How many of you remember the PTL Club scandal that rocked the nation back in the mid ’80’s-Jim and Tammy Bakker and the demise of their vast television ministry empire? For those of you who aren’t old enough to recall this, then let me give you a brief history lesson. I need to begin by telling you that it was a horrible scandal that was all over the media. Newspapers, television, magazines-everyone was talking about the crimes committed by these two Christians.
I remember that a few years after the dust settled, a TV movie/documentary was produced and it confirmed much of the media hype by showing not only how much money the Bakkers took from their viewers but also HOW these charismatic Christian leaders did it. The film showed that they staged healings at their worship services with the use of hidden mikes and ear-phones. It documented the fact that tears were choreographed by off stage directors so as to arouse the sympathy of their viewers not to mention their generosity when it came to sending their tithes and offerings to the PTL club.
The movie also showed how lavish a lifestyle Jim and Tammy enjoyed-thanks to the millions of dollars given to their “ministry” by their devoted fans. Those of you who were around then, do you remember the air-conditioned dog house they had built for their K-9, not to mention the gold-plated bathroom fixtures Tammy picked out for their lake-front home? I don’t want to go into too much detail, but speaking of Tammy Faye, do you remember how much make-up she wore? I do. She must have spent a small fortune of ministry money on mascara alone! In fact there was a T-shirt that became popular at the time. It was a basic white T-shirt that had a smudged life-sized female face on the front and on the back it explained the smudge by saying, “I ran into Tammy Faye Bakker at the mall.”
It was also discovered that Jim Bakker had an extra-marital affair with a church secretary named Jessica Hahn. It came out that some of the funds he misappropriated included over a quarter million dollars of ministry money that he funneled to her bank account in an attempt to keep her quiet about their relationship.
So the whole thing was a mess: an embarrassing horrible mess. As a Christian I was especially angered by he Bakker’s behavior, and I’m not alone! Well, years later as part of a 1998 interview with Christianity Today magazine, a very repentant, genuinely humble Jim Bakker shared a testimony in which he confessed his sin and also told of an experience he had once he was finally released from prison. He said, “When I was transferred out of my last prison, Franklin [Graham] contacted me and said he wanted to help me out when I got out-with a job, a house to live in, and a car. That was my fifth Christmas in prison. I thought it over and said, ‘Franklin, you can’t do this. It will hurt you. The Grahams don’t need my baggage.’
He looked at me and said, ‘Jim, you were my friend in the past and you are my friend now. If anyone doesn’t like it, I’m looking for a fight.’ So when I got out of prison, the Grahams sponsored me and paid for a house for me to live in and gave me a car to drive. The first Sunday out, Ruth Graham called the halfway house I was living in at the Salvation Army and asked permission for me to go to the Montreat Presbyterian Church with her that Sunday morning. When I got there, the pastor welcomed me and sat me with the Graham family. There were like two whole rows of them: I think every Graham aunt and uncle and cousin was there.
The organ began playing and the place was full except for a seat next to me. Then the doors opened and in walked Ruth Graham. She walked down the aisle and sat next to me: inmate #07407-058. I had only been out of prison 48 hours, but with her actions she told the world that morning that Jim Bakker was her friend. Afterwards, she had me up to their cabin for dinner. When she asked me for some addresses, I pulled this envelope out of my pocket to look for them.
You see, in prison you’re not allowed to have a wallet, so you just carry an envelope. She asked, ‘Don’t you have a wallet?’ And I said, ‘Well, yeah…this is my wallet.’ After five years of brainwashing in prison you think an envelope IS a wallet. Well, she walked into the other room and came back and said, ‘Here’s one of Billy’s wallets. He doesn’t need it. You can have it.'”
Now, I don’t know about you, but Bakker’s testimony about the grace and mercy that the Graham family showered on him moves me. It convicts me: it makes me realize that I’m not as merciful as I should be. Their actions make me admire this wonderful Christian family even more. I am so impressed by the amazing grace-filled Christlike compassion they extended to this man, this former Christian leader whose selfishness hurt so many people. Their grace-filled attitude toward Jim Bakker humbles me. It inspires me to strive to better understand the next attitude we come to in this, our sixth installment in this series on the Sermon on the Mount, the BE-attitude of mercy.
One of the reasons I admire their actions so much is because I believe the mercy expressed by the Graham family was part of what led Jim Bakker to continue to turn from his sin. Their mercy was part of the “spiritual medicine” God used to heal this man’s twisted thinking. The fact is we all need to understand this beatitude both because to some extent we are ALL sick spiritually. Many times our actions show that our thinking is twisted so we all both need the medicine of mercy and we all also need to learn how to administer it to our sin-sick fellow man.
