Matt. 5:7 - Being Merciful

Welcome:

Good morning, its good to see your faces! And if you’re with us this morning from your couches with your coffee, welcome! I’m Mike Van Dyke, Discipleship Pastor here at Venture Church - it’s good to be with you. Before we jump into the next part of our sermon series, “We the Kingdom”, let’s pray!

Prayer:

Father, thank you for today, we’re grateful for your mercy! it draws us to yourself, it was your mercy that caused you to lavish us with your everlasting love, your saving grace, and your adoption as son’s and daughters, thank you.

Holy Spirit, thank you for applying your mercies in our hearts causing us to demonstrate mercy to others. If it weren’t for your goodness, your mercy wouldn’t be within our hearts allowing us to be merciful as you are merciful.

Lord, I pray for those this morning who may not know the depth of your mercies, those mercies that blot out transgression, those mercies that choke out guilt and shame, those mercies that cause us to taste and see your goodness and grace. I pray for those of us who do know you, but have forgotten the goodness of your mercy because we’ve allowed the things of this world to cause us to be too busy and not subjecting ourselves to you or one another. In order for us to be merciful, pure in heart, and peacemakers assumes one thing - relationships - help us to that end.

Holy Spirit, would you convict our hearts this morning as we look to Your inspired scriptures this morning considering the nature of mercy, your mercy and how we’re to be merciful, we ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.

Transition: amen indeed. Well, let me summarize what we’ve been laboring over the last couple weeks of understanding what it means to be, “We the Kingdom”.

Introduction:

So, we’ve been looking at the attributes of Jesus Christ’s kingdom as he describes it; it’s essentially described in eight characteristics. We’ve covered the first 4 as of last week when Scott wonderfully articulated what it is to hunger and thirst for righteousness, to which i’ll summarize in a moment. So, today we’re going to begin to look at the final 4 beginning with Matt. 5.7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” And so what I want to do today is look at the nature of mercy and our response to be merciful. In other words,

What it is - providing a working definition for mercy.

Scriptural examples affirming being merciful.

Lastly, as the church, how are we called to be merciful now as we operate from the reward of mercy - the state of mercy. In other words, the reward of mercy is in the eternal sense, but we’re operating from that mercy now because God has shown us his mercy, therefore we’re able to be merciful now. Essentially, those of us in Christ, have received the ultimate mercy, the forgiveness of sin and the gift of eternal life - salvation! That’s the reward of V.7; we’re merciful because we’ve experienced God’s mercy!

Summary Slide: The first four Beatitudes represent our out state towards God.

In other words, these first 4 represent our vertical relationship with God. for example:

Notes of Summary Slide

(V.3)Blessed are the poor in spirit - this represents us being aware of our true state before God - spiritually bankrupt, knowing that our pride has given us a false sense of righteousness.

(V.4) Blessed are those who mourn - looking within and seeing the depth of our sin causing us to mourn.

(V.5) Blessed are the meek - being humbled by the sight of our sin, we learn to submit to the righteous and holy judgments of God causing us to become meek - in other words, walk according to his Word.

(V.6) Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness - we cry out for a better righteousness, an alien righteousness - not our own, but that of God our savior, his righteousness, and so we hunger and thirst for it.

So now those who have been emptied of prideful self-righteousness are now being filled with God’s righteousness. And as a result, we begin to manifest these next four attitudes towards our neighbor - our fellow man.

In the Old Testament, the 10 commandments were both vertical(the first 4, no other gods before him, no carved image of God, taking the Lord’s name in vain, and remembering the Sabbath - keep it holy)and horizontal(the last 6, honor your mother and father, don’t murder, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness against your neighbor, and don’t covet).

Jesus, in the New Testament(quoting and paraphrasing from the O.T.), summarized the heart of the law with one positive vertical law, love God! And one horizontal law, love your neighbor as yourself.

Transition statement: so, the next 4 Beatitudes are a result of the first 4.

Slide:

So the last 4 of the Beatitudes is our attitudes toward man. Our horizontal fruit.

Transition statement: And, so, today, we’ll be focusing our attention on having a merciful heart and attitude towards our neighbor.

Transition: In order to understand the nature of something, we must define it.

Nature of Mercy:

What is Mercy:

Slide:

Definition: to be or become the recipient of leniency and compassion.

