Trinity Baptist Church

 

Turn with me to Matthew Chapter 5 and we'll continue our study in the Beatitudes.  

 

If you've been with us for our study of Matthew, you know that this is the manifesto of the king. Matthew presents Jesus Christ as king and here we hear the king present the manifesto of His kingdom. 

 

Now we've been saying that this is a twofold presentation. Our Lord is telling the truth about how you enter His kingdom and how you live while you're in His kingdom. Only the poor in spirit enter. Only the mourners enter. Only the meek enter. Only those who hunger and thirst after righteousness enter. And once they enter, they continue to be poor in spirit, mournful, meek, and hungering and thirsting after even more righteousness.

 

And here we come to the fifth, verse 7, "Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy." 

 

And I would say again, it's the same twofold thing. In order to be in God's kingdom, you must be one who seeks mercy. And when you are in God's kingdom, you will be one who gives mercy to others. In other words, mercy is also a character, a characteristic of those in God's kingdom, being merciful.

 

Now the religion that Jesus faced in His day was shallow and superficial and external. And we learn that the Lord was looking at a kind of Judaism which was very, very much ritualistic and on the outside not the inside. 

The Jewish leaders thought they were secure and that they would surely be inhabiters of the kingdom. They thought they surely would be the leading ones in Messiah's rule because they had a certain formalized, external, self-righteous religion. They were proud, they were indifferent, they were selfish, they were self-seeking, and they believed that because of their superficial acts of "righteousness" they would surely be the choice ones. But the fact of the matter is there was nothing happening on the inside.

 

In fact, our Lord said to these same people "on the outside you're white and clean, but on the inside, you're full of dead men's bones." And that is why back in Chapter 3, if you'll note for a moment when John the Baptist arrived upon the scene, his message was very directed to this issue. 

 

Matthew 3:7ff

 

Now John the Baptist was speaking of a tremendous judgment of fire that would come on those who had nothing more than an external religion. Who were going through the religious motions, but had none of the eternal reality. That was to be judged by God. The ax was falling. The fire was beginning to burn. 

 

And Jesus confronts this external self-righteous, selfish crowd of Jewish leaders and people as well and says to them, what really matters is what is on the inside. The poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, the merciful, the pure at heart, the peacemakers. Those are all internal qualities. 

He bypassed all of the supposed credits that they had mounted to their own cause on the outside and went right to the heart of the matter.

 

Jesus Christ always begins on the inside. He is concerned with action, but only as it is produced by what's inside. The fruit of righteousness on the inside will produce the right action. But you can falsify the action without the reality, and that's legalism. What Christ wants is true action based on true attitude. Jesus wants action that springs from right character. And by the way, from the 6th Chapter right through the 7th Chapter of the Sermon on the Mount, it all deals with action. It all deals with things we do or say or things we think.

 

But the premise on which it's all built is the right kind of heart attitude and that's what He's talking about here. Martin Lloyd-Jones has well put it this way, "A Christian is something before he does something." 

 

To be a child of the king, to be a subject of the kingdom is first of all, to possess a certain kind of character. A character of brokenness, a character of mourning over sin, a character of meekness, a character of hunger and thirst for righteousness, a character of mercifulness, a character of purity of heart, a character of a peacemaker.

 

God is concerned with the motives, the insides that produce the right external acts. 

 

Now let's go back to Matthew 5 and see where we are. Jesus confronted a bunch of externalists with some devastating statements. 

He hits them right at the most vulnerable place in the first Beatitude when he says, "What you need to do is be spiritually bankrupt. You need to recognize that you are destitute and debauched beggars who have nothing good to bring to God you're only hope is that you would see the beggarliness of your condition and that you would cower in the darkness of a corner and reach out a hand as a beggar who couldn't do anything for himself." And boy that was really obtuse to those Jewish people.

 

And then He says further, "You must not be glad and satisfied about your self-righteousness. You must weep great tears about your sinfulness. You must be a mourner. 

 

Further, you must not be proud because you have kept certain laws. You must be meek before a holy God. 

 

Not only that, you must not be smug about your self-righteousness, but you must realize you have a starving a lack of righteousness and you must hunger and thirst for that."

 

Now let me kind of connect this to number 5 in the Beatitudes. These first four Beatitudes were entirely inner principles. They dealt entirely with an inner attitude. They dealt entirely with what you see of yourself before God. 

