Family. Good morning. Alright, let's center feet for worship.

I'll be for that. I'll be for that. I just want to say thank you, God. Thank you for your day.

Thank you for the new day. Thank you for your family. God, thank you. Thank you for this community.

Thank you for the relationship. Thank you for the friendship. And thank you for inviting us home, God. Lord, we worship you.

And that's what we sing songs today as we talk to our friends, as we listen to the preacher. Just want to express the graduation and thanksgiving into place. Lord, let us behold your beauty. Let us behold your love, O God.

Where we thank you. Because you take me up and turn me around a solid ground. I thank the master. I thank the Savior because you killed my heart.

You changed my name forever free. I'm not the same. I thank the master. I thank the Savior.

I thank God. Wondering to the day. One's in a place to pry. There's really a storm to spend upon.

And just when I ran, I thank the Savior. I'm not tonight what I've seen. Got no choice but to believe about the burning. Like what?

Like I should've been a bit so long, so long to my old friend. And better than if you just keep it moving. And now you ain't welcome here. From now till I walk, the streets of Gosh Wade, we're sunless families, way back, oh.

Serve all the glory, the honor, the praise. Hologr to see you, O God. Wow, is it amazing that God has saved us? Wow, he pursued us.

He has forgiven us. We were welcome to a new family. Because of him. But behind that is love.

It's not a charity. What he didn't have to cross. It's not a charity. It's not just, you know, it's for God's glory.

But also that's the biggest picture of God's heart. Because he loves you. He loves so much that he wouldn't let eternity to become without us. He wants you there.

You want us all there. Here's Sam. As honestly as I know. Broken by the days gone by.

The spirit of my soul to rise. I'm others but still I think. And even then you gave me I'm a child of God. The colors of the things I've done.

All my hope is found in perfect love. I am so judgment. Of water then horizon. Stronger than most sin.

Lord, sure. He says the heart of God. Your heart, O God. His all I want.

Oh, they say that it's impossible. To ever say the same. Let my God. But my God says to the particle.

My beloved one, you're welcome home. He says I surrender. I will let him out. I'm trusting.

He stresses in his presence. In turn. His presence. Oh God.

Sing him mercy. Oh, truth. Repent to the heart of God. Oh, your heart, O God.

You move the mountains. My God is a mighty to say. She is a mighty to say. For I are the author of salvation.

He rose and conquered the grave. Jesus conquered the grave. Everyone. Everyone needs compassion.

Love that's never failing. Members, he fall on me. Everyone needs forgiveness. And this of a same girl.

So take me as you find me. So take me as you find me. All my fears and failures. Come alive.

I feel my life again. I feel my life to follow. Everything I've needed. No one is surrender.

My God is mighty. Observation. He rose and conquered the grave. Jesus conquered the grave.

He rose. He rose and conquered the grave. Jesus conquered the grave. He rose and conquered the grave.

Jesus conquered the grave. God, we thank you that you are our victorious Lord. God, we thank you that we get to worship a God that didn't stay in the grave, but you rose again. God, I pray that we would remember that today.

That we remember that throughout the week. That we're not serving a dead God. We're serving a God who lives. I've got to thank you that that power is in us, and that power moves through us, God, and I pray that we would embody that this week in our workplaces, in our homes, in our day-to-day lives.

I've got to pray that we would live with the power that there is in Jesus. Yeah, God, we just thank you for the amazing blessing that that is and the amazing gift that that is. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, thank you, worship team.

Thank you all for worshiping. You can be seated, kids, see you later. Have fun in class. All right, before we transition to our normal table fellowship time, we wanted to take a moment as a congregation to just address the homicide that happened on the UW campus this week.

So I'm going to bring up one of our campus missionaries to just briefly pray for that and for the campus and for the family of the student. Good morning, guys. My name is Warren. Yeah, what Jenn was saying.

It's really, really, pitying. We have the university's passing a sorrow moment for what happened the other day in the campus. When I was praying with the student, I asked him, are we praying for him? Anything I can pray for you?

