18. The Gift of Mercy

In Romans 12, the apostle Paul says, "I ask you then, I beg you, I beseech you, with your eyes wide open to all the mercies of God" we've talked about in chapters 1-11, "that you give your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God Who is your righteous" (or spiritual) "worship.  Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you can prove what is the will of God..."  And that word "prove" doesn't mean to prove in an intellectual debate.  It means "bear witness to the authenticity of".  "...what is good and acceptable and perfect.  For by the grace given to me, I bid every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think."  Now, in most Christian bodies today, that's not really the problem.  It's quite the opposite.  We think less of ourselves than we ought to think: "Oh, I could never do that!"  And yet God calls us to this kind of a ministry and he says, "We are not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned to him.  For, as in one body we have many members and all the members do not have the same function, so we though many are one, and individually members of one another, having gifts that differ.  According to the grace given to us, let's use them.  If prophecy, in proportion to our faith.  If service, in our serving.  He who teaches, in his teaching.  He who exhorts, in his exhortation.  He who gives, in liberality.  He who gives aid, with zeal.  He who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness."  That's the gift for today: he who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.

As we have gone through the various gifts of the Holy Spirit we are now in the process of almost completing our task.  And yet the completion of that task is almost arbitrary on my part because I do not believe that Romans 12, I Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4 are exhaustive lists.  I believe that there are many indications of other gifts that are given by the Holy Spirit throughout the entire New Testament.  And I do believe that the gift lists that we have are not shopping lists, but are in fact indicative lists - only describing the enormity of range of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  And yet, because of the great interest - and the natural human attraction to the more spectacular and dramatic of the gifts (which has, in effect, resulted in the division of much of the body of Christ because of misrepresentation or misapplied emphasis) - there is an enormous need to elevate the service gifts to the position that they belong in, rather than simply the dramatic gifts or the verbal gifts.  And I'm not just referring to the gift of Tongues, because there are other verbal gifts as well.  The resultant attention which turns us away from the purpose of the gifts of the Holy Spirit - which is to build the body of Christ in the unity of His love.

When you listen to the description which is given of the world of the last days, I think you're struck by the fact that it's very descriptive of our day and age.  In 2 Timothy, Paul writes, "For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful and arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.  Holding to a form of Godliness, although they have denied its power."  Against this kind of a dark background of selfishness and indifference, the service gifts - one of which is the gift of Mercy - shines and sparkles like a diamond.

I very soon will experience my 24th anniversary with my wife.  And my memory is not so faded with age that I can remember back to when I bought her her diamond.  And I remember that the jeweler came out in this little home town of mine, and he opened up a piece of cellophane that he'd folded over and over and over.  And inside that cellophane were several loose stones.  But he didn't show them to me laying on the cellophane.  He laid out a piece of black velvet, and then just spilled the diamonds on that black velvet with a long goose-neck lamp over it, and they just were alive!  I bought a much bigger one than I had intended, because I was so attracted by that.  And the thing that made them shine so was the contrast of the darkness of their background.  When people wring their hands and say, "Oh Pastor Bud, what are we going to do in this world?  It's just going bad to worse!"

My response is, "Shine!"  The darker it gets, the brighter the light.  In a very dark room, even a little tiny candle gives an enormous amount of light.  So I see this world in its degenerating stage and I don't panic and I don't rub my hands and I don't want to run away.  I really want to shine and it's exciting to see, as I look around the horizon of our society, to see men and women who love Christ who are beginning to really stand out and shine.  Not in power of themselves, but by the inner filling of the Holy Spirit against the dark background of our age.

Such is the gift of Mercy.  My what a sparkle that brings into our world.  Let me try and describe where we're going by telling you a story about Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, that great Bible expositor.  He tells it in his commentary on the book of Romans.  And he describes how he had been invited by a friend to go with him to visit someone in the hospital.  The person who was the patient in the hospital had listened to Dr. Barnhouse on the radio and said to his friend, the visitor, "Oh I would love to have a chance to meet Dr. Barnhouse before I die." - not knowing that his visitor was a personal friend of Dr. Barnhouse.

