Sermon on the Mount: Mercy
What is mercy? In very simple terms, I've heard mercy described as ‘not getting something that you deserve.’ This is kind of accurate, but it doesn't fully express what mercy is. More appropriately, mercy is withholding a punishment or consequence. It is preventing pain and hardship from coming to someone. Sometimes that is deserved pain or punishment or hardship, and sometimes mercy is simply the act of making a hard choice or sacrificing to withhold that pain from the person.
Mercy is defined as: “compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm.”
Matthew 5:7
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”
Mercy involves forgiveness, sacrifice and self-control. So, in this beatitude, we see Jesus telling people “blessed are the merciful,” those who show mercy to other people, those in whom mercy is a strong character trait, because they, then, themselves, will be shown mercy. There's two aspects to this. The first is showing mercy and the second is receiving it.
Mercy is hard, because mercy is not just about being a nice person or being kind and helping people out and removing people's pain and suffering, though that is one part of it. It is also about actively choosing to remove the pain and suffering that someone has earned, that someone deserves. It is choosing to turn the other cheek, to not retaliate, to not take revenge and to not seek punishment. Mercy is what Jesus did on the cross for us, because, you see, we had something bad coming to us. We had earned and deserved death and punishment and Hell, but Jesus showed His mercy in that He took that from us. He actively chose to forgive our sins, but also, because God is just, He actively chose to take the punishment that was coming for us. That is mercy.
Think about your life. Are there people in your life who have harmed you? People in your life who have betrayed you? People in your life who have let you down? People in your life who have hurt you or done something bad to you? How do you respond to those people? What does it really mean to love and forgive? What does it really mean to show mercy?
We all have individuals in our life who have hurt us. What Jesus is challenging us to do in this beatitude is to forgive and show kindness. To be merciful. Matthew 18:21-22 says, “Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.” In some translations, Jesus says “seventy times seven,” however, whether the number is 77 or 490 doesn’t really matter because the number that Jesus gives here is not meant to be a literal number, but rather symbolic. What Jesus is saying is that we are called to forgive infinitely. There is no number at which we should stop forgiving. There is no number at which we are supposed to stop showing mercy.
This is because we are called to model God, and God is abundant in overflowing mercy toward us.
Psalm 103:8-12
“The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always chide,
nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”
The Bible says that God takes our sins and casts them as far away as the East is from the West. If you were to start today traveling east and just kept on traveling until you started to go west, how far would that be? How far would you have to go east until you start going west? Of course the answer is infinite. There is no distance that you could travel in an easterly direction and eventually start going west. That is what the Bible is saying here. It is saying that God has cast our sins infinitely far away from us.
We should show mercy because God has shown us mercy, and when we are merciful, we receive mercy.
When it comes to giving mercy, we, as the givers, must show self-control and sacrificial kindness, love and forgiveness. However, when it comes to receiving mercy, there’s a whole other set of emotions and acknowledgements that we need to have.
The Bible is full of examples of people asking God for mercy, and what is important in this is that to ask for mercy you have to come to a place of honesty and humility. When asking for mercy you are acknowledging that you are at fault, and that, as a result of that fault, you have some sort of punishment or payment coming for you. You are also acknowledging that the one you are appealing to is superior, has power and authority, both to judge and sentence, but also to withhold that punishment.
We see this take place in Paul’s letter to Timothy.
1 Timothy 1:15-17
“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”
Paul is acknowledging that he is deserving of punishment, but he is also acknowledging Christ as Supreme and worthy of honor and glory.
The thing about mercy is that it does not absolve you of guilt. When Christ showed us mercy by dying for us on the cross, it wasn’t as if we were no longer guilty, but rather our punishment was removed. We had still committed the crime, we did it. We were and are guilty, but Christ showed us mercy in that He took our punishment. He relieved us from the suffering and death. Since God is just, the price still had to be paid, but He showed mercy. He paid it for us.
In fictional stories, whether they are sci-fi, fantasy, super heroes, etc… a defining characteristic of the hero, almost across the board, is mercy. In general, heroes refrain from killing their enemies, even when they can and even when doing so may be the easiest or most effective way of stopping them. They hold themselves back. This doesn’t mean that they don’t stop evil or punish it, but they don’t dole out the full extent of what they are capable of and what the enemy may be deserving of. They show mercy. In fact, when there are heroes that don’t show such restraint they are generally called “anti-heroes.” They accomplish some good things and may have good intentions, but they have no mercy or kindness and are not really heroes.
As a final note, let’s look at a verse from Micah 6:8. We are going to look at it in two versions, the NIV and the ESV, and see how they compare.
NIV
“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
ESV
“He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?”
