Living In The Kingdom Part 3
Scripture: Matthew 5:7-9; Ephesians 5:1-2; First John 3:1-3
This is part three of my series “Living in the Kingdom.” So far we have examined what Jesus said about those who are poor in spirit; who mourn; are meek; and have a thirst and hunger for righteousness. This morning we will be looking at verses seven through nine of Matthew chapter five. As a reminder, the “beatitudes” are character traits that all Christians should be demonstrating as part of their lives here on earth. They show others that there has been a change in our lives and our spiritual residency. If we are not seeing these traits in the lives of those claiming to be Christians, then we have to ask ourselves if their profession is true. This morning we will be looking at the merciful, the pure in heart and the peacemakers. Let’s begin with Matthew 5:7.
“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.” (Matthew 5:7) When someone intentionally harms or wrongs us, we have a desire for justice; swift and immediate justice. And if we’re truly honest, the justice we desire exceeds the actual wrong that was done to us. However, when we are the ones in the wrong, we do not want justice. We want mercy. In order for us to receive mercy from God, we must first be willing to give it. We cannot go to God seeking mercy when we have sinned against Him and refuse to give mercy to those who ask for it from us. Jesus said that those who are merciful will receive mercy. Webster’s dictionary defines mercy as “refraining from harming offenders and/or enemies; a disposition to forgive.” To better understand what Jesus was saying, let’s examine the two Greek words for merciful and mercy. The Greek word eleemon, when used as an adjective, means merciful. It does not mean someone is just possessed with pity, but someone who is actively compassionate. There is a difference between someone who is filled with mercy and never shows it and someone who is filled with mercy and actively gives and/or demonstrates it. The person who proactively shows mercy when faced in situations where others would demand justice is the one who Jesus was referencing here. When we choose to be merciful instead of demanding justice and/or revenge, we open the door for God to show us mercy when we least deserve it.
The Greek word for mercy is eleeo. It means to have compassion or mercy on. As a verb it signifies in general, “to feel sympathy with the misery of another.” So think about our responses when we are the guilty party and we must come clean before our Lord. When we stand before Him we desire mercy not justice. We are guilty and are deserving of the punishment that we should receive. However, because we have been merciful to others, God shows mercy to us. He has compassion on us when we least deserve it because we have shown that same compassion to others. Do you remember reading about the servant who owed his lord a debt that he could not repay? It’s found in Matthew 18:23-35. His lord showed him mercy and forgave all his debt. But, that same servant had a fellow-servant who owed him money. When that servant could not pay him back, he put him in prison. The lord heard about it, sent for him and called him wicked for actions and delivered him to the tormentors. If you want mercy and forgiveness from God, you better be willing to do the same. Many do not understand this concept and continue to treat those who have offended them as guilty parties deserving to be punished. But if we remember that we too have been the guilty party and we asked for and received mercy, should we then not do the same for those who request it of us? Of course we should, but that is the first step. The trueness of being merciful comes when we have mercy on an offender without them requesting it. This is what the Greek word for merciful refers to – someone who proactively demonstrates compassion. As you might imagine, this mixes with how the world operates like oil mixes with water.
Last week I shared with you about being gentle – being gentle or meek while walking in the true strength that lies within you. I told you that being meek was not a sign of being weak, it was actually the opposite. Well the same applies to being merciful. Being merciful is also about strength, not weakness. You see, the world teaches us that we should be strong without feeling. We should exercise our strength by crucifying our enemies and making sure everyone knows that they should not cross us. The world teaches us that there is no room for weakness; especially for those who are leaders. The world teaches us that we should be strong; stand firm; and when we are crossed to take immediate action to deter anyone else from crossing us in the future. This is what the world teaches us. This is why there are many conversations that take place where someone says “If I was you and they did that to me, I would do such and such.” Seldom do they say “I would show them mercy and forgive them.” Come to think of it, I don’t remember anyone ever saying that. We generally do not recommend having mercy on someone; we demand justice because we have been wronged and someone should compensate us for our being wronged. There is true strength that rests within those who are merciful that the world does not understand. It takes a very strong person to forgive and wipe the slate clean when the other person does not deserve it. But the person who is merciful understands that it is not about the other person, it is about them and their relationship with God.
Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:1-2 to “Be you therefore followers of God, as dear children. 2And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us, and has given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling fragrance.” He encourages us to be imitators of God just like children are imitators of their parents. The Greek word translated as imitators is mimetes and it means a follower as in a continuous sense. In other words, it means that our lives should imitate God’s “all the time” not just when we feel like it based on the circumstances. What we became during our conversion is what we must diligently continue to seek. For those of you who have children, you know that they often imitate you – even repeating some of the words you say at home. They try to walk like us and sometimes, to our dismay, they try to talk like us. Sometimes children might even try to wear their parent’s clothes (or just dress like them) as they are “imitating” their parents. Paul says that we should be like these little children who imitate their parents. We should imitate God by walking in love just as Christ loved us. God is a God of mercy and if we begin to imitate Him, we will become children of mercy. This is not a one-time act; but a way of continuous living. It becomes a part of who we are at our core. Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.” If the merciful receive mercy, wouldn’t it follow that those that withhold mercy will not receive mercy? Chew on that for a minute.
Next Jesus says, says “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8) Some of you might be thinking that this is no big deal since all of us will one day see God. Some of us will be shouting and praising Him, while some others will know they will see Him that one time only because they will spend an eternity in hell. Truly, we shall all see God on the Day of Judgment; but the pure in heart will see God here – spiritually. Let me explain it this way. There has been a lot written about the heart of man. We recognize this word as having two meaning. The first meaning is the physical organ that is the core or key component of our internal system. The heart keeps us alive and truly we cannot live without the heart doing its job of pumping blood throughout our bodies every minute of every day. And just as our physical heart is the core of our physical bodies; the “other” heart is the core of who we are. When you see this word used in the Bible, often it means the center of one’s being, including the mind, will and emotions. This is what the song and poem writers talk about in their writing. When someone says their hearts were broken; they are not talking about the physical organ; but that part of them that encompasses who they are (the mind, will, emotions, etc.). This part of us is so crucial to our lives that Solomon wrote “A merry heart does good like a medicine: but a broken spirit dries the bones. (Proverbs 17:22) What he was saying was that our hearts, not the physical organ but the core of who we are, is as good as medicine when it is happy or joyful. Likewise when it is not, it can kill us. It is a very true statement when someone says that they knew someone who died from a broken heart. This is what Solomon is referencing.
It is interesting that Jesus placed this character trait in the order that He did and I do not believe it is by accident or happenstance. You see, there is no way any of us can become “pure in heart” if we do not first become poor in spirit – understanding that we are nothing and in need of a Savior. It is impossible to become pure in heart if we have not first learned to mourn the sins of the world versus participating in them. It will be impossible for us to become pure in heart if we are not willing to be meek; are not thirsty and hungering for righteousness; or being willing to show mercy. With all the others being present in our lives being pure in heart is an impossible achievement. But with God all things are possible. This is why we cannot do anything under our own strength or power.
Jesus said that the pure in heart will see God. That word pure in the Greek means clean. Someone whose heart has been cleaned and is not allowed to be cluttered again. This person sees the good in people and acts without hidden agendas. They do not stand in judgment and are always willing to help someone in need. The way they think; how the feel spiritually and emotionally is often linked to God and resources not of this world because this mentality conflicts with the world. The world operates on a standard of deception. We are trained to deceive and expect to be deceived. We have to teach our children to tell the truth but we cannot figure out who taught them to lie because in reality they were born that way! We all were!!! The world that we operate in is centered on deception which is masked as truth. We can find it in almost every place we look. It exists in our homes; on our jobs; in our churches; schools; you name it. If people are involved then sooner or later deception will raise its ugly head. If we, as disciples of Christ, are not careful, we can easily live in this world according to this standard. We can easily find ourselves justifying our deception for the “better good”. When deception is involved, there is no better good, even if it does get us out of a tough situation. We cannot walk in this world with a pure heart if we allow the world’s standard of interaction (deception) to be the basis for how we interact with others or deception being the foundation for which we get out of trouble. John wrote the following in First John 3:1-3: “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God: therefore the world knows us not, because it knew Him not. 2Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. 3And every man that has this hope in Him purifies himself, even as He is pure.”
John’s desire was that we recognize that we are children of God and that because of that we will not be recognized by the world. As we have gone through each of the beatitudes to date, each has conflicted with the standard by which the world chooses to operate by. People recognize their own. If we are living as a part of the world, the world will recognize us as its own. However, when we begin to live according to God’s standard, living in His kingdom, the world will not recognize us because the world does not recognize God. Does this make sense? The day will come when we will see God as He is and we will be changed. John states that everyone who has this hope for their future will begin to purify themselves because God is pure. We have been encouraged to take the steps to do what we need to do to ensure that we adequately represent the One we say we serve.