And so he passed the message on to Dr. Barnhouse and, of course, he went.  And as the two walked into that room, Dr. Barnhouse said, "I've never been a fan of hospitals.  I can smell their distinctive aroma from the parking lot.  And that's as close as I really like to be."  But he said, "As I walked into this hospital and down the hall, we opened the door to this dying man's room."  And he said, "the smell was just awful."  He said, "There was a knot in my stomach.  I was instantly nauseated.  I just wanted to run."  And the figure laying on those white sheets and against that pillow was grotesque and distorted.  And the odor emanated from other there.  It was the smell of death in the room.  And Barnhouse said, "I just wanted nothing more than to run.  My friend, however," he says, "walked over the bed and said, 'Hi John, it's me!  And guess who I've got with me?'  And he knelt down beside the bed and cradled this dying grotesque man in his arms and talked of the love of Christ with joy."

Dr. Barnhouse said, "I have never since asked 'what is the gift of Mercy with cheerfulness' when I saw it that graphically portrayed in contrast with my obedient act of mercy."

Let me define the gift of mercy then, and as I usually do, I will give you two definitions.  One long one which I'm more comfortable with because it's more exact.  One longer definition which I'm more comfortable with because it's exact.  And then a shorter one that's easy to remember.  Now, remember we are speaking about a gift of the Holy Spirit - we're not talking about something that's just natural to a person.  This is a supernaturally bestowed gift.  The gift of Mercy is the gift of the Holy Spirit given to certain members of the body of Christ, which is a special ability - a supernatural ability - to feel genuine empathy and compassion for persons who suffer distressing physical, mental, and emotional problems - and to translate that compassion into cheerfully done deeds which reflect Christ's love and alleviate the suffering.  Now, that's a textbook-type definition, so you don't have to worry about it.  You'll know where we're going later on, but I wanted - for my own discipline - to state it down as completely as I could.

The brief definition is: the gift of mercy is the Holy Spirit's gift to certain members of the body of Christ to work joyfully with those that the majority choose to ignore.  Now that's simple.

The verb which is translated "to show mercy" or "do acts of mercy" means "to pity".  But we think in America, with our English use of the word "pity", that "pity" somehow denotes a superior position on the one who is doing the pity: "I have pity on you!"  That's not the meaning.  The meaning in the original is "to commiserate", "to have compassion", "to have empathy", "to show conscious, gracious favor to".  It's the same word, for instance, that you find in Matthew 20 when the two blind men call out to Jesus, and say, "Jesus, have mercy" (have pity, care, demonstrate compassion, act on our behalf).  The same word in Luke 9 when Peter, James, and John, and Jesus come down from the Mount of Transfiguration, and there at the base of the mountain find a father so distraught over his son who was demon-possessed:  keeps falling into the fire and all the rest.  And the other disciples hadn't been able to do anything.  And he says, "Jesus, will you please have mercy on my son."  It's also the same word that is used in the scripture which we read this morning from Mark 10, where blind Bartemaeus keeps yelling until people say "Shhhh!  Quiet!"  And he won't stop - he just keep's yelling, "Have mercy upon me."  And then in Luke 17, the ten lepers cried out, "Have mercy" instead of ringing the bell and hollering "unclean!", they cry "have mercy."  And in each case, Jesus acted in mercy because the gift of Mercy results in acts of mercy.  It is a "service gift".

Now here we also need to notice that there's a difference between the gift of Exhortation and the gift of Mercy.  The gift of Exhortation helps primarily with words of love.  The gift of Mercy helps primarily with acts, or deeds, of love.  You need also to notice that it says "with cheerfulness".  And the word translated "cheerfulness" is really the Greek word halaritoi, which is the same root word that we get our word "hilarious" or "hilarity".  You get the idea.  Do you deeds of mercy - your acts of mercy - with hilarity.  Now, that does not mean supercilious and silly humor.  It's a lot deeper than that.  The hilarity is a deep joy that just bubbles up from way down inside.  It is a joy to do acts of mercy.  That's the way in which it's to be done.  The connotation is: deep cheer.

