God wants us to be sure about this, so he says, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” – mercy that includes the guilty, mercy that defends the innocent. What flows out of God’s deepest heart is love. The Bible doesn’t say, “God is wrath.” We have to provoke him to wrath. But wrath isn’t the deepest heart of God. The wrath of God is real, and every one of us should tremble and run to Jesus for safety. We see the wrath of God most clearly when we look at the cross and when we look at hell. The Bible says, “God is love” (1 John 4:7). When the Pharisees criticized him for befriending sinners, he explained himself with the very words of God: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” When the Pharisees criticized him for allowing his disciples to harvest grain on the Sabbath, he explained himself the same way: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” So here is the deepest heart of Christ in every situation, with guilty people and with innocent people: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” God sweeps it all away with this one sweeping statement: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” That is his deepest heart toward us all. What does God have to say to weak people who aren’t even very good at repentance? “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” That is, “I desire to show mercy to you, I do not desire to demand a sacrifice of atonement from you.” God does not desire to extract from us sacrifices for our sins and promises that we’ll do better next time and all the other things we might do to make up for our weakness. And so the Lord says to his people in Hosea chapter 6, “Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away.” Every now and then they turned back to the Lord, they said the right things, they did the right things, but it didn’t last. They still kept up the rituals and the sacrifices and outward things of religion. What was the context there in Hosea? The nation of Israel had drifted far from God. In fact, the word “mercy” is in the emphatic position: “Mercy I desire.” And the verb can be translated more strongly: “Mercy I delight in.” That is a strong statement, and it meant a lot to Jesus. God said through the prophet Hosea, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6). So do you see these two opposite situations – guilty people in chapter 9, innocent people in chapter 12? But Jesus applies the same principle to both: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Why? Because to Jesus, that principle always applies. He calls them guiltless, because they are, and he’s their defender. In chapter 12 we see Jesus sticking up for innocent people who are being criticized. He calls them sick, because they are, but he’s their doctor. What do we see happening here in Matthew 9 and Matthew 12? In both passages Jesus says the same thing: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” In chapter 9 we see Jesus including guilty people as his friends.

Biblical definition of sacrifice