I will not stand before you and tell you that purifying your heart is an easy thing to do. It is amazing how much negative, corrupt and destroying “stuff” attaches itself to our hearts as we grow up in this world. When we accept Christ as our Savior, He cleanses us, but sometimes we can still see the stain even though Christ has wiped it clean. This is like you wearing your favorite shirt or blouse and you spill something on it. You wash it and do the best you can to get the stain out. When you wear it, you can still see faint signs of the stain even though everyone else does not see it. You can see it because you know where to look. You concentrate on that one area of the shirt that has that one stain and you find it every time. When everyone else looks at the shirt, they take in the whole shirt and so it is easy for them not to see the stain because they are not looking for it. When Jesus cleanses our hearts, we become clean. But because we have lived in filth for so long, we can still see stains that others cannot see because Jesus cleaned us. We must get to the point of understanding that although the memory of the stain is there, we have been cleansed and therefore we do not have to allow that memory to recreate that stain in our lives again. This is the process that we go through in purifying our hearts. We recognize the sin; the blood of Jesus covering it; and finally our freedom of it. Because we have come through we begin to look at others through the same blood covered mercy and grace that was applied to us. Hopefully this makes sense to you.
Let’s look at Matthew 5:9 where Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.” When I was a child, my father liked westerns and I learned to enjoy those. In almost every western there was a man they called the sheriff, the keeper of the peace. This was the person who had to be good with a gun (at least in the movies) or he would not finish the movie. This peace maker was not what Jesus was referring to. One of my favorite movie series is “Back to the Future.” In the third movie, Doc Brown was sent to the past by accident. He ended up in the old west and Marty had to go back and save him. Well the villain (Mad Dog Tannen) in the movie challenged Marty to a gun fight. One of the gun makers offered Marty a pistol called the Colt Peacemaker to use in the gun fight. He told Marty that he wanted everyone to know that it was a Colt Peacemaker that got the job done with Mad Dog Tannen. This Colt Peacemaker pistol while effective in helping to keep the peace was not what Jesus was referring to. Jesus was referring to you and me once we accepted Him as our personal Savior. The individual Jesus is talking about is someone who is not just “peaceable” themselves, but are active bringers and keepers of the peace.
This conflict with the world’s standard because we are taught to seek our own peace without too much concern for the chaos happening in the world. We are taught to be inner focused while Jesus states that those who are actively outward focused on bringing peace to others will be known as the sons and daughters of God because they are imitating their Father. They are doing just as He does. Those who actively promote peace reflect the character of their heavenly Father and are so called “sons of God.” Paul states the following in Romans 12:18-21: “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Being at peace with everyone, especially our enemies, is a difficult thing to do, but a must for the sons/daughters of God. The world teaches us that we should withdraw from our enemies and do to them as they do unto us or before they have an opportunity to do anything to us. We are taught to ensure that we are always protected especially from our enemies and to do that we must stay away from them. It is very easy to be at peace with someone you never talk to or go around. But we are asked to be at peace with all men and to walk before all with a spirit of being a peacemaker. This does not mean that we continue to have ourselves opened to be abused; but it does mean that we are not the ones seeking revenge. We walk uprightly before God and if there is any revenge to be gotten, He is the one who will do it.
As I told you last week when I talked about being meek, when I was a young man this was a hard lesson for me to learn. I walked under the direction of justice – I would get even with those who hurt me and I always went through great lengths to ensure that my side was heard. It did not matter who I ticked off in the process, I could not let an issue be settled unless I had my say. It took me years to learn that the best way to overcome evil is not with more extensive evil (you hit me, I hit you back twice!) The way to truly overcome evil is with good and that is a very difficult thing to do. Paul reminds us that when we are nice to our enemies our niceness is like heaping burning coals on top of their heads. They will not understand it and that, in and of itself, will eat at them because of what they did to us. Conversely when we respond to them in the same manner in which they treated us, then it justifies their action and they feel good about what they have done and what they are planning to do. Jesus said that the peacemakers are blessed and they will be called the sons (or daughters) of God. When God looks at you and me does He see sons and daughters of His based on our willingness to be peacemakers?
This is the last Beatitude that describes the character of the Christian. Now I want you to notice something. There are seven beatitudes that deals with the character of Christians. Four focuses internally on the Christian and three focuses on the Christian’s response to the world. These three are “the meek”, which describes our attitudes towards opposition and hatred; “the merciful,” which describes how we respond with forgiveness in our actions towards the offended; and “the peacemakers,” actively seeking to restore peace. As a Christian, we are not merely to bear the offenses and repay them with pity and with love, no, we are to actively try to bring about a nourishing and purer state of humanity by instilling the peace of God, which passes understanding, over all the struggles of this world. So when you hear the word “peacemaker”, I think we shall find that this grace completes the other six listed before it. The only way that we can show Christ to a dying world is through love and peace. If you need further proof, just look at some of the actions of some Christians in the United States today. They are showing very little love for their fellow man who disagrees with their point of view and a whole lot of hatred. This should not be. I will continue next week.
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
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