Summary: <p>Why does AA need a higher power?<br>Because in going through your Inventory its easy to get caught up in the fact that its all about you.<br><br>When its all about you, you can get caught up in several traps: <br><br>One, you can’t really face yourself and your life because if you did you would be overwhelmed with grief, with guilt, and with shame. You can spiral into self-doubt, and discouragement so much that its paralyzing. You get can get caught in the trap of self-pity.<br><br>Two, you can get caught up in the trap of self-righteousness. As in, because its all about me, I am the standard by which I judge others and I focus on those who don’t live up to my standard. Self-righteousness says, “I’m in the right.” We judge others and we blame others. The result is we struggle to show mercy because no one deserves it. They haven’t sinned against God, they’ve sinned against me, so why should I have to show mercy, why should I have to forgive others.<br><br>If you are self-absorbed, how could you ever absorb the failings of others?<br>Why would anyone ever show mercy if its costs something? If someone is going to pay, it should always be the person who is responsible. Sometimes we say we are showing mercy, we say we are forgiving people but in reality we are making them beg, we are making them grovel, we are what? Making them pay part of the cost. We are exacting the debt by making them pay for it a little bit. We are going to vent to others about that person, we are going to gossip about that person before we ever get to the place where we are willing to forgive them. So we are making them pay for it just enough to let us bring down the debt to a manageable sum. <br><br>If I compare myself to many in this room about who is the better artist I may come out on top. I may be able to draw better stick figures than most of you. But what if I compare myself to Michelangelo? Jesus is the standard and He takes away our self-righteousness, our self-pity and we can never be the victims again because He is truly the only victim.<br><br>You can’t come to God and say you owe me, that God doesn’t live up to your standard.<br><br>This morning I want you to see that showing mercy costs you something and we know this because God showing mercy to us cost us His life.<br><br>BEATITUDE Matthew 5:7 NLT 7 God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy.<br><br>Jesus tells the merciful that they will be shown mercy because its only those who have received God’s mercy who show mercy to others.<br>But you say, “I see others showing mercy all the time who are not Christians. Here we have to remember that this Beatitude is part of a set that it cannot be separated from. Showing mercy to others over the course of a lifetime will wear you out and create emotional fatigue you won’t recover from. But that is why the first Beatitude says, “Blessed are those who are pour in spirit” meaning blessed are those who realize they need God. So the first sermon Jesus preaches He starts out by saying the first thing you need to know is that you need God.<br><br>Jesus lives out the Beatitudes perfectly, thats what His life was all about. He suffered that He might show us mercy, so that we could have the strength to show mercy to others that we might live a life that brings glory to God.<br><br>But how can I show mercy when the person hasn’t asked me for forgiveness?<br><br>Matthew 5:23-24 NLT 23 "So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, 24 leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.<br><br>Mark 11:25 NLT 25 But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.".<br><br>But how will we show mercy when all we feel is bitterness?<br><br>If somebody runs into and totals your car, and you say, “I forgive you,” does that mean somehow the car is suddenly repaired? No! If you don’t forgive the person the debt, that person pays whatever the car cost, or you pay whatever the car cost, because you replace your car. Either that person bears the cost, or you absorb the cost, but there’s no way the debt goes into the air. Somebody pays it. Whenever you forgive somebody, that means you absorb the cost.<br><br>You see when God said “Let there be light” there was light. But when God said I forgive you and I show mercy to you, it cost Him a great deal. He went to the cross for us. That is why some say the only problem God ever faced was showing mankind forgiveness.<br><br>How do I know showing mercy costs something? 3 examples.<br>The Good Samaritan-<br>Luke 10:30-37 NLT <br>30 Jesus replied with a story: "A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road. 31 "By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. 32 A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. 33 "Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. 34 Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. 35 The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, 'Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I'll pay you the next time I'm here.' 36 "Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?" Jesus asked. 37 The man replied, "The one who showed him mercy." Then Jesus said, "Yes, now go and do the same."<br>So we see that the Samaritan showing mercy cost him time and money.<br><br>2. The Debtor-<br>Matthew 18:21-35 NLT <br>21 Then Peter came to him and asked, "Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?" 22 "No, not seven times," Jesus replied, "but seventy times seven! 23 "Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. 24 In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. 25 He couldn't pay, so his master ordered that he be sold-- along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned-- to pay the debt. 26 "But the man fell down before his master and begged him, 'Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.' 27 Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt. 28 "But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. 29 "His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. 'Be patient with me, and I will pay it,' he pleaded. 