Matthew 5:7

I am thankful for a lost and found section behind this podium this morning.

If I believed the devil were on attack, he would attack me through my contact lenses this morning.

I had them on. Before I got to church, my left one had to be thrown out.

I was sitting there reading the scripture passage this morning, and I'm like, I am blind.

That thing's moving around. So I had to take that one out just a few minutes ago, and I'm like, I can't read my notes.

But thankful, a lot of you all just leave stuff in the pews.

And so there's readers up here. I don't know if they fit me, but I can at least see a little bit.

They may be women's glasses. I'm not sure.

But they're going to help me see this morning. Matthew chapter five, verse seven.

We'll look at one verse this morning and then ask the precious spirit of God to help us.

Jesus speaking to a crowd there on that mountain.

He looks to the people and he says, blessed, favored by God, are the merciful for they who are so will obtain mercy.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Let's pray.

Father, Lord, we cannot understand nor mind the depths of your wisdom or that you revealed in your word, except by the spirit of God.

Lord, would you humble man and exalt Christ?

Might we sink low behind the cross and may Christ be at the forefront?

Or may we preach him, preach him crucified, buried, risen again for sinners or seated at the right hand of your glorious throne?

God help us, Lord. May you grow us in our walk in our most holy faith.

Lord, allume in the text to us this morning and not only show us Christ, but reveal our sin and the pardon that's found in your son.

And it's in the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

You know, I would like to ask this morning, do you think that there are some things that are more important or I guess a better way might say it,

of a higher priority to God than other things are? Are there some things just more pressing, more important?

I would say, yeah, absolutely, without a doubt. As you look through scripture, one of the criticisms that our Lord had toward the religious leaders,

particularly the Pharisees, was their emphasis on their scrupulous adherence to the minutia of the law.

They were fastidious in their approach to keeping the law, and yet he said they ignored what he called the weightier or more important matters of the law.

You see it there in Matthew 23. Woe to you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, for you pay tie the mint and anise and cumin,

and you have neglected the weightier, the more heavy matters of the law. What are they?

Justice and mercy and faith. I want you to notice what our Lord calls weighty or important here.

There's justice, there's mercy and faith. These things seem to take center stage.

So it's clear from the outset that mercy is one of those more important things in the mind of God.

Micah 6.8, perhaps many of you all know this verse. He has shown you, O man, what is good and what the Lord does require of you.

What is it? I want to know what does God require of me. Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with the Lord thy God.

God commands his people not just to be merciful, but to love it. Love it, he says.

And then God describes himself in these terms. He describes himself as merciful. Psalm 145.

The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy.

How the Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works.

God is merciful. He desires his children to be merciful, like father, like son.

And then we come to the text in Matthew 5.7, we see our Lord pronouncing a benediction,

a blessing upon a certain group of people, the merciful.

And he says blessed, happy, favored by God are the merciful and the result, they'll get it.

They'll get mercy. Now I want you to please keep in mind that in this Sermon on the Mount,

the Lord is showing what life in his kingdom looks like. In it, we're going to see that the kingdom of God is at war with the kingdom of man.

It is almost exactly opposite the kingdom of man. In man's kingdom, mercy is not a virtue, strength is.

In Matthew 4.17, the Lord preached the arrival of this kingdom. He says, repent. Why?

For the kingdom of heaven is at hand, it's near, it had come. The king had come.

King Jesus is on the scene and he was announcing that the kingdom of God came with him.

The king arrived bringing the kingdom. At his first advent, at his first coming, the kingdom of God was inaugurated.

It's already present. It's not yet consummated. That will not take place until his second advent when he returns again.

But in the meantime, there are a group of people called out from the world who live in this kingdom.

And Jesus is pronouncing his blessing upon those who are already in the kingdom.

They are favored by God. And that's what it means to be blessed. They're favored by God and they live by a certain ethic.

Now I want to make this very clear at the outset. Living by this ethic does not get you into the kingdom.

This is the ethic or way of life for people who are already in.

Phil Newton, he's a pastor, he says, the Beatitudes were not given as commands but as realities.

Because if you notice, it's not an imperative. This is indicative mood.

Jesus doesn't say, be merciful. He just says, blessed are the merciful.

These are not commands. These are realities for those who are part of Christ's kingdom.

We might call them kingdom characteristics or kingdom evidences.

