Matthew 5:7: "Blessed Are the Merciful"

INTRODUCTION

Last year we started a series on the Beatitudes, the eight short statements that begin Jesus’s “Sermon on the Mount.”

The first four—those we have talked about—are:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

And, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

The word translated “blessed” is the word for happy, but it is usually translated “blessed” or “fortunate,” because the happiness Jesus is talking about is more than just a feeling.

Jesus is saying, “How fortunate are the poor in spirit…those who mourn…the meek…and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”

Today we come to the fifth beatitude: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

The surest sign that we have experienced the mercy of God is that we want to pass it on to others.

And the surest sign that a supposedly-religious person has not really experienced God’s mercy is that he or she is unwilling to extend mercy to others.

I read a startling statement in a book recently. It said, “To get into heaven, we will need a letter of recommendation from the poor!”

That might be taken to mean that we earn our salvation by generosity to the poor. But that’s not what the author intended.

She is referring to what Jesus told his followers in this fifth Beatitude in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

People say, “God is love.” That’s the only verse they think they need to know. They say, “If God is love, of course he will forgive me.”

Heinrich Heine was a famous poet. He was also an irreligious man. When on his deathbed, someone reproved him for his life of sin, he said, “Of course, God will forgive me—that’s his business!”

Some people say, “When I was a child I gave my heart to Jesus.” But since that little prayer they said once upon a time, they may have done nothing to show that they really belong to Jesus.

Salvation is by grace; we can’t earn it, and we can’t deserve it. But Jesus tells us over and over that knowing Christ means a changed life.

He once challenged some would-be disciples with these words, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

Jesus also said, “By their fruits you shall know them” (Matthew 7:16 and 20). In this beatitude Jesus is telling us that mercy is one of the fruits by which we can know that we truly belong to God.

I. So let’s look at this saying, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” The mercy Jesus is talking about expresses itself in two main ways—compassion and forgiveness.

A. Let me tell you a story about compassion that I found on the news a few years ago.

This story appeared in the newspaper of Rock Hill, South Carolina. A man named Ed Peirce, who lives in that city owns rental houses. The fathers of two families he rented to, lost their jobs.

Mr. Peirce would have been perfectly within his rights to evict the two families, with their small children, especially since he needed the money from their rent for his own living expenses.

But Mr. Peirce didn’t do that. He went back to work full-time at the photo counter in a Walgreens drug store so that those two families could get back on their feet.

The newspaper quoted Mr. Peirce: “I sat with them and prayed for better times. These are stand-up guys. Family men. Proud. They paid me before when they were working. You don’t show your faith, your Christianity, in words. You do it in deeds” (Huffington Post September 24, 2009).

I used to think that compassion meant only feeling sorry…having sympathy. In the Bible, compassion means feeling sorry enough to do something.

The priest and the Levite in Jesus’s story of the Good Samaritan may have felt sorry for the poor man dying on the Jericho road.

But the Samaritan who came by, not only felt sorry, he showed compassion. He risked his life by stopping. He treated the man’s wounds, put him on his donkey, and took him to the inn. He left him with the innkeeper and offered to pay his expenses until he got on his feet. That is compassion—and compassion costs.

Sometimes compassion means only taking time to sympathize, to pray, to help in whatever way we can.

Sometimes it costs more—as it did the Samaritan—and as it cost Ed Pierce.

B. Compassion can also mean forgiveness—and forgiveness also costs. If you have ever been really hurt by another person’s cruelty, you know that it costs to forgive.

This story came from The New York Times, August 2005

Ryan Cushing, a 19-year-old was one of six teenagers out for a night of joyriding and crime.

Ryan’s companions were charged with stealing credit cards and forgery, but Cushing was charged with assault for tossing a frozen turkey through the windshield of a car and nearly killing a woman named Victoria Ruvolo.

Ms. Ruvolo needed many hours of surgery to rebuild her shattered facial bones.

Convicted, Ryan was facing 25 years in prison.

Upon leaving the courtroom the boy came face-to-face with his victim, Ms. Ruvolo.

He said he was sorry and begged her to forgive him.

Ms. Ruvolo did. She cradled his head as he sobbed. She stroked his face and patted his back. “It’s O.K., It’s O.K.,” she said. “I just want you to make your life the best it can be.”

The prosecutor wanted to impose harsh punishment on a crime he denounced as heedless and brutal, but Ms. Ruvolo’s resolute compassion, changed his mind.

The story ends with this observation: “Given the opportunity for retribution, Ms. Ruvolo gave and got something better: the dissipation of anger and the restoration of hope, in a gesture as cleansing as the tears washing down her damaged face, and the face of the foolish, miserable boy whose life she single-handedly restored.”