Now, here's it's appropriate to remember what we said months ago with regard to the exercise of any gift that the Holy Spirit has given you.  One of the ways you test out to see whether this is a gift of the Holy Spirit which you've been given is to check your reaction to doing it - to your exercise.  Because, if you are working in accord with and in practice of the Holy Spirit to you, you enjoy it - it's fun.  We get this idea sometimes: serving God is a real tough thing to do, oh my, really want to serve God.  And they talk about "complete commitment" and they talk about it in such ominous tones, it's scary.  But if you are working in conjunction with the gifts that the Holy Spirit has given, there's joy in the exercise.  So there is the possibility of doing acts of mercy with cheerfulness.  So when the person who is so gifted with Mercy does it, it's not because he's such a super-special guy - it's just because he thoroughly enjoys it.  He's in harmony, in step with, his acts of mercy and his spiritual gift.  Now you have been asked, and perhaps you've done some asking, where you have asked someone to do something and their response has been, "Well, I guess I could do it."  Now, right away, you know that person's response is not a super-positive one.  If they do it, it is in response to a feeling of obligation.  And they do it grudgingly or unwillingly.  But to do it pleasantly, and gently, and joyously is the underlying secret of those with the gift of Mercy.  And the reason they do it is because they understand the secret is in Matthew 25 where it says, "to the extent that you did it to one of these My brethren, even the least of them, you did it to Me."

Now the gift of Mercy is different from the gift of Helps.  The gift of Mercy is exercised on behalf of those that the majority prefer not to see: the retarded, prisoners, the grinding poor, the ugly, the grotesque, the chronically ill, the handicapped, the hospitalized, the aged, the infirm.  Those with the gift of Mercy see them and don't see what repulses or repels the rest of the society.  They're drawn to them.  They're attracted to them.

A pastor friend that I play golf with, his wife - for a number of years - was the head of the Hollyridge school for the mentally handicapped in Bremerton.  And I watched her work with these children and adults - some of them badly physically deformed as well as mentally distorted.  And I saw Helen work with a degree of love and compassion that just made me wonder at her.  That's the act of mercy.  Society wants to take these people - all of these people, fitting any of these categories - and put them away someplace out of sight.  So we have these sad, sad institutions in our society, crammed with society's rejects of all kinds. Those with the gift of Mercy cannot abide that kind of thing.

Now, if you look at Biblical illustrations, first of all you have to say that the life of Jesus reflects the ministry of the gift of Mercy.  I've already referred to four sections of Scripture where individuals cried out "have mercy upon me" and where He responded with gifts of Mercy.  Even those who would not be shut up by those who told them to shut up.  Even when their needs repulsed and caused other people to fear.  Who was it in Mark 1 that touched a leper?  It was Jesus - an act of mercy.  Precisely what the leper needed was the human touch.  He was a social outcast.  He had to cry out "unclean" and people ran away from him.  When his disease was diagnosed as leprosy, his family had a funeral for him - counted him as dead.  And yet that kind of a person, Jesus touched.

In Acts 9, it tells the story of a woman whose name was Dorcas (actually, her Jewish name was Tabitha, the Greek name would be Dorcas).  But in our English, she would be known as Gazelle.  Isn't that a pretty name?  She was an interesting woman.  I remember wondering why one of the women's circles, in my home church when I grew up, was called the "Dorcas Circle".  I thought, "that's a strange name!  Dorcus!"  Now I know (well, I found out before just now).  Dorcus was a remarkable woman who died.  And when she died, they sent right away and asked Peter to come.  And Peter came and was used of God to raise her from the dead, to restore her back to life again.  But listen to the early part of the account from Acts 9: "Now in Joppa there was a certain disciple named Tabitha, which translated in Greek is called Dorcus.  This woman was abounding with deeds of kindness and charity, which she continually did."  You notice how the writer, Luke, goes over it twice: 1) abounding and 2) did it continually.  And then it accounts how she died and Peter was sent for, and it says, "And Peter arose and went with them, and when he had come, they brought him into the upper room" (where they had laid Dorcus out) "and all of the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing all of the tunics and garments that Dorcus used to make while she was with them."  This is a lady who was exercising her act of mercy - her gifts of Mercy.

