Today we're continuing our study of the secret to happiness as we're looking at the Beatitudes over in Matthew's Gospel chapter 5. Now today's Beatitude takes a strikingly new direction from the others that we have seen before. The previous Beatitudes have all dealt with one's relationship to God. Today we take a change in direction and this beatitude deals with our relationship to one another. For instance, the first beatitude, blessed are the poor in spirit. That has to do with our relationship to God, that you and I realize how we are destitute in spirit, in spiritual poverty as we stand before a holy God and we must come to Him completely empty of ourselves and depend on Him to be all for us. The second one, blessed are those who mourn, who mourn over our sinfulness, again recognizing that we need God. that He must come in and cleanse us and forgive us of our sins. Blessed are the meek, the person who is God-centered and God-controlled in his life. And then last week, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Again, desiring to be in right standing with God, longing as a man dying of thirst longs for water, and the one dying of hunger longs for food. We long to be in right relation to God. Now, verse 7, this beatitude says, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Now, immediately we realize that God doesn't need our mercy at all. If anything, we need His mercy. So it cannot be speaking about our relationship to God in this beatitude. Therefore it speaks about our relationship to one another. Blessed are those who are merciful, who show mercy, for they shall receive mercy. Now first let's come to a working definition of mercy. or merciful. You've got to understand what that means if we're going to understand what God is saying to us this morning. Now Webster defines mercy as a disposition to forgive, to pity, to be kind. Now Webster's done a pretty good job with his definition and it comes close to the biblical meaning of mercy, yet it doesn't hit it right on. Biblical mercy involves more than simply a disposition or a feeling. The Greek word means to take pity and have compassion for someone. It goes beyond simply a disposition, but it means to have compassion. And it means even more than that. It means not only do you have compassion for someone, but you take steps to relieve their misery. And so the New Testament word for mercy can be simply put as compassion plus action. Not only feel for somebody, not only take notice of their misery, but you take steps to do something to relieve that misery. That's the biblical concept of mercy. James deals with this over in his book when over in the second chapter He says, if a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, in other words, we recognize their misery, we recognize their situation. And one of you says to them, go in peace, be warmed and be filled. And yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body. What use is that? James says we've not shown biblical mercy simply because we recognize somebody's misery, their hardship, and we may have even felt compassion for them, we may have even felt sorry for them, but if we haven't done anything to help relieve their misery, then we've not experienced New Testament mercy at all. You and I have all been looking at the news and seeing the pictures of those starving children in Sudan and other countries, and we felt compassion for them. But if that's all we've done is felt compassion for them, we've not exercised New Testament mercy. Because New Testament mercy always involves action to relieve the misery. Now the meaning of mercy in the New Testament is also shaped and rooted in the Old Testament concept of loving kindness. Or the Hebrew word hesed, which is God's covenant love. New American Standard translates it loving kindness. English Standard Version translates it God's steadfast love. But this is not simply a feeling sorry for someone, but this even goes deeper than that. It goes deeper than compassion. It means you actually get into their skin and feel what they feel. You begin to think what they think. You see what they see. It's like the old Indian proverb, walk a mile in my moccasins, in my shoes, then you understand what I'm really going through. Chesed goes beyond sympathy to empathy in its richest sense. And so to have mercy on someone, as Jesus is speaking of here, means that you so identify with them that you actually see through their eyes, fill with their feelings, and then you are moved to actively do something to help relieve their miserable situation. To do something to help them. If you really took time to empathize with those children that are starving as you watch the news, then you'd go do something about it. You would find some relief organization that's helping them, and you would at least give some money to help. You may even decide to become a volunteer in a relief organization, or you might even decide to go over and do some work in those countries. That would be true biblical mercy. when you take the time to actually feel with somebody. Now, so the New Testament concept of mercy is empathy plus action. You feel with them, you understand their situation, and therefore you want to move to help them. The people of Jesus' day clearly understood this meaning of mercy. They knew mercy meant empathy plus action. That's the reason when they wanted Jesus to help them, what did they plead to? They plead to His mercy. Jesus had mercy on us. They knew that if He had mercy on them, if He felt with them, if He empathized with them, He'd do something to help them. And that's what they wanted. For example, over in Matthew chapter 9, It says, as Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out, Have mercy on us, Son of David. They