Another thing I want to point out as we begin our study is that one of the basic foundational principles of our faith says that as Christians, as disciples of our Savior, Jesus Christ, we are called to conform ourselves to God. We are commanded to pattern our attitudes and actions after those of our Heavenly Father.
Ephesians 5:1-2 says, “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Well one of God’s main “imitate-able” attributes is mercy. As Psalm 145:8 says, “God is kind and merciful, slow to anger and full of love.”
This fact is repeated throughout Scripture. Over and over again God’s Word tells us plainly that God loves mercy. As Micah 6:8 says, “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” So we are commanded to learn to practice this beatitude, as we pattern our lives after our merciful, loving God. Chrysostom, an early church leader was right when he said that, “Mercy imitates God and disappoints the devil.”
Take your Bibles now and let’s read our text. It’s been about four weeks since we last left this study so let’s take another “running start” by beginning with verse 1.
1 – Now when [Jesus] saw the crowds, He went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to Him,
2 – and He began to teach them, saying:
3 – “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 – Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5 – Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6 – Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for RIGHTEOUSNESS, for they will be filled.
And then our text for this morning:
7 – Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy.
This is the Word of the Lord.Thanks be to God.
Before we go any further in our study I think it is important for us to note how this particular beatitude fits into the rest. This is a good time to do this because in verse 7 we come to a transition point in Jesus’ sermon of sermons. The first four beatitudes focus primarily on our need. Scan those verses quickly in your Bibles and you’ll see what I mean. In verses three through six Jesus says that “makarios” people-truly blessed people-are spiritually bankrupt, and broken with grief, which leads to meekness and an insatiable hunger for righteousness.
In verse 7 we move from what “makarios” people need to what “makarios” people need jto do. It this point in His sermon Jesus moves from belief to behavior, from our situation to our responsibility as His followers. Another way to put it would be to say that the first four beatitudes deal with our relationship with God and the other four deal with our relationship with each other. And verse 7 begins this change in emphasis. It and the verses that follow tell us the kind of fruit that should be seen in our lives if we understand and embrace the first four beatitudes.
When we realize we are broken spiritual beggars, when we are mournful and meek and hunger and thirst for righteousness, well all these attitudes will produce actions or BE-attitudes, and verse 7 tells us that the first action is being merciful to others.
We could attempt to define this word with other words but the best way to understand the BE-attitude ofmercy is to look at an example of it in action. Because you see, that is what really mercy is, it is more than an attitude. It is an attitude that prompts us to do something. Let me put it this way. Grace is love when love is undeserved. And mercy is grace in action. Mercy is love acting-love reaching out to help those who are helpless in some way.
John MacArthur writes, “Mercy is not the silent, passive pity that never seems to help in a tangible way. It is genuine compassion with a pure, unselfish attitude that reaches out to help.”
To help us better understand this attitude, I want us to first strive to answer the following question-namely: What does mercy look like? How does this particular BE-attitude unfold in the life of a “makarios” Christian? A great place to look for the answers to these questions is in Luke 10 verse 25-37, because in these verses we find the parable of The Good Samaritan and this familiar story gives us a picture of mercy. It provides us with a great example of mercy in action.
You know this story I’m sure, but open your Bibles to Luke 10 anyway, and follow along as we review. In verse 30 and following, Jesus said that a Jewish man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him lying on the roadside half dead. A priest came by and passed by on the other side. A Levite came by and did the same, two religious leaders, two members of the “PTL Club” of the day, ignored this man in need.
But then a very surprising thing happened. A Samaritan, a sworn enemy of the Jews, came by. And with his response, with his actions, this Samaritan shows us the four dimensions of the beatitude of mercy. Do you remember Jesus’ question at the end of His parable? He said to His listeners, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” And in essence, Jesus said, “Correct! Right answer. Go and do likewise!”
We can seethe first dimension of mercy in verse 33 where it says, “A Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where the wounded man was and he saw him.” At this point in this familiar story Jesus teaches us that mercy begins with what I would call a “God-empowered perception.” This is always the first step in the unfolding of this BE-attitude.
(1) Because, you see, mercy notices people in need.
Remember? In this familiar parable, the priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan, all three men “saw” this wounded man, but only one perceived him as a person he had the responsibility to help. Only one began the process of mercy. Think of it: both the priest and the Levite, both of these religious men had come from the temple. They’d just come from God’s presence but for some reason they didn’t allow God’s presence to get through to them. Apparently they’d only gone through the motions of religion. They’d gone to the temple and done their duty but they’d ignored God and His loving laws, laws that commanded His people to minister to the helpless, the foreigner, the alien. These two religious leaders had done nothing to deepen their relationship with the Living God so as to be sensitive to His leading.
