Well, hey, good morning. Let's go to Matthew five. You have your Bible, uh, with you, me and Craig. We're gonna do a chest bump. We couldn't figure out how to work it into the morning, though, so, uh, good, uh, good handoff.

So we're in a series, uh, right now called The Good Life. And we're asking the question, what, what is that? What is the good life? The one that you, the one that you actually want deep down. Uh, what is that?

Uh, well, Jesus, the world's greatest teacher, says that it's the life where you are poor in spirit, where meekness is a part of your life, where you, uh, mourn over sin and suffering. We saw last week it's hunger and thirst for righteousness. Uh, so when you fill your life with those things, you begin to flourish the life that you want, the freedom that you want, the joy, uh, that you're after right now. It comes by doing these difficult things, flourishing comes into your life. So Matthew five sevens we're gonna be this morning, and Jesus, uh, is building on this picture of what, of what the blessed life is.

So here's what Jesus says. Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. So if you want flourishing in your life, mercy is key to that. Uh, you have to have mercy flowing into your life, flowing from your life. This is how you flourish, is how you thrive as, uh, a follower of Jesus by showing mercy, by living in mercy.

And notice what Jesus says here. It's the merciful, not just those that show it here and there. Uh, these are not just random acts of mercy just here and there. This is you becoming merciful. It goes into your heart that you become the kind of person that shows mercy, that your default kind of posture is your, your Merci merciful.

Uh, whenever you do that though, Jesus says that you, you find life. You are blessed, you, you flourish in that. Um, now, I just wanna ask you the question, do you believe that? I, I'm not certain that you do, because mercy, as we're gonna see, it's gonna cost you something. Mercy hurts to show it.

Uh, it stings a bit. Uh, we have to die to our ego, our pride, our just our need to justify ourselves and defend ourselves. We have to, we want love to hold on to those things. Those things have to die when it comes to you showing mercy. But when you do this, all this joy comes rushing into your life, and there's freedom in that.

And so do you actually believe that once you, once you rip the bandaid off, uh, all this healing, all this joy, uh, comes, come flooding in. Let, let's ask three questions of the Texas morning. Uh, what is mercy? Who needs mercy? And how do you become merciful?

So what is it, what is this thing called mercy? So just so we're clear on that. Um, and then who, who needs it? Who needs to receive mercy now? And then, how do we become merciful, um, people?

Then we'll get you off to your restaurant of choice. Okay? So number one, what is mercy? Uh, what preachers often do is try to define something by defining what it's not, so it takes longer, okay? So you're stuck with this for a bit.

So what is it not? Uh, just so we're real clear on this, mercy is not tolerance. It's not just you putting up with someone and just kind of dealing with it. That's not what mercy is. Uh, mercy does not just kind of sit back and tolerate what someone does, okay?

Uh, mercy is not, it's not passive. Uh, Mercy's very active. You're, you're moving towards someone in mercy. You're confronting even when you're, even though you're showing mercy, uh, you're not just sitting back and doing nothing. It's like not ignoring hurt and pain.

If someone hurts you, it's not wrong to be hurt by that. You don't repent of pain, okay? So you aren't ignoring pain and hurt when someone, it's not merciful to say, yes, it hurt. I'm just gonna numb the pain and ignore it. That's not being, uh, merciful.

It's also not ignoring consequences. There's still consequences. There's still things that, that, that happen as we walk in certain ways. There's consequences to our action. But you showing mercy is not just saying, those don't matter now and then finally, it's not.

It's not just being nice. It's not just you being a kind person, polite person, tolerating people. That's not mercy. Um, mercy cuts through all of that. Mercy takes sin very seriously.

Um, mercy has a way of moving through all this. So here's how you might, uh, define what, uh, what mercy actually is. Mercy, mercy is entering into someone else's struggle, even at great cost to yourself. And again, it's gonna cost you, it, it's just impossible, not for it to hurt a bit, but you're, you're entering into someone's struggle. You're, you're waiting into the mess and the brokenness of someone's story, someone's life, even if it costs you.

And, and we're gonna see how, what it, what it costs God to show, to show us mercy. Uh, there are two aspects of it, okay? I wanna show you. One is forgiveness. So mercy is this idea of I'm forgiving someone, uh, that's hurt me, that's caused me great harm.

I'm showing mercy, and I'm, I'm forgiving them. Uh, the, the best example of this is Matthew 18. Jesus tells this parable of this man who wants to settle his accounts. He wants to, you know, to, to clean his books up. And he finds a guy, and it's outrageous for a, for a purpose, okay?

