Psalm 119: Focus On God's Word Pt. 130 Trust Christ! Receive Mercy And Grace!

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The beautiful mercies of God. 

Psalm 119:41  VAU. Let thy mercies come also unto me, O LORD, even thy salvation, according to thy word. 

The Psalmist is teaching us to pray for the sure mercies of God. His mercy is connected with deliverance from sin and deliverance from our enemies. 

They are connected with deliverance from life's various troubles, as we noted in our last post on Psalm 119.

God's names express His mercies. 

Exodus 34:5-7  And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. 6)  And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 7)  Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. 

Moses loved God so much that he asked to see His face. Jehovah's reply was that no person could see His face and live. He told his faithful servant to stand in a cleft of a rock, and He would make His glory pass by. 

Jehovah came in a cloud and stood before Moses and then He proclaimed His name. As He proclaimed His name, He also declared His character.

Being a merciful God is the first attribute God proclaimed. Being a gracious God was the next attribute, and certainly no less important than being merciful.

Grace is God giving us something that we do not deserve nor can we earn it. Salvation is by His grace. His Spirit dwelling in us is by grace. All of the spiritual blessings we receive in Christ, are by grace.

Mercy is God holding back that which we truly deserve for our sins. We deserve to have His wrath poured out on us. We deserve death and eternal condemnation in Hell. 

Being merciful, means that God withholds His wrath and divine justice, because He poured it out on Jesus as He hung on the cross. He took our place as a perfect, innocent substitute Lamb. He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. He nailed our sins to His cross and blotted them out. 

Thus, the Father can be merciful to repentant sinners who put their faith in Jesus Christ. He will never condemn a believer in Christ, because when we are born again, there is no more condemnation in us (Romans 8). 

Thus, mercy in withholding the punishment for our sins that we deserve, and grace in giving us salvation through faith in Christ, go together. 

Jehovah is also longsuffering with us, patient in His dealings with us. He treats us with a Father's compassion and love. He seeks what is best for us. 

He keeps His mercy for us and He forgives those who repent and turn to Christ Jesus for salvation. 

He is holy and just. He will not pardon those who reject the saving provision He made in Christ.

True understanding of mercy makes us worship God.

Exodus 34:8  And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped. 

Notice what happened next. When Moses saw God's glory and heard the declaration of His beautiful grace and mercy, he fell down on his face and worshipped our wonderful God. 

If we begin to rightly understand the mercies and grace of God, we too, will fall down and worship our Creator, Sustainer and Savior.

Jehovah is merciful and slow to anger.

Psalm 103:8-11  The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. 9)  He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever. 10)  He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. 11)  For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. 

This is another beautiful text telling us about the mercy of God, the same mercy the Psalmist is teaching us about. 

King David wrote this Psalm and he experienced firsthand the bountiful mercies and grace of God toward him, when he sinned with Bathsheba and Uriah. 

Because He is merciful and gracious, Jehovah is slow to anger. We tend to be ready to angrily respond when someone does us wrong. But, when we wrong God by sinning, He is slow to anger, giving us time to confess, forsake and repent. 

Because He is merciful, He has not punished us and poured out His wrath on us, even though we deserve it. His mercy is higher than the heavens are over the earth toward all who love and fear Him (See also Joel 2:12-13).

Jehovah's mercy and compassion is never exhausted.

Lamentations 3:22,23  It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. 23)  They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. 

The prophet Jeremiah had a hard message to preach to his people. It was a message that Judah would fall and Jerusalem would be destroyed. He had to tell them that the only way they could survive was by surrendering to the Babylonians. 

The message of judgment and destruction was so severe that he often wept. The book of Lamentations is his lament over Israel's refusal to repent and obey Jehovah.

Yet, even in the midst of profound sorrow, Jeremiah saw the faithfulness and mercy of God. He reminds all of us that it is because of the mercy of God that we are not consumed.

Then, he reminds us that Jehovah's mercies are new, fresh every single morning that we wake up. God is faithful and His mercy and grace will never run out He will never cease to offer it to His children. 

This is glorious truth for us to think about, and this is why the Psalmist is making it a point of emphasis. 

Mercy is experienced by those who trust Jehovah. 

Psalm 13:5  But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.

God's abundant mercy is appropriated by faith. Those who trust in His mercy also rejoice in His salvation from sin.

Psalm 32:10  Many sorrows shall be to the wicked: but he that trusteth in the LORD, mercy shall compass him about.

Psalm 33:22  Let thy mercy, O LORD, be upon us, according as we hope in thee.

The world is full of depravity, heartache, sorrow and troubles. Believers may also experience anguish of heart for a variety of reasons, but even while going through a valley, we find that God's mercies surround us. 

Rejoice in the vast scope of God's abundant mercy. 

Ephesians 2:4-7  But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5)  Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6)  And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7)  That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. 

We do not rightly understand mercy if we fail to appreciate its vast scope. God passed by His sinful people Israel and saw them polluted in their own blood. No one pitied them or demonstrated compassion for their plight. Yet, He said "Live!" 

Our iniquities bear witness against us that we are sinners, worthy of condemnation (See Jeremiah 14:7). 

Yet, God so loved the world (all humanity) that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life (See John 3:16). 

Why would God stoop to save such defiled creatures as us? Because He is rich in mercy and great is His love for all who turn to Jesus Christ with repentant faith. 

With abundant mercy and grace He quickens us when we turn to Christ. He gives us spiritual life where before, we were dead in trespass and sins. 

The washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost in the heart of repentant sinners, is because of His mercies (See Titus 3:4-6). 

Seek, call, forsake and find mercy from God. 

Isaiah 55:6,7  Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: 7)  Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 

Then, there is the mercy of preserving grace and the assurance of forgiveness of sins after conversion. 

Isaiah tells us of the glorious mercy we can expect from our Father in heaven. We must seek Him and call upon Him when His Spirit has wrought conviction in our hearts. We must confess our sins and forsake them, turning our backs upon them. 

When we turn away from sin and turn toward our Savior, Jesus Christ, we will receive mercy and a full pardon. This is the promise of God that is anchored to His mercy and grace.

Thoughts to Ponder...

A just man falls seven times and rises up each time, confessing, forsaking sin, and receiving mercy from God (Proverbs 24:16).

The mercy and grace of God should shape our lives as believers. 

We must never lose sight of the beautiful mercies of God, because we deserve death and eternal Hell. But, through faith in Christ, He gives us new life, a new path to walk on and new mercies every morning.

We must not take His grace for granted. Remember, that anything we have as believers in Christ, is by His grace.

He has given us all spiritual blessings in Christ (Ephesians 1:3). He gives gifts to us in order to serve Him, through His grace. He sends sustaining grace into our hearts when we experience affliction. 

May we all praise God for His great love for each one of us. May we rejoice that we are now His adopted children, saved be grace and basking in His daily mercies.

May these truths cause us to live for God's glory.

Bob