Micah 7:18b “You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy.”

God is not a grudge holder. It’s true that sin does make him angry. Considering the nature of the revolt against him–billions of defiant rebels perverting the laws he gave for their own good, a rebellion stretching back thousands of years and involving every member of the human race–who could fault him if it took a while to get over the offense? Who would be surprised if he let his anger stew and build until it exploded on the ungrateful world he made?

But that is not his nature. Instead of reveling in his anger, he “delights to show mercy.” For our God, mercy is not a mere obligation he feels compelled to meet. It’s not just a job, where every day he has to drag himself out of bed and get ready to go to work and face the countless masses of people begging him for his help. It is more than a timeless principle of good he can’t help doing because it is part of “who he is.” It is his delight. This is what he loves to do. This is how he wants to spend his time.

On Labor Day weekend, most of us get an extra day off with the Monday holiday. It is a day on which we can do what we want. Originally the day was meant to honor those who work hard with their own hands, those who “labor” to make the life we enjoy possible.

For most people today, the day is spent cooking out and spending time with family. For some it may mean that last trip to the lake for the season. A few may tackle a fall project around the house. But whatever it is, it’s a holiday, a day for you to do what you want.

Ask the Lord what he wants to do on Labor Day, or any other day, and his answer is: “I would really like to show someone my mercy. I want to spare some poor sinner the consequence of his sins. I want to find someone who desperately needs my help and spend my time and effort in rescuing them. That’s what I do for fun. That’s how I spend my spare time, and every other moment of time I have.”

Understand the nature of our God, and we will understand, like Micah, that there is no other god whose anger so readily gives way to his mercy. We can count on it every day.

Micah 7:18 “Who is a God like you, who pardons sins and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance?”

The prophet Micah wrote at a time when the nation of Israel was on the decline. They were no longer the world power they once had been. Foreign powers invaded their land. The northern tribes were sitting on the edge of extinction.

But the real catastrophe was the way this people had turned away from God. They were duped by every feel-good religion that came along. Or they just gave up every pretense of religion and faith as they pursued their materialistic dreams. After all he had done for them, after all the miraculous ways he had delivered these people in the past, it was a wonder the Lord hadn’t just given up on them. In fact, that was what prompted Micah’s question.

Micah’s choice of words highlights why God’s grace and patience ought to amaze his people. “Sins” here is literally “bending” or “twisting.” It is the word from which the concept of “perversion” comes. People take God’s good creation, and then they bend and twist it until it becomes a grotesque mutation of itself that is no longer useful or good.

When I was a kid I once used one of my dad’s wood chisels to dig and pry a nail out of a piece of wood. The blade on the chisel was meant for contact with wood, not steal. The damage I did to the tip of the chisel as I pounded it into the nail and pried on the nail head practically ruined it. That’s not what the tool was meant for. My dad was not happy with me.

God gives his people good gifts, useful tools like human sexuality, or material wealth, or pain-relieving chemicals. Then we bend and twist these things for our own purposes. We use them to serve and satisfy our own desires in ways the Lord never intended. And in the process we often turn his good gifts into grotesque mutations that don’t merely fail to do what God made them to do. They even become dangerous to us. And it doesn’t make our Lord happy.

Unfortunately, we often fail to care. Behind the other term Micah uses, “transgressions,” is a word that suggests rebellion or revolt. So often sin is not a matter of ignorance, or carelessness, or weakness. It is a matter of defiance. When it was time for our friends to go home after a visit, we began helping their children pick up the toys. But one of them didn’t want to pick up the toys. He took one container of blocks, looked me in the eye, and then dumped them all over the floor again.

Sometimes we don’t want to stop doing what we were doing. So we look God in the eye, and we do what we want anyway. That’s the way Micah’s people treated him. We put on our own rebellions against his ways.

This is what God pardons. Again, the Hebrew is more colorful than our English translation. He lifts it off our shoulders. He picks it up and carries it for us. No longer do we have to bear the guilt, the responsibility, and the consequences. The Lord makes it his own to carry. I can’t help but think of Jesus words when he invites us, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Or Peter’s description of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.”

