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On March 24, 1989, a cold night off the coast of Alaska, a captain of a tanker barked orders to a second mate. The orders were vague, the night was black, and the collision was disastrous. The tanker ship Exxon Valdez ran hard aground on Bligh Reef, dumping 11 million barrels of crude oil into one of the most scenic bodies of water in the world. Petroleum blackened everything from the surface of the sea, to beaches, to otters, to sea gulls. Alaska was infuriated, and the Exxon company was humiliated.
The collision, terrible as it was, was mild compared to the ones that occur daily in our relationships. You've been there. Someone doesn't meet your expectations, promises go unfulfilled, verbal pistols are drawn, and a round of words are fired.
The result ---a collision of the hull of your heart against the reef of someone's actions. Precious energy escapes, coating the surface of your soul with the deadly film of resentment. A black blanket of bitterness darkens your world, dims your sight, sours your outlook and suffocates your joy!
Do you have a hole in your heart? Are you angry, hurt, broken, full of resentment, or holding a grudge? Maybe Matthew 5:7 is for you. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy".
These words from our Lord Jesus Christ, contained in the Sermon on the Mount and following the first 4 Beatitudes was written to a religious group who were shallow, superficial, external and very ritualistic. We would call them hypocrites, people without character. The Jewish leaders thought they were secure and that they would surely be inhibiters of the kingdom. The meaning of the Beatitudes is two fold as is a lot of scripture. It helps any who read it and those who heard it from Jesus, but it is also talking about His Kingdom to come (the Millennium). It is talking about who will possess the kingdom, and the Sermon on the Mount might be summed up in Matt. 6:8 with these 5 little words, "Be not like them".
Jesus confronted these people with explicit words. He told them in Matt.23:27 "For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness". He confronted this external, self-righteous, selfish crowd and says, "What really matters is on the inside". Righteousness on the inside will produce the fruit of right action. The 6th & 7th chapters of Matthew deal with action: things we do or say or think. The premise on which the whole Sermon is built is the heart attitude. What Jesus wants is action that springs from the right heart and character.
To be a child of the King, a subject of the kingdom, is first to possess a certain kind of character, a character of brokenness, a mourning over sin, meekness, a hunger and thirst for righteousness, mercifulness, purity of heart, a peacemaking quality. We are not meant to control our Christianity; our Christianity is meant to control us.
Living as a Christian means there is to be no veneer, no facade. The ministry of God's Word is not a performance. "Beware of practicing your righteousness before men" Christianity is something that happens to us at the very center of our being., and from there it flows out to the activities of our life. God has never been interested in any superficial spiritual activity unless the heart is right.
So Jesus confronted a crowd of externalizes with some devastating comments The first four Beatitudes were entirely inner principles dealing with how you see yourself before God. This fifth Beatitude, while also being an inner attitude, begins to reach out and touch others. This is the fruit of the other four. When we are broken beggars in our spirit, when we are mournful and meek and hungering and thirsting after righteousness, being merciful to others will be the result.
The first four Beatitudes line up with the last four. The first four are inner attitudes and the last four are the things the attitudes manifest. The Sermon on the Mount including the Beatitudes is an outline for how we are to live. Jesus says live not as the world but as He proclaims.
When we have poverty of spirit and we realize that we are nothing but beggars, we will be willing to give to another beggar, so we will be merciful.
When we mourn over our sin, we wash our hearts pure with the tears of penitence, and we will be pure in heart.
When we are meek, we will be peacemakers, because meekness makes peace.
And when we are hungering and thirsting for righteousness, we will be willing to be persecuted for righteousness' sake.
Now, let's look at what it means to be merciful. Jesus' simple statement here is so profound and so broad in its implications that I hardly know how to begin and I doubt I could cover it all.
The Jews of Jesus' day hardly knew what merciful meant. They were as we are today merciless, proud, egotistical, self-righteous, and condemning. What Jesus was saying really touched them in His day as it should in our day.
People often take this Beatitude and say it means if you are good to everybody else, everybody else will be good to you. We want to think that kindness will be returned.,
And we think if I do this for God, then God will do this for me.
Also, some mistakenly believe that if one shows mercy it is a sign of weakness.
The best illustration that this is not valid, is to look at our Lord Jesus Christ. He was the most merciful human being who ever lived, He reached out to the sick and healed them; to the crippled and gave them legs to walk; to the blind so they could see; to the deaf hearing ears, and even to the prostitutes, tax collectors, drunkard. ALL THESE WERE DRAWN INTO HIS LOVE AND REDEEMED AND SET UPON THEIR FEET.
