040925 Sermon on the Mount
- Merciful
Sermon on Mount M2 Merciful Preaching Today:
In a recent front page article in the Vancouver Sun there was a story about how Bal Buttar a former gangster had arranged the “revenge murders” of a number of Indo Canadians. Buttar tells how dozens of young Indo-Canadian men seek to get money and power by getting involved in drug trafficking. As drug deals fall sideways killings take place which in turn provoke a series of revenge murders which in turn provoke another series of murders and so on.
The story reminded me of the cyclical Mafia style killings portrayed in the Godfather movies.
Our personal stories may not quite be as dramatic, but each can get caught in an anger cycle… The proverbial story of the man who gets chewed out by his boss and comes home and who then mean to his wife, his wife then freaks out on their kid and then kid kicks the dog. We can all get caught up in the anger cycle.
Anger may not only end up maiming one or two people, but generate a cycle of violence that can claim of the lives of people in a family a community a city even a nation.
As we’ve seen this in places like Vancouver, Quebec, Ireland, Palestine, the former Soviet Union, former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, the Sudan and so on how this has happened.
Like no other person in history, Jesus’ teaching on mercy in the Sermon on the Mount can stop the cycle of violence.
If Jesus’ teaching on mercy seems counter cultural today, in 1st century Rome, it would have seemed even more radical. In Rome, toughness was celebrated. Mercy was seen as a character deficiency. A Roman philosopher said that mercy was a disease of the soul. Rome was a culture where slaves were tossed into arenas as fodder for lions, and an older slave was tossed away like an old shoe. Babies born crippled were left out in the elements to die.
In this harsh, Roman context that celebrated toughness and disdained mercy, Jesus again turns the values of that world upside down.
Our world may not be as tough as Rome, but we have a strong emphasis on assertiveness: don’t let her get away with that. Don’t let him off the hook like that. Or as Ivana Trump says, “Don’t get even, get everything.” Sue the bastard and get everything.
Jesus turns the conventional wisdom of the world on its head by saying blessed are merciful for they will be shown mercy.
If you have a Bible on you please turn to Matthew 5:1 (read 5:1-5:7)
Jesus says, “Blessed are merciful for they will be shown mercy.”
God says, in the book of Hosea, “I desire mercy not sacrifice.”
In one of the great passages of the Bible, the prophet Micah reminds us what the Lord requires: To do justly and love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.
Part what it is means to be person who does God’s will is to show mercy.
What is mercy?
Mercy is showing underserved kindness to those in need. What is Grace? Grace is showing underserved kindness to someone. Grace is a rich, central word in Scripture. But one could argue that mercy in some is an even richer word because it carries the idea of a person who shows generous, undeserved kindness to someone because they are moved with compassion over someone’s need.
Why is it that we don’t see more mercy in our world?
A large part of the reason is because showing mercy is always costly.
In Matthew 18 Jesus shares a parable of about an unmerciful servant who will not forgive a fellow servant who repay who owes him X dollars and cannot repay it. So the creditor-servant and has his fellow servant thrown into a debtor’s prison.
The reason it is difficult for the servant to forgive the debt because it costs him to forgive. The reason it is difficult for us to forgive is because it costs us something to forgive.
If someone has a debt against us it’s not easy or simple to forgive that debt. If we forgive the debt it is not the like the cost of the debt just magically disappears—we bear the cost of it. When an individual forgives a debt--it’s not like the debt suddenly evaporates into thin air, someone absorbs the cost of that debt.
If someone is walking through your living room and trips and knocks over your lamp and breaks it. If say you, “Don’t worry about it. I prefer natural light to artificial light.” Even if you forgive as October and November rolls around and as the time change kicks in you’re you have to buy a new lamp. If you forgive, you absorb the cost of the lamp.
Showing mercy always involves the mercy giver absorbing some kind of cost.
Sometimes the cost is financial, sometimes the cost time and convenience.
In another parable that Jesus gave, involved, a man, likely a Jewish man who had been beaten, mugged, left on the side of the road to die—left as “road kill”.
A priest and Levite, i.e., 2 professional religious people walk by him. A Samaritan, a cultural enemy of the victim, sees the victim and is moved with compassion. He puts oil and wine on his wounds, bandages them up, he puts the man on his donkey, and takes him to an inn and gives the inn keeper to money take care of him. What does it cost the Good Samaritan to help this Jewish man? It costs him money and oil and wine, but also time, energy, perhaps the good will of his clan which because of their culture would have hated the Jews.
