Blessed are the Merciful

I want to start this morning with a little bit of an experiment. You've probably seen images like this before, but these two circles are not the same size exactly. They're. One of them is a little bigger than the other one. And I want to see kind of what your eyes do on this.

How many of you just show your hand? How many of you think the blue circle is the bigger circle? Raise your hand. You're quick. Some of you made quick judgments.

How many of you think the red circle is the bigger circle? It's almost split, like this side and this side. It was kind of strange. Before I say anything else about the circles, what was your first instinct when you saw them? Was it that they're, like, exactly equal?

They look like they're exactly equal because they are exactly equal in size.

And I convinced you in like, five seconds. I convinced not all of you, but most of you in like, five seconds that they were not equal. You even voted. You even voted and you said, no, no, this one is bigger than the other one. I'm sure of it.

Right? And I show you this just to show you how easy it is to believe things that simply are not true. And we're coming back to the Sermon on the Mount, where we were before Easter, and remember the Sermon on the Mount. It's a place where Jesus will say this over and over again. You've heard it said that, but I tell you the truth.

And he says that again and again. You've heard it said, but I tell you the truth. You've heard it said, but you haven't just heard it. You've believed it, and you haven't just believed it, but you have built your life upon these things, but I tell you the truth. So grab your Bible and turn to Matthew, chapter five.

Jesus, when he says these kinds of things, he's undermining the thoughts under the thoughts. He's looking at those underlying ideas under our convictions and the things that we bought into. And the Sermon on the Mount begins with the Beatitudes. And we went through the first four of these before Easter and took a little break for Palm Sunday, Easter and Mission Sunday. But in those, we found Jesus saying things like, you've heard it said that the blessed life is, you know, healthy, wealthy and wise, or up and to the right, or an absence of troubles in your life.

But I tell you the truth, the blessed life isn't about that. It's not about outward circumstances being just the way that you want them and having no annoyances in your life. The blessed life is and he shows us it's vastly different than what we would think, right? He says, the blessed life is this. And what we might hear or we might say is something like, indulge me.

Blessed are those who have the most followers, for theirs are the retweets and the shares. And Jesus would say, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And maybe you've heard it said, blessed are the thick skinned, for they never show any weakness. But I say, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Maybe you've heard it said or you've said, blessed are the powerful, because the powerful get what they want, they take what they want and nobody can do anything about it.

Jesus says, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. I know you've heard this. Blessed are those who chase and fulfill their wildest dreams, who carve their own path, who make their own way. You do, you boo. Because you only live once.

I don't know if anyone says you do, you boo anymore, but I heard it one time and I never forgot it. Jesus says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for those are the ones who will be satisfied in their life. And the word that Jesus used, blessed, the particular word he used, the way he meant it and the way that his audience would have heard it, they never would have been thinking outward circumstances because of the particular word he used. The word he used implied, conveyed, inward change, change, inward abundance, inward satisfaction. That has nothing to do with having things in the way that you want them ordered in your life.

It's internal conditions that come out some ways in your life. And the temptation for us, a lot of times when we read the Beatitudes or the Ten Commandments or any of the instruction command passages of the Bible is to look at them as a checklist. We do this right, we go, I gotta do this one, I gotta do this one. We look at them as a ladder to climb up to God's favor and to his blessing, rather than a mirror to be reminded of all the ways that we need God's blessing in our life. And so very quickly, if we're not careful, we move into something like legalism.

When we look at the Beatitudes, think about it this way. How many of you show of hands, how many of you drive over the speed limit? I knew I'd get them there, right? How many of you, when you, you punch it into the GPS and it tells you what time you're going to arrive, you go, challenge accepted. And you go, I can beat that.

I do that. I go, well, I can make it in under 10 minutes for sure, right? Now, I remember this. Think about this. How about when a police officer pulls up behind you?

What do you do? Immediately? It's like three under. You look silly. Now I'm driving five under the speed limit.

