MERCY ME! (Micah 6:6-8; Matthew 5:7)

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1 MERCY ME! (Micah 6:6-8; Matthew 5:7) INTRODUCTION: Mercy me! How many times have you heard that expression? How many times have you said it? My grandmother use to say it, when things surprised her or when there was a situation she didn t know what else to say. Mercy me! What are we saying when we say mercy me? Are we saying Lord have mercy on me? There is a popular Christian rock group called MercyMe. The lead singer, Bart Millard, has a hit song I Can Only Imagine. The song is the wonder of what it will be like when he sees Jesus for the first time in heaven. I can only imagine what it will be like When I walk by Your side I can only imagine what my eyes will see When Your face is before me I can only imagine Surrounded by Your glory What will my heart feel? Will I dance for you Jesus? Or in awe of You be still? Will I stand in Your presence? Or to my knees will I fall? Will I sing Hallelujah? Will I be able to speak at all? I can only imagine What a powerful song! Jesus spoke much about mercy in the Gospels. In this fifth beatitude he said, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." The Bible is filled with verses about mercy. In the Old Testament the word "mercy" occurs over 100 times. Mercy describes God's kindness and steadfast love for his people. Lamentations 3:22-23 NKJV (22) Through the LORD's mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. (23) They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. God is a God of mercy and He wants His people to be merciful. For example He tells us in: In Hosea 6:6 "I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings" Jesus quoted this verse in the NT. November 4, 2018 Corntassel CP Church 1

2 And in Micah 6:8 "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." MERCY IS SHOWING PITY ON THOSE WHO ARE HURTING What is mercy? Basically it is showing pity on those who are helpless and needy. Charles Hodges defines mercy as Mercy is kindness exercised toward the miserable, and includes pity, compassion, forbearance, and gentleness, which the Scriptures so abundantly ascribe to God." Someone has said, "Kindness is a friend calling when you are well. Mercy is a friend calling when you are sick." Mercy and pity are related. The way I see it is that pity is a feeling towards a needy person. Mercy is doing something to help the needy person in their misery. Mercy is showing love and kindness to those who are in need, who are in misery and who are helpless. Jesus said, Blessed are the merciful. Many of us need to be more merciful. Mercy, in Jesus day was not a prized virtue. The Jews of Jesus' day were taught to show no mercy to Gentiles. The Roman and Greeks were not noted for mercy either. They despised other races as senseless barbarians and held twothirds of the population in slavery. Mercy was in short supply in Jesus' day. Many of us are slow to show mercy to others. It may be because we have the tendency is to look at poor and pitiful people, like the homeless and blame them for their situation. We may be thinking that they are deserving of what they get because of some deficiency in their character. Well, if they would get out and get to work, they wouldn t be in that situation. If they didn t spend their money on non-essentials like alcohol and cigarettes, they d have enough to eat on. It is hard to show mercy on people we blame for their situation as their own fault. Or we may be like many people and just don t won t to get involved with problem people. We choose convenience rather than self-sacrifice. Or we are tied up with trivial things, even religious things rather than what s important to God. This was one of the problems of some religious people in Jesus day. Didn t Jesus say to some religious people of His day, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. Matthew 23:23 ESV November 4, 2018 Corntassel CP Church 2

