As we look at our own commission as disciples of Christ, let’s start by looking at Isaiah’s commission, as found in chapter 6 of his writings. You’re familiar with this text, but let’s look a little deeper:

1In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.

Notice when Isaiah remembers seeing the Lord – in the year that King Uzziah died. Except for the end there, it was said of King Uzziah that he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. He had reigned in Israel for 52 years – since the age of 16. And now we see at the time of his death the Lord appears to Isaiah.  Sometimes we can only see God clearly when that which we have set our focus upon is removed. Even the most worthwhile things upon which we set our focus can distract us from God.

So now that God has Isaiah’s attention, what is the response? It is at once intensely personal:

5Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.

But never private:

8Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.

As we see with Isaiah, our calling as Christians is at once intensely personal, but never private – let’s revisit that text in Micah that tells us so clearly “what the Lord requires”:

He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
                                             —Micah 6:8

A previous post covered the personal nature of discipleship in what it means to “walk humbly with your God.” Now we turn to the public ministry, as we look at what it means to “act justly” and to “love mercy.” 

As we’re working our way backwards, let us start first with what it means to “love mercy.” Notice it doesn’t say simply to “show” mercy, or to “be” merciful, but to love mercy!

How often do we wish someone would “get what they deserved” or, taking it a step further, how often do we almost delight in seeing someone going through trials, thinking they deserve whatever comes to them? How many times do we find ourselves like Jonah, watching for the destruction of others and even being upset with God because He is merciful?!?!?

I’ll tell you this much – I’m glad none of us is God! We even sometimes imagine what a better world this would be if God were still in the business of striking people dead the moment they sinned! The problem with this kind of thinking – well, there are so many problems – but the most obvious is that when we so glibly think or say such things, we neglect to look in the mirror. Just imagine if each of us “got what we deserved” – there would be none here to be saved!

Indeed, this opportunity each of us has to be saved is what puts mercy at the heart of Christianity. Listen to what Paul says in the second chapter of Ephesians:

4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

If it is by grace that we are saved, then it is mercy that sustains us. God’s mercy is fundamentally about forgiveness, but it is more than that. God is merciful to us even when we don’t sin. God’s mercy doesn’t just forgive failures and faults, but reaches deep into all our weakness and need. His very attitude toward us is merciful. Note that last part of verse 4; it is not just that God is merciful, but that He is rich in mercy. If we understand this, then, perhaps we understand a little better what it means to “love mercy.”

The mercy and “unfailing love of the LORD never ends!” Lamentations of all places tells us that His “mercies begin afresh each day.” (3:19-24 NLT) His mercy is brand new every morning! Everyday you are given a second chance and a fresh start at life! We should cry with the psalmist, “Oh, give thanks to the God of heaven! For His mercy endures forever. (Ps 136:26 NKJV)

As God gives you a fresh start each new day, so should you reach beyond the pain and give to those who have hurt you a fresh start through your forgiveness. And just as God offers more than forgiveness, approaching us with the very attitude of mercy, so too should we approach one another with a merciful attitude, not finding fault, but making accommodation for one another’s inherent weaknesses.

The dispensing of mercy on our part identifies us not only with the hurting but with God the Father. We are never more like our Heavenly Father than when we are giving out mercy. Jesus desires acts of “mercy and not sacrifice.” (Matthew 9:13 NIV) If we truly love God, we prove it through the mercy we give.

The example of mercy we have in Christ is not one of the “virtue of the love of love” for its own sake, but only insomuch as it stems from complete love of and devotion to God. Love of neighbor cannot be abstracted from the primary love of God. While the two do not share a common quality – for the love of God is that of adoration, gratitude, and joy, while love of man contains elements of pity, giving, and forgiving – the two do share a common source. [1]

God’s mercy, then, is not some universal benevolence, but a decisive act of divine agape. It was not love, but GOD that filled Christ – loving God as man should and loving man as only God can. We are called, then, to not simply loving our neighbor as ourself, but to loving as God loves (John 13:34; 15:12, cf. Mk 12:28-34; Mt 22:34-40; Lk 10:25-28).[2] This is why we must walk humbly – as Jesus did – with our God before we can even approach loving mercy and doing justice!

Having walked with our God, then, we must proclaim His mercy. If we are in need of God’s mercy, so is the world. So is our land. So is our town. So are our road, our neighbors, friends, and relatives. How will they hear unless we tell them?

We should have the spirit of Paul, who said, “I have become all things to all men so that I might save some.” (1 Cor 9:22). We are not merciful to get something in return, but because God is.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” (Matt 5:7 NIV) Don’t make the mistake of thinking this means you will be shown mercy by men – this is all about God! Our corrupt, ego-centered, and selfish society often asks only one question: “What’s in it for me?” Jesus wants us to ask, “Lord, what is in it for you? How can I meet their needs right where they are? What acts of compassion can I do?”

The Hebrew word for mercy is “checed,” which means to get inside someone’s skin, to look at how they view life and feel what they are experiencing, to move in and act on behalf of the one who’s hurting.

