Hey friend, welcome back here to the semi seminary.
And here we are another week, another episode
of our Bible study series that we like to call
the Bible for grownups. We continue now in our
look at a portion of what we find as the sermon
on the Mount in chapter five of the gospel can,
according to Matthew. And something we call the
Beatitudes, these eight things which Jesus tries
to explain what it means to be blessed. And everything
that Jesus talks about to the people that would
have heard it then and hear it now, everything
seems to be turned upside down. And this is another
one. When we look at mercy and blessed are the
merciful. Hey friend, I'll see you on the other
side. Hey, and with that, if you guys don't mind,
I'm gonna go ahead and get started. We are again
in our Bible, same place we've been looking for
some weeks now. We're in Matthew chapter five.
Tonight we're looking at the Beatitudes. We're
looking at beginning with verse seven, specifically
in this instance, the fifth Beatitude of Jesus.
But again, like we're gonna do each and every
time, I'm just gonna reread the whole of the
Beatitudes. small portion of scripture, just
so we can continue to absorb them in our lives.
Jesus says, verse one, and seeing the multitudes,
he went up into a mountain and there he sat down.
His disciples came unto him. He opened up his
mouth and he taught them saying, blessed of the
poor in spirit. for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they
should be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for
they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those
which hunger and thirst after righteousness,
for they should be filled. This is ours tonight.
Blessed are the merciful, for they should obtain
mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they
shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for
they shall be called the children of God. Blessed
are those who persecute you for righteousness
sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed
are you when men shall revile you and persecute
you shall say all manner of evil against you
falsely for my sake Jesus concludes saying rejoice
and be exceedingly glad For great is your reward
in heaven so persecuted the support so persecuted
They the prophets which were before you this
week ends the reading of the word this evening
be attitudes We're gonna study again to be attitude
rather we're gonna study tonight is blessed are
the merciful for they shall obtain mercy This
be attitude whether we realize it or not at first
glance actually will we and I hope to illustrate
tonight will be the remedy for the or the cure
for Bitterness in our lives whether in our families
or in our friendships in our own hearts in our
own minds if you like tonight Right if you have
lost relationships Because the relationship was
broken through bitterness If you have that problem,
this beatitude can be a message of liberation
for you. Let's think for a moment, recap, and
I haven't actually done this, but it's a good
time for us to do this. Let's recap the background
of the beatitudes. This sermon on the mount we
find in chapter five. If I actually return a
little bit to our scripture, go a little bit
back to Matthew chapter three, let me show you
the context, the backdrop of what Jesus is actually
preaching against. in the Beatitudes. Matthew
chapter three and verse seven, go reading to
10. But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees
coming for baptism, he said to them, you brood
of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath
to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do
not presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham
as our ancestor, for I tell you. God is able
from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.
Even now the axe is lying at the root of the
trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear
good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Now, Jesus was speaking to the religious leaders
here. But not all of them. We get that mixed
up sometimes. We lump the Pharisees and the Sadducees
into one bucket, or two buckets, all in the same
group. In fact, many of the people from these
groups came actually to follow Jesus over time.
But here, to those whom have missed the mark,
he's speaking. The people who have missed the
mark is people of God. He's speaking to these
religious leaders who've fallen short of their
religiosity. of a self -righteousness that their
perception provided that if they looked all right,
they talked all right, they walked all right
on the outside, it didn't matter what was going
on inside them. It mattered what was on the outside.
They were men and women who followed the law
of external holiness and thought that when it
came to their relationship with God, that was
enough. Let me turn past where we're at to Matthew
chapter 23 where we've... parked ourselves for
quite a while in Sunday school on Sunday mornings
at 10 a .m. And we again see the background,
the context of Jesus, what he was up against
as he ministered during this time in first century
Palestine. Matthew chapter 23 verse 27, he says,
well to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
for you are like the whitewashed tombs, which
outwardly appear beautiful, but within, they're
full of dead men's bones and uncleanliness so
you also outwardly appear righteous to men but
within you you're full of hypocrisy and iniquity
he says you were like a dead tomb on the outside
you look all clean you might even be fancily
engraved covered in beautiful colors you may
be perceived by all of those around you as pure
and holy and white But within your very heart
of hearts, your soul of souls, deep down in the
real person, you're dead. What matters, I think
Jesus is getting at here, within all of these
Beatitudes, is it's not what's on the outside,
it's what's on the inside, right? The change
that has been wrought upon us by God through
the Holy Spirit within the soul of every man
and woman. The new birth, something that brings
eternal life, to bear as a reality on our external
life. One author put it like this, and I put
this quote in here early, I think, because I
don't think we'll quite get this, but I hope
to illustrate it by the end. Someone says, a
Christian is something before they do something.
