Matthew chapter 5. There are
nine verses of scripture right here. where our Lord taught what
the blessed state is. Nine verses start with the word
blessed or blessed. And he said, this is what blessedness
is. This is what supreme happiness
truly is. Verse three, he said, blessed
are the poor in spirit. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed
are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness. For
they shall be filled. And the one that we're going
to look at this morning is verse seven, where he said. Blessed
are the merciful. For they shall obtain mercy. He said that is blessedness,
that's blessedness. Blessed are the merciful. For
they shall obtain mercy. What is mercy? What is mercy? Mercy is not getting the punishment
that we are owed. Did you know that we are owed
punishment? Did you know that? That's what
we're owed. That's what we've earned. That's
what our works have gotten us. Mercy is not getting the harsh
judgment and the harsh treatment that is owed. That's what mercy
is. Mercy is something that's born
out of love and compassion. It's born out of love and compassion.
Mercy is what calms anger. and appeases wrath. And mercy is what delivers forgiveness to a person who doesn't deserve
it. That's the key to mercy. It's to a person who doesn't
deserve it. If a person deserved compassion, and deserved forgiveness and
was owed relief from a harsh punishment, then it wouldn't
be mercy. At that point, we're not talking about mercy. Not
if they're owed it, that's not mercy. I've told you many times the
story of that man who was standing in the courtroom while his son
was being sentenced to prison. It's a true story. And how, as his son was being,
just before his son was taken away to prison, the man said,
your honor, is there any room for mercy? And the judge said,
based on what your son has done, he doesn't deserve mercy. And
the man said, that's true, your honor. That is so true. But if
he deserved it, it wouldn't be mercy. If He deserved it, it
wouldn't be mercy. Mercy is a heart of compassion,
and it's a willing forgiveness for somebody who doesn't deserve
it. That's mercy. And sadly, I hate
to say this, but that's not us. That is not us. That is not the
way that we are. I wish it was, but it's not.
Our Lord said that we would be happy if we would be this way.
He said we would be blessed if we would be this way. We would
experience the blessedness of what it feels like to be merciful,
truly merciful, full of mercy, merciful, just full of mercy. But we're just not this way.
We are not this way, not in our flesh. In our flesh, we're not
blessed. We want to think that we are. We want to think that we show
mercy and have mercy, but we don't. We harbor anger. We harbor ill feelings. That's
what the flesh does. And we want to believe we don't,
but we do. We don't truly forgive sin that
is committed against us. And the reason we know that's
so is because we don't ever forget it. We don't truly forgive sin
that's committed against us. And the reason we know that's
so is because we don't ever forget it. That's how you know it's
so. That's how you know it's not
truly forgiven. We don't ever forget it. Never. We would love to think that we
do, but I wish I was a good hearted forgiver
and I wish you were too, but we're just not. We're just not. And it's because we don't forget.
We don't forget. I believe you'll relate to this. That feeling inside that says. I honestly believe you'll relate
to this. There's a feeling that we have that says, OK, you have
sinned against me. All right. You've sinned against
me and I can get over it. I can get over that, and we can
go on having a relationship, but I'm going to keep my guard
up. I'm going to. You're not going to do that to
me again. I'm going to keep you at arm's length. I'll be fine,
but I'm going to keep my eye on you. I'll see it coming this
time. That is us not forgiving their
iniquity and that is us remembering their sin. That's what that is.
That's us not forgiving iniquity and remembering sin. And that's
what we do. Even if we try to forgive, even
if we try to forgive, we can't ever forget We can't. We'd love to have a moment of
amnesia or Alzheimer's or whatever, but we can't. We just can't ever
forget it. And it affects our judgment on
a person. Forever, it just does. Somebody will hear that and we'll
say, no, that's not. So I've, I've had things happen
to me and I've truly found a place of forgiveness. I have truly
extended mercy. I have, I've forgotten about
it. Okay. What that means is your mercy
has never truly been tried to this point. That's what that
means. Let somebody do to your son what they did to God's son. And then let's see how your mercy
holds up. Mercy is for those who absolutely
don't deserve it. Mercy is for those who, whenever
you think of that person, they immediately go into the, no,
not him, not her, nope, mm-mm, category. That's who mercy's
for. Nope, mm-mm, no. Mercy is for
those who absolutely, I mean absolutely beyond any shadow
of a doubt, don't deserve it. No hope of deserving it. no worthiness
of deserving it. Turn with me over to Luke chapter
6. This is Luke's account of our
text, the Beatitudes that we're looking at. Luke chapter 6, verse 20. It says, And he lifted up his
eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor, for yours
is the kingdom of God. So this is the same portion of Scripture, the Beatitudes.