Another Biblical illustration of the gift of Mercy is seen in the rather obscure person with an almost unpronounceable name of Onesphorus.  Now Onesphorus was apparently a member of the church in Ephesus who, when Paul was in prison in Rome, went to find him.  Now Paul was not, at the time of his visit there, apparently in the kind of hired house arrangement he had under house arrest, but in all likelihood, was in a dark, dank, dungeon-like jail.  Possibly the Mamertine Prison in Rome.  Some from the congregation had the privilege of being with me as we saw this Mamertine Prison in Rome.  And it's like a huge stone cistern.  You go down these narrow steps, you look through a little tiny hole in the top, where there was a grid where they fed you - if they fed you at all.  And in the wall of the cistern, there's a hole in the wall.  Now it's covered with a steel door.  But that hole in the wall looks down on the channel of a subterranean river, and people who died in that crammed, dank, miserable dungeon, were simply pitched through that hole down into the river and carried off.

In that kind of a setting, condemned because of his faith in Christ, is the apostle Paul.  You can imagine the hardship. He who had roamed the world at his will with the gospel of good news, is now chained in a dungeon filled with the stink of death.  And Paul, that gregarious man with that host of friends around the world, is now all alone.  And nobody came to see him, apparently, except Onesphorus (whose name, by the way, means "mercy doer").  And if you listen what Paul tells Timothy when he writes to him, he says, "May the Lord bless Onesphorous and all his family, because he visited me and encouraged me often.  His visits revived me like a breath of fresh air, and he was never ashamed of my being in jail.  In fact, when he came to Rome, he searched everywhere trying to find me.  And he finally did."

But, of course, the most supreme illustration of the gift of Mercy is found in Jesus Christ.  And the best way I can describe that is to read for you from Ephesians 2:1-5: "To you who were spiritually dead all the time that you drifted along on the stream of this world's ideas of living, and obeyed it's unseen ruler, who is still operating in those who do not respond to the truth of God, to you Christ has given life.  We all lived like that in the past and followed the impulses and imaginations of our evil nature being, in fact, under the wrath of God by nature, like everyone else.  But even though we were dead in our sins, God Who is rich in mercy because of the great love He had for us, gave us life together with Christ.  It is, remember, by grace and not by achievement that you are saved."  The marvelous grace of our loving Lord expressed in mercy.

Now, very quickly, let me tick off some characteristics of the gift of Mercy.  First of all, I need to remind you that there is a role for all of us in demonstrating mercy, whether we have the gift or not.  This is quite apart from the Holy Spirit's gift of Mercy.  It is simply bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and that's expected of all who are in Christ.  Every Christian is to respond to need with acts of mercy.  That's it.

Let me illustrate the difference between the role of mercy giver and the gift of Mercy by telling you about myself and my mother.  When I lived in Alabama with my wife, in my first parish we had a little country church on the edge of a swamp.  And down further into the swamp was a family - three generations: a grandma, her worthless son, his wife, and their children.  Two children, I think, or one.  The son had only one ability, and that was to make moonshine.  But he didn't even know how to sell moonshine, so he drank it all.  And he was really a worthless good-for-nothing.  This old lady was just a real nice old lady whose heart was broken every day by what she saw take place.  And I could tell you some of the most god-awful things that took place in that family.  But this old lady, on a regular basis, she used to come walking up the road from the swamp and she would knock on the door of the parsonage.  And she would say, "Preacher Bud, my children are hungry."  Now I was making $200 a month at that time, and I didn't have an awful lot of money laying around the house.  But I had more than she did, which meant I had no choice, right?  I mean, if there's food on my table, there's got to be food on somebody else's table that's in need.  And so I'd get her in the car and I'd drive her to El Mira, where I'd worked something out with one of the grocers (well, with the grocer) in El Mira, Alabama.  What we'd worked out is that any day that old bread wasn't too hard, he set aside for me.  We also worked out, you know how when they grind ground beef and it gets kind of brown on the top after a day or two - a lot of butchers just turn that over and put the red meat up on top, but I had an agreement with this fellow that he would take that brown meat and kind of gather it together.  He'd sell me that at a special discount.  And powdered milk, and vegetables that were just a little bit spongy and had to be...  And so I would take this dear old lady over to El Mira and would pick up a couple of big sacks of groceries of whatever we could get and afford and was on sale, and bent cans and all the rest.  And we would bring it home and the family would be able to live for a little while.  Now I can't say that I did that with a great deal of joy.

