“Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die.”
Genesis 19:19 (NIV)
This Sunday in our 2nd service we will be introducing the key verse for 2019 at Parkdale. This verse will be displayed on the walls of our worship centre for the year, and is found in Matthew 9:13 where Jesus tells the Pharisees “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ Our goal this year at Parkdale is to encourage one another to obey our Lord by going and learning what this means, for this command to go and learn is clearly connected to taking the gospel to sinners. Now if we are to go and learn we should start this journey of discovery by looking at Old Testament text our Lord is quoting, and we find out that in Hosea 6:6, the English word mercy comes from the Hebrew word hesed. This is an important Hebrew word in the Old Testament, that appears some 224 times, and is only translated mercy 6 times but translated love 129 times. This word is used to describe the actions of God towards those with whom He is in a covenant relationship with. We see this clearly defined thru the context in Exodus 34:6 as God describes Himself as abounding in love (hesed) and faithfulness, maintaining love (hesed) to thousands. Hesed describes the actions of God towards those He is in a covenant relationship with. We see this word in action for the first time in the Old Testament, in the account of Lot’s deliverance from Sodom, as Lot speaks of the great kindness (hesed) shown to him through his rescue from Sodom. It is clear from the story of Lot’s deliverance that the Lord acted to deliver Lot because of the Lord’s covenantal relationship with Lot through his uncle Abram. But that is just the start of learning, for Hosea 6:6 tells us that God desires mercy (hesed) from us, which means that our actions towards God should reflect mercy- and that is certainly a mystery - how can it be that I should act towards God with mercy? We need to learn this- not in a head knowledge, book type learning, but in an experiential, seeking to please God type of learning. How can I live in such a way that my daily actions are described as mercy (hesed)? May God our Teacher teach us this lesson in 2019!
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