If you have your Bibles, we’ll be in Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew chapter 5, verse 7. We’re just continuing on in Matthew’s Gospel. And particularly, we’re continuing on in the Beatitudes. So we’re just going through the Beatitudes. And I will say, I know it feels slow to go through books of the Bible like this. But I’d rather go a thousand miles deep in the text than go a thousand miles wide and stay on the surface. So I think the Bible’s unique in that way. And that you can consider the same passage over and over again. You can consider the same verse. And there’s so much to see there for the rest of your life. Oh, I never saw that before. Just the nature of Scripture and how it’s powerfully speaking to us in every single word. So, better to go slow, I think. But Matthew chapter 5, verse 7.

And Jesus says, Blessed are the merciful. For they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the merciful. For they shall receive mercy.

I’m already worn out from the 2020 presidential campaign. And it hasn’t even started. And you know why? Because everyone’s already launching their campaigns. But they’re never unique. And I don’t care if you’re a Republican or Democrat or whatever. Campaigns are never unique. It’s always if-then. If you vote for me, then your life’s going to be awesome. If you vote for me, I’m going to do this for you. I’m going to do this for you. I’m going to do this for you. I’m going to do this for you. I’m going to do this for you. And man, this Savior is here. And He’s going to fix everything. This is every campaign ever. And people get so excited. And you go up to this person and it’s like, I don’t know how that much happened.

Campaigns, they run on emotion. They run on promises. And so often, politicians are known for making empty promises. And so it’s already exhausting just to hear it kind of start up in 2019. And as we’re walking through Matthew, Jesus makes a lot of promises. Promises about the future. Promises that we’re supposed to be able to hold on to. Promises about what He’s doing in us now. Promises about how He’s changing our past. Promises about how He’s making us new. And here Jesus gives this promise. He makes a promise that, hey, if you are merciful now, you shall receive mercy.

And one, I guess I wonder why do I need mercy? But secondly, why is Jesus any better than any given politician? And I don’t think because He’s God is enough. I don’t think the Bible is that general. It’s very specific. So why is Jesus’ Word, why is Jesus’ promise something for me to hold on to when eternity comes? If I’m merciful now, friends, we shall receive mercy.

That’s what I want us to consider. So blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. And if you remember a couple weeks ago, we looked at meek. Remember Jesus said, blessed are the meek who inherit the earth. And by way of review, remember what the meek person was. The meek person, it was somebody that could respond,

could retaliate, even justly so for a wrong done against them. But the meek man, the meek person refused to do so. They have a sort of heavenly self-control. It’s a God-given disposition of willpower that though somebody deserves retribution, I’m not going to give it to them. I’m going to choose to be gentle with the one that does not deserve gentleness. And so mercy and meekness, they feed off of one another because while meekness says I’m going to withhold from giving someone what they deserve, the meek man says I’m not going to just do that, but I’m actually in my heart and my mind I’m going to desire good for the other, perhaps they’ve wronged me, perhaps they haven’t, but I’m going to go past just desiring good for them and I’m going to actively do good to the other person. So in a word, what Jesus is talking about here when He says merciful is what we would call compassion. It’s a genuine sympathy. It’s genuine pity for someone who has and hasn’t wronged you. It’s a willingness to identify with anyone else, their situation, their problems in order to help them. So the merciful in his heart desires good. If it doesn’t stay in the heart, it doesn’t stay in the head, he acts on the feelings of compassion. That’s a merciful, that’s a compassionate person. And I don’t think it’s so hard for us to wrap our minds around being merciful to family, being merciful to friends. I think what’s greater here is this indiscriminate mercy, compassion for family, friend, stranger, and even enemy. See what Jesus says in Luke chapter 2. Luke chapter 6, verse 32. He says, If you love those who love you,

what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. So, now let’s be honest, sometimes it’s very hard to love family.