The story doesn’t say that Ms. Ruvolo is a Christian believer, but I am sure that her generous act of mercy came from her love for God.

II. To be merciful is to be like God.

A. We read in Psalm 145:9:

The Lord is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

The Lord is good to all

and his compassion is over all that he has made.

B. God’s compassion shines out most clearly in his giving his Son, our Lord Jesus, for us to the terrible death on the cross, so that we might be forgiven and granted salvation. That’s mercy!

And if we have truly experienced God’s mercy, we will reflect it in our lives. We will be merciful people.

That’s why Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

It’s true that God loves even the worst of us. Nothing that we ever do can make God stop caring for us, to stop seeking to draw us to himself and make us his children.

But experiencing God’s mercy has to transform our lives. If we are unmerciful, we are proving that we have not really experienced the mercy of God.

C. In the story of judgment in Matthew 25 Jesus, as judge, tells those who were unmerciful, that because they have not fed the hungry, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger, taken care of the sick, and visited those in prison, they have rejected not only those suffering people—but Jesus himself.

They have rejected God’s mercy. For them, God can only weep as judgment takes its course.

D. The gift of mercy is especially precious because it comes, not only from one human being to another, but it also comes from God’s heart and God’s hand through his servant—and that servant may be you or me.

A Christian, grieving about all the suffering in the world, cried out to God, “Why don’t you do something? Why don’t you do something?”

And then he heard God say, “I did do something. I made you.”

APPLICATION

When we read about the sorrows of the world—or watch the stories on TV—we may feel that we are helpless to do anything at all.

But there are things that even we, who are old and limited, can do.

We can pray. Every day I include in my prayers the homeless, the refugees, the immigrants, those who are sick, those who are dying, the lonely, the blind and lame and mentally afflicted—and others I can think of who are suffering in our trouble-filled world.

We should pray for those we know—and those we don’t know. And God tells us to pray not only for our loved ones, but for others too.

Jesus said, “If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you. Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. …But love your enemies…and your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:32-36).

So let’s widen our prayers even to include people on the other side of the earth—people we will never see.

And we can give as we are able. Jesus insisted that his followers be generous people.

There are many good causes. There is some good work that is calling to you. The best work is not necessarily the one that sends you the most fund-raising letters. But all of you know of those who are doing good work in the world in the name of Christ. They need help. They need your help.

Jesus said, “Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven. …For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6.20-21).

I know, you worry that maybe your money will run out before you die. I think about that too.

But giving generously is an opportunity to trust God for our future needs—a venture of faith. If faith risks nothing, it is not really faith.

CONCLUSION

One more story about mercy. This one includes both meanings of mercy—compassion and forgiveness.

An American soldier tells this story about an experience in Viet Nam. He writes,

“We had just searched a small village that had been suspected of harboring Viet Cong. We really tore the place up—it wasn’t hard to do—but we had found nothing. Then just up the trail from the village, we were ambushed.

“I got hit and don’t remember anything more until I woke up. A very old Vietnamese woman was leaning over me. Before I passed out again, I remembered having seen her in the village we had just destroyed. I knew I was going to die.

“When I woke again, the hole in my left side had been cleaned and bandaged, and the woman was leaning over me again offering me a warm cup of tea. As I was drinking the tea and wondering why I was still alive, a helicopter landed nearby to take me back. The woman quietly got up and disappeared down the hill” (Random Acts of Kindness, p37)

Let me close with one of my favorite scriptures. It is from Paul’s letter to the Colossians. It doesn’t contain the word “mercy,” but it all about mercy, and it sums up much of what we have found in the Beatitudes so far:

“As God’s chosen ones, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, patience.

“Forbearing one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

“And above all these, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Colossians 3:12-14).

Matthew 5.6: “Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness

INTRODUCTION

Several months ago, I set out to give a series of messages on the nine beatitudes that begin Jesus’s “Sermon on the Mount.” But I got distracted and we only got through the first three.

They were: “Blessed are the poor in spirit…,” “Blessed are those who mourn…,” and “Blessed are the meek…”

The word “beatitude” refers to a statement of the condition of supreme happiness, or “blessedness.”

The word translated in my Bible as “blessed” is sometimes translated as “happy.” But here the word means more than just a feeling.

Jesus is saying, “How fortunate are those who know how poor they really are.” “How supremely to be congratulated are those who mourn!” “How blessed are the gentle, meek souls!”

(And incidentally, the dictionary gives two pronunciations: blest and bless-ed.)

So today I want to go back and review those first three beatitudes and continue with the fourth one, which is: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

The first beatitude was: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

This beatitude tells us that the blessed people—the really fortunate—people are those who are empty and open before God. The poor in spirit have a deep sense of sin. They know how much they need God. They are humble; they are not full of themselves.

