White, Randy: The Beatitudes - Part 2

Well, good morning. Yeah, aren't those encouraging words, that God will make a way. Beautiful job. Well, if you turn in your Bibles back to Matthew chapter five, we're going to continue in our series on the Beatitudes. These are the attitudes to be if we know the Lord Jesus Christ. I asked the question last month, and it's the same question I'll ask again today. How's your attitude been this past week? How about this morning? How'd you wake up? On the right side of the bed? And as I asked last time as well, what's the forecast for the coming week as to how our attitudes will be? And if you remember something that we said last, uh, month when we met, that the Beatitudes, it's been said, contain the dynamite of the Holy Spirit. And they literally, if you like, almost explode when the circumstances of our lies- lives cause them to do so. That's like when they just blow up. And it's a wonderful thing when that happens. It may be painful at the time for us. We might be in those very situations that, in one sense, we'd rather not be, yet God knows what he's doing when he places us in those situations. Chapter five, verse one: when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. He opened his mouth and began to teach them, saying, and this is what we looked at last month, these two Beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. And then we're going to skip down, or we'll go to verse seven. sorry. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. That's the three we'll cover today, but let's skip to verse thirteen. You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand and gives light to all those who are in the house. Verse sixteen: let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who's in heaven. And if you remember very briefly when we looked last month, uh, and I trust you remember we were in the Beatitudes, so that's a good start if you remember that. And then if you remember, we looked at these two attitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit, and really we saw from that word poor, it means poverty. And when the idea of poor in spirit means it's at a place where we see ourselves utterly humbled before God, that there's nothing that we can offer him to, first of all, go to heaven based upon the way we live our lives, that we have to come to this place where we see ourselves completely broken before him. That's a process that needs to happen even before, of course, we become a Christian. And even as believers, there's this wonderful thing to be poor in spirit in the sense that we see ourselves utterly and totally dependent on God. When we try and be independent and try and do things in our own strength on when we start the morning or when by the time we end the day, if it hasn't been in a sense that we need to rely on a God and trust in him, then we haven't really been understanding what this quality means. And Jesus says he wants us to be poor in spirit. There's no place for the believer to have pride. There's no place for us to come across in any way, shape, or form that we are self-righteous, that we somehow have arrived, and that we are somehow, you know, better than the rest, when really, in reality, remember what Paul said, he was the chief of sinners, and this was the man who wrote so much of the New Testament. And then we looked as well as that blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. And the idea really was is that not only do we have to see ourselves before we become Christians, we come to that place where we see that we are lost without him, that the mourning process is that we are see ourselves lost without him because of our sin, and it's troubled us. And if we remember to that day when we came to know him, not only did we become aware of our sin, but it bothered us. We were convicted by it. We wanted to turn away from it, and in a sense, we were mourning over our state. And when the Lord says, bless, you shall be comforted, in one sense, when we understood then Calvary's cross and what the Lord Jesus did, that's the most amazing comfort you can experience. And even today, as believers, we should be mourning over our sin. Not in the sense of thinking, oh, have I lost my salvation? Not at all, because that is a complete deal, as the deal has been sealed by Calvary and the blood that the Lord Jesus shed. But our fellowship with God gets broken, and and if you like, just the the the fire on in the of the intimacy when there's sin in our lives as his children, it's, it's a, it's a big deal. And so we shouldn't be in a place, and God doesn't want us to be in a place where we're tolerating known sin without wanting to mourn over it. Not only our own, but for the state of our city, for the state of our, if you like, our state, California, and it broaden it to the USA, and then you think of it for the world, and that should cause us, like it did with the prophets in the Old Testament, to be mourning over the state of the condition that we find ourselves in, because we know the fact is, apart from God, we know what the future is for those who don't know him, and that's certainly something that should cause us to be mourning, as opposed to apathetic or indifferent. And in a sense, as we pray, then God in his spirit will move us maybe to even be sharing verbally with those around us the good news