Mercy Is The First Act Where We Become Like Him
The romans did not see mercy but saw it as a sign of weakness, Good thing we don’t live in those times or do we?
Slogans such as Business is what Business does, does this show mercy?
Bailing out banks and they turn around and foreclose.
Is there mercy when the world lives in poverty and we live in comfort? What does it mean to be merciful?
Review of Series
Matthew 5
Introduction to the Sermon on the Mount
5 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them.
The Beatitudes
He said:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
It means intellectually they get it, they come to the point that they have sinned against God. They recognize that they are missing something, they are far off from God. They have come to an understanding that they have made a mess of their lives.
A Recognition Of Spiritual Poverty That Produces Humility And Dependency.
4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
The intellectual recognition drives the emotional expression, they mourn. The Second Beatitude, blessed are those who weep and grieve and are broken hearted over the fact that they have sinned against a holy God and have sinned and hurt people around them.
Mourning Is The Regret Of A Heart Looking For A New Morning
5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Those who have got it intellectually, experience it emotionally and now volitionally they walk in a new humility. When you go from the first Beatitude to the last Beatitude what you will see is the making of the Christian man, woman or child.
Meekness Immeasurable Power Under Intentional Control
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Their direction now becomes changed, they no longer want the things of this world but want the things of God. They understand that just going after the same old stuff even though you grieve your sin would just bring more sin and more grief and out of gratitudethey want for themselves what God wants for them.
Greater Satisfaction Experienced When Passions Are Directed By Convictions
This Week Series Begins
7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Mercy Is The First Act Where We Become Like Him
Just in the context and just in the setting you see mercy all over the place. Jesus is traveling with the crowds nobody wants to travel with, Jesus is gathering unto him the people who recognize in their own lives that they need mercy each day just to get by. He is with the people who aren’t the pretty, rich, or the desirable people. They are the people you walk around.
Jesus the son of God should of been sitting at banquet tables, who should of been rubbing shoulders with only the world’s elite. Instead chose to sit, talk, teach and give the wisdom of God to those who are most needful of mercy. Jesus knew everyone was needful of mercy but chose to sit with those who were most willing to receive it were the people who needed it the most.
What is Mercy?
we look at it as something gentile, soft but the truth is mercy is strength, showing good will in action, some have said it is compassion in action. Mercy is what we show to those in misery because mercy understands hurt, mercy feels pain, and mercy rushes out to cure broken hearts and broken lives. Think about the times in your life where you have received mercy from someone, you have received benevolence where someone cared for you in a special way like no one else around you, in a way in which they cared and no one else even noticed.
think about the mercy God has shown us in Christ, What does it look like?
When the Bible talks about mercy, it talks about
I. feeding the hungry
Taking care of the poor. Why? When you see the poor, when you see the hungry you what? You understand the hurt, you feel the pain and you act to cure him.
II. Quench The Thirsty
To reach out and to bring food, beverage, bring anything to quench the thirst of a person. Not only in a material but also in a spiritual way
III. Cloth The Naked
Clothing those who are barely cloth, or cloth inadequate, clothes that are tattered.
IV. Visit The Sick
Remembering those who aren’t present with you, remembering those who don’t feel as good as you feel, remembering those who need the encouragement of knowing that people remember them even though they might not be able to fix them.
V. Bury The Dead
In roman times they would leave bodies laying around, leave bodies in garbage dumps. Our Church has done it, to help people who didn’t have the money to bury their loved ones. It means caring for those who are grieving. It means caring for those who are suffering, struggling with the loss of someone they have cared about.
VI. Visit The Imprisoned
It means visiting the prisoned who were wrongfully imprisoned. Visiting the prisoned who were rightfully prisoned? Absolutely. Jesus understood there are no walls or barriers to grace or forgiveness.
VII. Shelter The Homeless
Bringing the homeless in and finding a place for them to stay. To care about people who are homeless. It is easy to say “are they truly deserving, have they wasted all their resources or are they homeless because they can’t help it?” There is no different-ion in the Bible, homeless is homeless. Caring for those who don’t have shelter over their heads.
VIII. Forgiving The Sorry
Forgiving people who ask for and need God’s grace and God’s forgiveness.
These are the actions of what mercy looks like. Why do we give it? Why does Jesus list it as one of the Beatitudes? Why is it so important?
When you mess up, why do you mess up? Because we are sinners, because we are human and humans are sinners. Why do we need mercy? Because we are humans andas humans we are sinners, we are a people that can’t get it right. God showed us mercy in Christ. God came to us and did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves. Mercy comes along beside of someone who because of their fault or not their fault helps them because they can’t help themselves.
