Pastor Sullivan's Blog

Grace and peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Jesus tells us to be merciful. But we’re not commanded to be merciful as the world is merciful. The world’s mercy has a limit. It’ll only put up with someone’s shortcomings to a point. More often than not when it does bear with someone’s burdensome behavior it’s only on the outside. Inwardly it grouses about the person or situation. That’s all the world’s mercy is: external. People seem gracious and merciful but inwardly they judge and condemn. Unable to put the best construction on situations, too many inspect their neighbor’s eye for specks of dust while they themselves have 2x4s protruding from theirs. This isn’t the type of mercy Jesus commands. He commands us to be merciful, not as the world is merciful, but as our Father in heaven is merciful. His mercy is different from the world’s version of mercy. His is from the heart. It isn’t hypocritical so that God is merciful to us outwardly yet inward...

Grace and peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. The Scriptures teach us faith and love. When the Scriptures speak of what we are to believe about Christ, His work, the benefits He earns and gives to us, they teach us faith. When the Scriptures teach us how we are to behave toward our fellow man, they teach us love. Today’s Gospel lesson teaches love. Jesus commands His disciples to refrain from maliciously judging their neighbor and frivolously condemning them. Instead, those who trust in Christ are to forgive their neighbor and give to them in good measure. The text isn’t speaking to us about faith, what we are to believe. Many today misuse Christ’s words as if they were about faith, as if Jesus were saying that we can’t judge doctrines as true or false, but we must let everyone believe however they want. The same Christ tells us in Matthew 7:15, “ Beware of false prophets ” who teach things contrary to Christ but use Christ’s name to do so. Chri...