 

But now as He comes to the fifth Beatitude, this while being also an inner attitude, begins to reach out and touch others. There is a manifestation in this that is the fruit of the other four. 

 

While it is true of us that we are broken as beggars in our spirit, that we are mournful and meek and hungering and thirsting after righteousness we will find ourselves being merciful to others as a result of it.

 

Someone has said, "They who in their poverty of spirit acknowledge their need of mercy begin to show mercy to others. They who mourn their sin begin while they mourn to wash their hearts clean so they are also the pure in heart. And the meek are the ones who are always making peace. And they who hunger and thirst for righteousness are ever willing to be persecuted for righteousness sake." 

 

Notice how the first four line up with the last four. 

 

The first four are the inner attitudes and the last four are the things they manifest. Where there is poverty of spirit, then you realize you're nothing but a beggar. You're going to be willing to give to somebody else who's nothing but a beggar and so you'll be merciful.

 

And where you are mourning over your sin, you will wash your heart pure with the tears of penitence and you will be the pure in heart. And where you are meek, you will always be a peacemaker, because meekness makes peace. And where you are hungering and thirsting for righteousness, you will be willing to be persecuted for righteousness sake. 

 

So we've made a transition now. Now we're going to talk about the character that is manifest when that inward attitude is there in the first four Beatitudes.

 

 

So let's look at what it means to be merciful. 

 

Verse 7

 

And as we look at this one simple statement, I want you to know people this is so profound that there's no way that I can begin to cover it all.

 

You know, it's very simple to preach when you just have a little bit of material, because you hit your point and hit your point and hit your point and expand it a little bit and you're okay. But when you've got just a Bible full of material, it's very difficult to pick out what's best. 

 

This concept of mercy runs from one end of the scripture to the other. From one end of God's history since the fall of man to the time of the consummation. It is a gigantic reality, but I want to see if we can draw together at least four aspects of mercy for our study tonight.

 

 

In other words, what does it mean to be merciful? It says in verse 7, happy or "Blessed are the merciful." What does it mean? That was a jolt to the Jews of that day. They were merciless and the Romans of that day were merciless. They were very proud, egotistical, self-righteous, condemning, they look down on others. And what Jesus was saying really touched the inside need of their hearts. 

 

There are a lot of people who've tried to use this Beatitude in kind of a humanistic way and they use mercy kind of like a human virtue. 

The idea being if you're good to everybody else, then everybody else will be good to you. 

 

Now you hear people who want to raise money. You say well, if you'll send us money, I'll promise you you'll get it back. Many people see this is some kind of a give and take and even people who look at it theologically. 

 

If I do this for God, God's going to do this for me. It's like playing “Let’s Make a Deal” with God. 

 

One writer paraphrase the verse by saying this, "This is the great truth of life. If people see us care, they will care." Want to bet? 

 

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. It's far more than a human platitude. Now on the one hand, if you bring God into it, there is a certain reciprocation. If we are honoring to God, God will care for us. 

 

But the world doesn't work that way. In fact, the Roman world didn't know the meaning of mercy. In fact, if you want to hear what they thought of it, all you have to do is recall that the Roman philosopher said, "Mercy is 'the disease of the soul.'" In other words, mercy was a sign of weakness. Mercy was a sign that you didn't have what it takes to do what really should be done. The Romans glorified justice and the glorified courage and they glorified discipline and the glorified power and they looked down on mercy, because mercy was a sort of a weak thing to do to show somebody mercy.

 

 

 

When a child was born into the world, the father had the right of patria potestas. He could take the child and they could just...they would hold the child up and if you wanted the child to live he held his thumb up. If he wanted the child to die, he held it down. The child, if the thumb went down, was immediately drown. There was no mercy. If a Roman citizen didn't want his slave anymore, he could take out a knife and kill his slave and bury him and there was no recourse. So you see if you're talking about Roman society, that kind of platitude doesn't cut it.

 

It is simply the idea that if you're merciful to everybody then everybody's going to be merciful to you. That's wishful thinking in a Roman society and I'll tell you something else. It's wishful thinking in our selfish grasping competitive society. 

 

In our society we could say you be merciful to somebody else and they'll step on your neck. That doesn't always work. But the best illustration of the fact that it's not just a human platitude is our Lord Jesus Christ. He proves once and for all that it isn't a human platitude. Jesus Christ came into the world and was the most merciful human being that ever lived.

