Matthew chapter 5. So we continue on with our study in the Sermon on the Mount. Specifically, we've been in the passages dealing with the Beatitudes, right? So Matthew 5, I'm just going to read the passage for us. We'll pray, and then we'll look specifically at Everything okay? Okay. I'm just kidding. All right, cool. Matthew chapter five, we're just gonna read the beginning there that covers the Beatitudes as we get into our sermon today. Seeing the crowds, he, this is Jesus, went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and he taught 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 meek, 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 the sons of God. And blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Let's take a moment to pray, and then we'll get into our passage this morning. Holy Father, Lord, we know that, Lord, your word and your spirit is what will truly move your people, Lord, that, Lord, outside of what you have for us in this passage, I have nothing to add, no power in myself, but so Lord, I just pray that you would use me to clearly convey the message of your word, to clearly be able to properly interpret and to make application for us this morning. We pray that we would have open ears to hear what you would have for us this morning, that we would be attentive, that we would be submissive to what your word has to say, whether it be changes that need to be made, encouragements to continue in what we are doing, or whatever it might be, I pray that you would lead and direct this and that you would empower your word this morning. We ask this in Jesus' name. Specifically, we're gonna be honing in on that passage, blessed are the merciful, verse seven, for they shall receive mercy. Now, as we looked at this passage, we always want to make careful caution to place it in its context. Remember that this is the beginning of a larger sermon that actually encompasses three separate chapters, chapters five, six, and seven. And as he begins to kind of lay out a kingdom ethic for those who would be part of the kingdom of heaven, He begins by really describing the character of those who make up the kingdom. And so these Beatitudes need to be seen in that context, right? So this helps guard us against the temptation to turn these into formulas and steps into either a way to salvation or a way to enter the kingdom or a way to make God happy with us, right? In fact, I think that's one of the reasons why the typical word blessed here, the typical word that means God's favor, is not being used by Jesus here. In this case, it's referring more to kind of like just a person who's fortunate, a person whose life is commendable, a person whose life is happy. And so that helps us understand where to place this. So this is not some step-by-step program that Jesus is laying out for his disciples to truly make it into the kingdom. He is saying as he begins this larger sermon that as he's going to lay out some of the ways that his kingdom people are to behave and some of the different behaviors there and the commands that he has, he first wants to tell them who's in this, what kind of people make up this kingdom. And so we've seen already some of the descriptors of those who are part of the kingdom of heaven. And in each of these characters, again, I think a case can be made where, you know, there is a progression to these. There is a correlation to them. You know, it makes sense to kind of say, well, this one, okay, naturally this next one kind of makes sense in light of the first one that was pronounced. So I don't think Jesus is just haphazardly throwing these in some random order. I think there is a logical progression, a logical order to these. But these are not kind of moving from one step to the next. These are ongoing things that every true member of the kingdom of heaven, every true believer in Jesus Christ exhibits throughout their life. In other words, we never stop being humble. We never stop exercising that hunger and thirst after righteousness. We never cease to sorrow over our sin. That's not something we kind of move on from and say, all right, I'm in this stage now of my Christian life, right? So these are ongoing, continuously evident characteristics of believers. And it's also why in this particular passage, the term there, blessed are the merciful, is presented to us in an ongoing continuous tense. The Greek tense there is one that signifies that this is happening and it's continuing to happen. So for these particular situations, those who are merciful means that they are merciful now, and they continue to be merciful. And on the flip side, as they are merciful, they receive mercy ongoing, continuously, in a perpetual situation. And so I just wanna make sure that we're always clear with that. Obviously, there's more that can be said. You're welcome to go back to listen to any of the previous sermons where I went into a little more depth on those terms like blessing and how to kind of properly discern this. Because I don't wanna just come in here and say, blessed are the merciful, and all of a sudden we create this setting where you do this, God will do this, and it's very quid pro quo, right? We gotta be very careful about that when we approach these passages. So if I can put it this way. When we look at the Beatitudes, they kind of seem to have an apex, right, or a center point. So the first three, as we've already looked at, deal primarily with our view of ourselves, right? They're very internally self-focused, and that's not in a negative way, but, you know, we talk about being poor in spirit, we talk about mourning over sin, we talk about being humble. These are all recognizing who we are, our desperate need, the fact that we are broken sinners, that we live in a broken world and we sorrow