I won't even come close to the line. But I remember this when we first left the hospital with our firstborn child, and we put her in the car seat, and it's like putting somebody in a spacecraft. Like, click, click, click, click. Like, I'm so scared to put her in the car. I put her in the car and we pulled out of the parking lot and onto the highway.

And I swear to. You can ask Lindsey. I was driving 45 into 70 down the highway, and I'm like, why is everyone driving so fast? You know, my perspective changed. And it changed not because there was a police behind me, but it changed because of the love for the one who was in the car with me.

It changed everything. And that's what Jesus is talking about when he comes to the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes. He's not talking about a list of things that have to be done or you'll get caught and you'll be in trouble. He's talking. Talking about having a heart that is full of love for the one who is with you in your life.

And it causes some internal things to happen that comes out in your life. And the Beatitudes that we've looked at so far are all kind of the root. And it's going to come out as a certain kind of fruit. It's a root fruit thing. And so he says, blessed are those who are poor in spirit, and blessed are those who grieve their own sin.

And blessed are the meek, and blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. That's a fruit. It's what he's doing inside your life. And as he's doing that, it's going to come out by his power in some way in your life. And I look at these, and we continue and get to the seventh verse of Matthew, chapter five.

It's the fifth Beatitude. And it might be like you've heard it said, blessed are those who have no room for failure, who cut ties with strugglers, doubters, losers, and sinners, for they won't bring you down. But I say to you, blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. And that's the fifth Beatitude. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

I Just wonder, like, how many of you, if you were to ask someone in your life who knows you, someone you work with, you live with, who've seen you at your best and at your worst, do you think that they would say of you, man, that's a person who is just merciful, full of mercy, because Jesus is blessed are the merciful, they shall receive mercy. I found this interesting. A lot of times when a text brings up a topic, I'll go to the Internet and I'll do a little research just to see what is the secular viewpoint of this topic. And so I got to mercy and I went, I'm curious, you know, what does Quora say? What does Medium and the New York Times and Psychology Today, what do all of these people say about mercy?

So I googled and I typed, where does mercy come from? What is the source of mercy? One of those two phrases and 47 of the first 50 hits were websites talking about God and the nature of God, which is really interesting. I know this is super soft science, I know it's anecdotal, but normally if I type in integrity or truth or kindness or compassion, you get all of these articles about all different kinds of things. But when I typed in where does mercy come from?

47 of the first 50 sites, and I quit counting there because I was tired of counting, 47 of the first 50 were specifically about God, the nature of God and the call of God on his people. The three that weren't were Webster's Dictionary.com and Wikipedia, which very quickly got to God, the nature of God and what he calls his people to. Which just makes me think, it makes me wonder, is it just that the world outside doesn't care about mercy, doesn't have a value on mercy, or just doesn't have a clue where it's found? Especially in an age of cancel culture, super divisive politics, and just the accepting of I disagree with you, which means I hate you, which means we can have no life together. And that's just normal in our world today.

And so it seems as though the world has no answer for the question, where does mercy come from? But we do. And so today I want to answer three questions. Ask and answer. What is mercy?

Why is mercy so important? And how do we become merciful? That's what we'll look at today. First question is, what is mercy? And I give you a definition.

Mercy is the withholding of a just condemnation. It's the withholding of a just condemnation. In other words, it's not doing to someone what you think they deserve because the way they have treated you or wronged you, or that they're just plain wrong. I think if I'm a disciple, it's possible. I'm confused when Jesus gets to this beatitude, because for the first several beatitudes, it's obvious to me.

I see the massive distance between the life of Jesus, his holiness, his righteousness, his power, his everything about him. And I see myself and I go, yeah, I can see I am so poor in spirit. I can see it. It's clear I can accept that and relate to that. And I grieve every area of my life that isn't marked by the redemption and the power of Jesus Christ.

