Matthew 5:7
If you are new, I started a series in the Beatitudes out of Matthew 5, back in the summer and we made it halfway through the Beatitudes before Travis got back in the pulpit in order to try to finish Luke. And as I mentioned earlier, he finished last week and so I am jumping back into the Beatitudes.
But August 24th, that was a long time ago, the last time I preached out of the Beatitudes. So a little bit of a review might be in order to get anyone who’s visiting or new people up to speed. A bit of the refresher for the rest of us couldn’t hurt. I barely remember what I was talking about three months ago, so probably in order.
But take your copy of the Word of God and turn to Matthew chapter 5, please. Jesus begins this time of teaching, this sermon, as recorded by Matthew with what we call the Beatitudes. They are a series of blessed attitudes and attributes that characterize the true followers of Christ, true citizens, true people of God. This is what they look like. This is what they resemble, their character, their attitude.
So if you’re there in Matthew chapter 5, let’s read the first ten verses of that. “Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and began to teach them, saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the lowly, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. And blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.”
So Jesus walking throughout Galilee, as he did, people following him, he ascended on a mountainside and then sat down, the posture of a teacher back then. He sat down and began teaching those who followed him here, his disciples. And there was no doubt a mixture of his audience there. Those were listening to him.
Some were genuinely following him because they believed in what he said. And there were those who were just curious about all the miracles he had performed. They were following him to see signs and wonders. And there were those who were deceived about what it meant to be a son or a daughter of God, confused about what it meant to follow God.
Many were confused about what the law taught, because the Pharisees and the religious leaders, they had muddied the clear teaching of Scripture with their own traditions, with their own laws, stacking law upon law, muddying the waters of the clear teaching of the Old Testament. And in this sermon, Jesus aimed to cut through all of that, to give a clear teaching of what it meant to be a child of God.
And Jesus opens with saying, “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.” Jesus declares that those who see themselves as spiritual beggars with nothing to offer God, nothing to commend themselves to God, those who see their great need for salvation, those who cry out to him, those are the ones who will receive the Kingdom, not those who are proud, who thought they were righteous, but those who are sick and in need of a savior.
The second beatitude naturally follows the first. If you see how beggarly, poor in spirit you are before God, how bankrupt you are, you see how depraved and sinful you are, you’re then going to mourn your sin. Genuine mourning over sin then leads to repentance, a turning away from the old sinful life and with new life, from the Spirit, turning to God, walking in newness of life, in the forgiveness of sins.
And this forgiveness of sins brings an inexplicable comfort. Having that weight of guilt on your conscience removed, such a relief, such a comfort. There is nothing more terrifying than to fall into the hands of the living God under his judgment.
But to stand before him as we sung, hidden in Christ, robed in his righteousness, we stand before him justified. That brings us great comfort, knowing we can stand before him with all of our sin forgiven. Such a comfort, but knowing we didn’t deserve that forgiveness and salvation given by God, we’re humble, we’re meek men and women. We seek to model our Lord after his meekness, his kindness, his restraint, his calmness in the face of conflict as we walk in this world.
We are the meek and the lowly that will inherit the earth; it’s not the proud, the arrogant, who destroys life to gain power. It is the meek men and women of God who will inherit the earth. And then rather than hungering and thirsting as we live on this earth, rather than hungry and thirsting after what the world has to offer, we who are truly his will hunger and thirst for righteousness.
I mean, we all know there are myriads and myriads of ways in which we can hunger and thirst after the things of the world. But Jesus also tells us hunger and thirst for righteousness. We looked at how there are myriads and myriads of ways that we can work out righteousness, hunger and thirst after righteousness. All of the one another’s in Scripture are various ways that we can seek to work out righteousness.
We can indulge ourselves in all kinds of righteousness and in these things, Jesus tells us we will be truly satisfied. But we know if we do that with the things of the world, we’ll just be left wanting. But we will be truly satisfied if we hunger and thirst after righteousness. That’s what we covered a few months ago, through a few weeks.
Today we come to the fifth beatitude in Matthew 5 verse 7. Let’s read that again. “Jesus says, ‘blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.’” I’m kind of glad that I was delayed so long in getting back in the pulpit because this is the perfect time of year to talk about this beatitude, because the incarnation of Christ is described as one of the greatest mercies of God, as we read out of Luke chapter 1 this morning.