A week ago the Vancouver Sun ran a front page story with the headline Drivers Ignore Hit and Run victim. According to the article, some fifteen motorists drive by as a 77 year old East Indian man named Sohan Gill lies critically hurt in Surrey at 88th and 140th. Why didn’t those 15 people stop? We all have a Pentium chip in our brain people that enables us to do an almost instant cost-benefit analysis in that kind of situation. Some people may have thought I’m on my way to work, I can’t afford to stop and risk displeasure of my boss, I was late last week. If I stop with my luck, someone’s going to think that I was the one who ran into him. Some sports junkie says, with the NHL on strike, I can’t handle any more “stress” in my life.
We don’t show mercy because we don’t think we can afford to. When think we can’t afford to be merciful financially we’re saying if I give you money there’s going to be something I want to do that I am not be able to. If I give her this money, I’m not going to be able go out for dinner or buy that thing I really want to buy. If I give you this time or energy, I’m not going to be able to do other things I want to do. (Now I know someone may play the devil’s advocate and say, well I know someone who is always giving things away such that they never took of themselves and got sick. There are a small percentage of people like that. Most of are not like that.)
Most of us tend to fail to show to mercy because we feel we can’t afford to. It costs too much.
Perhaps the philosopher Nietzsche was right when he said showing mercy is not natural to human beings.
It may not be part of our nature to show mercy, but it is part of God’s nature to show mercy. And once he begins to live in us and once we begin to live in him mercy becomes part of our nature.
Jesus here in his Sermon on the Mount tells us that part of what is means to be one of these “blessed people” who is being drawn into a relationship with God is that we will show mercy.
Last week we talked about how the 9 beatitudes are really describing ONE person who is experiencing God sequentially. The 9 “blessed ares” describe in basic sequence what will happen to person as she or he is drawn into the presence of God.
As a person is drawn to God, we will recognize we are poor in Spirit (beatitude 1), i.e. that we need God’s help, that we have a need His forgiveness, and then we will we mourn over our sin (beatitude 2) and receive the comfort of God, the forgiveness of God, it is only as we become aware of God’s goodness to us that we learn to become meek, i.e. we learn to control our strength (beatitude 3), it’s as we recognize our brokenness that we then hunger and thirst after righteousness (beatitude 4), it’s as we learn to hunger and thirst after righteousness that become a the merciful one that Jesus describes here (beatitude 5).
You can’t expect to simply jump to beatitude number 5, blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy without going through the first 4.
Jesus doesn’t say out of blue, “be merciful”. Here in Matthew 5:7 he presupposes that the person has received God’s mercy. He assumes the person has progressed through the first 4 gateway beatitudes into God’s presence. He assumes that the person has in some way has benefited from God’s mercy.
Have you experienced mercy in some area of your life? If you focus in on that mercy isn’t it true that you more willing to give mercy in that sphere of your life?
One of areas where I’ve received a lot of mercy is in the whole area of my education. Through the generosity of others, some of whom I know, some whom I never met but who gave to some scholarship fund, I was able go to school. And because of the sense of the gratitude I have for this, I do some things to give to education. I serve on the board of a school in the Boston area, I teach for a scholarship foundation, as we are able to, Sakiko and I financially support some education initiatives. When I think I can’t afford the time or money to give to education, I think about all that people have done for me to support my education, and I am able to do more that I would be able to do otherwise.
Has someone been merciful to you, in way made you WANT to be merciful? (pause) Maybe a parent, a friend, a coach, a teacher… and the mercy you received made you want to give back?
I think people who may have this feeling to the highest degree are war veterans who survived because some else died in their place. An army buddy dived on a hand grenade or pulled out them of harm’s way only to sustain a fatal injury in the processes. Those solider who lived because some other solider laid down their life for them have a sense they want to give back with theirs lives….