of Jesus Christ. And it's no coincidence that when the Lord gave this message to his disciples and the others around in the crowds were hearing it, that he's saying that this is the way you ought to behave as a member of the kingdom of God, as a child of God. And it's no coincidence that he talks then in verses thirteen down to sixteen about our conduct and how we ought to be light and salt, because as the Holy Spirit is bringing these qualities in our lives of these blessings, when we're behaving like this, then we're behaving in a way where people are saying, wow, you're different. You know, you're different because they won't say, well, you know what, you're poor in spirit. They're not going to say it that way, but they're going to say, well, you know, I don't get a sense of arrogance or pride off of you. You know, I don't hear you boasting or talking about all your accomplishments and what you do and how maybe good you look, and you're not one of these posers instead of front of a mirror, like we talked about it at the gym, you know, just has to keep flexing, you know, even outwardly about how good you are and how good you look. You realize that you say, you know what, any good thing that's come in my life is because it's come from the hand of God. And and when people hear that, what can they say? Uh, it's hard to have a defense to that. And then they just see that, you know, that you have sense of seriousness about sin in your life. And when you blow it, you make a mistake, as we all do, uh, you may be in a situation even with those who do not know him to say, you know what, I was wrong. And that's not something that a lot of people can readily say very easily, but certainly as the people of God, we should be able to say it. Uh, I blew it, I screwed up, I was wrong, please forgive me. And again, people will look at that and say, hmm, that's kind of interesting. Don't normally hear people doing that, especially maybe in the workplace. And so the Lord knows what he's talking about, and it was a powerful thing. And what I find interesting is, is when Jesus began this message, you notice in, in Matthew five, and you see this in other examples, he sat down to preach. It's interesting in our culture, uh, we s- we stand, I, I stand up. If I was sitting, I sat down here, you'd say, that's a little unusual. There's something wrong with him, you know, that he's sitting down. But Jesus would sit down when the word of God was read, then they would stand up. And so even today, rabbis will do that. They will, um, sit down to preach. And so you notice there the l- he opened his mouth and he began to teach them. But prior to that, of course, it says he had sat down. So we're going to continue with the attitude number three today that God addresses, the Lord Jesus addresses here, and he says, blessed are the meek. Some translations say, blessed, as mine does, are the gentle. For they shall inherit the earth. You'll remember, just very quickly, this is just the most briefest of of reminders about what was occurring when the Lord Jesus was speaking here, that the Jewish people were under the rule of the Romans. And they despised it so much to be under the tyranny of the Romans that they even denied that they were under it. That's how much they wanted to just dismiss this idea that they were under the Roman rule. Jesus says, in the Gospel of John to them, he says, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. And they answered, we are Abraham's offspring and have never been enslaved to anyone. There was all this denial of the reality of what was really occurring. And if you like, the reality is, when you look here in the New Testament, the shadow of Caesar, he's all over it in the sense of the tyranny that he had the Israelites under. And in a bad way, when you're reading through their history here in the Gospels, you can feel them on every page. Caesar, that is. Now, while this was occurring, at the same time, so many of the Israelites, they they believed that the Messiah was coming. This is something that they held to, and they were thinking, no, this is going to be great because then the kingdom of God is going to be established, and we're finally going to be delivered from Rome and from all this tyranny of under their oppression. And then Jesus, who they see in this role, and they're thinking, is he the one? Is he the Messiah? He begins to preach like this, like we looked at last month, and now we've seen today, and it was like, what? Well, this isn't what we were thinking. The z- the zealots were saying, we want a military Messiah, you know, somebody who's going to be like that, you know, the conqueror. The Pharisees were saying, you know, we want a miraculous Messiah who does lots of healings. The Sadducees were saying, we want a materialistic Messiah. Everybody had what their vision of what they wanted the Messiah to be. And Jesus says this, verse five, he says, I'll give you a meek one. That's what you're going to get. You're gonna get a meek Messiah. Gentle. Titus chapter two. no need to t- turn. Titus chapter three, verses two and three. Paul... Well, go to verse one. He says, remind them to be subject to rulers. He's talking to Titus, and this is what he wants him to know, to, and to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, to malign no one, to be simple, gentle, showing every