That is, God looked upon a sinful, pitiable people and sent his son to save us. It is the quintessential example of mercy. And as you can see, this passage today, verse 7, is all about mercy. And in this passage, Jesus is going to give a merciful declaration. He’s going to set a merciful expectation and then he’s going to put forth a merciful motivation in order that we might exemplify the mercy of Christ in our own life.
Those are our three points there: A merciful declaration, a merciful expectation, and a merciful motivation. So let’s start with point one: a merciful declaration. “Blessed are the merciful.” We’ve talked about this, in the previous messages on this, but the word blessed is the Greek word macarios. It is a Judgment of God.
This is a declaration of the truth that we stand in the enviable position of divine favor. We are in the best position possible in the universe. Our life is blessed. As Christians, our life is to be commended, to be emulated, to be sought after. The one who shows mercy is this blessed one. But this is a declaration of every believer’s blessedness and our position before God.
This is a declaration of the truthfulness of this reality that we are blessed, even if we might not feel it sometimes. And I think Jesus repeats this declaration of blessedness for every beatitude, because we are so weak and feeble and frail of heart, that as he’s teaching through this expectation, this is what a true believer looks like.
We might begin, and we can, and people have begun to despair that that is not them perfectly. Though every Christian seeks after these things we know, we all fall short. When we see this picture of a kingdom citizen, we all feel that we lack. But Jesus repeats this declaration of blessedness so often to remind us often of our blessedness to keep us from despairing, as he walks through each and every one of these.
The Spirit can testify with our Spirit as he’s teaching this, every time he declares this, the Spirit can testify with our Spirit, that we are his and provide us comfort to hear another challenge, to how we ought to follow our Lord’s example here. But I say this is a merciful declaration because to be merciful is to be concerned about people in need, to look upon the pain and the misery and to the distress of those in sin, to reach out, to extend a hand, to help relieve the suffering.
And as I mentioned, I think this declaration of blessedness is just that, when we think upon what we once were, when we think upon our past miserable state of unbelief, when we remember that we were an enemy of God, we remember that he also sent his son to save us, to shed his blood for us, to give his own life. When we think upon these things, our spirits are lifted, are they not?
And in this one word, macarios, blessed, that ought to remind us of that, provoke that in us, that we have been favored by God and made his sons and daughters. This declaration of blessedness is a reminder of how he mercifully reached down and snatched us from the pit of hell, out of the grasp of the evil one, from being enslaved to sin.
And we go from that lowly depraved state and we now stand in the best possible position as God’s children, as his co- heirs with Christ. It is a merciful declaration that we can continue to minister to ourselves, remind ourselves of, when we don’t feel like we are in a position of divine favor because of life circumstances.
May even, maybe even as we approach the Christmas season, we can be easily overcome with I’ll feelings. Maybe when we’re reminded of what or who we have lost, as some of those things are are particularly poignant this time of year. This merciful declaration of blessedness can minister to us, perform its ministry of mercy over and over in our lives as we renew our minds with this truth that we are blessed by God, forgiven of sins, favored by God above all men, even when we don’t feel like it.
And we can then turn and minister to other believers with this truth as well, reminding them of their blessed condition, when maybe they’ve lost sight of it. So this first word here, blessed, it’s a merciful declaration of truth that instructs our own hearts. It gives us truth that we can use to renew our own minds with, to be merciful, to help others renew their mind with. It is a merciful declaration.
Jesus, as with the others, moves on. And now we have point two: A merciful expectation. Point two: A merciful expectation. “Blessed are the merciful.” Jesus tells us or describes for us, that a true child of God, a true kingdom citizen, is one who is merciful. You can’t be a child of God and be a citizen of God’s kingdom and be lacking any and all mercy towards others. It is a description of God’s people, but that also means that there is this expectation upon God’s people that they be merciful people.
As followers of Christ, we must be merciful. But what does that mean? What does it mean to be merciful? I remember learning at at some point in my life, probably all the way back to when I was a kid in Awana, remember hearing at some point that grace is God giving us what we don’t deserve, and mercy is God withholding from us what we do deserve.
That mercy is God not pouring his wrath out on a deserving people. That is mercy as a restraint. And I think that is true, but that is definitely not the whole picture of what mercy is. Biblically speaking, if that was the whole picture of what mercy means, then Jesus is essentially telling us here, don’t be wrathful to people who deserve it. And, and I think mercy definitely includes that. But that does not exhaust the meaning of what it means to be merciful.
