Pastor Kent Christmas | Mercy and Compassion | January 8, 2025
You’re watching KCMI TV, and praise the Lord! It’s a wonderful day today, and I was reminded of the scripture that says, “This is the day the Lord has made, and I will choose to rejoice and be glad in it.” No matter what you’re going through, if you’re a child of God, I want you to know it’s only temporary. Today, I want to talk to you about mercy. This concept has been on my heart lately, especially as mercy and compassion share the same root meaning. If it wasn’t for God’s mercy, neither you nor I would be here today.
I want to discuss mercy from the perspective of how important it is for us to extend mercy to others. Mercy doesn’t mean we condone someone’s actions, but it does mean we give them a second chance, just as God has given us. In James 2:13, it says, “For judgment will be without mercy to one who has shown no mercy.” The Lord makes a powerful statement here. Remember, the Book of James is written in the context of grace. The Bible says, “Where sin abounds, grace much more abounds.”
James explains that anyone who judges someone without mercy will not receive mercy when they are judged. Sometimes, as Christians, we may feel like we’re living a life above reproach—faithful to God and without sin. However, it’s easy to become self-righteous if we’re not careful, and that can make us hard-hearted.
James points out that judging someone doesn’t always mean pronouncing judgment—it’s assessing their actions. But if you do so without mercy, God says you place yourself in a different category because, when God judged us, He did so with mercy. If He hadn’t, we would have been condemned to hell. We don’t deserve what we have. The Bible says, “While we were yet sinners, Christ loved us.”
In Hebrews 10:28, it’s written, “Anyone who despised Moses’ law died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.” It’s important to understand that there were different dispensations in the Bible. The one we live under now is grace, but before that, it was the law. Romans explains that death reigned from Adam to Moses, but when Moses came, grace was revealed.
