I remember as a dumb teenager, my head was somewhere else and my irritability was growing with my mom. My dad began to remind me of all the graces of my mom toward us, and in light of that… I needed to do things differently.
Everyone once in a while we all need to recap of the reality of a situation when we are blinded by selfishness and fail to see the obvious mercies and graces around us.
Side note: If you're a teen struggling today, remember what your parents or guardians do daily to care for and provide for you. And from that, be motivated to stop being so absurd in your demanding and complaining spirit.
I want to draw your attention to the beginning of Romans 12 v 1 says
1Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God,...
REMEMBER THE MERCIES OF GOD!
Keep them in view.
When someone goes and does such amazing things for us, it should have an impact on us.
That’s the point of the adverb, therefore.
V 1 “Therefore”. Paul gives the urging here in light of all that went ahead of us in chapters 1-8.
The best way to summarize all of that is to call it mercies.
Think of the ways you did not earn or merit God’s grace, but actually earned wrath with sin. Our pride, which fuels our lusts, envy, complaining, bitterness, hate, and self-righteousness over others, goes unchecked.
Our unbelief reveals a stiff-necked, hard-headedness that refuses to trust God. Our love for pleasure and ease causes us to lack self-control and makes us comfortable with abusing God’s good gifts.
We have all sinned. We none deserve Jesus. But God gave wrath to Jesus on the cross so we would no longer be in His debt, and He gives pardon from those sins for any who turn from their sin and trust in the merits of Christ alone.
What is more glorious than the God’s mercy to you today? Think of the ways you could have died in your sins. Think of the ways God got the gospel to you. Think of the ways God let you breathe until the day you would take your first breath spiritually, as the Spirit of God breathed life into you, as the Word was shared with you.
Think of the ways God’s mercy is all over us today. God gave wrath and justice to Jesus to give us mercy.
God’s mercies are known in God’s choosing, predestinating, calling, justifying, sanctifying, and glorifying a people unto Himself.
God takes us out of Adam, out of the power of sin, out of the condemnation of the Law/our guilt, and places us into grace, into Christ, into life with Himself by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus alone, to the glory of God alone.
“God’s mercy” in Romans is the cause of God’s gracious action (9:15–16), the purpose of election (9:18; 11:31–32), the grounds for unity between Jews and Gentiles (11:31–32), and a fitting summary for the experience of salvation (15:9). (See Michale Bird’s commentary.)
God’s mercies through Jesus, not Law keeping, but through Jesus, make us holy and acceptable to God. God mercifully justifies the ungodly by grace through faith in Jesus alone!
Everything Paul has expounded throughout the doctrinal section of the epistle, chapters 1–11, points back to God’s mercy. The mercies of God lead us to the “therefore.”
Spurgeon notes- I see Paul lift the pen from the paper and look around at us and say, “I urge you, in view of the mercies of God, God’s great mercy to you, his many mercies, his continued mercies.” What stronger plea could the apostle have?
Have a sense of how they compel us.
Receiving the bounty of God’s mercies—forgiveness, peace, reconciliation, hope, assurance and new life through the power of the Holy Spirit—brings the obligation to live a certain way.
It is not enough that Christians believe the doctrine outlined in the previous chapters. They must demonstrate their complete dedication to God through their holy living and the obedience that true faith generates. (Garland.)
So before we get into the commands of the passage, please think of how God has mercy-ed you in Jesus.
Think on them until they simmer to a boil.
My mom used to have one of those pots that had a little valve of some kind that would flap when steam would build up in the pot.
It would flap and flap until she turned down the burner.
Friends, do not turn off the burner that produces the steam of living for God.
Before we get into that, we need to build up steam!
God’s love arrested you when your heart was arrested by sin.
God’s mercy reached you when you were unreachable in your own strength.
God’s mercy sought you and bought you.
Today, go through with your family the ways God intervened in your life when you were too foolish to know you needed Him.
Turn off the things that diminish Christ’s mercies to you. Don’t listen to and read those who stoke up self-righteousness and stupid anger. Turn up those things that focus on God’s mercy to you so that you will be loaded, fully steamed for service.
Do you remember the ways God’s mercies have been shown to you?
Think of the ways you drifted and he drew you back.
Think of the ways your life has been forever changed because of His unfailing love.
Today, if you don’t know the mercies of God, the commands will be hard and strange to you because you need to know God’s love. – Come to God and ask Him to help you know what you’re missing. Tell Him you’re a sinner and you know you’re in trouble without Him.
Come to the mercies of Christ.
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