Matthew Beatitudes: Blessed are the Merciful

So we're working our way through the Beatitudes this summer, one each week, these teachings of Jesus at the front of the Sermon on the Mount.

And so this is ours this morning.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

So fortunate are you, lucky are you, if you are merciful and you receive mercy.

My first thought when I started to get into this this week was this it sort of sounds like merit.

I mean it sort of sounds kind of like quid pro quo, which is kind of like do this and then you'll get that.

Kind of like, you know, put a coin in the gum machine and then you get your piece of gum.

But we can't forget that this beatitude is taught in the context of blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.

And so I'm not going to re-preach that sermon, but that's the beginning of the Beatitudes and sort of sets the stage.

So I don't believe this is meaning like, you know, if you give mercy, then and only then will you receive mercy.

I think this is much more about a position, like a position you live in.

If you live in the position of uh poverty of spirit, that this is a position where there's a flow.

There's a flow of mercy, of giving and receiving mercy.

So do you remember the garden?

We've been talking about this garden at my business school and college.

If you've been here, if you haven't been here, let me catch you up.

So uh business school at the University of Georgia, and I forget which building it was.

Is anybody else Terry College, any other Terry College?

Do you do you remember uh the was it Brooks?

Was it was Brooks Caldwell?

Yeah, that's across from the law school.

Sorry, I put you on the switch.

Yes, you're right.

All right, so in that building, Mark knows what building I'm talking about, the rest of you don't, or Terry College.

All right, so in that building, uh my friend had told me about this, right?

He said he says, uh, he says, hey, you're not gonna believe this.

Go to the basement.

Go to the basement of that building.

You go to the basement, this is like the offices of the professors, and I'm thinking this is offices of professors that are like the young professors, is there's no windows out.

I mean, it is basement stuff.

And but he says, in the middle of that floor, there's a single door.

You you open that door and you walk into a garden.

And it is open to the sky above, and it's inset within the building, surrounded by the building on all four sides.

But but you walk in and you are in this beautiful garden, and there's two patios and a little brick sidewalk, and there's you know, azaleas, and there's a couple crepe myrtles.

I mean, it is beautiful, it's a beautiful, beautiful spot.

But the only way in, this is what we've been talking about, the only way in is in the basement.

The only way into this beautiful garden of rest and relief is in the basement.

See, grace, mercy, peace, these things, these fruits, the nature of God, that they only come when we're in the basement.

They only come when we're when we're in poverty of spirit.

When our pneuma, that's what spirit meant, when our pneuma is poor, when we're like, I have nothing left.

I just don't have any fuel left to self-justify my life, to create my own righteousness, to work my way out of my shame, to try to work into salvation, to work favor with God.

When I'm just done with all of those pursuits, and I'm just poor, and I'm just poor, and I'm needy, and I need to receive, I'm in the basement, bottom level, then you discover the garden.

And so point number one coming into this Beatitude is this, and building off this metaphor, is uh mercy is in the basement.

So, mercy, this word mercy means to have someone enter your misery.

That's what mercy is, right?

I mean, something bad happens and uh mercy me, right?

Mercy me, mercy me.

Right?

And what we're saying is like, oh, this situation, this situation is so bad, or a lot of times at this point that saying just comes along with something little that happens, and you're like, mercy me.

But you're saying, someone come into my misery.

I have a little bit of misery here, and I just would like somebody to come into it.

So we moved into our house, the house we live in right now, we've moved in maybe three years ago or so, and so for the first couple years, there was this muddy part of our backyard in between our garage and our back fence.

It was about six, seven feet wide, and it was just muddy.

It was just mud, it was always mud.

And so our girls had discovered it.

Do you remember that when you'd discover a part of your yard when you were little?

Like it'd be like behind the bushes or something.

You thought it was like a big discovery.

Or they discovered this part of our yard, and it was called the hideout.

So they started calling it the hideout, and they would go there and they'd set stuff up, and it was, you know, it was like this whole other world.

But the problem with it is it's muddy, so all that mud would come back in the house.

And so it started bothering me over time, that not them playing there.

I wanted them to play there.

It's actually really kind of like far away, and you know, it was quiet.

The rest of the our yard would be quiet.

So I finally said, All right, we gotta do something about the mud part of the hideout, and so I order a truckload of gravel that I'm gonna put back there, and that's gonna handle it.