To be merciful is to be concerned about people and their need. It goes beyond holding back wrath and moves one to bring relief to the person in pain, misery, and distress. But mercy biblically describes someone acting to relieve mercy or relieve misery. It’s not an empty concern. This mercy concerned about people in their need. It’s not an empty concern about people that has no action with it.
The Bible never says God had compassion on his people and just let them be, there’s always an act that follows. In the New Testament, here, merciful is the adjective form of the Greek word eleos, and this Greek word was used, among others, to translate the Old Testament term, hesed. You might be familiar with that Old Testament term loyal, love, loving, kindness, love.
This word here, eleos, is used to translate that Old Testament term into the Greek Septuagint over 250 times. That’s no small number. So we must, as we think about this, take that into account. This Old Testament term for loyal love, loving kindness is used, this Greek term for mercy is used to translate that and it’s debated as to whether this word, eleos, mercy, in the New Testament, was used because of the nearness of equivalence to the Old Testament term, hesed, or if this New Testament term underwent a transformation of meaning because those translators used it to translate that term.
While it’s impossible to know for sure, one lexicographer writes this, he says, “at the very least, eleos,” that’s this term, mercy in the New Testament, “must have conveyed a richer complex of meanings to a Greek speaking Jew familiar with the Scriptures than it would have to a secular Gentile. And such semantic associations must be taken into consideration when assessing the New Testament use.”
In other words, because there’s this entire freight train of Old Testament context that this word is used to translate, we would be remiss if we did not take these semantic associations into consideration, because we believe in the importance of the progressive revelation of God, that he revealed his word over a period of time, we need to take these Old Testament uses of this word into consideration so we understand the full meaning of what Jesus wants us to do here.
We don’t have time to survey any number of those Old Testament uses of that word, but when we look at the Old Testament narratives where this Greek word, eleos, mercy, is used to translate, hesed, a series of common features can be identified that together describe this act of, hesed, in the Old Testament or mercy.
And I believe this is what Jesus is referring to when he calls us to this. So what makes something an act of mercy? What is mercy? What kind of things are Jesus calling us to and setting this expectation for? I have four features to help us solidify a definition. These are not sub-points. If you’re really eager for sub-points, those will follow after this.
But these are just four aspects, four features of helping us come up with a proper definition of mercy. And I didn’t come up with these on my own. I’m paraphrasing some of these out of a Bible dictionary. But the first feature of an act of mercy, considering all these uses in the Old Testament, the first feature is that the help of another is essential.
As followers of Christ, we must be merciful.” Bret Hastings
The help of another is essential, that is to say, the person in need cannot help themselves. He cannot perform the action needed to relieve his own pain and suffering. Second, the help itself is essential. So the help of another is essential, but the help itself is essential, meaning that the needy person’s situation will turn drastically for the worse if relief doesn’t come. So help is essential for the person.
Third, the circumstances dictate that one person is uniquely able to provide the needed assistance. In other words, there’s nobody else coming to help. If you don’t help that person, there’s not somebody else who can or practically will.
The fourth feature of an act of mercy is that the person in need has no control over the decision of the person who is in the position to help. That is, the person who’s in need, they’re in no position to influence the decision of the person who can help, and there’s no legal pressure to provide help. So if you’re legally obligated to do something, that isn’t an act of mercy.
That is to say, and this is a quote from that dictionary, “the potential helper must make a free moral decision based essentially on commitment to the needy person within the relationship. While self-interest might occasionally encourage a positive response, the term, hesed, focuses the rationale for action on commitment to the other, not on advantage to the actor.”
In other words, the person is doing it out of the compassion in their heart for the other person. That’s what defines an act of mercy. As we look at the Old Testament narratives and this use of hesed now you might be thinking that is quite the mouthful. How can we possibly be certain that that’s the expectation that Jesus is setting for us here?
Well, turn with me just forward in your your copy of God’s word to Luke chapter 10. Just for a moment. I would argue that what I have just described here as a true act of mercy, biblically speaking, is something that the Jews were very familiar with, because they were so familiar with their Old Testament.