It makes me so sad to know this broken thing in my life or in this world hasn't been redeemed yet. That's natural to move towards. Or I hunger and thirst after righteousness. I want to be more like that. But when Jesus said, blessed are the merciful, I bet you that some of the disciples are going to hang on a second because we're the oppressed ones here.

Rome has had their foot on our throats. And not only that, but the Jewish leaders who should have been waiting on you should have been the first to receive. You have rejected you and rejected us. And they have made every day of our lives miserable since we started following you. It is time for vindication.

It is time for vengeance. It is time to shame. Show them how wrong they are. We can't be merciful. But Jesus says, blessed are the merciful, because the kingdom of God invites us and it reorients us and it redefines our life.

Our life is redefined by the receiving, the recipients of mercy. Ephesians 2. We were by nature, this is who we were. Paul says this, he's writing this. He goes, me, I was the worst of them.

We're children of wrath even as the rest. But God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he's loved us even when we were dead in our transgressions, even when I was just full out in sin and had no clue my heart was dead and numb to all the bad things I was doing and all of the broken things of my life, he made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved. Grace means that God gives us good that we don't deserve. And mercy means he withholds a just condemnation on our life. He doesn't give us what we deserve.

For the brokenness and for the rebellion that is seated deep within us and the clearest and the most powerful act and showing of mercy the world has ever known is that God did not exit, execute justice on us because he executed judgment on his son, Isaiah 53. But he was pierced through for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities and the chastening of our well being fell upon him. And by his scourging we are healed. I think that mercy is that visible part of forgiveness. Like forgiveness can just happen in here.

I can go, I forgive them. But mercy is how it extends itself, how it shows itself out in the world. It's the way that forgiveness begins to have a life in other people's lives. Forgiveness is what moves out. And having become people who discovered and enjoyed the mercy of Jesus in our lives, we are entrusted with the responsibility and with the privilege of sharing his mercy.

Out with all of those who have disappointed us, who have disagreed with us, who have hurt us, who have set themselves apart from us. We are given the responsibility and the privilege of not coming up with mercy within me because I'm so good, but simply sharing that which with which we've been given. His mercy moves through us. So what does that look like on a real like day to day ground level? Because the gospel, we get it, I was a child of wrath.

And while I was in rebellion, Christ died for me. Okay, that's mercy. What's it look like in a daily experience? Well, think about the Garden of Gethsemane. Not Eden, the other Garden, Gethsemane.

Remember, Jesus was hanging out with his friends in the Garden of Gethsemane before he was arrested and beaten and crucified. He's hanging with his closest friends, except for one who had betrayed him. That one had sold him out to religious leaders who had then worked a crowd into a frenzy. And they came to take Jesus. And Peter saw what was happening.

He saw it coming. So he grabbed out a blade and he swung it and he cut off a soldier's ear. Remember this? And I still to this day don't know if it was the best or the worst swing in the world. Like it was at a, like, I'm warning you, I can get an ear.

The next one's going through the middle. Or if he like swung at the guy on the far right and accidentally caught the guy on the left or the, the ear. The amazing and strange thing is that Jesus in that moment rebukes Peter because we would have rebuked Judas for betraying us. We would have seen him come and said, how dare you, you rat. You know we would have rebuked the religious leaders, you, from the moment I arrived, to set yourselves against me.

If you only knew the wrath of God, right against the crowd, the mob who would come. We would have rebuked all of those. But Jesus stops and he rebukes Peter. And the thing that he says to Peter, listen, I. He says it to Peter, but because of this beatitude, I think it's something that is a command for us as well.

Listen to this. Jesus said, put your sword back in its place. He said it to Peter, I charge you to receive it to yourself. Put your sword back in its place for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. Or do you not think I can appeal to my Father and he will at once put at my disposal more than 12 legions of angels?

Jesus says, I could call up to my Father in heaven and he would send down angel armies to take out these schmucks in front of me. That's what I will to do. And he would be just in doing so, it would not be sin even for a moment for Jesus to go, okay, blast him with fire, let's do this. He would be just in that condemnation, but he withheld the condemnation. That's mercy.