They describe the believer. They describe the believer.

And by the very same token, they are effective instruments to root out unbelief in the heart and then also to expose an unregenerate condition.

What is he saying there? That these virtues, when they are lacking in those who profess faith in Christ,

it may be and probably is a sign of an unregenerate condition.

The Beatitudes really are an expression of the life of God in the believer.

This divine life that we have been made partakers of is shown in the way that we live our lives.

So now we come to this. We see that God is merciful.

The word Jesus is pronouncing a blessing on the merciful.

So then the question that we must answer this morning is what does it mean to be merciful?

Now, to be merciful as it's given here does not mean simply to have pity.

It's not just an emotion here, but rather it's being actively compassionate.

The thought is that those who are merciful, they give attention to those who are in misery.

I think a great synonym for this is compassion.

Mercy is not simply feeling compassion, but rather it is doing something that would alleviate someone in distress.

You're actively meeting a need. So mercy is not a word. Mercy is not a feeling.

Mercy is an action. And James in chapter two, he talked about this very beautifully.

He said, if a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them,

depart in peace, be warm, be full, but you don't give them the things that are needed for the body, what does it profit?

Now notice what James is saying. So a brother comes to you and he's hungry and he's poorly clothed.

And here's what you say. You know what? Go home and you be warm now and you be full.

Those are very merciful words. He's hungry and you say, okay, yeah, be full.

And he's cold and poorly clothed. You say, well, be warm. Have you shown mercy?

No. You've only given lip service to mercy. Mercy will move you to alleviate the need.

You clothe him. You feed him. Spurgeon, who writes eloquently on everything, he says,

they the merciful forgive and they're forgiven. They judge charitably and they will not be condemned.

They help the needy and they shall be helped in their need. What we are to others, God will be to us.

Followers of Jesus must be men of mercy, for they have found mercy and mercy has found them.

As we look for mercy of the Lord in that day, we must show mercy in this day.

One more, the Holman New Testament commentary said this, kingdom servants must reflect in

their own hearts the heart of the king. That they are part of the kingdom implies

that they are objects of mercy. That means they are others oriented. What you and I have

received in such abundance, we must now dispense abundantly. Now, I've noted in weeks past, we're

studying the Beatitudes and we're just taking one at a time, but these Beatitudes really do, they

build upon each other. There's a progression. The very first one was blessed are those who are poor

in spirit. These are the people by God's grace who have come to understand their own spiritual

bankruptcy. They have no righteousness. They have nothing to commend them to God. They simply cast

themselves upon the mercy of God. They flee to him. Now, the correlations between those who are

poor in spirit and those who are merciful, because those who are poor in spirit have come to see their

own sin, our own weakness, our own misery, we have gone to God with this miserable condition.

We've received divine mercy. We've received divine pardon. We have been given eternal life

and that mercy that we've received from God changes us. Now listen church, we now start to see the sin

and weakness of others in a different light. The poor in spirit have become meek before God.

Blessed are the meek for they shun hair at the earth. They become humble and as a result of that,

they are now more patient with others in their sin and weakness. You meet sometimes religious

people who are so quick to judge. They have just a judgmental spirit, a condemning spirit,

but those who've been humbled by their sin and have come to Christ, there's a tenderness there.

There's a patience, an empathy. There really is a compassion for others who are in sin.

Why? Because you and I have been helped in our sin and our misery. We know what it's like. We

know what it's like. We know what it's like to be there and so we now have a desire to help others

who are in the same situation we were once in. So when a man receives the mercy of God, the one

that evidences that he has received it is that he's going to be merciful to others because of what

he's received. So instead of looking at someone and thinking, well how could they possibly do that,

the disposition is now, how can I help them? That's Galatians 6. If you see a brother

caught in sin, you who are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness considering

your own self. So what we see is this progression. The poor in spirit have been humbled and because

of their humility they become meek before God and meek before people and they now have mercy

toward others who are still in their sin. And they are hungry and they're thirsty for righteousness.

But what does righteousness look like in their lives? They show mercy. It's part of what it

means to be righteous. Now Jesus when he's preaching the sermon there's a historical context

that we can't avoid. Much of this sermon is really a rebuke to the leading religious officials of his

day. They're there within their earshot and you can turn over to Matthew 7 and see that toward the

end. So they're listening in on what Jesus is saying. So you have the scribes, the Pharisees,

the Sadducees. These people are very self-righteous. They could never see themselves in their true

spiritual condition. They're not poor in spirit. They don't think they need great mercy. They don't

think they're really that bad. But now listen and this is true of religious people who are lost.

