The Happiness Project: Merciful

Good morning to those of you here inside and those of you outside. For folks joining us online, we're so glad that you're here with us this morning. We're going to turn our attention to God's word. We're studying that section of Matthew 5, which is the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. I'm going to invite you to find that in your worship guide or up on the screens, and let's read God's word aloud together. From Matthew chapter 5, we're going to read this morning from verses 1 through 7.

Now, when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain and after he sat down, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and began to teach them saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy." — Matthew 5:1-7

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

We're looking this morning at "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy." The early church spent a lot more time in the beatitudes than the modern church really has. They really gave themselves to these pithy sayings of Jesus, and they're all over writing and architecture from the early church. This is something they really meditated on.

Different people in their church made the observation that we're moving into the second half of the Beatitudes. The first half are all passive. They describe people who are in need—the poor in spirit, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the meek, those who mourn. The second half are more active. They describe not a person who's in need, but a person who's going out into the world to address those in need. So this today marks a transition where we're moving from who we are as people in need to people who are engaging the needs of the world. What does it mean to go out and to show mercy?

The early church particularly dug into this one. This was really important, and they describe mercy two ways: a kindness shown and a punishment withheld. A positive and a negative. A kindness shown, a punishment withheld.

A lot of times we use the words mercy and grace together in the church, and yet they're not the same thing. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. Grace is getting what you don't deserve. Even though we can go through details and definitions, it's easier to illustrate this than to define it. Let me give you a couple of illustrations of mercy.

Back in 2006, in October, my family was living in Philadelphia, and just down the road from us, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania was the epicenter of the Amish community. If you're not familiar with the Amish community, it's a Christian community that's given themselves to separation from the world, pacifism, and simplicity. They drive horse and buggies, don't have modern technology for the most part. On this particular day, October 2, 2006, a man named Charles Roberts entered a one-room schoolhouse in the Amish community, armed and dangerous. He first took hostages of the students, and then he began shooting. Five little girls ages six through 13 were killed before he committed suicide.

But what was really striking about this incident was the response of the Amish community to the widow of the shooter. A grandfather of one of the murdered Amish girls took his younger relatives aside and said to them: "We must not think evil of this man. I don't think there's anybody here who wants to do anything but forgive, and not only reach out to those who have suffered a loss but to reach out to the family of the man who committed these acts."

The man's wife, the widow of the shooter, was invited to the funerals and was embraced by the Amish community in such a way that she wrote a letter later on, saying this about the forgiveness and mercy of the Amish community:

Your love for our family has helped provide the healing we so desperately needed. Gifts you've given have touched our hearts in a way no words can describe. Your compassion has reached beyond our family and our community and is changing our world. We sincerely thank you for this.

That's mercy. Undeserved kindness. Punishment withheld. Kindness given.

Now, I have to ask the question though: Do we like that? Do we like mercy? I'm not sure that I do. That same year we're living in Philadelphia, and this also happened.

There was a man who the police put out a report at large. They had identified him as the rapist of a young girl, 11 years old, and they put out a police report looking for him. Well, the community got word of this. The mother of the young girl made it known in the Kensington community neighborhood of Philadelphia. I want this man dead. And this is what happened: a dozen neighborhood residents found the man and cornered him and began a process of beating him. The police got called and they made it just in time. The man was put in ICU and he survived. But this is what was said. One of the residents said, "This is justice community style. It's a beautiful thing." And the police chief of Philly said, "These people took this case to heart. It says a lot about the community." Even though he said, "Vigilante justice, not good."

Now, I want to know which one do we really like? Truth be told, mercy is not something that's attractive to us. Even though we might hear stories like, "Aw, kindness shown, punishment withheld," I think a lot more times we love the comeuppance. Love the vengeance, love vigilante justice. I mean, true confessions of your pastor this morning. One of my favorite Twitter follows is this guy called the Philly Offensive. This is leftover from when I was in Philly. So the blame those years for this. But this guy, he loves telling people where to go. He loves confronting people who are throwing trash on the street or who are pregnant and smoking. And he's like, "Do you love hospital food?" Right? And I love this guy. Not very nice, I know. I'm not a very nice person. But do I love mercy? I'm not sure I do.

And our denomination is not really known for our mercy. You may not know who this person is. J. Gresham Machen was a theologian who led Presbyterian churches in the early part of the twentieth century in being true to God's word. And after that, Presbyterian churches have been known ever since as Machen's warrior children. We love to fight. We love to argue. Known for our mercy? Not really. So I have to ask this question: As much as we would sing about mercy and we read a lot in this book about mercy, do we love mercy? Do we really love a kindness given, a punishment withheld? I'm not so sure that we do.

If you had to fill in this sentence today—what does our country need to see from the Christian community the most right now?—I doubt most people would say mercy. But I wonder, I think Jesus might.

