How To gain the Blessings of God (Part 5)

Blessed are the merciful,  for they will be shown mercy. (Matthew 5: 6)

In verse 6 Jesus says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst to righteousness, for they shall be filled. And now in chapter five verse seven Jesus is seen to say. 

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

(Matthew 5: 6)

A lot of people don’t consider mercy too much of a virtue these days. In fact, the Greeks and the Romans thought that if you were compassionate, it was a sign of weakness. One Roman philosopher called mercy a disease of the soul. A philosophy that was carried into the 20th century with the lack of the Nazi’s blood and soil ideology, which saw this specifical teaching of Christ as a weakness. On the other hand, those with a problem still wanted mercy from others I suspect.

I’m reminded of the old story, but it is worth repeating about the lady who went to her, picture taken, and she reminded the photographer she didn’t want justice, she wanted mercy. 

Now, there’s a little bit of a problem with mercy, even from a biblical point of view. Who gets mercy according to the scripture? Well normally sinners, right? As a matter of fact, the backdrop to the word mercy in the New Testament is as a response to those living in misery. That we’re merciful to somebody who is has been brought down to a state of misery. But look at this statement of Jesus in verse 7, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Wait a minute. Which is it? Is it the miserable the sinner who will receives mercy? Or is it the merciful who in return will receives mercy?  We need to straighten all this out, so let me do it by making three simple statements. 

Number one. The merciful, those who express the mercy will have first been shown mercy.  Paul writing to Titus, helps us understand this when he says in chapter 3, 

“He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.

(Titus 3: 5a) 

So, as we all know, salvation is by faith in that when we come to believe in Jesus Christ, and we trust in him as our saviour, then we are recipients of mercy in that he grants us salvation. So, the first statement is the merciful have received mercy from God by being granted salvation. So, this verse is obviously saying something about practicing mercy as we go beyond that salvation point in our everyday lives, and that’s radically more than just receiving favour from other people. The assumption of this verse is that you’ve received mercy from God and the idea is that you are now practicing mercy towards other people, all other people including those who do not know or even recognise their need of God, because you yourself where once in that state also. So, you show acts of mercy the other people, to everyone. 

The story is told of Calvin College, past president of the United States in the 1920’s. He woke up one morning in a hotel room to find a burglar in his room going through the pockets of his jacket that was hanging on the door. It woke him up, he realized what was happening. He asked that the burglar to not take his watch because something was engraved on it he wanted to keep. He then engaged in the conversation with the thief, and discovered that he was a college student who didn’t have enough money to pay his hotel bill or to buy a ticket to get back to the city his college was in. So, Coolidge established what he needed and counted out $32.00. I guess that was a lot of money back in those days. And then he made the thief promise that he’d give it back. With the transaction agreed upon he told him how to exit the hotel so he could avoid his security team, and yes. He got the money back.

That’s an example of practicing mercy. But the point is, Jesus says if you practice mercy, you will receive mercy. So, what is that about? And again, I’m going to keep reminding you this as long as we’re in the beatitudes that this a reference to a blessing in the future. I do not doubt that merciful people receive mercy in the present, but we both know, we all know that there are people who are merciful every day but who do not receive any mercy back again. Sometimes merciful people get trampled on. So, the complete fulfilment of this blessing will be in the Kingdom, in the future when we stand before the Lord. The Bible clearly says it and that it’s the point this opening of the Sermon on the mount is making.

For point number two I want you to turn with me for a moment to James, Chapter 2. Those of you who were with me from the beginning of my podcast journey may remember I worked the book of James in my previous podcast, the L.I.F.E. podcast and will remember that we discovered this was also the case at the cross. We discovered this when we reached the point in Ch 2 where James gets  to the point when he is dealing with the issue of showing partiality and favouritism. James says what we should do should be done out of love and mercy and James comes to the point where he says.

Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

(James 2: 13)

The law of love, the one that tells us we should express love to people. Look at the second verse here though, do you see that statement? This is talking about the judgment seat of Christ, and it is saying that when we stand before the Lord, if we’ve not lived the loving life, if we’ve not loved people and shown them mercy, then God will treat us in the same way as we treated other people. God is not going to show us any mercy. That doesn’t mean you will lose your salvation; it means you lose rewards in heaven. But look at this verse agai. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Did you see that? If the judgment seat of Christ is the final exam, here are the answers for the questions you are going to be asked that day. Did you live a loving life. Where you kind, gracious, humble and did you show grace and mercy to other. Because when you stand before the Lord mercy will triumphs over judgment, and you gain blessing instead of you losing. 