And he goes on down in verse 27 to say, But I say unto you
which hear, if you've been given ears to hear, I say unto you
which hear, Love your enemies. And he's not talking about somebody
that we had a spat with and they continually mistreat us and we
just can't seem to get along and that's not who he's talking
about. He's talking about somebody who is holding a weapon with
the intent of ending you. Verse 27, I say unto you which
hear, love your enemies. Do good to them which hate you. Bless them that curse you. And pray for them which despitefully
use you. And unto him that smiteth thee
on the one cheek, offer also the other. And him that taketh
away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every
man that asketh of thee, and of him that taketh away thy goods,
ask them not again. And as you would that men should
do to you, do ye also to them likewise. For if you love them
which love you, what thank have you? For sinners also love those
that love them. But if you do good to them which
do good to you, what thank have you? For sinners also do even
the same. And if you lend to them of whom
you hope to receive, what thank have you? For sinners also lend
to sinners to receive as much again. But love your enemies. and do good and lend, hoping
for nothing again. And your reward shall be great
and you shall be the children of the highest for he is kind
unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful
as your father also is merciful. Now let someone treat us or treat
somebody we love like that. And it'll be proven to us, we
are not merciful. We are not merciful. We will
extend what we think is mercy, what our mind thinks is mercy. We'll extend that to those that
we think deserve our mercy. But to the truly undeserving,
I mean the truly, truly undeserving, it's not going to happen. We
are not merciful. Thank God Christ is. Thank God Christ is. Thank God Christ is merciful. We're going to know him. You
know, God's people know him by faith. but we're gonna know Him
by sight. In the day that we stand in His
presence, this is what we're gonna see of Him and learn of
Him and know of Him. This man is merciful. This man
is full of mercy. He truly did love His enemies. Who were His enemies? You and me. The ones who came to him with
weapons, wanting to end him, you know, those were his people. He saved them. The book of acts
records the fact, but they came crying, crucify him, crucify
him. And we were not physically alive
on this earth. When that happened to our Lord,
we weren't. We weren't there, but all of those people back
then who demanded His death on the cross, they are a representation
of you and me. There are people on this earth
who say, if I would have been alive back then, I would have
stopped it. No, you wouldn't. You would have been organizing
another party. Let's get another party lined up. Crucify Him. We are the natural enemies in
this flesh of everything that is holy and righteous and good
in the Lord our God. We're the enemies of it. And
the fact that our sin is so against Him, that makes us so indescribably
undeserving of His grace and His salvation. So unworthy, so
undeserving. But thank God our Lord is merciful. truly merciful. He is merciful
to the undeserving. And what I want us to see, and
then we'll go, is because He is merciful, He obtained mercy for all of
His people. Because He could obtain that,
He did. And what I want us to see is
how He obtained it. How Christ obtained mercy for
his people. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed
are the merciful. They shall obtain mercy. How did Christ obtain mercy for
his people? Well, we are sinners against
God. All right, we are sinners against
God. And if anyone says, no, I'm not
a sinner against God, I'm not an enemy of God. I hear what
you're saying, but I don't believe it. I'm not guilty of that. This is what 1 John 1 says. It
says, if we say that we have not sinned against him, we're
calling him a liar and the truth is not in us because he says
that we are. He says that we are guilty of
sin against Him. David said in Psalm 51, against
thee and thee only have I sinned. All right, we are guilty. And
Exodus 34 says that the God of heaven and earth will by no means
clear the guilty. He will not do it. He will not
do it. He cannot do it. He would be
unjust and he would be unholy if he did that by the character
of his holiness and the character of his justice. God can only
clear the innocent. God can only clear the innocent.
Just like that man who was standing in the courtroom asking for mercy on behalf of
his son. He was about to be taken away.
The judge didn't give it to him. Again, that's a true story. And that man said, is there any
room for mercy? And the judge didn't give it to him. They took
him away. The judge couldn't give it to
him. He couldn't, it would have been
an unjust judgment. The law would not have been upheld. This is what you did. This is
the law you broke. And this is what the law has
to say about that. That would have been a unjust judgment. The law would not have been upheld.
And that judge would have sinned against the ones he committed
the crime against. He would have lied on and he
would have broken his oath that he took for not upholding the
law. So he couldn't do that. He couldn't just have mercy and
say, you know what, nevermind. Yes, yes, that's the right thing
to do. You just go on home. He couldn't do that. It's not that he was being mean.