He finds this man that owes him 10,000 talents. Uh, now a talent is hard. It's hard to measure it, but it's about 20 years wages. This guy owes 10,000 of them. So he is 200,000 years in debt.

I don't know how he got there. Dave Ramsey just gave up on the guy. There's no way he gets out of this. Okay? I, I don't know how the guy got there.

I don't know what's on his visa bill. Um, I don't know what his hobbies are or his business plan was, but my man swung for the fence on, on his debt. And the king cancels it. The master just forgives the debt. He absorbs the cost, and he takes it himself, and he forgives him.

The man can't believe it. Well, then this guy goes and finds someone that owes him a hundred Denarius, which is like a day wage. So a hundred days worth, not, not nothing, but not 200,000 years worth of wages. And he chokes the guy out. He wants to kill the guy over this small amount.

And the king summons him back in Matthew, uh, 18. Then his master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant. I forgave all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not, you have had mercy on your fellow servants, as I had mercy on you. So mercy is forgiveness.

It's, it's canceling a debt. It's no longer holding it against someone. You're forgiving something. Um, and again, it's going to cost you something. You have to take the, the cost, and you have to absorb the debt.

I'll give you an example. So I, uh, was in Austin, Texas for years. There are some coffee snobs out there, okay? It gets, it gets really bad out there. So, uh, but we use this method called a Chemex, okay?

It's this glass kind of jar looking thing. Um, it's this very slow ancient method. I'm pretty sure that Jesus drank his coffee this way. I can't confirm that, but this is what we used out there, okay? Big time snobs.

Uh, let's say you come to my house and you are talking and you're waving your arms and you knock my Chemex over and it shatters. I'll forgive you eventually. Okay, I'll, I'll get there eventually. That, that's, that's your mercy. But there's still a Chemex that needs to be, to be paid for.

I have to pay for it. I now go into my own pocket. I absorbed the cost. I forgave you that cost, but I took it myself. And this is why, this is why mercy and, and forgiveness is so hard, because it costs you something.

You, you just wanna hold on to unforgiveness and bitterness and hold that grudge for a long time. It's why, it's why forgiving hurts so badly for us. And it's so hard to do sometimes. It's why unforgiveness feels so good. It's why it tastes so good for a while, but it's robbing and eroding your joy and, and mercy and forgiveness.

It, it frees us up and it clears the air, and the, the weight comes off our shoulders, and we reconcile with someone. But that's what happens in, in mercy as there is forgiveness. Secondly, there's compassion. Uh, the example of this is the good Samaritan, uh, that Jesus tells in Luke 10. So there's a guy that, you know, he gets mugged.

He's left for dead. He's in a ditch, bleeding out with no cell phone. And, and two religious elites walk by him, a priest and a Levites, and they at great effort go around him. So they make a sacrifice off to go off the road and to go around the guy who's in the ditch bleeding out. But a Samaritan.

And if you know your Bible, the, the history of this, the, the Samaritan is the least likely person in the world to help a Jew. They, they were utter enemies. Um, but the Samaritan, he sees him and he actually sees him. So here's what Jesus says, but a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion on him.

So compassion is the sense that your heart goes out to someone, that there's something that happens inwardly, that your heart, it moves for them. He has compassion on him. He went to him, bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, brought him to an end and took care of him. And there's a lawyer who's challenging Jesus with his wi his wine.

He tells the story. And so Jesus asked him, he says, which of these three then do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man, fellow among the robbers? And he can't even say Samaritan, the one who showed him mercy. And Jesus says, go do that. Go and do likewise.

So mercy is this idea of me showing compassion to someone. They're in a, a broken, hopeless state, and I move toward them, my heart, my heart goes out to them, and I move toward them and actually, uh, actually help. So that, that's what mercy is, broad strokes. It's, it's forgiveness. It's compassion.

We're moving towards someone in their, uh, in their struggle, even at great cost to ourself. Now, let's ask who needs it? When do you show this? All right? Um, and what I'm asking here is what, what occasions are calling for us to show mercy to someone who needs your mercy?

Uh, three, three kinds of people. The sinner, the sufferer, and the skeptic. Okay? So first, the sinner and I get, yes, we're all sinners. I'm not, I'm not saying that.

