May 19, 2002

Service Theme – "Our God is Mercy"

Matthew 5:7

Our God is Mercy

1. Introduction

1. Illustration – Gordon MacDonald, in his sermon "Pointing to Jesus: Generosity," told this story: [My wife], Gail, and I were in an airplane flying to Boston. We were seated almost at the back of the airliner in the two aisle seats across from each other. As the plane loaded up, a woman with two small children came down the aisle to take the seat right in front of us. And behind her, another woman. The two women took the A and C seats, and one of the children sat in the middle seat, and the second child was on the lap of one of the women. I figured these were two mothers traveling together with their kids, and I hoped the kids wouldn’t be noisy. The flight started, and my prayer wasn’t answered. The two children had a tough time. The air was turbulent, the children cried a lot—their ears hurt—and it was a miserable flight. I watched as these two women kept trying to help and comfort these children. The woman at the window played with the child in the middle seat, trying to make her feel good and paying lots of attention. I thought, These women get a medal for what they are doing. But things went downhill from there. As we got towards the last part of the flight, the child in the middle seat got sick. The next thing I knew she was losing everything from every part of her body. The diaper wasn’t on tight, and before long a stench began to rise through the cabin. It was unbearable! I could see over the top of the seat that indescribable stuff was all over everything. It was on this woman’s clothes. It was all over the seat. It was on the floor. It was one of the most repugnant things I had seen in a long time. I watched as the woman next to the window patiently comforted the child and tried her best to clean up the mess and make something out of a bad situation. The plane landed, and when we pulled up to the gate all of us were ready to exit that plane as fast as we could. The flight attendant came up with paper towels and handed them to the woman in the window seat and said, "Here, Ma’am, these are for your little girl." The woman said, "This isn’t my little girl." "Aren’t you traveling together?" "No, I’ve never met this woman and these children before in my life." Suddenly I realized this woman had just been merciful. A lot of us would have just died in this circumstance. She had found the opportunity to give mercy. She was, in the words of Christ, "the person who was the neighbor."
2. Context – MacDonald was referring to the story Jesus told about the good Samaritan. But perhaps the most profound thought Jesus spoke about mercy is found in Matthew 5:7, where He says,

1. Scripture Passage

1. Matthew 5:7 – Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

1. Triumphant Mercy

1. Merciful is not normally the word that comes to mind when we think of our society. Competitive, yes. Dog eat dog, yes. Me against the world, yes. Merciful, no. As a matter of fact, when we come across someone who’s down on their luck, more often than not we offer a "I’ll pray for you" and move on our merry way, thankful that we’re not facing the same challenges. This verse is probably one of the more difficult things Jesus says in this passage for us to identify with. Mercy is something we long to receive. It’s something we crave for. But mercy is also something we’re scared to death to give, because we might get stomped on in the process. So what exactly is mercy?
2. The Greek used here means "merciful," "sympathetic," "full of pity." But one of my word study books says this: "The word emphasizes the misery with which grace deals; hence, peculiarly the sense of human wretchedness coupled with the impulse to relieve it, which issues in gracious ministry." Translation: when someone who is merciful sees someone in misery, they minister God’s grace to that person. They try to relieve the misery. In other words, merciful is an action word! Another of my study books adds this: "It indicates being moved to pity and compassion by tragedy and includes the fear that this could happen to me." Now we’re getting somewhere.
3. You see, the bottom line with all of us is this: what difference does it make to me? That’s our bottom line. And the bottom line for us in showing others mercy is that, if we do show them mercy when they need it, we will receive mercy when we need it. When we take compassion on someone who is going through a tough time, we will be shown compassion when we go through tough times. This goes along with that old saying: "What goes around, comes around!" So if we’re going to make it through life here on earth with some semblance of our faith or our emotional health or our mental health or even our physical health intact, we’ve got to treat other people the way we’d love to be treated if we were going through the same thing!
4. There’s also an eternal aspect of this verse we’ve got to deal with. James 2:12-13 says, Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, ¹³ because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment! Both Jesus and James are addressing the fact that it matters a whole lot to God whether or not we’ve been merciful. Ray Beeson, in his book That I May Know Him (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell, 1990, 37), writes, Justice is getting what we deserve. Mercy is not getting what we deserve. Grace is getting better than we deserve. We’ve all been treated with grace and mercy instead of according to the rules of justice. God’s mercy to us in allowing us to have a personal relationship with Him through Jesus Christ keeps us from facing eternal condemnation to hell.
5. I know that, for some here, hell doesn’t seem like too critical of an issue. Studies show that most Americans and even many Christians do not believe that hell is a real place. Just as disturbing is the fact than most Americans, including many Christians, believe that there is no such thing as absolute truth, that truth depends on your circumstances. We can believe something all we want but that doesn’t necessarily make it true. We can believe that hell doesn’t exist and that everyone will go to heaven and that the Bible just doesn’t get it quite right all we want. But that won’t count for a whole lot when we die and stand before God on His judgment seat. If we haven’t received His Son Jesus as our Lord and Savior and if we haven’t believed and lived His word, we’re toast. We go straight to hell, the place of eternal torment. I don’t like talking about hell, because the thought that people I know and love are going to be eternally separated from God causes me to grieve.
6. Yes, we have the right to believe and live anything we want, but God is not under any more obligation to do what we think He should do than the earth is to stop spinning. Our perception may be reality to us, but it also may be very far from what the truth really is. I can remember when my boys were little, they’d ask for toys or to go out to dinner. We’d tell them we didn’t have the money to. David answered, "Just write a check!" He didn’t understand that we had to make a deposit to our account in order to write a check. So often we fail to understand that the only deposits to our eternal account that God accepts take place when we receive His Son as the sacrifice for our sins and when we live the way He calls us to. In John 14:15, Jesus says, "If you love me, you will obey what I command." Jesus is commanding us to be merciful to each other so we can receive His mercy for all eternity. If Jesus can cut us some slack because of His sacrifice of Himself, the least we can do is cut each other some slack and show each other compassion when we least want to. That’s one big way our world will know we’re serious about loving relationship with Jesus.
7. Illustration – A story reported in the New York Times (Jan. 3, 1990) told about a female commuter who suffered a seizure during the New York rush hour. While dozens of commuters streamed by, it was only the homeless, living in the city's bus terminal, who showed concern and compassion. It was the homeless who put their hats, scarves and gloves under the woman's head. It was the homeless who wiped her face. It was the homeless who watched over her while one of them cajoled a police officer to radio for help. (Source: Homiletics Online.) This true story is a modern reenactment of the parable of the good Samaritan. The people who had absolutely nothing by the world’s standards showed the greatest mercy. Know what? That’s how Jesus did it. The most helpless received His greatest mercy.

1. Conclusion

1. Please bow your heads and close your eyes. Are you feeling helpless today? I’ve been feeling that way an awful lot lately. The mercy shown me by God through people that care about me is the only thing that’s gotten me through.
2. Do you need mercy? If you do, please come forward and some folks who care will listen to you and pray for you and with you. Life’s tough enough without us trying to bypass God’s gift of merciful brothers and sisters in Christ to help us through, to be His hands and feet to us. If you need to experience God’s great mercy, please come forward now.