Who does that sort of thing? What teacher sits in the principal’s office in place of the unruly student in his classroom? What parent sits in the corner or goes to bed without his supper for the child who was lipping off to him? What mugging victim sits in jail for the creep who mugged him?

Our Lord does, that’s who! Like Micah, we stand here in amazement looking at God’s forgiving nature, and we ask, “Who is a God like you?”

Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

How we look at God affects how we look at all of life. It changes everything about our worldview. This is where real wisdom must begin.

When we get to know God as he really is, when we have a balanced and accurate picture of him, then we know not only him, but we can understand all of life. To the degree that we misunderstand God we will be confused about faith and life as well.

If we see God as only horrible Judge and Dictator, then our life will be joyless, peace-less, driven. We will spend all our time scurrying about trying to keep up with his orders. When something painful happens, we will assume he must be paying us back for something we did to offend him.

If we think of God as some nameless, faceless, distant “it” in the sky, nothing but an impersonal force, then we might conclude that we are an insignificant part of the universe. That makes our lives more or less meaningless.

If we view God as a pansy, a milk-toast, a God who could never find it in him to get angry about anything; if he is only a sugary, grandfatherly Mr. Nice Guy; then we might think sin is no big deal. When trouble comes, we might assume that God is simply too weak to do anything about it.

But when we have a balanced view of the God, we see him as both just and merciful, the God of Law and Gospel. He is, as he so nicely summed it up for Moses, “The Lord, the Lord, the gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.”

This is the God who will not let a single sin go unpunished, but a God who loves us so much that he punished every single sin in his Son Jesus Christ. Know him this way, know his hatred of sin, know his desire to save all people, and we will understand our purpose. We will begin to understand life whether we are experiencing prosperity or hardship, joy or grief.

Do you sometimes find life hard to understand? Sometimes we think that studying our problems long enough will enable us to understand and solve them. That seems to make sense.  It may be helpful to a degree.

But Solomon suggests we turn our attention in another direction. Knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. Get to know God, learn of him, and you will find the wisdom and understanding to deal with everything else as well.

Proverbs 27:6 “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.”

Who is truly your friend?

We all look to our friends to support us when we are down, to back us up when we are in trouble, to understand us when no one else does. We want our friends to express their care and concern and build us up with their kind words.

But since genuine love always seeks our good, not necessarily our happiness, sometimes true friends also have to perform the unenviable task of telling us the truth–at least to the best of their ability to tell it. That means that some of the things they say will hurt.

Someone who is less concerned about our welfare but more interested in how we can be used isn’t so concerned to tell us the truth. Such people butter us up with nothing but good things to say. And you know why we slather things with butter—it’s only to improve the flavor before we sink our teeth in.

Living with the truth of Proverbs 27:6 requires a loving atmosphere in which we learn to accept such friendly wounds as well as inflict them. In order for such wounds to be truly friendly, they must also be limited to times when we genuinely have someone else’s welfare at heart. Wise King Solomon did not mean to open the door to arbitrary meanness. Other proverbs warn against spouting off every stray thought that happens to come to mind.

This is a practical lesson for life in a Christian congregation. There are likely to be more opinions than people, opinions that are passionately held. We do well to check ourselves as we respond to each other. Every viewpoint is welcome, but not every rebuttal we are tempted to make is suited for a public forum.

And not every contradictory viewpoint, no matter how strongly expressed, should be taken as a personal attack. We are friends, teammates, working toward a common goal. If a friend perceives some weakness in our thinking, his wound can be trusted, even if we still don’t share his point of view.

As Christians, we have already learned how to adopt this way of looking at the deepest wounds that come from our dearest friend—our God and Savior. His points of view are always correct, but they don’t always coincide with our own. God’s law has some painful things to say to me.

But he never says them just to hurt us. His wounds ultimately aim to heal. They cut less like a “stab in the back” and more like the skilled surgeon carefully removing the cancer.