He took the lonely and made them feel loved; little children into His arms. Never was there a person on the face of the earth with the mercy of Jesus. Once a funeral procession came by and He saw a mother weeping because her son was dead. She was already a widow, and now she had no child to care for her. Jesus stopped the funeral procession, put His hand on the casket, and raised the child from the dead. HE CARED!
In John 8 He forgave a woman taken in adultery. WHAT MERCY!
We think of mercy so much in terms of forgiveness in salvation, but it is really a much broader term. It goes beyond compassion. It goes beyond sympathy. It means sympathy and compassion in action toward anyone in need. When our Lord talks about it here, He's not talking about a weak sympathy that carnal selfishness feels but never does anything about. It is not that false mercy that indulges its own flesh (a salving of conscience or by giving tokenism).It is not the silent, passive pity that never seems to help in a tangible way. It is genuine compassion with a pure, unselfish motive that reaches out to help.
In other words, Jesus was saying to them, "The people in my kingdom aren't takers - - they're givers. The people in my kingdom aren't the ones who set themselves above everybody - they're the people who stoop to help".
Mercy is seeing a man without food and giving him food. Mercy is seeing a person begging for love and giving him love. Mercy is seeing someone lonely and giving him company. Mercy is meeting the need, not just feeling it.
Our understanding can be aided by a discussion about mercy in relation to similar words in Scripture. Titus 3:5 tells us that "He saved us...according to His mercy". Ephesians 2:4-9 says that God has saved us "being rich in mercy". It is God's mercy that allows Him to redeem us. So mercy is behind forgiveness. Mercy and forgiveness belong together.
In Daniel 9:9 it says, "To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness" In Ps. 130:1-7 also beautifully links mercy and forgiveness:
"Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord,. Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared, I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning. Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy".
In this passage, an individual is confessing sin, seeking forgiveness, and knowing that forgiveness comes from the fountain of mercy. We can not think of mercy without its expression in forgiveness, and we cannot think of forgiveness without its source mercy. But, forgiveness is not the only expression of mercy, it is bigger than that. Ps. 119:64 says, "The earth, O Lord, is full of thy mercy". Gen.32:10 says, "I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies." II Samuel 24:14 "For His mercies are great". Nehemiah 9:19 "Thy manifold mercies" Ps. 69:13 "The multitude of Thy mercy". In Lamentations, it says, "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness".
Forgiveness is an act of mercy, but there are many other ways to show mercy.
What about mercy and love? How do they compare? We said that forgiveness flows out of mercy. What does mercy flow out of? LOVE. Why has God been merciful? "But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loves us" (Eph. 2:4)" Do you see the sequence? God loves and love is merciful, and mercy is forgiving among many other things.
Love is bigger than mercy. Mercy is bigger than forgiveness and love is bigger than mercy, because love can do a lot more things than just show mercy. Mercy presupposes a problem. Love can act when there isn't a problem.
Example: the Father loves the Son and the Son did not need mercy. The Father loves the angels and the angels love the Father - but neither need mercy. Mercy is the physician; love is the friend. Love acts out of affection; mercy acts out of need. Love is constant; mercy is reserved for times of trouble. THERE IS NO MERCY WITHOUT LOVE. See how God's love funnels down to our need under the category of mercy?
Another thought, when we are righteous and don't need mercy, God still loves. He shall love us throughout eternity when we do not need mercy anymore. But in this life, love funnels down to us through mercy, and mercy narrows down to that one thought of forgiveness
What about mercy and grace? The term mercy always presupposes problems. It deals with pain, misery and distress. But grace deals with the sin itself. Mercy deals with the symptoms; grace deals with the problems. Mercy offers relief from punishment; grace offers pardon for the crime. First comes grace. Grace removes the sin. Then mercy eliminates the punishment. In the story of the Good Samaritan, mercy relieves the suffering, grace rents him a room. Mercy deals with the negative, grace the positive.
What about Mercy and justice?
