• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Sermo Humilis

Humble Speech

  • Home
  • Topics
    • Just a Thought
    • Who we Are Instead
    • Life in Christendom
  • Series
    • Topical
      • Words that Matter
      • Jesus Through all of Life
      • 8 Weeks Before Marriage
      • Life and Times of Jesus
      • Rock of Ages
      • The Ten Commandments
    • Bible Book
      • Proverbs
      • The Book of Ezra
      • 1 Corinthians
  • About
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Show Search
Hide Search
You are here: Home / The Life and Times of Jesus / Jesus, The Battle for Mercy

Jesus, The Battle for Mercy

8 December 2019 By David Trounce

Reading Time: 3 minutes
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

26 Jesus, The Battle for Mercy - The Life and Times of Jesus

The first request in the Lord’s prayer is a call to war. In order for the Kingdom of God to come, your kingdom must go. Surrender or defeat, these are our options. This is the kind of defeat that Christians are called to pray for. The kind that brings about the triumph of mercy.

It’s mercy because, rather than condemn us for the rebellious kingdoms we have established, God has chosen to save us and bring us into the family of an everlasting kingdom.

We want this kingdom to come and so we find ourselves engaged in a battle to see heavenly mercy hit the ground. It’s a battle that takes place for us daily as we get on our knees and pray to our Father in Heaven to deliver us from evil.

We are asking for bread. Which is to say, we are asking Him to supply everything we need to continue believing and trusting in Him.

And we pray for mercy so that we will have mercy to give. And so Jesus teaches us to pray,

Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. (Matthew 6:12)

This is the heart of the Lords Prayer and sits right in the middle of it.

The prayer to deliver us from evil is a prayer that says, “Don’t let us have our way. Don’t leave us to the sin that crouches at our door. Deliver us! Don’t let us fall for a lie.”

Despite our sinful inclinations, His is the kingdom we want to be in. His is the kingdom, the power and the glory, which is to say, “We are asking You for all these things because You’re the only one with the capacity to pull this thing off.”


On the move?
This article can also be seen and heard on Youtube

So, we are engaged in a battle. It’s a battle to see mercy triumph over judgement in our lives. What then, does the battleground look like?

It looks a lot like a prayer closet. In prayer, away from all watching eyes but God’s, we are at war against the “uns” of this world. We are at war against everything within us that is ungrateful, unloving, unforgiving and unholy.

What does the battleground look like? It looks like getting up off my knees and bringing that mercy to bear in the lives of others.

The battle for mercy is not won by playing down other people’s sin but through a gracious, undeserved response to sin. It is sin that separates people, not personality clashes. Sin is our enemy, not other people. And so, we are to do battle with sin. We battle on our knees, and then we get on our feet and do battle in the streets in order to see mercy triumph.

And this is why mercy is so central to the Lord’s prayer and why it’s repeated three times in these few, short verses (Matthew 6:12, 14, 15).

For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgement. (James 2:13)

When it comes to the sins of others, we are not looking for apologies. We are looking for an opportunity to show mercy. We are looking for the grace of God to hit the mercy switch for the trespass committed against us.

Why? Because that is what our Saviour has done for us. He has taken responsibility. He has taken the initiative. And in this call to pray, He commands us to pray that we might do the same for others. This is what it means to be a vessel of mercy. You and I were created to be poured out for the sake of others.

When the world sins, we turn up with mercy. When your brother sins, you turn up with mercy.

If the fog of sin and despair is ever going to lift around here it will be through prayer as a battlefield and cross-carrying mercy. It will be this way because that is the way God has always dealt with sin.

Related...

Jesus, Impossible Commands

Jesus, Thy Kingdom Come

Jesus, Women Who Serve

Jesus, Worship and Work

Filed Under: The Life and Times of Jesus Tagged With: Mery, Prayer, War


Writing Ideas on Sermo HumilisWhat do You Want to Read About?

 

Nothing like real-world issues to focus the mind. If you have something you would like me to write about, send me a message and let me know.

 

Primary Sidebar

Sermo Humilis

For the love of all things true, beautiful and good.


Welcome to Sermo Humilis, a digital home for biblical discipleship and cultural Christianity. A few new thoughts every week.

Please remember to like, subscribe and share. It really helps me out.

Categories

  • Life in Christendom
  • Just a Thought
  • Who we Are Instead

Find us on Social

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Medium
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Support Sermo Humilis

If you enjoy Sermo Humilis and want to say thanks you can support me here.

Support

Series

Sidebar Series - 1 Corinthians Sidebar - Words that Matter Sidebar - Jesus Through all of Life Series Sidebar Series - The Book of Ezra

The Most Popular Guff

Ezra #9 – Trouble in Covenant City

For perhaps the first four months of his return to Jerusalem, rather

Faith, Working Through Love

There's something about the memory of new love that stays with you

There’s a Lion in the Streets

I've been banging on about courage and risk for some time now, and

Jesus, His Love for Us

Our attempt to find assurance by looking inward and measuring the

Gravity and the Grand Design

Everybody has a god, it's inescapable. Whether it's yourself, an

Growing Old

Is age an enemy? What do you do when you have reached the summit of

Jab Ethics and the Unborn

When it comes to worldview thinking, especially when that thinking is

See and Hear

On the move? Weekly content can also be seen and heard via Youtube.

Topics

Beauty Charity Children Covenant Creation Death Discipleship Evangelism Faith Faithfulness Fear Forgiveness Gospel Grace Grief Guilt Holiness Hope Jesus Joy Judgement Kingdom Law Liberty Life Love Marriage Mercy Money Obedience Power Prayer Redemption Rest Resurrection Sacrifice Salvation Service Sin Suffering Truth Victory Weakness Wisdom Worship

Footer

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Subscribe to Sermo Humilis

Find us on Social

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Support Sermo Humilis

If you enjoy Sermo Humilis and want to say thanks you can support me here.

Support

Copyright © 2025 · Sermo Humilis

Thor's Oak

Around 723 AD, a missionary named Boniface entered Hesse in Germany. Upon finding a sacred tree named Thor’s Oak, he took an axe to it, cut it down and built a church. Many in the town, believing that the God of Boniface must be greater than Thor, left their paganism behind converted to Christianity.