Sometimes it’s very hard to love our friends. We’re not always great at that. But the great mystery, I think, of this beatitude is how we can indiscriminately all the time, not inwardly desire, but outwardly show compassion to, yes, friend, family, but the stranger and the enemy. That’s kingdom-sized mercy. That’s kingdom-sized compassion. So, if we’re going to be merciful, as Christ is merciful, and that’s the command. So, the beatitudes aren’t like, hey, this is supplemental. You can live your Christian life. If you want to kind of add these on, that would be great for you. That’s not it. Hey, here’s a Christian life. Jesus is here. Here’s heavenly standard of the blessings. You want to be like Christ. Christ, here’s what you must look like. And if we’re going to look like Jesus, we have to show mercy, one, to those who cannot help themselves. Jesus commands that we show mercy to those who cannot help themselves. So, yes, friend and family is in view, but here we’re going to get the thrust of this is the stranger. But we do have to start with the family unit. Now, what is the family unit? Well, the family unit, it’s that community linked by blood, and it’s as old as the creation account. The family was part of God’s original, original design back in the garden. It’s an institution of community that God said in the beginning was very good. So what is the family then in perfection? Well, it’s a husband. It was Adam getting to love Eve, take care of Eve, meet her needs, put her needs before his own, be more concerned with her welfare than his own. And what was marriage for Eve? Well, it was caring about Adam more than herself, loving him, being a helper to him, taking care of him, putting him before herself. And as husband and wife, they got to become mother and father. And what do mothers and fathers get to do? Well, mothers and fathers get to put child before self, welfare of the child. I’m going to take care of this kid. I’m going to raise him up. I’m going to meet his physical needs. I’m going to do all I can to meet his spiritual needs, to raise him up to know the Lord, raise my children up to walk in his ways, to fear him and obey him. So that’s the, that’s the noble task of being a parent. That’s the noble task of marriage, putting other before self. It’s no surprise then that this chief and original institution of human community is so often deeply mangled, isn’t it, in a post-Eden era where sin and sinfulness abound. Time would fail us this morning if we thought about all the ways we’ve ever heard of a husband failing their wife.

Simple, as, hey, you don’t affirm your wife as much. You don’t love her. You don’t spend time with her like you should. Hey, like you’ve committed adultery against your wife. And it happens in reverse with wives and husbands. Emotional abuse, physical abuse. Time would fail us to talk about how children are abused. Children aren’t loved emotionally, physically. That’s very common in our world. So mercy, compassion, as we’ve described it, being more concerned with the other, outwardly, actively taking care of other before self, the first context for that, for us as Christians, is the family unit. So it’s no surprise, is it, that Jesus says to his people, hey, as my church, as my people, you should be holding up to the world a renewed vision, a renewed picture of what the nuclear family should, must look like. People related by blood who are more concerned with the other than for self. So again, those aren’t like, hey, this is really supplemental. If you want to go for the gold as a Christian, no, if you’re a Christian, this is just plain commandment. Paul says in 1 Timothy 5.8, but if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for members of his household, he is denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. So nothing about being a Christian means forsaking or letting go of blood family. It’s a very important context for you to grow in mercy and compassion. But Jesus gives us another institution on top of that institution. And in this institution, it’s different people. It’s a community of people. And in this community, mercy, compassion is cherished. It’s championed. And it’s expected. And that’s the context of the local church. That’s us as the family of God. Jesus in Luke 8, 19-21, says this, Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. And he was told, Hey, Jesus, your mother and your brothers are standing outside desiring to see you. And here’s what Jesus said. He said, My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it. Now here’s what Jesus was not doing. Jesus was not disowning his blood family in that moment. What Jesus was doing, he was using them as an example to draw out a heaven reality for the crowds. And here it was. If you follow Jesus, if you surrender to him, you’re brought into his spiritual family. And if you’re brought into his spiritual family, in addition to showing compassion in your blood family, you now have this new added context of showing compassion and mercy. And that’s in the local church. Jesus’ great mission for God’s glory was to knit together a family of people by the blood of his cross from every language, nation, tribe, and people. People from totally different walks of life who never otherwise would have known each other, who would have never otherwise loved, loved each other, or cared about one another. Yet Christ says, in my family, we’re going to be extremely compassionate and loving to one another as Christ by his cross has loved us. So that’s supernatural love. That’s not normal, is it? We live in a world of hate. It’s people hating one another. People who are like-minded hate one another in our world. Yet in Christ’s church, in his body, in his family, this supernatural love is on display for the world. When what happens? When all of our individual parts, like we’re so different in our personalities, like we’re different. Skin colors are from different walks of life, different socioeconomic backgrounds. But what are we doing? We’re more concerned with other than we are with self. We’re being brought back to a redeemed picture for the world of compassion in the garden and even more so how Christ showed it to us on the cross. But see what Paul says in Galatians 6.10. He says, so then if you have opportunity,

let us do good to everyone. And notice what he says. He says, especially to those of the household of faith. So mercy ministry,

