This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to our last day, day five of our look to the first part of
Matthew chapter seven. We are looking these last few days at God's mercy in our
lives. God wants us to be merciful because He's merciful and God's mercy is
overwhelming.

The secret to a heart of mercy is seeing, really seeing God's mercy towards you.
The better you understand the mercy that God's given you, the more merciful
you're going to be towards others. The grace, the mercy of God, they are His
undeserved gifts to us.

If you could earn favor, you could easily become judgmental towards those who
had not earned what you had. But the Bible directs all of us to come boldly to
God's throne so that in Hebrews 4. 16, we may receive mercy and find grace to
help us in our time of need.

Come to God's throne because He's got mercy, He's got grace to give us. God
wants to give His mercy, His grace into your life today. I will never forget the
picture of grace and mercy that I received as a junior high boy.

Mr. and Mrs. Powell were a kind older couple who lived next door to us.

Mrs. Powell had over 20 canaries, she had this large tank of tropical fish that
we took care of every time they were away. And so when I was in junior high, she
decided, hey, Tommy's old enough, I'm going to pay him to take care of the birds
and the fish this time while we're away for a week.

So I took the job. All I needed to do was feed the canaries and the tropical
fish once a day. I could do that.

I could make some money. It's going to be great. It went well until about the
third day when this cold snap came through town.

It was colder than it had been for years. So I went over to feed the birds that
were out in this barn in the back in the morning and as I opened the door to the
back shed that enclosed the atrium, something did not look quite right. So I
went back and I asked my mom, mom, when birds sleep, do they like lie on the
ground with their feet sticking up in the air?

Truth is all 21 of the canaries had died, all of them. Now that were only the
end of the story. Two days later, the pump in the fish tank stopped working.

And so when I went to feed them in the morning, I found that all the fish had
died as well and were floating on top of the tank. I was not looking forward to
the Powell's returning home. When they got back with downcast eyes, I nervously
stammered out the story of what had happened.

But Mrs. Powell especially showed me kindness instead of pointing out what I
could have done differently. She said, it wasn't your fault.

It's going to be okay. Then as I was quickly, I want to get out there as quick
as I could heading out the door, she did something else. She stopped me and she
handed me an envelope.

And she said, here's the money for taking care of my fish and birds. I said, I
can't take that. She said, no, you have to take it.

That was an undeserved gift. That was a gift of mercy and grace. And it wasn't
until years later that I realized she must have read Les Miserables.

You might remember Victor Hugo's story of Jean Valjean, this beggar, this thief
who's shown kindness by a bishop when he takes him into his home. Valjean repays
the bishop's kindness by stealing the silver spoons and forks from the home and
fleeing into the night. By chance he's stopped by a policeman who discovered
he's got the silver and they take him back to the bishop's house.

And the bishop could have easily said, yeah, he took them. And Valjean would
have been condemned to spend the rest of his life in prison. Instead in this
incredible act of grace, the bishop says, oh, yeah, yes, I see you have the
silver that I wanted you to have, but you forgot these two silver candlesticks.

And he gives him the candlesticks as well. Later in the book, Hugo writes of
those two silver candlesticks, all of Jean Valjean's life was contained in them.
All of his life, all of his identity contained in that one act of grace.

That is the intent of God's mercy. That is the intent of God's grace. All of our
lives are meant to be contained in his act of grace, what God has given in us
and through Jesus Christ because of God's act of grace in Christ.

Your forgiveness is contained in that act of grace. Your future is contained in
that act of grace. Your relationship with God, with others, they are contained
in that great act of grace.

So I have received his grace. Have you received his mercy? We've talked this
week about being merciful to others, but it begins by you receiving God's mercy
in your own life.

If you haven't received it right now, just in a prayer, a brief prayer, it
doesn't have to be this long drawn out prayer. You say to God, "I need your
mercy. I received your gift of grace.

I want to live the life you've made me to live. " Just say that to God in your
mind or out loud right now, "I receive your mercy. I received your gift of
grace.

I want to live the life that you've made me to live. " You're trusting him
instead of trusting yourself. Trusting him for forgiveness instead of trusting
yourself to make it all right.

You're trusting him for direction in your life instead of trusting yourself to
figure it all out. This week we've been talking about how you and I can become
less judgmental. We've been talking about these verses.

Let me share them with you again as we come to the end of this week, verses one
to five. Jesus taught us, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the
same way you judge others, you will be judged.

And with the measure that you use, it will be measured to you. " Why do you look
at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank
in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, "Let me take the speck out of
your eye," when all the time there's this plank in your own eye?

You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see
clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Jesus has taught us this
week about hypocrisy and integrity and mercy. Hypocrisy, focusing on the speck
in my sister's or brother's eye while ignoring the plank in my own eye.

Integrity, taking that plank out of my own eye. And mercy, taking the speck out
of my brother's or my sister's eye. As I've said several times this week, all
the way through actually this life management seminar, the only way to live this
way is by the power of Jesus.

I can't live this way by my own power. And when I find myself stumbling in this,
and I all too often do, I realize I'm trying to live life by my own power again.
So what do I do in that moment?

I can become discouraged and depressed, "Oh, I did it again. " Or I can realize,
"No, I'm forgiven. He's given me a new life.

And I can live life the rest of this day, the rest of this week, day by day,
hour by hour, moment by moment. I can live life by His strength and not by my
strength, by His wisdom, not by my wisdom, by the power of His Spirit, not by
the power of my own passions. I need His strength.

You need His strength. So let's ask for it once again as we come to the end of
this study this week. Would you pray with me?

And in prayer, just talk to Jesus for a few moments and just say to Him, maybe
something like this in your mind, "Jesus, I hear Your words and I'm convicted by
these words. I can see that You're talking about me here in Matthew chapter 7. I
mean, I have noticed the speck in my brothers' and sisters' eye while ignoring
the plank in my own.

I've used what they've done as an excuse to ignore what's in my own life. I've
done that, Lord. I admit it.

It's so easy to notice the faults in others, to point out the faults in others,
and to ignore those faults in my own life. So forgive me, Lord, and protect me.
Take me from hypocrisy.

Give me the courage to stop excusing the sin in my own life. Lord, give me
integrity. Give me the strength to remove that plank from my own eye, the
strength to make that decision, the strength to look to You.

And Lord, also I pray that You'd help me to be a person of mercy. Give me the
love to share the transformation, the new life, the forgiveness, the freedom
from sins that only You can offer. Jesus, when I look at You, when I see the way
that You live life, You treated people not with condemnation, but with
integrity, with mercy.

Help me to learn from You. Even more than that, I pray that You would give me
the power that I do not have in my own life to live like You. I ask for this
strength, Jesus, from You today.

And in Your name, I ask for this strength, Amen. Join us for next week. Next
week we're going to look together at the last half of Matthew chapter 7, the
last part of the Sermon on the Mount, and continue to talk together about what
He has to teach us about managing your life direction.

We'll see you next week.