As I told you a few weeks ago, Daniel and I are real Superman fans and as an expert on the Superman saga I can tell you that part of the powers that make him super are heightened senses. Thanks to our yellow sun, Superman can see things we can’t and hear things we can’t. Well, if we let Him, if as His children draw close to God. If we imitate Him. If we embrace this beatitude, God’s Spirit will give us heightened senses, God-empowered senses that enable us to notice lonely people, grieving people, people who are hurting, people who need discipline and guidance. But the fact is, many of us don’t allow God to gift us in this way. Let me put it this way. Many of us “religious people” make the same mistake the priest and the Levite did in that we look at church attendance as just one thing to check off on our weekly “to do” list.
That’s a flawed way of thinking isn’t it! Because worship is not just a Sunday morning thing. It’s a 24-7 thing. Worship is giving our daily lives to God to use. It’s basically saying, “Father, my hands and feet and heart are Yours to use! You tell me what to do with them! You be my head. You issue the orders and I’ll obey!” As Bob Gerstmeyer reminded us last week, James 1:27 says that, “Religion-worship-that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: …to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” Hosea 6:6 says, “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God [in day to day life] rather than burnt offerings.”
The reason we gather each Sunday is to corporately re-affirm that commitment to be the body of Christ every day. The purpose of weekly worship is for each of us to “re-charge” our relationship with God so that we are sensitive to His leading Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. If anything, worship should produce Christians who are more sensitive to the hurting people of the world. It should make us notice people who need the love of God. Here in this busy county you and I especially need to hear this because so often we don’t become merciful people because we miss this first step. We don’t let God help us really see the people around us. Our selfish busy-ness blinds us to their hurts. For some reason, when people are crowded together in a large urban area like ours, they get so busy that they are at the same time drawn apart from one another.
Think of it. We ride on crowded metro cars every day and never make eye-contact with the people around us. We can live next door to people and they are like strangers to us because we never involve ourselves in their lives. So many times we don’t allow ourselves to become sensitive to God’s leading. We don’t make it our business to see and hear the needs of the people who crowd around us. Again and again we put our own needs and lives first. In our busy-ness we all struggle from time to time with what has been called the “disease of me.”
Erma Bombeck shares an interesting story about a time that she was waiting for a flight in an airport. She was reading a book in an effort to shut out the commotion around her and writes:
“A voice next to me belonging to an elderly woman said, ‘I’ll bet it’s cold in Chicago.’ Stone-faced I replied, ‘It’s likely.’ ‘I haven’t been to Chicago in three years.’ the elderly woman persisted. ‘My son lives there.’ ‘That’s nice,’ I said, my eyes intent on my book. After a few quiet moments, the woman said, ‘My husband’s body is on this plane. We’ve been married 53 years..’
Bombeck continues: ‘I don’t think I ever detested myself more than I did at that moment. Another human being was screaming to be heard, and in desperation had turned to a cold stranger who was more interested in a novel than in the real-life drama at her elbow. She talked numbly and steadily until we boarded the plane, then found her seat in another section. As I hung up my coat, I heard her plaintive voice say to her seat companion, ‘I’ll bet it’s cold in Chicago.'”
Friend, are you sensitive to God’s still small voice, a voice that alerts you about people like this woman? Do you notice the needs of people around you? Or do your hurting neighbors and co-workers watch as you, a person who claims to follow Jesus, “walk by on the other side?”
Here’s a simple prayer that will help each of us, “Lord, let me see people through Your eyes.” Pray it with me. “Lord, let me see people through Your eyes!” We must mean this prayer because it is the first step in becoming a “makarios” Christian-a believer who truly imitates God by embracing this be-attitude.
(2) The second aspect of this beatitude is this. Mercy responds internally.
Remember? Jesus tells us in His parable that all three men saw the need but only the Samaritan felt the need. Look at verse 33 where it says, “He (the Samaritan) took pity on him.” Now, this word that we translate as “pity” literally means, “to have intensity in the intestines.” And it reminds me of one of the things we learned in our Bible study at Glorieta this summer.