He said, actually, not for me, but for the incident that happened hours ago, because all the students have been sending texts for that lady, or that the student, see somebody turn his leg off. I want to pray for that. For the parents, even for friends, maybe they know her or classmates. It's OK, guys, as church, we don't believe that God can do something in the campus.

It reminds me also in the birth. It says in Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, it says, trust in the Lord with all your heart. And lend no on your own understanding. In all your ways, admit to him, and he will make your path straight.

I just want to pray for that verse, not just for the students, but for the admin, for the people that are even cleaning the campus, for the people who deliver all the things, that people can't really understand who Jesus is. Heavenly Father, I just say thank you so much for your grace, for the gift of life that you gave us God, because you are the one who give us, you are the one who can take us all. I just ask for a family of the student God that he was shut off his life, that you really can give comfort in this time of sorrow. This campus, that protects the campus, protect all the students God.

No matter what they believe you still love them God. I pray all these things God in the power of my teenage energies. Amen. Thank you, James.

Thank you all for praying with us. Thank you, Warren. Yeah. So now we're just going to take a moment to transition into the next part of our gathering with it, which is our fellowship at Tables.

So if you're new to ENCS, sitting at a table in a circle might be different for a church gathering for you, but this is something that we really value, because we value seeing and getting to know each other, not just in groups throughout the week, but in Tables on a Sunday. So we're going to take next few minutes, you can introduce yourself at Tables, and get to know each other. And then I will be back up to introduce our speaker for today. But have fun at your Tables.

As is the love of your son. Hello again, everyone. I'm going to call you back from your discussion tables. Hope you had a great time.

I'm going to introduce our guest preacher for today. This is Jonathan Mitchell. He is executive pastor of Erenishin Vancouver, Metro Vancouver. Go Vancouver.

He is deeply passionate about the local church and spends much of his time investing in leaders both within his church and across the city. So in addition to his role at Erenishin, he also leads a 604 network, which is a collective of youth pastors serving throughout the greater Vancouver area and directs a summer camp for senior teens on Anvil Island each year. More recently, he has enjoyed serving as a preaching coach. His alma mater, Erenishin Seminary, and at the heart of his ministry is a deep love of discipleship and seeing the gospel passed from heart to heart through authentic relationships.

So please give a warm Erenishin. See, I welcome to Pastor Garbin. Thanks so much. Yeah, it's good to be here.

I haven't been to Erenishin. See, I don't know long time. It's nice to make the trip across the border. Don't do that so much these days for reasons that we won't get into today.

Maybe there will be no border one day. I don't know. It'll be quicker to come down here. That's OK.

We won't go there. But they did detain me for a whole hour. I had to sit there for a while. I almost didn't make it.

I got here right at 9.30, but we made it. Yeah, like I was just said, my name is Jonathan. I've been serving on staff at Erenishin Vancouver for over a decade now. And some new fun things in my life.

My wife and I just had our first daughter nine months ago. And so that's real fun. We're on a whole new adventure. And so they wanted to be here, but she doesn't travel super well.

So I just made the trip down here by myself. I hear you guys are in the middle of a series on the Sermon on the Mount, which is fantastic. I think it's a portion of scripture that really changed the world. I don't know.

It would be up there for one of the pick up, a section of scripture that turned the world upside down. The Sermon on the Mount is a pretty good candidate. And so why don't we read that again? And then we'll delve into one part of it.

Jesus said, blessed are the poor in spirits for theirs at the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meekful for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Father, we thank you for uttering these words through your son, Jesus. Thank you for the life that they bring. And sometimes they're hard to understand. And sometimes they feel as though they're upside down and inside out, it's in backwards.

But such is the way of your Kingdom. And we know that when we hear these words in the way they were meant to be heard, that it brings life and wholeness and freedom. And I pray that your spirit would help us to understand your word again today in the way that it was meant to be. So would you bring life?

When would you bring freedom as we chew on what you've said? In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so the passage today that we're going to zoom in on or the verse today is blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. When I think about the idea of mercy, this has been probably one of the hardest concepts for me to understand personally in my faith.

