What Mercy Really Looks Like | Matthew 5:7

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tuning in. I don't want to be here today, you don't.

I'm just kidding. Remember said that it's good to be here?

Yeah, like I don't want to be here A news flash.

That was only like thirty minutes ago. Forty minutes ago.

Well, yeah for us. Actually no, it's longer than that. Yeah,

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be here with you. Thanks for tuning in, And if

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Everybody makes bad choices if this is your first time.

That's right, that's right. Wait wait wait too long? Yeah exactly,

But hopefully we have a lot more in the future. Absolutely,

Bible Guys are going away anytime soon.

You right. We have almost a thousand episodes.

Yeah, so that'd be pretty cool. Yeah, go back and

watch them all.

Yeah, can you imagine? Men? I wonder how many people

just are binging the Bible Guys right now.

Yeah, they ain't get enough of that. Forget Stranger Things,

right it's the Bible Guys.

Listening to nine and some odd episodes of The Bible Guys.

That's funny. Hey, well, today we are actually going to

dive into a new beatitude in our series about Beatitudes.

But before we do, Desiree wants us to play the

very classic would you rather?

These are so much fun?

They are? Okay, I like it because we get to decide.

It's sort of like I get to know you, like

which one would Christian Jeff rather do? Right? So people

know you getting to know all about you or something

like that.

Yeah, okay, So I'm particularly excited about the first one

because I'm not sure if they could peg you on

this one. Okay, would you rather rock a mullet or

a perm? Yeah?

I think I know the answer to that.

All through the eighties, which one did you want? Did

you want the did you want the perm or did

you want the mullet.

Let's be clear, in the eighties I had a oh

did you have a mullet? Not strong, but it was

it was definitely a mullet over the collar. Oh, it's definitely.

I remember brushing it up like I would brush it up.

So yeah, yeah, I bet you it was. I bet

it was that long.

Okay, wow, I then over the ears yeah yeah, okay.

Yeah I had I definitely had a mullet.

Yeah yeah. So it was a business in the front,

party in the back.

Yep, that's right. So what about you?

Well, I wasn't allowed to have a mullet or a perm.

Right right, Oh that's why you asked it that way.

Yeah, did I want a mullet? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, which

one did you? Which one did you rather have?

Yeah?

I had, I had had the mullet. Did you want

a perm?

No? You kidding me?

I think those were a little earlier. Guys. Guys had

those before us.

Well, and perms. Perms really weren't that popular in guys.

They're still popular ladies, obviously, but they really, they really

weren't that popular.

Okay, here's another good one. Would you rather be a

kid until you turn You never chose one? You never

chose me from mullet mullet? Okay, yeah, my grandson has

a mullet.

Yeah yeah, I know.

It's so funny. Would you rather be a kid until

you turn fifty or have the appearance of a thirty

year old from your first birthday.

Oh, and she's meaning not in kid at heart, she's

meaning actual gay kid physically physically.

You turned fifty, or have the appearance of a thirty

old from you.

First What depends is your entire of life extended that way?

Do you live to be three hundred? I don't know,

or or are you just all of a sudden becoming

a daughter at fifty and die at the same time.

I don't know, because that would be terrible. Well, you

go through life in your thirties forties trying to run

a business, and you're six look like you're six years old.

Well, I don't know. I like the idea looking thirty

because now that I'm past thirty, Yeah right, I'd still

be looking thirty, right, yeah.

Yeah, I'd say, I'd say thirty.

Yeah. Is that a good one?

I thought about he's an angry Ooh yeah.

Yep, so funny Peter Dinklin.

Yeah, I think, uh yeah, thirty from the first birthday.

There was a show about that Robin Williams was old.

He was born like an adult.

Look, okay, looking old?

Do you remember that? Was that bisonennial man. Maybe oh

he was a robot and bono man.

I don't know. Huh, you'll think of it or chat,

I'll call you yep, right, okay. Would you rather have

the same song stuck in your head forever or have

the same dream every night?

Same song in my head? Her, same dream every night? Well,

I guess it depends on the dream. I had a

dream last night out.