consideration for all men. For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one. What does it mean to be meek? What does it mean, and maybe you can understand it better by the translation as the New American Standard has, is what does it mean to be gentle? Well, whatever it is, as we just think about this for a few minutes, it comes out of the hearts of those who are poor in spirit and who have been mourning. There's a progression here that the Lord gives in these Beatitudes. One dictionary definition is, is it's deficient in courage if you're meek or you're gentle. That's a lousy translation of the word from a, somebody who wrote in that dictionary that it had to do with being deficient in courage. Some things people say, you know what, if you're meek or you're gentle, if, if, if you're meek, you're weak. You're a, a person who's spineless. You don't have any backbone if you behave like this. Stories told, uh, told of George Washington, who was out with his friends, and he was fox hunting. And he was in one of these fields that was surrounded by these stone, uh, borders, if you like, stone walls. And one of the horses, and the one that he was on, accidentally, when it was flying over, knocked off one of the stones. So immediately he got off his horse, and he went back, and he put the stone back and was trying to replace it back onto this low fence. And his friends with him said, you're too big a man to bother with that. And he gently replied, no, I am just the right. That came from George Washington. That was someone who was meek in his place of where he was. Matthew twenty one, when Jesus is writing, you think, you know what, if he was making his entrance, what's he going to be on? If it was today, would he be in some Hummer? You know, would he be in some Cadillac Escalade? What would he be making his entrance in? What would the car look like? Yeah. Toyota Camry, yes. Nice Honda Civic, maybe. He says, behold, your king is coming to you, gentle and mounted on a donkey. Didn't come on some colt. That's how he made his presence, and that's what the Old Testament said of him. That's how he's going to appear. He's going to be gentle and meek like that. Meek is used in bridling a horse or taming a wild animal. And I love this, the word meek is a picture of, and get this, power under control. It's power under control. Proverbs twenty five twenty eight gives an example of where this is not occurring, like a city that is broken into and without walls is a man who has no control over his spirit. But the flip side of that is Proverbs sixteen thirty two. He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who captures a city. Power under control. And if God is helping you to have this quality of gentleness and meekness, this is exactly what it is. You have the power of the Holy Spirit, but you're exercising it within the control and the realm of what he wants in your life. Jesus was meek, and I bet you're saying, yeah, but look what he did to those money changers who were turning God's house into a shopping mall, another Stone Ridge. You remember how he behaved on that if you're familiar with the story. He was, put it mildly, righteously, because it was his father's house and it was his father's business, he was ticked off. But, but here's the thing about the Lord. He was in control of his actions and his anger. It wasn't like he just went into some rage, as maybe we have this idea that all of a sudden he just went in there, he was kicking this and he was slapping this around, you know, and he just went into this frenzy where it was almost like he had lost control of himself because of what happened. That's not the case at all. He, he took time to make a whip. And while he's making that whip, that's a sign of somebody who was in control, thinking through. And if he had to been totally out of control, he wouldn't have had time to just be thinking and to make that whip, and then he used it. Couple, uh, I think it was in July, I was working on a Sunday. I have to work every other Sunday, and it was really very sad that on in the morning, that morning, I had to take a phone call of a abuse where a man was, had struck his girlfriend. But the problem was it was bad enough that he did that, but he was a preacher back in July. And if that wasn't bad enough, he used a Bible to hit her with. And people in the room made reference to that. Don't think they missed it. One of my friends who's a believer who went on the call said, I want to go next week and arrest him at church, you know, just pull him out, you know, and just make it the point that's unacceptable behavior. That is not gentleness. That's not meekness when you're behaving like that. A meek person who is a person whose life has been under, brought under control and is under the influence of the Holy Spirit. And God's in control of his or her life. Story is told of a person who was behaving gently in the way that they responded to a situation which sometimes can really get us fired up, depending on the circumstances. And I just saw it pulling up here today, this morning. Somebody was pulled over. John Law was giving somebody a sight or whatever right out in front here. In this story, a state trooper sees this vehicle on interstate doing thirty three miles an hour, and he pulls the car over to make sure everything's okay. And when he approaches, he