That makes sense. Alright, so that is mercy. Why is it important? There's two reasons. It reveals and it reflects.

Mercy reveals what's going on inside of us and it reflects the heart of God to the world. It reveals and it reflects. And the way that we express mercy or the way that we react to mercy is going to reveal something about our hearts. Do you remember when Peter went to Jesus and he goes, okay, Jesus, we get in some, some wicked stuff around here. People are really ugly to each other.

How many times should we forgive a person? And he throws a number out. He goes, I mean like seven. Seven sounds good. I mean, rabbis taught three was enough.

And Peter's probably going, I'm showing some really great faith here. Seven. And Jesus goes, no, no, it's not seven. It's 70 times seven. And it's not about the number, it's about we should be prepared to forgive each other hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times because we are going to offend each other hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times, but we should be willing to forgive each other that much.

And then he goes into a story and maybe you remember this story. Jesus says, I'm going to tell you a story. And he makes up a story to make a point. And it's about this guy who owes a king and the Amount he owes him is 10,000 talents. This man owes his king 10,000 talents.

And you go and try to do the numbers and you go, how much is that today? And some people say it's like 3 or 5 billion. With the B dollars, it's more money than anyone is really going to be able to repay. I love this one site. They broke it down in like a day's wage and they said it would be like 160,000 years wages that he owed the king.

I mean, this is a number that can never be repaid. For generations and generations and generations and generations, this family will be paying back this debt to the king. In fact, the king says, here's how we're going to settle it, because I know you don't have the money, I'm going to sell you and your whole family into indentured servitude. And for the rest of you know, the known future, you will always be paying what you owed to me and it will never be paid off. And the man cries out to the king for mercy.

King has a choice between justice and mercy. And he chooses mercy. And he raises the debt and he sets the, the man free. So our man, our guy, he takes off and as he leaves the king, he goes and finds a guy who owes him what is the equivalent of a hundred days wages. And he says, give me my money and start shaking him by the throat.

And the guy says, I don't have it. Look, I don't have 100 days wages, but I could probably work something out, right? And this guy goes, mercy. And the man, the first man says, no, no, no, no. And he puts him in prison and says, you're going to rot here.

And the king hears about this and this is what he, he does, he summons the first man to him and says, you wicked slave, I forgave you all the debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave in the same way I had mercy on you? Here's the point. That mercy, the having it or not having it, reveals everything about what controls their hearts. You see that in Jesus's story, the implication is the king has known something of the mercy of God because mercy comes from mercy.

And because he's known something of the mercy of God, he's able and he's willing to pour out mercy on the one who owed him so much, while the other guy, in his inability to show mercy, showed what controlled his heart was a love for self. And he was all about self protection and he was all about taking care of himself. And so whether we like it or not, mercy and how we relate to mercy is going to reveal what's going on on the inside of our life. It's going to tell the truth about us. And if we are people who are pouring out mercy in our daily lives, it's going to show a love for God and it's going to go show spiritual health in our life and where he's transforming things in our life.

And when we cannot show any mercy to those who have hurt us or those who we feel don't deserve it, it's going to show a love for self and for self protection. In Matthew 5, verse 7, Jesus is blessed are the merciful. And the implication here is that forgiven people are forgiving people. Does that make sense? Mercy comes from mercy.

Forgiven people are forgiving people because we realize each day more and more how much mercy is still being poured out on us from God. And so it becomes harder and harder for us to lord things over people who we think we have something over on. And it becomes easier and easier for us to show mercy because we're becoming more poor in spirit every day. Oh God, I'm still not there. We realize how much we need.