The people of Jesus’ day believed the seat of the emotions was not in the heart but in the digestive area of the body. The idea is also captured in Matthew 14:14 where it says, “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, He had compassion on them and healed their sick.” The word “compassion” means that Jesus was so moved that His stomach churned or literally, “His bowels yearned for the crowd.” We still talk this way. When we are nervous we say we have, “butterflies in the stomach.” We say things like, “She hates my guts” or, “I’ve got a gut feeling about this.”
Whatever “body-part-word-picture” you use, Jesus was saying that this Samaritan was moved emotionally, internally, moved deep inside, by the needs of the wounded Jewish man. Let me put it this way. He was shaken up when he saw a man who was beaten down. And, this is the next step when it comes to embracing this beatitude-we notice needy people and then we are moved internally with compassion for them. Someone put it this way, “Mercy begins when your hurt comes into my heart.”
The Hebrew word for mercy is “chesedh” and it means much more than to just sympathize with a person. It’s not simply feeling sorry for someone in trouble. No, Chesedh mercy means the ability to get right inside the other person’s skin until we can see things with his or her eyes, think things with his or her mind and feel things with his or her feelings. So you see, mercy is much more than an emotional wave of pity. It is an internal identification with the person’s pain. It’s hurting with the hurting.
In his book on the parables, Gerald Kennedy writes, “When I was in Liberia, I talked with a man abut that country’s head, President Tubman. The President had wielded power for a long time and I inquired as to the secret of his influence. ‘They have a saying here,’ my friend reported, ‘that if a little boy out in the bush stubs his toe, President Tubman says, ‘Ouch.’ Well…it is this quality that the world needs to see in all Christians.”
Kennedy is right. So let me ask you. How are you doing when it comes to this second aspect of mercy? Does your heart break for the heartbroken people in your realm of influence? Do you weep with the weeping. To you feel the pain of others? Do you grieve for people who make sinful choices? Well friend, you can’t say you embrace this beatitude unless you do.
(3) But, we’re not done yet. Mercy doesn’t stop there. It notices….it feels…it responds internally and then in the third step. Mercy responds externally.
In other words, a merciful person does more than feel: they act practically in an effort to relieve the distress. In verse 34 Jesus said that the Samaritan, “…went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.” This helps us to see that, as I said earlier, mercy is love in action. It is more than just an attitude. It is more than just feeling sorry for people. It’s more than words. It’s doing something!
In the Broadway play, My Fair Lady, Eliza Dolittle is courted by a man named Freddy. Freddy writes her love letters every day. Eliza’s response to all of his love letters was to cry out in frustration, “Words! Words! I’m so sick of words! Don’t talk to me of stars burning above! If you’re in love, show me! Don’t talk of love lasting through time! Make no undying vow. If you love me show me now!”
Well, genuine mercy is like true love in that it’s more than words or vows. It is grace-filled love in action. As 1 John 3:17-18 says, “If someone who is supposed to be a Christian has enough money to live on and sees a brother in need but won’t help him, how can God’s love be in him? Let’s stop just saying we love people. Let’s show it by our actions.”
Mercy is a visible thing. Genuine mercy involves interrupting our schedule, expending our money. Mercy is seeing a man without food and giving him food. Mercy is seeing a person begging for love and giving him love. Mercy is seeing someone lonely and giving him company. Mercy is meeting the need, not just feeling it. Let’s put it this way: mercy is not a spectator sport.
According to Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, mercy is, “…the outward manifestation of pity; it assumes need on the part of him who receives it and resources adequate to meet the need on the part of him who shows it.” And just so you don’t misunderstand: mercy also involves loving discipline.
It’s merciful to refuse to ignore a fellow believer’s sin. It’s merciful to tell him or her that what they are doing is wrong. It’s merciful to remove a Christian from leadership if they ignore God’s loving law as a way of helping them see how far they have strayed. It’s merciful to act this way toward each other because mercy is helping the needy and sometimes what we need is to be confronted with our sin. It is cruel to see our spiritual brothers and sisters sinning and respond by just walking by on the other side! Well, let me ask you, do you embrace this beatitude? Do you act mercifully to people in need or are you more like Flip Wilson, who when asked what religion he practiced said, “I’m a Jehovah’s bystander.” Remember, mercy is not for bystanders! It’s more than noticing and feeling: it’s doing.
(4) And then a fourth aspect of this beatitude we see in this parable is this. Mercy excludes no one.
Remember, in Jesus’ parable, the man helping was a Samaritan. The man needing the help was his sworn enemy, a Jew. Jews hated their half-breed neighbors the Samaritans, and history shows that the feeling was mutual. Most Samaritans would have excluded this Jewish enemy when it came to the feelings and actions of mercy. Most would have mimicked the Priest and the Levite by passing by on the other side.