Blessed Are the Merciful

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be given mercy. — Matthew 5:7

Because that's who Jesus is. Mercy is Jesus. Listen to what Jesus actually says here. He doesn't say all the things that we think he should say. "Hey, congratulations to the staunch. Blessed are the strict. Fortunate are the hardcore." Right? He doesn't say, "Blessed are those who call other people out." That's what everybody really needs right now, is a good calling out. As we see the standards being lowered, we need more radicals to hold the line. Jesus doesn't say, "Blessed are the radicals who hold the line." He doesn't say, "We don't need more mercy for those who are responsible for all this mess." Jesus says, blessed are the merciful.

In fact, this beatitude—as I've described it, the beautiful life—this word for merciful is only used one other place in the whole of the New Testament. And it's used in Hebrews 2 to describe Jesus. Again, this is what it says of him:

For this reason, Jesus had to be made like other people, fully human in every way in order that he may become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he's able to help those who are being tempted. — Hebrews 2

Merciful. Mercy is what nobody expects, nobody deserves, but it's what everybody needs. We see this over and over in the New Testament. It's the picture of Jesus, right? Jesus was not soft on sin. Jesus was not known for contradicting Scripture. Jesus surely knew what sin was—so much so he went to the cross for it. And yet when the Pharisees saw him eating with notorious sinners, with tax collectors, with prostitutes, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"

And this is what he said:

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but it is for those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy. — Matthew 9:12-13

I desire mercy. Mercy is what nobody expects. It's what everybody needs. It's what nobody deserves. Mercy is Jesus. Jesus's ministry was marked by this kind of mercy.

Again, another confrontation with the Pharisees. They're focused on getting everything just right. And this is what he says to them:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, because you tithe the mint and the dill and the cumin. You've neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy. — Matthew 23:23

Those are the things you ought to have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides straining out the gnat and swallowing the camel. I know it's a weird phrase, but Jesus is like, you're focusing on the trivialities and you're missing the big point. You're focused on what really doesn't matter and you've missed the big thing that does matter—the gnat versus the camel.

Mercy is what nobody expects and nobody deserves and what everyone needs. Think about Jesus' ministry over and over: mercy to the undeserving, mercy to blind Bartimaeus, mercy to the woman at the well, mercy to Jairus, mercy to the Garrison demoniac, mercy to the woman caught in adultery, mercy to Mary and Martha, mercy over and over to those disciples and to us. You and I, the Bible tells us, are dead in our sin. We talk about being guilty sinners and all of that's very common language in the church, but I love how one pastor put it this way: If sin were the color blue, we would all be smurfs. I would be a bald smurf. I don't know—grumpy smurf maybe? But if sin were blue, we'd all be smurfs. This is who we are. It's all over us.

While we were still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. — Romans 5

That's me and that's you. My favorite word in that whole passage is "while." While we were sinners—I'm not saved by my quiet time streak, by my church involvement. I'm not saved by being a little bit better than my neighbors. I'm not saved by how much scripture I have committed to heart or how many of these songs that I know. I'm saved only by the mercy of God.

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

I want to encourage you this week to sit in Matthew 18. Jesus tells us this parable to help us enter into mercy. He describes a man who owes an enormous debt to the king—10,000 denarii. We don't have a category for that. One writer says it's like thinking about the national debt. It's something you can't ever repay. That number—the clock that ticks, the tally that ticks—never gonna be repaid. He comes to the king and begs for mercy. What kind of insane request is that? And yet the king, in an act of sheer patience and unbelievable kindness, forgives him the debt.

Then the man goes out, finds one of his neighbors who owes him 1 denarius—equivalent to a gallon of gas—grabs him by the collar, shakes him, and says, "Pay me what you owe me." The king finds out about this and says, "What in the world? I've forgiven you so much. I've shown such mercy to you and you can't show mercy to your neighbor?"

This is what I hear the Lord saying to me in this: Jeff, every time that you refuse to show mercy, every time you hold a grudge, you hold on to bitterness, you hold on to some kind of righteous anger that you think you have—it's high treason.

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Don't be deceived: neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who practice homosexuality nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. — 1 Corinthians 6

Here's my favorite part: "And such were some of you." And such were some of you.

How much has the Lord forgiven you? I'm now on my fifth driver I'm teaching to drive. One of the things we have to talk about a lot is the rearview mirror. You know the difference between the windshield and the rearview mirror? One's really small, one's really big—for a reason. You don't stare at the rearview mirror; you glance. You don't do this while you're driving. You glance so you can know what's going on around you.