over the sin that is around us and the sin that is in us, and that leads us to live in humility, knowing what we are. And then the focus in verse six kind of draws our gaze away from ourselves and the problems that we have to our need and to how God fills that need, right? That hunger and thirst after righteousness. Those who see their emptiness, who see their brokenness, are gonna look for an answer. And so they hunger and thirst for righteousness that they don't have and that God alone can give. And so they hunger and they thirst and their gaze is drawn away from themselves towards God. And then in the next three that we're gonna look at, some this week and then again next time I preach, these begin to change their focus again towards our neighbors, towards those around us, whether they be fellow believers or whether they be unbelievers and how we interact in the world. And so we can kind of keep that in our mind, right? We've looked at ourselves, we've looked to God. Now that we see this, how then does the kingdom citizen operate and how do they treat their neighbors and the world around them. And, spoiler alert, if we look even further into the future, we're going to see there in verse 10 how the world oftentimes reacts. to those in the kingdom. And so we're kind of going to see that pattern develop as we move forward in this series of sermons. But let's focus in on verse number seven. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Mercy is something I think that we probably encounter a lot in our day to day. We certainly are familiar with the term if you've ever been in church for any length of time. We know that mercy is a topic that will come up time and time again. You can't read very far into scripture and certainly not into the Psalms without encountering terms like mercy and forgiveness and grace. And in fact, so often that mercy and grace almost kind of become a blurry mix, right, of, you know, trying to define what is mercy, what is grace, they kind of get melded together. And they certainly have a strong correlation, and they certainly are almost always mentioned together. So how do we define or clarify mercy? And I don't think we can talk much about mercy without also incorporating grace. But specifically, I looked at some definitions that I think might help us when it comes to this term of mercy, right? I hesitate to bring this up because I don't know how helpful it is or remains to be for me, but maybe some of you can relate. You know, I'd always, growing up in church, you know, always have kind of been presented with the idea of mercy is not getting the punishment that you deserve, and grace is getting all the good things that you don't deserve, right? Kind of that idea of, you know, hey, as sinners, we deserve God's wrath, and therefore His mercy is not not executing that, and then grace is Him giving all those extra blessings and things in Christ over and above, because we don't deserve it. That might be a little helpful, but I wanna encourage us to maybe move past that definition a little bit, because unfortunately what I find is that by emphasizing the mercy is not getting what we, is God withholding that judgment that we deserve, then is God not just? Is God just kind of overlooks sin? And that can really create a bad definition for us, right? So, I will trust some other people who are much smarter than me to help define this for us, and we'll use scripture as well to help illustrate for us what mercy looks like. But I start with Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones in his sermon on this passage. gave this definition what I found helpful. Grace is associated with men in their sins. Mercy is associated with men in their misery. Grace looks on sin as a whole, whereas mercy is more closely tied to the wretchedness That comes from the consequences of sin. So again, we might be trying to mince words a little bit, but I do think it's important for us to have that distinction. He goes on to say, the essence of mercy is this, to love people who are in any kind of distress or evil circumstances, to feel sorrow or grief at their condition, to will their good, and to be willing to do them good if we can. I'm gonna say that again. The essence of mercy is this, to love people who are in any kind of distress or evil circumstances, to feel sorrow or grief at their condition, to will their good and to be willing to do them good if we can. And so it seems that when we talk about mercy and when Christ here talks about mercy, he has in view, yes, the sinful disobedience of people and their rebellion and having mercy on them, but more specifically, seeing what that has done in their lives. Seeing the devastation that their rebellion and their disobedience and that the brokenness all around them has wrought and feeling pity. In fact, the word grace in other places in Scripture is translated pity. And I know pity sometimes has a bad connotation. Right? Like, you know, we hear somebody talk, and then we say, I don't need your pity. Right? That's just our own, you know, kind of pride creeping up. Right? Because pity is a Christian grace. It is something where we look at the circumstances of the world around us, and we see those suffering in sin, both because of their own bad decisions, and frankly, because of decisions or acts that have been done against them. And we look and we see how rotten that life can be, how awful their condition is, and we look to have compassion and to act on their behalf, right? A good example of this, and I'll just use a couple of examples. I'm going to use one example of the positive, and then I think we'll look at one passage that kind of illustrates the negative of this, right? And again, this is just to kind of help us get this picture in our mind. So, while there's many