 

Jesus Christ came into the world and never did anything to harm anybody, never. Jesus Christ came into the world, He reached out to the sick and He healed them. And He reached out to the crippled and He gave them legs to walk. And He reached to the eyes of the blind and they saw and to the ears of the deaf and they heard and to the mouths of the dumb and the spoke. 

 

 

And He found the prostitutes and the tax collectors and those that were defiled and drunken and He drew them into the circle of His love and He redeemed them and He set them on their feet. He picked up the sorrow and He wept with them and He took the lonely and He made them feel like they were loved. And He took little children and He gathered them into His arms and He loved them. Never was there a human being who ever lived in the face of the earth with the mercy of this one.

 

Once He was going along the streets and funeral procession came by and He saw a mother weeping because her son was dead, and who would care? No son, no husband. And Jesus reached out in the midst of the funeral procession, stopped the casket, put His hand on it, and raised the child from the dead and gave him back to his mother. 

 

In John Chapter 8 some men had caught a woman in adultery and they dragged that women into the presence of Jesus and He looked at that woman after He had talked with her and after He'd confronted her accusers and He forgave her and He said, "neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more." What mercy.

 

He ate with tax collectors. He ate with sinners. And when the scribes and Pharisees saw Him eat with the tax collectors and the sinners in Mark Chapter 2, verse 16, they said to His disciples, "how is it that He eats and drinks with publicans and sinners?" He runs around with the rift-raft. 

 

From start to finish the life of the blessed Lord Jesus was one of constant mercy. He was merciful to everyone. 

But understand: mercy given doesn't mean mercy returned. You can't work that human platitude in Jesus' case. You know what, He was the most merciful human being that ever lived and they screamed for His blood and they slammed Him to a cross and they nailed Him there.

 

That's not what it's talking about. If mercy carried it's own reward, they wouldn't have nailed the most merciful being that ever lived to a cross and spit in His face and cursed Him. 

 

Two merciless systems, the Roman system and the Judaistic system took the life of mercy exemplified. 

 

So mercy, as it is used here is not some human virtue that brings it's own reward. That's not the idea. It isn't that you'll be merciful to others and they'll be merciful to you.

 

What then does the Lord mean? What is the significance? 

Just simply said, it's this: You be merciful to others and God will be merciful to you. That's what it's saying. God is the subject of the second phrase. God will give you mercy. We're not talking about something that's human. 

 

Now let's look at the word itself and we'll say more about that. Let's look at the word merciful. The word is only used twice in the entire New Testament. Once it is used here and once it is used in Hebrews Chapter 2:17. 

 

 

And there it says, "Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like His brethren that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest." 

 

Christ, again, is the great illustration of mercy.

 

He is our high priest who intercedes for us. And it is from Him that mercy comes. 

 

Now the verb form of the word is used many, many times in the Bible. It is very, very common. It is common in the Old Testament Septuagint, the Greek edition. The word “to have mercy on” means to succor the afflicted; to give help to the wretched and to rescue the miserable. It's a very broad idea. 

 

Anything you do that is of benefit to someone in need, that's mercy. Very broad idea, we think of mercy so much in terms of its aspect of forgiveness in salvation, but it's a very broad term. It means compassion in action.

 

It goes beyond compassion. It goes beyond sympathy and adds action to it. What the Lord is talking about here is not merely a weak sympathy that never does anything to help. It is genuine compassion with a pure unselfish motive that reaches out to help somebody in need.  

 

In other words, Jesus was saying to them, the people in my kingdom aren't takers, they're givers. The people in my kingdom aren't condemners, they're mercy givers. They people in my kingdom aren't the ones who set themselves above everybody. They're the people who stoop to help everybody. 

And by such words, Jesus was hitting them right where they were. In fact, there's one story Jesus tells about a man who wouldn't even give the necessary funds to care for the life of his mother and father because he said, oh, I've already devoted it to God in a religious act and I dare not break my vow to God. And our Lord said you are in deep trouble. You have exchanged the commandment of God to honor your father and mother for a tradition you've invented yourself, and they were good at it.

 

They were merciless even to their own parents. But our Lord says if you're a member of His kingdom, you're going to be merciful, full of mercy. 

 

Mercy is when I see a man without food and I give him food. Mercy is when I see a person begging for love and I give them love. Mercy is when I see someone lonely and I give them my presence. Mercy is meeting the need, not feeling it.  