We are called to mercy (kindness, forgiveness, self-control) (sounds like some of the Fruit of the Spirit) Blessed are the merciful. It may not be easy, but the truth is that harboring anger and unforgiveness is more damaging to us than it is to the one we are mad at. Plus, we have been shown immense mercy, we can now reflect that to others.
Mercy is defined as: “compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm.”
Matthew 5:7
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”
Mercy involves forgiveness, sacrifice and self-control. So, in this beatitude, we see Jesus telling people “blessed are the merciful,” those who show mercy to other people, those in whom mercy is a strong character trait, because they, then, themselves, will be shown mercy. There's two aspects to this. The first is showing mercy and the second is receiving it.
Mercy is hard, because mercy is not just about being a nice person or being kind and helping people out and removing people's pain and suffering, though that is one part of it. It is also about actively choosing to remove the pain and suffering that someone has earned, that someone deserves. It is choosing to turn the other cheek, to not retaliate, to not take revenge and to not seek punishment. Mercy is what Jesus did on the cross for us, because, you see, we had something bad coming to us. We had earned and deserved death and punishment and Hell, but Jesus showed His mercy in that He took that from us. He actively chose to forgive our sins, but also, because God is just, He actively chose to take the punishment that was coming for us. That is mercy.
Think about your life. Are there people in your life who have harmed you? People in your life who have betrayed you? People in your life who have let you down? People in your life who have hurt you or done something bad to you? How do you respond to those people? What does it really mean to love and forgive? What does it really mean to show mercy?
We all have individuals in our life who have hurt us. What Jesus is challenging us to do in this beatitude is to forgive and show kindness. To be merciful. Matthew 18:21-22 says, “Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.” In some translations, Jesus says “seventy times seven,” however, whether the number is 77 or 490 doesn’t really matter because the number that Jesus gives here is not meant to be a literal number, but rather symbolic. What Jesus is saying is that we are called to forgive infinitely. There is no number at which we should stop forgiving. There is no number at which we are supposed to stop showing mercy.
This is because we are called to model God, and God is abundant in overflowing mercy toward us.
Psalm 103:8-12
“The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always chide,
nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”
The Bible says that God takes our sins and casts them as far away as the East is from the West. If you were to start today traveling east and just kept on traveling until you started to go west, how far would that be? How far would you have to go east until you start going west? Of course the answer is infinite. There is no distance that you could travel in an easterly direction and eventually start going west. That is what the Bible is saying here. It is saying that God has cast our sins infinitely far away from us.
We should show mercy because God has shown us mercy, and when we are merciful, we receive mercy.
When it comes to giving mercy, we, as the givers, must show self-control and sacrificial kindness, love and forgiveness. However, when it comes to receiving mercy, there’s a whole other set of emotions and acknowledgements that we need to have.
The Bible is full of examples of people asking God for mercy, and what is important in this is that to ask for mercy you have to come to a place of honesty and humility. When asking for mercy you are acknowledging that you are at fault, and that, as a result of that fault, you have some sort of punishment or payment coming for you. You are also acknowledging that the one you are appealing to is superior, has power and authority, both to judge and sentence, but also to withhold that punishment.
We see this take place in Paul’s letter to Timothy.
1 Timothy 1:15-17
“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”
Paul is acknowledging that he is deserving of punishment, but he is also acknowledging Christ as Supreme and worthy of honor and glory.
The thing about mercy is that it does not absolve you of guilt. When Christ showed us mercy by dying for us on the cross, it wasn’t as if we were no longer guilty, but rather our punishment was removed. We had still committed the crime, we did it. We were and are guilty, but Christ showed us mercy in that He took our punishment. He relieved us from the suffering and death. Since God is just, the price still had to be paid, but He showed mercy. He paid it for us.
In fictional stories, whether they are sci-fi, fantasy, super heroes, etc… a defining characteristic of the hero, almost across the board, is mercy. In general, heroes refrain from killing their enemies, even when they can and even when doing so may be the easiest or most effective way of stopping them. They hold themselves back. This doesn’t mean that they don’t stop evil or punish it, but they don’t dole out the full extent of what they are capable of and what the enemy may be deserving of. They show mercy. In fact, when there are heroes that don’t show such restraint they are generally called “anti-heroes.” They accomplish some good things and may have good intentions, but they have no mercy or kindness and are not really heroes.
As a final note, let’s look at a verse from Micah 6:8. We are going to look at it in two versions, the NIV and the ESV, and see how they compare.
NIV
“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
ESV
“He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?”
We are called to mercy (kindness, forgiveness, self-control) (sounds like some of the Fruit of the Spirit) Blessed are the merciful. It may not be easy, but the truth is that harboring anger and unforgiveness is more damaging to us than it is to the one we are mad at. Plus, we have been shown immense mercy, we can now reflect that to others.
- Be just.
- Be kind and merciful.
- Be humble.
- Walk with God.
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