The Great Reversal, Blessed are the merciful.

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

I coached youth football for a few years, and during that time I learned a lot about leadership, a lot about motivating, and a lot about kids. I loved coaching, and I loved getting to know all the kids and their personalities. On every team I coached, there was always a kid or two who was very quick to call out teammates for mistakes, or yell at teammates if they weren’t doing what we asked them to do. Which in and of itself, can be a good thing, it can help build leaders and hold each other accountable, the problem is, from my point of view as the adult and head coach, I could see it all, and the kids doing the calling out and yelling and reprimanding, were making no fewer and no less severe mistakes than the ones they were noticing in everyone else.

That type of culture and behavior on a youth football team will cause friction and division among the players. It leads to problems in the dynamic of team and puts players against one another instead of for one another, and puts me, as the coach in a position of having to be more critical of mistakes in hopes of opening the eyes of these kids so they will see they are making the same mistakes they are calling everyone else out for.

I wonder if God, who sees it all, doesn’t see us like those critical players sometimes. It’s so easy to see what looks like the big sins of others, and ignore what we see as the little sins in ourselves. Some sins we can spot a mile away in others, those are easy to call out and make an example of, the less obvious ones, that may be lurking in our own lives are much harder to see and therefore don’t get called out. But our Father in Heaven sees them, and they grieve Him as much as the ones we can see. When we call out the sins of others, the proverbial pot calling the kettle black, and That’s what hypocrisy is made of.

When we read Matthew 5:7 “blessed are the merciful”, do we assume we are in good shape, do we assume ourselves blessed?

Mercy is defined as, compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm.

Mercy means treating people better than they deserve.

Mercy is forgiveness.

Jesus taught a parable about the connection between mercy and compassion leading to forgiveness in Matthew 18.

Matthew 18:21-35 Then Peter approached him and asked, “Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? As many as seven times?” “I tell you, not as many as seven,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven. “For this reason, the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle accounts, one who owed ten thousand talents was brought before him. Since he did not have the money to pay it back, his master commanded that he, his wife, his children, and everything he had be sold to pay the debt. “At this, the servant fell facedown before him and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you everything.’ Then the master of that servant had compassion, released him, and forgave him the loan. “That servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him, started choking him, and said, ‘Pay what you owe!’ “At this, his fellow servant fell down and began begging him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ But he wasn’t willing. Instead, he went and threw him into prison until he could pay what was owed. When the other servants saw what had taken place, they were deeply distressed and went and reported to their master everything that had happened. Then, after he had summoned him, his master said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And because he was angry, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he could pay everything that was owed. So also my heavenly Father will do to you unless every one of you forgives his brother or sister from your heart.”

The level of forgiveness provided to us through Christ is unfathomable, the level of forgiveness Jesus expects from us is equal to it. We have no room for grudge holding, or forgiveness withholding. We are the servant of whom more than we could ever pay was forgiven and paid in full, all record of debt, our wicked and miserable sin debt, was washed away and forgotten through Christ. Jesus says as much as you can possibly forgive, do it more. As much mercy as you can possibly have for others, have more.

Mercy is not some abstract idea that we feel for another person or something we consider deeply in our souls, mercy has legs, it goes to those who have done wrong to us or are different than us and it builds bridges and makes connections, it forgives.

Mercy is visceral, it is something that happens inside of us and changes us from the inside out, and once it does, it pours out and we give it freely because we have received it freely.

Mercy without forgiveness is hypocrisy.

Do we forgive without exception and expectation? Do we look for opportunities to show mercy to others, or do we look for opportunities to be offended, hold grudges, and not forgive? Do we feel like our forgiveness must be earned in some way?

Do you still assume you are in good shape in the area of mercy?

Jesus Christ is the Face of God’s mercy, He personifies forgiveness, therefore if Christ’s Holy Spirit lives in us, that means mercy flows from us as well. If mercy and forgiveness are a struggle for us, it means pride has taken root.

