March 12, 2025: Midweek Lent 1 (Full Service)

LORD, HAVE MERCY It is one of the most common prayers of God’s child. “Lord, have mercy!” Mercy is the withholding of punishment or negative consequences that a guilty person deserves. Thus, when we pray, “Lord, have mercy,” 1) we are acknowledging that we have lived in ways deserving of God’s condemnation and punishment, and 2) we are begging God to not condemn or punish us. How important is that prayer? If you cannot say it with sincerity, you cannot be saved. For if you cannot speak that prayer, you cannot possibly believe you need a Savior. Therefore, God gave us his law, in part, so that we would see our need for mercy. St. Paul writes, “I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law” (Romans 7:7). And God gave us the gospel that we might know he has shown us mercy. Thus, it is good and right that in this solemn season of Lent, we would review God’s law as revealed in the Ten Commandments and connect it with Christ’s passion. We will how we have shattered all the Commandments and are deserving of punishment. However, will we also see how Jesus took the suffering we deserved upon himself. Seeing both, may the Spirit empower us to pray, “Lord, have mercy!” and confidently believe that in Christ, we have God’s mercy in inexhaustible abundance. FOR OUR INCESSANT IDOLATRY When God tells us not to have any other gods, our sinful nature’s first inclination is to think it is because God is a narcissist who craves the attention. That is projecting what we are often like onto him. But God commands us to have no other gods, not because he seeks attention, but because he knows there is no one who loves us as much as he does. . . no one who can care for us anywhere close to as well as he can. It is he, by an infinite margin, who can best care for us. Therefore, when we love or trust anyone or anything else more than God, the sin doesn’t simply offend him. It is incredibly self-destructive. As we begin our worship series on the Ten Commandments, by the Spirit teach us to say, “Lord, have mercy, for our incessant idolatry.” Our worship follows this pattern. Midweek 1 ...............................For Our Incessant Idolatry Midweek 2 ...............................For Demonstrating Irreverence and Despising Your Rest Midweek 3 ...............................For Treating Others Like Trash, Not Treasure Midweek 4 ...............................For Failing to Live With Integrity Midweek 5 ...............................For Abusing Your Commandments Pastor Adam Mueller preaches on Exodus 20:3-4: The 1st Commandment View or download this week's service folder from our website under "sermons" https://redeemertucson.com/sermons