Another way to think of mercy is that it’s a quality of compassion, especially as expressed in God’s forgiveness of human sin. Scripture stresses God’s forbearance towards sinners. In his mercy, God shields sinners from what they deserve(which is mercy) and gives gifts that they don’t deserve(which is grace).

Mercy is not getting what we do deserve. where>>

Grace is getting what we don’t deserve. All of this comes from the attribute of his goodness.

Transition statement: In describing what mercy is, it’s helpful to describe what its not by contrast:

What its not:

It’s not a creaturely/natural compassion where we feel sorry for someone and never step in to be inconvenienced by their trouble, but a holy compassion where one is moved to weep and walk with those who weep. Take on their burdens so-to-speak.

This is the heart of the one-another verses in scripture(forgive one another, confess your sin to one another, subject yourselves to one another, love one another, bear with one another) that we’re called to - functional mercy, which is a mercy that moves!

The Apostle Paul exclaims and appeals to this mercy

In Rom. 12:1 - where on the heels of Paul explaining God’s mercy to the gentiles and allowing them to be grafted in to God’s blessed family, he appeals to the church in Rome; by the mercies of God, present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice which is your spiritual service of worship.)

I wonder, have we thought of being merciful towards someone as an act of worship?

And again in 2 Cor. 1:3-4 - Paul’s greeting to the Corinthian church of grace and peace to them from God as he writes to follow up from his first letter admonishing them because of their unrepentant sin to which they subsequently did repent: the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in our affliction so we can comfort others in their affliction with the very comfort that God has given us- that level of mercy, that level of relationship!

I wonder, how many of us look at our relational conflict as an opportunity to be merciful or do we want a justice that is motivated by our pride and self-centeredness?

The last time I looked at the world and the narrative that’s driving it, it desperately needs this level of mercy!

Therefore, this is a holy disposition, its not a worldly sentiment where there isn’t a true sense of justice or righteousness.

In other words, a holy disposition is objective because its according to one standard, God’s! It’s not relative emotions based one’s subjective experiences that highly opinionated as the world’s is. God’s mercy is also righteous.

Ps. 85:10 -says steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other. Peace is the result of mercy.

Paul says in Eph. 4:15 that we’re to speak the truth in love.

Mercy Moment:

Slide:

“Godly mercy puts the burdens of another above our own comforts and interests.”

Now lets look at an Old Testament narrative that illustrates godly mercy, a mercy that moves beyond convenient relationships on our terms and into relationships that are inconvenient and others-centered.

Story of Joseph

Some of you may be familiar with the story of Joseph(basically the last 13 chapters of Gen. Gen. 37-, Jacob’s youngest of his twelve son’s. Jacob’s life has been used in many of sermon’s, but for my purposes today, I want to focus on the mercy that was clearly at work throughout this narrative.

Spoiler alert: Joseph’s brothers hated him deeply because Jacob favored him over them.

They’re hatred was provoked by Joseph’s love for Jacob - he didn’t have a chance. Imagine 11 siblings hating you just because you were favored by your father? Some of you may have grown up in a household where you felt the partiality and resented your siblings because of it.

Driving the brothers hatred even deeper, Joseph shares the two dreams he has with his brothers, pointing out that they will essentially bow to him and that he would rule over them. This was a Cain towards Able hatred, and just as that story unfolds, so does this one.

Joseph’s brothers conspired to kill him, but his brother, Reuben wouldn’t let them take his life, so they threw him into a pit, and he was picked up by Midianite traders that sold him into slavery in Egypt. After which, he was taken into the house of Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh.

Slide: Mercy Moment

Relational conflict is the greatest opportunity for mercy.

The brothers hatred motivated their action to kill Joseph and now mercy’s motivation is to reconcile the relationship. How many of you have estranged relationships that could be reconciled through being merciful?

As the narrative continues, the brothers go on living their lives, marrying, having children, their children growing and having children while Joseph is estranged from his family in a foreign land as a servant. But God was with him and he found favor in everything he did - despite his overall circumstances. In other words, he had favorable relationships despite his external circumstance. As a servant, he became an overseer of his master’s house. Until yet again, he is faced with another relational conflict because he decided to make the right choice when Potiphar’s wife made many advances at him and he declined. His reason; why would I do that to my master and more importantly, why would I sin against God? Consequently, she took it personal and lied about it, and Potiphar imprisoned him.