And I share it with you, not to tell you how wonderful I am, but to expose that I'm not that wonderful, because all the way home I'm wishing this old lady would find somebody else to tap on.  Especially because every time on the way home from El Mira, she would give me this same speech and I could repeat it by heart - it just drove me crazy.  She would say, "Now preacher Bud, I want y'all to know that I'm going to pay you back, because when I stand before St. Peter, I gonna say two things.  Number one, I ain't never owed no man nothing I never paid back.  And number two, I ain't never let no doctor shoot me full of needle holes."  Now, I had never heard of salvation based on those two things, but that was the basis of her salvation.  And I'm fearful for that dear lady's eternal destiny, because she never paid me back for one thing.  Why did I do it if I did it so grudgingly?  I did it out of just sheer obedience to the scriptures.  If you see someone in need and close up your heart, what kind of service to Christ is that?  And that's why I did it.  It's not very flattering, I'm sorry.

My mother, on the other hand, was always picking up strays.  When I was a boy, I would come home and our house would be crawling with kids.  Now, there were several problems with that.  One, we had a small house.  Two, I had very few toys, and these kids always played with my toys and always broke my toys.  Number three, they were crummy kids.  They all came from the south side of the tracks.  Did any of you live in a town that had the south side of the tracks?  I grew up in a little tiny town that had a south side of the tracks.  And every so often my mom would take the old car and she'd go down south of the tracks and every time she saw a kid with long hair (now, in those days mind you, long hair was a sign of poverty - if you didn't have a haircut, everybody in town knew you were a poor kid) and mom would round up every shaggy little ragamuffin she could find on the south side, she would cram that car just full and then she'd bring them home and start what we'd call her "assembly line".  On the back porch, which was screened in, she had two of her big galvanized washtubs full of hot soapy water.  That's the first station.  They lit in the tub.  After the tub, they were brought in and they got their hair washed.  After that, they were put in the back porch to play in the sun so that their hair would dry while mom was cutting the hair of the other kid.  And I'd come home and the house looked knee-deep in hair and water all over the back, and you know those blame kids would go home and I had to clean up that mess.  And my toys are in pieces and I would think, "What in the...   You...", you know.  My mother, all the time, is just having a ball.  And at the end of the day, would sit down to a light dinner.  And dad knew, because he saw that pile of hair in the corner, what had been going on all afternoon.  And we'd sit down to have our meal and my mom would say, "Oh, I don't know when I've been so tired, but oh that felt so good!"  You see, that's the gift of Mercy.  There was no repayment.  Now she always hoped that those kids would wind up in Sunday School, but to my knowledge only one ever did.  And she must have cut who knows how many bushels of hair.  But only one ever showed up in Sunday School and he only stuck it out for about two years.  But I will never discount what God did through my mom in people's lives.  But she had the gift of Mercy.  And so she just enjoyed it.  Boy she just got revitalized by it.  I just got burned by it.  That's the difference.

Second, the gift is more personal than it is an official ministry.  Now understand, it does not mean that you cannot organize acts of mercy.  Helper's Hotline in our own congregation is a vehicle for the exercise of gifts.  And I'm convinced that it's origination came as a demonstration of the gift of Mercy.  But "organization" doesn't mean that you can't exercise mercy.  However, generally the person with the gift of Mercy finds themselves eagerly involved in a one-on-one kind of a ministry.  Compassion and kindness is a lifestyle.  Neighbors used to say, "Esther Palmberg, what is the matter with you, dragging all those bad kids from the south side up here all the time?"

And Mom would say, "Oh, I don't know, it's just something I want..."  It was her lifestyle.  Wasn't even a big conscious deal.  And she would be embarrassed.  Don't ever tell mom I told you.  She would really be upset. Compassion becomes a lifestyle rather than a response to emergency.