 

Now let me compare it with several words so you'll understand its significance. 

 

First of all, mercy and forgiveness. Many confuse the two. But they are distinct concepts. 

 

In Titus 3:5, it tells us that "by His mercy or according to His mercy He saved us." Now that's important. Mercy then is an element that is there at salvation. In Ephesians Chapter 2, it tells us that "God who is rich in mercy has redeemed us, made us alive." So mercy is behind the scenes in salvation. It is God's mercy that makes Him save us. It is God's mercy that allows Him to redeem us. So mercy is behind forgiveness. No question.

 

Therefore, mercy and forgiveness are rightly linked. They belong together. 

 

In Daniel 9:9 the Bible says: 

 

Isn't that good? It links them together. So mercy and forgiveness do belong together. Psalm 130, by the way, also beautifully and wonderfully links those same things. "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee oh Lord. Lord, hear my voice, let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication if thou Lord shouldest mark iniquities oh Lord, who shall stand," this is a confession of sin, "but there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared. I wait for the Lord and my soul doeth wait. And in His word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning. I say more than they that watch for the morning. Let Israel hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy."

 

Now here's an individual confessing sin, seeking forgiveness and knowing that forgiveness comes from the fountain of mercy. So mercy and forgiveness are linked. We cannot think of mercy without its expression and forgiveness. 

 

But mercy is not forgiveness, or perhaps better said, forgiveness is not the only expression of mercy. 

 

Don't narrow down mercy to just a salvation reality. Mercy is infinitely bigger than just forgiveness. That's part of it. But listen Psalm 119:64 says, "The earth is full of thy mercy." Genesis 32:10, "I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies." 2 Samuel 24:4, "Thy mercies are great." 

Nehemiah 9:19, "Thy manifold mercies." Psalm 69:13, "The multitude of thy mercies. So mercies are far larger than just forgiveness.

 

Forgiveness is an act of mercy, yes. But there is much more. I can be merciful to someone when I forgive. But there are many other ways I can be merciful that don't necessarily involve forgiveness. 

 

In Lamentations, maybe the most beautiful of all the passages, it says this, "It is because of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because His compassions fail not, they are new," how often, "every morning great is thy faithfulness." God's mercies are infinite. 

 

What about mercy and love, how do they compare?

 

See, we're building a definition. Remember, we're dealing with the significance of mercy. 

 

How do we compare it with love?

 

Forgiveness flows out of mercy, mercy flows out of what? Love. Why has God been merciful? It is based on love. But God who is rich in mercy why? For His great love where with He loved us. You see the sequence? God loves and love is merciful and mercy is forgiving among many other things. And so love is behind mercy, but love is bigger than mercy.

Now get your brain wrapped around this. Follow the thought: mercy is bigger than forgiveness and love is bigger than mercy. Why? Because love can do a lot more than just show mercy. 

 

If I’m showing mercy, that presupposes there is a problem. But love can act when there isn't a problem, right? 

 

For instance, the Father loves the Son but the Son doesn't need mercy. The Son loves the Father and the Father doesn't need mercy. The Father loves the angels and the angels love the Father and neither one of them need mercy. Love is bigger than mercy. 

 

Mercy is a physician. But love is a friend. Love acts out of affection, mercy acts out of need. Love is constant, mercy is reserved for times of trouble. But there's no mercy without love. But love is bigger than mercy.

 

It's a tremendous thought isn't it? You see how God's great love funnels down to our need under the category of mercy. There's a whole other category too when we're righteous and don't need mercy, he still loves us. He'll love us throughout all eternity, we don't need mercy anymore. But love funnels down to us in this life through mercy and mercy narrows down to that one thought of forgiveness, but it's much broader than that too.

 

Could I add one more thought or maybe two? What about mercy and grace? People say well is mercy like grace and is grace like mercy? Well, yes and no. 

 

Now listen, you're going to really get a theological exercise so hang on. The term mercy and all of its derivatives always deal with elements of pain and misery and distress. Mercy is always in relation to sin, whether it's individual sin or just the sin of the world, just the problem of being in a sinful world. 

You see, mercy always presupposes problems. It deals with the pain and the misery and the distress. But grace deals with the sin itself.

 

Mercy deals with the symptoms, grace deals with the problem. You see mercy offers relief from punishment. Grace offers pardon for the crime. You understand? 