Did they have these four points written down somewhere as a definition for mercy? Most certainly not. But as one becomes familiar with the Old Testament, as the Old Testament Jews were, sometimes these kinds of things were caught more than they were taught. They were caught more than they were specifically articulated in a list like I just went through.
And here in Luke 10, Jesus brilliantly draws out of the heart of a self-righteous religious scholar. He knew what mercy was and yet he didn’t obey. For the sake of time, we’ll just look at Luke 10:25 through 37, which says, “And behold, a scholar of the law stood up and was putting Him,” that is Jesus, “to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’
“And he said to him, ‘What is written in the law? How do you read it?’ And he answered and said, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You’ve answered correctly, do this and you will live.’
“But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, ‘And Who is my neighbor?’ And Jesus replied and said, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, And they stripped him and beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. And a priest happened to be going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite also when he came to the place and saw him pass by on the other side,
“but a Samaritan who was on a journey came upon him. And when he saw him he felt compassion. And he came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them. And he put him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And on the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, “Take care of him, and whatever more you spend I will return.
“When I return, I will repay you.”” Then Jesus turns and says, ‘Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robber’s hands?’ And this one who was self-righteous, said ‘the one who showed mercy toward him.’ And then Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do the same.’”
The self-righteous religious leader who was very familiar with the Old Testament, he got the answer right. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.” That is a summary of the Old Testament law. He got the right answer. So we know he’s familiar with the Old Testament and he is the one when Jesus describes this situation, he is the one who can’t bring himself to say the Samaritan was the good guy.
The Samaritans were always the bad guys. They were the enemies of the Jews. He couldn’t bring himself to say the Samaritan was the good guy. So he described the whole situation as the one who showed mercy. And all of those elements that we described, those four elements of what makes mercy, mercy, is in that passage.
The man couldn’t help himself, if this man didn’t help him. There wasn’t anybody else. This man was in dire need of help, and he helped him, out of the compassion of his own heart. And even this Pharisee recognized, that’s what mercy is, and Jesus didn’t correct him. Rather, Jesus told him, now you go and do the same.
Essentially, Jesus says go help those who can’t help themselves, who will perish if you don’t help them. Because if you don’t help them, they’re not going to find help from anyone else. And do it out of the compassion of your own heart, not some external legal fear of man pressure.
Now let’s turn back to Matthew. But I think that suffices to show that what I described earlier, while there are some distinct elements that might vary slightly, that is the expectation of Christ for us here. If his people are to be merciful, that’s what it means.
Blessed are the merciful, Calvin says of this beatitude. As we we’ve talked about this before, the paradoxical nature of the beatitudes. Calvin says, “This paradox too contradicts the judgment of men. The world reckons those men to be happy who give themselves no concern about the distresses of others, but consult their own ease.”
Christ says those are happy who are not only prepared to endure their own afflictions, but to take a share in the afflictions of others. Who assist the wretched, who willingly take part with those who are in distress, who clothe themselves, as it were, with the same affections that they might be more readily disposed to render them assistance.
While our world turns ever more inward to find happiness and becomes ever more depressed with what they find there. Because the human heart is dark, lost in a sea of self, self-indulgence, self-gratification, and our world blocks everything else out that makes them feel anything that they don’t like, anything that they don’t know what to do with, like compassion.
It is no shock that the wisdom of God here is that happiness is found not in self, but loving God and loving others. But as we think about being merciful, I think there are practically three aspects of mercy that we can really take from the life of Christ that we ought to emulate. Three aspects of mercy that we need to understand in order that we might be merciful to the fullest extent that Jesus intends for us here.
You can jot these three down as sub-points if you’re taking notes. These three aspects of mercy are physical, relational, and spiritual. Physical mercy, relational mercy, and spiritual mercy. We’ll begin with the physical aspect of mercy.
Benjamin Warfield in a small book, we had it in the bookstore for the conference entitled The Emotional Life of Our Lord. He says this, “The divine mercy has been defined as that essential perfection in God whereby he pities and relieves the miseries of His creatures. It includes, that is to say, the two-part of an internal movement of pity and an external act of beneficence.” Warfield goes on to make clear that this internal movement of pity is referred to in the New Testament by the word compassion or splanchna, while the external act is referred to by the word, mercy.