Third, the gift of Mercy is expressed eminently in practical ways.  When disaster strikes, everybody feels pity.  But when the headlines fade, we forget about it until the next tragedy comes splashed across our headlines.  But the one with the gift of Mercy is drawn, almost helplessly, to do something about it.  They seek opportunity to meet practical needs.  They're probably not found in the living room with a Bible and words of exhortation - they are more likely found on their knees in the kitchen scrubbing.

Now, fourth, the gift of Mercy is generally directed to the unlovely and the unlovable.  It's generally directed to the unlovely and unlovable - the lepers of our society; the Zaccheuses of our society - who have everything and yet nothing and are very ascerb and brutal kind of personalities; the Mary Magdalines of our society.  Thirteen years ago last July, I helped organize what's called Operation Nightwatch, which is a skid road ministry to people in need.  In the last thirteen years, that ministry has grown to the place where there is now a $40,000 budget, a full-time director, and 35 to 37 men and women priests on the street.  It has attracted national attention.  It's been written up by AP and UPI, there's been a movie made about it, the network news have sent people out - film crews and all the rest.  And people say to me when I'm in Chicago or someplace else, "are you still involved in that Nightwatch program?"

And I say, "Yes, I am."  Now, I know what's in their mind: "What a wonderful man he must be."  I don't know how to get out of it.  It's one of those things that - it's like Brier Rabbit and the tar-baby.  You just can't get loose.  I need Nightwatch because it keeps reminding me that not all the world smells nice and looks nice and smiles nice.  It reminds me that the world is filled with people whose hunger and whose need is just laid out on the streets and in the gutters and in the alleys of our city - as well as wrapped in $50,000 and $100,000 and $200,000 mortgages.  I need Nightwatch, but there are nights when I go on the street and I'm tired before I start.  There's an emotional exhaustion in me.  I don't want to go.  I am going to confront people all night long whose needs and whose desires to use me are repulsive to me - whose lifestyles are repellent to me.  There's only so many years that you can be vomited upon and propositioned by the prostitutes and find bodies with the needle still hanging out their arm, and still find "that's interesting".  Only so long and your compassion reaches a point of compassion fatigue.

But about ten years ago, I was speaking at the Northgate Kiwanis club.  And there I recruited out of that club, one of their ministers.  A fellow by the name of Norman Riggins that I have never ever in my life met anybody who had the gift of Mercy in such abundance as Norm Riggins does.  He, at that time, had been pastor for ten years at the Mapleleaf evangelical church on the north side of Seattle.  A resigned that ministry.  He resigned that church.  He took himself off salary and put himself under the watch-care of some of us - about four or five of us guys who were with Nightwatch at that point who said, "Well, Norm, we can try and guarantee that you'll eat for four months, but that's about as far as we can go."

And with that kind of uncertainty, Norm said, "At least it will give me the chance for four months to try and do something about the needs of people."  Night after night after night, all night long, all day long, he spends his time with the rejects of our society.  And he keeps saying what a ball he's having.  That's the gift of Mercy. Now I praise God.

Many people shrink from the ill and the weak.  They consign their problems to an institution.  In this area of daily life, mercy's a rare virtue.  Where ever a person has this gift, he's a great hope for the sick and neglected, and you can be sure that the merciful persons are quickly besieged by those in need.  So, for that very reason it's important that everybody that has this gift use it for all they're worth.  The gifted person who is gifted with the gift of Mercy generally also seeks opportunity for service and ministry - it comes naturally.  They don't wait for somebody to call.  They are visiting and volunteering and hauling people and bringing meals and taking care of children and sowing and giving and they're just involved.  They're just doing it.  That's a lifestyle.

Every so often it rolls around that it's my assignment to have a chapel service at Mercer Villa Convalescence Center, and that's not my favorite place.  I come into Mercer Villa and I am just confronted with such a deep wave of helplessness.  The loneliness of those people!  There've been some really funny things and some really sad things that have happened during those chapel periods, but I don't really look forward to those meetings.  But every time, God does something in my life and one of the things He does is that I see people, many of them from this congregation, who are there exercising their gift of Mercy.  And I see what it does to people's lives when they offer that cup of cold water cheerfully in Jesus' name - not from sense of obligation, but from joy of ministry.

