Mercy for Your Family | P. Julian & Lorena Gamba

In this message, we learned that one of the hardest places to show mercy is often in our own home.

Mercy is not just a feeling, it is love in action. God calls us to reflect that love in our families through patience, kindness, and forgiveness.

Through 1 Corinthians 13, we learned that real love is not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, and chooses grace even in moments of conflict and frustration.

In this message we learned:

✨ Mercy is love in action.
 ✨ Real love is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs.
 ✨ We are called to overlook irritations and offenses.
 ✨ There is a righteous anger and an unrighteous anger.
 ✨ Hurt people often hurt other people.
 ✨ Mercy responds with patience and kindness.
 ✨ Kindness is an act of worship.

👉 God does not call us to give people what they deserve, but to reflect the mercy He has shown us.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to Mission Orlando's podcast. We hope that through this word you will get closer to Jesus. Be sure to subscribe so we can get you new messages every week. Have a blessed day.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

The miracle of mercy for our family. Mercy for our family. But before we go ahead with the message, let us do the declaration we do as a church. So if you don't know it, it's on the it's not on the screens today. It's a little different setup today. But Jesus is first in my life, his word is my guide, and I am what he says I am. His mission and purpose will be fulfilled in me. Amen and amen. Alright. You're gonna turn to the person next to you. You're gonna give them your best smile. Like smile. Smile, smile, smile, practice your smile. It's something I need to practice more. Right? Especially if you have kids, you need to practice your smile. It's such a challenge. So I don't know if this will make sense for for you guys, but in Spanish it's pretty funny. A little girl comes running to her mom and she asks, Mommy, who did I get my intelligence from? You or dad? And the mom answered, from your dad. The girl said, Why? She said, the mom said, Because I still have mine. Little Mother's Day humor there. So happy Mother's Day as well. And so I was saying, um, today we're gonna talk about mercy for your family. And I was talking to you guys about this last week. When someone who's a guest in your house does something that is like an accident. You're like, oh no, no worries, we'll clean it up later. But if it's someone within your family, it's different. You it hits different. So I I want to invite you to go to First Corinthians chapter 13, verse 4. And it says, love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. And this is the godly definition of love. So there are many definitions, and today in the world people say, Well, love is love. Have you you heard that before, right? But in here, we hear when we receive, we learn the clear definition of love according to God's word. So love is patient, is kind, love does not envy, is not but is not does not boast, and it is not proud. And sometimes it is really hard to overcome the flesh inside you to become these type of people. But before we start, I I brought you guys something special. It's the mercy quiz or test. How merciful and loving are you with your family? Are you ready? Number one, I'm gonna give you two options, A or B, but the number one number one question is when my spouse or my sibling or another family member gets some detail wrong while telling a story. Do I A Interrupt them and correct them publicly? A B say nothing and let it go, knowing I've done the same. B A people, B people in the middle. When I was a kid, this was my specialty. My mom will be telling stories about, you know, things that happened, and I'll go like, oh no, mom, it didn't happen like that. And uh, well, I got the look. See you at home. As soon as we got home, my mom will sit me down and say, you know, you shouldn't correct other people, especially your family members, and I'll get to little motivations. Okay, so you know, sometimes this happens, especially between siblings or a husband and wife. The wife or the husband is telling a story, and you know, you can just, especially when one of us is more outgoing. I don't know, if if you have an outgoing husband who's a positive person, you see things bigger, better, you you portray the picture like, oh, we were driving, we were going so fast, and the wife is like, nah, we weren't going fast. So being merciful is just to be quiet and then let the person know. So, number two, question number two of the quiz. When my spouse or my siblings or another family member keeps making the same mistake over and over and over, do I a become irritated and angry at them, or b graciously forgive them and pray for them? I know all of you said B. By faith. Okay. Number three, when my spouse or my sibling, that's your brother or sister or another family member, is getting more attention than I think they deserve. Do I A feel resentful and feel the need to bring them down a notch, brothers, sisters, or you know, or B celebrate with them, which is the merciful thing to do. Good? B okay. Yes, amen. B thank you. I have a wife whose you pass a test. 4. When my spouse or siblings or another family member says or does something that I don't understand, I see what they did, but I don't know what they did, do I? A assume they have their best motivation for doing it. B question their motivation and think the worst. A or B? A. Usually we go for the B. Like the the normal tendency is to go for the B and say if someone does something, oh that's because she doesn't want to see me happy. She's making it me, she's making me feel miserable because she doesn't like me. Or when when it's between siblings, oh I'm not the favorite. He's the favorite, and that's why he gets all the good things, the perks. So mercy, as we said last week, is love in action. Say mercy is love in action. So there are two ways to show love to our family, and we're gonna discuss those those two two ways. Number number one, number one way to show mercy to our family is to overlook irritations and offenses. How many of you can say amen? Today I'm ready. I'm not gonna ask for you to clap or to like be joyful. I know this is more of a lesson, and also it's it's a deep dive into our hearts. So overlook irritation and offenses. Let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 5. It keeps talking about love and it says, it does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. So it is not easily angered, and it doesn't keep keep score. You know, we're so good at keeping score. Like if you do something in your house, you want to make sure people notice, you want