Mercy has been a tough go in terms of wrapping my head around it. What's it for? What does it mean? And most of us don't mind the idea of mercy in theory.

When we see it in movies, it brings a little tear to our eye. Oh, these merciful forgiveness moments that the climax of dramas usually. And we like it when we see it. And then at the same time, when we need to be extended, it's not a very fun experience.

And so this is tension built into this idea of mercy, that our souls crave it and then resist it simultaneously. And we have this love-hate relationship with mercy. It's beautiful, but it isn't fun. And there's something about it that's actually inherently exposing.

I don't love that. I don't love that part of it. Have you ever done this as somebody who just go up to them without any context, just say, I forgive you. You ever say that?

You just watch their face. It's actually instant insulting. Like, how dare you? What before?

In one sense, it's a lovely gesture. I forgive you. In another sense, it's kind of it confronts something. What do you mean?

What do you mean I forgive you? It's a little insulting. And like I said, it's just hard for me to understand mercy. And I haven't known whether to like it or hate it, whether to want it or run from it.

Maybe you're like me. So despite the potential offense, and despite, at least, my, and if you resonate with me, despite our complicated relationship with mercy, it is the main, you could argue it's the main plot point of scripture. You could argue that without mercy, there actually wouldn't be a plot. Because mercy is actually the foundation of God's relationship to us.

That's our first point for today. God actually, without mercy, there would be no foundation for relationship with you and I. Here's what I mean by that. The plot could have been God created the world for relationship, and then for love and relationship, and then we said, no thank you.

And he said, OK, bye. The end. That could have been the plot. It's not the story that we find in scripture.

It turned out to be much longer book than that. Thank goodness. And my wife had recently read through all of the Bible in two months. It was a big feat of verse.

I wanted to do this. I think they call it the shred or something on you version. And it really is. You've got to read for like an hour and a half a day or more.

And there's some tough vlogs in the middle there. But she had one prevailing sort of sentiment coming out of reading it at speed. And it was this, why does God keep having mercy on everybody? When you read it that fast, you really pick up the fact that God just keeps having mercy for seemingly no reason again.

And you really start to think you should probably stop doing that. That's the impression that you're left with if you read it at speed. And just to give you a couple of verses, that highlight the fact that it's that this is the story. There's a couple here.

Let's just read through them briefly. The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness rebellion and sin. That's how God describes himself. That's his self disclosure.

He's apparently a God who maintains love to thousands and forgives wickedness. And he has this merciful disposition in his nature. And this is part of God's self disclosure to the people of Israel and Exodus. It's like, hey, this is who I am.

I'm actually merciful in nature. That's pretty good news. That's what I don't want to say we got lucky. But like in a sense, you can think about it that way going, oh, I'm really glad that that's the way that he is.

I'm glad. So we take that for granted sometimes. At least I do. Lamentation says this, because of the Lord's great love, we're not consumed for his mercies never fail, apparently.

They're new every morning. So we're alive. We're even here having this conversation because of the way that God is. It would be in his right to actually consume all that is not him.

All that is not as good as he is. He'd be in his right to do so. And he doesn't. And so we find ourselves standing here today because of this fact that his mercies never fail.

And then Micah, who's a God like you? Who pardons him and forgives transgressions? Who does that? You don't stay angry forever but delight to show mercy?

Does? But that he wants to? It's quite a robust picture of this character of God that we're getting, having to be merciful. So we should probably look at that and go, can you believe it?

Like, what a merciful God that we have. And I think we forget how big the problem is sometimes. Like we're literally God's enemies. If you've got to trade the world for love and relationship.

And when I say love, I mean self-emptying, selfless love, like the kind that he displayed. And then we go about constructing things with selfish autonomy. Like you can't get more antagonistic than that. You can't get more headed in the opposite direction as that.

So enemies is probably a pretty good word. So if there is to be a relationship with this God, mercy just has to be the starting point. It's the first step. It's the foundation of our relationship necessarily.