 

First comes grace and grace removes the sin and then mercy eliminates the punishment. They're different. You know, in three of his letters and he never does it in a letter to a church, he only does it in letters to individuals, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus, Paul says, "Mercy and grace and peace." Mercy and grace are different. Mercy eliminates the pain and grace grants a better condition.

 

Let me give you an illustration. Think about the Good Samaritan. He’s lying on the side of the road, he's been beaten to the point of the dying, he's been robbed and the priest goes by and walks along and doesn't want to get involved. And the Levite goes by, doesn't want to get involved. 

 

All of a sudden a half-breed Samaritan comes by and he sees this poor Jew all beaten and maimed and so forth and he goes over and he cares for him. What is he showing? Mercy. You know what mercy does? 

 

Mercy relieves his pain. Mercy pours oil in his wounds and mercy binds up his wounds. And mercy relieves the suffering. 

 

But you know what grace does? Grace goes over and rents him a room so he can live in an inn.

 

You see, mercy deals with the negative and grace puts it in the positive. Mercy takes away the pain and grace gives a better condition. Mercy says no hell, grace says heaven. Mercy says I pity you. Grace says I pardon you. 

 

So mercy and grace are two sides of the same marvelous thing. And God offers mercy and grace. 

 

And then there's another comparison you have to make and that's between mercy and justice. People say well, if God is a God of justice, how can He be merciful? If you look at it that way, if God's a just, holy, righteous God, can He just negate justice? 

 

Can He say well, I know you're a sinner and I know you've done awful things, but oh I love you so much and I have so much mercy, I'm just going to forgive you? Can He do that? Yeah, He can. You know why? Because He came into the world in human form and died upon a cross and bore in His own body your sins, right? And He already paid the price for all your sins. And at the cross when Jesus died, don't ever forget it, justice was satisfied.

 

God said, "There would be no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood." And God said, "There had to be a perfect sacrifice to bear the sins of the world." And Jesus was that and justice was satisfied. 

 

So mercy is special. It is more than forgiveness. It is less than love. It is different than grace. And it is one with justice. It is more than forgiveness, less than love, different than grace, and one with justice. 

 

 

It was mercy in Abraham after he had been wronged by his nephew Lot, which caused Abraham to go and secure Lot's deliverance. 

 

It was mercy on the part of Joseph after being treated so badly by his brothers that caused him to accept his brothers and meet their needs. 

 

It was mercy in Moses after Miriam had rebelled against him and the Lord had given her leprosy which made Moses cry, "Heal her now oh God, I beseech thee." 

 

It was mercy in David which caused him to spare the life of Saul. 

 

Mercy. That beautiful characteristic that says we reach out to forgive and to care and to help and to lift people up. We don't lord it over them. We don't step on their neck. We don't push them down. We don't act like we're something superior. 

 

God is always identified with the poor and the needy. Jesus said, "some day when the judgment comes I'm going to say to you, you know why you're going to be out of my kingdom? Do you know why you're not going to be a part? Because when I came to you, you didn't give me what I needed. When I was naked, you didn't clothe me. And when I was hungry, you didn't feed me. And when I was thirsty, you didn't give me the drink." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the people will say, "wait a minute, we never saw you." And the Lord is going to say them, "well, any of my people that you saw were representatives of me and when they came you didn't feed them and you didn't give them water and you didn't give them clothes. And if you done it unto the least of these, my children, you've done it unto me."

 

Listen, God identifies with destitute people. And the merciful are those who reach out. Not those who grasp and take. God help us somehow to be able to overrule the inundation of a corrupt society that tells us to get everything we can get and hear the voice of our God who tells us to give everything we can give.

 

We are to be merciful. If somebody offends you, be merciful. If somebody does something against you, be merciful. Be compassionate, be benevolent, be sympathetic. If somebody makes a mistake or a misjudgment or if somebody fails to pay a debt or return something they've borrowed or something, be merciful.

 

For those of us who have received mercy, how could we be anything but merciful? What did you deserve? How can you be cruel to somebody when you needed mercy so desperately from God? 

 

Well, that takes us to our second point. 

 

You know who it is, it's God. It's God. God is the source of mercy. It is a gift from God. 

 

Now let point out something to you: This Beatitude cannot be separated from the other four that precede it. In other words, mercy is only for the poor in spirit who mourn their sins and stand meek before a holy God and hunger and thirst for His righteousness. And when they receive His righteousness, when they receive His gift of mercy for them, then they can be merciful.