That poor man, bless that poor man's heart, on behalf of his
son, he said, Your Honor, is there any room for mercy? Please
have mercy on my son. It's not that he was being mean
to that man and not granting mercy. He couldn't grant mercy. He could not. The judge didn't
have a choice. He had to do what was right according
to the law. And that's how it is with God. He will by no means clear the
guilty because He cannot by any means clear the guilty. He is holy and just and He must
do what's right according to the law. And here's what the law says.
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. All have
sinned. There's none righteous, none
good, No, not one. The law says that the unrighteous
shall not inherit the kingdom of God. This is first Corinthians
six. It says the unrighteous shall
not inherit the kingdom of God. Be not deceived, neither fornicators nor idolaters. We know what fornicators
are. Idolaters are people who worship
the wrong God. nor adulterers, we know what
adultery is, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with
mankind, nor thieves, has anybody ever stolen anything? Nor covetous, has anybody ever
wanted something they didn't have? Nor drunkards, nor revilers,
Nor extortioners shall enter the kingdom of God. Those people
are not going in. He goes on to say, and such were
some of you. And what he means by that were
such were all of you. All have sinned. Somebody will
hear one of those and say, Oh, I'm a sinner. All have sinned. So he will not
clear the guilty and we're guilty. All right. We are guilty. You
hear something like that and you think, well, what does that
mean for me? Here's what it means. You're guilty and I'm guilty. We're guilty. All right. Here's the big question. How
can God have mercy on me? If that's so, how can God have
mercy on us? He is merciful. He's full of
mercy. Mercy is in His heart. He said
He delights to show it. But if He cannot clear the guilty,
and we're guilty, if He must punish sin, and we're sinners, Even though He desires to show
mercy, even though He delights to show mercy, how can He without
breaking the law? How can He without being unjust
about it? How is it possible for God to
show mercy to His people? Here's the answer. The answer
is He had to obtain it for them. To remain just, he couldn't just
show it, he had to obtain it. He had to earn it for him. He
said, he said, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I
will show mercy to who I am pleased to show mercy to. But that mercy
came at a price. It came at the price of redemption.
And thank God Christ obtained it. He obtained it. The one who
was merciful obtained mercy for his people. Turn with me, if
you would, to Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians 2 verse 1, it says,
and you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prince of the power of the air, held
under the captivity of the adversary. The spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our
conversation, That means way of life. In times past, in the
lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as
others. But God, who is rich in mercy,
for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, he quickened us together with Christ." That's
how he obtained it. By grace, we are saved. That's how He obtained it. He
quickened us together with Christ. What does quickened us together
with Christ mean? Look at verse 15, Ephesians 2
verse 15. It means He abolished in His
flesh the enmity, the hatred, the enemy. He abolished in His
flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments, contained in
ordinances, for to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making
peace, and that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by
the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. And He came and preached
peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. Through the message of the gospel,
He preached the fact that He quickened us together with Christ. He took all of that sin and all
of that guilt upon Himself. And standing there in all of
our guilt and all of our shame and all of our humility, God
the Judge, God the Father could not clear the guilty. And He didn't. And He slayed
His own Son. And in that, He brought life. He removed death and He brought
life to His people. He quickened us together with
Christ. And with all of that guilt and
all of that sin being gone, He preached peace through the message
of His gospel. Look with me at Hebrews 9. This
is the peace He preached. Hebrews 9. Verse 11, Hebrews 9 verse 11 says, but
Christ being come and high priest of good things to come by a greater
and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is
to say not of this building, Neither by the blood of goats
and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy
place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." That's how
He obtained it. He obtained mercy and He obtained
forgiveness by His own blood. And it's a true forgiveness.
It's a true mercy that has brought true forgiveness. See if this
will be a blessing to you. Look at chapter 10, Hebrews 10
verse 11. It says, every priest standing daily,
ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can
never take away sin. They keep trying and trying,
but they've never done it. Verse 12 says, But this man,
after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on
the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be
made his footstool. He brought his enemies to his
place of rest. For by one offering he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified, those that were set apart. Whereof
the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us, for after that he had
said before, this is the covenant that I will make with them after
those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their
hearts and in their minds will I write them." Verse 17 says,
and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. I won't
remember them anymore. Not only has He forgiven, He
has forgotten. How can God forget? It can't be. It can't exist. Verse 18, He said, Now remission
of these is, there's no more offering for sin, because there's
not any. No more sin. Mercy and forgiveness
has removed it. Now let me close with this question,
all right? Who did Christ obtain mercy for? Who did Christ obtain mercy for?