Many times we are just as bad. We tend to limit those people whom we want to show mercy. Most of us exclude the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakkers of the world. When we are hurt or wronged, being merciful and forgiving isn’t the first thing that comes into our minds. No, instead our first response is to try and get back at those who betray us.
Reminds me of the story of the man who when to the doctor and the doctor told him he had rabies. The man immediately took out a piece of paper and a pen and started writing feverishly. The doctor thought he was writing his will so he said, “Wait a minute. No need to write your will. You’re not going to die.” The man responded, “Doc, I’m not writing my will. I’m making a list of people I want to bite.”
God is not pleased with such behavior. We are called to feel and act mercifully even toward the people we just don’t like in this world, even toward people who don’t like us. We are called to be merciful even toward our enemies.
In Luke 6:33, 35-36 Jesus said, “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that! But love your enemies. Do good to them. Then your reward will be great. Be merciful just as your Father is!”
You may remember back in 1998 a woman named Karla Faye Tucker was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas for her role in a 1984 double homicide. Many people wondered back then if this woman, who was remarkably changed by the power of Christ while in prison, would receive a stay of execution by the Supreme Court, or by then Texas Governor, George W. Bush. While many people were watching that drama unfold, there was another drama unfolding behind the scenes.
There was a bitter family feud between Richard Thornton, the husband of Deborah Thornton, the murder victim and Deborah’s brother Ron Carlson. In every television and newspaper interview, Richard Thornton lashed out with anger and hostility toward Karla Faye Tucker, the woman who brutally murdered his wife with a pick ax. On the other hand Ron Carlson, the brother of the murder victim, spoke of forgiveness and became an advocate for a stay of execution for the woman who brutally killed his sister. One man chose the path of hostility and bitterness. The other chose the path of forgiveness and mercy.
There is more to this story. You see 8 months after his sister was murdered, Ron Carlson’s father was murdered as well, shot to death at close range by a shotgun. At that point Carlson descended into a world filled with hate and bitterness. He wanted to punish the two people who had killed his loved ones. To cope with it all he drank heavily and took drugs until a family member gave Ron his father’s Bible. He read it for six months. He read the Gospel story including the verses that told of Jesus asking God to forgive His executioners. This unbelievable act of mercy moved him. And he dropped to his knees asking Jesus Christ to be his Savior and Lord. It was his personal experience of the forgiving mercy of God, empowered him to forgive his enemies: including this woman who had brutally killed his sister.
That’s the way it is with mercy. The more you get-the more you give. The more your understand how merciful God has been to you, the more merciful you are to others and then the more opportunities God gives you to share His mercy with others. It’s a cycle of sorts. Jesus refers to it in our text when He declares that those who are merciful “will receive mercy.” The fact is…mercy comes from mercy. Our mercy for others comes from our experience of God’s mercy to us.
Do you remember the words from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, where Portia, says, “The quality of mercy is not strained. It drops as the gentle rain from heaven upon the Earth below, and is twice blessed. It blesses him that gives and him that takes.” Sounds like Shakespeare had been reading the beatitudes!
Let me ask you. Who in your little world needs mercy this morning? Your spouse? A rebellious child? A co-worker? Someone in this church? I want to challenge you to ask God to help you answer that question right now, and then pray asking Him to help you extend mercy. And if you have trouble, put yourself in Ron Carlson’s shoes for a moment and remember what God has done for you, because the parable of the Good Samaritan is more than a picture of mercy.
It’s a picture of what God did on our behalf. God saw us. He noticed us in our miserable, lost condition. He saw us wounded and dying from sin. And He took pity on us. He was moved with compassion for us. He knew that sin had rendered us spiritually dead and utterly hopeless. He knew that He was the only One that had the power to bring about a remedy. So, He “got inside our skin” so to speak. He became like us and participated in our sufferings to the point that He died on the cross for our sins.
The apostle Paul put it this way, “Because of His great love for us, God Who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ, even when we were dead in transgression.” (Ephesians 2:4)
Let us pray.
Father God,
As You well know, we are a forgetful people-so as we come to this time of commitment remind us of our own experience of Your mercy. And let that memory motivate us to imitate You until we become truly merciful people. Convict us present this morning of our sins in this area. Show us the people who need mercy from us. Move us with compassion toward them. Guide us to know how best to act mercifully and empower us to do so. And then Father, I ask that you would also convict people present who need to personally experience Your mercy. Help them to see that they need the mercy and forgiveness Jesus made possible on the cross.
I ask this in His name, AMEN