We realize how much hasn't been healed yet, how much is still experiencing transformation, yet we see it in the world and we go, lord, my concern is that more things need your redemption right now. And that's what's consuming me. We begin to love humility carried out in meekness, and we think thirst and we hunger for righteousness. And it becomes easier and easier for us to become merciful because forgiven people are forgiving people. And it reveals what's going on inside of us, but it also reflects reveals and it reflects God's heart to the world.

My senior year of high school, I took high school chemistry. I was the only senior in the class. Everyone else was a junior. Lindsay was actually in that class with me. She can validate all the facts of the story.

I started my year. I thought I was pretty hot as a senior with a bunch of juniors. I was just the man in that class. I spent the whole semester doing three things. Telling jokes, talking to girls, and drawing in my notebook.

And as I got to the end of the first semester, I knew I was in big trouble because I didn't know anything about atoms or bonding or mole or the periodic table. I went to Google and asked, what are some chemistry words I can share with my church? Because I don't know anything about chemistry. So I looked those words up to share them with you. Today I had this teacher, Ms.

Trai, who, like, I didn't have any other teachers like this ever. She called me at my house. This is really scary, by the way. When your mom and dad say, hey, Ms. Try is on the phone.

And you go, One, it's a teacher. Two, I'm failing her class. And I pick up the phone, I'm like, hello? She said, Kevin, this is Ms. Try.

I want to help you. You're not going to make it unless I get in and help you with this. And I said, miss Try, I'm not going to make it anyways. There's no way. I don't understand anything.

I haven't. It's not your fault. I haven't learned. I haven't paid attention. It is my fault I can't pass.

And she said, no, no, no, no. I'm with you and I'm going to do this with you and it's going to be okay. I've never had a teacher like this before. I still failed the final and I dropped the class and I went to physics, which was a lot more fun. Egg drop project.

And you guys remember that. That was a blast. But it wasn't for her not trying. And what Ms. Tri revealed to me that day was her heart.

You see that? She could have said, you brought this on yourself, you dummy. All you've done all semester is talk to girls. Just for the record. Not to Lindsey, because she was smart and too smart for me.

And we knew that. And so it was like everyone else. But all you did is goof off all class. You deserve what you got. She said, I am with you and I am for you.

And we will do this. Show me her heart. You remember when Matthew was called to be one of disciples? Jesus, remember what happened in that moment? You remember what his job was before he was called to be a disciple?

What? He's a tax collector. Tomorrow's tax day. Good news, right? A lot of times when we hear tax collector, we'll think irs, but really think of them more like the mafia or the mob.

They're extorting people. They're in criminal activities. They're taking money that doesn't belong to them. This is where Matthew was when Jesus came to him and said, I want to come to your house. I want to eat with you.

I want to talk with you. I want to invite you into a relationship and I want you to leave everything behind and follow me. That's where Matthew was. And this is what we're told when they got to his house. It happened that Jesus was reclining at the table.

And behold, many tax collectors and sinners came. And they were dining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, why is your teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus heard this. And he said, it is not to those who are healthy who need a physician, but it's those who are sick.

But go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. And he's quoting an Old Testament passage that the faith Pharisees would recognize from the book of Hosea, which is another great place to learn about mercy. He says, I want you to figure out what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice.

For I did not come to call the righteous, but I came to call the sinners. And that shows us the heart, the true heart of God. For people who are outside of his family, for people who are not walking in his light and in his grace. It's not what the Pharisees thought at all. What they thought and what they taught was it's exacting perfection that God wants.

It's performing rightly in all things. And Jesus says, no, I want you to know the love and the healing of God. That's what God's heart is full of. For all who are, calls them sinners, who are all who are far from from God because of their sin. God wants you to know his love and his healing.

And that is seen in the outward expression of mercy. Remember Romans 2? Do you think lightly of the riches of his kindness and his tolerance and his patience? By the way, the kids are learning about patience today. So your kids should be very patient when they come home.

I'm looking forward to that. Do you not know it's the kindness of God that leads you to repentance? It's not the demand of God. It's not the cruel wrath of God. It's not the judgment of God.