Do you remember the scenes from Stephen Spielberg’s powerful movie Saving Private Ryan? When Private Ryan as elderly man goes to grave yard with all family. There of all these white crosses on the lawn and Private Ryan remembers all the guys that laid their lives to save him. He falls down on his knees and begins to weep and turn of his wife and children and says tell me I’ve been a good man, tell I’ve lived a good life… Private Ryan knows that others have laid their down their lives my so that he might live, so Ryan is says, in essence, I want to know right now, that there sacrifice for me was worth it… because I’ve a have given and contributed through my life…
When you realize that Christ died for you, you bring that to mind through Scriptures, through worship, through the Holy Communion (broken bread and the wine poured out), and you reflect on the extraordinary mercy of Christ in laying down his life for you… so that you could live… Like Private Ryan, you will become a person of gratitude and as person of gratitude you will become person of mercy.
Jesus says blessed or fortunate or favored are the merciful for they will be shown mercy.
(Transition)
In the text, it sounds like if we show mercy to others, as a kind of reward we’ll be shown mercy by God.
But if the look at the best commentary of Matthew 5:9, the rest of the Bible is itself, we realize that there is nothing we can do to earn or merit our way into receiving God’s forgiveness. In Matthew 5:3 we see the person who is poor in spirit, the person who realizes that she is spiritually bankrupt and turns to God for mercy, who receive the mercy and forgives of God…. As a nature result receiving the mercy of God… we, in turn, show mercy.
In saying blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy Jesus is not saying that in order to be forgiven we must forgive, he is saying if we forgiven we are we will forgive.
One of the signs we have really been drawn into a relationship with God is the fact that we are willing to forgive others.
The Bible teaches us that we are received by God because of the mercy of God, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf.
But, the Bible also teaches in end we will be judged by our works (read Matthew 25 and Revelation 20).
We are “saved” by God’s mercy, but judged by our works.
How do we reconcile that we received by the sheer mercy of God, but judged by our what we do? We reconcile these contradictory facts by acknowledging that IF we REALLY DO receive the mercy of God, it will SHOW in acts of mercy we offer to others.
What we do shows what’s in our heart, what we do shows what we really believe. Let’s say someone confides in you and says my partner is very negative toward me, he puts me down pretty much all the time, when’s drinking on weekends he beats me, and he cheated on me several times, but way deep done inside… I know he’s got good heart and he loves me! What is that? It’s denial it’s reality (a load of crap).
If there really is love at the center of a person’s heart for another person, it will show itself. Maybe not all the time, but if love is really in the heart of a person for another it will show itself. The reason why we will be judged by what is do is really a reflection or what was in our heart and what we trusted.
If we invite Jesus into the center of your being, if we learn to trust Jesus, it will show.
If volunteer 2 years of your life serving the poorest of the poor in India, if you study music for 4 years at Juilliard, if you spend 2 decades of your life raising a child you’re a raise a child—these experiences will shape who you are… there will be some evidence you have actually done these things… If you bind yourself to Jesus Christ, there will be signs that you’ve done this and one of those signs, will that you become merciful
In all fairness, that process will likely be gradual… If were born with the personality of Pitt Bull… you will not become merciful overnight. People with out any real connection but who were born with the temperament of a Golden Retriever may seem more merciful than you. But you are bound to Jesus Christ, you will see the arc of your life, moving toward mercy…
If you don’t perhaps consider going through the first “four blessed ares” and asking that God would make these a reality in your life.
I open this message cycle of anger and violence… I close by saying as there can be a cycle of anger and violence, so there can be a cycle of grace and mercy.
In the movie Pay It Forward Kevin Spacey plays a literally and figuratively burned teacher named Eugene Simonet who gives his students in 7th grade an assignment—try to do something that will change the world. One student, Trevor takes this to a whole new level, by making an idea where you help three people out, in a big way, and they don't pay you back, but “pay it forward to 3 other people.”
One of the people that Trevor decides to help is a homeless man. Trevor the grade 7 student ends up allowing the homeless man to sleep in the garage of his home--unknown to his single mother, played by Helen Hunt. And Trevor ends up giving his allowance money to the homeless man so he can position himself to get a job. We’re going to watch a scene where Trevor’s single mother someone in her garage:
Anger can cycle, but so can mercy. What would if ½ or us here started to “pay it forward” with the mercy of Christ? It would create a huge ripple effect that only eternity would fully bear witness to. If decided to “pay it forward” we would be more than some club, we would be the church, we would be the body of Christ in the world.
Benediction: Freely freely you have received, free, freely give.