So the internal movement of compassion works itself out in mercy towards someone. To have mercy is to act. So when our Lord holds up the expectation of mercy for his people, that we be merciful, it also presupposes that they are compassionate, that they have this internal movement of pity that moves them to an outward action. And rather than if we struggle to show mercy to people, rather than just forcing ourselves without any feeling in our hearts, sometimes we just need to repent of a lovelessness towards people.
We need to foster a compassion in our own hearts towards people, that our internal movement of our heart would be a natural outworking to acts of mercy. Jesus Christ modeled this. Turn over a couple pages to Matthew chapter 14. John the Baptist in the context of Matthew 14, John the Baptist has just been beheaded. We read earlier, John the Baptist, a dear relative of Jesus, probably a dear friend of Jesus, co-laborer in the gospel, he’s just died.
What does Jesus do? He withdraws alone with his disciples, possibly to mourn and weep as he did over Lazarus, the loss of a friend, co-laborer. He withdrew to pray, but also to rest because they were so pressed by people that they didn’t even have time to eat. So Jesus takes his disciples. They go on out on a boat on the Sea of Galilee to get away from people. But the people, they on shore, they followed the boat on shore to meet it when it landed on the other side.
They’re so eager to hear more from Jesus, to receive help from Jesus. And Matthew 14:14 describes this kind of compassion and mercy, the inward aspect and the outward aspect, 14:14. Matthew 14:14 “and when he went ashore, that is Jesus, he saw a large crowd and he felt compassion for them.” That’s that inward movement and then the outward manifestation of mercy, “and healed their sick.”
Even in Jesus own loss of a friend, he’s tired, weary, exhausted, still hasn’t eaten anything. He gets to shore. He looks at these people who following him. He has compassion on them, shows them mercy by healing them, walking around and touching them, laying his hands on them to heal them, relieving their physical suffering, even though we would have still been exhausted.
How many times have we made an excuse not to help somebody because we, we’re exhausted, just don’t have the energy to show mercy to somebody who needs it. Jesus here, he pours himself out like a drink offering to alleviate the physical suffering of other men. This is a common pattern throughout Jesus’ ministry, concerned with the physical suffering of men.
If you just go back a couple chapters of Matthew Chapter 9, so many places that we could could see this. We don’t want to go through many of them just for the sake of time. But in Matthew 9, Jesus has just healed a woman who had been bleeding for many years. He’s just raised a young girl from the dead. News about his power is spreading across the countryside and time and time again we read this kind of thing in Jesus’s, in in the gospels.
Matthew 9:27 recounts, that as Jesus went on from there after he had raised the young girl from the dead. Matthew 9:27, “As Jesus went on from there, two blind men following him were crying out, ‘Have mercy on us Son of David.’” Jesus had the reputation of showing people mercy by healing them, and so people would often cry out to him, “Son of David, have mercy on us.”
Christ was marked by this. He cared deeply for people. He was marked by showing mercy. He had a spirit of compassion that moved him to exhaust himself further, to care for people’s physical needs. As beloved Christs’ people, true followers of Christ, we ought also to be marked by a merciful spirit moved by compassion to acts of mercy, seeing those who are in need, physical needs, just as the Lord did, and not just feeling for them and walking by, but acting. Does that describe you?
Do you have compassion on people when you see them physically suffering or do you sometimes excuse yourself from many compassion or mercy, because, well, some people, they just got themselves into this mess? Or even worse, God’s sovereign, he knows what he’s doing in their life.
And while both of those things are true, Jesus certainly knew those things, that many people were in suffering because of their own sin, that God was sovereign over their life, yet he still exhausted himself to extend mercy to them. None of us can heal like Jesus did. None of us have that power, but when people are suffering physically, do you have that internal movement of pity that leads to an outward action of mercy? Maybe it’s just the mercy of being there for somebody.
Been described before as the ministry of just being there, the ministry of presence. Sometimes just being there, weeping with those who weep, as Paul says in Romans 12:15. Do you do that? Do you see those people in need; maybe just of somebody else’s physical presence and move yourself to meet that need.
Included in this, would be other people’s financial needs. But alleviating physical suffering was a great concern of of our Lords; and brothers and sisters, we, of all people, ought to emulate him in that regard. We ought to reach out to extend mercy to those in who are physically suffering, meet their physical needs. But that’s just one aspect.