The first four Beatitudes that we've studied
over the past weeks really center upon inner
principles that deal with how good we are before
God, how we are ourselves. But we're looking
this evening, and we'll be continuing to look
at the weeks to follow as we close these out
from five on, the fifth beatitude on in verse
seven, and the beatitudes cease to deal with
primarily how we are within ourselves before
God. To begin to deal with how we are before
our own brothers and sisters, the people we're
around in the world, our attitudes to those around
us. The first four are inner attitudes. The last
four are inner attitudes that then manifest themselves
outwardly. Okay? So verse seven this evening,
our beatitude, blessed of the merciful, for they
shall obtain mercy. So what does it mean? Well
in humanistic philosophy and a lot of people
interpret it this way They think well if you're
good to everybody else Everybody else will be
good to you Right there are many many Christians
who that's how they interpret this. That's how
they read this Does it mean that God cannot be
merciful to you unless you're merciful to other
people? Does it mean that unless you forgive
others of their sins before that God can forgive
you? Well, not so fast. The Greek word for mercy,
within the Christian testament, simply means
this. The definition is to give help to the wretched
and to relieve the miserable. To give help to
the wretched and to relieve the miserable. Therefore,
there are a few comparisons. I think it's important
for us to really understand today, like to do
a few comparisons, what mercy really is. how
we obtain it, how we commit it, how we get it
from God. And to do this, we have to make some
distinctions and some comparisons to make sure
that we truly understand the words that we are
saying. First of all, we have to compare mercy
and grace. Then we have to compare mercy and
compassion. Then we must compare mercy and forgiveness.
And we need to ask the question, what Mercy obtains
mercy from God So let's compare first mercy and
grace and again This will take about halfway
through these distinctions and then I think you'll
start to see the picture Because at the first
it's gonna sound like I'm just kind of talking
out of both sides of my mouth But if you stick
with me if you stick with me, I think it'll begin
to make sense often within the New Testament
within the whole of scriptures The word grace
and the word mercy are synonymous. They actually
mean the same thing. They mean God's goodness
which has been shown to humankind. But often,
within the New Testament especially, there's
a distinction between the meaning of grace and
the meaning of mercy. Grace simply means the
love of God which has been shown to the undeserving.
us Okay, God's love towards other people that
have sinned against him His loving those sinners
that have broken his law that are guilty in the
legal sense right before God Grace is lavishing
God's love upon those specific people But there's
a distinction Mercy is also compassion that is
shown, compassion that is shown to the miserable.
Like I mentioned earlier, it's a little bit difficult
to see the distinction between these two things
right at first. But let's say grace is taking
away the guilt that is over us, right? God comes.
We don't deserve this gift of grace. We can't
do anything on our own to merit it. But God comes
and he lifts that guilt away for our sin, which
is our guilt by right. Even though we don't deserve
to have that guilt removed from us, God takes
it away. But mercy, mercy is the compassion of
God. That when he looks upon our condition, when
he sees us for the Sinners and the transgressors
that we are out of his love for us it motivates
him To love us that's compared. That's that's
a compassion mercy The mercy of God speaks specifically
to those that are helpless those that are miserable
It's another word for compassion, right? He looks
and he sees those that are wounded in the world,
he sees those that are broken, that those that
are in sorrow, people that have no hope, the
hopeless of the hopeless, he looks upon them
and in his compassion, he sees their misery,
and he works, he does something to try to heal
them. Grace is when God pardons sin, right? Grace
is, mercy is the compassion because of it. Then
we need to compare also mercy and compassion
in this way. Because mercy, in this sense, again,
this is why these two words are so incredibly
linked in definition together in the New Testament,
it's hard to really... uh, suss out the difference,
but the distinction is important. So, uh, mercy
in the first hits does primarily mean compassion,
but I want to stress this. This is what I'm trying
to illustrate tonight. I want to stress this
in the strongest way that I can, that mercy is
not just simply feeling compassion, right? Feeling
compassion, it's been said, is the hurdle of
spiritual imagination. the barrier to Christian
intention. And look, this is something that we
all fight every day, hour by hour, week by week.
I suspect that these intentions of our Christian
lives, these hurdles that we put in place in
our lives that keep us from truly acting on compassion
is something we have to fight the rest of our
existence, right? Because look, basically, what
am I talking about? I know what I ought to do.