different examples we can talk about, and there's a great, perfect example that we will get to, start with just a brief illustration around the story of Joseph, right? I think most of us are familiar with the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. Obviously, if you want to go back this afternoon and you want to really familiarize yourself with the story, you can go back to Genesis and read the life of Joseph. But just to kind of very quickly summarize it for those who maybe aren't as familiar, it's been a little while maybe since you've been in a Sunday school class, right? We understand that Joseph grew up with 11 brothers, right? There was 12 total sons of Jacob. And he experienced some special treatment, right? Jacob very clearly favored Joseph, kind of treated him differently than the rest of his brothers, gave him that colorful coat that we're all familiar with in the Bible story, right? And this led to tremendous jealousy from the rest of the brothers, right? The 10 older brothers felt this jealousy, felt this different treatment, and this angered them to the point where eventually they couldn't even, the Bible says they couldn't even talk pleasantly with him. They couldn't even just, like, just seeing him just sent them into a rage, into a frustration. So finally they had their opportunity. Joseph comes to them by himself. And they decide, hey, let's just kill this guy, right? I'm tired of him and the way that he acts and the treatment that he's getting. We're just going to kill him. God's grace, they change their mind. And instead, they sell him into slavery into Egypt, right? And then they lie and make up a story to their father. So there's Joseph in Egypt. He's sold as a slave. He works for one of the officers in Pharaoh's army. And he's doing really good work. He's, you know, doing a great job. He's even got some authority there, but I mean, let's not forget in the midst of all that, he is still a slave. He's working, not getting paid for it. He's treated like property, right? So, but he works there. The officer's wife takes a liking to Joseph. She invites him up to spend some quality time with her and he refuses. And because of that, he ultimately is framed for assault and thrown into prison. He spends time in prison. Now he's gone from being an exalted kind of favored son to a slave to now ultimately a prisoner in an Egyptian jail in a foreign land. But God continues to work in Joseph's life and he eventually, as we all know, he interprets some dreams, He continues to rot in jail for a little bit longer because the guy whose dream he interprets forgets that he exists until Pharaoh has a dream, right? Pharaoh has a dream, and the guy's like, oh yeah, there's this guy years ago that interpreted mine, he could probably help out. So thanks for letting me rot, right, for another few years. But Joseph comes out, he interprets the dream, and with wisdom from God, helps Egypt prepare for a coming famine. And ultimately this results in Joseph being second in command. And so now we have Joseph who is in an exalted, authoritative, rich position where he has all the power, all the authority, all the control, and as we're gonna see, the right to enact a little bit of revenge to get back. And so lo and behold, the Bible tells us that the famine spread to where Joseph's brothers were, They find out there's food in Egypt, so they head on over to Egypt, and they decide they want to buy food. And they're brought before Joseph. They're in a destitute state. Their families are back home starving. They have no way to provide for them. And Joseph has them at his mercy. He can do whatever he wants with them. He could have them cast into prison. He could have them killed, no questions asked. And he finally can do what I'm sure we all think he's been waiting years and years to do, to finally get his vengeance. If this was an action movie, we'd all be satisfied that he finally got his revenge and moved on. But he doesn't do that, does he? Instead, he ultimately finds out These brothers have undergone some changes. Their hearts have been, you know, they're repentant, they're sorry for what they've done. And in that sorrow and in that moment, Joseph shows mercy. He sees his brother and the destitute, his brothers, and the destitute situation that they're in. The fact that they're starving, the fact that they're poor, the fact that they're desperate. And rather than taking advantage of them, or ignoring them, or taking revenge, he instead has compassion. We could very easily say, well, it's their own fault. If they had not done this, if they wouldn't have done this, things might have turned out differently. And the fact is, God was working his will all along to save his people through Joseph. Joseph, recognizing God's sovereign hand in this, is able to extend mercy without fear of, you know, hey, how's this gonna make me look? Or, oh, I don't get to get revenge. There's no bitterness built up in Joseph. Instead, he sees their plight, has mercy, he sees God's grander plan, and shows them kindness. The opposite of that, Jesus illustrates for us in Matthew 18, that parable of the wicked servant, right? Again, a parable we might be familiar with. I'll just read it. We might skip a few verses for sake of time to try and keep us on track. But Jesus speaking here in Matthew 18 says, therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle account with his servants. And when he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents, just an unbelievable amount of money, no way that this guy can ever pay him back. If he lived all his life, won 10 lotteries, it's not gonna ever touch the debt that he owes. And since he couldn't pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and his children and all they had in payment to be