Living with Mercy

Outline

Living with Mercy

Modeling God Slow to Anger Quick to Forgive What is mercy? (Grace vs. Mercy)

That is the essential meaning of being merciful; it is pity plus the action. So the Christian has a feeling of pity. His concern about the misery of men and women leads to an anxiety to relieve it. There are many ways in which one could illustrate that. For example, to have a merciful spirit means the spirit that is displayed when you suddenly find yourself in the position of having in your power someone who has transgressed against you. Now the way to know whether you are merciful or not is to consider how you feel towards that person. Good Samaritan Example of Jesus

Luke 1:67-79 That, then, is more or less a definition of what is meant by being merciful. The real problem, however, in this Beatitude is raised by the promise, `for they shall obtain mercy'; and perhaps there is no other Beatitude that has been misunderstood quite so frequently as this one. For there are people who would interpret it like this. They say, `If I am merciful towards others, God will be merciful towards me; if I forgive, I shall be forgiven. The condition of my being forgiven is that I forgive.' Now the best way to approach this problem is to take it with two parallel statements. First there is that well-known statement in the Lord's prayer which is an exact parallel to this, `Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us', or, `Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors'. There are those who interpret this as meaning that if you forgive, you will be forgiven, if you do not, you will not be forgiven. Some people refuse to recite the Lord's prayer for this reason. Then there is a similar statement recorded in the parable of the debtors in Matthew xviii. Here a cruel servant who was in debt was asked by his master for payment. The man did not have the money to pay so he besought his master to forgive him his debt. His master had mercy upon him and forgave him all that he owed. But, you remember, this man went outside and demanded payment from somebody under himself who owed him a comparatively trivial debt. That man in turn prayed and besought him and said, `Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all'. But he would not listen and cast him into prison until he could pay him the utmost farthing. But other servants, seeing this, reported it to their lord. On hearing their account he called for this cruel and unjust servant and said to him in effect, `Very well; in view of your action I am going to repeal what I said to you'; and he cast him into prison, saying he should remain there until he had paid the utmost farthing. Our Lord ends the parable by saying, `So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.' Outline

Beatitudes What is Mercy OT Mercy NT Mercy Living with Mercy

MLK Quote on Driving out darkness with truth and light If you meet a sinner, do not turn your back on him, as a Pharisee might, but help him all you can, for Christ helped you all he could. If it should cost you a great deal of trouble to win that soul for Christ, gladly put yourself to that trouble, because Christ took so much trouble to save you. A good brother said to me, the other day, concerning a certain boy, that he was afraid we should never do much with him because he was of very corrupt origin. I said, “So were you.” He replied, “I do not quite mean it that way.” “No,” I said, “but I do mean it that way.”

He or she who is a son or daughter of Adam had a corrupt origin. As we all came from that source, we are all corrupt. Do not ever say of anybody, “That person is too bad for me to do anything with him.” It is the genius of Christianity to select the worst first, and we should never regard any man as utterly hopeless until he is dead. As long as the breath is in his body, even if all the devils from hell were also in him, there is enough power in the Lord Jesus Christ to make the whole troop of them fly, and it is for us to attack those devils in his name. Jesus Christ having saved us, the salvation of other sinners must be possible.

Christ as God’s ultimate act of mercy