It's necessarily the foundation. And more than that, it was also meant to us how we get into the sermon on the Mount part. It was also meant to be the beginning of a movement. This idea that God would actually build our relationship on his mercy, which is ultimately fulfilled in Christ.

It was meant to be this first domino in a series of billions of dominoes called you and I, where mercy now actually becomes the rule. Mercy becomes the way in which we relate to each other. Mercy becomes, we relate to each other in the way that God relates to us through mercy. That was the plan.

This beautiful domino effect of mercy, beginning mercy, beginning mercy. That's a nice idea, right? Looks good on a poster. If you looked around, this is not happening very well if you zoom in in in certain places.

And in general, I think we would all hope that it would be happening more. The domino effect would be a little bit more smooth. So why isn't it? Why does this sometimes just feel like a nice idea that mercy begins mercy and that Jesus started a revolution of mercy?

Well, this is our second point. Unfortunately, merit is the default relationship for our relationship with others. This is the big problem. Merit, merit.

So a little honest moment here, maybe you can resonate with me in this. My pride doesn't like needing mercy. It hates it. It tries to find a way not to need it.

Instinctively, it's kind of humiliating and offensive. It's like God came along and said, I forgive you. I don't know where. Oh, rude.

That's my default reaction. Maybe you can resonate with me in that. And do any of you crave like me, even just one little corner of your heart that doesn't need mercy? One little spot that you can retreat to that hides from the piercing gaze of mercy.

Just somewhere that doesn't need it, please. OK, obviously some parts of me. I've got to have mercy on me here and there and there. But there is this other part where I'm like, no, no, no.

I can retreat over here. And oh, no mercy needed there. Why does it feel like such a sanctuary? At least it does for me.

And maybe I just think it's the best way to hide from that piercing gaze of mercy, that offense or that exposure is through merit. Something good that you've done that doesn't need mercy. Right? Could be a lot of things.

Could be an accomplishment. Could be a talent, a good deed, a competency, personal favorite of mine. Sin, you haven't committed. Right?

Well, I haven't done that. No mercy needed here, Lord. I will retreat to this argument from silence. I'm like, I don't need mercy because I haven't done that yet.

You know? I don't know. I do that. So even if you wouldn't call yourself a follower of Jesus today, I'm imagining you'd say something that you effect of.

I'm not perfect, but I'm a good person. It's very common. There are worse people. Maybe you wouldn't say that out loud.

But we think it. There's worse people. Surely I don't need mercy because I haven't done x or I haven't done y or I have done x and it's good. It's instinctual.

Believe it or not, I believe it. That we hide from the need for mercy based on merit. We all have that instinct. Why do we have the instinct?

Well, it's because merit is actually the way the world works. It does work to a certain degree. It's the way the world works. It's the foundation for relationship.

If you want to learn a fancy word today, we technically live in a meritocracy. We can impress all your friends. All it means is that those who do better are elevated and those who do worse are de-elevated. It's just how the world works.

It's not that complicated. And building our identity on merit is just so instinctual because it's just when you look around. Yeah, if I do better, I get further. If I do worse, I'm behind.

So here's the problem. Is that receiving mercy doesn't help you in a meritocracy. In fact, it's a setback. You're just further behind now.

Mercy means you failed to some degree, the system. We all created. You're now further behind. You're less liked.

You're less hireable, less desirable, less valuable in some way. And the reason why this resonates with me so much is because the goal of my life, I was to summarize, like when you start your testimony with the first 10 seconds, it sounds like mine always goes, my goal in life was to never need mercy. That's how I start my testimony. If I get a chance to share it with somebody, I have 30 seconds.

It's actually my first sentence, just because it's a big part of my story. My goal in life was to never need mercy, because if I needed mercy, it means I let the people down around me. It means I failed at the meritocracy. I wouldn't have known that word, but I was just bought into the instinct of the world going, hold on a second, mercy's bad news.

Mercy means I failed. Mercy means I fall in short in some way. And avoiding mercy can actually create a pretty functional existence. I think I found a pretty functional existence, avoiding mercy at all costs.