Because of the transformation as a Christian
that has taken place in your life, you look to
the world and you see where you can have an act
on with your compassion and you know you have
a conviction inside that says, I ought to do
it. But no matter how much energy often we feel
like we can muster up in ourselves We can't ever
really bring ourselves to do anything about it
Compassion is not feeling compassionate It's
more than a feeling It's actually an active verb.
It's something that is shown It's something that
must be done So let me turn here to illustrate
this Let me turn to Luke 10. And it's in the
10th chapter, according to Luke, which we have
the story Jesus tells of what we're trying to
illustrate here. And what it is to have compassion
on one another. And we have within the story,
the story of the good Samaritan, which you probably
have at least heard of, you know some of it.
And there was a priest walking by the man on
the road who was lying. bleeding beaten up and
there was a priest and a Levite a religious guy
and they both walked by this bleeding dying man
they looked at him and I am sure within the depths
of their souls when they did look at him they
probably felt compassion for him but Jesus words
in verse 36 and 37 say which of these three do
you think The Samaritan, the Levite and the priest
proved to be the neighbor of the man who'd fell
amongst the robbers. The one who showed mercy.
Right? And then Jesus says the key. He says,
you, and he's talking to you. Me. You, go and
do likewise. Right remember in this parable Jesus
asked him in who is my neighbor and then he told
how the Samaritan man was the good neighbor and
if you don't recall Samaritans were ethnically
socially politically Separated from the Jews.
They were enemies how his enemy came and Showed
compassion to this poor man And then once illustrating
this with the story, does Jesus turn to you and
me? And did he say, now go and feel compassion,
go and feel this way towards the poor? No, he
said, go and do likewise. We find this in Hebrew
scripture as well. The minor prophets specifically
to, I mean, if you ever want to go and read these,
this is kind of the background to both of these.
The Minor Prophets Amos and his prophecy chapter
five and the whole prophecy of Hosea talk about
false religion that they were experiencing in
the land that talks about preaches, writes about
professors caring for one another and caring
for the world around them. But the words are
hollow and empty. There was a 19th century preacher,
1800s, okay? He was coming along the highway,
crossed his friend, whose horse had been killed
in an accident. And while the crowd of onlookers
stood by and began to express these empty words
of sympathy and about what had happened, the
preacher stood up, put his hand in his pocket,
and he turned to the loudest sympathizer and
said, I am sorry $5. How sorry are you? Right?
Not talking about it, not preaching it, singing
it, reading about it, actually doing it. Mercy
demands action. Mercy is, if you want to put
it crudely, putting your money where your mouth
is when it comes to being a Christian. Mercy
is more than a feeling. For the good Samaritan
looked and he saw the wounds and he didn't just
want to dress the wounds, he actually did it.
He saw a man cast down and he didn't just know
that he should get him picked up and taken to
the inn, he did it. And Jesus says to us today,
go and do likewise. Mercy, first of all, is compassion.
Secondly, mercy and forgiveness. How does mercy
relate to forgiveness? We have to see mercy that
Jesus is speaking of in verse 7 here, and our
beatitude is not just compassion, but it's also
an expression of forgiveness. Mercy is the love
of God that forgives and the love of God that
allows for the pardoning of another's wrong.
Okay, let me illustrate this one. So we have
Jesus ups Jesus. We have Joseph in the Old Testament
He may or may not know this story has these brothers
whom are all jealous of Joseph because of his
furred status amongst his father and They decide
they're gonna go and beat him up and kill him
and then a band of Marauders came through and
then they realized that what they could actually
do is sell him And they do. Expecting to get
a little bit of money, they sold him and expected
that they would never see him again. He went
to prison after that. But there was one day later
in his life when his brothers actually return
and are standing before him. And his brothers
wept. His brothers were broken because of the
predicament of the famine that was in their land
and within his own family. And Joseph as they
stood his brothers guilty before him, right?
They were in his hands to do with as he pleased.
And what does he do? He actually goes out of
the court to weep. Why? Because of the compassion
he had for them. The nation, his brothers, his
family are starving. And Joseph, because of his
compassion, which includes forgiveness in this
instance, he did not act upon them in the way
in which would have been his right to do so.