What I'm saying is that there's someone in or around you that it's either walking in rebellion against the Lord, um, or they've sinned against you. They've heard they've betrayed you, lied to you in some way. They, they've sinned now against you. And again, I'm not saying you don't confront that you, that you sit back and just tolerate this. You move toward them.

But the posture is mercy. The posture is forgiveness and reconciliation, not judgment and punishment. So the sinners, those who've sinned against us, uh, who've sinned against us, they need mercy from us. Um, those who have betrayed us, this is our problem though, isn't it? Because I, you know, we want mercy for our sins.

We want justice for theirs is I want compassion for mine. I want punishment for yours. I want forgiveness for mine, but I want payback for yours. And so we withhold, uh, forgiveness, we withhold mercy from those, uh, who are around us. CS Lewis said it like this.

Everyone says, forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive. What a great concept forgiveness is until there's someone that betrays us, doesn't invite us, God forbid, unfollows us somewhere, okay? That's when it's not such a lovely idea to us anymore. And Lewis says, we love the idea, but it's actually doing this, showing mercy, extending this to those who've, uh, have sinned against us. Secondly, is those who are suffering hurting, people need mercy.

And I think we're so prone to kind of pull back at times, but what, what often happens is that this has to start in the heart. And so what often happens is you see someone suffering and exposes your heart, and, and you see kind of, what's that? The, the lack of compassion that you, we tend to live with. Um, I saw this, uh, years ago. Um, me and my youngest son at the time, he was seven.

Uh, we are at my oldest son's baseball game, and their catcher was up to bat, gets hit in the hand. And I mean, he freaks out. He's jumping around. He's, you know, he's just shaking his hand, hobbling around, gets to first base, they get a runner for me. Comes off the field, and he's just, I mean, he's in tears.

He's crying. It looks, it looks embarrassing from my, my perspective. And I'm thinking, dude, suck it up. What is wrong with you? The guy's not throwing that hard.

Like, come on, like, stop being such a baby and let's play. And I turned to my son to make a joke about it and didn't realize that when he, he knew this kid didn't realize that when he saw him got get hit, he gets up, goes to the dugout, gets his water, helps him get his gear, and is making sure he is okay. And I felt like the worst human alive. Um, I have, I have advanced degrees in theology. They have, they're framed up somewhere.

My 7-year-old has more mercy than me. Now, the kid was still being a wimp. Let's be sure that we're clear for the record that that was not acceptable. But I gotta see my own heart of I'm here making jokes, and he's actually going to make sure that he, that his friend is okay. So mercy, it, it exposes us, and it it shows our heart of how little compassion we tend to live with.

And so, who needs your mercy right now? Who need you need to go to? Um, that your heart needs to go out to them and actually help? Lemme say something that's gonna offend all of us. Okay?

Before I say this though, you should know that, that Kyle Warren said it was okay. So he saw this and he knows, all right, one of our, our other pastors, whatever you're doing right now, to help someone in their suffering, do more, do more. Yes, I know, I know, I know you're busy. Life is crazy. All of us feel that.

But, but ask yourself, could I do more? And the answer sometimes is no. The answer very often is you could. There's something to pray, to pray about. Alright, number three, third person is the skeptic.

I love this one. Uh, there's a verse in Jude that I forget the verses in the Bible. Sometimes you're there for having it. You're like, how'd this get there? I, I forgot this was in there.

Um, Jude says, have mercy on those who doubt. And so we say very often that, that we, it's on our wall out there that we're a church for the unchurch. What does that mean? It means that skeptics are welcome here. It means that those who are wrestling with, with questions of faith, of who Jesus is, of who God is, what it means to know him, what it means to, to follow his will, there's room to wrestle with that here.

Um, no one's gonna push you away because you have doubts. And so if you don't know who Jesus is, you don't even know if God exists, or you're maybe you're angry at God because of something that happened that you thought you deserved better, and now you're angry at him and you just hate the idea of church. And somehow, this was your last ditch effort today to come and try one more time. We prayed that this morning in our production meeting one, one last time with this. I just need you to know that you're welcome here, that there's room for you to wrestle with those things, to, to work through doubts, to work through, because, and if you meet those people, by the way, if you are a believer in you're, and you're firm in your faith, and you meet skeptics, cut 'em some slack because at one point you didn't believe at one point you were walking in darkness.

You didn't know who God was. You didn't know what you believed about who this God is, and somebody was patient with you. So if, if that is you, if you just, if you're struggling with this whole thing, or if you're just kind of kicking the tires of, of Christianity, and you're trying to figure out what it means to follow Jesus, you're welcome here. Jesus welcomed skeptics. Now he challenged them, and we're gonna challenge you as well.