I actually succeeded at it. All you gotta do, here's your tip on how to avoid mercy. I can put it on a clinic. Find a ladder, and then climate, and gain merit in someone's eyes.

It doesn't actually even matter who. If the goal is to escape that piercing gaze of mercy, dealing with your brokenness or your flawedness at that deep level, you can find ladders and climb them and go, oh, good, whoo, I'm approved and validated over here. Could be anywhere, could be academics, I don't know, employment. For me, kind of messed up, but I use church for this.

I climbed the ladder of church, I'm so good at church. Oh my goodness, I could outchurch you so hard. I served on every team alone for years. That was that guy.

And it became a huge piece of my identity. I just climbed the ladder of churchy entity, I like to call it. And I was amazing at it. And it actually helped me escape the piercing gaze of mercy.

It worked like a charm. You can get promoted in church. It's not trying to be a meritocracy, but part of all, instinctive people that do better get elevated. And I was pretty good at X, Y, and Z.

You know, you get elevated, and all of a sudden you wind up the youth pastor. And never, wind up the youth pastor thinking, I don't need mercy, which leads to a life of hiding and mask wearing. That was my story. So when merits your identity, the reference point for how well you're doing actually becomes how you compare to other people, right?

You need a reference point for how you're doing it. It has to be other people. So we create a ladder with eight billion rungs in it, and we make sure that we're not the bottom one. And there's always somebody to compare ourselves to, being at least I'm not that bad.

At least I haven't done that. And it's a way to escape that piercing gaze. The higher you climb, the more merit you have, and the less mercy you need, or at least that's what you tell yourself. Here's the thing, biblically, it's a break to see you, but there's only two rungs in the ladder.

It's God and everybody else. For all who have sinned and fallen short, there's two rungs. God, us. That's where the offense kind of starts to come in for all of sin, falling short.

And it's a total fallacy to think that there's a hierarchy inside humanity at all. It's a totally made up thing, the meritocracy, ultimately speaking. We made that up. We made that up.

I mean, Seattle, I'll use math language for a second, maybe some computer programmers. As the standard, some of you appreciate this. As the standard approaches infinity, all right, the difference between finite numbers becomes zero. Asymptotes, anyone?

Asymptotes? Not a couple of you. I'm a pastor, but I did take precalculus. Twice, twice, I had to take it twice.

So God says there's two rungs. Here's the disaster of these rungs. Is it stops the domino effect? When we think that there's a ton, and we're ranking against each other based on merit, it just halts that beautiful domino effect that Jesus tried to start.

He did start. But we halt. Here's why. I can't receive mercy, because that means I'm lower in standing.

I think that's clear. But something else I've been realizing is that you can't actually give away mercy, either in a meritocracy, readily. Because when you give away mercy, you're actually silently saying you and I are the same. You wouldn't say it that way, but you have to admit that when you give away real mercy.

You're admitting the fallenness of the human condition going, you and I don't have a different, we both deserve mercy in the exact same way. When you give it away, it's the silent confession that you and I are, we're the same. In line of who God is, we're in the same position. Now I know sometimes we can think that mercy is looking down on other people as this like patronizing pity.

And maybe you can stay in your ladder and have patronizing pity on those below you. That's actually just a way of keeping the merit, hierarchy thing going. And we see that in scripture, right? Jesus is pretty upset at the Pharisees, we're doing something similar.

It's like, no, no, that's not mercy. That's just pity from above, for the lowly, to actually keep the hierarchy in place and to keep the need for admitting that you are just as fallen as the people you're looking down on as really hitting you in the heart. Works great until Jesus comes along and tears down the ladder. It says there's two rungs.

So maybe this is all a little bit heady. And so I just want to tell you a piece of my story so that maybe it'll land a little better, okay? This is my story, and it'll not show honestly. So like I said, my goal was to never need mercy, right?

And I succeeded, you know, you climbed a ladder of church, like I said, and I managed to have, you got elevated in the church. Meanwhile, secret addictions, no close relationships, thinking friendships and intimacy or all the stuff we talk about at church actually isn't possible. So you know, you wear enough masks and you don't know who you are anymore. But I didn't have to look at my own heart because I had a functional existence.