And our God is no enemy when he multiplies his kisses. His words of love spoken in the form of forgiveness are always sincere, always friendly, and always spoken with our best interest in mind.

1 Corinthians 12:7 “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”

People are attracted to things that have power. Like most little boys, I turned just about any branch or stick into a gun when I was playing with my friends. I didn’t actually want to kill anyone. But there is something fascinating about a device that has so much power. Cars, power tools, electronic devices, kitchen appliances–if it offers some sort of superhuman ability people will be interested.

The Christians to whom Paul was writing in Corinth were attracted to power. Supernatural language skills, miraculous healing abilities, prophetic knowledge of the future–these are ways the Spirit often showed himself in their lives when they came to faith in Jesus. The new believers in Corinth were eager to have such powers. They were not shy about putting their gifts on display when they had them.

But just like any powerful tool, it is necessary to know its proper use and purpose. Our spiritual gifts are a blessing to each of us, it is true. But God has given them to us so that we can use them to serve others.

Consider a carpenter’s tools. The carpenter may appreciate the way his tools make his work easier. He genuinely enjoys working with them, and it gives him pleasure to create things with them. From time to time he may even build something for himself. But the reason he has the tools is so that he can serve the people who seek his services. The cabinet he builds stands in someone else’s home housing their good china. Another man sits on the bench he put together. The tools are his, and he takes them home at the end of each day. But the people they serve are spread across all the homes and businesses where the carpenter has practiced his trade.

Serving the Lord with our gifts is satisfying to those who use them. I like preaching. I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t. But God didn’t give me my gift, humble as it is, primarily for me. I could still be his child, share his grace, and one day praise him in heaven without it. Whatever gifts I have been given to preach and teach God’s word are for the sake of the people who hear me. Whatever gifts God’s Spirit has given to you are meant to serve others as well.

When we think about our spiritual gifts this way–the special privilege to serve Jesus by using them as tools for serving others–the whole fascination with power fades away. In its place we find humble appreciation for yet another evidence of God’s love and grace in our lives. That’s as it should be for those who understand their spiritual gifts.

1 Corinthians 12:4-6 “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.”

Paul looks at our spiritual gifts in three different ways to help us understand why God doesn’t give us all exactly the same thing. First, “There are different kinds of gifts.” The word gifts here is a Greek word, charismata, from which we get our word “charismatic.” It emphasizes that the gift is something God gives us for free.

Maybe that seems a little simple. Any gift that is truly a gift is free. But that reminds me that I really have nothing to complain about if my gift is different than someone else’s, or if their gift somehow seems more appealing. Also I have nothing to brag about if my gift seems better. They’re gifts, right? None of us earned them. We didn’t have them coming. We all have the big gift, which is Jesus. Anything beyond that is shear generosity and goodness on God’s part, and better than nothing at all. Would we really want to complain because God gave us something more?

Second, all of his gifts serve a purpose. They accomplish a task. They get something done. So Paul continues, “There are different kinds of service.” The Lord set up his world, and his church, to need many different things to get done. It makes sense then, doesn’t it, that he would distribute many different abilities to many different people? We can’t all be doing the same one thing all the time. Imagine a world with no garbage collectors. Imagine a church with no cleaners. Eew! Who would want to be a part of that?

So the Lord gives gifts that line up with all these many tasks that have to get done. Maybe like the Corinthians we would like to have some of the showier ones, the ones that seem more powerful or supernatural. But Paul tells them later that the Spirit’s power is just as much involved in making some people good teachers, administrators or simple helpers as he is involved in the miraculous ability to heal.

Finally, the Lord himself is active in all these gifts. “There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.” The word behind “working” and “works” is the word from which we get “energy.” Paul is saying that the Lord himself energizes his people to do all these different things. He is the one moving hearts and minds, and hands and mouths and feet. If God himself enters people, and then uses them to perform all these different functions, what is left for us but to accept that our gifts are different as the Lord himself sees fit to give them.