The third statement. The merciful, will received mercy. The point I’m making, is that the believer received mercy so that they can practice mercy to others. And then we may very well receive some mercy back in this live but ultimately we will receive it at the judgment. 

So let me sum this up and conclude by saying that Jesus is teaching. that the ones that are blessed are those who have internal righteousness. Remember the three beatitudes, poor and spirit which is dependent on God. Meaning internal righteousness which shows itself not primarily by external acts, but by an internal attitude. We can add to that hungering and thirsting after Gods righteousness and showing mercy, which at least begins with an internal attitude. 

To conclude, I’d like to point out just a couple of things. I said at the beginning. This is not only the heart. Of the Sermon on the Mount. It’s the heart of the Bible, and it’s the heart of living a Godly life. But how does this New Testament revelation sit within the context of the what the whole Bible says about the character of God. Because after all there are Godly characteristics we are being called upon to develop. What is the Old Testament say about God? One sentence God is Holy. In the Old Testament God is holy. But it appears in the New Testament God is love? Now, in concept,  that’s what these two beatitudes are about. But the New Testament and the teaching of Jesus combines these two attributes in one place. Righteousness and mercy, holiness, and love. In Exodus Chapter 34, Moses said to God, show yourself to me, and God declared himself to Moses. And if you look at all that is said, it comes down to two basic things, truth and mercy. 

John chapter one tells us God came down in human form in Jesus and that he is full of grace and truth. That’s why I say this is the heart of what God wants. He wants us to be committed to truth and justice and love and mercy all at the same time. That’s why Paul says in Ephesians talks about only ever speaking the truth in love. That puts it all together, sometimes when you speak, the truth hurts, but it should never be our intention to hurt someone else. The intent is not to hurt, just like the dentist may stick a needle in your gum, and the point is not to hurt you, it’s to help you. So, the intent has to be. I’m really trying to help. We asked to speak the truth in love. Sometimes we are not speak truth because it’s not in love and we should certainly will not speak if what we say is not truth. Everything we say should always have a primary motivation to build people up in their relationship with God through Christ.

But the other observation we need to make is this. The real point of this passage is that your hunger for this way of living. I really think the bottom line of this whole subject is how bad do you want to live this way? If you know the Lord and know he has saved, you then you should hunger and thirst after this. So, if you don’t hunger and you don’t thirst, then you won’t receive, and you will never be full. Which leads me to ask, excuse my French, what are you full of? 

Some people are full of the love of God and some other are full of themselves. They’re not loving people and they aren’t righteous either. You’ve got to be full of the Lord in order to be loving and merciful. The question is, how great is your desire? Is it one desire among many? Is it small desire competing against greater desires? Or is it the passion of your soul? Do you say to yourself, I want this more than I want anything else, and I’m willing to pay the price to get it, whatever that is. I really want this and I want it really, really bad. That’s the person  who will be blessed? 

Johann Sebastian Bach one of the greatest musicians in all of history. We all know that. He had a gift for music, obviously, but he also had a passion. He also had a passion. As a young boy he discovered that his brother kept a special book of compositions of some of the most established composers of that day and he wanted very badly to be see that book, but for some reason his brother didn’t let him see it and kept it hidden away in his study. The biographer says that Johann would get up in the middle of the night when everybody else was asleep and he would sneak down to that cabinet where it was kept and he would take it up to his room and he would begin to copy it. He so wanted what that book had to say, that he did that for six months. Imagine wanting something so bad that you are willing to copy it by hand, all night, for six months. His brother found out about this and he took it back and he locked it up and Johann wasn’t able to see it again until after his brother died a quarter of a century later. 

What do you desire, because what you hunger and thirst after will determine what seek out in live and it will ultimately determine what you will be filled with? Let’s hope it’s the mercy  righteousness of God because then your life and the life to come will also be filled with the blessings of God also.