They do pay lip service to mercy. I mean because they read the Psalms God is merciful

but it's not shown in their lives. They hold a high demand for a strict fastidious

observance of the law. Let me give you an example of this. Remember back in John 8 there is a woman

who is caught in the very act of adultery we're told. It's what John tells us and it says these

religious leaders they took her in the act. Now first of all we see the hypocrisy because what's

missing? The man. It wasn't just a woman was to be condemned so was the man. They didn't take the man

and what did they do? They bring her to Jesus and they're like Lord we caught her in the very act

now the law says she should be stoned to death. What do you say? Now they're trying to trip him up

but they're really demanding justice. No desire for mercy. So what does our Lord do? He stoops

down he writes on the ground with his finger. We don't know what he wrote but we do know this

whatever he did he said those without sin do exactly as the law said. You pick up that hard

stone and you be the first to hurl it at her head. If you don't have sin you pick it up and you be

the first to throw that stone at her. He's writing on the ground and John tells us they were all

convicted from the first into the last. My suspicion is that Jesus is writing down their sins that

no one knew about. I don't know but whatever that he was writing they suddenly they dropped their

stones and they left. But what did this reveal? It showed their hypocrisy. It's clear they're

unmerciful and really it's clear that they're far from God. So that's a historical context where

Jesus is preaching. It's a rebuke to them but there's also a political context that we can't

ignore either. So do you remember Israel at this time is an occupied territory. Rome is the leading

nation that's over them and so you have the Roman Empire there with their guards and their own

leaders and the Roman Empire they did not esteem mercy at all. They thought if you showed mercy

then you don't have what it takes to be a real man especially not a real Roman. To them mercy was

a sign of weakness because they think a man is someone who must be seen as strong always strong

among peers. But I would suggest to you that mercy is derived from a strength that most people know

nothing about. It takes incredible strength to be merciful. Now what about our culture in which we

live today? We're not a merciful culture. We hear it all the time. It's a dog eat dog world. Darwin,

survival of the fittest, our culture is bought into that hook line and sinker.

Only the strong survive and so what happens is we find out everyone is looking out for themselves.

There is an epidemic of self-absorption and what happens when a person is so focused on themselves,

so myopic, so self-absorbed they never take the time to see others in need. They just don't do it.

But that wasn't the case with the Lord Jesus. He read through the sacred text.

He befriended prostitutes. He befriended tax collectors, other notorious sinners. People

who were such of low repute that no one wanted to be with them. Our Lord would. I love how you look

at how he was with children. He's gentle. He would take them up in his arms. He would put his hands

on them and he would bless them. To those who were sick, he would often heal. There's a mercy.

You remember when the widow lost her only son and Jesus is there and the funeral is passing by?

The Lord had mercy on that dear lady and he raised her son back to life.

You look at Christ and you see him and he was mercy and love in the flesh. Love incarnate.

But that caused the religious leaders to be jealous because he gained quite a crowd.

People flock into them and really it was their envy and jealousy that would ultimately lead to his death.

We think about this word merciful here. It's only used two times in the New Testament. Just two.

Here, Matthew 5-7 and over in Hebrews 2-17 when it speaks of Christ that we have a merciful high

priest. Some mercy here. This is not something that's just a side thing. This takes center stage.

It's a weightier matter before God. What is it? It's compassion but in action. That means it

meets needs. It goes beyond feeling sorry for others and it tries to actually get involved and

alleviate their suffering. And I think about that the opportunity we have in September 10th. It could

be feeding the hungry in your community. It could be comforting those who are grieving and you know

they're going through a tough time. It could be someone who's lonely and befriending the lonely.

Loving the rejected, forgiving those who have done you wrong.

This past Friday after my class I had a boy. I don't know if you shared this or not.

I had a kid come after me class and he said Mr. McKee can I talk to you?

See I'd be happy to talk to you and he said can you help me with my depression?

Yeah well I said well and I started asking questions. Physical, not a doctor, have you

been to a doctor? And that's all the all the stuff that you would ask.