In doing it this way, perhaps we could say that God is giving us another gift: the gift to be individuals, the gift to be me. He hasn’t created an army of clones that came rolling off an assembly line, that all look and think and function the same. I am unique, and so are you. He redeemed us from our sins all the same. He loves us as his children all the same. But because he loves us, we aren’t all the same.

1 Corinthians 12:3 “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”

I think it goes without saying that Paul is not talking about the ability to form these sounds with your mouth, the ability to pronounce the words “Jesus” and “is” and “Lord.” Any verbal person can do that.

He is talking about people who say these words and sincerely mean them for themselves. Having the Spirit is not about what you can do. It is not about how well you live. It shows itself in the sincere faith that recognizes Jesus as Lord, and claims Jesus as Lord. If a person can’t or doesn’t do that, then the Holy Spirit is not present, and the individual can have no spiritual gifts.

“Jesus is Lord” is a pregnant statement of faith. We hear the word “Lord,” and the first thing we may think about is “obedience.” It is true that those who recognize Jesus as their Lord intend to live under him and follow his rules. But it is more than that.

A “Lord” is a person with authority, someone who has power and control. With Jesus, this is true of our entire life experience. It applies to everything about our relationship with him. “Jesus is Lord” means that Jesus is my Rescuer. I did not have the power or resources to deal with my sins myself. I couldn’t keep myself from committing them. I had nothing with which I could pay for them, no way to make amends for my guilt. So my Lord Jesus came to the rescue. My King fought his way to my side. He endured the elements of a hostile world to get to me. He took the brunt of the attacks evil villains and enemies of my soul launched at him on the way.

And when he reached me, he died in my place to spare my life and set me free. He brought forgiveness for my sins and healing for my heart. He did it, not helpless me, because Jesus is my Lord, and he had the power to rescue me when I was powerless to help myself.

“Jesus is Lord” means that Jesus cares and provides for me. We are inclined to think about government and rulers as people who take money away from us. Complaints about taxes go all the way back to the “Robin Hood” legend. Farther than that, they go all the way back to ancient times. They even play a part in the story of Jesus and the people who surrounded him so many centuries ago.

But Jesus turns this all around. He is a different kind of Lord, a Ruler and King who gives his wealth away. He uses it to feed and clothe and care for the people he has claimed as his very own. Those who confess, “Jesus is Lord,” acknowledge this at every dinner prayer, as they bow their heads and ask Jesus to bless their food and thank him for giving it to them.

You see, “Jesus is Lord” is more than a statement of submission and obedience. It is the grateful appreciation of rescued people who are blessed by their gracious Master’s generosity every day. It is an understanding of Jesus that can only be worked by the Holy Spirit. It is the claim that he is my Lord, and by his grace that’s the way I want it to be.

1 Corinthians 15:10 “I worked harder than all of them–yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”

Serving God was no picnic for the Apostle Paul. It wasn’t for any of the men Jesus sent to make disciples out of the whole world. When Paul talks about working hard here, he is not talking about mere activity. The word he chooses for work highlights the unpleasant features of working. This is toil. This is labor. Work involves sweat, and sore muscles, and tired bodies.

In his next letter to the Christians in Corinth, Paul outlines some of the things he suffered. There were plots on his life and attempts to kill him. They took him to court. They flogged him. They stoned him. They beat him with rods. Traveling exposed him to heat and cold, and bandits and shipwrecks. At times he went without food or sleep. Life as a traveling missionary was hard.

Paul’s hard work and sacrifice put me to shame for my complaints about life as a Christian minister. Maybe my hip is a little sore after leaving flyers at a couple hundred homes. I don’t like it when someone is a rude to me at the door.

But in over thirty years of ministry no one has threatened my life or physically touched me. I have known some weeks with long working hours, especially around Christmas and Easter. Once in a while someone needs a pastor’s attention in the middle of the night. But for the most part meals and sleep have come on a regular schedule in my life.

God doesn’t ask us to go looking for hardships like Paul suffered in his gospel work. There is no virtue in enduring artificial or self-made sacrifices.