Are boring you, ChRI Yes? That what we were just yawning? Yeah,

like the lights question.

I had a dream last night that scared the fire

at him. Oh yeah, yeah, it was really bad. Like

I I dreamt that my house was invaded by spiders

to such a degree to where there were so many

spiders you couldn't run up and down the stairs and

get away from him.

Oh wow, like like.

Like the but the quantity of them prevented you from

running through the stairs.

So you know, I lived that in real life, but

not in the house. So I took back. My boys

were four and two and we went camping in Big

Ben National Park, and which is in the bootheel of Texas.

If you're thinking about the bottom of Texas along the

Rio Grand it's in the bootthill park. It's nine hundred

and some thousand acres.

It's huge.

We were camping up in the mountains and I heard

on our tent and I woke up and our entire tent,

underneath our rainfly was covered with trantulas, like the whole

thing covered translas. So I didn't realize it, but we

were there. The transulas migrate in that area, they migrate

back and forth, and this was a migration season, and

so we were driving down out of the mountains to go.

That makes me want to go camping so much more.

We were, you know, driving out into the desert. We

were going down to the Rio Grande, and we came

upon a big migration and it was like a moving

blanket across the road, and my tires on my car

was slipping.

You ran over them.

I couldn't get past where I was going. So I

just drove through this whole blanket of spiders, like millions

of spiders. I'm not talking. It was probably a quarter

mile just of a blanket across the road of spiders

going across the road.

And so you took out hundreds of thousands of spiders. Wow.

Well, I was in it before I realized what was

going on and then all of a sudden, my tires

are slipping.

The black ice. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah in the

middle of the text make crazy in the summer. Wow,

that's that is wild, dude. Yeah, I imagine there are

majority of people have like goosebumps. Just listen to that.

Yeah, I mean so so you don't watch that dream

every now.

The tenth thing, Yeah, the tenth thing that I want

to die just thinking about that.

I had a big tent. It was a ten by.

My wife would die.

By fourteen tent and my entire roof was just all covered.

My wife would cease to exist.

And you know, in those tents like that, when you

have a nice rain fly over top, the whole top

of the tent itself is see through, so you can

see through it. You know, you take the rain fly

off and look at the stars at night. Well, it

got cold the night before, so I put the rainfly on,

so the thank goodness, you could see. Well, no, they

all came up underneath the rainfly, so I could see

them on the sea through part the window on the

whole twelve foot by foot.

Would you have to do? Wait it out?

Yeah, they just left. They were going in the morning

I went back to sleep.

I can't believe you just said that.

You watch this stream every night, so you're gonna choose

the song every dy, I'm.

Gonna choose the song.

Yeah, if I could choose my dream, I might choose

the dream thing because getting the song stuck in your

head forever drive me nuts. Okay? Would you rather live

in an amusement park or a zoo? Ooh that's a

good one.

I mean, I mean you have to think long term here, right,

not not just short term. Yeah, So I think long

term i'd have to pick a zoo. Me too, Yeah,

I think on the short term, it'd be an amusement park,

no doubt. I love amusement parks, and I love everything

about them. It doesn't even matter what kind of amusement park.

It could be the kind of carnival in a parking lot,

it could be Cedar Point, it could be all of them.

I love every bit of it. But long term, I mean,

if I'm gonna live there, I'm gonna say hi to

you know, Jojo the Kangaroo.

Having an entire complex of pets, yeah, is different than yes,

the same rollercoaster every day?

Yeah, because you would you would literally get to know

every single animal.

Yeah. Would you rather go backstage with your favorite band

or be an extra on your favorite TV show?

Depends on the extra like an extra like having a line.

I don't know, extra like like that's me for a

millisecond in the background and it's blurred out.

Yeah, I don't know. So I have a friend who

is an extra in lots of movies and he got

to be in a movie with Meryl Streep. Oh nice, Yeah,

and he was he was in a couple of scenes.

Huh yeah, yeah, yeah, he was a waiter. Wow, they

cut his line. He had a line and they cut it.

I would say, backstage, well, and again backstage? Does that

mean just like meet and greed for ten seconds, taking

photo and leaves.