I think this connects to us as we go forward in life. One of the things we need to see so much is that glance backwards: "And such were some of you." Glancing back and remembering what happened in your past. The Lord's incredible forgiveness while I was still a sinner. While I was still a sinner. You don't stare at that. You don't live in the past. But as you're looking forward to the windshield of life, if you're moving out into relationships, if you're moving out into your life, if you're moving out into this world, you continually glance. That's me. What I'm seeing in front of me is true about what God has done in me. He's given me mercy.

This is why mercy is the way of Jesus for His people. It's what marks His followers. Those who've been shown mercy are called into sending mercy. A "go and do likewise" mercy.

Now, to be clear, this isn't a tit for tat with the Lord. We can't say Jesus is saying, "I'm going to withhold mercy until you show mercy." Is that what this beatitude is? No. If it were, we don't have a hope. We will never bottom out or use up or outkick our coverage of God's mercy. We're never going to use it up. There's no short supply. There's no run on mercy. Oh no, what's going to happen?

There's an abundance of this for us. Right? And God is not calling us to earn our mercy by mercy. That wouldn't make any sense. Mercy, if you earn it, it's no longer mercy. That's a wage. Right? It's a gift, undeserved kindness.

When God asks us at the end of our lives, at the great day when we are welcomed in open arms, we're welcomed home—I think when that happens and God says, "Tell me about the life of mercy that you've led." He's not asking for a timesheet or a report card. He's gonna be asking for your medical report. All those ways that you needed His mercy. All those places in your life where you came to the end of self and you were shown over and over again to be what we say—a debtor to mercy alone. I needed this over and over.

And so Christ's mercy is an active mercy. This is the bizarre thing of what I've been calling these beautitudes. Not the beatitudes, these beautitudes. It's an entry. It's an invitation into the beautiful life. We get to experience again. This is the invitation of Jesus in this: we get to experience again His mercy as He invites us to be vehicles and conduits of his mercy.

What does that look like? People who've been shown mercy, show mercy.

Here's what it's not, okay? And some of y'all are my enneagram people. This is not the unhealthy too—"I just need to be needed. I just need to be helping out somewhere. I need to like fix things for other people." That's not what this is. This is: "How can I not? How can I not? I've been given so much mercy. It's overflowed in my life."

What Mercy Actually Is

Here's what mercy is. It's costly. It's always costly. Undeserved mercy was costly for Jesus. And that's the understatement I've made in this sermon, right? It's costly for Jesus. Of course, it's costly for us. It's hard. It calls for something deep within that I may not want to do.

It's proactive. This is how it's different from meekness. Meekness is passive—it's a lack of response and retaliation. But mercy is active. It's moving outward. It's stepping into the rubble. It's moving toward the undeserving. It's moving toward those who don't deserve this.

And it's shame off you. I know we use this phrase in our culture—"shame on you." Do y'all grow up with "shame on you"? But real mercy is the opposite of that. I'd love for this to be a phrase that we all use all the time: "Shame off you." You know, where we walk around as people who are conduits of mercy, removing shame. Can you imagine what it'd be like to have those kind of friends? To be in that kind of a church? To be around those kind of people? Shame off you, people.

The Practical Work of Mercy

Mercy is forgiveness for the one who's undeserving and I want to dig into that. What does it mean to forgive someone who is undeserving? Not just somebody who's hurt your feelings or stepped on your toes a couple times, but who has deeply wronged you. What does it mean to show mercy?

It means you don't trivialize the wrong. "Oh, no big deal." That is a lie. And nice Southern people say that all the time. "Don't worry about it." That is not mercy. That's trivializing hurt.

You don't pretend, but you do the work to forgive. To give mercy is to set aside the justice that you have a right to because you have been wronged. To set aside the justice that you have a right to in order to restore the offender.

You know, we pray the Lord's prayer in our church. We use this language, don't we? About forgiveness:

Forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors — Matthew 6:12

All wrong creates a debt. God says that. There's something owed. There's some deficit. Sin creates indebtedness and forgiveness chooses not to collect on the debt. Forgiveness says, "You owe me. God says that that's true, but you're free and clear. I'm paying your debt like he paid my debt."

I'm gonna absorb this emotional pain. My life was diminished by you in some way. That is true and I'm not pretending about it. I'm not pretending that's not really true, but you don't have to give it back. You probably couldn't anyway. My wife's story has been changed by your wrong, but it was changed a long time ago in a much greater way by God forgiving my wrongs. A God who died for me. So I choose mercy today. I'm not gonna hold this against you. I'm not gonna gossip about it. I'm not gonna hold a grudge. You are free. I release you. I release you.

That's what mercy is. That's what the merciful think because that's what God thinks. This is who our savior is.

That kind of forgiveness, let me just be honest about that—that is supernatural. That is God working in the life of a normal everyday person, like you and me, doing something that's absolutely against our nature.

