August 11, 2021
Author: Pastor Gordon Cook
August 11, 2021
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according
to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly
from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my
transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only,
have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be
justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was
brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me."
Psalm 51:1-5
If pastors were to be wordsmiths, you have got to study words. Every
Christian should be a wordsmith; every Christian should understand the
words in their Bible. There are a lot of words that are of extreme
importance if we are going to understand the gospel of Christ,
understand who God is, and understand who Christ is. Some of those words
are words like covenant, glory, and grace. Also words that take us to
the cross. There are at least four or five significant words that we
should understand if we are to understand what Christ accomplished at
the cross - propitiation, reconciliation, redemption and sacrifice.
Those are key words. There are also key words for Christ, titles for
Christ, priest, prophet, king. There are also words that we should make
use of when it comes to God himself. God’s attributes. One of the most
important words when it comes to coming to prayer is the word mercy.
Remember when Moses wanted to see God’s glory, God makes a revelation to
him, he hides him in the cleft of the rock and passes before him. The
first thing that God says to Moses is, “The Lord God, merciful…”
Look at Psalm 51 written by David after his terrible backslide; it
shows us that he came to a place of true repentance. David had messed up
big time; he had committed scandalous sins of adultery, murder, a web
of lies to cover his tracks and it seemed like there would be no way
back. Some people would have written off David. But David clings to
God’s mercy, like a drowning man clings to a life jacket. Twice, some
might argue three times, in fact, he makes mention of his mercy. Verse
1, “Have mercy according to your steadfast love, (that steadfast love
could also be a term for mercy or a concept of mercy) abundant mercy.”
When you turn to the book of Hebrews, remember that passage where we
are told to draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy.
God is a god of mercy, he is a god of grace and he loves to dispense
grace and he loves to dispense mercy. Mercy is for poor, needy helpless
sinners. That is why you have the lepers crying out for mercy. They
couldn’t heal themselves, they knew that. We are always in need of
mercy. We are always in need of forgiveness. There never goes a day
past, Brethren, where we have not sinned against God. We are not even
aware of all the times are we, that we have broken God’s law in thought,
word and deed.
The good news of the gospel is this, there is forgiveness with God
and God loves to forgive. There is nothing God loves to do more than
forgive sinners. But if we are shaping our prayers by our Bibles, they
should be suffused with thanksgiving, we are to pray always with
thanksgiving. We are also to pray daily for the forgiveness of sin. I
really think we can forget this, can’t we? We can forget that we are
sinners. We are saints but we are always sinners and we are always in
need of mercy. We certainly need to ask God to forgive us, that we
haven’t loved him as we ought, haven’t served him as we ought and
constantly plead for mercy.
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