knew mercy meant He would help them. He would do something to relieve their situation. And so they just cried, Jesus have mercy on us. Also in Matthew 17, we see the same thing. When they came to the crowd, a man came up to Jesus, fallen on his knees before him and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is a lunatic and is very ill, for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. This guy was demonized and this demon was seeking to destroy him, and so this man comes up to Jesus and says, have mercy on my son. Empathize with what my son's going through. and then take some steps to relieve him of that misery. Have mercy, Jesus. And a great example is over in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 20, where we see this concept played out. It says there are two blind men sitting by the road, hearing that Jesus was passing by, cried out, Lord, have mercy on us, son of David. The crowd sternly told them to be quiet. And they crowd out all the more. Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us. They were not going to be denied. Jesus, look at us. Take pity and compassion on us. Go beyond that and feel what we're feeling and do something to relieve our situation. Look at what it goes on to say. Jesus stopped, called them and said, what do you want me to do for you? He knew mercy meant action. So what action do you want me to do, he asked. They said to him, Lord, we want our eyes to be open. Moved with compassion, Jesus felt with them. Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes and immediately they regained their sight and followed him. That is the mercy that Jesus is talking about when he says, blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are those who take time to empathize with a person, feel what they feel, see what they see, and then take steps to help them. Having said that, and let's see what are some practical ways you and I can show mercy. What are some ways we can show mercy? Because blessed are those who take the time to understand what a person's going through. And in understanding it and sensing it and empathizing with it, they take some steps to help relieve that person. All right, number one, doing acts of kindness is a practical way to show New Testament mercy. Now, we can't help but think about the story of the Good Samaritan when we think about acts of kindness, can we? You remember the story Jesus told about the man that went down the road to Jericho and he was taken over by robbers and he was beaten and left to die. And several guys walked by, two of them just said, my, my, that's bad. They had compassion but they didn't have New Testament mercy. But then the third guy, a Samaritan no less, one who had nothing to do with Jewish people and Jewish people had nothing to do with them, came by, saw the man, took the time to see what was really going on with this guy that was hurt, that was robbed. He went over, sensed his situation, empathized with him, brought bandages to put over his wounds, anointed them with oil, and not only that, but he took him to their hospital of the day, which was an inn, and paid the innkeeper to look after him. Now that's New Testament mercy. Empathy plus action. Now if we're going to really help somebody, we need to understand their situation and then move to help them in the best way possible. Empathy is so important in these acts of kindness. Now let me tell you why. Because it's not always the best thing just to throw them $10. Sometimes the best thing for them is to say no. You need to go out there and you need to work. Every time somebody comes to the church and wants $10 or $20, we're not doing the best thing for them when we just hand them a $20 gift card to Kroger. You're not always doing the best for somebody when they come and tell you about a need they have and you just hand them some money. That's one of the easiest things to do. True New Testament mercy takes the time and the energy to get to know the real situation that's going on there. Taking time to empathize with what's going on in that person's life so that then with God's direction you can determine what is the best course of action. And rather than handing them a hundred dollars, it may be to say, let's sit down and look at your finances. Let's sit down and work out a budget for you. Let's sit down and help you manage the money you have, instead of us just throwing more money your way to mismanage. It's a lot easier though, just to throw them some money and say, feel good about it and go ahead. But that in itself is not New Testament mercy. Empathy. Take time to really understand their situation. Take time to really understand what they're going through and then take steps to help them in the best way. Now there's a limit to what you can do for somebody. They gotta cooperate. They gotta wanna be helped. You can understand what's best for them and you can say, look, this is what I'm willing to do for you because this is what's best for you. But you know, there are folks out there that don't want to have to get out and really work for the best answer. They just want a stopgap. They just want a Band-Aid. They don't really want to get out and dig out the infection. They just want you to give them a Band-Aid so they can go on for a while and then get somebody else to put another Band-Aid on them. Surgery hurts. It hurts to cut out the infection. But sometimes that's what's radically needed and it takes a greater degree of love and mercy to be willing to do that than simply to throw them a few dollars and send them on their way. Now that's why I'm convinced that the church, the local church has a primary responsibility of helping its members because we can empathize with you, we can get into your situation, get