And I said can you describe it to me? And he said I have no one. He said I have no friends and I'm

picked on all the time. And he said I don't know. He said but my mother four years ago she hung

herself. I said do you ever think about that? He said I do. And he said because I feel so alone

in this world. That was Friday. Here's what I said. I said I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I feel so alone in this world. That was Friday. Here's a 16 year old kid goes to a Christian school

and he said I've talked to some people and a couple of friends or a couple of kids in my

class said well you should go ahead and do it. Go ahead and kill yourself.

This is the culture in which so many people live. I mean this we don't take time or and do I think

those kids really meant it? No they're they're foolish and immature and ridiculous.

People are hurting and most of us just have blinders on all the time. But this attitude of

being merciful and it's a high value here. But it doesn't you're saying well how do you get that?

Let me just say this mercy does not originate with us. It doesn't come from us. You and I we

come to Christ for salvation. You and I have experienced his mercy toward us and his spirit

takes up residence and he begins to work in us making us more merciful toward other people.

We often think of mercy and grace as synonyms and they're not. They're linked but they're not

the same. Mercy will deal with symptoms. Grace amen will deal with the cause. Mercy will offer

you relief from punishment that grace will give you pardon for the crime. Mercy will keep you

from hell and grace will take you into heaven. Mercy says hey that punishment that you and I

deserve for breaking the law of God we deserve the wrath and curse of God. You don't get it.

That's mercy. But grace oh God's glorious grace gives us all the other blessings you and I don't

deserve. Union with Christ and inheritance with Christ to share in the glorious vision of our God

for all eternity. In Luke chapter 10 you see a good example of how grace and mercy work together.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

You don't need to turn there. You all know the story. It's a parable of the good Samaritan.

See I've here a man is beaten. We don't know if he's Jew or Samaritan. I went back and looked and

it doesn't say. He's stripped by robbers and he's left for dead. So he's beaten, he's wounded,

he's just left on the side of the road assuming he was dying. And the first this is a parable and

Jesus said you have a priest and a Levite. Now Levite was a temple worker. So these would be

the religious leaders people who were helping people get to God. They saw that man. They cross

the road and they go to the other side. Just walk by completely ignoring him. But then Jesus said

but there was a Samaritan. Now if you know anything about the Jews and Samaritans they hated each

other. Samaritans were seen as half breeds literally. And it says this man's stuff was

broken. And it says this man stopped by and he saw the man and he took care of him even though he had

nothing with which to repay him. He took care. That's mercy right? But the Samaritan didn't

stop there. He then put this bleeding man, he put him on his own donkey, he takes him to a local

inn and he says hey stay there until you completely recover. And then he looks and he tells the inn

keeper whatever he owes you when I come back I will take care of that price. That's grace. Mercy

helped in his need. Grace saw to his complete restoration. Mercy and grace are linked. Mercy

and forgiveness are linked. Because mercy is the substance from which forgiveness flows.

Those who have been forgiven much will forgive much. Friends as a church those who said they've

experienced the grace of God that means you and I have drunk deeply at the well of mercy.

So then be merciful. The forgiven man will forgive and the merciful man has received mercy.

And the merciful man has received mercy. This is the evidence of God's life within him. Do you know

from 1st Peter chapter 2 the apostle Peter he said that you and I are partakers of the divine nature.

That's glorious. You and I as believers are partakers of the divine nature. We don't become

gods. He's not saying that but we have partaken of the life of God by his Holy Spirit who's in us.

The believer begins to express this life in our actions. This is why if God's Spirit is at work

within you he is causing you to grow in godliness. And part of that is mercy and forgiveness.

But what if you don't? What if you don't forgive? What if you don't show mercy?

What does that suggest? It suggests that you are not a partaker of the divine nature and you have

not been indwelt by the Spirit of God. In Matthew 18 there's another parable and

I've got the verses behind me. You have in this parable a man who owes the king

just an instrumentable sum. It said 10,000 talents. One talent is between 60 and 80 pounds of gold.

Okay. One talent. He owes 10,000 talents. One talent, one was said to be worth 20 years of the

average day labor's wages. 20 years wages. That's one talent. He owes 10,000 talents.