made. That's pretty scary stuff. I owe all this money, and the consequence is myself, my family, all my stuff is going to be gotten rid of, and I'm going to be completely destitute, and I'm going to be a slave, and so is my family. Really bad place to be, right? So what's he do? He falls on his knees and implores him and says, have patience with me. I will pay you everything. First of all, was never gonna happen, but you know, at least give it a shot. Give me a little more time and I'll pay you back as much as I can. And out of pity, that's the same word used for mercy, out of pity for him, the master of the servant released and forgave him all the debt. So he doesn't just say, all right, I'll give you more time. He says, nevermind, just forget about the whole thing. We're good, we're square. That same servant went out and he found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 denarii. That's a decent amount of money, about 100 days wages. So, you know, maybe three months worth of your average pay, but certainly something that could be paid back with a little bit of time and effort. And he finds this fellow servant who owed him 100 denarii and sees him and begin to choke him, saying, pay what you owe. I love how vivid the Bible is sometimes with these images, right? Because I can picture it exactly in my mind. Grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. And almost the exact same verbiage we find here, have patience with me and I will pay you. But he refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. And when his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly stressed. They went and reported to their master all that had taken place. And so the master calls the servant to him, frankly calls him out, says, you're a wicked servant. I forgive you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? And ultimately we see that this servant is cast out of the household, ultimately proving he's not a part of this group. And Jesus summarizes this saying, so also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. And so we have examples of seeing the destitution, the problems of other people and showing mercy, and then we see the consequence of those who don't show mercy. And what does that ultimately reveal about the servant in the parable? And therefore, in turn, as we begin to extrapolate this out to a larger group, for those who are not merciful, it becomes a bit of a test, doesn't it? Are they in the kingdom or are they out of the kingdom? mercy becomes one of those indicators, doesn't it? And so as we look at some of these Beatitudes, we understand that these are characteristics of those who are in the kingdom, so therefore, if those don't exist in a person, the opposite then becomes true, right? If we are not exhibiting these characters, and if we don't have this, and this is not true of our life, The question that's meant to come up in our mind is, are we really citizens of the kingdom like we claim, right? And so Jesus is here describing for us what his disciples, what his kingdom citizens will be marked by. And he says specifically when it comes to relating with our neighbors and the world, it is to be marked by what? Mercy. There's other things that follow, and again, there's an entire sermon that we're getting to in five, six, and seven, but one of those marks is mercy. And listen, when we look around the world around us, those incidents of mercy and kindness and generosity seem to be less and less common. Right that the good news that we look for in the news seems to be kind of like you know scarce instead of. taking up the majority. Seems like any time you read articles, any time you're watching any news, it's this went wrong, this went wrong, there's this bad situation over here in the world, this conflict over here, and it's just a whole lot of bad news. And every once in a while, somebody say, oh, somebody did something nice, right? And it's kind of tacked on at the end of the news broadcast to kind of say, you know, it's not all bad. And we certainly see examples of mercilessness throughout human history and throughout our world even today, right? People selfishly elevating themselves and degrading others. How often have we seen lives that are devastated by a world that frankly has used them up and then abandoned them? How many young women whose beauty has faded, how many young men whose strength is gone, find themselves cast aside, alone, rejected, dejected, and forgotten? There's no kindness, no pity, no sorrow for them. We've moved on. We're past you. We're on to the next thing that catches our fancy, that interests us. And we expect that in the world, right? Scripture reveals for us that this is a very broken, a very fallen world, one that is filled with violence and anger and bitterness and clamor and all these other things. That is common and expected in a sinful world apart from Christ, right? but it would never ever be found amongst the people of God. And certainly that is never the reputation of the church, is it? The church, the people of God, should be seen as a harbor of safety, a place of rest, a place of compassion and comfort and strengthening, rebuilding and redemption. And unfortunately, it seems that when we interact with the world around us and we talk about church and we talk about God and we talk about Christianity, and I'm using that word in a very broad sense, the reputation that seems to have is not one of peace and kindness and gentleness and mercy, but rather one of self-righteousness and judgment and arrogance. and hypocrisy. And I understand that people will put all kinds of labels on a church, true or not, but we can't then just say, well, because that's, you know, that reputation exists out there, that's not us. And so, you know, they're just making it