3 It is easy to neglect the weightier matters, like mercy, But Jesus said, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. A GREAT EXAMPLE OF MERCY. One of the best Biblical examples of mercy is the parable of the good Samaritan in Luke 10: In this story we see the mercy in action. We have this man who was going from Jerusalem to Jericho and he was robbed, beaten, and left haft dead on the side of the road. Two religious people, a priest and a Levite came by, looked and passed on the other side. They didn t want to bother themselves with this person. They had more important things to do. Then a Samaritan came along. What did the Samaritan do? He saw a man who was in need, who was hurting, who was helpless. The helpless person was a Jew and Jews would not help Samaritans. They would even go through their country. But to the good Samaritan, he didn t respond in kind to this needy Jew. He showed mercy. Notice that he didn t ask, Who is to blame for this? He didn t curse the robbers, although he could have. He didn t blame the priest and the Levite for not stopping, although he could have. He didn t ask the man, What is in the world do you mean by going down this road by yourself knowing that robbers are there? No, he saw a man in need and he helped him. This is mercy. Mercy is lending a hand to a person who needs a hand, without counting the cost or focusing on the blame and reasons for the person s predicament. Even if the predicament is caused by the person s sin. "Mercy is getting down on your hands and knees and doing what you can to restore dignity to someone whose life has been broken by sin (whether his own sin or that of someone else)." This is what God is like, isn't it. He seeks to relieve the consequences of sin in our lives whether it was caused by our own sin or others. God got down "on his hands and knees" through Christ and He did what He could to restore our dignity. This is the kind of mercy we need, and this is the kind of mercy we are to show. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Is God bringing anyone to your mind that you need to show mercy to? November 4, 2018 Corntassel CP Church 3

4 WHAT COMES FIRST: OUR MERCY OR GOD S MERCY? Some wonder if Jesus is saying that God s mercy to us is dependent on our showing mercy to others. If we show mercy, God will be merciful to us. Is Jesus saying that the mercy we receive from God is conditioned upon the mercy we show to others. This seems to go against our understanding of God s grace in salvation. Which comes first, God s mercy or our mercy? God s mercy comes to us first, before we will show the type of His mercy to others. God shows his mercy on us because He pities us and wants to lift us up and to forgive us of our sins. He showed and extended His mercy to us in His Son Jesus Christ. This is abundantly clear from Scriptures. Ephesians 2:4-5 NIV But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, (5) made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. Titus 3:5 "not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit." God had mercy on us, sent Jesus to be our Savior, and God pardons us because He is a merciful God. Now as forgiven sinners, God wants us to show that same kind of mercy to others. The mercy we are to show others flows from the mercy we receive from God. Isn t this what the parable of the unmerciful servant was about? One servant was forgiven $1,000,000 debt and then he went out and wouldn t forgive his neighbor a $100 debt. This was proof that he didn t understand or appreciate what his master had done for him. When we refuse to show mercy to others, even those who may have sinned against us, we are demonstrating that we don t understand or appreciate or may not have experienced God s mercy to us. Another way of looking at what Jesus is saying is that mercy is a double blessing. It blesses those who receive it and it blesses those who give it. Shakespeare said about mercy that it is "twiced blessed". He wrote in his eloquent manner: The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: It is twice bless'd; It blesseth him that gives November 4, 2018 Corntassel CP Church 4

5 and him that takes. Mercy will bless twice; it blesses him that receives the mercy and him that gives the mercy." Mercy will bless twice or it won t bless at all. If we will show mercy, we will receive mercy. If we don t show mercy, we won t receive mercy. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." HOW DO WE DEVELOP A MERCIFUL HEART? Finally, how do we develop a merciful heart? Most of us do not naturally have a truly merciful heart. We develop mercy by experiencing the first four beatitudes. When we acknowledge our spiritual bankruptcy, our need for Christ to be a spiritually rich person, when we mourn over our own sins, when we meekly humble ourselves before God and others, and when we hunger and thirst to be conformed to the will of God, then we will become a merciful person. We will see ourselves as sinners who have received God s mercy, and we will see others as sinners, who need to receive our mercy. Mercy is "twice blessed; it blesses him that gives and him that takes." CONCLUSION: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Jesus is telling us to go and show mercy to someone and you will receive mercy, yourself. Mercy Me!. What a great beatitude. When we stand before Jesus in heaven we will be saying Mercy Me! Bart Millard imagines it this way: Surrounded by Your glory What will my heart feel? Will I dance for you Jesus? Or in awe of You be still? Will I stand in Your presence? Or to my knees will I fall? Will I sing Hallelujah? Will I be able to speak at all? I can only imagine. I ll probably be saying Mercy Me! Lord, have mercy on me! Amen? Amen! November 4, 2018 Corntassel CP Church 5