Word of Salvation – Vol. 36 No. 24 – June 1991

 

The Merciful

 

Sermon by Rev. S. Voorwinde on Matthew 5:7

Reading: Luke 1:25-37; Matthew 25:31-46

Singing: 113,51a,103b,467,529.

 

Beloved congregation,

In our study of the Beatitudes we’ve just crossed the half-way mark.  There are eight altogether and today we are looking at no 5.  And no doubt you will agree with me that in these short, crisp, little sayings Jesus is really putting the searchlight on our souls.  He’s probing; He’s penetrating into the very depths of our being.  He’s not asking us what we do.  He goes far deeper than that; He’s asking us who we are.

            Are you poor in spirit before God?
            Are you meek?
            Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness?

But now in these Beatitudes we come to something of a turning- point.  Some would say that the first four beatitudes look towards God and that now we are beginning to look toward men.  In other words it’s somewhat like the 10 commandments which first deal with our relationship to God and then with our relationships to our fellow-men.  But here it’s a little more subtle than that.  There is a turning point but it’s not quite that well-defined.  In a sense we have so far been looking at the Christian in terms of his need and his awareness of his need.  But now we are concerned more with his disposition which results from everything that has gone before.  You will remember where we left things last time:

You mourn because you know in your heart that you are a miserable sinner.

You are meek when you can even take other people telling you that you are a miserable sinner.

But of course you don’t want to stay a miserable sinner and so you hunger and thirst for righteousness.

And this brings us to the turning point in the Beatitudes.  When this hunger and thirst for righteousness begins to be satisfied then it leads to at least three ways in which this righteousness is expressed namely, mercy, purity of heart and peace-making.  They are all aspects of the same thing; they are all fruits of righteousness.  And when these fruits ripen, the mercy, the purity of heart and the peace making, then there comes persecution for righteousness’ sake which is the subject of the last beatitude.

So here we get a tremendous insight into the kind of righteousness that Jesus is proclaiming.  It is as far from the external kind of righteousness of the Pharisees as the East is from the West.  In the Beatitudes Jesus is really answering two questions:

(i)  What leads up to that kind of righteousness?
    The answer is threefold: poverty of spirit, mourning and meekness.

(ii)  What flows from this kind of righteousness?
    And the answer is again threefold: mercy, purity in heart and peacemaking.

So you can easily tell whether you are a righteous person as far as Jesus is concerned by asking yourself: Am I merciful?  Am I pure in heart?  Am I a peacemaker?  And if you can honestly say ‘yes’ to all these questions then you can also expect some persecution.

So that’s the logic of these eight sayings of Jesus.  They are not just some nice statements thrown together at random.  Here you find order and structure and progress of thought.  One saying leads to the next and flows on from the one before and the central theme is Christian righteousness: how you get it and how it expresses itself.  And so if you are a righteous person, if you are a Christian, these Beatitudes describe you.  They are a spiritual portrait of the Christian, the new man in Christ Jesus.  And one of the features of such a person is that he is merciful: `Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy.’

These are the words that we’re going to dwell on today and again we need to do so very carefully.  And since all the sermons so far have each had three points I didn’t want to disappoint you this morning and so once again it will be a three-point sermon:

1.  The mercy of God,

2.  The mercy of the Christian.

3.  The matter of receiving mercy.

So we’ll begin where we must begin and that is with the mercy of God.

God is merciful by nature.  He is described in the Bible as ‘rich in mercy’ and as ‘the Father of all mercies’.  In the events leading up to Christmas we hear both Mary and Zechariah celebrating the mercy of God.

As she visits Elizabeth, Mary breaks into song with those beautiful words:
  ‘His mercy is upon generation after generation towards those that fear Him…
  He has given help to Israel His servant.  In remembrance of His mercy.’
   (Luke 1:50,54).

And at the birth of John the Baptist his father Zechariah puts the same thoughts to music as well.  It is because of the tender mercy of God that the ‘Sunrise from on high’ will visit them.  The Messiah is about to come and this can only be due to the tender mercy of God.

But what is God’s mercy?  How would you define it?  It’s very much like His grace, His undeserved favour.  But there is a difference.  God’s grace has to do with man’s sin, whereas God’s mercy has to do with man’s misery.  Grace deals with sin.  Mercy deals with misery.