There’s another that we need to speak about and that is relational mercy. What I’ve titled here is relational mercy, sub-point B, if you’re taking notes. What I’ve entitled here is relational mercy is what Martyn Lloyd Jones, he he spends a majority of his sermon on this text, dealing with this, and that is for the expectation of Christians to forgive others who sin against them.
We see Jesus performing this relational ministry of mercy, but he was in the unique position of forgiving sins against God. You should still be in Matthew Chapter 9, at least that’s where I’m at in my Bible, but look at verse 2, Matthew Chapter 9, verse 2, “And behold, they brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed and seeing their faith Jesus said to the paralytic, ‘Take courage son, your sins are forgiven.’”
What a mercy that Jesus extends to this man, for Christ to alleviate the suffering conscience of this man by assuring him of his forgiven sins. Jesus did something similar when he was on the cross crying out, “‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do.’” I mean, for any of those around watching, maybe the centurion who was there who possibly put faith in him right after that. What a ministry of mercy that would have been to him that he could put the Son of God to death and be forgiven.
What a ministry of mercy to all of us. I mean, if, if that guy can be forgiven who put the Son of God to death, then there’s nothing we can do that won’t be forgiven. But Jesus modeled a relational ministry of mercy that becomes an expectation for us not to forgive others their sins against God, but to forgive others their sins against us.
To be merciful is to be concerned about people and their need.” Bret Hastings
Flip over to Matthew 18. Jesus in teaching his disciples he tells them how to work out conflicts with one another. When one brother sins against another brother, Jesus tells his disciples to forgive that brother and any who repent to restore them to the fellowship, where we draw our doctrine of church discipline from.
But after hearing this, Peter has a question. And often, as Peter does, he puts it out there that maybe he’s, he’s overdoing it a little bit. He feels pretty good. He says, well, should I forgive seven times Jesus? And seven is the number of perfection. He thinks that he’s doing really good. But let’s just read Matthew 18:21 through 22.
“Peter came and said to Him, ‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?’ And Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.’” Seventy times seven; in other words, Jesus is saying there is no limit. You got to go way beyond seven, Peter. There is no limit to what you must forgive.
Paul exhorts us likewise in Ephesians 4:32. He says be kind to one another, tender hearted, that’s that word for compassion, splanchna. That’s the inward movement that works itself out. How does it work itself out? “Tender hearted, graciously forgiving each other,” Paul says, “Just as God in Christ also has graciously forgiven you.”
If we think back to our fourfold definition of biblical mercy, we find a couple of points that are particularly poignant here. If someone sins against us, their conscience is going to be burdened by that sin. They’re going to be suffering under the effects of their own sin, and they can’t perform the action necessary to help themselves. That is, they, contrary to what our current culture says, they cannot forgive themselves.
What they need is, yes, forgiveness from God, but also forgiveness extended from the one that they have sinned against; forgiveness from you to restore the relationship. And also when someone sins against you, not only can they not do that themselves, but you are in the unique position of being the only person, humanly speaking, who can provide relief to their conscience and extend the forgiveness.
Beloved, more than any other people, we ought to be marked by a willingness to extend mercy by forgiving others, not motivated by any law, but because we love God, because he has forgiven us. This is the expectation of Christ’s people. This is the heart of a true believer, a true Kingdom citizen. We forgive others when they sin against us, no matter how grave the sin is. If Jesus can utter those words from the cross, “Father, forgive them,” then no matter what somebody does to us, we can also extend forgiveness.
So we’ve seen that we need to be concerned to show physical mercy, relational mercy. Now third, spiritual mercy. B.B. Warfield again says, “it was not merely the physical ills of life, however, that is want and disease and death, that called out our Lord’s compassion. These ills were rather looked at by Him as themselves rooted in spiritual destitution, and it was this spiritual destitution that most deeply moved Him to pity.”
We already looked at Matthew chapter 14, verse 14. After John the Baptist died and Jesus got on the boat, went to the other side, the people followed. Matthew tells us of Jesus’s compassion on the crowd, so he healed them. But Mark’s Gospel recounts the same event, but he mentions the spiritual mercy that Jesus offers on the other side.
This is Mark 6:34, it says, “And when Jesus went ashore, he saw a large crowd, and he felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” And so he felt compassion on them. What was the mercy he extended them? He began to teach them many things. In Matthew 9:36, similarly, it says that, “Jesus felt compassion for his people because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” “Distressed and downcast.”