acting on, thinking on how to do good to the other, it doesn’t start in the world. And I think that seems like cold and like what do you mean it doesn’t start in the world? Like shouldn’t we be doing good in the world? Yeah, we should be doing good in the world, but it’s incredibly hypocritical if we’re saying, hey, we have this awesome gospel message, but then it doesn’t look like it inside the walls of the church. So very much so, think about what Jesus said. He said, hey, how will they know that you’re my people? Well, if you go out and you do like a bunch of projects, they’ll know you’re my people. That’s not what he said. It’s like, hey, if you like go and give a bunch of money to stuff, they’ll know you’re my people. That’s not what he said. Jesus said, by the way you love one another, you’ll know, they’ll know that you are my people. And here’s the greater issue with that. The church, it’s us, we can uniquely address the real element for humanity. The real element for humanity is not poverty. It’s not hunger. It’s not sickness. Now, those things matter. And let me say this, the gospel, it is the greatest blessing that we can give to the world, which doesn’t mean we’re careless of physical suffering. It means this, since we’ve been shown real compassion and mercy in Jesus, I can’t just have compassion and mercy because you’re hungry or you’re sick. Like, that really bothers me and I’m going to take care of that because I have the compassion of Christ. But if I have the compassion of Christ, I’m going to go further and care about your eternal soul. So Christian compassion doesn’t say, how can I fix you in the moment? Christian compassion says, yes, I really care about your present suffering, but I love you so much, I’m not going to stop there. I’m going to go onward and I’m going to care about your soul. I want to preach the gospel of mercy to you so that your soul can be saved. So that’s uniquely the call, that’s uniquely the function of the local church in the world.

And I don’t think, if you’re taking that as a scapegoat, that doesn’t mean, okay, great, well, I’m just going to stay in the church and we’re all going to show mercy. No. The Scriptures are plain. We’ve got to go outwards. We’ve got to go out and show mercy in the world. We’ve got to care for, and here’s that word, stranger. I’ve got to care for the stranger.

The Hebrews writer says, you’ve got to show hospitality to the stranger and unaware you are entertaining angels. Now, there are a lot of reasons why people do mercy ministry. So that’s not true. Like, oh, the church, we’re so compassionate. If you’re not a Christian, you’re just this horrible monster. That’s not true at all. Not true at all. I think it comes down to motivation and why you’re doing mercy ministry. And I think there are reasons from guilt. Hey, I’ve just got too much stuff.

There’s a general sense of just desire for just everyone to just have enough and let’s just live in a very fair world. I think today people want to live in a utopian society where everybody just has enough and everything’s happy. All is well. All are well. And as well as it might, it might be for you to be motivated by that to do good things for good people, the fruit of it would be short-lived. And so I’m not saying in and of itself like, boo, you’re not doing that for Jesus. Don’t do that. I’m not saying that. I’m simply saying when the Christian does mercy ministry, the effects and the fruit can be long-term where it cannot be for the non-believer in that when the gospel is preached, more than just the temporal suffering is relieved. So what’s my motive for doing mercy ministry? As a follower of Jesus.

Jesus. What He has done for me. That’s real compassion. What’s the end of that? Jesus. What Jesus can do for you. So yeah, I want to help you in the present, but I’ve got eyes on eternity.

Philip Graham Ryken, he has a book called The City on the Hill, just talking about how the local church should be in the world. And he says this in his book, in the same way that Jesus reached out to us, we must reach out to the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner. This means reaching out to international students, unwed mothers, homosexuals, people with AIDS, the elderly, inner city children, the jobless, the homeless, the separated and divorced, single parents, disabled, the imprisoned. In each of these and many other areas of human need, church members should be on the lookout for people who could use some help. And then under the direction of their pastors, elders, deacons, organize themselves for, and here’s the important word, effective ministry. This is what mercy requires.

Both the identification of a need and a personal commitment to meet that need in the compassion of Christ. Compassion has become something of a political slogan. But what it actually requires is a costly personal commitment to befriend the poor and needy. And I think that’s the important thing to grab. Compassion is costly.

Like if you feel good, like, hey, there’s that guy ringing the bell at Christmas and I threw like a nickel in that red thing, like, boy, am I compassionate. That’s not compassion. And we’ve been talking about this word throughout Matthew the entire time. The word’s disposition. Jesus hasn’t just taught me to do a few nice things here and there. Jesus has radically reformed my heart so I have a whole new disposition so that compassion for the stranger, it must be a way of life.