So, you know, the the ordering part was easy, right?

I mean, you just call up, you're like, hey, I need a truckload of slate chips, we're gonna dump them back there, and I'm gonna shovel and wheelbarrow them everything, you know, and then the truck arrives and they dump them, and you see this pile of slate chips, and you're like, oh my gosh, Saturday's gonna come, Saturday's gonna come, and I've got to deal with that pile.

So all week I see this pile every time I pull in and out, pull in and out.

I just I'm dreading it, I'm complaining during the week toward Christie, just complaining about this pile and how long this is gonna take.

And I mean, so it was just on and on, it's gonna take six hours, it's gonna be eight hours, it's gonna be back breaking, and I'm just complaining about it.

So Saturday comes, I'm I'm you know, I'm ready.

Saturday, chore day, let's let's let's go after this.

And so, you know, I get all my stuff on, I head out there with my shovel and my wheelbarrow, and I'm out there 15, 20 minutes, and then out walks this really pretty lady, Christy.

She has on her work shorts and her shirt, and she comes and she joins me.

Right?

I mean, in my misery, she got she had her own stuff to do, right?

I mean, she had her own chores and her own stuff.

I mean, she could have been doing other things.

This was my misery, but she chose to come and enter into my misery.

And what does it make it do?

Oh, it was fantastic, right?

I mean, like so much relief came over me.

I mean, not only did it cut the workload like in half, you know, she brings some music because she's more thoughtful than me.

I was just gonna be mad, doing it mad for eight hours.

She brings music, it makes it better.

And so, and it makes it better, right?

Just to have somebody join you in your misery changes everything, right?

That's a small little thing.

I know it's small.

Now, two weeks ago when I was at Blue Skies, I saw something else, bigger thing.

So, two weeks ago, I'm at Blue Skies, and uh the same family had been there.

This is the third year in the row that we had hit the same week of being there.

They have two daughters.

Riley's the older daughter, Kaylee's the younger daughter, and Kaylee has neuroblastoma.

And so she's been sick for a long time, and her body's just been ravaged.

I mean, her body has just been ravaged by cancer, it has been ravaged by treatment, and so the doctors this summer just said, you know what, her her body is so tired and ravaged, we just need to give it a break.

We just need to take her off of everything and just let her rest.

And so they're calling this the summer of Kaylee because she just doesn't have to be on any meds, any treatment, just let her body recover some from all of the treatment that's been going on for years and years and years.

And who knows, who knows if she'll have another summer.

They don't even know that.

And so I the first uh the first chapel session we have, and I'm sitting there, and I hadn't seen these these girls in uh a year.

And so uh Kaylee walks in and she walks in and she sits down.

I know it's her because she has uh really short hair because her hair was just grown back out from her chemo, her last round of chemo.

Uh and but actually it wasn't her because then she actually does walk in and she sits next to her sister, which means that her older sister had shaven her head to be with her younger sister, right?

And we've seen this, right?

Like you've you've seen people do this.

And why would why does somebody do this?

Mercy To be with somebody in their misery.

I I have a friend of mine who uh who makes a good bit of money, makes a lot of money, and uh he seeks out ways to give it away.

Not only that, he loves to meet with people.

Right now he's meeting with like two or three different couples who have credit card debt to get them out of credit card debt and then to teach them how to stay out of credit card debt, and he meets with them regularly.

Who do why would somebody do that?

Mercy.

To go into somebody's misery.

So mercy is when one person goes into another person's misery.

Now, if you're married, why why would your spouse come home at the end of the day and uh he or she comes home and they want to rant about work or they want to rant about a friend or they want to vent, maybe not rant, maybe sometimes it's a rant.

Uh they want to vent about a family member and they want to vent, and what do they want you to do?

They want you to fix it?

No, they don't want you to fix it.

Why?

What are they looking for?

Mercy.

They're just looking for you to be in the misery.

Like, will you be with me in this misery?

Because if you're with me in this misery, I have relief just by you being in it with me.

That's the power of mercy.

It's not always to fix it.

Sometimes it's just to be in it.

Now there's a problem with this, and that's that we really like to uh like rate our misery based on other people's.

I was thinking about when I was in seminary, so about 14 years ago, I was in seminary and we had this class called preaching practicum, and we got up, oh, it's horrible.