I knew something was wrong, but the rubber really hadn't met the road yet. And to be honest, I was just kind of content settling for less inside church. I guess I just won't be known or something, or maybe I'm different, I don't know. But everyone seems to like me, so this is fine, I guess.

Then I met this girl named Steph, who, you know, liked, and very early on, she liked, the first date that we became official, whatever that means. It took her like two hours before she just told me everything wrong she'd ever done. Maybe a little too much. She just wanted to be known, you know?

She's like, I had this ex-boyfriend and I wasn't healthy, and she just starts telling me stuff. And I'm like, okay, this is different. You know what I thought? Oh, it's just so wicked when you say it this way.

You know what I thought? I was like, yeah, you're one of those people that needs mercy. I got you. It's so bad.

I know, but this is what's going through my head. Of course, so here's what I thought, right? Here's what I thought. Your sin was worse than mine.

And I realized this later. It actually had to be. Because if I'm not better than you, because of the things that I've done, then I don't know who I am anymore. My whole identity is meritocracy.

My whole identity is I am not as worse as sinners, so and so. And then someone comes along in my life who actually wanna know and be close to. And then now I have to consider her sin worse than mine. You can see how eventually there was a little bit of an impasse that happened.

And I started to go, hold on a second. I'm stuck because I need the person who I'm falling in love with to be less. To be less. I need her to be less.

I need her to be worse. I need her to be lower on the ladder than me. Cause I don't know how to relate to the world otherwise. I'm not willing to be the same as you.

I'm not going there. I've ranked you. And I've ranked myself. And there's a barrier between her and I.

And this is why I'm folding this dating. And I'm like saying all the right things. Saying all the right things. I can't even do a paper on mercy.

But I'd walk away from a conversation with her and I'd be shaking. Because I didn't forgive her. I said I did. Cause I knew I had to intellectually.

I couldn't in my heart. The injustice was too strong for me. So I prayed, help God I'm stuck. I actually don't know what to do.

And God answered my prayer. One fateful night when my ugliness came out and all of its fullness for kind of the first time in our relationship. My ugliness came out. And like any grown man does, we went to my parents' house in that fateful night when we didn't know what to do.

You must have said we gotta talk to your parents and look yeah we do. I don't know what to do either. She said like I don't know you. I don't know you.

How come you've never talked about this stuff? And so we go over there and we sit there and now I'm just like okay, let's just do it. So I just was fully known. And at the mercy really of the world in every sense.

The person I loved, my parents who I worked for at the church that should not trust me. Just life is over. It's over. And my dad did something I'll never forget.

He said without belittling my sittin' up. We weren't belittling it but he said okay. As far as you two go. Just so you know every marriage at some point shifts from being built on merit to being built on mercy.

You could start now. You could start now. It's a little early but you could start now. And Steph like it took her three seconds and she grabs me and pulls me into herself and says I forgive you.

And to change my life I'd be forgiven for the first time ever. I had a real, it was saved me. It was a realization of my own need for mercy. Now I have more than enough for Steph, my goodness.

And the foundation of our relationship shifted from merit to mercy. So what if you and I need an infinite amount of mercy? And what if you get to give an infinite amount of mercy away? That's the domino effect.

Well for that to be true. Our third point has to be true which is this. Jesus invites us to build a relationship on his mercy. He invites us to build our relationships on his mercy.

I wanna read you a parable just that makes the point too well. It's a little long but let's read through it. Okay, says Jesus elsewhere in Matthew. He says this.

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me up to seven times? Jesus answered I tell you not seven times but 77 times. Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants and he began the settlement. A man who owed him 10,000 bags of gold was brought to him.

That is the, I don't know, Aramaic turn a phrase for a bajillion dollars just so you know. Since he was not able to pay the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. At this the servant fell in his knees before him. He patient with me he begged and I will pay back everything.

The servants master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him, pay back what you owe me, he demanded. His fellow servant fell in his knees and begged him be patient with me and I will pay back.

But he refused. Instead he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that happened. Then the master called the servant in.