to make sure your kids notice. So you say, you know, I when I was a kid, I said I will never do that. Now that I'm a father, I find myself doing the things I said I'll never do. So picking up things in the house and saying, I'm the only one cleaning the house. Did it happen to you when you were when I was growing up? That was one of the things that my mom used to say, like, no one helps me. One day I'll leave and you will see what you're gonna do on your own. And you don't I'm not gonna be there to pick up your mess. Now I'm like, one day, what am I doing? Like, you end up, you know, falling that cycle. So it's easy to keep uh that account, keep that record of the things that other people have done, especially in your family, within your your family, in your relationship, husband and wife, it's so easy to keep score, to like, oh, she did this, and maybe did something that was a little like you know, annoying to you, and you accumulate those things until one day they blow up, and you know, worst case scenario. So we need to remember that God's love is inside our hearts, is not human love. So human love keeps core, but God's love overcomes, overpasses the offense, overlooks the irritation. So God sees people getting hurt on earth, he gets angry about it. But the only reason he does that is because we have anger because we've we were made in God's image. There is a good kind of anger, there is a good type of anger. Sometimes you know things just bother you. Uh, for example, when they're for me, when when people are drinking soup, you might we might agree on this, and then they go, oh my gosh, that little sound just goes through my heart, my brain, and I just want to like scream, like it's it's so annoying. But when we allow anger to take control of our emotions and our reaction, then the enemy is winning the battle. So we decide each day who wins the battle, either the Holy Spirit within us or the enemy. Every day we have a decision to take. Every day is a day where you're gonna receive offenses, especially from you know, people inside your family. Every day you're gonna have moments of tension, but every day you gotta make a decision. Am I gonna allow this to take control of my life or am I gonna allow the Holy Spirit to control me and to take care of the ones who are next to me? Amen. So turn to the person next to you and say, I'm gonna practice mercy. So, two types of people when it comes to getting angry. There are two types of people. Number one is like a skunk, so they blow up, and number two is like a turtle, they stay silent, and you know, sometimes some people stay silent long enough until they cannot control it anymore. And some others, if something happens, they start complaining and saying it and they want to talk about it. Find out what type of person you are and allow the Holy Spirit to take control of your mind, of your words, especially, and take care of your reaction. Amen. So when I get angry, I ask myself three questions. Number one, why am I angry? You need to know why you're getting angry sometimes, and this happens to me because I'm I'm more like my dad. My dad was very patient. So, with my kids, for example, I I'm patient with them until a certain point. It gets to that point, and it's like they flip a switch and I explode. How many of you are like like me? Thank you, Jesus. I'm not crazy. So I'm like, okay, it's okay, get one more, or you can do this, and I let them, and then one more thing, like, okay, one more. And then when I tell them, let's go, and they don't do it, I get like super mad. And then I've learned to just express and and learn why is it that I'm angry. Number two, what do I really want out of this? What do I really want out of this? So let's say a conflict happened. You you need to know what the outcome, according to God's word, what outcome do you want out of the situation? Maybe it's something that you need to sit down and talk about with your kids or with your wife, something that is like bothering you. You can just have a conversation and sit down. Don't wait until you explode. Just talk about it in the right moment. And but before that, just make sure that you you want you you have the expectation. And number three is how can I get it? And that's when the conversation happens. That's when you you sit down with your family and say, Hey, if we keep doing this, there I'm gonna be frustrated, you're gonna be frustrated. So next time, please let me know. I always, you know, my I have a weakness, is that I I love collecting things. Or other people call it like uh, you know, when when they do closet cleaning, you know, you look I'm like, oh, that sherry is so special. I wore it in my graduation from high school 25 years ago. I don't want to let it go. My wife is practical, so she's just throws it away. No problem, no attachment to things at all. And and you know, that tension is within our house. So one day she goes and throws away a lot of things that I I was attached to. They were mostly trash, but emotionally important. Our emotions are important, our feelings, and I I was so mad. I was like, why? And she's like, I'm helping you. She was doing a good thing, she had a good intention, it was actually something to help me, but I was frustrated. So we now we're okay, good agreement now, regularly we clean, I clean, and and the day I do it, she's the happiest woman in the world. Yes, I did it this week, so actually I deserve the applause. Come on, just kidding. All right, so ask yourself if there is something that is bothering you, try to find out the reason why and find what the outcome is and then talk about it. So hurt people, hurt people. I I'm pretty sure you've heard that before. Hurt people, hurt people, and anytime somebody's hurting you is because they're hurting. So marriage, family, it's all about healing that person's heart. That's your mission. Especially today, I want to talk for I want to talk to the men. Men, your mission is to heal your family's heart. Women, your mission is to heal your husband, your kid's heart through God's love. That that that's the greatest blessing we have as a family. It's to be able to heal each other's hearts from past hurts. We all have hurts, wounds from the past, but when we express, when we give God's love, that heals our heart. When you're sick and your wife or your kids take care of you, isn't that wonderful? That heals your heart. That brings so much comfort. You probably feel bad, you don't feel the same, but you have that peace. So be patient with your family. As 1 Corinthians said, love is patient, love is kind. And today I want to invite Ashley, who's gonna be sharing a great testimony today for Mother's Day. Let's welcome Ashley.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

