Word of Salvation – Vol. 14 No.41 – October 1968

 

Be Merciful

 

Sermon by Rev. W. Wiersma, Th.Grad. on Matthew 5:7

SCRIPTURE READING: John 3:1-21.

PSALTER HYMNAL: 92; 420:6 (after law); 341; 303; 144:1,2,3; 144:4

 

Dear people of God,

To be a living church, we must be a confessing church.  To grow, a church must think of and care about others.  A church must reach out.  Because if it does not; if a church is only concerned about itself, its own members, it soon becomes a dead church.  Yes, maybe a quarrelling church.

A church is dead when it thinks only of itself.  When its members think that to go to church, to study the Bible and to pray are ends in themselves.  That is, when we forget that we should do these things to the glory of God, and for equipping ourselves so as to be able to give a better account of the hope that is in us.  We can never stress too much, brothers and sisters, that the church must evangelise.

It is the command of our Lord.  It is the life of the church.

We, you and I, must witness.

Now, in the first place, that takes faith.

To be able to speak about the Lord Jesus you must be convinced that He is your Saviour.  Conviction is a believing attitude to God and the Gospel.  This attitude is a must before we can ever witness sincerely and effectively.

In this service our attention will be drawn to the approach.  What should be our attitude to the non-Christian?  What or how should we think of the people to whom we must somehow bring the Gospel; to whom we want to speak of God?

To be able to reach people, it is of vital importance what we think of them.  They can sense how we feel about them.  They can tell whether we want to bring them the Good News, or whether we just want to tell them off.

In the text before us, the Lord Jesus teaches us what our attitude to others should be.

            “Blessed are the merciful,
             for they shall obtain mercy.”

Blessed are the merciful:

You know, as a church we have to be what the Lord Jesus was in this world.  As His body’ we must do what He did.  We must share His ideals.

Now we read in the Gospel of John that Jesus Christ came into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

Jesus came from Heaven, that wonderful home where there is no sin, no pain, no quarrelling, no swearing.

Yes, He came from that pure and holy place…. but not just to tell off sinful people on this earth.  Jesus did not come to condemn or to judge.  There was one main purpose in all that He said, did and suffered.  Jesus came to save.  To show people mercy.  To help men in their needs, and to bring them what they don’t deserve.

So we see the Lord Jesus eating with Sinners, with a capital ‘S’.  With those people of whom everyone knew something nasty to tell and gossip about.

Jesus paid special attention to them!  Why?

Because Jesus knew, “These people are in a mess.’  These sinners, these tax-collectors, drunkards, prostitutes etc. themselves knew what was wrong with them.  Nobody had to tell them where they were wrong, Jesus knew that too.

Don’t you think it striking that the Lord Jesus, at least publicly, never spoke to them on what was wrong with them?  He never denounced these people in public for their sins.

He did not have to.  There were already plenty of others who were quite happy to do that.  There were plenty of self-righteous people who got satisfaction out of letting these particular sinners know how bad they were.

Yes, these particular sinners knew what was wrong with them; they had been told often enough.

What they wanted, at least what they needed to know was not what was wrong with them, but what could be done about it.  How they might be freed from their sins and troubles.

Jesus knew that need.  Jesus knows it still.  Jesus came to save.  To help the needy.

The only people Jesus denounced were those proud and pig-headed ones who thought they did not need Him.  The only ones to whom Jesus spoke of their sins were those who did not know what was wrong with them.

Jesus spoke of sins to make people aware of their need of salvation.

Jesus was merciful.

And so, brothers and sisters, young people, if we want to reach people, we must have the same concern for them as Jesus has.  Namely, that all men should know the salvation of the Lord.

We must always have that one aim in our minds to bring people to a saving knowledge of Christ, and so into a living relationship with Christ and God.

We must have compassion… must see men’s needs.  Must try to visualise, try to see, “Where do these people stand without God?”  What is our task as Christians?

Is it for us to say, “You will go to hell”?

Is it our task to judge and to condemn?

No, a hundred times ‘no!’ brothers and sisters.

It is not our Christian duty to sneer at the sins of others.  It is not our Christian obligation to predict any one’s damnation.  “Judge not, lest you be judged,” said the Lord Jesus.