But grace has the power to make us ready if they come. Paul didn’t put up with the pain or unpleasantries because he felt guilty about his past. He wasn’t forced and driven to it under threat against his will. He didn’t do it because he was just such a swell guy.

Grace, the undeserved love of God in giving us his Son and forgiving our sins, was working in him, like it is working in us. Paul worked hard, “yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” Grace makes us different people, all of us. Whether ancient apostle or modern minister, whether steady church volunteer or simple person in the pew, God’s grace is taking everything we say and do and making it part of our Christian witness.

The better we know that grace, the harder we will work in service to the Lord who gave it to us.

1 Corinthians 15:8-10 “Last of all he (Jesus) appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am.”

The word “Grace” means “undeserved love.” Do you have any idea how many times a day we hear the phrase, “You deserve,” linked to something someone is trying to sell us? And we agree, don’t we? We love it! Dentists promise the smile you deserve. Dating services offer the perfect match you deserve. Employment services help you get the job you deserve. Politicians promise you the tax relief you deserve, or the services and programs you deserve, or the safety you deserve, or the prosperity you deserve. Listen to the marketers, and you deserve a better salary, creamier chocolate, relief from your pain, and a good night’s sleep.

If we are obsessed with ourselves and convinced we deserve so much, what interest will anyone have in a love that is not deserved? How can we even understand that that is a real thing? There can be no appreciation for grace, no desire for God, and no grasp of the desperate spiritual condition that has sucked the life out of our souls.

Paul’s honest humility about himself is refreshing. Jesus “appeared to me as to one abnormally born.” Instead of a “preemie,” Paul was a “posty.” The due date for him to repent came and went, and nothing. Months stretched into years before Jesus literally knocked Paul off his horse on the way to Damascus in a blaze of light. The circumstances around Paul’s conversion were something of an embarrassment for him. They were a testimony to his stubborn pride.

The fact that it even happened was more than Paul deserved, “because I persecuted the church of God.” You would never hear the Apostle Paul say to God, “I just want what I deserve! Give me what I deserve!” What does the man deserve who oversaw the execution of another whose only crimes were giving food to widows and helping them see Jesus in the Scriptures? What does the man deserve who devoted his life to destroying people’s faith? “God had no good reason to pick me for his team,” Paul is saying. “I gave him nothing but reasons to destroy me.”

“But by the grace of God I am what I am.” Because Paul was aware of his shortcomings (the Lord had really given him no choice), he also understood God’s grace. Grace, undeserved love, meant “I am what I am.” And what was that?

Grace made Paul a justified person. For Jesus’ sake the Lord did not hold his sins against him. He treated him and regarded him like an innocent person, not a criminal. Grace had sent Paul’s sin to the cross for Jesus to pay in his place. Grace brought God’s forgiveness. Grace worked to free the apostle from the consequence for his sins.

Grace made Paul a believer. That whole, dramatic confrontation with Jesus on the road to Damascus may have been frightening in some ways, and confusing in others. But it was undeserved love at work, God’s seeking love leading Paul to know his Savior and claiming him as a dear son and member of his family.

Grace then made Paul a coworker with his Savior. The Lord employed him as a trusted servant in his mission. That was like handing the keys to the store to the thief who had ransacked it days before. But because God loved him, he trusted him to take this good news of new life to people all over the world.

Grace works the same way for us. The story of our opposition to God, conversion, and work for the gospel may not be filled with the same kind of drama Paul’s had. I know mine isn’t. Our own narcissistic tendencies may tempt us to defend and promote ourselves as people God should be only too happy to love. Our quiet Christian hypocrisies–practicing the same greed, sexual standards (or lack thereof), and meanness as everyone else–are often the number one thing standing between the lost and faith in the Savior.

It is time for us to end the charade. Like Paul, it is time for us to be aware, and frankly acknowledge, our sinful shortcomings. Grace still works for us: forgiving, converting, claiming, and transforming us into sons and citizens of heaven Jesus is not afraid to involve in bringing God’s grace to others.