ANNOUNCER: Is it a legitimate prayer to pray for mercy, Lord have mercy, or God have mercy? This happens to be a responsive prayer in some churches, but since Christ’s act of redemption brought about propitiation by the Father, is it possible that to beg for mercy is somewhat an act of unbelief? Let’s discuss this. Thank you for joining us today, friend, on Grace in Focus, a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is faithalone.org. We also have a YouTube channel, YouTube, Grace Evangelical Society, where we do short videos each week. How about would you subscribe to that and like those videos? We would love to have you watch those, and tell your friends about them too. YouTube, Grace Evangelical Society, and our website again, faithalone.org. 

Now with today’s question and answer discussion here are Bob Wilkin and Colin Jackson. 

COLIN: Yes, this question is from Chet. He relates to an experience where he was in a church, and they had a responsive prayer where they would basically say, God have mercy, Lord have mercy, and I guess this was based on the sinner’s prayer in Luke 18:13. We just had a radio segment about the sinner’s prayer, and I guess that’s where the idea came from, but his point is that, in light of 1 John, chapter 2, verse 2, Christ’s death made the Father propitious toward us, and that to beg for mercy and favor of Him is maybe an act of unbelief. 

BOB: And by the way, 1 John 2:2 is one of my favorite ballet verses. 

COLIN: Why is that? 

BOB: Because it’s a “tutu.” 

COLIN: Oh my goodness. 

BOB: 1 John 2:2, He’s the propitiation for our sins and propitiation basically means something like satisfaction. So He satisfies our sins and not ours only, but also the whole world, in other words, not just born again people, but even the people who aren’t born again, it’s a great unlimited atonement verse. So what does it mean when people pray, Lord have mercy, or Lord have mercy on me? How about reading Luke 18:13 for us? 

COLIN: Sure, this is Luke 18:13. It says, “And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breasts saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner.” 

BOB: Okay, so the Lord Jesus is envisioning two people, one’s a Pharisee and one’s a publican or a tax collector. And the Pharisee looks up to heaven and thanks God that he’s not like this tax collector and not like all of the sinners in Israel, but that he’s a righteous man. And then the tax collector, he looks to the ground and he says, Lord be merciful to me a sinner, as he beats his chest. Verse 14 says, what? 

COLIN: “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” 

BOB: Yeah, so I used to think that what the Lord was saying is that the publican was born again that day, he was justified before God, forensically justified. I don’t think there’s an example anywhere in all four gospels of Jesus using the verb dikaioo or the English word “justify” in the sense Paul uses it, for example, of justification by faith alone. He’s talking about vindication here. And all the uses that Jesus had, like he said, wisdom is justified by your children, meaning wisdom is vindicated by the actions that flow from wisdom. In the same way here, he’s saying, of the two men, the one man whose attitude was vindicated was the one who humbled himself, not the one who exalted himself. 

I remember I grew up on my dad’s side in the United Methodist Church, on my mom’s side in a Serbian Orthodox Church. And we’d go to the Serbian Orthodox Church, maybe 10 times a year, something like that. And I remember the choirs would sing, they had this choir in the back, and they were in the back and above, they were up in the balcony. And they’d sing, “Gospodi pomiluj, Gospodi pomiluj.” [Editor’s note: “Lord, have mercy, Lord have mercy,” known as the Kyrie eleison.]

I had no idea what it meant. I thought it was some guy named Louis and they were singing something to him. No, actually, I learned later, that wasn’t even Serbian. That was old Slavonic. In fact, I have here a book called “St. John Chrysostom’s Divine Liturgy in the Serbian Orthodox Church.” I’m turning to a particular page, and one of the liturgies on the English side says, choir: “Lord, have mercy,” then the old Slavonic side says, choir: “Gospodi pomiluj.” Well, you’ve got to read Cyrillic, which I’m not very good with Cyrillic, but anyway, you can see that there. 

The principle for many people, when we’re praying, God be merciful, is they’re thinking this is salvific. This is how I’m going to be born again. In fact, didn’t you spend a lot of time in the Roman Catholic Church? 

COLIN: Yes, and we were constantly beseeching God for mercy for our sins and having the saints pray for us. There was very much a fear of impending judgment for our sins. 

BOB: So you had a lot of the same things that you’d get in the Orthodox Church, you would also get in the Catholic Church. 

COLIN: Yeah, a lot of responsive prayers like Chet mentioned here. 

BOB: I would agree with Chet. I wouldn’t want to pray a prayer like this unless I was thinking, God be merciful to me a sinner in the sense that I want God to give me mercy, not to be born again. I want him to give me mercy day by day because that’s what I need, right? 