People say, "If God is a God of justice, how can He be merciful?" Can God say I know you are a sinner, and I know you've done awful things, but I have so much mercy, I'm going to forgive you". Can He do that? Yes, He can because he came into the world in human form and died on the cross and bore in His own body our sins. He paid the price for our sins. At the cross He died, justice was satisfied. God said there would be no forgiveness without the shedding of blood. God said there had to be a perfect sacrifice to bear the sins of the world. Jesus was that. Justice was satisfied. Mercy does no violation to justice. It is not foolish sentimentality that excuses sin. The only time God ever extended mercy was when somebody paid the price for the sin involved. There is a false, foolish, sentimental mercy that wants simply to cancel out justice and does not want to make people pay for anything. That violates God's holiness. Mercy and truth are met together. God never violates the truth of His justice and His holiness to be merciful. He will be merciful, but only when justice has been done
Mercy is not a normal human attribute. The hypocrites of today as well as the people Jesus was talking to are people without character and the right heart attitude. I pray that the needy never sees us this way : I was hungry and you formed a humanities club and discussed my hunger - thank you.
I was imprisoned and you crept off quietly to your chapel and prayed for my release. I was naked and in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance. I was sick and you knelt to thank God for your health. I was homeless and you preached to me of the shelter of the love of God. I was lonely and you left me alone to pray for me. You seem so holy, so close to God, but I am still very hungry, very lonely and very cold.
"BE NOT LIKE THEM".
The only way to be merciful is to have within us the God-given mercy. And the only way to have that is to have the righteousness of God that comes through Christ. That's what Jesus is saying, if we come by this Beatitude path to the place of hungering and thirsting for righteousness, to be filled by God, we will know mercy.
HOW DO WE PRACTICE MERCY?
Physically - By giving a poor man money, a hungry man food, a naked man clothes.
Spiritually - mourn over souls, has pity for others, is prodding (confronting people about their sin in order that God might give them forgiveness. Mercy prods.
Pray - Prayer for the souls of those without God is an act of mercy.
Preaching - the gospel is the most necessary and merciful thing you can do for the lost soul. Telling someone about Jesus, Jesus who came to this earth because He loved us, paid the penalty of our sins by His death on the cross, He was raised from the dead bodily, He ascended into Heaven and the Father, and awaits His coming again, THAT IS THE BEST NEWS YOU CAN SHARE - THE NEWS OF JESUS CHRIST.
The one who has received mercy will be merciful. The one who has received forgiveness will be forgiving. If you are a merciful person, you give evidence of being God's child; so every time you sin, God forgives. Every time you have a need, He meets it. He takes care of you. He just pours mercy upon mercy upon mercy to those who show mercy, because they have received it from the merciful God.
ARE YOU MERCIFUL?
A STORY OF DANIEL WHO LIVED IN BRAZIL.
He was a big man, a body builder. He wanted to own his own gym. So he went to the bank for a loan and they told him everything was O.K., but he needed someone to cosign with him. He got his brother to do that. When everything was ready Daniel went to the bank to pick up his check. When he got there the banker looked puzzled, he said your brother was just it and picked up the check and used it to retire the mortgage on his house.
Daniel was furious. Because of this they did not speak for 2 years. During this 2 years Daniel and his wife became Christians. He thought he had confessed all his sins, but one and that was forgiveness of his brother. The revenge burned in him. One day on the street he encountered his brother. Daniel said, "I saw him but he didn't see me. I felt my fists clench and my face get hot. My initial impulse was to grab him around the throat and choke the life out of him.
But as I looked into his face, my anger began to melt. For as I saw him, I saw the image of my father. I saw my father's eyes. I saw my father's look. I saw my father's expression. And as I saw my father in his face, my enemy once again became my brother.
Seeing the father's image in the face of the enemy. Daniel learned about mercy and forgiveness.
The one who caused a collision in the hull of your heart, caused a blanket of bitterness to darken your world, dimmed your sight, soured your outlook or suffocated your joy. Don't let your precious energy escape coating the surface of your soul with a deadly film, instead
BE MERCIFUL FOR GOD HAS BEEN MERCIFUL TO YOU! HE LOVES YOU AND IS MERCIFUL TO ALL OF US WHO BELIEVE, AND HE IS COMING AGAIN TO RAPTURE US HOME TO HEAVEN WHERE WE WILL RECEIVE OUR REWARDS OR SORROWS AND WE THEN WILL RETURN WITH HIM AT HIS SECOND COMING, WHEN HIS FOOT HITS THE MOUNT OF OLIVES THIS SAME MOUNT HE PREACHED THIS SERMON ON - THE MOUNT WILL SPLIT WIDE OPEN AND THEN BEGINS THE 1000 YEAR REIGN OF JESUS HERE IN HIS KINGDOM. PRAISE OUR MERCIFUL GOD THAT ALL OF US CAN SPEND ETERNITY WITH HIM.