all up. Usually, reputations do have some validity somewhere. And if we're honest with ourselves, there is a temptation to that self-righteousness. Tell me I'm not alone here. To that pride in our own behavior and our own morality and a disdain for that which is out in the world. And yet, this is. This is so different from the ministry of what we see Christ as. Keep in mind, when God chose to reveal himself to Moses, right? Remember Moses there on Mount Sinai, he receives the law. And in that great moment, he's like, God, I wanna see your glory, I wanna see who you are. And God allows that special privilege with some restrictions and things like that. But ultimately, in Exodus 34, when God chooses to reveal himself, he proclaims his name in front of or before him as he passes in front of Moses. And it's interesting, if we look at Exodus 34, verse 6, the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious. slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. And we will get to this part in a little bit because, of course, we always have the temptation to err one side or the other. I will give us the balance in a little bit. But right now, I want to emphasize that when God reveals his covenant name to his people and chooses to identify himself and to pass before Moses, Part of that revelation, part of that very character defining who he is, is the fact that he is merciful. I mean, he really shouldn't have even had to say it, because all that had transpired prior to this, through Abraham, through Isaac, through Jacob, through the redemption and rescue in Exodus, leading them out, he has shown himself to be merciful to a people who are unworthy of that, right? But God chooses to identify himself as a God who is merciful and who is gracious and who is slow to anger, who has pity on his people. He identifies himself consistently in the Psalms and in the Old Testament as the father of the fatherless, the protector of widows, the care for the sojourner. And he commands his people that they are to reflect that, right? God's law reflects his character. And so in his commands, both in Exodus and in Deuteronomy, that second telling of the law, He's careful to point out that his people are to exercise justice and mercy, and to have compassion on one another, and to forgive, and to take pity on the fatherless, and the widows, and the sojourners, and all these others who suffer under a brokenness in the world. And so God has chosen to identify himself as this. He has commanded this in his law. And he brings judgment to his people when they fail to follow this. We think about the Old Testament, right? Those of us who've been in equipped class and we've gone through all those different books of the Bible, you understand that consistently as God is going to enact judgment and he lays out the accusations, time and time again, they're centered around their idolatry and their injustice, their mercilessness. And Isaiah, he says, he calls out the leaders. He says, the princes are rebels and companions of these. Everyone loves a bribe, runs after gifts. They do not bring justice to the fatherless, and the widow's cause does not come to them. The people itself says that everywhere around, people are seeking justice and they're not finding it until the last in Zechariah. He specifically commands, he says, thus says the Lord of hosts, render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against you in your heart. This is a very clear direction from God to His people that this is how they are supposed to be. And yet He goes on to say in Zechariah 7 that they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear. They made their hearts diamond hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent through His Spirit and through the former prophets. Therefore great anger came from the Lord of hosts. This disgusted God to see His people behaving in a way that was opposite to what He had revealed of Himself and what He had called them to. And then we look at Christ's ministry, and when He shows up on the scene, to usher in and to announce the kingdom of heaven? What does he find? A people who have seen the light, who now begin to show love and kindness and mercy to one another because they've been rebuked and because they've dealt with captivity and they've done all this stuff? Is that what he sees as he begins to preach and teach in Galilee and across Judah and Jerusalem? Or does he see a people stubborn, hard-hearted, merciless, hypocritical, Pharisees who will pile on law after law and take no pity, no grace, no kindness to relieve any of those burdens. He sees people who are hypocritical, who demand tithes of mint and dill and cumin and all these spices, but they've neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness. That's why Jesus stands in such stark contrast as he ministers. Because rather than like his disciples in John chapter 9 saying, hey, this guy who's blind, is it because he sinned or because his parents? And he obviously deserves this. Jesus instead sees the blind man suffering in his condition, shows mercy, and heals him. When he passes by the blind person in Jericho, and he cries out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. and heal me, which Jesus do. Heals him. In fact, if we look at the ministry of Christ, time and time again, he's moved with compassion, and this causes him to really intervene and to act on behalf of those who are suffering. So he sees the blind and he heals them. He passes by a funeral procession where a mother is weeping over her lost son and moved with compassion at her tears and her plight as she now faces life with no income and no help and no support and has mercy on her and raises her son. He sees Mary and Martha who are crying and weeping at the tomb of Lazarus, their