She doesn't say, dude, Let's say that both of these

are your wildest dream come true, hanging out with them

and then they ask you to go out on the

bus and hang out, or you get to have a

talking part in your favorite TV show, hang out with

the entire cast.

Of h I honestly would say, I'd have to say,

I'm in. I want to be an extra on my

favorite TV show.

I always thought, so, Yeah, that's what I thought.

You'd pick because it lives in infamy.

Yeah, it lives forever. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, well good job, man. Yeah,

I think I would pick the extra on the TV

show too.

Yeah yeah, yeah, good.

Question, because because the backstage stuff always feels awkward to me.

Oh does it?

Yeah? Hi, this guy's this guy's exhausted. He just finished

his big show. Yeah, he's tired, he's hungry, he wants

to go get on the bus. Right, you're like, oh, man,

you sang my favorite song. You remember that time? Remember

the time you sang that song?

It was my Favorite's just so awkward, remember that time

you say, remember like like forty minutes ago, Because because

everyboy's gonna say the same thing, You're amazing, You're my favorite, right,

That's why I paid three hundred.

Bucks for this, right right? But yeah, anyways, that's so funny.

Yeah, they're probably and they're probably so tired of I mean, like,

you know, think about it, if you have super fans, Uh,

when when would you really be super interested in a

super fan? I mean, Taylor Swift seems to be, but

she sort of chooses those right. Every now and now

and again, she'll meet with somebody, but other than that.

I don't know a single fan that's like, so please

tell me.

More yeah, you know, yeah yeah.

Or you know, or a single artist that would say

that to a fan, you know.

Right, So I don't know anyways. Yeah, so I choose

to be an extra on a TV show. Well, hey, uh,

talk about extra Did you know that Jesus didn't just

give one or two beatitudes? He gave a whole bunch

of extras?

Did he really? Are these extras? Are we now moving

into the extras?

Jeff?

He's the leftover.

Versus number five. We've already covered the first four. Yea,

Now this is number five?

Is the leftovers?

No, I didn't say leftovers, he said extra extras. It's

not the same as leftover.

I'll give you grace.

Okay, Yes, it's even more of the same good stories,

even more so. In uh Matthew, chapter five, the fifth

beatitude says, Blessed are the merciful, for they will be

shown mercy.

That's it.

That's it.

Blessed are those who are merciful, They will be shown mercy. Yeah. Well, hey,

let's let's talk about it.

Okay. So the first thing is good idea. Since we've

got a podcast, the first idea.

The first idea is, let's talk about what mercy is

and what it is not. Okay, right, So mercy is

not weakness, right. Mercy is not ignoring sin. It's not

sentimental tolerance. Biblically, mercy means compassion and action. Right. So

it's it's love that moves towards suffering. It responds to guilt.

It's kindness that costs something. In scripture, mercy always involves

seeing distress and choosing to act.

Wow.

Right, So because you know, when it says show mercy

on him, it's not referring to an emotion, right, because

you can say, you can say like, oh I feel merciful. Well,

that's not the same. When Jesus says show love to

your neighbor, he's not referring to an emotion of love.

He says, love your neighbor means giving him your cloak

or you're you know, giving him what is needful for

the body. Right. He says, you know, hey, if you

see somebody who's daily destitute, in need of food and uh,

and then you don't give him those things, The Book

of James says, then then how can the love of

God be in you? Because when he says love your neighbor,

he means love in action. And so when he says

blessed to those who are merciful, merciful means mercy in action, right,

not those who are filled with the emotion of wanting

to be merciful.

That's powerful, right, Yeah, I mean that's.

That's that's really a very big distinction because now now

when you read it and it says blessed to those

who are merciful, he's saying blessed to those who act

mercifully to those around them.

I've always uh, when it comes to God's mercy, at

its core, God's mercy is when he chooses not to

give us what we do deserve, right, right, And and

that is a part of it for us when we're

when we extend mercy, we're tempted to measure should we

or shouldn't we, right based on whether or not does

this person deserve my mercy or not? And God just

chooses out of love. Love drives him to mercy, and

so he's not taking a consideration whether we deserve it

or not. He just extends it, right, And that's a

pretty powerful thing. So then if it's if I'm supposed

to be. My character is supposed to becoming more and

more and more like Jesus. Then that's one of the things,

is I stop measuring whether a person deserves mercy and

I give it because I'm choosing love in the same

way that God has done the same for me. Right, Huh,

that's good.