So we preached to a uh crowd of preachers.

Okay?

I mean that and each preacher had a clipboard, and as you preached, they were raiding you on a whole bunch of different factors.

And so you could see him writing, like as you're talking and you're going, you're you know, you're you're segmenting from an illustration to a point back to your passage, and and and you know, you're getting looks, and you're getting, you know, some people are busy writing, and some people are bare, some people are asleep, you know.

I mean, you get all of that just like we get here, you know.

So uh so but they're rating you, right?

It's nerve-wracking, it's merciless, merciless, really.

I would say 90% of those sheets, and then you get the sheets of paper, by the way.

They don't go to the professor, they get they come to you right when you finish, which is when you're the most neurotic about a sermon, right when you finish, they all these sheets of paper come to you and you look through and you read these people's merciless, merciless ratings.

Now, it was brutal, it was brutal.

It and it made you feel like rubbish, definitely made you feel horrible.

Uh, and you just ended up just kind of comparing yourself and all these ratings and kind of like forming like how good a preacher you are based on all these ratings.

But then there's also this like really enjoyable side of the rating, like when you got to rate, like because we love that, right?

Like you love, we love to like rate things and rate people.

And if we're honest about it, I mean we just do this all the time.

We love to rate, and then we can take our ratings, and like, you know, and like I was buddies with this guy named Levi, and he would tell me like his ratings, and like how were his ratings versus my ratings, and then you know, use that as some justification of how worthy I was as a preacher, and then you know, like he was a pretty good preacher, so I didn't, you know, don't talk to him too much about his ratings.

Go to you know a guy who did lousy, and then then I'll feel better, right?

And this is what we do, right?

This is what we do.

This is what we do with with our misery is we say stuff like, or we think stuff like, you know, how could God care about my stress when there's children starving in Africa?

Right?

It's kind of a cliche statement, but this this is kind of the idea.

And it's true, there are children starving in Africa.

But it doesn't mean that your stress doesn't exist.

Right?

I mean, we're always trying to think like, is it is it worthy of mercy?

Is my misery worthy of mercy?

Maybe it's a huge, huge misery, maybe it's smaller, but but either way, it's still real.

That's sort of the point, is that it's real.

You are worthy of mercy.

What if my misery is nothing compared to you know Ginny Sue's misery?

We don't have to trip advise her our misery.

Like we don't have to like get the rating and then figure out where we lie on these ratings.

We don't have to do that.

God's not doing that.

Your misery is yours and it's real to you.

And that's what just this week was so refreshing for me to learn is that God is merciful, which means he joins you in your misery.

Whatever your misery is, he joins you in it.

And maybe it's the stress of buying a new home, and you go, that's that that's so, you know, that's so worldly compared to the children uh starving ever.

You know what?

He's big enough to join you in your misery because he's merciful and he's gracious, and he's in he's in horrible, horrific miseries, and he's in stressful miseries.

He can be in your daily misery, he can be in a relationship misery.

Whatever it is going on in your life in terms of your misery, he wants to join you in it.

And it's just so refreshing to know that he actually cares to do that and that he enters it.

Uh Monday and Tuesday of this week, I was just tired.

You have tired days?

I have tired days.

I mean, and there just was no like spiritual, like, let's go have a great devotion.

Like that wasn't in me Monday and Tuesday of this week.

And you know what?

So Monday and Tuesday of this week, I just didn't have like great, you know, pastoral devotions going on.

I mean, it was just like I just sat, I just sat in my chair and I put on some music and I sat there for like 15 minutes, and I just sat.

I didn't read, I just sat.

You know what?

It was fine, it was enough.

And and and to just just to reflect on God is merciful to join me in this weariness and in that he's not judging me.

He's not in judgment over my misery because he's gracious and merciful.

So he can come into my misery, whatever it is on that day, he can come into it without judgment over it.

What if he actually is with you in your misery without judgment over your misery?

So what'll help you?

I mean, what does help you?

What helps you?

What helps your neighbor?

What helps your kids?

What helps, what, what helps anybody get any better?

Is it to be told to be better?

Does that help you?

I mean, what warms the human heart into to a measure of relief and change?

And it turns out it's not force, it's grace and mercy.

That he comes in without judgment.

So, point number one, mercy is in the basement.

I kind of meandered around, but that was the point.