Mercy Moment

Slide:

Being merciful isn’t at the expense of truth, but trusting in God as our Final judge and trusting him with the consequences.

In other words, when someone wrongs us, we don’t have to go to the nth degree to make sure every bit of truth is exposed and demand justice, but rather, trust in God’s timing and rest in him as the just and justifier. Pro. 19.11 says good sense makes one slow to anger, an it is his glory to overlook an offense. The second part of this verse is encouraging mercy. When was the last time you overlooked an offense?

God’s favor follow’s him into prison; besides the jailer, Joseph was in charge of the prison. As time goes, God raised Joseph up through his hardship and placed him in 2nd command over Egypt. At this point, the seven years of famine hit the lands and Egypt had all the grain. So now Joseph’s brothers and father are back into the narrative because they have no food, so Jacob sends Joseph’s brothers to buy some grain.

Mercy Moment

Slide:

Even when relationships feel inconsequential, mercy is an opportunist waiting with gifts of compassion.

When life happens and relationships become work, we tend to convince ourselves that there is just too much going on to work on our relationships, so we become stagnant. Being merciful is taking the initiative and bringing words of healing to a life of hurt, even when we’re the one’s who’ve been hurt.

So now, Joseph see’s his brothers as they bow before him requesting grain, and he deals with them harshly. They still do not recognize him, and Joseph puts them through a test in order to bring his youngest brother back to Egypt. His brothers go back as they were instructed, and after some struggle from Jacob, they come back to Egypt with Benjamin their youngest brother and the prayer of Jacob asking for God’s mercy before the man. They go before Jospeh a couple of times, once to eat, which Joseph removes himself briefly due to the compassion towards his brothers, then he tests them again, they go back to his father, they come back, and then he looses it, he makes himself known and embraces them. Then he shares with them how he understood God’s plan of using their hatred as a means to produce good and preserve God’s people. So they reconcile, and Joseph calls for the whole lot them to move to Egypt and settle in the land of goshen.

Some final mercy moments I want to share from how this narrative ends that should encourage us to be merciful, to understand being merciful in two different ways; transactional and relational. Mike, what do you mean that mercy is transactional and relational? Well, lets take forgiveness for an example; you forgive the person who wronged you, but there is no relationship that results from the forgiveness.

Mercy Moment:

Slide:

“Godly mercy doesn’t end with forgiveness, but begins with it and progresses into a life-giving relationship.”

In other words, the purpose of extending mercy is to have a relationship. When Joseph made himself known to his brothers, he didn’t just forgive them, give them grain, and tell them to be on their way, that would have been simply transactional mercy, but he started there and then gave them lands in Egypt to ensure relationship - the full measure of mercy. Another example would be feeding the homeless; we’re moved to compassion to see their state of life, and we want to feed them so they don’t go hungry, and so we feed them. If that’s all we do, we’re showing transactional mercy, which is good, but its not complete mercy. Imagine if God just forgave us of our sins, but didn’t pursue a relationship with us through the Holy Spirit?

Mercy Moment:

Slide:

Mercy is dependent on relationships; we can’t be merciful without them.

Mercy can’t be demonstrated without us being in relationship with others. Often times, when we’re hurt by others actions, we just remove ourselves from them, thus removing ourselves from opportunities to be merciful as God is merciful. Luke, in his gospel, calls us to be merciful as our father is merciful.

In closing, the mark of God’s mercy in our lives is being relationally merciful with holy compassion.

Moment of Mercy:

Slide:

What relationships in our life do we need to pursue more mercifully?

In other words, are there people in our life that we’ve distanced ourselves from because they hurt us and we haven’t pursued the relationship since the offense?

Have we convinced ourselves that we’ve forgiven them for an offense - transactional mercy - but haven’t pursued the relationship with grace and compassion?

Maybe towards our spouse, friends, etc. where we have this low-functioning contempt towards them that we need to confess, and be reconciled.

Closing: Call on Mercy

Text talk1 Slide:

for those of you here with us and those of you online, if you haven’t experienced the mercies of God - you know you don’t have a saving relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and as a result you don’t have an attitude of being merciful, call on the name of Jesus Christ, receive his mercy. And if you need to talk with one of us about receiving the mercy of God, his salvation, his love and grace, please text talk1 to 970-00 and we’d love to connect with you - there is nothing sweeter than the mercy of God. I love you guys, have a great Day, we’ll see you next time.