When I think of mercy, I'm so sorry I have

to interrupt this regularly scheduled program to tell you that

there isn't a single time I don't think that I

hear the word mercy where I don't think of the

end of a movie where the villain gets what he

deserves and he's taking his last breath, right, and then

he says, what happened to your mercy? And then the

guy says, I'm a count, not a saint, and so

I will give you. I will buy you lunch tomorrow

if you can tell me what movie that came for

Annie Crystal. Yes, because I said count. Yes, that's right.

It is the kind of money Crystal. He says, mercy

for none.

I remember that. Yes, I remember that scene. Yes, Jim favorite.

It is my favorite of all time, of all time,

of all time, because it has everything in us.

So I can remember I was nineteen twenty twenty, and

I felt like the world was falling down around me.

The group of Christians that I was connected to in

Bible College had a lot of anger and pretty aggressive

and I kind of got caught in it, caught up

by it, and then paid the price where their wrath

was coming down on me. And I didn't feel like

I deserved it. And you know, I'm just kind of reeling.

This is that first great crisis as a young adult faith.

And I think everybody goes through crisis of faith, and

you're deciding in my following manner? Am I following Jesus?

And so I lived at the time in northwest Indiana.

And now there's an Indiana National Lake shore right there

the dunes, and it's a beautiful National park, but back

then it wasn't National park yet. So I went up

there and there's a sand dune it's a couple hundred

feet high called Mount Baldy, and I climbed Mount Baldy

and I went out and sat just looking at Lake Michigan,

and I had some music with me, and I was

just trying to recenter, and I had a Bible with me,

and I'm just like flipping through trying to figure out.

You ever have one of those times you just don't

even know where to read? You know, I'm a Bible

college student. I'd already read through the Bible ten times,

probably by the time I was twenty years old, but

I just didn't know. I couldn't know where to read.

And I opened up to Micah chapter six, verse eight,

and I started at the beginning of chapter six. But

when you get to verse eight, he says, no, oh, man,

the Lord has told you what is good, and this

is what he requires of you, to do what's right,

to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

So I'm trying to figure out what am I supposed

to do, and I'm like praying to God, I don't

know what to do with my life. I don't know

what to do with this situation. I feel like I'm

being persecuted to some extent. But I also know I

brought some of this on myself and frustrated, and I

just don't feel like I make anybody happy. I remember

kind of I was complaining to God about I can't

make anybody happy, and then God goes, let me tell

you the only thing I really require of you is

that you do what's right, love mercy, and walk humbly

with your God. And that kind of has become a

guiding It's almost my north star, that verse. It's one

of my north stars when I don't know what else

to do, do the right thing, right, walk humbly with God,

and show mercy to others. And that's uh. I don't

always I don't always master that, but it is interesting

that this idea of showing mercy is one of the

three things God says, Hey, if you don't know what

else to do, just walk humbly with God. Right, do

live as well as you can live righteously and show mercy.

Do you know that song Michael six eight?

I know the one that Stephen Cutch Chapman did say it. Oh,

I can't sing it like that. That's crazy good good, yeah.

Yeah. The one I learned was King James version where

there's an echo. Right, he has shown thee, he has

shown thee.

Oh man, Oh yeah, yeah. What is good?

And what the Lord of the he goes but to

do justly, But to do justly, and to love mercy,

and to love mercy, and to comely with my God.

That's a good one.

Yeah, that's good.

Well, that's that's it. I mean, So if you're wondering

how important mercy is, when God gives it us a

summary and says, here's what I require of you these

three things. Yeah, right, mercy's rate dead center. I remember

we've talked about that before in the way that the

Jewish mindset is as far as teaching, the center concept

is where the other two emanate from. So do right

and walk humbly with God. It's a mercy thing. That's

what's gonna It's those two outsides are going to drive

the middle. What's gonna happen here?

