Blessed Are the Merciful

Introduction

We’ve been looking at the Beatitudes, which give us a complete description of who we are as “children of God.” But what’s amazing about these Beatitudes is that they not only show us who we are, but they also tell us how we got here in the first place. In other words, the Beatitudes show us the process whereby we became children of God in the first place—this process is shown in the first four beatitudes that we’ve looked at thus far. And then the last 3 beatitudes show us the natural results of the first 4. So, at this point, we need to follow this progression to see how we got here, how we got to this beatitude: “Blessed are the merciful.”

Poor in spirit — we get in the presence of a holy God and we recognize our spiritual poverty; we admit that we’re sinful beggars who need God’s help.

But how do we come to this point? Well, like Job, we have to see God for who he is in order to get an accurate view of ourselves. And for us, one of the best ways to do that is to sit at the feet of God’s Son as He teaches us this Sermon on the Mount...

Because when you study this sermon, you catch a glimpse of God’s holiness, and you can’t help but recognize your total inability to live up to God’s standards of righteousness (“be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”).

So, you’re humbled. You admit that you’re a beggar. But you don’t stop there.

Because you acknwledge the consequences of failing to live up to God’s standards, you...

Mourn

I mean, you take this thing seriously.

You actually believe the warnings about being (1) good for nothing, (2) the least in the kingdom, and (3) a foolish man whose life is ruined.

And you mourn about your sinfulness and its consequences. But you don’t stop there...

Meek

Like Job, your whole attitude toward God & others changes.

You’re no longer worried about defending yourself because you know there’s nothing to defend. You’re a beggar. You “abhor yourself” and “repent in dust & ashes.”

You’re not fretting over the evildoing of others; you’ve put yourself in the hands of God.

At this point, you’ve recognized Who God really is and who you are in His sight, and you’ve been greatly humbled. You’ve recognized that you’re a sinful beggar who desperately needs God’s help, so you...

Hunger & Thirst After Righteousness

You’ve become desperate about your situation.

You’re not trusting in your own righteousness (Pharisees); you’re not trusting in your blessedness (Sadducees); and you’re not hungering and thirsting after blessedness without righteousness (the common people).

You’re hungering and thirsting after righteousness—you know that is what you need in order to enter the kingdom of God, but you realize that you can’t manufacture it on your own.

You do something about the problem.

You go to God, and He fills you with Christ’s righteousness.

2 Corinthians 5:21 “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

Romans 3:22 “Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:”

And then, this becomes the all-consuming desire of your life.

TURN TO Philippians 3:7-14 “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

and then they act as a permanent model for what our lives are supposed to always look like.