Jesus looked at the people of his generation, he saw them overcome by sin and sinful thinking; he saw them caught in snares, wearied from trying to obey all the laws of the Pharisees and their traditions. He looked on them and had great pity. He saw their deep spiritual destitution and he acted in mercy, yes, by healing them, but also by teaching them truth.
Another commentator writes this about Christ, “Obstinate sin drew from Christ a deeper sigh than the sight of suffering, a sigh in which anger and sorrow both had a part.” When we look around at our own generation, our own people, our own nation, and we see their spiritual destitution, their degradation, that ought to produce anger in us, yes, but an anger that leads to sorrow for sin and compassion for that Sinner who is enslaved to it, not wrath and scorn.
And it’s not enough just to withhold all that wrath and scorn. We must extend mercy. It wasn’t that long ago that Travis taught through Luke 19, the triumphal entry. Jesus comes upon the city, supposed to be. All the disciples are excited. They’re thinking this is it. Jesus is going to be enthroned, he’s going to rule.
But Jesus when he approaches the city, he weeps over it. Luke 19:41 says, “and he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He cried over it, saying, ‘If you knew in the day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.” And then he goes on to declare its coming Judgment.
But beloved, do you see sinners suffering in their obstinate sins even and feel compassion leading to your own act of mercy to try to teach them truth, to teach them repentance? Maybe you’re going to have one of these people sitting across the Christmas dinner table from you this coming season.
Maybe this is just teaching gospel to a lost family member, neighbor, children at home, as you sit down with them throughout the week and teach them. Again to draw on our Old Testament observation of acts of mercy, if we don’t teach these people the gospel, if we don’t extend mercy and teaching them the gospel and repentance, there is no other source that that mercy’s going to come from.
There’s no one else to extend mercy to them. To go back to the analogy of the Good Samaritan, let’s not be like the Levite and the priest who went on the other side to pass by, no doubt in their own minds, making all kinds of excuses why they couldn’t help. Beloved, if we don’t preach the gospel to those in need, help is not coming from another source.
So we must consider those in our lives who don’t know him who need it. But this can also be teaching another member sitting in this church how to work out repentance in their life. If we see someone caught in sin, we want to be like the Good Samaritan who couldn’t walk past the dying man.
So too, we cannot walk past people in this life with no concern that they’re spiritually in a dire situation, whether that is without Christ altogether or just a brother caught in sin. We have to, as we read these beatitudes from Christ, if as we have examined his own life of his ministry of mercy, let us put on these spiritual spectacles of our Lord that he gives us to see the world through his eyes with pity, love and mercy, to help those who are suffering, to help all of those that the Lord puts in our path.
And I know we can’t talk to everyone we pass on the street, but are we looking for opportunities or are we making excuses when opportunities come? Beloved, this is what marks a true Christian. This is the merciful expectation for everyone who claims to follow Christ that we be concerned to show physical, relational, and spiritual mercy to people. And contrary to worldly wisdom, it is the one who concerns himself with the suffering of others that is blessed. That’s a merciful expectation.
Now finally, point 3: A merciful motivation. I’ll just read verse 7 one more time. “Blessed are the merciful.” You can turn back there if you want. “For they shall receive mercy.” What is unique about this beatitude is its reciprocal nature. Reciprocal means back and forth, that which we are to be or to give, namely mercy, here, is also what we receive.
The second use of the word mercy in here is in its verb form and it’s in the passive. This is a use of, Travis has talked about this in the last month or so, the use of the divine passive, God is the subject; we are the object, those who receive this mercy. And it’s also in a future tense.
One commentator though, notes that this isn’t an eternal benefit because in the eternal state there will be no more suffering to alleviate. Unlike many of the other beatitudes that we can project into the eternal state, this one is relegated to this life where he can relieve our suffering.
And so it was future for these. But I would argue that what Jesus is promising right here, as a future promise, is what Travis talked about last week in his ministry of ascension towards us. Christ has an improved condition and an improved ministry as he sits enthroned in heaven. He intercedes for us, sending the Spirit to minister to us, to teach us, convict us, lead us to repentance and faith, and then further and further sanctification. He strengthens us to show mercy as we have received mercy from him.