It's not the warnings from God. It's the kindness of God which changes a situation, changes a heart, changes a mind. It's his incredible kindness, his patience and his mercy towards us when we are deeply aware of the mercy that we have received and are still receiving. And we are willing to show that with others. It will reveal to the world the true nature of God's heart.

It reveals what's on the inside and it reflects his heart to the world. Right? That's why it's important. Now. How do we do it?

How do we become merciful? Because it's two different Things. It's one thing to verbally agree or intellectually agree that mercy is good. Yeah. Blessed are the merciful.

It's another thing to actually have to do that in your life, in a particular circumstance or with a particular specific person in a situation that you're in, which is usually the problem with most of the things that Jesus says. We go, yeah, that's good. I like that. But now I'm supposed to actually do it. How do we do it?

Two things again. We become merciful when we receive God's mercy. And as we exercise the mercy muscle. So go back to the King's story. The man who had the great debt to the King, he had two things right and one thing wrong.

Two things right. He seemed like a jerk to me. He had two things right. What were the two things he had right? First, he acknowledged that he had a debt that he could never repay.

And second, he cried out for mercy, for help. What's the first Beatitude? Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who are spiritually bankrupt. And they know it. They know that they have a debt that they could never repay to the God of the universe.

What's the second Beatitude? Blessed are those who. Oh, good grief. It's been too long, huh? Who mourn, who grieve their own sin, those who cry out for help because they know there is no other way.

There's nothing else I have except to cry out to God for his help. Would you help heal all the broken things of my life? The Guy got these two things right. What's the third Beatitude? Blessed are the.

Ah, yes. Here with me. Blessed are. They didn't remember the one you taught, Patrick. They remembered the one I taught.

Better luck next time. Yeah. You remember I said that? Blessed are the meek. And this is the thing that the Guy didn't get right.

Power under control. Power under God's control. He got this thing wrong. If we cannot be merciful to others, if we will not be merciful to others, it may reveal that we have not fully and truthfully received the mercy that God intends for us to receive. We haven't allowed it to transform us and change us.

And we're just like the Guy in the story that Jesus told. We wanted forgiveness. We wanted an absence of pain and an absence of debt. We didn't want transformation. And so he went away with a hardened heart and with an unchanged life.

Maybe it reveals that. So how do we become merciful? Well, we have to receive God's mercy. We have to receive it in a way that changes Us from the inside out. We have to become poor in spirit first.

We have to go, God, there is this massive gap and I'm not going to look at what everyone else has wrong. I realize that there is this massive thing in me and I desperately, desperately need you. I am desperate, done trying to earn it. I am done trying to prove it. I am done trying to buy it.

I'm done trying to affirm myself, God, I need you. How I need you. And then we mourn and grieve everything in our life and everything in this world that has not yet experienced the full redemption of our salvation. We grieve that thing and we yearn for it so that we can experience the comfort of God, is what that beatitude says. And then we, we embrace.

We love humility shown through weakness because we, we realize that that is what Jesus did. And we realize that doing that in us and through us. And he is the one who is surrendering himself to us and he is the one who gave us a second chance. And he continues giving us second chances throughout our life. We become merciful when we fully receive his mercy in our life.

And not just that, but also when we exercise the mercy muscle. You have to exercise it. You realize if you've ever known someone, you go, that person is just so full of mercy. They're weird. They don't treat their enemies as enemies.

When everyone's getting angry about who they're voting for, they're like, I love you all. You know, frankly, a lot of times I'm like, I don't like any of you. You know, the merciful are like, I love you all. Come near to me. They see people who are doubting, who are confused, who are in disagreement, and they move towards them.

They go, I want to be where you are. They're patient with them. They give up their life, they give up their time. Merciful people are strange people. And it doesn't just happen like that.