God showed mercy for us in Christ because we couldn’t save ourselves. We couldn’t be good enough, smart enough, religious enough, generous enough to wash away our sins.
If you were to keep perfect track of your sins today and your good deeds including your attitude and your thoughts would you come out ahead, equal or behind? We all need mercy because there is nothing we can do to be right before God. Even if you haven’t done it, you thought about it, even if you haven’t gotten it, you wanted it.
What makes mercy such a big deal? Is because we need it.
Mercy is the first act where we become like him.
after reviewing the first four Beatitudes there is a transition that now is taking place. Because we now act like God. Once you get it that you are poor in spirit, that you grieve it, that you mourn it, that you regret it, once you walk in humility and you began to hunger and thirst for righteousness then you start acting like God and you start showing mercy to others like God has show mercy to you.
Why is so powerful to act merciful? Because you are mirroring you are demonstrating the love and the glory of God you are taking the great privilege of God and acting it out by the power of his spirit within you.
Jesus in Matthew 18 “The parable of the Unmerciful Servant” This was the servant who owed his master way more money he could ever repay, He had squandered his masters resources and he had used it for his own purposes and now when his master calls him to pay up his servant said he didn’t have it, so the master decides to have him thrown in prison and the master was going to take his family and the servant cries out for mercy. He didn’t make excuses or shift blame, he knows judgement is coming and there is no where to hide there is nothing he can do, the only thing he can do is cry for mercy and the master has pity on him and forgives his debt.
What do we see? A man who recognizes. A man who cries out in sorrow. The master does not judge if the sorrow is due to the fear of being caught or regret of what he has done, he just gives the man’s mercy. Mercy is giving to one who doesn’t have it, or getting what you don’t deserve. What happens? This man leaves and is transformed and becomes like his master and becomes merciful? no he doesn’t when one of his servant who owes him much less he pins him to the wall and demands everything he owes and when he can’t he throws him in prison and takes away everything he has. When his master finds out what he did to his servanthe becomes enraged and he calls the man in and throws him in prison and takes his family away that becomes part of his punishment of his lack of mercy.
Jesus ends this parable by saying this, I tell you if you don’t forgive others your heavenly father won’t forgive you. If you receive from God mercy but you with hold it from others then you will loose that mercy. but the Bible says once saved always savedand nothing steals us from God that hold us to the hands of Christ. Yes, that if it’s real. Your ability to forgive demonstrates whether or not you have captured the forgiveness that God has given you. We forgive out of our forgiveness and we withhold forgiveness out of the vacuum of our forgiveness.
Mercy is what God does, that is what makes it so powerful, because when we act merciful we begin to act just like God. Not that we would become god’s, we never will. The point is we will move closer to him, who has moved closer to us in Christ that is what makes mercy so powerful and special, once you get it that you are a sinner and that you are poor in spirit, once you feel it and grieve it, once you walk differently in humility, once your path and direction changes towards righteousness you can go out into the world and give as God has given you and it is a powerful thing.
When it comes to forgiving others, how are you? When it comes to reaching out to the poor, how are you? When it comes to giving your time for someone who needs someone to talk too, how are you? When it comes to trying to speak words of benevolence to people who have done bad things, how are you? When it comes to care for those who others don’t care for, how are you?
How do we move towards being like God and mercy?
I. Criticism
Merciful people don’t go around criticizing people, they don’t go looking for flaws and proclaiming them to the people around them. Merciful people look to understand they don’t look to give license, mercy is not license, it is not a get out of jail free card, you don’t have to be held accountable. No mercy requires repentance but our job is not to judge the hearts of people.
II. Revenge
Wanting to get even, wanting to make someone pay their debt that they owe us. Talk bad me, I’ll talk bad about you, hurt me, I’ll hurt you twice. There is no mercy in revenge only hatred, unforgiveness and only judgement for yourself.
III. Prejudice
You want to keep check of mercy in your heart, look at the attitude you have towards others whether it is race, sex, rich, poor, people who act like you. Think about the prejudices that you hold, the attitudes that you hold, do your attitudes constitute mercy? Or are they judgmental and condemning.
IV. Greed
There is no mercy in Greed. If you don’t give you have a major spiritual and psychological deficit. If you can’t give of your time, money, heart there is something wrong inside of you, because mercy is going to require all of it, there is times mercy is going to require your money or time there are times its going to call you to hurt and to walk along side of someone who hurts to the point that you begin to hurt. Mercy means you give more than you take.
When you act with mercy it can become contagious, Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be show mercy.”
Notes taken by: Lorelllawrence@comcast.net The notes is for you to have for review in the series, also to reflect on during the week.