Hello everyone. Happy Mother's Day. Um, I wrote down a testimony that goes along with this um sermon that Pastor Julian is teaching about family and about kindness. I wrote it down because I really wanted to convey um this in the correct way, the best way possible. So there's something that God taught me through foster care. As you all know, um, I have been a mother of 14 children, and I never realized um the extent of what I needed to apply until I had to do it myself, and that is overlooking offenses so that I can be an effective parent. I had the privilege of fostering these 14 children of all different ages. Fostering teenage boys was a different level of maturity that I had to unlock. They weren't really like little kids who depended on me to teach them the world. These were young men who had lived through past pain, rejection, abandonment, instability, and survival that most adults will never have to endure. Some of them had raised themselves, some had to learn to trust adults, some had to learn that people leave them, and some put up barriers in their heart to protect themselves from being hurt again. But something about these barriers is that they don't just stop hurt from coming in, but they stop love from coming in as well. So although as a parent, I did my best with great intention, these barriers distorted the love that I tried to give, and it showed up greatly in their behaviors. All of the anger that had built up in their hearts because of their past hurts were blunt disrespect towards me. Sometimes I felt that no matter how love, how much love I would show, they would shut down and push away. They would test boundaries with the expectation that I would throw them away and throw them out of my house just like other foster parents had done. I was the punching bag because for them, I was the reflection of the authority figures that once hurt them. I remember one specific experience when my son was triggered emotionally and had an outburst that we would later find out that could potentially put at risk my adoption process to the other younger children. The process that I had given up so much for. His behavior was putting our entire family's future at jeopardy. There were days I could easily had responded with disrespect in place of that hurt, offense, and frustration. And if I could be honest, there were days that I absolutely responded that way. But God began teaching me that if I was going to be able to love well, I needed to learn how to start over every day and choose not to hold yesterday against them. Like the Bible says. Says, God's mercies are renewed every morning. Fostering taught me to be patient, compassionate, and the power of grace. It was a grace that said, I will not let past offenses stop me from loving you today. I had to overlook offenses and start to be mature myself as a parent first. And so I had to stop taking everything personally. I also learned to respond positively and not just react negatively to that disrespect. I would analyze through situations and strategize how I would do better at my responses the next time a similar behavior came about. This process changed me spiritually as well because I had to remember that before I am called anywhere else, I am called as a pastor over my own home. I am called, if I could manage to regulate myself and love my kids through the pain at home, I could love and pastor the roughest of communities that God would later call me to. Sometimes love looks like correction. Sometimes love is about consistency. And sometimes love looks like staying when someone expects you to leave. Loving even when it was hard was healing for me too. When I felt that I had no more love to give, I was able to draw near to God and ask him to pour his love into my heart as well. And I realized I was no longer loving through my own strength, but his.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

Do good to those who need it. So there are a lot of people in your family who don't deserve kindness. Can you say amen? Yeah, I know we we all have those. You just say like that guy or that girl is really annoying, but I bless you. No, we all have those kind of people that they don't deserve your kindness. You know, when I was preparing this message, actually the Lord brought to my mind some people, right? And the Lord said, write a text message to them. I did not want to do it at all, but you're obedient to the Lord. Hallelujah. And you extend kindness. So this is called mercy. You're like, but they don't deserve it, they did that to me. Like, why? Why do I have to, you know, just do what Jesus did because you are carrying the presence of the Holy Spirit in you. So kindness is an act of worship. So if you want to worship the Lord and if you want to follow His will, be kind because it is a kind of worship. My my husband, who's been ill for some time now, and he he was on a lot of pain and medicine this last week, and the Lord spoke to me. He's like, Ask your husband and take over his shifts to take care of the kids. Hallelujah. So I I told him, you know, if you want, I can take care of the kids, and you know, I can take them to school, pick them up, and be there with he's like, okay. I'm like, all right. So, but I I practiced, I was actually intentional in practicing kindness, and um, so I want to talk. I mean, I want to invite my friend Genesis, right, as well. Can we welcome her? She's an amazing mother as well, and she's also gonna come and and share a little bit of her testimony about showing kindness when it's not deserved.