James 4.17, he says, He who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it sins. Friends, we must be as the church about the work of showing mercy ministry that we could show the compassion of Christ and preach the gospel of Christ. That’s a great privilege. So Jesus gives me a redeemed way to understand my family. He gives me a redeemed way to love and show compassion in the church. And then when we act right, we say, hey, world, look at the compassion Jesus has showed us as we love them. It’s a redeemed way to love people.

And I’m mindful of this here. I didn’t tell them I was going to say this. I’m very grateful for Cameron and Alicia Chun. They have been fostering a little girl for a long time. And I know that it’s incredibly sacrificial on their part. I know that they give so much to love that little girl. And they’re experiencing sacrifice to show compassion where they did not have to show it. And that is a testament to the compassion of Christ. I’m very thankful for their witness and their example in doing that. And Charles Spurgeon always said, you better preach a sermon to yourself before you preach it to other people. And that for me is just a great point of conviction to say, Lord, yeah, I can say we’re supposed to help the poor. And I can say we’re supposed to do this. And I can say we’re supposed to do that. But God, what does it really mean for us individually? But then what does it mean for us corporately as a church to really love God? To love our city well to the end that the gospel of Christ is preached? And I think you think about foster care. Like, hey, we live in North Alabama. North Alabama’s great, right? Pretty wealthy. Everything’s fine. Not true. There’s a horrible, we have horrible cases of need for fostering in North Alabama. A lot of children come from bad homes. And you think, well, foster care, that’s for someone else. Why is it for someone else?

Or adoption. Why is adoption for someone else? Well, that would just take a lot of time. Commitment. Sacrifice. That’s the word, isn’t it? So, caring about others means I’m going to have to step outside myself. So if you’re showing compassion, it doesn’t hurt. It’s probably not compassion.

And so I don’t know what that means individually for you. Maybe it’s worth praying about, Lord, should I foster? Lord, should I adopt? But it does mean this, that we should be praying, Lord, how can we individually and collectively as a church love people,

for love’s sake? Not so, okay, I did that, now let me tell you the gospel. Like, I really love you. Like, I’m identifying with your suffering. Oh, yeah, now let me go even further and say, let me tell you about Jesus and what He’s done for your soul. So that’s a compassionate, merciful Father of Jesus. And I really want us to look like that.

So blessed are the merciful. They shall receive mercy. So, talk about enemies then for a second. Turn with me to Jonah, if you want to look with me in the book of Jonah in the Old Testament. I’m just going to read through a few passages here. So in Jonah chapter 1, verse 1, it says, Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying,

Arise, and go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it. For their evil has come up before me.

But Jonah, Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So that’s chapter 1. Go to chapter 4, verse 1. It says, But it displeased Jonah exceedingly. And he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish. For I knew that You were a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore, now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. And the Lord said, Do you do well to be angry? And then all the way down to verse 11 in chapter 4,

the Lord says, And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?

So you’re probably familiar with that story. We love to tell it to kids and the fish eat Jonah because he disobeyed God and he didn’t go and preach repentance to the Ninevites. Who are the Ninevites? Well, the Ninevites were the enemies of the Israelites. They had done war with the Ninevites. Syria, the Ninevites, they were a growing world military power. They were a very real threat to Israel.

They worshipped many false gods. They did not worship Israel’s one true God. Yet, eventually, God gets Jonah to go to Nineveh. And what does he do? He says, hey, repent. And they do this amazing thing. They repent.

And yet, you think Jonah, the man of God, this is incredible. These enemies of God, they’ve repented. That’s not what happens. It says that it displeased Jonah exceedingly. Or it means it was exceedingly evil to Jonah. How’s that when we’re saying, God, what you’re doing is exceedingly evil to me? And Jonah says, hey, I knew about this. When I was in my country, God, didn’t I say in my country that you’re merciful? Didn’t I say all this? Didn’t I know you were going to do this? So Jonah wants to hoard mercy for the Israelites. He doesn’t want anyone else to have it when he’s in my country. Now, here’s what’s so hypocritical. If you think about Jonah’s my country, Israel at this time, they’re no more moral than the Ninevites. At this time, the Israelites were worshipping pagan gods. The Israelites did not care about their God. So Jonah’s trying to claim this moral, moral high ground for Israel over the Ninevites. That’s not even there. If you look at 2 Kings 14.23, it says in the 15th year of Amaziah, the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria. And he reigned 41 years. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. So that’s the king under which Jonah was serving as a prophet. He did evil and he led the people into doing evil.

And then God puts this question to Jonah. And I think it’s a question that we have to let the Lord put to us.