 

And the only way to get it is to get it from God. Mercy is not a normal human attribute. You'll never make it happen. The only way to be a merciful person is to have within you God-given mercy that accompanies the righteousness of God that comes through Christ and that's what Jesus is saying. 

 

Unless you come by this path to the place of hungering and thirsting for righteousness and you be filled by God, you'll never know mercy because mercy is part of His filling.

 

An old puritan said he wanted to die like the righteous; he just didn't want to live like the righteous. There may be some people who want mercy, but they don't want it on God's terms. And the only people who have mercy are the people who qualify under the first four Beatitudes. Those who have come with a broken and a beggarly spirit before a holy God and sought His righteousness that comes only in Christ. And when God gives us His righteousness with it comes a capacity for mercy.

 

Listen, God is merciful and we possess God. 

 

Now God has two kinds of attributes. Did you know that? He has what we call absolute attributes 

For example, God is love, God is truth, God is holiness. And if nobody ever lived He'd still be love, truth, and holiness.

 

If you were never born, He'd still be love, truth, and holiness. 

 

But when you and I came into the world, those absolutes took on a relative character. And His truth became faithfulness to us. His holiness became justice and His love became grace and mercy. Those are the relative attributes that spring from His absolute nature. His love became mercy and grace. 

 

God is the one rich in mercy and He is the one who gives it and He is the only One who can give it.  

 

That’s why Jesus aid in Luke 6:36, "Be ye therefore merciful as your Father is merciful." 

 

So God is the source. God is the only one who can give us mercy. The supreme act, obviously, of God's mercy was the cross. There's no act that can rival that for mercy.

 

Jesus comes to the cross. He gets inside the skin of man. He's merciful and that's what made Him a merciful high priest. Dr. Barnhouse put it this way, "When Jesus Christ died on the cross, all the work of God for man's salvation passed out of the realm of prophecy and became historical fact. God has now had mercy upon us. For anyone to pray God have mercy on me is the equivalent of asking Him to repeat the sacrifice of Christ. All the mercy that God ever will have on man, He has already had when Christ died. That is the totality of mercy. 

There couldn't be any more and God can now act toward us in grace because He has already had all mercy on us. The fountain is now open and it is flowing and it continues to flow freely.”

 

We correctly sing “mercy there was great and grace was free, pardon there was multiplied to me there my burden so found liberty," where, "at Calvary." 

 

There was God's act of mercy.  

 

 

What does it mean to be merciful?  

 

You say, how can I be merciful? 

 

First of all, in a practical, physical way. 

 

You say how? By giving a poor man money, a hungry man food, a naked man clothes, a man without a bed, a bed. By changing a grudge into forgiveness. 

 

There are so many, many ways. Mercy never holds a grudge. It never retaliates. It never is vengeful. It never flaunts somebody's weakness. It never makes something of someone's failure. It never recites a sin. 

 

So there's a lot of ways you can show mercy to people physically. 

 

But what about spiritually? And this is the climax. 

 

 

 

What about spiritually?

 

Let me give you four suggestions, very quickly, first of all by pity.

 

St. Augustine said, "If I weep for the body from which the soul is departed should I not weep for the soul from which God is departed?" We cry a lot of tears about dead bodies and sick bodies. I wonder if we are as concerned about the soul. 

 

If I as a Christian have seen and experienced mercy, and boy I have, I experience it every day as God continues to cleanse me and forgive me, if I who had no righteousness, but was poor in spirit, if I who stood mourning over my sin in a beggarly and hopeless condemnation, if I wretched and doomed and meek, if I hungering and thirsting for what I must have and couldn't get, if I who was given then mercy and pity from God's great heart, do not let that same mercy flow to others what kind of citizen of the kingdom am I?

 

Listen to Stephen in Acts 7:16 saying to God as they cast the stones and crushed his life out of his body, "Lord lay not this sin to their charge." Oh God don't hold them accountable for this. He was pitying their souls, you see. 

 

It's Jesus on the cross. "Father forgive them they don't know what they're doing." That's pity. And you and I must look at the lost with pity, not lording it over them or thinking ourselves better.

 

 

 

Secondly, I believe we can be merciful to men's souls by what I'll calling prodding.