But he forfeited his right to retribution because
of his compassion. Go and do likewise. And I
think as Christians, we would all argue that
Jesus is the one who probably shows The greatest
amount of grace in the world, mercy. The most
merciful human that ever lived. Because when
Jesus looked around, he went specifically after
the deaf and the dumb and the blind and the lame
and the prostitutes and the tax collectors and
the drunkards and weak little children. There's
a widowed woman, again we return to the gospel
account according to the physician Luke, that's
following the coffin of her son. She's lost the
breadwinner. and her family. And now no one can
bring any money into their home because the only
one that could, her son, is now dead. Jesus stopped
the procession and he touched the casket and
he brought life back into this woman's life by
raising up her son. Why? Because he had compassion
for her. In John chapter 8, if you'll join us
on Sunday morning, we're talking about mercy.
We're going to speak specifically to this portion
of scripture. Remember, John chapter 8, we have
the woman caught in adultery. There were these
religious men that were stuffed with their own
self -righteousness standing around in long garments
with their big scrolls and beards ready to throw
stones at this poor woman. And they say, Rabbi,
what should we do? Moses says, stone her. What
do you say? And the merciful Jesus looks at the
woman and says, neither do I condemn thee. Go.
sin no more. Jesus was full of mercy, so much
so that in the Gospel account, according to Mark
chapter two and verse 16, he's actually reprimanded
by those about him because he hangs around with
the riff -raff of that first century Palestinian
society, eating and drinking with what a lot
of people thought would have been the filth of
the world. And the two merciless systems at the
time, the Empire of Rome and these religious
leaders who felt threatened by Jesus, they unite
together in a merciless way before Christ to
crucify him and ending up nailing him on a cross.
The whole of the Lord's life, the whole of the
Lord's kingdom of the Lord Jesus' teaching cries
out that all of it is about mercy. He's full
of mercy, but why? Because he saw us in our wretched,
pitiful state. He saw us in the way that we were,
unescapably, in our sin, with all the wrongs
that we have, with all of the guilt, with all
of the ugliness of our filthy sores in sight.
God did. And in that mercy, He sent us Jesus.
God didn't have to do so. But He did. because
God is rich in mercy. The word of God says that
he declared the merciful, they shall obtain mercy.
And as he hung on the cross, Jesus, what was
he praying for? Father, forgive them for they
know not what he's doing. He's crying out in
mercy. Stephen, his apostle, followed after Christ,
also walked after him in his own death. He says
in the seventh chapter of Acts, lay not this
charge against them, Lord. for what they're doing.
Please forgive them. Mercy is not foolish sentimentality
that excuses or ignores sin. Please understand,
friends, that's not what I'm talking about. The
only person that God shows mercy to is the person
to whom he has impugned in judgment. What does
that mean? God shows mercy towards us, not in
some sort of sentimental, wishy -washy way, just
because he feels sorry for us. Because remember
what I'm not saying here, okay? God must judge
sin. God must condemn sin. And any time that
you see mercy extended to humans in the story
as a result of sin, someone else had to always
take the judgment. Think about it. It's the lamb
in the Old Testament. Praise God, it's the lamb
of God. the New Testament, Jesus. The only reason
we have the mercy of God extended to us today
is because Jesus received the punishment. Christ
has been made a curse for us. And remember always
when we talk about mercy, Psalm 85 verse 10,
which says mercy and truth are met together.
But finally, finally, I'm sure you're probably
ready to hear that. Finally, there's mercy in
grace, there's mercy in compassion, mercy in
forgiveness, but there's this mercy that obtains
mercy. Now, this is misunderstood, I think. People
have looked at this verse and said, well, you
must be merciful if God is going to be merciful
to you. I think a lot of people read it that
way. You have to be merciful if you want God
to be merciful towards you. This means you must
forgive others if you are to be forgiven. And
then all of a sudden you go, oh yeah, that does
kind of sound right. Wait, wait. Because if so,
we're missing the point entirely. Because the
idea is simply this. That by performing acts
of mercy, you show yourself to have received
the mercy of God. That's the point that the person
who has been shown mercy by God, the person who
knows what it's like to actually have the sweet
taste of forgiveness of the mercy of God, how
can he or she be anything but forgiving? How
can we be anything but merciful to those who
we know that are around us that are in the exact
same predicament. That's what this passage means.
That our compassion, our love for the lost, our
love for the poor is out of a heart that's been
forgiven. It's out of a heart that's been shined
upon by the grace and the mercy and the peace
of God Almighty. And that's the standard that
we must have with our own actions in our lives.
When you've been the object of God's salvation,
it should be that you in turn show mercy toward
those around you. And the greatest evidence that
God has shined in your heart is when you help
the helpless, when you lift the downtrodden,
when you healed the brokenhearted. The old saying,
I think, to get people to put more money in the
offering plate actually turns out to be true.