You wicked servant he said, I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servants just as I had on you? And anger as master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your hearts.

The point of this passage and the point that Jesus is trying to articulate here is that what the master did for the first servant should have obliterated the merit ladder. And then what does the servant go do? Puts it right back up. What am I owed?

What am I owed? That servant is rightly owed 50 silver coins, rightly. That's not standing death. And yet somehow what the master is expecting is that because you've been forgiven, shouldn't you forgive the other?

Now, Jesus is saying, can we build relationships on my mercy for you? Can we build them on that? Now what's I find fascinating is that Paul takes this idea of the whole playing field being flattened. He takes it to another extreme I find.

And he says that, let's not just flatten it. Paul is saying, I, Paul need mercy the most. He calls himself the chief of sinners. Now my merit brain goes, no, you're not.

Of course you're not. There's way worse people than you, Paul. Yeah, I know he did that. You persecuted the church and stuff, but my goodness.

There's like a far worse people than you. And certainly you've been a whole lot in the last couple of years to make up for that. That's merit brain. And he's Paul saying, no, no, no, you don't get it.

I'm the chief of sinners. Paul would say, no, no, no. When I look at my relationship, compared to God, my only conclusion is that I am the worst. That is a big conclusion.

When I look at what God did for me, I see 10,000 bags of gold being forgiven. There's two ways to look at the 10,000 bags. One, little insulting. 10,000 bags, my goodness.

A bajillion dollars? Certainly that's not how bad I am. That, right? Isn't that your instinct going, oh, 10,000.

The other way of viewing that is, oh my goodness, 10,000 bags. Just depends on how thick your pride feels today, I guess. Like, there's two ways of looking at the big debt, the big debt that exists that we talked about, that exists between God and us. It's huge.

It's as big as a gap gets. And we can be insulted by the fact that the gap is big or be floored that the gap has been made up. So your choice. I chose to resent the fact that there was a gap and try to close it by climbing a tiny little ladder I made up.

That's what pride does. So what if the key to being merciful is being the chief of sinners? I've been convinced of that. I walked away from that moment that I told you about, going, whoa.

I started a wall for the next year, going, what have I been doing? How did I get this so wrong? I just had to just look at a wall for a while. And it was in the middle of COVID, so I had plenty of time.

I just stared and Steph would say, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm replaying my whole life again. Going, how did I do the opposite of, wow. So if you have to open your hands to receive mercy, I think all the merit falls out, right?

That's what I didn't want to do. Open your hands to receive mercy, but all the merit gets replaced. And this hurts. But then I think you find yourself with an infinite resource to extend.

You find yourself with a mercies new every morning for you. It's an infinite resource that gets extended to everybody else. The next domino in the chain. So my encouragement to you as we end is that mercy is actually the firmest foundation you can build your life on.

It's so firm because it's already been accomplished in Christ. It's firm, it's done. And in that way, you can be assured that because of God's character and what we see displayed in Christ, that his mercies are new every morning, and that mercy always abounds, and that it's always extended through a repentant heart. And that's actually solid.

You know what's not solid? It's a meritocracy. It's not solid. You are vulnerable.

At any moment, you could be knocked down a peg. At any moment, your identity could be in jeopardy. If you're found out, if you're exposed, if someone is better than you, it's so vulnerable. And what you wind up, it loses a life like mine, where you wear masks and it gets smaller and smaller and smaller, and the only approval you have isn't real, and it's fake, because it isn't you.

And God says, I want to love you. So why don't you come into the light and let mercy be the foundation that you build our relationship on and the relationship that you build, all your other relationships on? It's firm. Because when you bump up against them, when you go, oh, I'd love to just be better than you right now.

That makes so much sense to me. God goes, how about you build your relationship on the mercy I've shown you? And then watch. And then watch how that unites people.

Watch how it draws them further into the presence of God. I can attest to you that strangely, Stephanie and I have such a great relationship. And it's because we both have this strange and beautiful, or convinced, that we're the chief of sinners. I don't know.