As Richard Lenski says very well in his commentary:

‘The word “mercy” deals with what we see of pain, misery, and distress, these results of sin; and “grace” always deals with the sin and guilt itself.  The one extends relief, the other pardon; the one curses, heals and helps, the other cleanses and reinstates.’ (p.191).

And of course we see God’s mercy most clearly shown in the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ.  That’s where God’s mercy takes on flesh and blood.  That’s where more than ever it becomes a visible and tangible reality.

Again and again we hear men crying in their misery: `Jesus, Son of David, have mercy upon us!  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy upon us!’

We hear those pleas for mercy coming from the eyes of those in crying need.  The blind beggars outside Jericho, a man with an epileptic boy, a Canaanite woman with a demon-possessed child, and ten lepers in a village on the way to Jerusalem.  People crying out in their misery and He showed mercy to them all.  In all his dealings with people in need we see Jesus as a man of mercy.  He did not insulate himself against the pains and calamities of men.  Instead he heard their cries and he met their needs.

And yet his mercy went further and deeper still.  He not only met men’s spoken needs; he also met their unspoken needs.  His mercy went beyond the external and the obvious; it penetrated the very depths of human need.  And therefore His mercy reached not only to the people of his own day but it reaches to us as well.  This is where we see God’s mercy at its fullest and at its richest and of course I’m referring to the cross of Calvary.  Here there is no distinction between God’s mercy and God’s grace.  They both flow together in that precious blood that was God’s unlikely way of dealing with human sin and misery.  That is God’s answer to a humanity in its crying need.  It is there that God identifies Himself with His suffering creation.

It is there that we hear Jesus crying for mercy, not for himself but for others: `Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.’

So that’s where you must go to find God’s answer to all the pain and tears and sorrow and agony in this world.  In the face of all that, God is still a God of mercy, because He suffered the worst of it in the person of Jesus Christ dying on the cross of Golgotha.  That’s where his mercy comes to its sharpest focus and that’s where the suffering of the world is seen in its proper perspective.  We do not have all the answers, of course, but we do know that God is merciful, God is forgiving and God is love.

And this brings us to the second point which has to do with Christian mercy.

A Christian is a person who by definition has received the mercy of God.  As Peter says in the opening words of his first letter:

‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…!’

And then a little later on he says to his fellow believers:

`For you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.’ (1Pet.2:10).

A Christian is someone who has experienced the mercy of God and therefore he himself is merciful.  Jesus underscores the point again and again in his teaching.  Take the parable of the Good Samaritan for instance.  That final command to the expert in the law, `Go and do likewise’, is also a command to us.  It’s a challenge for us to live out that parable as creatively and as specifically as we possibly can.  Whether it is those overcome by disaster or those who do us wrong or the hungry.  The sick or the outcast, whatever their need people, are entitled to our mercy.  Our God is a merciful God and shows mercy continuously.  The citizens of His kingdom must show mercy too.

And here I must say that Christ’s church has an impressive record down the ages.  Whatever criticisms we may have about the church regarding its weaknesses or its dividedness, I wonder what the world would be like today if there never had been a church.  The church has been a wonderful channel of God’s mercy over the centuries.  This is something that has been there from the beginning and it cuts across denominational lines even in our own day.

In the New Testament the ministry of mercy and the ministry of the Word went hand in hand.  For the early Christians their deeds drew attention to their words.  For example, in the middle of the third century the city of Alexandria in Egypt was devastated by an outbreak of the plague.  The bishop of the church in that city described the devotion with which Christians tended the sick.  They often caught the plague themselves and died of it as a result.  On the other hand he wrote that their pagan neighbours `thrust from them who showed the symptoms of the plague and fled from their nearest and dearest.  They would throw them out into the streets half-dead, or cast out their corpses without burial’.  (Bruce, p.191).  When we try to account for the increase in the numbers of Christians in those days, we must give due consideration to the impression the Christian’s behaviour made on the pagan population.

More recently the nineteenth century provides many illustrations of Christian initiatives in the work of mercy:

• In England Lord Shaftesbury worked to limit the abuses of child labour in industry and the mines. The mentally ill were better cared for.
• The Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A. were founded by Christian leaders. They were concerned for the social and spiritual welfare of young people moving into urban industrial areas.
• Other Christian societies provided social and spiritual help for prostitutes, prisoners, the blind and the deaf. Evangelicals introduced the use of the Braille script and the Red Cross was also an expression of social concern by evangelicals.