God says to Jonah, should I not pity? There’s that compassion again.

Should I not pity? That’s God’s great question.

His enemies.

Jonah was a great question. He was deaf to hear that. He was deaf to hear the God that stood ready, willing, and able to show mercy, not to family, not to friends, not to strangers, but also to his enemies.

So if we’re going to follow Jesus in compassion, the second thing we’ve got to do, we’ve got to show mercy to those who don’t deserve it. We’ve got to show mercy to those who don’t deserve it. And we don’t do that when we think, I’ve arrived at a place of deserving God’s mercy. I’ve lived the Christian life well enough, long enough now, that I’m not as undeserving as all the other sinners. And that’s ridiculous. But maybe we’re not going to say that subconsciously. We think it a lot of times. Our boast is just this. Hey, Jesus Christ of His own choosing died on a cross for my sins, and I’m so unworthy. That’s the only belief of the Christian. That’s what makes mercy so great for us as the church, is we’re so unworthy. We’re so undeserving and we’ll never be anything but undeserving. That’s why God’s mercy, God’s grace is amazing. Not one person comes close to deserving it. We’re all on a level playing field before a holy and righteous God. We equally deserve His judgment. In 1 Timothy 1.15, Paul says, The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost.

But I received mercy for this reason, that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in Him for eternal life. So if we’re using the logic of the Bible, which we should do always, Paul’s saying this, Hey, who’s ever wronged you the most? Who’s ever hurt you the most? Like the person you can conceive of that is so wicked and so vile before God, that’s the person you should be praying and hoping they come to Christ. That’s the person you should be wanting to and actually do show compassion towards. Because when you show compassion towards that person and that person receives Christ, it’s going to be an amazing testament to how merciful God is to save wicked, awful sinners. And that’s what God is in the business of doing is loving people who don’t deserve His love. That’s the heart posture of the Christian. The heart posture of the Christian is never puffed. It’s never puffed up.

Because to grow in godliness is to grow in this. Not knowledge of how holy and awesome I am. Growing in godliness is growing in an awareness of how sinful and unworthy I am. So if I’m growing up in Jesus more and more over time, you know what that means? That means I’m getting closer to the ground. I care less about my feelings. I care less about my hurts. I’m caring less about what I want, what I think, what I need. And I’m stepping outside of myself more and more. I’m like, yeah, but that person over there needs that. Yeah, that happened to me, but you know what? That person doesn’t know Christ. Yeah, this has happened to me. That’s happened, but I’m going to set that aside because Christ set aside my sins and what I did wrong, and here’s what He did. He loved me.

He loved me.

And Jonah, the very man of God, tragically cannot grasp the heart of God for it. So take it to heart. It’s not, here’s the best option. Love your enemies. He’s like, Jesus is going to be like, that’s A+. But if you don’t want to do that, you can get a C and just kind of get bitter towards your enemies. There’s only the A-plus way to go. There’s only one way. And if I’m not acting like Jesus, I’m wicked. I’m doing what God has not called me to do. But God has called me to follow Jesus in this. I show compassion towards my enemies. At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. So here’s when you’re challenged then to consider how much you really love and believe. The gospel.

Not when you’re challenged to receive mercy. We are challenged by the gospel when we come to grips with how sinful we are. You’re challenged to discover how much you really love and believe the gospel when it’s required of you to show compassion and mercy. There you discover if you’ve got a different standard of mercy for you and your enemies before God. And I think those are really big words. I’m not trying to pretend like they’re not. And maybe it’s easy for you to amen that right now. But let me promise you, the day will come when in your flesh you’re going to battle because there’s going to be someone you really want to hate. They did something to you and boy, they deserve no compassion. They deserve no love. Let me encourage you in that moment not to dwell on what they’ve done wrong to you. Dwell on the cross of Christ and how He has pardoned you of your sins. That’s what you must do.

And it’s not that all of your bad feelings are going to go away and you’re going to be happy again. But when you dwell on the cross of Christ and His mercy, what it does is by the work of the Spirit, we’re loved and we’re reminded and we’re empowered to execute a better response.

And that better response is not with our fists clenched. That better response is with hands wide open, ready to love, ready to forgive as Christ did with hands open, arms open, nailed to a cross.

That’s the response of Christ’s followers.

One, theologian Henry Schugel puts it like this, what further evidence could we desire of His fervent and unbounded charity than that He willingly laid down His life even for His most bitter enemies and mingling His prayers with His blood besought the Father that His death might not be laid to their charge, but might become the means of eternal life to those very persons who procured it.