But what then is our Christian duty?

To evangelise.  To show mercy.  To show sinners the way of salvation.  To point them to the Lord.

Let God do the judging.  Let Him find out what someone’s motives are.  God alone can see into the inner recesses and corners of men’s hearts.

But we, you and I, must show mercy.

As our Lord said so plainly, “Be merciful, as your Father in heaven is merciful.”

To be merciful, brothers and sisters, requires love: true, God-given Christian love.

A love which does not rejoice at wrong; which does not gloat over the sins and misfortunes of others.

A love which does not think evil, does not speak evil.  A love which does not think the worst of others, or look for evil motives.

To be merciful takes a love that is not proud or boastful.  Oh, brothers and sisters, the Christian who really loves does not look down on any unsaved sinner.  Because such a Christian knows that “but for the grace of God, there go I.”

Yes, congregation, that we are not criminals, drunkards and what have you; that we are saved from the curse and power of sin, is not because we are so brave and so good of ourselves, It is God’s mercy.  God’s willingness to make us whole, to make us new people,

The Christian knows “I would be like the worst offender if God had not somehow intervened.”

It is only when we see ourselves and our neighbour in the light of God’s Word that we can be merciful.

It is only when we realise how much we have been forgiven that we are willing to forgive others.  Yes, that we are ever able to wish they should be saved!

Only when we see how great God’s love to us is, will it be our desire that others too should know this love of God in Christ Jesus.

When we know that our prayer for forgiveness has been answered, then we are willing to pray for others.

Prayer puts things in the right perspective.  In prayer we see ourselves and others as God sees each and every one of us, with all our struggles and our weaknesses.

Brothers and sisters, to be merciful takes courage and conviction.  To be merciful, you have to believe that God will do the right thing by everyone in the end.

Mercy takes love; plain, honest, Christian love.

Blessed are the merciful.

Yes, happy are all those who can show mercy to the needy; to unsaved sinners too.  Because such people are spiritually rich.  This is how the Amplified New Testament renders our text: “Blessed – happy, to be envied and spiritually prosperous (that is with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favour and salvation, regardless of their outward condition) are the merciful.”

What a much more happy and pleasant life the merciful have than those who can say nothing but evil of others.  How much richer in life and friendships, than those who selfishly try to keep everything for themselves.

How rewarding it is to forgive, to help someone.  How good it is when, through your mercy and your loving concern, someone is brought into fellowship with the Lord!

Yes, congregation, only the merciful can reach the hearts of those in the grip of sin.  Only when they sense a desire on your part to help and not to condemn will they believe and accept what you have to tell them.  And only as your love includes earnest prayer for their salvation will their hearts be opened to the Light of Life.

Blessed, happy and fruitful in all good are those who show mercy.

For: they shall obtain mercy.

In James 2:13 it is said that judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy; yet mercy triumphs over judgment.  Or, as Today’s English Version has it: “God will not show mercy when He judges the man who has not been merciful: but mercy triumphs over judgment.”

The Lord himself expressed the same in Matt.6:15: “If you will not forgive men their trespasses, neither will the Father forgive your trespasses.”

Do you remember the parable which the Lord Jesus taught about the king who wished to settle accounts with his servants?  One of those servants owed him 10,000 talents something like $7,000,000.  When that servant could not pay and was ordered to be sold, he asked for mercy and the king let him go scot free.  But no sooner had that servant come outside than he grabbed hold of a fellow who owed him a few shillings.  Unwilling to listen to the man’s cries and promises, he had him thrown in prison.

Remember what the king did then?

Yes, he threw the servant into prison till he would pay every cent of his huge debt.

That’s what God will do to the Christian who is so ungrateful that he will not show mercy to those who have wronged him.  That’s how God will treat those who are so selfish that they want everything to come only their way.  Who want to receive, but are not willing to give.

A great warning for everyone of us, congregation.

A sin to which we must all confess, for which we must ask forgiveness.

But mercy triumphs over, is not scared of judgment.

If we who believe, we who are saved and justified, show mercy, we can be sure that in the final judgment we too will finally be saved.  If we who have received so much from God are willing to give to others, we will hear Jesus the Judge say:

“Come, O blessed of my Father….!” [read Matt.25:34-40].

Amen.