But you're welcome to wrestle with it. There's room here to grapple with what it means to know. God, we, we want you here. We have mercy on those who, those who doubt. All right?

Last, last thing is, how do you become this? I mean, how, how great is mercy? It frees us up. It gives us life. It it takes the weight off of our shoulders.

It blesses and serves others. So how do you become merciful? I'm glad you asked. I have some, I have some thoughts. Um, here's, there's a lot of things you could say here.

Here's what I would, what I would say over, over all of that, that you must become a amazed at God's mercy toward you. You must become amazed at the mercy God has shown you in his son. When, when, when you see that, when, when that hits your heart, when that really gets down to the core of who you are, and you recognize this is what God has done for me, the mercy God has shown. When you see what it costs God to show you mercy, when you see that the price that God paid to have mercy on you, when that really melts your heart, you'll, you'll become merciful. How?

How could you not, how could you not see the Gospel, what God has done for you through his son and not become merciful? And so, as this, as this hits your life, as you see what God has done, this is how you become. It's not just with your effort. It's not just with your willpower. It is by seeing what God has done for you and being utterly astonished that this God would have mercy on you.

Um, think of it like this. Whenever God wants to create something, what's he do? He he speaks it into existence. You know, let there be, let there be light. Let there be, you know, the heavens.

Let there be waters. Let, let us make man in our image. He just speaks. And it happens. When God wants to do a miracle, God wills it into existence and rock split and bread falls from heaven and sees par and the dead are raised.

And Jesus just says, Lazarus, get up. Come out. Little girl. Wake up. And it happens.

But when God wants to show mercy, when God actually wants to forgive and, and extend mercy to those who are, uh, lost and hopeless, there is no let there be there. There is no just willing it into existence. No, there is a cost. There is a price that has to be paid. So who's, who's gonna pay it?

I mean, we can't pay it. All we have is, is debt. And you can't pay off debt with debt. Some of you've tried that. It doesn't work.

The debt is still there. You can't refinance your sin, debt, the rates are really bad. You can't do it. Someone's gotta pay. So who pays for it?

Well, God will pay for it. God will give up what he treasures the most to pay for it, his own son. He will offer him up the one that had no sin, the one that commits no sin, the one that needs no mercy from God. He'll do what we can't and give himself for us and die in our place. And now it's no longer let there be, there is no let there be.

Now, it is, it is finished that his son dies for us in our place. That's how, that's what it cost God to show me and you mercy. And God could have, God could have left us in, um, a broken, sinful state. Um, we were, we're wandering in darkness like Goum, there any Tolkien fans here? Okay, two of you.

We'll hugging them for you later, the atrium later. So, uh, but Gollum smigel for the nerds here. Okay? I saw, I get it right. He finds the ring.

I've lost half the room here. I'm sorry. We'll get through this in a bit. Uh, but, you know, he finds the ring, uh, and it corrupts him. He gets so obsessed with it that it turns into this horrible creature that's wandering in caves, living in darkness, utterly hopeless.

The Bible says that we were like that, that that really is the picture that we've curved into ourselves, that we just want to live for ourselves and we're wandering in darkness. And God could have left us there, but, but he wouldn't. He wanted to show mercy. He showed mercy to us at great cost, to an infinite cost to himself. And I've been waiting all week to tell you this.

He delighted to do it. He, he's a God who delights in showing you mercy. I, I think we just think so little of God's mercy. I I think that in our, in our minds, we think that it, that it frustrates God to show us mercy. That if we have to ask for it, God's like, fine, here's your mercy.

That it somehow angers God and frustrates God to show you mercy. If that's what you think. I have great news for you. If you think that it angers God to show, or it inconveniences the Father to show you mercy, you've got the wrong God. That that's not the God we're talking about here.

This God delights in showing mercy. Uh, several years ago, I, I caught my nine-year-old son lying, not the merciful one, the other, the other one. Um, and I, I forget even what it was now. I was so mad. I was livid.

And so I go in his room and I'm like, you get off Fortnite right now. Okay, finish your round and then you get off Fortnite. Why can't we pause games anymore? What has happened? And I just let him have it.

And I tried and failed at this, but I tried to have those moments where, okay, I forgive you, Jesus died for you. You know, the whole Gospel and my okay, and then, and things are, are fine. Nope, not this time. I just, I just walked out and he's, you know, he's slumped over. He's so upset.