sees that there's this elderly lady, lady behind the wheel. Now, no, there's no disrespect to any elderly ladies here who are behind the wheel. And he says, excuse me, ma'am, are you all right? And she replies in a very gentle response, yes, officer. Myself and our friends are just fine. Did I do something wrong? And the officer says, well, ma'am, you were traveling way under the speed limit, and I was concerned that you might be having car trouble or something was wrong. But officer, she almost apologetically interrupted, I saw a sign there about a mile back, and s- it said thirty three, and I know I wasn't going any faster than that. And the officer, trying not to laugh and smile at her, said, ma'am, that was a state highway route marker. This is route, state route thirty three, not the speed limit. The speed limit signs have a miles per hour at the bottom. And she said, oh boy, don't I feel foolish now, turning red, as you can imagine. And he said, that's okay, but just try and be more careful, and uh, just be careful. I don't want to see anybody get hurt. As he says goodbye to the, the lady, uh, and he sees her friends in the back seat, he notices that they're, her friends are actually starting to tremble violently and are turning pale. And he says, ma'am, uh, what, what's wrong with your friends? Uh, can I escort you to the hospital? And she says, oh no, no, no, they're all right. We just turned off Route one fifty. The way that she responded in gentleness to that officer was key. And the analogy also to driving comes in this way too, and and I've heard it this way, and I've heard it another way, and I like both, and I'm, they're both good. I am, as a believer, to drive my life, but I'm, I'm, I'm to allow God to be the navigator. Also heard it that he's in the driver's seat, and I'm the passenger, and I like that too. But if you go with the analogy that God allows us to drive, he is saying this as his children. He goes, you know what, I want to be the navigator. And what our response needs to be to him is, Jesus, I'll drive. You just tell me where to go. If you tell me to go left, I'll go left. You tell me to go right, I'll go right. If I'm to go forward, I'll do it, just like a DMV instructor when we were taking our test told us to do that. You pull off to the right, you reverse, and we did exactly what that DMV instructor told us to do. And with the, as a believer, that's, that's it. Jesus says, I'm just, I'm gonna tell you where to go. I'm gonna be that navigator, that GPS for you as far as how you live your life, but listen to me. That's power under control, when we're under the control of what God wants for us. So I ask you, do you exhibit this kind of power under control? They're challenging questions that I asked myself as I was prepping again, when I read this verse, gentle are, blessed are the gentle. These are the ones who are blessed. Do I get angry? Do I react? Or do I retaliate? Only when God is dishonored, as how the Lord behaved when he behaved that way in the temple. How do I behave? Last week I dealt with a irate caller. Actually, at work, he called and talked with one of the dispatchers first, and I could tell it was one of those phone calls that wasn't going well. And thankfully she said, you know what, I'm gonna let you talk to my supervisor. And so I had spoken to this man on July fourth when he was really upset with the fireworks going off, and he was upset with the fact that he even said that police officers were pulling up and giving him, offering him bottles of water while they were doing fireworks, and I just didn't see that really happening that way. I can't imagine any of officers saying, would you like a bottle of water while you set off your legal fireworks? But that was his story, and he was incredibly rude. And it was the end of the day last week, it was about four thirty because I work fourth to sixth, and I was thinking, you know, do I want to have a nice little battle with this guy on the phone? You know, I'm just gonna just give it to him. It's a tape line, but you know what, I, there's a way I can do it, that if we, he wants to fight, you know what, it's not gonna be this kind of a fight, but at least I can have a little good verbal match. And he let in, and he would just incoherently was saying things, swearing, calling me this, that, and the other. And I knew the room was listening. Obviously, they're watching, how's he gonna handle it? And then I was thinking, not only that, but I was also thinking, you know, just been reading about gentleness. This is the test, how to behave here. Now, it is a tape line, but even besides that, I could get in trouble if I blew it, but I thought, you know what, I'm gonna just, I'm just gonna be gentle with this guy. And so I let him go on. I let him go on, and after about five, six, seven minutes, he was completely just like a little kitten. Initially, he was like a lion, just raging. And at the end he said, well, what's your name? And I thought I gave him my name, and then I thought, well, go ahead and give a compliment if you want at this point, but he at least it got better. And it got better, I think, partly because God helped gave me the wisdom there to behave gently there. I didn't have the same success with another person a couple days earlier, when he just kept calling me a disgrace. He said, you're a disgrace, and