30 But his creditor wouldn't wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full. 31 "When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. 32 Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, 'You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?' 34 Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt. 35 "That's what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.”<br>So we forgive others, we show mercy to them innumerably because the debt forgiven us was infinite. We never get to the place where the mercy we have shown others matches the mercy that God has shown us.<br>When we resist forgiving others its because we are self-aborbed, and self-absorbed people are unwilling to absorb the failings and debts of others.<br>So this is why AA needs a Higher Power, to take our attention off of ourselves and place it on someone who transforms our whole perspective.<br><br>3. Jesus<br>We see the costliness of God’s mercy through Jesus in so many ways.<br>If a child on the street makes fun of me I don’t really care. What does that child know about me? But if one of the members of my church community attacks me, it matters to me a great deal and I feel pain as a result. In fact it can be agonizing. But if my wife says, “I hate you” then I’m devastated. My life feels like it is collapsing in a moment. We have known each other 15 years and been married 12 1/2 years. But imagine the pain Jesus felt on the cross when His Father whom He had known for eternity turned His face away breaking fellowship with Him for the first time in all eternity. The more intimate the relationship, the more painful the rejection and Jesus suffered that rejection so that He might show mercy to us.<br><br>Luke 22:45 44 He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.<br><br>And Jesus does all this voluntarily. In the Garden of Gethsemane He comes face to face with what He is about to suffer. This is why He was sweating great drops of blood.<br><br>Luke 22:39-47 NLT <br> 39 Then, accompanied by the disciples, Jesus left the upstairs room and went as usual to the Mount of Olives.<br> 40 There he told them, "Pray that you will not give in to temptation."<br> 41 He walked away, about a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed,<br> 42 "Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine."<br> 43 Then an angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him.<br> 44 He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.<br> 45 At last he stood up again and returned to the disciples, only to find them asleep, exhausted from grief.<br> 46 "Why are you sleeping?" he asked them. "Get up and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation."<br> 47 But even as Jesus said this, a crowd approached, led by Judas, one of the twelve disciples. Judas walked over to Jesus to greet him with a kiss.<br><br>Jesus needs the support of those closest to him in the hour of His temptation but He doesn’t find it.<br>I believe the temptation for Jesus in His humanity was to turn away from God’s will for Him, to forsake the cup of suffering and the rejection of the Father. There in the Garden He feels the full intensity of what He is about to suffer.<br>Jesus uses the strength given to Him by the angel to even more fully face the temptation He is about to suffer.<br>You know when you are angry and in a fight with someone and you get a phone call from your pastor or your friend and suddenly you are able to regain your composure because this outside influence is able to change the situation and your behavior? That’s what Jesus’ death on the cross is meant to do for us. Jesus takes us outside of ourselves. It takes us outside of our self-pity and self-righteousness.<br>When you are tempted to withdraw from a person and to hold on to your bitterness and you struggle to forgive someone or be reconciled to them you are having a Garden of Gethsemane moment. We need to realize that right there in that moment we ourselves are in the Garden of Gethsemane.<br>Perhaps there are some of us here this morning that have already withdrawn from someone Jesus wants us to be reconciled to.<br>When the bitterness is welling up within us we need to learn at that moment to turn our eyes to Jesus so that we can say if Jesus was willing to voluntarily enter into His suffering so that He could forgive me, surely I can voluntarily enter into this suffering so that I can absorb the sin of someone else against me.<br>Our small cups of suffering are nothing compared to the great cup of His suffering.<br>This morning I want you to let the suffering of Jesus, the suffering that He suffered for you, let it wash over you, fully embrace it and let it change your whole perspective and be blessed for His grace in empowering you to show mercy to others.<br><br>This is why AA of necessity needs a higher power and we get to know this Higher Power personally. Jesus allows us to take the focus off ourselves and shows us what mercy and costly forgiveness looks like so that we might show it to others.<br><br>God says to Adam, obey and you will live. God says to Jesus, obey and I’ll completely crush you for the sins of the whole world.<br><br>So I ask you this morning, do you know and understand and are you willing to experience the mercy of God so that it transforms you and your relationships?<br><br>Pray this this morning:<br>Psalm 86:3-5 NLT 3 Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am calling on you constantly.<br> 4 Give me happiness, O Lord, for I give myself to you.<br> 5 O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive, so full of unfailing love for all who ask for your help.<br><br>Right now I want to invite you to have a Garden of Gethsemane moment. I invite to right now to keep watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. I want you to focus on the mercy that Jesus voluntarily entered into for you at great cost to Himself and I want you to let the Holy Spirit whisper into your heart telling you who you need to forgive at great cost to yourself.</p>