Sixth, I want you to recognize that the gift of Mercy is not relegated to physical needs only.  Mental and spiritual distress is also ministered to.  And one who is gifted with the gift of Mercy seeks ministry in these areas as well.  Now, let me illustrate this - and I think some of you can relate to this.  You know of someone who has got deep problems.  Maybe not physical problems, but some very deep problems.  You know they do.  You have a chance encounter with them on the street.  You gauge your conversation very carefully that you don't open up that Pandora's box.  Because you're afraid they'll start to spill all of their problems and all of this kind of thing, and you'd rather not have anything to do with it.  A person with the gift of Mercy, however, having that chance encounter, says, "How are things?" and opens that box, seeking to minister and care and love.  Non-avoidance.  The gifted people think their gift is natural.  They are surprised if you point out that it's a gift.  They just think, "Well man, that's just compassionate love" in their eyes.  It's the cup of cold water in Jesus' name.  They are not satisfied with those ritual words, "If there's anything I can do, just call."

I remember, as a kid in High School, a neighbor's house burned down. It was about a block away.  I mean burned down - there was nothing left.  And I remember watching my mom and dad in there, poking around, trying to put out the smoldering embers and see if there was anything worth saving.  In a small town, a fire's the biggest thing that happens. And a steady stream of people come past and they'd say to this guy whose standing there with his life in ashes around him - as far as possessions - no bed, no food, no car, no house.  And they would say, "If there's anything we can do, let us know."

And my mom would get so mad.  She could hardly stand it, and she turned to my dad and she'd say, "What's the matter with those dummies?  He doesn't have anything!  Anything they do would be helpful.  What are they waiting for?  An invitation?  The guy doesn't even have a bed!"

The ritual words "If there is anything I can do, just call" just don't come from the lips of one who has the gift of Mercy.  They know there's something they can do.  And they're already involved in the doing.  Blankets and food and materials to rebuild and just somebody to hold their hand in the loneliness of that hour.

One other thing and then I've got to close.  Have you noticed that, of all the charismata listed in Romans 12 (there are seven), out of those seven charasmata - the gifts of the Spirit - four out of the seven deal with the practical service ministry to people in need.  The gifts of the Spirit are not given for titillation or for showing off or as merit badges of achievement.  The gifts of the Spirit are for service to the body of Christ and to build it for His glory.

In world war II, the Ethiopian nation was occupied by the Italian army.  The Italian army was very very strong in its persecution of evangelical Christians in Ethiopia.  And they jammed the nation's jails with evangelical Christians.  The practice was, under Italian occupation, that no prisoner received food or water, unless friends or relatives brought it.  There was no in-house food or water system.  And so the only way a person survived without starving or dehydrating to death in an Ethiopian prison during the second world war was if they had friends or relatives that brought them food and water.  Those who were in jail as evangelical Christians, who were there for religious reasons, were so well cared for by fellow believers that they had more than enough food and water to feed the rest of the prisoners.  And so attracted them to the kind of commitment and mercy that caused people - who ran risks of involving themselves by association - to come and give, that there was a real revival that broke out in the prisons of Ethiopia during the second world war.  As men and women so attracted to the spontaneous unarticulated witness of the love of Christ that they just had to turn to find the reason.

And so the scripture says, "If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food and one of you says, 'Go in peace, be warm, be filled,' and yet you do not give them what's necessary for their body, what use is that?  Even so, faith if it is not demonstrated in action is dead because it's alone."  Church, the clearest witness to the watching world has always been the deeds and mercies without strings or conditions.  The expressions of the unconditional love of Jesus Christ: "Behold how they love one another" was not only the witness of the early church, but must again be the commentary of a watching world on the church today.  Not "look at them fight!", but "behold how they love one another".  And oh how we need the ministry of those of you with the gift of Mercy.  And oh I praise God some of you do.  I've seen it in action.  It just moves me deeply.  And I praise Him for His equipping of the body.  By the way, since we are encouraged to ask for gifts, why don't we ask for that one?

There's a world out there that's skeptical.  They have been told an awful lot of verbal theology.  They need to see theology in overalls.  So do it, in the power and the giftedness of His blessed Holy Spirit.  And God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit will be with you in your ministry and with me in mine until by His grace, we're together again.