Boy, that's the truth, isn't it? You'd better learn to trust Him. Here's the thing. You and I are in absolutely no control over anything. You think about it. You say, well, I don't give my life to the Lord. He may send me to Chile or Africa or whatever. Okay, well, He might not, but still, when you start This thinking you're making all the decisions on how you spend your life. I promise you this. You're not, you're not all that can change with one phone call, one diagnosis, one tragedy, one accident, and you, we'd better learn young people. I'd tell you what, you can have all the plans you want, but God can change them. And, uh, I appreciate the good testimony, appreciate the presentation. And I'd like to go ahead and take them on. Amen. So got a motion, second, all in favor. That'd be a good choice. And you can have all the plans, have it all laid out and have all your dreams come true and still be miserable. It's the truth. Hey, there's a whole world out there has money, popularity, influence, they're miserable. And then there's, there's folks that materially have very little, but they trust God and they're content. Amen. Appreciate everything this evening, and again, appreciate you being here. I want to share, I won't preach long tonight, but I do want to share with you out of Matthew chapter 5, verse number 7. Sunday nights, Brother Wall, we've been preaching through the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, and really how in our theme this year of being deeper, walking closer to God, having a deeper relationship with Him, Um, I think if you look at the Beatitudes, it is the key to it. Cause again, we, we for so long had this mindset of this shallow Christianity. That is if I do the right things and check the boxes and list to the right music and dress right and go the right kind of church and all this stuff, then, then God is so impressed with me. And yet God is more interested in our being than even our actions. Cause if he has her being, if he has who we are, it changes our actions. And so as you study through these Beatitudes, and again, most of the time we read through all of them. Tonight, for sake of time, we won't do that. But verse 7 said, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. And so I know this, as we've studied, that word blessed means happy. And let's be honest, as Christians, as people, everybody wants to be happy, right? If I were to ask you, would you rather be miserable or happy? And I know there'll be some super spiritual giants in here, so I don't choose either one. I just want to have joy, right? Great for you, but most people want to be happy. They don't want to be miserable. They don't want to be unhappy. They don't want to have sadness in their life, right? In this scripture, you see blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed all through there. He's telling us how to be happy. The problem is it is contrary to what the world teaches. And so the next beatitude is yet the next step in the process of becoming more like Christ. And as believers, as those who say we want to be like Christ, hence the name Christian, it should make us happy to be like Christ. Can I get an amen there? It should make us unhappy to not be like Christ. So if I wanna be like Christ to be happy, I have to understand who the person of Christ is. And up until now, we really been looking at the Christian's need. We need salvation. We need to recognize that we're sinners. We need to recognize we can't save ourself. We need to recognize that we should mourn over our sin. We should understand and recognize that we're to be meek and that we're to hunger and thirst after righteousness. But now it kind of switches gears to say this is not about your need. It's about exercising a form of grace to someone else. And so it results from everything we've looked at before. You'll never get to verse seven until you're able to be verses one through six, right? And so it's like this. You know, when you started to learn to read, if they said, okay, well, here's the Bible, and you're in kindergarten, first grade, and they said, well, here's the Bible, read it. You'd say, well, I can't do that. So what they do is they start teaching you letters, right? And when I was in school many moons ago, and some of you are older than I am, they hadn't even created the alphabet yet. But brother Jimmy, when I was in school, I remember even now in kindergarten, they had these blow up figures called the letter people, right? And they'd blow them up and the first one was A, ah, ah, ah, apple. Just over and over, that's what you did. And you learned it and then you went to B and C and D and you went all the way through the alphabet. And then you started in first grade, you would start putting some letters together, C-A-T. Right? By the way, ladies, at the marriage retreat, not Czechoslovakia. Right? It was cat, dog, Pat, you know? I knew Pat before I knew anything else. I'll keep looking for this person named Pat. But you put the letters together, form small words, and then you form sentences, and then you form paragraphs, and then you learn to read. Well, you cannot do verse number seven until you understand that the process God takes you through is to recognize how unworthy you are of his grace and mercy, because if you never understand that, you'll never show mercy to someone else. You'll feel entitled to not show mercy. And so as a result from everything we've looked at before, this