Today, I looked it up just last night, so one talent of gold, so about 60 pounds of gold today

in yesterday's market was about 1.7 million dollars. So if you have 10,000 talent debt you

have a 17 billion dollar debt. Okay. So that just gets, puts this in perspective. I mean we're

talking about a ridiculous amount and Jesus is using this in this parable to show the impossible

amount to be paid back, which is really an evidence of our sin debt to God. You can't do it.

That's the point. This man owed an insurmountable debt to the king. It's obscene amount.

So what happens? This indebted man begins to beg and plead with the king to forgive him

and the king did. He forgave him all his debt. He showed mercy. Now that man who had just been

forgiven of this insurmountable debt, he goes out and there's another man who's indebted to him

and we're told that he has a debt of a hundred denarii. One denarius is one day's wages. So this

is a hundred days wages. Now that's significant, but it's minuscule compared to 10,000 talents.

So you have this one man who's been forgiven say 17 billion and another man owes say 10,000.

So you have this man who now owes a hundred denarii. He also, if you look, does the very

same thing in verse 26, same words. He begs and pleads with this man, be patient, he says,

I'll repay you everything. And yet that man who had been forgiven of so much said, no way.

And he put him into prison. It's a debtor's prison. Verse 29, so his fellow servant fell

down on his feet and begged him saying, have patience with me and I'll pay you all. Look back

at verse 26, the same thing that man had said earlier. And he would not, but he went and threw

him into prison that he should pay the till he should pay the whole debt. Verse 31, his fellow

servant saw this and they're upset. Rightly so. So they were grieved and they came and told their

master all they've been done. They went to the king. Then his master, after he called him, said

to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also

have had compassion on your fellow servant just as I had pity on you? Here's what Jesus is asking.

Should not forgiven people forgive? Should not those who have been received great mercy show

mercy? Verse 34, and his master was angry, that next slide guys, and delivered him to the tortures

until he should pay all that was due to him. So my heavenly father also will do to you if each of

you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses. We prayed the words prayer earlier,

didn't we? The Lord forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

That's Matthew 6. What we're seeing here is a lack of mercy, a lack of tenderness, a lack of

forgiveness reveals a heart that has never been transformed by God. God's people, those in the

kingdom, they're merciful. Why? They've received it. This is God's life within us. Here is the

message. It's clear. Mercy known results in mercy shown. The point of that tear that 10,000 talent

debtor before God is that if you and I refuse to forgive others, then listen carefully. Jesus, our

Lord speaking, it's because you have never been changed by the spirit of God.

Because when you do, when the spirit of God works within you, he changes you. Think of Joseph. Mercy

led Joseph not only to forgive his brothers, but provide food for them during the famine. David,

when he's being hunted down by Saul, he not only does not attack Saul back, he actually then tries

to even protect Saul at times. Mercy led Christ to cry out forgiveness when there were people

nailing his hands and his feet to a wooden cross. J. Dwight Pentecost said this, to show mercy,

because we have received mercy, demonstrate the life of Christ, the work of the cross in a man's

life, and it permits God to open up the windows of heaven and pour out blessings upon us. A man

whose life is lived by the love of God manifested at the cross will find his life flooded with

the love of God. Amen. So you have mercy and grace, you have mercy and forgiveness,

mercy and justice. Now that seemed odd. We normally think of mercy and justice as opposites,

but a mercy that ignores or excuses sin is not true mercy. God doesn't just overlook it or wink

at it. John MacArthur, to expect to enter the sphere of God's mercy without repenting from

our sins is just wishful thinking. For the church to offer hope of God's mercy apart from

repentance from sin, well, that's to offer a false hope through a false gospel. God offers nothing

but merciless judgment to those who will not turn from their sin and turn toward the Savior.

So many people today in our culture assume that God being merciful means he's never angry.

God's not angry at sinners. God would surely never allow someone to die and go to hell.

It's not the God of scriptures, guys. The most merciful thing you and I can do

is to warn others to flee from the wrath to come. There's a Savior he's offered to the world.

Flee to the Savior, cling to him. Christ paid the payment so that God could turn from his sin.

He paid the payment so that God might be merciful to the sinner. Who's the candidate for it?

Anyone who will pen their sins and turn to Christ in faith. Anyone who will turn from sin,

turn to the Savior. But where does that mercy come from? It's the same fountain from which all

virtues flow from God himself. You and I could never be the way that God intends for us to be

without his divine enablement. What are the varying ways that mercy is shown quickly?