Sermon on Mount M2 Merciful Preaching Today:
In a recent front page article in the Vancouver Sun there was a story about how Bal Buttar a former gangster had arranged the “revenge murders” of a number of Indo Canadians. Buttar tells how dozens of young Indo-Canadian men seek to get money and power by getting involved in drug trafficking. As drug deals fall sideways killings take place which in turn provoke a series of revenge murders which in turn provoke another series of murders and so on.
The story reminded me of the cyclical Mafia style killings portrayed in the Godfather movies.
Our personal stories may not quite be as dramatic, but each can get caught in an anger cycle… The proverbial story of the man who gets chewed out by his boss and comes home and who then mean to his wife, his wife then freaks out on their kid and then kid kicks the dog. We can all get caught up in the anger cycle.
Anger may not only end up maiming one or two people, but generate a cycle of violence that can claim of the lives of people in a family a community a city even a nation.
As we’ve seen this in places like Vancouver, Quebec, Ireland, Palestine, the former Soviet Union, former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, the Sudan and so on how this has happened.
Like no other person in history, Jesus’ teaching on mercy in the Sermon on the Mount can stop the cycle of violence.
If Jesus’ teaching on mercy seems counter cultural today, in 1st century Rome, it would have seemed even more radical. In Rome, toughness was celebrated. Mercy was seen as a character deficiency. A Roman philosopher said that mercy was a disease of the soul. Rome was a culture where slaves were tossed into arenas as fodder for lions, and an older slave was tossed away like an old shoe. Babies born crippled were left out in the elements to die.
In this harsh, Roman context that celebrated toughness and disdained mercy, Jesus again turns the values of that world upside down.
Our world may not be as tough as Rome, but we have a strong emphasis on assertiveness: don’t let her get away with that. Don’t let him off the hook like that. Or as Ivana Trump says, “Don’t get even, get everything.” Sue the bastard and get everything.
Jesus turns the conventional wisdom of the world on its head by saying blessed are merciful for they will be shown mercy.
If you have a Bible on you please turn to Matthew 5:1 (read 5:1-5:7)
Jesus says, “Blessed are merciful for they will be shown mercy.”
God says, in the book of Hosea, “I desire mercy not sacrifice.”
In one of the great passages of the Bible, the prophet Micah reminds us what the Lord requires: To do justly and love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.
Part what it is means to be person who does God’s will is to show mercy.
What is mercy?
Mercy is showing underserved kindness to those in need. What is Grace? Grace is showing underserved kindness to someone. Grace is a rich, central word in Scripture. But one could argue that mercy in some is an even richer word because it carries the idea of a person who shows generous, undeserved kindness to someone because they are moved with compassion over someone’s need.
Why is it that we don’t see more mercy in our world?
A large part of the reason is because showing mercy is always costly.
In Matthew 18 Jesus shares a parable of about an unmerciful servant who will not forgive a fellow servant who repay who owes him X dollars and cannot repay it. So the creditor-servant and has his fellow servant thrown into a debtor’s prison.
The reason it is difficult for the servant to forgive the debt because it costs him to forgive. The reason it is difficult for us to forgive is because it costs us something to forgive.
If someone has a debt against us it’s not easy or simple to forgive that debt. If we forgive the debt it is not the like the cost of the debt just magically disappears—we bear the cost of it. When an individual forgives a debt--it’s not like the debt suddenly evaporates into thin air, someone absorbs the cost of that debt.
If someone is walking through your living room and trips and knocks over your lamp and breaks it. If say you, “Don’t worry about it. I prefer natural light to artificial light.” Even if you forgive as October and November rolls around and as the time change kicks in you’re you have to buy a new lamp. If you forgive, you absorb the cost of the lamp.
Showing mercy always involves the mercy giver absorbing some kind of cost.
Sometimes the cost is financial, sometimes the cost time and convenience.
In another parable that Jesus gave, involved, a man, likely a Jewish man who had been beaten, mugged, left on the side of the road to die—left as “road kill”.
A priest and Levite, i.e., 2 professional religious people walk by him. A Samaritan, a cultural enemy of the victim, sees the victim and is moved with compassion. He puts oil and wine on his wounds, bandages them up, he puts the man on his donkey, and takes him to an inn and gives the inn keeper to money take care of him. What does it cost the Good Samaritan to help this Jewish man? It costs him money and oil and wine, but also time, energy, perhaps the good will of his clan which because of their culture would have hated the Jews.