SPEAKER_03 26:37

Thank you. Oh my god, this makes me so nervous. And happy Mother's Day to everybody. Um, so um, I also wrote it, um, so I'm gonna read it. Um, today I want to share a testimony that has been one of the hardest and most painful experiences of my life, but also one of the experiences that God has used the most to change my heart. Um, for a long time, I owned a construction cleaning company. I worked incredibly hard for it, and there were days where I was exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally, but I kept pushing because I truly believed in what I was building. The company was more than just work to me. It represented my sacrifices, my dreams, my time, and everything I poured into it. Um, one of the people closest to me during that time was my uncle. Um, he worked beside me and became my trusted and right-hand person. I trusted him completely and emphatically, not only because we worked together, but because he was my family. I believed we were building something together, and I never imagined that one day I will feel pushed out of something I helped create. Little by little, things started changing, decisions were being made without me, relationships with clients slowly shifted. Um, situations started happening that made me feel I no longer belonged in the business I worked so hard to build until one day I realized I had lost my place completely. And honestly, the hardest part was not losing the business itself. It hardened, the hardest part was the betrayal. It was the pain of realizing that someone I loved, trusted, and helped could hurt me so deeply. I remember crying and questioning God so many times. I felt anger, I felt disappointed, I felt broken emotionally. I kept asking God, why would you allow this to happen to me after everything I had sacrificed? There were moments where I felt empty and lost because I had attached so much of my identity to my work and the people around me. But something happened when God allows us to work through pain. Sometimes he removes things and people from our lives because he's trying to show us that our identity cannot depend on people, money, success, or positions. Our identity has to be rooted in him. During that season, God started working on my heart in ways I never expected. He started teaching me about forgiveness. I didn't know I could do that. Um, that was not easy for me. Sometimes people think forgiveness means pretending nothing happened or acting like the pain was not real. But I learned that forgiveness is not saying the situation was okay, forgiveness is choosing to let God heal your heart instead of allowing bitterness to destroy you from the inside. There were days where I wanted to stay angry, there were days where I replayed everything in my mind over and over again. But every every time I prayed, I felt God reminding me of Genesis 50:20. You intended to harm me, but God intended for it to be good. That verse changed the way I saw my pain. What others meant to break me, God was using to strengthen me, mature me, and bring me closer to Him. I am still healing in many ways, but today I can say that God never abandoned me. Amen. Even in my lowest moments, he stayed close to me, he gave me strength when I felt weak, peace when my mind was overwhelmed, and hope when I felt like everything was falling apart. Looking back now, I realized that although I lost something important to me, God was teaching me lessons that I could have never learned any other way. He taught me that people may fail me, but he never will. He taught me that my value does not come from a business or from the approval of others. And he taught me that healing begins when surrender, we surrender our pain to him. Today I stand here not as someone who is who has everything figured out, but as someone who is learning to trust God even through heartbreak and disappointment. I choose forgiveness not because it is easy, but because I no longer want pain in my and resentment to control my heart. And if anyone is listening today, is carrying pain, betrayal, disappointment, or hurt from someone close to them, I want you to know that God sees us. God understands our pain and is able to heal even the deepest ones.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Alright, so right there we're just put your hand over your heart and say thank you, Lord, because today we choose to, Father, show mercy, which is mercy over judgment to our family members, to those who have probably betrayed us, abused us verbally or physically, Lord. I just right there in your heart say, Lord, I choose to forgive, I choose to respond with good. I'm not gonna respond with evil, Lord, but I choose kindness and show me how I can change my attitude, my words, the way I speak to my spouse, to my kids, to my parents, to my siblings. Lord, show me why am I angry? Why am I responding this way? Father, and help me to be Christ at home, Jesus. I pray today. And if this is perhaps your first time here, or if you've come a couple times and have never accepted Christ in your heart, I want to extend that invitation as well. So if you can repeat after me this prayer and say, Lord Jesus, and just say aloud, say, Lord Jesus, I accept you as my Lord and Savior. Write my name in the book of life. Thank you for giving me a new opportunity. I want to get to know you as a friend. In your name I pray. Amen.

unknown 32:56

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

Thanks so much for tuning in.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

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