into your business and help you in the best way possible. People come in here off the street, the first question I ask them is, what about your home church? Why isn't your home church helping you? And sometimes, because the home church has already helped them out as much as they can, and they see that it's not working, so they're going to another church, trying to get more help. Showing acts of kindness to those in need. Taking the time to really empathize with what's going on with them, so that you can indeed in love offer the best thing possible. Another way you can do this is through camp ministries. This year we're asking each of you to support one family to have a Thanksgiving meal and then again to support a family for Christmas. Ten dollars, that's all it takes. Camp is Sweetwater Ministries, Christian Aid Mission Partnership. They're in our area. They do a tremendous amount to help people who are going through hard times. And they take time to sit down and find out what's going on with these people. They don't just simply throw something their way. They're wanting to help these people. And so you can be involved in acts of mercy by supporting to help feed a family for Thanksgiving and then help feed another family for Christmas. You can, we have envelopes available for you to put the money in to help. You can go volunteer. They're not going to turn you away. Say, look, I wanna help, I wanna do something. It could be as much as going and picking up food and bringing it and boxing it so people can have it when they come in. There are a lot of things you can do to volunteer at camp ministries that would be acts of mercy and would meet what Jesus is saying, those qualifications. Not only feeling compassion, but being willing to do something. Next, returning good for evil. This is a act of New Testament mercy. The incident was in King David's life before he was king, and King Saul was wanting to kill him. King Saul was jealous. King Saul was being tormented by demon spirits, and he wanted to kill David. And so he put all of his forces after David to kill him, although David had done absolutely nothing wrong. David had done nothing but support this man but this man all upset and jealous and enraged seeks to kill David. Well one day Saul goes in the cave and David is hiding in that cave and David has some men with him and when Saul comes in the cave of course he doesn't know anybody's there. And so David's men say to him, God's delivered him into your hands now. You can go kill him. Be done with him. Now that's returning evil for evil, isn't it? But David said, no, I'll not lift up my hand against God's anointed. When God's ready, he can take care of Saul. So David went up and he cut a piece of the robe, Saul's robe, And then Saul left the cave and he went on down where his men were and David went out and called King Saul's name and he said, look, Saul, I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm not here to kill you. Look, here's the helm of your garment. I could have killed you, but I didn't. He returned good for evil. You and I show New Testament mercy when we return good for evil. That person is speaking bad about you at work, bake them a cake. Send them a card of thanksgiving. Do something kind for them. Right? Return good in the place of evil. That's a practical way of showing mercy. A third thing you can do is forgive others when they sin against you. Forgive others when they sin against you. Jesus told the story of a man who was in debt to the king of the land and the king decided he was going to collect his debts. And so he went to this one slave that owed him 10,000 talents. And to help you understand how much 10,000 talents are, a talent, it took a guy 15 years to make and earn a talent, 15 years wages. 10,000 talents is 150,000 years of wages. Obviously, that's a whole lot of money to owe somebody, right? So he goes to the king and he said, I can't pay. And the king says, all right, you're going to jail. You're in your family, everybody else. And the man pleads and pleads. And Jesus said, the king had mercy on him, had compassion on him. And he said, okay, I'll forgive your debt. I'll just erase it. 150,000 years of working, I'll just erase. Well, this slave that had been forgiven goes to this other slave that owes him 100 denarius, denarii, which were, a denarius was one day's wages, 100 days wages. So you see the comparison? 100 days wages compared to 150,000 years of wages. And so he goes to this slave that owes him and he says, pay up what you owe me. And he said, I can't, I just don't have it. He said, well, then I'm going to throw you and your family in jail, in prison. He said, no, please, please don't do that. Please have mercy. And he said, nope. There you go. Well, the friends of this second slave hear what's happening and so they go to the king and say, this is what happened. You forgave him 150,000 years of wages and he won't forgive this other guy 100 days of wages. And so the king went to that first slave and he said, you wouldn't forgive him that measly debt when I forgave you so much? And he threw him into prison and he was tortured. And Jesus said, so will the father do to you if you don't forgive those who sinned against you. People are going to sin against us. But let me tell you something else. You're going to sin against other people. The only person that has a right not to forgive someone is someone who's never ever sinned against anybody in their life. And you can eliminate yourself from that already. You see, we don't forgive the other person because they deserve it. Because we don't deserve it. We forgive them because Christ has forgiven us. Because God has shown us mercy. We show them mercy. You say, but preacher, I thought