A week ago the Vancouver Sun ran a front page story with the headline Drivers Ignore Hit and Run victim. According to the article, some fifteen motorists drive by as a 77 year old East Indian man named Sohan Gill lies critically hurt in Surrey at 88th and 140th. Why didn’t those 15 people stop? We all have a Pentium chip in our brain people that enables us to do an almost instant cost-benefit analysis in that kind of situation. Some people may have thought I’m on my way to work, I can’t afford to stop and risk displeasure of my boss, I was late last week. If I stop with my luck, someone’s going to think that I was the one who ran into him. Some sports junkie says, with the NHL on strike, I can’t handle any more “stress” in my life.
We don’t show mercy because we don’t think we can afford to. When think we can’t afford to be merciful financially we’re saying if I give you money there’s going to be something I want to do that I am not be able to. If I give her this money, I’m not going to be able go out for dinner or buy that thing I really want to buy. If I give you this time or energy, I’m not going to be able to do other things I want to do. (Now I know someone may play the devil’s advocate and say, well I know someone who is always giving things away such that they never took of themselves and got sick. There are a small percentage of people like that. Most of are not like that.)
Most of us tend to fail to show to mercy because we feel we can’t afford to. It costs too much.
Perhaps the philosopher Nietzsche was right when he said showing mercy is not natural to human beings.
It may not be part of our nature to show mercy, but it is part of God’s nature to show mercy. And once he begins to live in us and once we begin to live in him mercy becomes part of our nature.
Jesus here in his Sermon on the Mount tells us that part of what is means to be one of these “blessed people” who is being drawn into a relationship with God is that we will show mercy.
Last week we talked about how the 9 beatitudes are really describing ONE person who is experiencing God sequentially. The 9 “blessed ares” describe in basic sequence what will happen to person as she or he is drawn into the presence of God.
As a person is drawn to God, we will recognize we are poor in Spirit (beatitude 1), i.e. that we need God’s help, that we have a need His forgiveness, and then we will we mourn over our sin (beatitude 2) and receive the comfort of God, the forgiveness of God, it is only as we become aware of God’s goodness to us that we learn to become meek, i.e. we learn to control our strength (beatitude 3), it’s as we recognize our brokenness that we then hunger and thirst after righteousness (beatitude 4), it’s as we learn to hunger and thirst after righteousness that become a the merciful one that Jesus describes here (beatitude 5).
You can’t expect to simply jump to beatitude number 5, blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy without going through the first 4.
Jesus doesn’t say out of blue, “be merciful”. Here in Matthew 5:7 he presupposes that the person has received God’s mercy. He assumes the person has progressed through the first 4 gateway beatitudes into God’s presence. He assumes that the person has in some way has benefited from God’s mercy.
Have you experienced mercy in some area of your life? If you focus in on that mercy isn’t it true that you more willing to give mercy in that sphere of your life?
One of areas where I’ve received a lot of mercy is in the whole area of my education. Through the generosity of others, some of whom I know, some whom I never met but who gave to some scholarship fund, I was able go to school. And because of the sense of the gratitude I have for this, I do some things to give to education. I serve on the board of a school in the Boston area, I teach for a scholarship foundation, as we are able to, Sakiko and I financially support some education initiatives. When I think I can’t afford the time or money to give to education, I think about all that people have done for me to support my education, and I am able to do more that I would be able to do otherwise.
Has someone been merciful to you, in way made you WANT to be merciful? (pause) Maybe a parent, a friend, a coach, a teacher… and the mercy you received made you want to give back?
I think people who may have this feeling to the highest degree are war veterans who survived because some else died in their place. An army buddy dived on a hand grenade or pulled out them of harm’s way only to sustain a fatal injury in the processes. Those solider who lived because some other solider laid down their life for them have a sense they want to give back with theirs lives….