Uh, and my plan was just to wait. Was that right? I don't know. I don't know how to raise a human and you don't either. Okay?

I's, but I, my plan was to let him just sit in his sin and his shame for, I don't know, an hour a month. I don't know. I had no, I had no plan beyond that. Just let him wait. And I kid you not, I mean, I had him right where I wanted him, okay?

And two minutes in to me closing the door, a verse just starts ringing in my head. And it's this one, as a father has compassion for his children, the Lord has compassion for those who fear him, for he knows our frame. He remembers that we are but dust. And I'm like, oh, come on. Dang it, I can't spend two minutes here letting him sit in this.

And it was so hard to wait. I wanted so badly to go back in there. And some of you parents have felt this to go back in there and just make it right and win him back and clear the air and go about our day and finish the round. Like I just wanted, it was so hard to wait. And here's the thing.

If that's how we feel as parents, that we just, yes, we're angry, yes, we're frustrated, but something in our heart is just moving for them in the right direction. And we so want to go rescue them. If that's what we feel, and we're sinful and we're, and we're finite. What does God feel? What does God's heart do when he's about to extend, extend mercy to you?

I'll tell you what it does. It explodes with joy. That his heart is so filled up with joy and pleasure over showing you mercy. He delights in it. That's what Micah chapter seven says, Micah, one of the, uh, one of the prophets, uh, says that, uh, who is a God like you, who pardons and forgives transgression.

You do not stay angry forever, but delight to show mercy. Well, why is he delighted to show mercy? Because this is who God is. Uh, Paul calls him in second Corinthians. Paul refers to him, uh, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ as the father of mercies.

Mercy was his idea, not ours. It's God's idea. And he delights to show this mercy toward us. His mercy is set to a hair trigger that the smallest amount of any movement toward him of any remorse over our sin, he's right there on the scene showing you mercy. And he's delighting to do it.

That's why the Bible says his mercies are new every morning. He just delights to show this again and again and again. And when that hits you, when that becomes not, not just useful to you, but beautiful to you, you'll, how could you not become merciful? How could you hold on to unforgiveness and bitterness any longer? Because you're saying that you didn't need God's mercy toward you.

That's what Jesus means. I think by this whole idea. Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. He's not saying you earn God's mercy by showing it to others. It's as far from that.

He's saying that, that when you, if you're merciful, you're saying you've already received God's mercy toward you. So it's like, it's like air in our lungs. You can only breathe out what you've already breathed in. And once you breathe in God's mercy toward you and see what it costs God to save you, how could you not breathe it out toward others? But if you withhold that, what you're saying to God is, I don't need your compassion.

I don't need your mercy. But as you see how, how good this is and what it costs God to rescue you, when that, when that's coursing through your veins, that's how you become merciful. And so the hope is that we, we walk in this, this is what brings joy and life and the freedom that you want is by walking in, in mercy. Now, some of you, you're new, maybe new to church, and you don't know who this, who Jesus is. And we want you to know him.

We want you to know who this God is and the mercy that he has toward you. And so it's very simple what you need to do, okay? Maybe it's simple. All you need is to need it. And that could be the hardest part.

'Cause you want to earn it. You want, you want to achieve it. But no, you just, you just need to need it and open your life to God's mercy and ask him to have mercy on you. And when you do that, it utterly changes everything. The entire course of your life utterly changes when you come under God's mercy.

And so this is the blessed life. This is the good life. And so let's, let's go live it. I wanna pray for us, and then we're gonna sing together, and then we're gonna watch, uh, some baptisms. So make it loud for them today, okay?

Lemme pray for us. God, there is no one more merciful than you. God, thank you That you wanted to rescue us. God, you didn't have to. You could have, you could have left us in our sin, left us in darkness, but God, you came and got us.

Father, I pray that that utterly changes how we think about mercy. God, I'm certain that there are people that we need to forgive, to have compassion toward and to extend the mercy that, that you've shown us and God, how, how could we not? And so if we need to have a fresh awakening to your mercy, God calls that to happen. And I pray that we would move to toward those around us that, that need it. Jesus, thank you that you welcome the skeptic, that you push no one away that had doubts and questions.

And so help us to welcome those and have mercy on those who doubt. Father, we need you. Um, God, make us merciful. Whatever has to happen in us, whatever needs to change in us, would you fill up our hearts, uh, and cause us to walk, um, in mercy. We ask these things in Jesus.

Great name.