You are never more like God than when you give
or forgive. You never are more like God in your
life than whenever you give. And the more you
forgive and in each case The less rational your
gift is the more like God you are But the world's
philosophy is coined in the words of a famous
philosopher old old dude Ironically, well, I
mean he's from a long time ago, but his name
was Seneca the younger He said Missouri mercy
is the disease of the soul that spells weakness
What he's saying is, what does the world preach
around us? My rights. Our rights. It's my right.
It's my right to do this. It's my right to do
that. I have the right here. I have the right
there. If you were living in the Roman Empire
during this particular time, and you had a baby
that was born straight from the womb of the mother,
if you were the father, you could put your thumb
up. or down and decide whether that newborn baby
had any right to live or not. That was your right
to do so. Now that you know that, put yourself
in their sandals and say, if you were a Christian
in that society, knowing you've had that right,
would you still use it? I mean, it's rightfully
yours, but would you do it? You could... You
could kill your slave and bury him. And that's
it. End of story. You could even kill your wife,
in most cases, and absolutely get away with it.
Because she's your property. And it's your right.
But would you do it? In Romans chapter 1, verses
29 to 31, we read a description of the city of
Rome, those that lived within Rome. They were
described as many things. The very last word
used to describe them is unmerciful people. Friends,
the reality of this beatitude in verse seven
is that what Jesus is saying to us, what we must
grasp in our own Christian walk, is that if we
as believers do not show mercy towards the pitiful,
we must question the bounds of our spiritual
relationship with God. And that might sound a
little bit strong, right? But I think it needs
to be told that way. Because the word of God
testifies to that truth. It was an answer to
the Lord when he said, love the Lord your God
with all your soul, with all your heart, with
all your strength, and love your neighbor as
yourself. And what was that? It was the way to
be saved. To give everything to God. to show
that you're wrong and to trust God. They could
even do it in the Old Testament. He said, who's
my neighbor? For the priest of the Levite that
failed to love the neighbor as themselves, they
don't get into the kingdom. Don't get me wrong.
I'm not saying the opposite of that, that you
have to be merciful, that you have to be forgiving.
I'm not saying that. But if we look into our
lives and we search within the light of God's
holiness in our souls, And we see that we are
actually unforgiving and unmerciful. Is that
fruit of the Spirit? Well, what is the fruit
of then? See? John in his first letter, 1 John,
chapter 3 and verse 17 depicts this thought.
In John's word, in this epistle, he talks so
often about how much we ought to love one another.
Listen to the implications here that emanate.
out of this verse. I mean, think about this.
Listen, he says, but if anyone verse 17 of chapter
three, but if anyone has the world's goods and
sees his brother or sister in need, it closes
his heart against them. How can God's love abide
in them? He's saying what Jesus saying, if you
don't have this compassion and this mercy in
you, then you may not have. God in you. Because
that is the God part of you. And this could be
surgical. This is dangerous. This is the scalpel
of the Holy Spirit that goes right into our hearts.
And this reality, friends, this is what should
destroy us as Christians. As we see before God's
Word so far, that we're poor, that we're broken,
that with that we mourn for our sins, that we're
meek in front of all humans, other people within
ourselves, that we're empty and that God has
to fill us, and then we realize that God has
shown mercy upon us. Therefore, we see the helplessness
of humanity, not just spiritually, physically,
and financially, no, in all ways, and we show
mercy to those around us. We close with a theologian,
D .A. Carson, today. He said of this relation
to this beatitude, I am persuaded that should
the Spirit of God usher in another period of
refreshing revival in the Western world, that
one of the earliest signs of it will be an admission
of spiritual bankruptcy, which will then find
satisfaction in God and God's righteousness,
and then will then be lived out. to go on being
merciful towards others amen any questions cool
thank you guys you know for me as i listened
to the episode as i went through preparing i'm
sorry preparing for it and delivering it even
as uh we met this evening and talked about it
The thing that really continues to stick with
me is this idea that compassion and being compassionate
is an action verb. We get that wrong so often,
I think. We think compassion is a feeling, but
compassion is so much more than that. Compassion
and mercy, those are actions. We have to not
just feel them, but do them. If we want to experience
salvation, liberation, enlightenment, whatever
you might call it, we have to give away. We have
to give away pride, ego, conceit, all of those
things. and instead offer mercy. Again, like
them all, it is so beautiful here to hear those
words. It is so easy to say those words, but
man, oh man, is it hard to live them out. Something
to think about. Hey, I hope you will join us
next week as we continue our look at the Beatitudes.
And until then, friend, My prayer is that you're
blessed.