Physically, you feed the hungry. You visit the sick and imprisoned. This is Matthew 25, by the way.

You take care of the elderly and the orphans. That's James. You clothe the naked. You lend a

listening ear or shoulder to lean on. You just care. Emotionally, we do it in our attitudes.

Mercy does not hold a grudge. It will not harbor resentment. It will not refuse forgiveness,

and it will not make someone else's sins be known. You don't want to do that. But spiritually,

we will grieve over those who are lost and don't know the Lord, how foolish they are.

Mercy will be willing to confront others with their sin so that they might be led to repentance.

We pray, right? We pray that the eyes of the unsaved might be open to their plight.

You pray for that unsaved loved one living under your roof that God would work in them.

And then lastly, we also show compassion and mercy by preaching. We proclaim this good news.

That's the most merciful thing we can do. Now, as we wind it down,

now as we wind it down, what's the result? Matthew 5, 7, they shall obtain mercy.

I love what Spurgeon said here. I quote him probably too much.

Note that even the merciful need mercy. No amount of generosity to the poor or forgiving

one's enemies can set us beyond the need of mercy. Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner.

That's why he said, those who are merciful will receive mercy. That shows you that showing mercy

is not earning merit before God. That's not the ground of our justification. We show mercy

because we have already been accepted by God. So it's very cyclical, right? We see our spiritual

condition. We flee to Christ for salvation, that we receive his mercy and pardon to other people,

and God pours out his mercy upon us even more. We thirst for it. We hunger for it.

And then we receive it even more. So that blessed one of Matthew 5,

he's a meek man, and he acknowledges he is a sinner. And to acknowledge he's a sinner,

he becomes merciful and has compassion on others for their sinners too.

So we're down to the two minute drill here. So what? I mean, what do you do now?

If the merciful are blessed by the Lord, what about those who don't show mercy?

They are cursed by the Lord. James issues a very sobering warning. For judgment,

and this is frightening to me, is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs

over judgment. Mercy, you stand before God and you receive his judgment with no mercy.

What an awful plight. As eternal damnation, as condemnation, the fires of hell for all eternity.

Why? You show no mercy because you have a cold, dark heart, and you will be shown no mercy on that

great day of judgment. It's what the word says. Psalm 18, the psalmist writes, with the merciful

God, you will show yourself merciful. With the blameless man, you will show yourself blameless.

With the pure, you will show yourself pure. And with the devious, you will show yourself shrewd.

For you will save the humble people, but you will bring down haughty looks. It's the word of God.

And last, I've quoted him too many times and I said that, but I love Spurgeon. This is so good.

Listen carefully. He says, every man shall have his meat weighed in his own scales.

His corn, meated or weighed in his own bushel. His land measured with his own rod.

No rule can be more fair. To ungodly men, more terrible, but to the generous man, more honorable.

How would men throw away their lightweights and break their short yards if they could

believe that they themselves are sure to be in the end, the losers, by their naivish tricks?

Dear friend, I want to talk to you today. Never forget, you and I, today,

we are citizens of this kingdom only because there was a great king who humbled himself.

He emptied himself of any royal privilege and in tremendous, wonderful mercy.

He came to meet our deepest need through his life, death, and victorious resurrection.

And this is the wonderful privilege of a preacher.

The mercy of God today is open. The floodgates of salvation are flowing.

If you will come humbling yourself and trusting in Christ, He'll receive you.

Will you come? Are you going to humble yourself? Cast yourself upon the oceans of God's mercy

today. Whatever our sin is, His mercy is more. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word.

Lord God, how merciful you are. Slow to anger, bounding in kindness, Lord. You have a chesed,

a covenantal steadfast love toward your people. Lord, it just blows our mind about how kind you

are to us. How tender. Lord, not that we were worthy, Lord, just the opposite. How could we

sin against such love and greatness, Lord, but we have? Oh, the mercy of God, it is so great.

It is more than any of our sins. It's all in Christ. And Lord God, we rejoice today that this

day of resurrection, this day of victory, this is hallowed Lord's Day, we celebrate the day of

victory, this is hallowed Lord's Day, we celebrate Christ. Make us, Lord, more like Him. Blessed are

the merciful, for they are like Christ. Lord, make us to be merciful, Lord, grow us in this grace,

we pray for the glory and honor of Jesus, and it's in His name we pray, amen.