So comforting last week just to hear some of the quotes that Travis gave, and I don’t want to repeat those this morning, but go back and listen to that again. Jesus looks down from heaven and he sees men suffering in the sinful world, sometimes because of our own sin, sometimes just because we live on a sin cursed earth. But he’s not up there scoffing at us, disappointed because we sinned again.
He sees us suffering under the defiling, corrupting, destroying effects of sin, and he is moved with compassion to help us. Just as we’ve read throughout the Gospels, as he looked at all those people, he sees us overcome by this disease of sin, and he, like a good doctor, seeks to cut out the cancer with a precise scalpel cut, in order that we might be preserved for his use.
He’s not up there just waiting to smash us with a hammer when we sin. Just as we read of his ministry of mercy to people when he walked on this earth, he continues that ministry now towards us from heaven, but with his own improved condition and glorified body.
But as we think about our motivation to follow our Lord’s example, it’d be easy to read this, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” It’d be easy, but wrong to read this text and say be merciful, because if you aren’t merciful, God’s not going to show mercy to you. But that puts the motivational emphasis on what you get out of it. And biblically, that’s not what we talked about earlier as mercy. It’s not doing something for your own good.
Our motivation comes when we remember the mercy God has already shown us, and we seek to love God and glorify him, by showing that same kind of mercy to others. We are blessed because we have received mercy from God and we worked that mercy out by showing others mercy. Our motivation is not one of law or personal benefit, but it’s love for God primarily and secondarily love of neighbor.
This is the same thing we read earlier. Paul motivated his listeners with this when he told them to do this: Love, forgive, just as you were forgiven by God. Other places, he said you were once like them, you were once lost in your sins. Therefore show mercy as he has showed mercy and as you are ensnared in sin. Just as Christ was so merciful to reach down and save you, to bring you back when you wander, let his love and mercy motivate you to follow in his footsteps and be merciful yourself.
This is again the perfect message to be thinking about this time of year as we’re reminded of the kindness and the mercy of God in sending Christ. So let’s be intentional, beloved, about thinking about those people in our life who who need essential help, who can’t help themselves, those people that you are in a unique place and a unique position to relieve their suffering and do it, beloved, motivated by a love for God and your commitment to them.
And so let’s just think for a moment, is there someone that you know who is in need of physical mercy? As we talked about, sometimes it’s just the ministry of being there. This time of season, the ministry of just being there could mean that you invite someone to Christmas dinner who doesn’t have anywhere else to go.
We don’t want anyone who is here to be alone on a day that should be filled with joy and fellowship. If that is you and no one has invited you to dinner yet, just let the office know. We would love. There’s lots of people who tell us, hey, if you know of somebody, we want to invite them. Sometimes it’s just a matter of connecting people. We want to be able to do that.
Or is there someone in your life who needs the gospel that you can be more intentional to show them this mercy, that you’re in a unique position to extend mercy to them? Is there someone in your life who’s in need of relational mercy? Do you need to forgive someone? Ask forgiveness from someone else? Let’s be intentional, beloved, just as Jesus was, never making excuses when opportunities present themselves, but leaning in to being merciful as Jesus was merciful.
Let’s do this, beloved, motivated by our love for God and his gospel that saved us. Knowing this, that regardless of how our mercies are received by people, because we all know sometimes when mercy is extended, people bite like the animal that’s trapped and is hurting and regardless of how our mercies are received, beloved, remind yourself of this, that you stand in the enviable position of divine favor before God.
Many people lashed out at Christ when he tried to extend mercy to them, namely on the cross. Let us follow his example, beloved, reminding ourselves of our enviable position of divine favor, but extending mercy to those in need. Amen. Let’s pray.
Father, you proved yourself so merciful, so compassionate towards sinners. I pray that you would drive out of us, who are here, any wrath or scorn that we might feel towards unbelievers, towards maybe those who are in our lives who have lashed out at us in the the past, as we’ve tried to extend mercy, maybe putting us in a position not to extend any more mercy.
And I just pray that you would give us great wisdom as we seek to do this, that we would seek to extend mercy to its fullest extent as you did to people, even being willing to weary ourselves, as you were, to extend physical mercy, relational mercy, spiritual mercy, teaching people truths that they needed to know. We have those in the gospel. Lord, help us, strengthen us by your Spirit, to walk as you would have us walk, to be merciful as you were merciful. Lord, we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.