Sunday November 27, 2022
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INTRODUCTION: Remember Jesus is talking about an inner attitude of the heart! Have this attitude and you’ll be happy, fortunate, blessed!
THE ATTITUDE OF YOUR HEART! GOD PAYS ATTENTION!
WHAT IS JESUS SAYING THROUGH THE BEATITUDES AS HE BEGINS THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT?
Servants of the Kingdom should reflect in their own hearts the heart of the King!
AND- That they are even part of the Kingdom implies they are objects of the mercy of God!
Matthew 5:7- “Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy.”
mercy- to show kindness and concern for someone in serious need. To feel compassion for, have pity.
merciful- to have mercy. Active compassion. Compassion for the poor. Kind, compassionate, sympathetic. A person with this quality finds outlets for their merciful nature!
Mercy is not merely a passive emotion, but an active desire to remove the cause of distress in others. THEY ARE “OTHERS-ORIENTED!”
There are some who say that mercy may be God’s most fundamental attribute! So to truly understand mercy we need to KNOW GOD!
- To Know God is to Know Mercy
One of the most intimate encounters ever recorded between God and a human being is when Moses asked God to see His glory.
Exodus 33:18-19- “Moses responded, “Then show me your glorious presence.”
The Lord replied, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will call out my name, Yahweh, before you. For I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose.
“You want to see my glory Moses? I will show you my goodness, mercy and compassion.”
Moses wanted an intimate knowledge of God himself!
Moses had received God’s promises, seen God’s power, and been guaranteed God’s presence.
But Moses wanted God’s Person!
Exodus 34:5-7- “Then the Lord came down in a cloud and stood there with him; and he called out his own name, Yahweh. The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out,
“Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But I do not excuse the guilty. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren; the entire family is affected— even children in the third and fourth generations.”
Moses was enraptured by the fullness of the Person of God! His character as the one who is compassionate, merciful and just!
2. To know God’s Mercy is to Know God’s Justice
JUSTICE DEMANDS ACTION! God cannot make a rule, establish the penalty and then not follow through when the rule is broken!
In Genesis 3 Adam and Eve decided that they would do what pleased them and took and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
At that moment the created committed high treason against the creator.
JUSTICE DEMANDED ACTION! For God to overlook or excuse the treason would not be just.
God is just! He cannot make a rule, establish the penalty, and then not follow through when the rule is broken!
But because God is also love, He made a way to satisfy justice without destroying human beings!
Justice required the death penalty for high treason! So something or someone had to die!
A substitute was brought in to satisfy the demands of justice!
Genesis 3:21- “And the Lord God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife.”
An innocent animal had to be sacrificed to provide garments of skin as a covering for Adam and Eve.
God’s order provided covering by means of a sacrifice! JUSTICE WAS PAID!
Jesus became the lamb that God sacrificed on the altar of Justice for you and me! Christ died for our sins once and for all, the just for the unjust so that He might bring us to God!
GOD’S JUSTICE AND MERCY ARE SEEN IN OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST!
Isaiah 43:25- “I—yes, I alone—will blot out your sins for my own sake
and will never think of them again.”
2 Corinthians 5:21- “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.
Romans 3:23-28- “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.
Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith. So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.”
God’s justice was satisfied on the cross of Jesus Christ! And because of His mercy we can be called children of God!
John 1:12- “But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.”
3. To Know Mercy is to Give and Receive Mercy
Mercy needs to be repeated!
“As God is merciful we need to be merciful!
“The person who does not show mercy cannot count on God’s mercy!”
The merciful are happy in a way the legalist can never understand!
They have tasted the sheer mercy of God who received them into the Kingdom, not because of their works but because of HIS MERCY!
THESE FOLKS, THEY HAVE COME TO SHARE THIS DIVINE QUALITY OF LOVE AND MERCY WITH OTHERS!
Jesus didn’t elaborate on who we should show mercy. He gives no indication if it’s someone overcome by a disaster, the sick or the outcast!
Or those who have done us wrong so that justice cries out for punishment.
There was no need for Jesus to elaborate. Our God is merciful and continuously shows mercy!
So, the citizens of His Kingdom must show mercy too!
Nothing proves more clearly that we have been forgiven than our own readiness to forgive and show mercy!
HOW IMPORTANT IS MERCY?
James 2:13- “There will be no mercy for those who have not shown mercy to others. But if you have been merciful, God will be merciful when he judges you.”
HOW OFTEN SHOULD I GIVE MERCY?
Lamentations 3:22-23- “The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.”
WHAT SHOULD BE MY ATTITUDE TOWARD MERCY?
Micah 6:8- “No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”
CONCLUSION: What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message?