uh, I tried to blow it off finally, and I said, well, after he went on and on and on, I said, I hope you can have a good afternoon. And then he really went in to me at that point, and I closed the phone call and saying, sir, you need to learn some manners, and I, we hung up. That's how the call ended. Doesn't always work. It says, that verse of scripture says, as much as is possible among you, be at peace. Sometimes we can't obviously have any influence on what happens on the other end of the c- but we can do what we can. And lastly, just before we go to attitude four, do we respond humbly and obediently to criticism and love the people who give it? That's an example of meekness and gentleness. You say, am I, how am I doing in this area? How do you respond when someone gives you some constructive criticism? Might come from your job, might come from a loved one, might come from any source when you either expect it or don't. And do you love the person who gives it to you? It's funny, isn't it, how we are. When I give evaluations, or even when I receive one, you can get ninety nine things said good, and or you can, if you're doing the evaluation, give ninety nine positives about somebody's performance, and you highlight one thing that they can work on. And sometimes there's just that tendency to want to, why'd they say that? You know, why'd they write that one? What'd they mean by that? Almost completely forget about the other ninety nine. Maybe we need to go back to being poor in spirit at that point, if that's how we're thinking. Are you known for making peace? Gentle? Or are you known, as we said in Ireland, liking to stir things up, and the phrase was, are you a rebel rouser? Are you a rebel rouser? If there's something going on, rather than gentleness being the response, you want to stir it up, keep the, keep the fire going, throw in some more coals to keep it alive. And then attitude number four. Jesus says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Well, we could talk about this one quality just for a few more weeks, but we got to move on. But I'll say this, righteousness in its simplicity means a number of things, but it means one thing for sure, it means being right with God. And then again, this happens once you have become poor in spirit, you're mourning for your sin, and you're recognizing that you need a savior, and to become right with God is what God declares us as righteous, if we know him. It's also, if you are, Jesus says you're blessed when you, uh, are thinking, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, is that you have this kind of mindset, and then it's in your heart that you want honesty. Integrity is important to you. Justice means something to you, not only in your own life, but in the life of society around. That this is something that you're praying for, that that there will be honesty and justice in society and integrity among our government officials, and that you're really just occupied with righteousness because you know it's something that comes from God. And you want to see this in the church. It breaks your heart if you know that there's wickedness or sin occurring in God's people's lives among the churches, and you want to see righteousness among his people. God declares us righteous positionally, in the sense of when we trust the Lord Jesus, and because of his blood shed for us on the cross, he declares us as righteous. And that's an amazing truth. That's a wonderful truth, that when the Father sees you and I today as his children, he sees the Lord Jesus. But as far as how we're living our lives every day as his children, he wants us to grow in righteousness, to hunger and to thirst for it. And in the same sense, he bl- brings out this analogy, it's like hungering, and we can think about that like food. Our physical life depends on it, doesn't it? Food and water. And our spiritual life depends on when we're desiring and hungering and thirsting for righteousness. When we're tolerating sin, that doesn't allow for intimacy and growth to be occurring in our life. That's like snack food, the most junk kind of food you can be eating when that's occurring in our life. We can relate to hunger, can't we? You might be hungry right now. You might be thinking, wow, when he finishes here, I'm thinking I'm gonna have this for lunch, or we're going here. What's for dinner? Maybe sometimes you might even be thinking ahead, what's for breakfast? That's how far ahead you are. What are we hungry for? Are you hungry? And this is the challenge, and this is what the audience was familiar with. They were, they were aware of people who were hungry for power. They like to rule it over. Are you hungry for praise? Is that what you're really thirsting for? Is that what you're really starving for, is to hear praise? I remember when I first started to speak years ago, in little doses, that it mattered immensely to me how much feedback I got. And if I didn't get any feedback, I was devastated. Some have said when a preacher is up here and he goes back to the back and all the congregation comes and greets him, it's like the glorification of the worm ceremony, when everyone is just puffing up the preacher to say what a wonderful job he did, glorification of the worm. Are you hungry for possessions? When you get that check that God graciously gives you, are you thinking, you