His Mercy is More Matt Boswell and Matt Papa, 2016.

Verse 1

What love could remember no wrongs we have done.
Omniscient, all knowing, He counts not their sum.
Thrown into a sea without bottom or shore,
Our sins they are many, His mercy is more.

Observe: It’s convenient to think no one is watching when we sin, but God sees and knows all. Proverbs 15:3 says the eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. His “eyes in every place” means God’s presence is unrestricted in time and space. The words “keeping watch on evil and good” means his moral assessment of every person is likewise unrestricted. God sees all and morally judges all.

Verse 1 asks us to reflect on the kind of love it must be when the God who sees, knows, and judges every wrong refuses to ‘remember’ our wrongs. God is unchanging, so he doesn’t forget, but his mercy is so great that he forgives sins so many that the metaphor of a bottomless, infinite sea is required to cover them. Stack up all the sins of all time by all people who ever lived, and God’s mercy is more!

Verse 2

What patience would wait as we constantly roam.
What Father, so tender, is calling us home.
He welcomes the weakest, the vilest, the poor,
Our sins they are many, His mercy is more.

The Hebrew word “chesed,” used of God’s love 249 times in the Old Testament, means unending loyalty. Loyalty is patient and gentle with weakness, and so it is for us with God. Mathew quotes the prophet Isaiah on Jesus when he writes, a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory. (Matthew 12:20, ESV). God the Father is patient and tender because God the Son knows our weakness. As our high priest, Jesus can sympathize with our weaknesses, (because) in every respect (he) has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15, ESV). We are welcomed in our weakness because God’s mercy rests on the faithfulness of his Son on our behalf.

Verse 3

What riches of kindness he lavished on us.
His blood was the payment, His life was the cost.
We stood ‘neath a debt we could never afford.
Our sins they are many, His mercy is more.

Our sins are forgiven and forgotten, but we are not declared ‘sin neutral,’ but forever righteous. The infinite Son took the infinite wrath of the infinite God who was infinitely offended by even our smallest finite sin. As finite creatures, we truly “stood neath a debt we could never afford, but the infinite worth of the sinless, infinite life of Jesus has paid our debt. Good news like this makes you want to sing!

Chorus

Praise the Lord, His mercy is more.

Stronger than darkness, new every morn
Our sins they are many, His mercy is more.

Blessings for your week ahead, Pastor Don.