He obtained it for His people. But who are they? Who are they? Who did Christ obtain mercy for? Here's the answer. Every soul who needs it. Every soul who needs it. You say, well, that could include
anybody. That's right. Whosoever will. Whosoever will. I thought this was a particular
group of people. It is. It is. All of those particular
people are included in this one word. Whosoever. That's the particular
people because whoever is not a whosoever won't. I'm telling you, those who are
not God's people don't need mercy. They're not poor and broken and
low. They're high and mighty and self-righteous
and lifted up and puffed up and in need of nothing. But this message goes out in
God's people, and He convicts His people, and He brings their
sin to them, and He brings them down into the depths of it. And they cry out for mercy. And
they realize, I'm not. I'm not. Every soul who needs
mercy Christ obtained mercy for that soul. Every soul who needs
mercy is evidencing the fact that Christ obtained mercy for
that soul. Only God's people need mercy. Only God's people. I for years
thought about this and heard about this and I used to think
what a shame would it be if someone was begging and pleading for
mercy and God didn't show it to them. What a shame it would
have been if somebody was begging, Noah, please let me get on this
ark. And Noah said, nope, this is
only for us. What a shame that would have
been. But that didn't happen. Every soul who was on that ark,
God made them willing to be on that ark. And every soul who
cries out for mercy, God has put that person in a place where
they realize, I need some mercy. I need mercy. Outside of God,
doing a work in a sinner's heart, that sinner will never cry out
for mercy. I read that article sometimes,
and I tell you, it was an old preacher of the gospel who wrote
it. It was Brother Henry. But the difference in preaching
Christ and preaching about Christ? Talking about the beauty and
the fragrance of this rose. Somebody can give me all the
details, but you're missing the beauty and fragrance of the rose.
He said, I need to know that. He said, it's like someone who
knows how God saves sinners, but is not a saved sinner. Somebody
can know, oh yeah, total depravity, unconditional election, limited
atonement, such on and such on and such on, and never stand
there crying, God be merciful to me. Somebody can say, God
has to be merciful to sinners and never cry, God, be merciful
to me. Outside of God doing a work in
a sinner's heart, that sinner will never, ever cry, God, be
merciful to me. Here's what I would do. Salvation
is of the Lord. There's nothing we do, but here's
what I would do. If I don't feel a need to cry
out for mercy, I would start asking God, will you please give
me a need to cry out for mercy? It will be painful. Cause you
gotta be brought down to the depths to see the need to cry
out for mercy, but it would be the best thing that ever happened
to us. Please give me a heart to cry out for mercy. Please
don't let me be cold to your mercy. Please don't let me hear
about what God Almighty, pure and perfect, did for sinners,
wretched man, and think nothing of it and say, I've heard that
already. Isn't that what we do? Lord, please save me from what
I am. Save me from what I'm not. Help
me. Please help me. If you do that,
God is doing that in you. And if you do, it means Christ
has obtained mercy for you. Every one of God, the father's
selected people, every one of them, Christ has obtained mercy
for them. And every one of them, the spirit
will quicken the heart in them to cry out for mercy. And every
one of them will cry out for mercy. And every one of them
will get it. Every one of them. Hebrews 4
says God's people can approach the throne anytime they want
to, to obtain mercy in time of need. And Lamentations 3 says
it's brand new every morning. All you want, all you need, He'll
never run out of it. And let me, I've been too long,
but let me close with this scripture. Go with me to 1 Peter 2. Verse Peter 2, verse 7, it says, unto you therefore which believe,
and that's not of ourselves, that's a gift of God. Unto you therefore which believe,
He is precious. But unto them which be disobedient
and don't believe the Word of God, The stone which the builders
disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a
stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which
stumble at the word, being disobedient, not believing the word, whereunto
also they were appointed. But you are a chosen generation,
a royal priesthood." Who's he talking about? Those who believe,
those who have been given faith to see this and say, that's what
God said. You're a chosen generation, a
royal priesthood and holy nation, a peculiar people that you should
show forth the praises of him who had called you out of darkness
into his marvelous light, which in time past were not a people,
but are now the people of God. which had not obtained mercy,
but now have obtained mercy. That's the glorious message of
the gospel. In Christ, in the accomplishment of Christ on his
cross, you have obtained mercy with God. Christ made it so that
he could show true forgiveness and true mercy to his undeserving,
unworthy people. And we say, bless God. Blessed
be God. Blessed be the one who was merciful,
for he obtained mercy for us. All right, let's all stand together.