mercy was empathy plus action. Yeah, it is. When they sit against you, just take a moment to put yourself in their situation. You might have done the same thing or even worse if you'd been in that situation, right? Take time to really understand what was going on with them. Why did they do that? They may not even realize that you took offense. They may not have intended for it. But put yourself in their situation. Empathize with them. You probably would have done the same thing, but if not, trust me, you've done things to other people. So choose to forgive. By God's grace, I will forgive. That's New Testament mercy. Empathizing with their situation and then taking steps to be kind, to be loving. A fourth way you can show New Testament mercy is to have a deep concern and effort to spread the gospel. Spread the gospel. Think about it. Our entire understanding of mercy comes from the gospel. Empathy plus action to relieve the misery. God empathized with us in our sinful condition. He took compassion on us. He empathized so much that Jesus came and took on human flesh. He took on humanity. He lived in our situation. You cannot get any more empathy than that. and empathizing with us was not enough. Not only did He sense what we sensed and feel what we feel and tempted in all things yet without sin, but He took steps to relieve our misery and He went to the cross and became sin for us. He took the punishment that we deserved upon Himself. Now that's the ultimate act of mercy. that we might be relieved of our sinfulness. We might be relieved from the guilt and punishment of sin. Jesus is mercy personified. And when we're saved, we take on this deep concern to help other people see that same mercy that we saw. When we experience the mercy of God in identifying with our misery and saving us, then what do we want to do? We want to share that same truth with other people so they can experience that mercy, don't we? We don't want to just hold on to it. We want to give it away. We want other people to experience that relief from misery that we've experienced. for the love of Jesus Christ. So when you share Jesus with people, that's an act of New Testament mercy. Because you knew what it was like to be in bondage to sin. And you want to share with them the only way to be free. The only way to have their sin removed and have the righteousness of God through faith. And then the fifth way of showing practical mercy is praying for and helping Christians who are being persecuted. Today is International Day of Prayer for persecuted Christians all over the world. Churches like us are spending special time praying for our brothers and sisters who are suffering for the cause of Christ in other countries. It's hard for you and I to empathize with this living in our country of freedom. It's kind of out of sight, out of mind situation. So you and I need to take time to understand what these people are going through and we need to spend time praying for them. That's one thing we can positively do is pray for them. Now, I'm going to show you a video for five minutes to help you see the importance of you and I praying for our brothers and sisters who are undergoing suffering and persecution. Now, we have given you an insert in your bulletin to help you to pray this week for Christians undergoing persecution. Also, I've got a couple of websites up here I want you to see. that you can even do more than pray. You can go to these websites, Open Doors, and Voice of the Martyrs, and you can get involved in writing letters to these Christians in prison. You can get involved in writing letters to the governments where these Christians are in prison, putting pressure on them. Governments respond to international pressure. There are ways you can give to help relieve the physical misery that some of these Christians are going through. So there are many things you can do to exercise New Testament mercy when it comes to those suffering around the world for the cause of Christ. And these two websites can give you all you need to get as involved as you want to get involved. Even to the level of going on a prayer walk, taking a mission trip to go on into one of these countries and do a prayer walk for these persecuted Christians. But look at this video. The Muslim radicals shouted, demanding heavy punishment, as heavy as possible. To be in prison is to be in despair, because one doesn't just lose one's freedom. One loses everything. One theoretically even loses one's life. This is truly a time of suffering, because I got separated from my family. My children leave their mother beside them. It had been eight years since I had seen my wife and my two boys together at the same time. Eight years in which we couldn't chat together. We couldn't pray together. After my father was told of my imprisonment, he said, I am proud of my daughter for the suffering she experienced for Christ. Just finish what the Lord has assigned you to do. Just keep on preaching the gospel. For me it has been an incredible feeling to walk out a free man. I took my wife's hand and my daughter's hand. My boys were behind us. I raised my eyes to the heavens because my help comes from the Lord. How wonderful! They are free at last! Your prayers really do make a difference to those in prison and to their families who suffer. But sadly, the battle is not over. More than 100 million Christians around the world should be free to believe and live out their faith openly without suffering interrogation, arrest, torture, and even death. But they are not free to believe, and they need our prayers. Christian parents should not have to choose between their faith and the lives of their loved ones. But they are not free to believe, and they need our prayers. Nor should