Sermon Tone Analysis

Blessed Are The Merciful

Crime

Each man out for his own

Mercy - compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm.

IT is certainly apparent in our world today that one does not have to go very far to encounter a lack of mercy.

Sadly some do not even have to leave home to find an unmerciful spirit.

Our world is not so very different from the world in which our Lord spoke the Beatitudes.

In the Roman world in which Jesus spoke these words, mercy was despised and something to be ashamed of, if you expected to be a success.

Mercy was considered a weakness.

A fallen society out of control lacked mercy.....

roman 8.

Listen as the Apostle Paul lists the characteristics of a thoroughly degenerate society he wrote, “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; (29) being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, (30) backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, (31) undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful.”

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The last characteristic that he names in such a society is one filled with people who lack mercy.

Today we live in a fallen world among men and women, who are by nature selfish and evil.

It is into such a world that Jesus speaks when he says, “Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy.”

In yet another paradoxical statement Jesus promises it is the person who lives and walks in mercy that will be “blessed.”

The word “blessed” means much more than happy.

It is the idea of hearing the applause of Heaven or of being approved by God.

As we turn to the fifth blessing, we'll notice a subtle shift in focus.

Just as the first tablet of the Ten Commandments concentrated on our relationship with God and the second on our relationship with people, so it is with the Beatitudes.

In the second half of the beatitudes (the last four) we seem to turn from dealing with our attitude and relationship to God to dealing with our attitude and relationship with our fellow human beings.

Background

I.

Where Does Mercy Come From?

Recall from last week how we saw the first three beatitudes in

describing the emptiness of the blessed person: poverty-stricken in spirit (verse 3),

Recall from last week how we saw the first three beatitudes in –5describing the emptiness of the blessed person: poverty-stricken in spirit (verse 3), grieving over the sin and misery of his condition (verse 4), and accepting the hardships and accusations of life in meekness (verse 5).

grieving over the sin and misery of his condition (verse 4),

and accepting the hardships and accusations of life in meekness (verse 5).

This condition of blessed emptiness is followed by a hunger and thirst for the fullness of righteousness (verse 6).

The next three

The next three

Then come three descriptions of how righteousness abounds in the heart of the hungry — in mercy (verse 7), in purity (verse 8), and in peacemaking (verse 9).

Then come three descriptions of how righteousness abounds in the heart of the hungry — in mercy (verse 7),

in purity (verse 8),

and in peacemaking (verse 9).

“Mercy comes from mercy.

Our mercy to each other comes from God’s mercy to us.”

So the answer to the first question is that mercy comes from a heart that has first felt its spiritual bankruptcy.

The heart has come to grieve its sin, and has learned to wait meekly for the timing of the Lord, and to cry out in hunger for the work of God’s mercy to satisfy us with the righteousness we need.

The mercy that God blesses is itself the blessing of God.

The key to becoming a merciful person is to become a broken person.

You get the power to show mercy from the real feeling in your heart that you owe everything you are and have to sheer divine mercy.

Therefore, if we want to become merciful people, it is imperative that we cultivate a view of God and ourselves that helps us to say with all our heart that every joy and virtue and distress of our lives is owing to the free and undeserved mercy of God.

II.

What Is a Merciful Person Like?

Sometimes it helps to get something clear if we can view it over against its opposite.

So I have tried to find where mercy is contrasted with its opposite.

Matthew and Luke give some very helpful illustrations.

First, let’s look at .

And as he sat at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples.

And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?

” But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’

For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Mercy Versus Sacrifice

In this illustration, the opposite of mercy is sacrifice.

Verse 13: “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.”

This is a quote from , where God accuses the people that their love is like the dew on the grass.

It is there for a brief morning hour, and then is gone, and all that is left is the empty form of burnt offerings.

The point is that God wants his people to be alive in their hearts.

He wants them to have feelings of affection toward him and mercy toward each other.

He does not want a people who do their religious duties in a perfunctory or merely formal way.

But all that the Pharisees see is a ceremonial problem with becoming contaminated by eating with sinners.

Their life seems to be a mechanical implementation of rules.

Something huge was at stake here, but they could not see it or feel it.

They were enslaved to the trivial issues of ceremonial cleanness when eternal sickness was about to be healed.

Thus, the opposite of mercy is bondage to religious triviality.

Note with me three things about mercy!

III.The Meaning Of Mercy

luke 10

So if we are to find the approval of God in being merciful the first thing that we need to do is to under-stand the meaning of mercy.

We use the term “forgive-ness” almost interchangeable with the term “mercy.”

But there is a slight difference, mercy is the source of forgiveness, and forgiveness is the expression of mercy.

So if we are to find the approval of God in being merciful the first thing that we need to do is to under-stand the meaning of mercy.

We use the term “forgive-ness” almost interchangeable with the term “mercy.”

But there is a slight difference, mercy is the source of forgiveness, and forgiveness is the expression of mercy.

We often think of mercy in terms of sympathy, kindness, or compassion.

But mercy is more than just feeling compassion for someone in need.

Mercy only exists when we do something to help.

Jesus made this abundantly clear when He told “The Parable of the Good Samaritan.”

As he told the story several men passed by the man who had been set upon by robbers and left beside the road, until the most unlikely Samaritan came by and actually help the poor man.

Jesus then asked, “So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?” (37)

And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

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So we are not to feel that we are merciful just because we feel compassion to someone who is in distress.

Mercy is not mere sympathy, it is the deliberate act of feeling someone else’s need and seeking to relieve it.

But we are not asked to be merciful out of the blue.

What Jesus actually was saying was that we are to show mercy because we realize that have received mercy at the hands of God.

In we learn that God has saved us “being rich in mercy.”

It is God’s mercy not our worthiness that allows God to reach down in the middle of our sin and save us.

The merciful person is the one who remembers their own sin, and how God forgave them, and understands the weakness of others and forgives them.

• Extended From Man To Man.

There can be no doubt that we are given plenty of opportunities to extend mercy to those around us.

It has been said that into every life some nuts must fall.

Everyone has to deal with people who are just down-right peculiar.

There are those whose elevator does not make it to the top floor, whose who do not seem to have both oars in the water, or just a few bricks shy of a load.

But being merciful means dealing with those who really tax your patience.

Perhaps the best way to understand mercy is to see it in action!

IV The Models of Mercy