beatitude is only possible by adhering to all the others and being filled with the Spirit of God. Blessed are the merciful. And what a certain statement that is. It is contrary to what this world teaches. Have you noticed a theme yet that pretty much everything Jesus tells us to do and be is contrary to what the world tells you to do and be? So those are the happy people. How like Christ are we is this, when we're merciful. And that is how to be happy. Now I'm giving you the secret to happiness tonight, right? Some of you are gonna walk out and say, that doesn't make me happy. What should make us happy to extend mercy because we understand that God extended that same or greater mercy to us. So in this scripture, I'll give you three things quickly this evening. Number one, it deals with our attitude. I ain't talking about a bad attitude. It should deal with a good attitude. So in other words, God is more concerned with our being than our doing. He's concerned with the inner man. He's concerned with the heart. He's concerned with our character. He's concerned with our identity in Christ and with Christ. And when that is right, guess what? Our actions should flow from our being. See, and that's the facade, brother Matt. That is the hypocrisy of Christianity when the inside is not what it should be and you try to portray the outside of being someone who loves God and who honors God. See, that's hypocrisy. The truth of it is, is that when I truly have a relationship with Christ, and I have a desire to be more like Christ, and I let him run my life, if he has the throne of my heart, then guess what? What flows out of that is the character of Christ. And that, Brother Eddie, that's what we're after, the attitude, our attitudes. In other words, in this scripture, we have to understand that it deals with the center of our personality. Here's what I mean by that. For the child of God, he should be the center. God should be the center of who we are. You ask someone, if you meet someone out knocking on doors, and again, I think many times it's this way with men, maybe more than ladies, but here it is. If I meet Brother Lee and I say, hey, Lee, it's nice to meet you. First question I ask is what? What do you do for a living? Because our identity is tied up in what we do, right? We don't ask him, hello, Lee, good to meet you. Are you a Christian, right? Hey, Lee, do you love Jesus? Are you a Christ follower? We don't ask that. We say, what do you do? Now that may lead into something else. But the point I'm trying to make is our identity is who we are. And so he should be the essence of who we are. I'm not identified as a preacher. See, that's what I do. In a way, I'm called to be that, right? I understand that. But see, I'm more than that. If all you ever know me as a preacher, guess what? There's preachers out there that are not followers of Christ. There's deacons that don't follow Christ. There's husbands, there's wives, there's church members but they don't follow Christ. So what I'm saying is you have to dig in deep to figure out what your identity is. Do you want to identify with Christ? And if you do, then guess what? He has to have the throne of your heart and when he does, it changes who you are from the inside. So it's the center of our personality, but also it's the clarity of our personality. In other words, we see others as Christ sees us. See, when he has the throne room of my heart, I'm seeing things more like he sees them than I do. Here's the thing, when I'm controlled by the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit means controlled by the Spirit, I start seeing things the way Christ does. I don't go out and see people, you know, for how much money they have or how much they don't have or, you know, the color of their skin or what side they're on. I see them as Christ. Either they're saved or they're lost. Right? I see church members. I've learned this, Brother Ferringer. Pastored them for 23 years. I used to think everybody had to fit in the mold of what the independent Baptists say they should. And then I start realizing this, that I'm dealing with a church full of broken people. They're all different. They all have their own problems. They all have their own burdens, right? And we've learned to come to church, Brother Gary, and put on this smile and raise our hand and say, oh, I love Jesus, when some people are just broken inside. Right? And that's how Jesus saw people. He saw their need. He saw the brokenness. He saw the injury. He saw more than just what meets the eye. And folks, may I say that you and I, if we're gonna be merciful, we've gotta understand that, can I just be blunt and plain? People say dumb things. People act stupid sometimes. Right? They don't act like Christians. Even Christians don't act like Christians. And church people don't act like church people should. And you'll walk in the door and just, you know, something will cross somebody's mind. And, you know, you hadn't been here in a few weeks. They say, where you been hiding? You laid out church? And they don't mean, but the wires don't cross. They don't say, hey brother, it's so good to see you. I've missed you. It's like, where you been? You need a visitor card? That's just dumb. It's like the things are not connecting. And so we have to have mercy on people. I'm gonna tell you what, 23 years of pastoring, I've had some really dumb things said to me. And a lot of times I just go, that's a good