When we're at the end of ourselves, seeing our sin, that we are imperfect, and so we're poverty of the spirit, we're in the basement, we need him, we need Christ crucified and resurrected, we need the imputation, our sin upon him, his righteousness upon us, and we don't have anything else, and we're in need.

And in that position, there's a flow of mercy.

There's grace there.

That's where grace is found.

It's at the end of yourself, in the basement.

No judgment over your misery.

And there's a flow there that develops.

That's point number two.

Animation to give mercy comes from God.

So we receive the mercy from God, and animation to give mercy comes from God.

So the beatitude is blessed are those fortunate of those that give mercy, for they shall receive mercy.

I don't believe that's quid pro crow.

I don't believe that's merit.

I believe this is about a place that you live where there's a giving and receiving.

Uh Brennan Manning, quote, I ran into this week from his book, The Wisdom of Tenderness, which I think has been a few years since I read it, but fantastic book.

And here's what he said, he writes Biblically, tenderness is what follows when someone reveals to you your own inner beauty.

When you discover your belovedness, when you experience that you are deeply and sincerely liked by someone.

See, animation to give mercy comes from God because from God you receive your validation, your righteousness, your salvation, your justification, your worthiness, and that animates, empowers, gives life for you to give mercy out.

Now, some of us feel like God has no concern to enter your misery.

And so it's very difficult for you to ever give mercy to anybody else.

Because you're not in that position yet.

Uh this week I was I read a Henry Nowen quote.

It came around this idea, I don't have it word for word, is this idea that you you realize uh the brokenness is real.

So the brokenness is real, but it's not under the curse, it's under a blessing.

And this is this is a big difference with Christianity, is this is why it's not despair and depressing to talk about brokenness, is because our brokenness and our sin is not under the curse.

It's under the blessing, it's under Christ crucified, it's under the fact that God loves us.

Now, that's blowing my mind.

I mean, that that idea that our brokenness is good because it's not under the curse, it's under the blessing.

I'm still working that one out, we'll talk more about it.

But I believe there's a secret in there, there's something for us in there that realizing we're imperfect and yet, and yet we are beautiful and we are loved.

And it does something in you.

It does something in you, it validates you, it warms the heart more than demand or force could ever do this.

You remember being a kid, and you go to elementary school, you go out on the playground, and you know, little Johnny shows up and he's he has a mirror, right?

Like he stole his mom's compact mirror, or he found a little mirror or something.

And you'd you would sit like up on the sidewalk and you'd get the sun.

You remember this?

You'd get the sunshine just right, and you just like hit other little kids in the eyes.

Y'all ever remember doing that?

Mandy, she's laughing.

She remembers doing it with her friend.

She actually told me the other week how her and her little girlfriend they would just sit up there and do that.

Right?

I mean, this is what we would do, right?

Like it, and what is that about?

What is that about?

I mean, that that's taking, that's not power from us, right?

I mean, that that's a power from another source reflecting through through us.

It's a light source beyond the mirror.

And here's my point here with this idea that animation to give mercy comes from God is that you only find the mirror in the basement.

That's the only place the mirror exists.

So the only place that a life of being able to give mercy out is a place where we're receiving mercy.

Or else you don't have anything to give.

So, to be practical for a moment, mercy is about entering someone's misery to give compassion or forgiveness.

And sometimes that's a very material need, and sometimes it's not.

So we see in Zechariah 1, in Zechariah 7, Isaiah 58, you can read those later, there's a connection between knowing God and our concern for the poor.

So if we talk about mercy, we have to talk about the poor.

God's always talking about the poor.

Proverbs 14, 31, whoever oppresses a poor man insults his maker.

You oppress a poor person with what you do or what you say, you're insulting God.

But he who is generous to the needy honors him.

So if you're generous to the needy, you're honoring God.

There's a connection here.

Jesus tells a story in Matthew 25 where a king exiles people who are pledging their allegiance to him.

I mean, these people are saying, you know what, I loved you, I was for you, I didn't, you know, I did all this for you.

And he says, No, no, no, you didn't know me.

What are you talking about?

I was for you.

No, no, you didn't because I was poor and you didn't feed me.

I was thirsty, you didn't give me anything to drink.

I was naked, you didn't clothe me.

See, something happens in the heart of a person when they learn what God is really like.