Do you remember the scenes from Stephen Spielberg’s powerful movie Saving Private Ryan? When Private Ryan as elderly man goes to grave yard with all family. There of all these white crosses on the lawn and Private Ryan remembers all the guys that laid their lives to save him. He falls down on his knees and begins to weep and turn of his wife and children and says tell me I’ve been a good man, tell I’ve lived a good life… Private Ryan knows that others have laid their down their lives my so that he might live, so Ryan is says, in essence, I want to know right now, that there sacrifice for me was worth it… because I’ve a have given and contributed through my life…
When you realize that Christ died for you, you bring that to mind through Scriptures, through worship, through the Holy Communion (broken bread and the wine poured out), and you reflect on the extraordinary mercy of Christ in laying down his life for you… so that you could live… Like Private Ryan, you will become a person of gratitude and as person of gratitude you will become person of mercy.
Jesus says blessed or fortunate or favored are the merciful for they will be shown mercy.
(Transition)
In the text, it sounds like if we show mercy to others, as a kind of reward we’ll be shown mercy by God.
But if the look at the best commentary of Matthew 5:9, the rest of the Bible is itself, we realize that there is nothing we can do to earn or merit our way into receiving God’s forgiveness. In Matthew 5:3 we see the person who is poor in spirit, the person who realizes that she is spiritually bankrupt and turns to God for mercy, who receive the mercy and forgives of God…. As a nature result receiving the mercy of God… we, in turn, show mercy.
In saying blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy Jesus is not saying that in order to be forgiven we must forgive, he is saying if we forgiven we are we will forgive.
One of the signs we have really been drawn into a relationship with God is the fact that we are willing to forgive others.
The Bible teaches us that we are received by God because of the mercy of God, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf.
But, the Bible also teaches in end we will be judged by our works (read Matthew 25 and Revelation 20).
We are “saved” by God’s mercy, but judged by our works.
How do we reconcile that we received by the sheer mercy of God, but judged by our what we do? We reconcile these contradictory facts by acknowledging that IF we REALLY DO receive the mercy of God, it will SHOW in acts of mercy we offer to others.
What we do shows what’s in our heart, what we do shows what we really believe. Let’s say someone confides in you and says my partner is very negative toward me, he puts me down pretty much all the time, when’s drinking on weekends he beats me, and he cheated on me several times, but way deep done inside… I know he’s got good heart and he loves me! What is that? It’s denial it’s reality (a load of crap).
If there really is love at the center of a person’s heart for another person, it will show itself. Maybe not all the time, but if love is really in the heart of a person for another it will show itself. The reason why we will be judged by what is do is really a reflection or what was in our heart and what we trusted.
If we invite Jesus into the center of your being, if we learn to trust Jesus, it will show.
If volunteer 2 years of your life serving the poorest of the poor in India, if you study music for 4 years at Juilliard, if you spend 2 decades of your life raising a child you’re a raise a child—these experiences will shape who you are… there will be some evidence you have actually done these things… If you bind yourself to Jesus Christ, there will be signs that you’ve done this and one of those signs, will that you become merciful
In all fairness, that process will likely be gradual… If were born with the personality of Pitt Bull… you will not become merciful overnight. People with out any real connection but who were born with the temperament of a Golden Retriever may seem more merciful than you. But you are bound to Jesus Christ, you will see the arc of your life, moving toward mercy…
If you don’t perhaps consider going through the first “four blessed ares” and asking that God would make these a reality in your life.
I open this message cycle of anger and violence… I close by saying as there can be a cycle of anger and violence, so there can be a cycle of grace and mercy.
In the movie Pay It Forward Kevin Spacey plays a literally and figuratively burned teacher named Eugene Simonet who gives his students in 7th grade an assignment—try to do something that will change the world. One student, Trevor takes this to a whole new level, by making an idea where you help three people out, in a big way, and they don't pay you back, but “pay it forward to 3 other people.”
One of the people that Trevor decides to help is a homeless man. Trevor the grade 7 student ends up allowing the homeless man to sleep in the garage of his home--unknown to his single mother, played by Helen Hunt. And Trevor ends up giving his allowance money to the homeless man so he can position himself to get a job. We’re going to watch a scene where Trevor’s single mother someone in her garage:
Anger can cycle, but so can mercy. What would if ½ or us here started to “pay it forward” with the mercy of Christ? It would create a huge ripple effect that only eternity would fully bear witness to. If decided to “pay it forward” we would be more than some club, we would be the church, we would be the body of Christ in the world.
Benediction: Freely freely you have received, free, freely give.
posted by Shigematsu at 9:01 PM
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