The second beatitude was, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

This one surprises us, because it seems to be saying, “How happy—how much to be congratulated—are those who are sad.”

But the idea isn’t that that sorrow automatically brings blessedness. The blessedness comes to those who grieve because of their sins and the sorrows of others. When we sorrow out of sympathy for the troubles of others, God adds his blessing. To have a tender, compassionate heart is a blessing.

The third beatitude was, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

Most of us wouldn’t consider it a compliment if someone told us we were meek. My Greek dictionary gives these meanings for the word translated “meek” here—gentle, humble, considerate.

To be meek is to be like Jesus, who said, “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls.”

One of our residents challenged me. She said, “Do you think that the meek shall inherit the earth?”

We know that, on this earth, the gentle folk get pushed around. But Jesus is talking about the New Earth that is coming, the earth over which Jesus will reign. That’s the earth that really counts. That’s the earth the meek will inherit.

I. Now we come to the fourth beatitude, the one I have chosen to talk about today: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

A. Except for air to breathe, hunger and thirst are the two most intense cravings we experience.

If you go without anything to drink for three or four days, you will die. If you go without food for three or four days, you will not be able to think about anything else.

If you totally lose your appetite for food, the doctors will become alarmed and put tubes in your body and feed you that way.

B. God gave his Son to die for us. When God’s love grips us, we want to please Jesus. And what pleases Jesus is righteousness—whole-hearted goodness.

That’s the righteousness Jesus wants us to hunger for.

And righteousness—like God’s—means generosity, kindness, truthfulness, serving others—and loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.

C. Righteous behavior, in Jesus’s time, usually meant three things: synagogue attendance, giving to the poor, and following the rules.

Such righteousness could be cold and self-centered. It could be motivated by the desire to impress.

Jesus wants us to go to church, to give generously, and to avoid evil behavior. But our motivation shouldn’t be to impress others but love for God.

God gave his Son to die for us. When God’s love grips us, we want more than anything to please our Savior. We hunger and thirst for righteousness.

We have a passion to do what is right. We have a hunger and thirst for righteousness.

D. But the Greek word translated in my Bible “righteousness” means also “justice,” and in many Bibles, it is translated “justice.” So the verse also tells us, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice.”

Hungering and thirsting for justice goes beyond personal holiness.

If we truly love God, we will be passionate about the things God is passionate about. And there is nothing God is more passionate about than justice. God’s heart breaks as he watches the cruelty, the exploitation, and the violence that rule throughout the world.

Here are examples of injustice that are going on in our world today and every day…

…young boys kidnapped and forced to become soldiers and killers…

…girls tricked into prostitution…

…money lenders getting desperately poor people into their clutches by issuing loans with such high interest rates that the debtors and their families become slaves…

…people denied medical care because they are too poor to pay the doctors and hospitals…

…hatred and mistreatment of people because they are poor…or because of the color of their skin…or because of their nationality…

…rich people taking advantage of the poor and powerless…

That is why Jesus tells us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

As a teacher, the saddest part of my job was trying to protect some of the children from bullying. Some of the stronger children picked on the weaker ones—scorning them, ridiculing them, excluding them from their games.

We called these unfortunate children “isolates.” It was our job to protect them if we could.

If a girl had bad skin or a boy was unathletic, other children could make her life miserable.

The stronger, more attractive kids would pick on the weak ones. They were like the chickens we raised when I was a kid. The chickens would always find one small unfortunate hen to peck at. sometimes they would actually kill their victim.

But sometimes we saw children who understood sympathy and would befriend these unfortunate children. That was beautiful.

God longs to see justice in his world, and we should too. That’s what it means to hunger and thirst for justice.

E. As I was preparing this message I realized that, except for praying for victims of injustice, I wasn’t really doing much else.

The missions we were supporting were mostly evangelistic or educational.

But I remembered a Christian Organization we have supported in the past—the International Justice Mission—and we decided to send a monthly gift to them.

The International Justice Mission is a group of Christians—lawyers and others, some Americans, but mostly nationals of the countries they serve in.

The mission has 750 workers, serving in 17 field offices. They work in countries in all of the continents. These men and women work with—and sometimes against—local authorities. They raid brothels, freeing sex workers and helping them get good work.

The other main part of their mission is to free slaves—many of whom are children. Slaves in many countries work in brick kilns, rice mills, garment factories, and fishing operations. Sad to say, some of the goods we import from other countries is produced by slaves.

According to an article in USA Today, February 23 of this year, there are more slaves in the world today than there ever have been in history. Slavery isn’t as obvious today as it was in the past, but, because there are so many more people, now there are actually more slaves than ever before in history.

This mission—The International Justice Mission—has made a difference.