I read this story and I thought it went along well with what we’re talking about here as an account from the Korean War. It says, During the Korean War, a South Korean Christian, a civilian, was arrested by the communists and ordered shot. But when the young communist leader learned that the prisoner was in charge of an orphanage caring for small children, he decided to spare him, but instead he killed his son. So they shot the 19-year-old boy in the presence of his father.

Later, the fortunes of the war changed and the communists were killed. The young communist leader was captured by the United Nations forces, tried and condemned to death. But before the sentence could be carried out, the Christian whose boy had been killed pleaded for the life of the killer. He declared that he was young and that he really didn’t know what he was doing. Give him to me, said the father, and I’ll train him. The United Nations forces had granted the request and that father took the murderer of his boy into his own home and cared for him.

And it said, that that young communist leader went on to become a Christian pastor.

And I think that’s such a beautiful picture of the gospel.

And I don’t know that you’ve dealt with anything that severe, but I know you will deal with something. The Lord knows the enemies that will come in your pathway. And friends, what’s required of us is this. We follow Jesus and we show compassion and mercy and we plead with the Spirit to form Christ in us in those very, very painful moments. Because our worship’s no good to God on the mountain if we can’t show it to Him in those kind of valleys just as well. So let us love our enemies. When we do it, we shine the light of the gospel or we snuff it out by our denial to do so.

So the blessing of being merciful

is the promise that we shall receive mercy.

In the Lord’s mercy, we will find it in full someday. On Judgment Day, I love later in Matthew, we’ll get there

when Jesus tells a parable of the peasants who are clothed in the righteous robes of Jesus and they’re welcomed into the kingdom. Friends, that’s how we’re going to be welcomed into the kingdom because we will have experienced God’s mercy. But here’s why we will experience God’s mercy in full. Because Christ first showed us mercy. How do we know that Jesus can keep His promise of that? Because He paid a deposit already. He already shed His blood and He sealed it with His blood. So I can look back and see because Christ has shown me mercy by His spilled blood, I can know I will receive mercy someday in glory. Jesus didn’t make an empty promise.

Jesus saw those who could not help themselves, who were under the weight of the law, who were dead in their sins and trespasses, and Christ came and He helped. Christ saw those who did not deserve mercy and yet He helped them. He came and He served us and He washed our feet and He loved us and He preached mercy and He preached repentance and He opened His arm that we, His enemies, would come into His family. That’s the great mercy that Christ showed in His life. That’s the great mercy He preaches to us. And it is the mercy that in full we will know on judgment day. So here’s the proof though. Here’s the proof if you’ve got a glimpse of the cross of Christ and His mercy. Here’s the proof, friends, if you and I will be fully dressed in the righteous robes of Christ and know the mercy of God in full for eternity, it’s this. Are you busy about showing mercy now?

Because people who have been truly changed by something, they can’t stop talking about it. They can’t stop being informed by it. I want a life that’s shaped by the mercy of the gospel. People say, man, He’s so kind and compassionate with family, with friend, with stranger, with enemy. That is our great privilege and that is our great responsibility as followers of Jesus and as His church. So let’s be busy about that work for the glory of God. Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, this morning,

it is so easy for us to hear

scriptures like that. It’s so easy for us to agree in our head with the truth.

But Father, You know it’s so hard for us to live those truths out. It’s so hard to obey.

Lord, the only thing that’s going to make us obey is when You change our loves,

when our affections aren’t for selfishness, our affections aren’t for getting what we demand and demanding our rights and putting ourselves first. But Lord, we’re going to obey You when Jesus, Your cross, is precious to us and the mercy You’ve shown us is precious to us. So what all could ask is in this moment, You would just stir up our affections for You and just remind us of the gospel that You loved, Lord. You loved Your enemies.

Jesus, though You were in the form of God,

You brought Yourself so low as to be crucified on a cross.

Lord, we believe in that cross. We believe in Your life. We believe in Your salvation. You are Lord. You are Master. Thank You for Your mercy. We pray that You would make us merciful as You are merciful. And so it would be true that we believe the gospel and we believe in Your mercy. And we are being made into Your image.

And more than that, we want to be used by You. We don’t just exist as a church. We want to be used to do mercy, ministry, and just love one another. And Lord, love our world and let it be for Your glory and let it be said that we may disciple. So we just bless Your name and we just want to draw close to You this morning.

We just love You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.