brother, and he's moved with compassion and he brings him back to life. He sees a crowd who's followed him in the wilderness and who have been through the heat of the day and are hungry and tired and thirsty. And rather than send them home depleted, exhausted, and possibly sick or even dying before they get home, he has compassion on them. And he gives them food and he cares for them. This is Christ time and time again, Time and time again, he sees the suffering. And remember, he is perfect holiness, perfect goodness. He sees the plight that these are in, and he knows all of the sins that have led to these conditions. He knows all of the situations that are behind some of the suffering and some of the poverty and some of the things, and yet moves with compassion. the acts on their behalf. Reminds me of Peter, who points us to the greatest act of mercy, and that is Christ intervening for his people. 1 Peter 2, he says, once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, now you have received mercy. The greatest act of mercy is Christ on the cross, bearing the wrath of God on our behalf. People who, frankly, were not just not looking for help, not even knowing their lost condition, not even realizing how bad things were and openly defiant and rebellious towards Him. Yet God had compassion on us and was willing to endure all of the shame and all of the degradation and all of the suffering of the cross and the just wrath of God on our behalf so that mercy might be extended to a people undeserving. because that's who he is. And if that's who he is, and we are to walk as his children, and we bear his name as we learned this morning in our quip class, then what is true of him in mercy, grace, and kindness, and compassion ought to be reflected in the life of his people. Those who live mercifully and who extend mercy, what is the outcome to them? According to verse seven. Those who are merciful receive mercy. Now, let's help understand that. Because again, that sounds very transactional, doesn't it? It's the same kind of verbiage we find in the Lord's Prayer, right? Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And essentially what that points out to us is that, first off, can us who have received great mercy deny mercy and compassion to others? Would that not be inconsistent with the God that we serve? Would it not be inconsistent with the word that we purport to follow? Would it not be inconsistent with all that he has provided? If we are new creations, The evidence of that is, how do we live in this world? This is not a statement saying, hey, I'm only going to show mercy to you if you show mercy to these other people over here. It's a demonstration of how mercy works. As a demonstration of if we are truly converted and have received mercy, the natural outflow will be mercy towards others. It can't be, if we're like the wicked servant that we just learned about in the previous parable, where God has granted us all kinds of forgiveness and grace and mercy and kindness, and we turn our back on others, on our fellow believers, What does that give evidence of? The mercy that we claim to have received probably didn't actually take, probably doesn't actually exist in our hearts. And so again, this is meant to check us, to say, hey, if I claim to be a Christian and God is merciful and His law commands mercy and His Son demonstrates mercy and His Spirit empowers me to live in this way and to have compassion and to have pity and to share the truth of the Word of God, am I doing these things? And if I'm not, why? And that's not to say that we don't wax and wane. And for those times when mercy has taken a backseat in our lives, let us recognize that, fall on our knees, ask forgiveness, and ask for that empowerment for it to flow out of us. But if it doesn't exist and we have no heart for one another, for the people of God and for unbelievers, the question needs to be asked, is this the real thing? Am I faking this whole thing? Am I self-deceived? All of these are meant to be questions. If this is the character of God's people, is this the character of me who claims to be a child of God? Here's where we got to put in some guardrails, right? Here's where we got to put in some fences. Because, of course, My sinful temptation is to say, all right, well, since I've swung this way, maybe I haven't been as kind and compassionate as I need to be. I'll just swing way the other way. And how people live and all these other things, none of that matters. Holiness, we can just chuck out the window. And I just need to be nice to everybody. And there needs to be no real confrontation over sin. We'll just pretend that it doesn't exist and overlook it. And I'll just become an enabler. There's a fence here, right? Christianity always teaches us to avoid the ditch on either side. There is a temptation to hypocrisy and self-righteousness and judgmentalism that says, I don't even want to talk to you. I want nothing to do with you. You deserve everything you get. And every time I see those news articles of those sinners getting what they deserve, man, I just pump my fist and go, yeah, go get them. Please tell me that's not you. If it is, get off social media and stop. The other temptation, though, can be like, hey, none of it matters. Just do your thing. God loves you. You don't have to change. That's not mercy. Because in order for mercy to work, we have to understand that somebody is in a destitute and desperate need of something, right? and that their situation is bad and there needs to be some intervention and some help to get them where they need to be. And so we who understand and have received mercy understand that God had compassion on us. And in our sin, he called us, saved us, and now gives us his spirit to walk in a new life, right? With new