Presidents Bush and Obama have both praised the work of the International Justice Mission.

Many churches, individuals, and other missions are active in this way.

I’m glad I found a way to help. Because that’s part of what it means to hunger and thirst for justice.

II. For those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, Jesus promises satisfaction.

A. People seek satisfaction in many places.

Last week some lucky woman had her dream come true.

She won the lottery jackpot of 758 million dollars. She was so happy that she quit her job on the spot. She was satisfied. She’s fixed till the end of her life.

But Jesus promises satisfaction even after our life on earth—through all eternity.

We took a tour of Italy. Some of our fellow tourists told us that every year they took tour after tour enjoying visits to interesting places all over the world. They thirsted for the satisfaction of new and pleasurable experiences.

Some people hunger and thirst for possessions. We went to a museum in Vermont where there was a collection of 100s of quilts a rich lady had collected for her personal collection. What would you do with 100s of quilts. Collecting quilts must have become an obsession. Maybe she always intended them for a museum.

I read a book once called Wealth Addiction. It made the point that with money, the more money people have, the more they want. The richer you are the harder it is to be satisfied. It seems that that couldn’t be true, but it is.

Generally, according to that book, the more money people have the stingier they are.

A STORY

I have an example of both righteousness and justice that might inspire us.

Back in the 1960s you will remember, our nation decided to correct an injustice that had been with us since the founding of our country.

Many African American children had been denied the right to the quality of education white children enjoyed.

So in 1954, the Supreme Court made a decision—“Brown versus the Board of Education”—that outlawed segregation in schools.

Change didn’t come quickly. Many resisted. There was violence.

A six-year-old girl named Ruby Bridges was chosen to “integrate” William Franz Elementary School, in New Orleans.

Every day, during her first year in school, little Ruby was escorted to school by four federal Marshals.

Huge crowds of protesters gathered daily outside the school to shout slurs and death threats at Ruby. Film clips show throngs of angry white people waving Confederate flags, and some even shoved before Ruby an open child’s casket with a black doll inside.

You probably have seen this painting Norman Rockwell painted for the cover of Look Magazine of little Ruby, in her snowy white dress walking to school, two marshals in front of her and two behind. Her fist is clenched, just like the fists of the marshals. On the wall is scrawled “NIGGER” and a tomato has been smashed on the wall behind.

The first day that Ruby went to school, all the parents of children who had been going to that school took their children out of the school. So Ruby was taught as the only child in an empty school for a year.

But there’s more to the story, maybe you haven’t heard. A psychiatrist, named Robert Coles, an Air Force captain, was stationed outside of Biloxi, Mississippi, stumbled on this crowd scene outside the school. He asked about it and volunteered to help her. So Coles began to meet with her every week.

One day Ruby’s teacher told Dr. Coles that she had noticed Ruby moving her lips as she was walking into school. Coles asked Ruby, “Who were you talking to, Ruby?”

She said, “I was talking to God and praying for the people in the street.”

Coles asked, “Why were you doing that, Ruby?”

She said, “Because I wanted to pray for them. Don’t you think they need praying for?”

Coles nodded and asked her, “Where did you learn that, Ruby?”

“From my mommy and daddy and from the minister at church. I pray every morning when I come to school and every afternoon when I go home.”

Coles said, “But Ruby, those people are so mean to you. You must have some other feelings besides just wanting to pray for them.”

“No,” she said, “I just keep praying for them and hope God will be good to them… I always pray the same thing. ‘Please, dear God, forgive them, because they don’t know what they’re doing.’”

This story gives us two examples of people “hungering and thirsting” for righteousness—Ruby and Dr. Coles. But there’s more.

In every one of the many photographs of Ruby that appeared in the papers. Cute little Ruby is always dressed immaculately in her white dress, white socks, and Mary Ann shoes.

Ruby’s parents were poor sharecroppers. They could never have afforded those clothes. Somebody sent them, but the family never found out who.

Years later, after Ruby had grown up and become famous, a woman approached her at a gathering and introduced herself as a relative of Dr. Coles. She told Ruby that she had sent those outfits.

So there’s a third person in the story that exemplifies a hunger and thirst for righteousness—the woman who made sure that Ruby looked beautiful in all the photos.

CONCLUSION

When we hunger and thirst for righteousness, we are also hungering and thirsting for Jesus, because Jesus is the embodiment of God’s righteousness and saving justice.

Some said that we have a God-shaped hole in our heart. Like the prodigal son who tried to stuff his starving belly with the husks the swine did eat, we can try to stuff our starving hearts with the wealth and pleasures of this world, but our hearts will be empty still.

When we are hungering and thirsting for righteousness—for justice—we are really hungering and thirsting for God himself. And he will come in and we will be satisfied—for ever and ever.