Like I have a smile on my face when I say the chief of sinners. How do you explain that? You can't really explain it. And I'm sure Paul, when he said he was the chief of sinners, did it with the biggest smile on his face?

And I think that's a miracle of the spirit killing your pride and letting the good news of the gospel not only shape your future trajectory with God. But the relationships that we have now, he's like, it's firm and it sure watch. It works. Blessed are the merciful.

They will be shown mercy, giving and receiving. So my friends, like my dad told me on that fateful night, you could just start now. You could just start now. You could squash that merit ladder and begin relating to people in the way that God relates to you.

And I can assure you that it will knit you together with others in a way that glorifies God and builds his church and makes us different. It makes the church should be different. And if there's one thing we should be known for, it's for mercy because justice is in God's hands. And that's hard to believe sometimes.

But that's our role. So we're going to take communion, which is very apt for this morning. And I know you guys are probably more used to this. You guys do it a little different way than I do.

But what I want to do is just read 1 Corinthians 11. We'll read the first part when it comes to the bread and then we'll take the cup together. For I received from the Lord, but I also passed on to you. The Lord Jesus on the night he was betrayed, took bread.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. So why don't we hand out that bread to each other? All right, everybody have the bread.

All right, this is Christ's body. Broke it for you. Take a neat. In the same way, after supper, he took the cup, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

And you do this whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me. For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Guys can pour each other, juice, and take and drink when you're ready. So Father, we thank you today that you started something here on this night, on the night you were betrayed, that you started something, that changed the world.

And so Father, I ask that you would do this through us and that we would see your mercy in its fullness in our life, even this morning of fresh. And I thank you that you give us relationships, too, to see that mercy be even made more known to us. And whenever we want to compare things and want to do the merit thing and hide, Father, I pray that we remember what you did for us. And I thank you for how large the debt that was paid was.

We don't resent it. We are overjoyed by it. So Father, I pray that any grudges in this room, any looking down from above, any hiding, I pray that you would give us the courage to come into the light or to extend mercy to those who our flesh wants to see as more lowly or undeserving. Oh God, you did this what we just did.

You did this for everyone. You did this so that everyone could have equal access to the most costly and precious and beautiful gifts that there is, which is your body and your blood that saves us from that, which separates us from you. We are so grateful. May our lives be transformed and our relationships be transformed by this.

In Jesus' name, Amen. All right, thank you so much, Pastor Jonathan. Now we're just going to take a minute or so to just reflect quietly to yourselves. And yeah, I'll let us know what's going to happen after that, but we're going to take a minute now to quietly reflect.

So now there's a chance for discussion at tables. So if you're new and you're not comfortable sharing, that's what we find. But we also do want to give a chance for everyone who wants to share, a chance to share. So be mindful of the time.

And don't forget to pray as a table at the end. But there's some questions on the screen to help guide your discussion. So have one at your tables. Hello again.

I want to just close this in prayer and then close up our gathering. Jesus, thank you so much for this time. Thank you that you are a merciful God and that you love us so much. God, we pray that we would love out that mercy this week and apply what we've learned today.

Thank you so much, Jesus, Amen. All right. So just as we head out, I'm going to just say a couple of administrative details. If you're new or you want to get connected with us, we would love to connect with you.

There's a connect card in the middle console at your table and we would love for you to fill that out. Love to know who you are, how we can get in contact with you. And we would love to connect and grab coffee with you and get to know your story. There's also a prayer request card in the middle.

If you have any kind of prayer request anyway that we can support you as a church family, we would love to know that. Please write that down. Let us know how we can be praying for you. We do pray over these every week.

And we would love to know that. We also continue and worship through giving. So if you do give, we just want to say thank you so much for your tithes and offerings. It enables us to make disciples in the city and just live out the mission that God has called us to in Seattle.

So thank you so much. But if you're not currently giving and would like to join in that, the easiest way, there's all top cards at your table. You can give that way or there's also, you can just give it via the app and you can set up recurring giving or one time giving on there and it's super easy. And one upcoming event that I want to highlight is next Sunday is Pentecost.