As one historian comments: `By the mid-century it had become an accepted fact of evangelicalism that those who had experienced some spiritual renewal should straightaway take part in the various efforts which were being made to help the less fortunate in the community.’ (Lovelace, p.373).

And even today there are many Christians in the front lines when it comes to showing mercy:

• Think of the Salvation Army who can always be counted on to be there to help when disaster strikes.
• Or think of World Vision and the relief they bring to the poor in the Third World.
• Mother Theresa of Calcutta.
• And then you have other agencies such as the Tear Australia and Bread for the World and City Missions around Australia, and the list could go on and on.
• And then there are the ministries that have been spear- headed by our own churches sponsoring refugees, homes for the aged and relief work in Indonesia.

And yet in spite of all that, I think it is still in order to ask a question and that is whether the ministry of mercy has the central place in the life and work of our church that it ought to have.  Do we associate spiritual renewals and growth with efforts to help the less fortunate in our community?  Do we have a well-developed sense of social concern or are we more concerned about feathering our own nests?  Do we live for others or are we still basically living for ourselves?  Personal spiritual experience is all well and good, but it must issue in a life of mercy for those around us.  That’s what Jesus taught.  That’s what the Bible teaches, and as long as there is unmet social need around us (and surely there is) then that challenge remains.

How merciful are we?
And how merciful are you?
When were you last a Good Samaritan?
Or when did you last give a cup of cold water in Christ’s name?

For those who are merciful there is a very appropriate reward: the will receive mercy.
            `Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy.’

Jesus picks up the same thought later in the Sermon on the Mount when He says in chapter 6:
            `For if you forgive men when they sin against you,
             your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
             But if you do not forgive men their sins,
             your Father will not forgive your sins.’ (6:14,15).

Now if you put these verses together it sounds as though you can earn mercy by mercy, and you can earn forgiveness by forgiveness.  By being merciful and forgiving you deserve the mercy and forgiveness of God.  And yet nothing could be further from the truth.  Who of us is so forgiving and merciful that we could ever hope to deserve these things from God?

The truth is quite the opposite.  We cannot receive the mercy of God unless we repent, and we cannot claim to have repented of our sins if we are unmerciful towards the sins of others.  Think of the parable of the unmerciful servant.

The Bible’s assumption is very simple:
            Those who have received mercy are merciful
            and those who have been forgiven forgive.

But there is also a more awesome dimension here and that is that Jesus is thinking ahead to man’s final stand before God either at death or on the day of judgement.  And the implication is that those who do not show mercy now will not be shown mercy then.  As James says:
            `Judgement will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy.’ (2:13).

Of the cries for mercy in the New Testament all were heeded except one and do you know what that one was?  It was the rich man who cried out in Hades and said:
            `Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus,
             that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue;
             for I am in agony in this flame.’ (Luke 16:24)

That cry for mercy went unheeded because it was forever too late.
            ‘Cursed are the unmerciful for they will not be shown mercy.’

Or as it says in the Book of Proverbs:
            He who shuts his ear to the cry of the poor
             will also cry himself and not be answered.’ (21:13)

And that’s what happened to the rich man.

Well, you may not have a Lazarus lying at your doorstep, but there are sons and daughters of Lazarus all over the world today, in fact about a billion human beings, a quarter of humanity impoverished and undernourished.  You may not have met any one of them personally, but you’ve heard their cry, whether it be through a magazine or a newspaper or on television.  You have heard their cry.  Have you shut your ears or have you taken heed?  Are you merciful or unmerciful?  How do you respond as affluent Christians living in a hungry world?

Conclusion

How sad, no, how unspeakably tragic it would be, if on Judgement Day Jesus should have to say to any of us:
            ‘I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat,
             I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,
             I was a stranger and you did not invite me in.
             I needed clothes and you did not clothe me,
             I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

How merciful are you?  It is a question with eternal consequences.  The merciful will inherit the kingdom prepared since the creation of the world.  The unmerciful will depart into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  Therefore how ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.’

AMEN