fathers be forced to choose between their faith and their homes and jobs. But they are not free to believe. They need your prayers. No one should be robbed of their dignity or their very life just because they've decided to follow Jesus. But in over 60 countries, Christians are not free to believe. They stand on the front lines of a spiritual battle, choosing faith and accepting the consequences. Amazingly, as I meet these men and women, people of whom the world is not worthy. They ask us to pray for those who persecute them. They know that because they're Christians, they are not free to demonstrate their beliefs. They cannot live out their faith in the open or share it with others without severe consequences. In the midst of any trauma that may come, they strive. They pray to remain faithful to the end. whatever that end may be. And that's what I'm asking you to do today. I'm asking you to pray for the persecuted, for those who are on the front lines of this spiritual battle. Your prayer support is so vital. Join the battle, because they are not free to believe. Not yet. Your prayers make a difference. They set the captives free. I'm going to ask Kenny Cash if he'll come up and say a word of prayer for those Christians who are being persecuted even today as we speak. Brother Kenny. Father, we thank you for this protection and the freedom we have in Christ. We thank you, Lord, that greater is he that's in us than he that's in the world. And we thank you, Lord, that you have set us apart for a purpose, that is to bring glory and honor to you. And Father, we are thankful that we are part of the body of Christ, whether we're in Mapleton, Georgia, or we're in an international nation far, far away. And we just thank you for our brothers and sisters that are taking a stand for Christ, even against great persecution. And Father, we lift them up to you, Father, that you would increase their faith, that they would be able to stand firm, Lord, being rooted in your word. We pray, Father, that they would just sense the prayers of your people around the world. Father, we stand in the gap for them. We lift them up, Lord, as you command us to do. Father, we thank you that they have the Holy Spirit in them who will lead them and guide them in truth, who would strengthen them by your word. And Father, I pray, Lord, for their persecutors. We lift them up to you, Father. We pray that they would see the light, and Lord, as they see the truth of the gospel, Lord, that they might also come to know you as Lord and Savior. Father, I pray, Lord, as the pressure increases, Lord, that you would increase their faith. And I pray, Father, that we would just be reminded each and every day, Lord, that to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ, that they may continue to grow and spread the word, Father, that they would be a fire on fire for you and father may we also be on fire for you here in this nation but as we sense the increased persecution that is coming against our own people father in our own lifetime lord we've seen the word of god taken out of schools we've seen prayer taken out of schools We've seen Easter holidays and Christmas holidays just become summer vacation and spring vacation and winter vacation. But we've seen things that are quickly eroding. And Father, it's time for us to begin to pray for those that are in office. Pray for those, our political leaders, and take a stand for truth and righteousness. Father, we know that we can only do this according to your power and your faith. Let the Holy Spirit have free reign in our life. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Kenny. Jesus said, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Now, Jesus is talking to Christians. If you're not a believer today, don't expect to receive any of God's mercy on that judgment day that's coming. Because you will not experience His mercy but His holy wrath and His holy righteousness. The day of mercy is today. You can come to the Lord Jesus today and plead for His mercy and you will find it. Jesus says, anyone who comes to me I'll in no wise cast him out. I can assure you that if you will come to Jesus today and you will confess That you've fallen short of His holiness and His righteousness. And that you only deserve eternal damnation. But you are pleading for His mercy. You're pleading for the grace that has come and delivered us from sin and Satan. That He will show you that mercy. For the Bible says whoever And that includes you. Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And you can receive that mercy of God and experience eternal life. Now, if you're already a Christian, I think what he's saying to you and to me is, as we are merciful, he multiplies mercy back to us in our life. The Bible says, whatever a man sows, that shall he reap. And if you'll sow seeds of mercy, Doing things merciful for people, acts of kindness, sharing the gospel, praying for the persecuted church, forgiving those who sin against you, returning good for evil. God's gonna multiply back to you mercy. It'll come from God and he'll bring it from other people. So if you want mercy extended to you and we all need it, then you be merciful. and you shall receive mercy. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that your word is absolute truth and that the Lord Jesus has spoken to us importance of us being merciful. Now we look to you to enable us through your spirit to show mercy, to be merciful, to empathize with those around us that are hurting, those who are in pain and misery, and then by your wisdom and grace take steps to relieve their pain, to help them in their misery. For this is what you did, Lord Jesus. You are mercy personified. May we be like you. In your name I pray. Amen.