one. And I walk away, but I'm going, what is in their brain? Right? Why? Are you reading even close to the same Bible I'm reading? Whatever happened to bridle your tongue? That's in there, right? And you'll see, Brother Jimmy, sometimes, you know, someone will say, well, did you hear about so-and-so that got out of church? And then they'll tell you the story and you're like, or I'll hear about a preacher that messed up, or I'll hear about, you know, and the flesh means like, what are they thinking? Why don't they love Jesus? And then I'm like, it could happen to me, right? But see, if you don't ever see yourself in verses one through six that I am wretched and that I am mourning and that I am a sinful man and without Christ I can do nothing, you know what happens? This pride seeps in. Instead of looking at them with mercy, I look at them with disdain and unbelief just like what are you thinking? Why can't you be like me and serve Jesus as much as I do? The clarity, we're humble that God would have mercy on us. You think about, and Brother Farringer mentioned in the 10 class, go through those just the 10 commandments. You'll fail. You'll fail with the 10, man. Fail. Just go to one. You're like, I shall not bear false witness. That means don't lie. He said, anybody ever lied? Then you're a liar. No, I'm not, I only told one a day. You're a liar. By definition, you lied, you're a liar. Right? Well, how are you better than someone who tells 25 lies when I only told one? Yeah, okay. I've got some oceanfront property in Arizona I'll sell you as well. Right? Our attitude is directly related to who has the throne of our heart. If I do, I look at things the way I want to. If he does, I look at things the way he sees them. So then the clarity of our personality and then the control of our practice. In other words, I've received mercy. When I see myself, listen to me folks, when I see myself as I really am, and I see myself the way God sees me, I'm not talking about my distorted perception of how I want to be, right? We're not talking about the funny mirrors at the fair, right? Where you weigh 800 pounds but in the mirror you look like you weigh a buck fifty. Spiritually that's where a lot of people are. It's like I don't want to deal with who I am so I want to deal with who I want to be If that's you, you're never going to show mercy because you have this perception of yourself that you don't need mercy. Right? So it controls our practice, I've received mercy. What is mercy? Grace is God's unmerited favor. Mercy is God withholding from me what I deserve. Mercy is I should be in hell tonight but because of God's mercy I'm not. Grace is God has given me eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's the grace. The mercy is God hadn't sent me there and is giving me another chance. Right? Now how many chances do you give people? How much mercy do you extend? Well, they keep doing it, preacher. You don't understand. It's habitual with them. So? How many times God let you off the hook? How many times did God not send you to hell? How many times did God not kill you? Right? It's an intentional decision to manifest outward relief. Okay, so that's our attitude. Secondly is our application. So what am I getting to? Well, the application is the personality of the father. It is we have to see him this way. Listen to what I'm saying. Not your version of mercy, his version of mercy. Your version of mercy and mine is I deserve mercy. His version of mercy is you deserve nothing But God extends mercy. See what I mean? It's part of who He is. When you study your Bible, He's love, He's merciful, He's just, right? Hang with me. If He's just, that means that sinners will get what they deserve. Am I right? Maybe not immediately, But every sinner, including us, would get what we deserve. Well, he's merciful. Look at the Old Testament. I mean, as many times as the Israelites turned their back on God and God would send a redeemer, God would send someone to rescue them, that was mercy. Well, how many times does he extend mercy to me and you, right? So we have to be careful in how we define mercy. Because again, like so many things about God, we'll define the love of God in a human way. Well, here's how I love my children, this is how God, in other words, we'll say, well, God loves, I love my children, I'll let them get away with anything. Right, I'll let them do what they want to, give them everything they want. Well, that's perverted love. Your children's gonna turn into a raven lunatic that thinks they're entitled to everything if you give them everything they want. So we'll say, well, that's how God is, right? No, it's not. We'll say, well, if this is how I love my children, this is how God loves me because I'm his child. No, you're perverting the character of God by humanizing him, right? Well, same thing with mercy. Instead of trying to put God's mercy in your box, understand that we'll never even on this side of eternity understand the extent of God's mercy because we're finite. I mean, even if I try, there comes a limit in me as a human that I'm like, I can't do it anymore. Well, that's right. So that means that I've got to allow God to do it through me. You can't do it. And so, but see, here's the problem. The problem with society and Christianity today is we're okay with that. We're like, well, I'm not perfect. I can't do it. So therefore God's just going to have to accept where I am and who I am. And