July 26, 2020 Text: Deuteronomy 7:6-9
Dear Friends in Christ,
In the fall of 1983 I was a freshman at Illinois State. I lived in the Manchester dorm. One night looking for something to do, we decided to go to the Normal Theater, which at the time showed movies that had been out for a while. The cost was only a buck or two. The movie that night was one we didn’t know a lot about but took a chance on. It was Tender Mercies starring Robert Duvall.
In the movie, the main character Mac Sledge played by Duvall was a former country singer divorced and alone. He is a defeated man who wakes up in a run-down motel run by a young widow named Rosa Lee. She has pity on him and lets him work there for his room. She didn’t see anything good in him, it is purely grace.
What happens? Mac begins attending church with Rosa Lee. He hears the Gospel and is baptized. Does he feel different after Baptism? No. This part Hollywood got right. Everything didn’t suddenly fall into place. Life was still challenging. He makes contact with a daughter, now age 18, he barely knew. She dies in an automobile accident. Despite this tragedy and other questions he has, he does not lose his faith. God surprises Mac with his love and Mac comes to see himself as the object of the tender mercies of the Lord.
In our text for today, God chose Israel – God has chosen us – not because He saw anything good in us. He chose us to be His simply by His grace. We are the objects of God’s unfettered love, his . . .
“TENDER MERCIES IN CHRIST”
The text opens this way, “You are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples.” (v. 6-7)
We love numbers, don’t we? We think if something has the numbers, they must be doing everything right. The worthy should gain something. We even do this in the church. I just ran across some of our attendance numbers from 9 years ago and we had double on average of what we have in the sanctuary today. Has the church changed the way we have done things? Have we stopped preaching and teaching the Gospel in its truth and purity? Has the Pastor while aging, lost his marbles? No, no, and hopefully no!
Remember how Paul worded it, “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise…the weak to shame the strong…the lowly things…the despised things.” Our lower numbers have actually allowed more worship opportunities in our current environment. God does not measure success by human methods. On the contrary, it works this way . . .
“But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” (v. 8)
“The Lord loves you.” What wonderful words. The Lord loved the Israelites and He loves us. God’s love is not like human love. It does not change with the moment. When God makes a promise He keeps it.
God loved his chosen people in spite of their rebellion. His tender mercies in Christ give us that same love. We have spurned that love with worshipping idols in our hearts. We forget God’s love toward us. We go down a different path than the Lord’s. We make an exodus from His church and Christian fellowship.
Bring us home Lord. We need your tender mercy. “Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.” (v. 9)
These verses again put before us that there is only one God. The God who reveals himself to us in the tender mercies of Christ. The triune God. He is also the faithful God. That is what we must hold on to every day of our lives.
God’s keeps His covenant. He forgives our spurning of His love. He welcomes us back from our Exodus. He is with us in our not so pleasant moments. It took a lot of heartache but the Israelites made it to the Promised Land.
Are you living a heartache? A marriage challenge? A child rebelling? Looking for a future when society is stuck in neutral? The tender mercy of Christ is here for you. It helps you in the pain. It relieves you in the stress. It helps you focus on the Promised Land in the distance. You can trust the Lord to keep His promise. He will take us to be with Him that we may be where His is. God does not lie.
Oh, yes . . . the tender mercy of God in Christ.
Amen.,