desires, new affections, and a new affection for him and even for those who are lost. And so this isn't a call to indulge people in sinful situations, but it is a call that when we see those situations, we see them for what they are. Are many of them the consequence of their own sinful decisions? Sure. Does that make their circumstances any less destitute? Does that make our mercy any less deserving? Were we in any better shape when Christ brought the good news of the gospel to us? Completely broken, sinful, and yet he had compassion on us. And so, yes, we can show mercy We can show kindness and compassion without compromising holiness. Trust me, you are not holier than God. And God is not concerned that in his compassion towards you and in his mercy showing to you that his holiness is any way shaded because he has that imperfect balance. And so it is merciful to confront people with their sin It is merciful to teach and to share the truth of God in love, but if all we wanna do is condemn, and all we wanna do is call out, and all we wanna do is root for judgment, then we've lost the focus. God has called us to mercy, to pity, to kindness, to compassion, and to reach into those lives, hands a little dirty, share the truth of the glorious gospel of God, to share the mercy that God has given to us with others in the hopes that God will rescue them and will save them just as he did for us. Mercy does not revel in the misfortunes of others. It does not gossip about how their sin has brought them down. Mercy kindness and compassion, looking to bring the truth and the word of God to bear on life. And so I ask us, in conclusion, how are we doing here? Is mercy an identifier? Is it a characteristic that is evident in our lives? Is it something that we practice or just something that we say? Is it something that we do with our families, and with our friends, and with our coworkers, and with a broken world, and especially with our fellow believers? Or, as James says, do we just say, boy, I'll pray for you. and move along. This is a wonderful thing. And I'm very encouraged because we have this member care ministry, which to me demonstrates that mercy on such a great scale. To be able to see just the natural flow of God's spirit at work in people's lives as they have compassion on one another. And as some of you have struggled with different problems in your life, I hope that you've experienced the compassion and the mercy of fellow believers in your life. And if you haven't been part of those, or you haven't sought to intervene in those situations, I encourage you, that needs to be a regular part of our Christian walk, because that is who God is, that is what he's called us to, and that is the natural outflow of the work that he has done in us. And so ask yourselves, do you exercise mercy? Perhaps you're here, And you don't claim to be a Christian. And I would say to you, Bible reveals for us the true state of our natural condition. Bible says that all of us are sinners. We're born into sin. We naturally are separated from God. And we are at odds and in opposition to him. We are rebels. And we are in a desperate situation because we cannot save ourselves. We cannot do enough good works to satisfy God's wrath and God's holiness. And so we are in desperate need. Every one of us started our Christian walk in the same way, didn't we? as destitute, broken sinners, unable to help and save ourselves. And God took pity and had mercy on us, sent his son to bear that sin and to make a way to reconcile that relationship. So if you're here this morning and you have not come to know Christ as your Savior, I will tell you that he waits, open arms to receive you, to, to, speak into your life and to be able to rescue you. God has made a way for you to be reconciled to him. He sent his son and he calls you now to respond in faith. If you will repent and believe, the promise is that you will be saved and you will find mercy. So in conclusion, we show our mercy because our father is merciful. because he's commanded it of his children and we reflect his nature. We who have been the beneficiaries of mercy can be merciful without fear and without hesitation. We're called to exercise this mercy and compassion with our brothers and sisters in Christ and with a lost world. And so again, the question becomes, how are we doing? Martin Lloyd-Jones, I'll close with this, says this. As we live our ordinary lives, we declare all the time exactly what we are. James says this. The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason. full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. I trust it is true for us this morning. Let's pray. God, we thank you so much for your great mercy in Christ. Lord, we understand how undeserving we are, but Lord, even that is, we still cannot fully comprehend just how holy you are. And so, Lord, we are grateful that you had mercy on us, grateful that you saw our condition, saw the fact that we were rebels and not even able to understand our great need. And yet in your love, you sent your son, you brought salvation to our hearts, you gave us faith, you gave us new life. Lord, we thank you for that. I pray that as we live our daily Christian lives, that mercy would be evident in everything that we do, that as we interact with friends, family members, as we interact with one another as fellow believers, as we go out into this world bearing your name, that we would be known as people who are merciful, who are compassionate, who are there to help, to bring the gospel, to bring encouragement. God, we ask that you would save those here who maybe have not yet come to know you, that you would show them their need, show them the greatness of Christ, the forgiveness that can be found. And we ask all these things in Jesus' precious name. Amen.