So there’s nothing wrong with praying God be merciful to me, a sinner. Obviously Jesus exalts it, right? He says, this is a good attitude to have. You don’t have to be a tax collector or a harlot to pray God be merciful to me. But if we’re praying that for the new birth, then I hope what we mean is, “Lord, I don’t know what I need to do to be born again, but please show me.” Because if we’re thinking just by saying the words God be merciful to me, somehow this is going to get me into the kingdom or get me to heaven when I die, then we’re sadly misguided because there’s no verse like that in the Bible. 

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BOB: I don’t think that the Lord’s trying to tell us that the publican in this story was born again. All we’re saying is he had the attitude that was pleasing to God. Unbelievers can have attitudes that are pleasing to God. Look at Cornelius in Acts chapter 10. His prayers and alms ascended to God, and yet he wasn’t born again until Peter preached to him. So there’s nothing wrong with us beseeching God to be merciful to us. In fact, I sure hope I get a lot of mercy in this life and a lot of mercy at the Judgment Seat of Christ, right? 

COLIN: Yeah. So is it possible for a believer maybe to have done something that they’re ashamed of or they’re worried about discipline from the Lord? Is it appropriate to ask for mercy? 

BOB: Yes. First off, yeah, if you’ve done something and you are concerned about the consequences of what you’ve done, it’s absolutely appropriate to ask God to be merciful to you, recognizing that what you’ve done is wrong, but you’re asking for mercy. It’s just like if you go before the court and let’s say that you were guilty of driving 20 miles an hour over the speed limit, you might ask the judge for mercy. If you could have any mercy on me, I haven’t had a speeding ticket ever in my life. I would really appreciate it if you could show me any mercy and the judge might go well since it’s your first offense. And since you’re acknowledging it, I’ll mark it down to 15 miles over the speed limit or 10 miles over the speed limit or something and he might show you some mercy or he might not, but nothing wrong with asking for mercy and the same thing with God. That mercy would be mercy now, right? We want his mercy now, but also we would want that mercy when we appear before Christ and we’re evaluated at the Judgment Seat of Christ. Was that both parts of your question? 

COLIN: The second part is, so let’s say a Christian is walking in the light and confessing sin, is he in need of mercy? 

BOB: Oh yeah, good question. So walking in the light is 1 John 1:7, “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, then the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.” And this is following the verses where “God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.” So if we’re in fellowship with God, we have to be walking in the light. If we’re walking in the darkness, then we’re lying if we say that we’re in fellowship with God. 

So if I’m walking in the light of God’s Word, that means I’m a regular partaker of God’s Word, I’m going to church, a solid Bible teaching church, I’m hearing it taught and I’m taking it in, I’m listening carefully, I’m meditating on it, I’m thinking about it. And if it’s something that strikes me, I’m going to think about it for weeks or months as I’m grappling with this passage or whatever. And so I’m walking in the light of God’s revelation and God reveals sin and when He does, I confess it. Then I’m forgiven and I’m cleansed. Of course, 1 John 1:7 says I’m cleansed as long as I’m walking in the light and then 1 John 1:9 says that as I confess my sins, He’s faithful and just to forgive me and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness. 

But do I still need mercy? Absolutely. Because the fact that God forgives me doesn’t mean the consequences go away. To give you an example, if you read 2 Samuel, the first 10 chapters, David is on the incline. Everything is going upward and better and better in his rule as king. Then he commits adultery with Bathsheba and when he can’t cover it up, he has Uriah killed. In chapter 11, he’s confronted by Nathan the prophet. He says, God has forgiven you. You’re not going to die. Now, he should have died for both the adultery and for the murder. But God suspends the death penalty. 

But if you read the last 12 chapters of 2 Samuel, chapters 12 through 24, you find all the way through there, everything is on decline. David experiences all kinds of calamities. At one point, Absalom rebels against him and David has to flee. Then Absalom dies and David is saying Absalom, Absalom, how I wish I’d died, not you. The whole thing is showing that even though God gave him great mercy, yet there were still consequences. 

So praying for mercy is something that makes sense because we don’t want God to give us what we deserve. We want Him to give us mercy. As long as we’re walking in the light and confessing our sins, then yes, God’s giving us a lot of mercy, whether we ask for it or not. But asking for it is obviously endorsed by the Lord Himself in Luke 18:9-14. 

COLIN: We hope for God’s mercy and His discipline for us, but in His discipline for us, He’ll never take away everlasting life. 

BOB: That’s right. 

COLIN: We don’t have to worry about him being unmerciful in the sense that he’ll take away salvation. He’ll never do that. 

BOB: No, because then He would be denying Himself and He would be unfaithful to His promise and He can’t do that. 

Thank you, Chet, and thank you all and remember, keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode: Luke 20:35, the resurrection and marriage. Please join us, and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.