know, I... without even really thinking about, you know, is it for the Lord's work, or what would God have me to do with what he's given, you're already thinking, you know, there's a sale on, you know? Uh, I want to buy this golf club, or I want to buy this boat, and I'm not even questioning that in the sense of just throwing out what's, what's driving us as far as what we even do with what he's given. God wants us to have a desire so strong for him that it's almost like starvation hunger. It's like, I, I gotta, I gotta have more of God. I want more of his righteousness in the sense of I want to grow closer to him, and I want that kind of intimacy, and it's that kind of starvation. I remember when we lived in Ireland, I was jogging on the beach one day. We lived right along the beach, and I was just craving, for some reason, a Reese's peanut butter cup. And I was jogging, and the problem was we didn't have Reese's peanut butter cups, and so I thought, you know what, when I get home, I'm just, I'm gonna get a spoon of peanut butter, and then I'm gonna get a Cadbury's chocolate bar, and I'm gonna eat them at the same time. And the whole time that I was running, that was the motivation to keep going. And so I got off the beach, I ran up Caracol Walk and turned on to where we lived, ran in the door, and just like... I don't know why it happened, hasn't happened since that I had that kind of a craving, but for some reason then, a Reese's peanut butter cup was what I was craving for, and I think I was going a few miles an hour faster in order to get it. And, you know, let's be honest, I mean, I wasn't going to live or die based upon the Reese's peanut butter cup. I, I was going to make it. I wasn't skin and bones by any means, but it is hard for us to understand, isn't it, in our Western culture, where we have a fast food chain at every corner, what it really means to be hungry, isn't it? I mean, if you've been to other parts of the world and we've seen where people are starving, or you've read it or heard about it, sometimes we even find it hard to look at, don't we? It just is so troubling. When we say we're hungry, we mean, you know what, it's, I normally eat at twelve and now it's one, you know, and it's it's a crisis. You know, I haven't ate when I need to. I remember my dad, for him, dinner was to be at six, and if it was six o five, there was trouble, you know. When you go out to a nice restaurant, or you've been to a place with a really satisfying meal, I'm sure you've uttered the words, I'm, I'm just stuffed. I can't eat another thing. So full. And yet, in Psalm sixty three, David says, O God, thou art my God. I shall seek thee earnestly. And you think of David and how filled he was in his walk with God and intimate he was. He says, my soul thirsts for thee, my flesh yearns for thee in a dry and weary land where there is no water. It's like, even though I, I have so much of my, this closeness with God already, I want more. I'm not full. I'm not stuffed. I want more of him. And the Lord goes on to say, what's the result of hungering and thirsting? Well, it says it in the text. You'll be satisfied. You shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord. And this is the irony, isn't it? Satisfied, like David, but not satisfied. There's coming a day, and what the Lord is talking about here, I believe also, is in Christ's kingdom, where righteousness will reign and corruption will give way to the highest moral standards when he comes back to reign, and we're with him for the millennium. I don't think there's going to need to be a police department in the same way that there is today. I won't have that job. I'll have some other job. But isn't that a great coming day when we'll see that? Cindy makes this great chicken casserole that, uh, she got from when I was in the intern program from one of the wives there, and it was this chicken and broccoli casserole with the chicken soup and rice and, uh, croutons, and our whole family knows about it, and they love it. Got like melted cheese on it, and it's just one of these awesome casserole dishes. And you know, I'm satisfied when I eat it, but I love it so much and I crave it so much that about two hours later, the spoon is back eating more. And it is with the family, and guess what? Then overnight, might wake up at two or three in the morning for some reason, going down and having another scoop. And then literally, whether cold or heated in the microwave, want it for breakfast. You know, some of those dishes that you know of, it might be a casserole, it might be something else, but you, you're satisfied with it, but you just want more. And not in a sense of gluttony, which isn't the right idea, but just if I can have it, I could live off it for a few weeks. So it is with righteousness. We're filled, and the filling is so great that we want more. Psalm 119:20. My soul is crushed. I love this. My soul is crushed with longing after your ordinances at all times. He's talking about the word. My soul is crushed with longing. Interesting word. After your ordinances, what? At all times. That's a love for the word of God. And then lastly, attitude number five: blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Well, what does it mean to be merciful? Well, the Jews and the Romans on the scene at this point certainly didn't know. They didn't know. Matter