It turns out that one of the easiest things about starting a new church was the hardest thing about starting a blog. Being as technically and technologically challenged as I am, I expected there to be a lot of hard things. But I didn’t anticipate that the hardest thing of all (at least so far) would be just picking a name.
Picking a name for the church was not hard at all.
We are a Reformed Baptist church. Although many churches who hold our convictions choose not to include “Reformed Baptist” in their name, we believed we should do so. It would seem that that people who are being saved and added to the church by God do not care about the denominational label of the church where they are brought to Christ – and on the other hand, that Christians who are looking for a church where Biblical truth is preached would like to have as much clarity as possible.
Our “first name” was not too hard either. We wanted something that was distinctive, that would not get us confused with any of the many other Baptist churches in Fresno, and also that was not too common among other Reformed Baptist churches in California.
“Mercy” is a central concept in both the Old and New Testaments. It is used in the King James Version, along with the word “lovingkindness”, to translate the awesome Hebrew word hesed – translated “steadfast love” in the English Standard Version. It is more than letting the guilty off, and more than help for the pitiful, although those ideas are not excluded. Although some have argued that hesed only has to do with loyalty to a covenant, in the Bible it refers to God’s tender-heartedness toward His people, as well His salvation in fulfillment of His promises. It is related to God’s grace, His pity, His faithfulness, and His sovereignty. It is also something God requires of us: that we do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. (Micah 6:8)
The Greek word for mercy is eleos, which involves tenderness and compassion toward the hurting. Any doubts about the meaning of hesed are dispelled by the Holy Spirit’s choice of this word to translate Old Testament passages like Hosea 6:6 when they are quoted by Jesus. In Matthew 9:13, criticized by the legalistic Pharisees for spending time with religious outcasts, Jesus responds by saying, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
The Gospel, then, is that Jesus came to show us mercy. It is a mercy that is, by definition, undeserved. God says to Moses in the Old Testament, and it is repeated by Paul in the New (Exodus 33:19; Romans 9:15), that He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy.
There is no better News for us sinners than this. The sovereign, undeserved, unconditional mercy of God on those He has chosen for eternal life can be seen as “unfair” only by those who understand neither how much mercy we need nor how much it cost God to give it.
So Mercy Reformed Baptist Church it is. It is a long name for a little group of Christians. But it is our message, and the story of what God has done for us. It also describes the ministry that we hope to have, by Christ’s mercy at work in and through us.
Somehow it was much harder to come up with a name for this thing. As is often the case, the obvious eluded me.
As Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 4:1, we serve as those who “have been mercied” (ἠλεήθημεν). The mercy we are called extend is no less than the mercy we have received. It is authentic, compassionate, and is not offered on the basis of what is deserved. But it is not mere acceptance, simple pity, or shallow tolerance – the things that pass for mercy in this world. It does not overlook sin but reconciles the sinner to God. It does not make excuses or offer an easy road, but it offers, instead, rescue and forgiveness by God. It does not come cheap but it does come paid for, at an awful cost to the One who mercied us.
It is true mercy.