so therefore I'm not, I'm not going to move any farther. I'm gonna be bitter and angry and unforgiving and unmerciful and that's just how I was raised or that's how I am. Well, that's kind of a cop out, right? I thought we believe I can do all things through Christ. Where's that one at, right? I thought greater is he that's in me than he's in the world. Where's that one at? Well, that's everybody else. See, with me, I'm different. I thought God was no respecter of persons. See, so what I'm saying is, if you're gonna be happy, It is not tied to your circumstance necessarily. It's really tied to your personality and who you are in Christ. So it's the personality of the Father and then there's a preference of forgiveness. Have you ever thought about this? Do you prefer to give mercy? Nope. I'm 54. I've been an independent Baptist pretty much my whole life. You know what I found out about the Invented Baptists? They're merciless. They'll shoot their own, they'll eat their own. Right? You don't fit in the box anymore, brother. Well, guess what? Out, pal. I ain't talking about compromise. I'm not talking about heresy. I'm talking about the fact that we prefer to be merciless instead of preferring to extend mercy. Young people, you're the same way. I've got kids. I've got four of them. I've got a 25-year-old all the way to 14. You know what they are? Merciless. One day they can't stand each other, the next day they love each other. One day they're talking about each other, the next day they're talking about somebody else. Right? And they can look at each other wrong. Some of you say, not my kid. Wait, wait. Enjoy them while they're this tall. Because in a few years, about 13 years old, their brain is turned off. and they'll do things that will blow your mind. You know why? She said this, you sure? Well, so-and-so said this. So-and-so said that she said this, or so-and-so said that he said this, you know, or 14, removed 14 times, but I heard through the grapevine. I can't stand them because of that. I can't forgive them for that. I've even got daughters. Brother, let me tell you something. You want me to tell you what this right here is and this gray hair? Daughters. They will destroy each other. They'll destroy you. That's why I'm thankful I got Miss Ellen because I don't want to go through this surgery with those girls looking out for my best interests. It's true. Not my kid, yeah, yours. I raised mine to be, yeah, I know. Good for you, but it didn't work, friend. I'm just telling you. And they're no different than adults, because you know what? I've been pastoring adults a long time, too. And you know what they do? They choose not to forgive. They would rather choose not to forgive and be mad. And I mean families. I've seen it in families, right? I hadn't talked to my so-and-so in 14 years, and I won't even go to Christmas anymore because of what they did 14 years ago. Okay. You gotta decide you had a preference for it. You know what I've learned? I got a text message the other day from somebody that left our church years ago and was upset when they left. They heard about this whole thing. They texted me and he's like, well, I didn't know if I should reach out to you. You know what I did? I'll tell you exactly what I did, brother Lee. I let him have it. I said, bless God, I don't want you texting me, you left the church wrong, and I don't want you praying for me. I didn't do that at all. I carried all the conversation like he's still at church. You know why? Doesn't do me any good to be mad at him, right? Who knows, we might can restore a relationship. Who knows, maybe they'll come back to church. I don't know. But see, you gotta make a decision to forgive. You gotta prefer it. You say, well, preacher, I don't know that I can do that. Well, you ought to thank God he did. Because on the cross, he said, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they do. Hey, well, that's Jesus. Nobody else could do it. Well, I beg to differ, because there was this guy named Stephen, and they were throwing rocks at him and killing him. He looked up into heaven. He said, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing either. You better prefer it. In your marriage, you better prefer it. In church, you better prefer it. At work, wherever you're at, you better prefer to forgive and show mercy instead of hold grudges. Amen. Hey, just think if God did that with us, wouldn't none of us be worthy to preach, sing, pray? Man, I gotta hurry, that's good preaching. But then there has to be a practice of relief. Well, think about this. Mercy's great, but true mercy is a practice of relief. In other words, true mercy offers relief, right? You can talk about how much mercy you've got, but if it never helps anybody get past where they are, it's not really mercy. Maybe it's emotional, spiritual, maybe it's physical. But see, mercy is like, okay, I should be upset with you. I should write you off, but I'm not going to, and I'm even gonna go one step further. I'm gonna offer you the relief that you need to get better. Is that what God did for us? 100%. So then number three, let me give you this. What's our attainment. All right. Look at scripture. Blessed are they, uh, uh, blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Well, think of it this way. Blessed are the merciful for they have obtained mercy, right? You got it before you give it. And then when you give it, you get more. Why should I be merciful to