Ministries of Mercy – Chapter 6: Conditional and Unconditional: A Balanced Judgement

MERCY MINISTRY MOMENT

• Jobs for Life (Featured in ByFaith Magazine)
• Vision
  Unemployment and poverty are a distant memory.
• Mission
  To equip churches and faith-based organizations to provide job training and support enabling everyone to secure meaningful employment.
• Guiding Principle
  to lift people out of joblessness, hopelessness, despair, poverty and the roadblocks of circumstance, they need far more than just a job. They need to have a life. A life filled with understanding, confidence, self-control, coaching, learning, guidance, and faith.
• Ways to take action:
• Become a JFL site
• Get Involved in a nearby JFL site
  • Baltimore Adventist Community Services
• Become a JFL Business Partner
• 5 Reasons For Job Training
1. As they discover what the Bible teaches about work, they will encounter Jesus Christ in the process.
2. One of the most important things the church can do to transform lives is teach the poor to fish, helping them to find value through work.
3. It puts the church in a position to serve where government is over-whelmed.
4. It provides businesses with employees who have strong work values.
5. Engaging in active ministry will change members' lives and transform the church.

WHO IS WORTHY?

• ? Who is worthy of our mercy?

  • Our neighbors (family, church, friends, strangers, enemies)

  • Luke 6:35-36
    But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

  • Keller
    "Our obligation to them is limited only by our opportunity and resources."

• ? Should we have conditions for mercy?

• Ecclesiastes 5:12
  Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep.

• 2 Thessalonians 3:10-15
  For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. 11 For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. 12 Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. 13 As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. 14 If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. 15 Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.

• Keller
  "The problem with conservatives is that they tend to establish conditions immediately, denying mercy to people who are living unrighteously. By contrast, liberals may never attach conditions to further aid."

THE GOSPEL

• ? Can you relate mercy ministry to the gospel?
• ? Who is worthy of the gospel?
• ? Are there conditions on the gospel?

• Keller
  "We must serve them with such wisdom and love that they become, not more selfish, but less!"

• 2 Corinthians 5:17-21
  

  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

WHOLE LIFE MINISTRY

• Deuteronomy 15:12-15
  If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. 13 And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed. 14 You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress. As the LORD your God has blessed you, you shall give to him. 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today.

  
  
• Keller
  
• "Mercy must have the purpose of seeing God's lordship realized in the lives of those we help. We must give aid so that people grow in righteousness."
  
• "Counseling, encouragement, education, job-training, grants of capital - all these and more may be necessary to develop the poor."
  
• ? What can we do for
  
• Matt & Jen? (natural disaster/calamity)
  Shortly after the purchase of their first house, Jen found herself with a surprise pregnancy. Matt then developed a kidney problem and was out of work for nearly a year. He is now back working, but they are saddled with unpaid medical bills, they have gotten months behind on the house payments. They are trying desperately to sell the house, but the market is terrible in their town. They have gotten to the place where they are not eating properly.
  
• Andrea? (oppression)
  A twenty-eight year old, had recently separated from her husband, who fled to a state where he cannot be forced to support his family. The woman has few job skills and must work at minimum wage while trying to support three children, ages six, three and one.
  
• Jordan? (personal sin)
  A twenty-nine year old, comes to the church in need of funds for food. He has a long pattern of not holding jobs because of irresponsibility (being late, calling in "sick" constantly, etc). His wife left him in frustration with his inability to provide financially for the family with any consistency. He has in the past three years become an alcoholic.