of fact, a Roman philosopher said mercy was the disease of the soul. And sadly, when a child was born into the Roman world, if he wanted the newborn to live, he held his thumb up. If he wanted him to die, he held it down, and the child was immediately drowned. They were not the advocates for mercy. They didn't show us and tell us how to be merciful. And the Lord is addressing a crowd with this context of knowing what's going on, and he says, blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Same was true for ma- that matter if a Roman citizen didn't want a slave or his wife any longer. Just dismiss them to death, just like that. What does it mean? It means sympathy and compassion in action toward anyone in need. It's been said it's the genuine compassion with a pure, unselfish motive that reaches out to help. And you know what? You look in the Gospels and you see that, don't you, among the Lord Jesus over and over and over again. That when he saw a need, he didn't just see it and walk away, he did something about it. And we know from looking at it that whether it was physical or it was spiritual or it was both, he met those needs. And we're only seeing just a little glimpse of what's in the Gospels, but that's how he lived on earth. Touching people. Touching people that people wouldn't touch. Conversing with people that people wouldn't talk to. Being with lepers. Being with beggars. Being with people who people hated, the tax collectors. Engaging in conversation with all kinds of people from all walks of life, and he had mercy on them. Mo- Romans twelve talks about that some of you here today may even have this gift of mercy. Romans twelve, it's a gift. And the interesting thing is, it's in the context that Paul says, if you have the gift of mercy, do it with cheerfulness. So those who are merciful, they don't do it begrudgingly. Well, I guess I got to be merciful today. I guess I got to do some act of kindness today to you. But they do it cheerfully, and they do it quickly. What are some of the benefits of showing mercy? This beatitude gives us the benefit of obtaining mercy. Mercy is one of those things that doesn't seem all that important, does it, until you want it or you need it. We all want people to show us mercy, don't we? I remember one of my daughters, I won't say which, because three of the four are here today, but, um, we were eating a caramel apple. So the story goes, it's a little hazy in my mind, but this is what I was told, that we were eating a caramel apple, and she didn't get one. And she said, that's not fair, mom and dad. And that was a joke for quite a while, because afterwards she went, which I'm not sure why, but that's not fair, mom and dad. A lot of times, if you have siblings, you know that that's the phrase that you hear over and over again. That's not fair. So and so got, how come I'm not? People want justice for anyone else but themselves. They want mercy. The way we get mercy is to first give it. That's what the Lord is saying. It's not in the context that if you get mer- give mercy, you're going to get mercy in the sense that it's any way a step toward how to be saved. It has nothing to do with that, but that we will receive mercy, and the Lord will be merciful to us, and how he deals with us in our daily lives, and even in the sense how he deals with us when it comes to the judgment seat of Christ, and he'll be merciful, and the things that he gives us and rewards us with for how we have lived in our service for him after we've already become Christians. He'll be merciful. I don't think it means, and you probably would say, yeah, but are we to show mercy all the time? Is there ever a place where justice is to be given? Is there sometimes where negative consequences need to occur? And the answer to that is, yeah, there are. And the Lord knows those situations, and he deals accordingly because he's got the whole picture in the mind of the person. Sometimes God has been merciful to us, hasn't he, when he said, man, Lord, you didn't have to show me mercy, and I, I deserve justice for what I did. You should be spanking me right now, and yet he's being merciful. Story's told about a defendant who was on trial for murder, and there was strong evidence that was indicating that he was guilty, but the problem was there was no body. So when you don't have a body or a corpse, you got an issue. So in the defense's closing statement, the lawyer, knowing that probably his client was going to be convicted, resorted to a trick. He said, lad- ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I have a surprise for you all. As he looked at his watch, within one minute, the person presumed dead in this case will walk into this courtroom. Imagine what you'd be doing then. He looked toward the courtroom door. The jurors, who were somewhat stunned, all looked on eagerly. A minute passed. Nothing. Finally, the lawyer said, actually, I made up the previous statement, but you all looked on with anticipation. I therefore put to you that you have a reasonable doubt in this case as to whether anyone was killed, and I insist that you return a verdict of not guilty. The jury, clearly confused, they retired to deliberate. A few minutes later, the jury returned and pronounced a verdict of guilty. But how? Inquired the lawyer. You must have had some doubt. I saw all of you stare at the