What he's really like.

That he's not a figure waiting to catch you, screw up again.

But he's gracious and merciful toward you.

He's coming toward you.

And that he enters people's poverty and misery, and then our hearts are warmed, and in that process, there's a fruit of the Spirit that develops as the Holy Spirit reigns in you.

That kingdom of heaven reigns in you, and judgments are let go.

It's hard to give to the poor when we're judgmental over them.

It's hard to be merciful to a friend when you're judgmental over them.

And all of a sudden we can start to give mercy to a family member, to a friend, to an enemy, to a neighbor, uh, to the opposition, to the political opposition.

And it's hard because it costs us something.

Mercy always costs us something.

I mean, it's not always convenient.

I mean, it might cost you pride, it might be incredibly humiliating, it might cost you time, it could cost you money.

But see, only in the basement are you in the position where you're no longer using people.

Because you have found your salvation, your righteousness, your forgiveness, your validation, and God's love for you.

And so you don't have to use people anymore.

So, see, if all you're seeing is how other people have screwed up and how horrible they are, and you can't believe they did this, and you can't believe they're that, and you know, you can't be merciful toward them.

You're too judgmental toward them.

And the reason why we're judgmental toward them is because it helps us feel better about ourselves.

I mean, that's why I'm judgmental toward people, you sometimes, I just don't tell you, is because it helps me feel better about myself.

If I'm judgmental toward you and I kind of like break you down and like put you really down, and then all of a sudden it makes me feel really good.

But if I live in the basement, like I'm even worse than you, like the Apostle Paul, right?

Like the worst of all sinners.

Now I'm in the place where I'm not using people to validate myself.

Now I'm just resting in God's love for me, and now I'm in the position where I can actually be compassionate towards somebody.

And I'm not sitting in judgment over everything about their life.

I can just be merciful.

Now, maybe you hear all of that, hear all of that, and you go, how could I ever be like that?

And that's a good position.

I would say that's a good start.

I'd say actually, if you're asking that question, then good job.

Like you're in the basement because you're recognizing you can't be, like, you can't do that perfectly.

You won't.

Mother Teresa didn't do it perfectly.

Nobody does it perfectly.

And so that's point number three.

The mercy that found you in the basement is enough, even though you are not always merciful.

You're not always merciful.

You're not going to be.

See, Christ died for all of our sins, but he also lived the life that none of us can live.

And that's why we find our salvation in him is he was perfectly merciful.

And that's why when he gives us his righteousness, we are fully righteous before God.

It means that we're broken by this.

And it helps us realize that we really need God's grace toward us.

We need Jesus.

We need his sacrifice.

We need his perfect righteousness and his mercy toward us and his perfect mercy toward other people.

We need that put upon us, deemed to us, which is what redeems us.

See, in the basement there's rest.

Because there we find mercy, and there you also find that mirror where we can give mercy to other people.

So, my brothers and sisters, may you live in the place where you are broken yet under the sufficient, wonderful blessing of Christ's love for you.

May you receive God's mercy and give it freely to those around you.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you that you do not judge our misery because so much of it is self-inflicted.

So much of it is from our own issues, our own sin, our own idols.

Some of it's not, but a lot of it is.

And thank you that you are not in judgment, but that you graciously, mercifully come into our misery, whether it is a huge issue like addiction or abuse or a divorce or a death, or whether it's something that we would classify as little and seemingly worldly, like we just can't get to all the laundry, or things at work aren't working out like we thought they would.

Or we're having a little spat with a friend.

But even that day-to-day misery, you show up without judgment.

You mercifully come alongside us and you'll listen to us.

You will listen to us vent and you'll listen to us rant.

I thank you that you are gracious and mercifully to do this without judgment toward us.

God, that warms our hearts toward you.

That you have that regard for us.

We thank you for Jesus, that we have that position with you.

That we're not in your judgment, but we are your children.

And that you are our Abba Father who cares for us in every way.

God, would you help those of us in here who think we're not worthy enough for you to enter our misery?

Would you help us to see that our worthiness is in your view of us and the fact that we are your children and created by you?

For so many of us, we need to receive mercy into parts of our hearts that we've closed off.

And for many of us, we need to give mercy to people that we've been withholding it.

And so would you call us and empower us toward those ends.

God, thank you for your grace and mercy.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.