You say what do you mean by that? 2 Timothy 2:25 tell us, "In meekness instructing those that oppose Him if God perhaps will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth." 

 

In other words, prodding means to confront people about their sin in order that God might give them forgiveness. You see, they've got to hear the gospel.

 

Listen: mercy prods. It confronts, it urges; it rebukes. Mercy prods because there's got to be the confrontation about sin before there can ever be a realization sinfulness.

 

Third thing, I think we care for the souls of people mercifully when we not only prod and pity, but when we pray. 

 

The sacrifice of prayer for the souls of those without God, for the souls of believers in sin is an act of mercy. 

 

How merciful you are can be indicated by how faithful you pray for people. Do you pray for the lost? Do you pray for your neighbors? Do you pray for people without Christ? Do you pray for the people who are Christians who are walking in disobedience? Your prayer is an act of mercy for it releases God's blessing. 

 

And lastly by preaching. I believe that when you preach the gospel that's the most merciful thing that you can possibly do for the soul of someone. 

 

We've seen the significance, the source, the substance, finally

 

 

You say if I'm merciful, what happens? 

 

"Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy".

 

Do you see the cycle? God gives us mercy. We are merciful and God gives us more mercy. Fantastic.

And by the way, it's the emphatic pronoun again, they only, they alone obtain mercy.   It is those who are merciful who get mercy. 

 

Now I want to warn you right here, and this is really critical, some people think this is how you get saved. 

 

This is not the way you earn salvation. Many think that if they just do deeds of mercy and deeds of beneficence and if they just give themselves to the poor and the needy they will then receive saving mercy. No, the point is not that. You do not get mercy for merits. Otherwise, mercy wouldn't be mercy, right?

 

 Mercy can only apply where there is no merit or it isn't mercy. So you can't have mercy for merit. Mercy is given because mercy is needed even by those who show it. 

 

There is a great illustration in Matthew 18 where the man brought his servant in and he said listen, "you pay me everything you owe me." And the man said, "oh I'll pay you everything."

 

And then the master said "well, on second thought I'll forgive you, you're forgiven." 

 

And the man who had just been forgiven, something he couldn't pay in his entire lifetime, ran out and found a guy who owed him a little bit that could have been paid and he grabbed him by the neck and he said "pay me everything you owe me or I'll throw you in prison." Now what's the picture?

 

You see here you have the true master being God. He offers mercy to this servant, but that servant never really converted. He never really accepted the salvation offered him. He never really took that mercy, because he never confessed his sin. He never related it to the truth and so mercy and truth never kissed it each other. It was phony mercy. It never worked in his case, because he never admitted his sinfulness. And it's obvious, because when he turned around and had an opportunity to show mercy, what did he do? He strangled the guy and threw him in jail.

 

And what our Lord was saying in that parable in Matthew 18 is this, when somebody shows no mercy, they prove they've received none.   On the contrary, this verse is saying if you are one who shows mercy, you give evidence of one who is receiving it. That's what he's saying. That man in Matthew 18 never had true mercy. That's why he couldn't give it, but the one who has received mercy gives it and receives more and receives more. 

Oh what a beautiful thought. He is saying the one who has received mercy will be merciful. The one who has received forgiveness will be forgiving. That's what he's saying.

 

And you know what's so wonderful about it? If you are a merciful person, you are because you've received mercy and God gives you more mercy, every time you sin He forgives. Every time you have a need, He meets the need. He takes care of your clothing, your food, we'll see that later in the Sermon on the Mount. 

 

He just pours mercy upon mercy upon mercy to those who show mercy, because they've received from the merciful God. I guess we could say what we've been saying all along. Look at your life. Are you merciful? If you're not, good possibility you're not a Christian, because those who show mercy are those who've received it and continue to receive it from the hand of God.

 

What about this? They shall obtain mercy. Some people think it just means the judgment in the future. I don't believe that for a minute. I think it's a now and a future. We receive it now. 

 

David cried over and over "be merciful to me oh God, be merciful to me oh God, be merciful to me oh God" and he wasn't talking about the future, he was talking about the present. In Psalm 86:3, he said, "Be merciful to me Oh God for I cry unto thee daily." 

 

And what did Psalm 23:6 say? "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me in the future." Is that what it said? "Goodness and mercy shall follow me," when, "all the days of my life, and (futre) I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

No wonder the Psalmist said "I will sing aloud of thy mercy." 

 

Let's pray.