Hey, I want to read for you a note that

I looked up about this verse, and it says mercy

as evidence of a transformed heart. And this is just

a couple of comments about that. It says the beatitude

is not a command, it's actually a description. Jesus is

not saying be merciful so God will love you. He's saying,

those who belong to the Kingdom of God are merciful. Right,

it's an observation.

Part of the kingdom, you will be merciful.

That's correct.

It's one of the fruits that you're gonna be able

to tell whether not you're walking with God or you're

connected to God. Because you've received mercy, you're gonna extend mercy.

That's right, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then it goes on and says mercy does not

earn salvation, it actually reveals salvation. A heart that has

truly received mercy from God cannot remain hard toward others.

If grace has reached you, it will flow through you.

This is why Jesus later says forgive and you will

be forgiven. And then I thought this next line was

a really interesting line. He says forgive and you will

be forgiven, not as a transaction, but as a reflection.

So he's not saying conditionally you must forgive in order

to be forgiven. He's saying, as you are forgiven, you

will forgive, right, Yeah, And so that I think that

that's really interesting.

It's a sign.

It's a sign.

Yeah, it's a sign that of what's happened on the

inside's coming out on the outside.

Isn't that really good? Incredibly?

In high school, I had a really great pastor from

the time I was twelve until I was sixteen, and

then I had another really great pastor from sixteen to

he did our wedding at twenty one. He was fantastic.

Both of them were great. So Rick Fox was my pastor,

the second one. And he's a great big guy. He's

six foot five, six foot six, probably two hundred and

fifty pounds, two sixty pounds, oh tons of muscle. Just

a big, strong guy. And he grew up in the

coal camps in Man County, West Virginia, and it was wild,

wild place, and he was bigger than everybody else. And

he was a miner, coal miner. And when he would

come out, him and his buddies, his favorite thing to

do was to go knock a couple back in the

bar on a Friday night and just start a fight

because they would just clear the bar out. They just

beat everybody up for no reason other in fact, they

just did enjoyed it. And here he is, you know,

he had all kinds of scars on his knuckles, all

this kind of stuff. He loved beating on people. So

then because he was a big guy, because he was strong,

because he'd liked beating people up, people would use him

for that reason. Sometimes, Hey go fix this guy right

and back then, you know, Man County, West Virginia didn't

have it had like two deputies, you know, there was nobody,

and so they enforced all their own law, They enforced

all their own consequences, all that kind of stuff, and

so he delighted in it. He liked breaking people up.

And then Jesus saved me, and then he was that

quick to cry. It was the weirdest thing. He's like,

I don't know what happened to me, Like I used

to be like this tough guy. I want to beat

everybody up. And he said, ever since Jesus changed me,

I have this compassion and this mercy. And it was

almost a frustrating thing to him, just a little bit

where it does come from, right, what happened to me?

And he said the same thing. He said, you know

when when when Jesus changes you, he changes from the inside,

but what's on the inside comes out, especially under pressure.

Did he move from Mann County to Woman County?

But yeah, it was kind of an interesting thing that that.

That was his testimony. So he was telling that story.

And one of his best friends used to was a

Cajun who grew up in the swamps in Louisiana and

would spend months at a time on house fishing boats

out in the swamp, just filling the cooler with fish,

and then Brink come in and sell like that, back

and forth. And he was the same way when he

was in town. That's what he just beat people up,

just for fun, just beat people. And then he also

became an enforcer, beat people up, same exact story. And

then he said, dude, when Jesus saved me, I was like,

what happened to me? And he gave the illustration. He says,

like one of the Grinch's heart grew three sizes, right,

he said, something, it changed me on the inside where

I delighted in it before. And he said, now I'm

almost embarrassed to even tell the stories. Yeah, what was

I thinking? And God changes you, and mercy is a

part of that that if you're wondering, has God ever

really come into my life? Did Jesus really change? One

of those things is that you're going to desire more

mercy for people rather than just pure justice all the time.

That's awesome. Yeah, Well, hey, that's our time, so thanks

for tuning in. Hopefully we'll see tomorrow on the Bible.

Guys,