Blessed are the Merciful

“Mercy is a loving response prompted by the misery and helplessness of the one on whom the love is to be showered. If grace answers to the underserving; mercy answers to the miserable” DA Carson

Matthew 5:7 ESV

7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Mercy is the overflowing result of rightly understanding the previous four beatitudes. Listen to how Danny Akin explains this concept.

“The person who knows his spiritual bankruptcy (v 3), grieves over his pitiful condition (v 4), submits him his will to God’s will in all things (v 5) and longs for godly righteousness (v 6) shows mercy to the poor and needy because he knows himself to be poor and needy. (v 7)”

Jesus through his beatitudes, remember it means happy and blessed, is establishing this connectedness between each beatitude. In reality you are not able to experience the blessings each one has for us unless you start all the way back at the first one which is the recognition of our spiritual bankruptcy.

Once we recognize that need and we receive saving faith in Christ, we are able to put into practice Mercy.

We cannot be broken for others who’s lives have been wrecked with sin unless we recognize our own wrecked life and desperate need for forgiveness. See forgiveness and mercy are in a lot of ways are related.

Quarles, a pastor, stated, “Mercy involves more than generous giving to the needy. It also involves forgiving others for their sins as expression of gratitude to God for His gracious forgiveness.”

Mercy is intimately tied to our own experience of forgiveness of sin from the Lord. It is look at others not with judgement but with compassion and redemption in our hearts.

Some people when they see someone who’s life has fallen apart will sneer and say, they only got what they deserved. Others, might say, what did they expect to happen when they chose to live life that way.

We can easily fall into this idea that we are better than others if we lose sight of how bankrupt we are without Christ, this is why mercy is so connected to forgiveness.

Being Merciful does not mean we soften truth or allow sinfulness to go unaddressed. Instead, it means that we are loving in our addressing unrepentant sinners sin.

Also, being kind, merciful is necessary for righteousness because Jesus was merciful to us. Also, the opposite of merciful is to despise people.

Proverbs shows us this parallel in Proverbs 14:21

Proverbs 14:21 ESV

21 Whoever despises his neighbor is a sinner, but blessed is he who is generous to the poor.