I mean, we want vengeance. We want the comeuppance. We want karma. God working something supernatural in us. Just like in the story about the Amish and that widow, Charles Roberts. Some people—and let me just warn you about this—some people, especially Christians, will oppose this. If they see you showing undeserved forgiveness, there are lots of well-meaning people who'd be like, "You shouldn't be doing that. That's not okay. Don't do that. You're foolish. You're an idiot. You should be militant. It's time to be hardcore." They will misunderstand that and they won't like it. It will offend them. But Jesus says of that mercy, of that forgiveness: blessed are you. Fortunate are you. Lucky. You're entering into something supernatural.

Jesus is not just calling us to a couple of isolated acts of mercy—you know, where you're breaking your arm to pat yourself on the back like, "Man, great job." He's calling us to a lifestyle. One that looks at the world and says, "What everyone needs, nobody expects, nobody deserves: mercy." He's not saying sin is no big deal. He's calling us, though. He's calling us as his people into this beautiful life, creating a new environment, a new kind of family, a new kind of community where mercy is what defines us. Mercy for the undeserving, patience with sinners.

You know, the older I get—and I'm 51—I'm just sort of surprised at God's patience with me. I haven't changed all that much. I'm not all that much more mature than I was at 18. Haven't really progressed a lot. I'd love to stand up in front of you and say, "Man, I am really so far ahead of everyone. So awesome to be your pastor, right?" No. I'm just sort of amazed at God's patience—his long-suffering endurance. And isn't that what everyone needs? Like, we're not people who are actually improving all that much. I mean, what would it be like to be in a community that's defined by patience for one another? The merciful are patient and forgiving.

Let me go another step. Jesus is not saying, "Bless those who forgive now and then or forgive frequently," but "Bless those who are so invaded by God's mercy that they express this in forgiving over and over." To be a Christian means to forgive the unexcusable in other people because God has done that in you.

And in all but a few cases, mercy means being open to restoration of the relationship. Let me just qualify—some of you are really struggling. There are places where it's not safe to enter back into relationship. But by and large, in most cases, we do have an opportunity and it's not unsafe. We're just not really that interested in entering back into a relationship. Mercy, in so many cases, means stepping back into relationship.

The writer Ann Lamott puts this really well in her book Plan B. I know some of you may not like Ann Lamott—she doesn't stand for all the right things—but man, she gets forgiveness. One of the things that she says is this: "Earth is forgiveness school. Start at the dinner table. That way you can do this work in comfortable pants." I love that.

See, you could put it this way: being merciful just means turning toward the poor in spirit, turning toward them with kindness, welcoming the undeserving into the prodigal's dinner. Mercy is what nobody expects, nobody deserves, what everyone needs. Shame off you, mercy.

A Call to Action

So here's the conclusion for today. No story, no wrap-it-up awesome ending, because this is not a sermon that's theoretical. This is one you can't walk out to the car after worship and be like, "Man, that was a great message. I learned something today." This is one that you have to respond to. This is a today call for every person. If you're under the tent, if you're online, if you're in this room, this is a today, right now call for all of us to forgive, to let go of bitterness, to let go of grudges, to show mercy.

I don't show mercy to get saved. I show mercy because I am. I show mercy because I've been shown mercy. One of the ways that we know we've received mercy is that we don't hold on to it. We don't view God's mercy in our lives like a scarce resource. We're not like, "Oh, this is our reservoir that's in storage for when I need it." God doesn't call us to a reservoir. He calls us to the lifestyle of a river. A river never stays still. The water is always flowing. It's never the same river any second. All the molecules are different every time.

And so God is calling us: blessed are the merciful. He's giving us an opportunity to enter into His mercy and to be that kind of riverbank where we find that, like, use it up and there's so much more to flow through you. There's even more. You're not going to run out. It's not a scarce resource.

So every person has a right now opportunity to experience God's mercy by showing mercy. So I want you to think about your week because there is for all of us that hard person, that conversation, the snub, that point of pain you've experienced from somebody else. I know there is because we're all people. We live in a world of sinners. It may be somebody in this room, maybe your extended family, maybe your spouse, maybe your kid, your parent, maybe somebody at work, but you know who it is. That person that when you walk by them, you get that tightness, or you go the other way or suddenly you're really busy. You get quiet.

But today, here's my request of you. Today, as we come to the Lord in confession and communion, can you glance up in the rear view mirror? Can you look up? Even as you're moving forward into life, can you look up and say, "Yeah, and such were some of you."

While we were still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. Such were some of us.

Mercy is what nobody expects and nobody deserves but everybody needs. Go and do likewise.

Let's pray together. Father, this is a hard word because it's so true to our experience this week. And yet Lord, would you come and minister to us right now? You're present to us, your spirit's here. We have things that could cause us to break down in tears right here. And Lord, we need your healing work in us. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.