There’s an ugly little truth about the human spirit that tends to show up somewhere along the way in our lives as we face hurts and betrayals, we want revenge! Somewhere deep inside we all want to see those who have wronged us “pay” for their mistakes. We want them to hurt like they hurt us. But, when repentance happens, and the great mercy of God shows up, we’re left to deal with this unsatisfied longing for justice. This often creates a great battle within our souls so dangerous, it has the potential to derail our faith if we’re not careful.

It’s in times like these that we have an opportunity to grow in Christ, to practice the gift of mercy.

The act of mercy on our part puts us in right relationship with God.

When we show mercy, we aren’t trying to be the god of our own life and we get out of the way so God can be God. One of the hardest lessons we must master as followers of Jesus is not to seek revenge, not to get even, not to try to make things right in our own strength.

Romans 12:19-21 Friends do not avenge yourselves; instead, leave room for God’s wrath, because it is written, Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord. But If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For in so doing you will be heaping fiery coals on his head. Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good.

Conquer evil with Good, feed those who hate you, do good to those who oppose you. Our greatest calling and weapon against evil is good, evil hates good, evil can’t respond to mercy, love and forgiveness. In fact, good in the face of evil may be the every thing that pulls someone from the clutches of the enemy. Responding to evil with evil just makes us part of the world, responding in love sets us apart form the world, that is what holiness is.

In Matthew 9, as Jesus was eating at Matthew’s house with many sinners and tax collectors, there were also some Pharisees nearby who asked, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

Jesus overheard this question and responded by saying,

Matthew 9:12-13 “It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Jesus says He desires mercy and not sacrifice. He was quoting the prophet Hosea, who, centuries earlier, had condemned the Jews for attempting to excuse their idolatry and their oppression of the poor by offering the prescribed animal sacrifices.

God always values “mercy” over “sacrifice.”

But what exactly does that mean?

If the idea of showing mercy brings us thoughts of feeding the poor or giving money to a ministry or some other good work that we can go thru the motions of and cross off our mercy list, we are missing it. That literally is sacrifice. We would be like the Jews trying to offer animals to make it right with God. No level of good works will every equate to mercy.

When we look at this account in Matthew, Jesus was eating with sinners and tax collectors, Jesus was enjoying their company, He was breaking bread with them, that was a big deal at the time, Jesus was in relationship with these people, Jesus knew them. When the Pharisees looked at what was happening, they saw sinners and tax collectors, the dregs of society. When Jesus looked, He saw people He knew and loved and wanted to spend time with.

Jesus made it about the people, not a work that could be performed. With Jesus it’s always about people, it’s always about relationship. When we view what we do in Jesus’s name as faceless sacrifices, we’ve missed the whole concept of “love as I have loved you” (John 13:34). It’s all personal with Jesus. It’s all about relationships.

If we truly want to move beyond sacrifice to mercy—as Jesus calls us to do—we need to get our heart involved. Jesus longs for us to move beyond the idea of sacrifice—what we feel obligated to give up to be perceived as religious. He wants us to get real, He wants our hearts involved, tangled up with other people’s lives, He wants us to be His loving hands and feet in a world that very well may not know Him.

Jesus ate with Matthew and his friends because he wanted to. He loved them. I envision laughter, jokes, backslapping, and joy. Especially joy. Sacrifice doesn’t supply joy.

The Pharisees couldn’t conceive of that kind of camaraderie between the pious and the publicans, the upright and the upended, the moral and the maligned. But Jesus didn’t label people. So, he loved Nicodemus as genuinely as he loved Zacchaeus, and Mary of Bethany as he loved Mary Magdalene. He always looked beyond a person’s history toward a person’s future.

Mercy and forgiveness look forward, not backwards.

Our Father in Heaven is so merciful, He is so forgiving and loving. He gives knowing we cannot repay; He loves knowing we may not love Him back. He paid our greatest debt and made a way for us to find true freedom even though He knew much of the world would scoff, mock and never accept this free gift.

As the body of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth we have a duty, we are called to love sacrificially, to forgive freely and the show mercy without exception, knowing we will be done wrong, betrayed and hated.

Blessed are the merciful, they will be shown mercy.

To me, this beatitude can be stated in one simple phrase,

Love everyone anyway.