Sound familiar? Because that is exactly what Jesus did when He chose to leave the comfort and glory of Heaven to become one of us.

So mercy is not simply feeling compassion but showing compassion, not only sympathizing but offering a helping hand as well. The true character of mercy is in giving, and giving freely at that – giving compassion, giving help, giving time, giving money, giving of yourself and giving forgiveness. If you desire to “brightly reflect the glory of the Lord” and become “more and more like him and reflect his glory even more” you must “never give up” in showing His mercy. (2 Cor 3:17-4:2 NLT)

If we look at the Parable of the Good Samaritan, we don’t know how the first two passers-by felt…it would take a very hard heart to not at least feel sorry for someone laying on the side of the road, stripped and beaten half to death…but we do know that they took no action. And so we come to the point of “doing justice” in light of “loving mercy.” I thank God that His justice – and, in turn, ours – is meted out through the lens of mercy.

Luke 6:36 tells us to “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” It is perhaps instructive to note that this is the verse rendered elsewhere as “Be ye perfect…” Note that this supposed “perfection” to which we’re called is all about displaying our Father’s love and mercy. To understand this verse even better, it is helpful to look at its context, falling between Jesus’ teaching on “Love for Enemies” and “Judging Others.”

God’s perfect judgment required blood sacrifices and burnt offerings, but from Genesis to Revelation, we are assured that He desires mercy and not sacrifice. The very context of the verse we are looking at in Micah shows how absurd it is to come before the exalted God with burnt offerings, rivers of oil, or even bodily sacrifices to try to pay for the sin of the soul – God’s answer? To do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God…

Indeed, James exhorts us to “Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” (2:12-13)

We run into trouble when we forget our need of mercy and so do not show it to others. Nehemiah speaks of this starting in chapter 9, verse 17, saying, “They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them….But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.”

While we are told to “go and do likewise,” referring to the mercy shown by the Good Samaritan, we forget that we were once the man left to die on the road. Taking it one step further, we see – as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. challenged us – that

On the one hand, we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth…, and say: “this is not just.” …The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of … filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. …

This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense…War is not the answer….[O]ur greatest defense…is to take offensive action in behalf of justice.[3]

How many times have we heard the cliché about being “so heavenly minded you’re no earthly good”? While the point may be a valid one, in reality, it has been those who were most fixed on things above that did the most good here on earth, exemplifying this “positive revolution of values.”

It was Martin Luther King’s “dream” of having all flesh see the glory of the Lord together that fueled the Civil Rights movement in the United States.

It was Mother Teresa’s conviction that her hands should be the instruments of delivering daily bread “along with the love of God” that brought peace and joy to many of the world’s poorest people in Calcutta.

It was Bishop Desmond Tutu whose understanding that God is seeking the restoration of what He first created that inspired among the people of South Africa and the world the ability to achieve what many saw as “idealistic.”

Indeed, it was Jesus’ connection with his Father and love for His creation that transformed the lives of those with whom He came in contact and made salvation available to the world.

So how can we “take offensive action in behalf of justice”? What does it mean to “do justice”? In the Hebrew, it means to make justice, in the broadest sense and widest application; to accomplish, advance, bring forth, even become justice.

It is in the “doing” that we find the very power of God, for we share in the promise of the early disciples that “ye shall receive power” (Acts 1:8). And it is the power that comes from walking humbling with your God that ties everything together, for it has been said that “love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” (MLK’s last address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) – 1967)

What if, for one day, Jesus became you? Nothing changed about you. You still lived in the same house, same job, same family, same health…the only difference is this, His heart becomes your heart. What would it be like? Do you think people would notice a change? Do you think He would keep the same schedule you would keep? The same commitments, the same priorities? How do you think you would feel? Would you still be stressed out over the things in your life? Would you still hold that grudge against your sibling? What would change?[4]

He is asking you to let Him replace your stony heart with His own heart. He is asking for a relationship with you – to be able to walk with you every moment of your life. He is asking that as your heart is replaced with His, that you come to ‘love mercy,’ just as He is rich in mercy. He is asking that you show the same mercy to the rest of His creation that He has shown to you – not only in forgiving wrongs, but making allowances for others’ shortcomings. He is asking that you be His active instrument in ‘doing justice’ that flows from the heart of mercy He is giving you.

Is “this mind…in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5)? What is your first thought in the morning? The last before going to sleep at night? More importantly, what are these thoughts accomplishing in the world around you in between times? Proverbs 29:18 tells us that “where there is no vision, the people perish.” Are you being true to the vision the Lord has given you, or do you continue to ask what it is the Lord requires when the answer is given clearly in Scripture; ‘To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God” (Mic. 6:8, NKJV)?

[1] Niebuhr, H. Richard. Christ and Culture, p.15-9.

[2] Ibid.

[3] King, Jr., Rev. Dr. Martin Luther. Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence. April 4 1967 – speech delivered at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned in Riverside, NYC.

[4] Lucado, Max. Just Like Jesus.