It didn't just. It happens. You have to exercised the mercy muscle. It's like Paul would say in Philippians. He says, you've got to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

Remember that? I told you before, he isn't talking about working it out as in working to get something you don't have. He's talking about, you've been given salvation in Christ Jesus. Now you have to exercise, you have to work it out, like going to the gym. Some days it's chest and back day, some days it's leg day.

And every day needs to be mercy day. In the gym and every day you need to go into, you need to exercise the mercy muscle. If you don't, you'll never experience the transformation of becoming a merciful person this side of eternity. You won't. And here, can I tell you how to do it?

Talking to Justin about it this week. You have to move towards, move towards people who need mercy. You got to move towards the people who are frustrating you. You've got to move towards the people who are disappointing you. You have to move towards the people you disagree with.

You have to move towards, towards all of the people that we typically pull away from, all the situations that we typically hide from, all of the circumstances where we would cancel a person. You move towards those people. You have to face those people. Otherwise you can't exercise the mercy muscle. Do you know what Jesus did that day when he called Matthew to be a disciple?

Did you notice this? He connected before he corrected. Just see that Matthew, part of the mob. He's part of the mafia. He goes, man, let's grab lunch, bring the whole gang.

And he gave him his time and he gave him his focus. He gave him his attention. He listened and gave his listening ear. He sought understanding. He wanted to be known by Matthew.

He wanted Matthew to know him. He wanted to know his whole gang of tax collectors connected with him before he corrected them Both happened. And these are the kinds of people that we would typically say, ah, no, you've hurt too many, you've hurt me. Maybe I don't want any of that. But we cannot grow in mercy.

We cannot experience the joy. Remember, the first word of it was blessed, right? Blessed are the merciful. We can't experience the delight, the delight of walking in Christ's way. The joy, the satisfaction, internal satisfaction that he provides for us when we give mercy if we're not willing to face and move towards those who are in need of mercy.

I heard a story about Napoleon Bonaparte. Have you ever heard of him? I don't know if you've heard of that guy before, guy named Napoleon Bonaparte in history. He was going to execute a man and his man's mom came to him and was begging for his pardon. And Napoleon said to her, no, this man has messed up too many times.

It's his second conviction. Justice demands death. And the woman looked at him and said, sir, I don't ask for justice. I ask for mercy. Napoleon said, well, your son doesn't deserve mercy.

She said, sir, it wouldn't be mercy if he deserved it. Mercy is all I ask. I love that story. Because mercy wouldn't be mercy if they deserved it. And the mercy that we have received from the Lord is a mercy that we do not deserve and we could never earn.

Amen. And so, as those who have received that mercy, I invite you, the Lord commands you, so allow that mercy to flow through you that the world might see what a transformed life looks like and might see the truth about what the the heart of our Heavenly Father is. For all those who walk in darkness. Give you two questions to reflect on. Okay, first is where are you showing mercy already this week?

I want you to think about that for a second. Are there situations, circumstances and specific people in which maybe it took a lot from you, but you were able to show mercy? Make it your prayer, God, by this one act of mercy, would they see my good works, thank my Father in heaven and that through your mercy they might experience his mercy. Commit to pray for that this week those people that I was trying to give horizontal mercy, that they would experience vertical mercy and they would delight in knowing God. Second question is, where have you shown something other than mercy when mercy is really what was needed?

And that list probably can be populated pretty quickly. Where have you shown something other than mercy where mercy is needed? And let me pray this for you. Would you bow your heads, Jesus, we are deeply in need, spiritually bankrupt without you, but in you, Ephesians 1 says, would you open the eyes of our heart to know all of the riches and the blessings of being yours, Holy Spirit? Would you help us to do things we could never do?

Would you teach us things we could never understand? And would you work in ways that we could never imagine? Would you do miracles in relationships because we've gone the way of mercy? Would you undermine brokenness? Would you bring healing and redemption?

Because we truly believe, not with our lips, but with our lives, that blessed are the merciful and may we delight in that blessing that we receive from you at all times. In Jesus name, amen.