you? And why should you be merciful to me? Well, because of what God did. In other words, what he's saying is that what I've attained from this is what is experienced. I've experienced God's mercy. I've experienced God's pity. I've experienced God's relief. How? Well, I deserved hell. I accepted Christ as my Savior. Now I'm not going to hell. I've been in some places. Hey, listen, preacher. When we started at the church, we got the whopping salary of $100 a week. That's big money, $100 a week. That pays no bills. Right? We knew this is where God wanted us. And you know what? Somehow the bills got paid. Somehow God took care of needs, right? Well, God does the same thing. We've experienced God's mercy. It doesn't add up, right? God's mercy doesn't add up in your life because it's God. He's bigger than us. We're finite. He's infinite. So you've already experienced it. So here's the thing. If you've experienced it, how can you withhold it? Right? So what you've experienced, but then what is expected of you? That I understand what was extended to me. You can't extend mercy until you understand what God extended to you. You won't do it. Whenever you feel grateful, right? Whenever you feel like, whenever you feel unworthy of something God's done for you, it makes it easier to do for someone else who is unworthy of it. Right? But I have to understand who I am. And that's why we never go deeper. It's like, well, I'm saved. So therefore I'm no longer a sinner. Yeah, you are. You're a sinner saved by the grace of God. So that I've got to do the same to others as God done to me. Remember this, Jesus said this. He said, listen, if you forgive others, I'll forgive you. That's strong. Here's what he's saying. If me and brother Shane have a problem, me and God have a problem. Right? I got to get right him. I got to get right that lady back there. If she and I are not right, he and I are not right. Wonder what would happen in churches if we just extended mercy. They don't, they don't deserve it. Okay, great. But Johnny, listen, I'm pretty happy guy. You know why? Because here's what I've learned. What I said before, people do dumb stuff. They say dumb stuff. They get mad at dumb stuff. I get mad at dumb stuff sometimes. And when we look at the fact that we're all the same and we get mad at the same dumb stuff and we say the same dumb stuff, right? And we're pretty much all on the same dumb level. Well, I'll just be like, sorry, brother. I said something dumb to you, and Johnny's like, hey, I forgive you, because I say a lot of dumb stuff, right? Wouldn't that be awesome? Wouldn't it be awesome to go to church, and everybody's like, look, sorry. I didn't mean to look at you wrong, right? Don't worry about it, brother. I've looked at a lot of people wrong in my life. I'm just as bad off as you are. Right? Nobody be mad at each other. Sinners would walk in and say, it's the craziest bunch of people I've ever seen in my whole life. They're actually smiling, right? They're actually happy to be around each other. That's why my relationship with Christ is so amazing is because with all the dumb stuff I do, he's like, Mercy. That's right. Thank you, Lord. I go, Lord, I've done it again. That's right. Mercy. Yes. Right? Hallelujah. The devil says, you know what? God didn't give you mercy because you did the same thing that you did yesterday. Same exact sin to a T. And you told him you were never going to do it again. Come on. And I beat myself up. You ever do that? Then the sweet Holy Spirit of God goes, Mercy. Praise the Lord. Right? Yes, sir. Blessed are the merciful. Well, happy, that word blessed, happy, happy are the merciful. Why? Because I understand the mercy that was extended to me and I extended it to Brother Farringer. That's right. Right? Yes, sir. Now he and I are good. Yes, sir. Right? I don't have to go to Walmart and hide from people. Come on, preach on. Right? I don't have to hide out. You know what, this is one of my favorite sports. One of my favorite activities, Brother Chad. It's great. So like, time's passed. You know, again, I'm not bringing this up. I'm just, people, they've left, right? Said stuff about you. You see them at the grocery store. And you see them and they see you and they're like. And the other sport part is I'm like, hey brother, how you doing, man? Good to see you, right? And it's like, they can't get him, I ain't mad at him. Right? Because I've said some stuff like that too. And it's amazing when you just like, Yeah, they did that, but I've done some stuff too. And I'm going to Walmart, man, I'll see people, I'll just talk to them. I'm good. Preach, I even talked to some Florida State fans one day and I didn't even have animosity with them. Right? Blessed are the merciful. That's what I want to be. I want to enjoy my life. I want to enjoy being saved. I want to enjoy being in church. I want to enjoy our home. I want to enjoy being around other people, right? I don't want it to always be just rah, rah, rah, rah. Sometimes you just got to say, you know what? They did some dumb stuff. I've done some dumb stuff. When you trace our roots back, we all got a great, great grandpappy named Adam. And he did some dumb stuff. So let's be merciful. Blessed are the merciful. Let's stand together. Let's bow our heads tonight. The altar's open. First thing that pops in our mind when we mention the word mercy is people don't deserve it. And you're right. You're right. But neither did we.