door. The jury foreman replied, oh, we all did look all right, but the trouble is your client didn't. Didn't. Example of someone who deserved justice. He wanted mercy, but he was really deserving of justice. Didn't the Lord show mercy and great discernment with the woman who was caught in adultery, just as one example? He knew the woman's heart, and he knew what the best course of medicine was in that situation, so he handled it just as he did. There were people there saying, justice. And God said, I'm going to show mercy in this situation. And you think about it as we close. From your own perspective, when you've been on the receiving end as well on the giving, but doesn't merc- being, uh, merciful give others a sense of comfort? To acknowledge to you when something's gone wrong, when they've done something wrong. Where mercy is lacking, and this speaks a lot of times to parents, have to really think this through. There's a tendency for our children to cover up problems, or they won't readily admit that they're struggling in an area because maybe from their perspective, what their first sense is, is that I'm going to get justice. But they have not seen patterns of where the parents have behaved with mercy. And yet, if the parents were honest, they might say, I did some of those same things when I was their age, and I was hoping for mercy from my parents. And so we have to really think through and pray, what is the right dose when we're dealing with and wanting to raise our children up in the fear and admonition of the Lord? It's a lot easier when they get that magical age of eighteen, and then they have their lives as adults. Psalm one oh three, verse ten. this is how the Lord deals with us. And the verse says, God has not dealt with us according to our sins. Are you merciful? When you have the opportunity or right to, if you like, strike down the gavel in a situation, whether with another person at the job, if you're in a supervisory role, or at your home, how quickly do you pull the trigger? Or do you stop, like the Lord Jesus did when he even started to draw and write on the sand, when they put this adulterous woman before him, and think? He knew what to do. In our case, we need to probably just stop and think, what is the right medicine for this situation? Would you rather be known as a merciful person, as the Lord says is a blessing? Or would you, you like the idea, you know what, you're known as the tough guy? I have a sup- one of our sergeants in our job. I think he, I think he feeds off, we've said it, I think he feeds off how much people dislike him in a kind of a strange way. When people have a chance to sign up for the shifts by seniority, his is the last shift to get filled because he's kind of known as a tyrant. He's not really known for somebody who expresses mercy, and so it's kind of indicated by the fact that these tough cops, nobody wants to work under his leadership. And he almost seems to get stronger and stronger the more he knows he's disliked. And yet that's not, should not be the quality of a believer. Well, you say, am I, I want to be merciful, I want to grow in this quality of the Lord. Well, just start when something happens, and it could happen this coming week, when the natural reaction for you to is to get upset and to have a reaction. And you're going to have to ask yourself, does this situation require mercy, or does it require judgment? Or if it does require judgment, certainly mercy doesn't want to be absent from it in how we behave, does it? So may God help us as we just look at these three qualities again, and we just think, you know, am I known for being gentle? It doesn't mean I'm a a wimp, it doesn't mean I'm weak, but am I somebody that somebody will say, you know, you don't deal harshly, you don't have a quick trigger there. You're not somebody who is, I'm afraid, is not only going to react in any physical way, but you're not going to just all of a sudden respond with a bunch of verbal barrage, which causes somebody to be totally discouraged and brought down. And then are you hungering and are you thirsting for righteousness? Is that something that's on your heart and mind, and you're just begging God in a starvation kind of way for that quality to grow in you? And then, as we've just said, mercy. Is that something that you know you've been a recipient of from the Lord Jesus, and now is that something you want to extend and give in a greater way to those around you? Let's pray. Lord, I want to thank you that... you are the perfect example in all of these areas of how you behaved. I want to thank you that you are a God who's known for being gentle. You're known for absolute righteousness, and you have wonderful mercy, and you're so merciful to us, and we praise you for those attributes that you possess, and we just pray now as your children before a watching world, so that we can be salt and light and glorify you, as well as be just an encouragement to our, our husbands and wives and our children and our brothers and sisters around us. May we grow in these attitudes. May they become more and more a part of who we really are, and we know, God, that this is not something we can do in our own strength. We just pray for you to help us in this as we want to, uh, surrender ourselves to you. We ask you to bless us for the rest of this day, in Jesus' name, amen.